Worries about scientific objectivity seem never-ending. Social critics and philosophers of science have argued that invocations of objectivity are often little more than attempts to boost the status of a claim, while calls for value neutrality may be used to suppress otherwise valid dissenting positions. Objectivity is used sometimes to advance democratic agendas, at other times to block them; sometimes for increasing the growth of knowledge, at others to resist it. Sandra Harding is not ready to throw out objectivity (...) quite yet. For all of its problems, she contends that objectivity is too powerful a concept simply to abandon. In Objectivity and Diversity, Harding calls for a science that is both more epistemically adequate and socially just, a science that would ask: How are the lives of the most economically and politically vulnerable groups affected by a particular piece of research? Do they have a say in whether and how the research is done? Should empirically reliable systems of indigenous knowledge count as "real science"? Ultimately, Harding argues for a shift from the ideal of a neutral, disinterested science to one that prizes fairness and responsibility. (shrink)

Il testo analizza tre diverse declinazioni del concetto di illuminismo nella riflessione hegeliana e cerca di mostrare che l’intento di Hegel è quello di dispiegare un nuovo concetto di ragione, nei confronti del quale la ragione illuminista si presenta come istanza necessaria, ma al contempo incompleta. L’Illuminismo rappresenta un’esperienza storica di negazione dell’esistente che si diffonde come una malattia infettiva che distrugge il corpo collettivo che la ospita, ma che non può e non deve essere arrestata. Piuttosto, l’unico modo di (...) produrre gli anticorpi necessari per superare quel contagio dilagante è attraversare il baratro in cui esso fa sprofondare il legame tra io e mondo, tra particolare e universale. (shrink)

This essay is a critical review of Sandra Harding's The Science Question in Feminism. Her text constitutes a monumental effort to capture an overview of recent feminist critique of science and to develop a feminist dialectical and materialist conception of the history of masculinist science. In this analysis of Harding's work, the organizing categories as well as the main assumptions of the text are reconstructed for closer examination within the context of modern feminist critique of science and feminist theory (...) in general. Although a postive review of Harding's text is presented, questions are raised concerning the adequacy of socialist feminist assumptions for such a project, the limitations of Harding's theorization of gender, and the appropriateness of "postmodernism" as a final category of residence. (shrink)

This chapter explores mutations in conceptions of popular culture brought by attention to one’s experience of its objects. According to Stanley Cavell, the value of a culture lies not in its “great art” but in its transformative capacity, the same capacity found in the “moral perfectionism” of Emerson and Thoreau. Cavell was the first to account for the necessity of theory and criticism brought about by reflection on Hollywood film. However, he is less concerned with reversing artistic hierarchies or inverting (...) the relation between theory and practice than with the self-transformation required by our encounters with new experiences, what he defines as the “education of grownups”. This does not imply a false revolutionary inversion of aesthetic values but rather a new assessment of importance, which Wittgenstein called for when he asserted the importance of ordinary language philosophy and attention to ordinary practices and life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A patient whose case notes had been used, without her permission, during a disciplinary inquiry on the conduct of Wendy Savage (her obstetrician) complained that this was a breach of confidentiality. Her complaint cannot be understood as based on a concern about the possible adverse consequences of this use of the notes: rather, her concern was just with the fact that medical information about her had been made known to others. My concern is with the meaning and status of (...) the right to privacy, to which the Savage patient appealed. Such a right cannot be reduced to a property right, since this cannot capture what concerned the Savage patient. A proper understanding of what lies behind her complaint requires us to recognise the way in which facts about oneself—in this case facts about one's body—are intimately bound up with one's self, with one's identity, and thus with one's autonomy. What kinds of fact, and thus what conception of the self, are involved in such a conception of privacy need not everywhere be the same; the crucial point is that privacy and the self are concepts which, whatever their particular content, are internally related [1]. (shrink)

In most circles today, it is taken to be an uncontroversial fact that human beings are having an impact on Earth's climate, and one that is exceedingly worrisom.

This essay compares and contrasts pragmatic naturalism with the more well known position of epistemological naturalism on several pivotal issues, in the process offering a pragmatic critique of the latter. It highlights their common rejection of both foundationalism and a priori methods and their positive claims that: what needs examination is not our concept of knowledge but knowledge itself; knowledge must be understood as tied to the world and as a natural phenomenon to be examined in its natural setting; the (...) epistemic endeavor involves unifying its three traditional projects of giving an account of what knowledge is, explaining how knowledge is possible, and providing useful epistemic advice, thus involving normative considerations; and the method of gaining knowledge in general is continuous with the method of science. Yet, there are very great divergences between the two naturalisms concerning the answers offered, and these are explored and evaluated in the development of the essay. (shrink)

Carnap reports that while all of the members of the Vienna Circle "were strongly interested in social and political progress," except for Neurath, they all insisted that the "intrusion" of political points of view into the methodology of science would violate the purity of scientific method. In opposition to this still dominant view of the relationship between moral/political values and objective inquiry, this paper specifies four ways in which certain moral/political values are necessary for maximizing objective inquiry in social science. (...) If this argument is correct, a better conception of objectivity is needed. (shrink)

Environmental crises, which are consequences of resource-intensive lifestyles and are characterized to a large extent by both a changing climate and a loss of biodiversity, stress the urgent need for a global social-ecological transformation of the agro-food system. In this regard, the bioeconomy and bioeconomic innovations have frequently been seen as instrumental in addressing these grand challenges and contributing to more sustainable land use. To date, the question of how much bioeconomic innovations contribute to sustainability objectives remains unanswered. Against this (...) background, we study four bioeconomic innovations using the case study of animal production and manure utilization in relation to their potential contributions to a social-ecological transformation. The analysis is based on the application of analytical categories derived from the literature that assess the normativity of these innovations and their implicit cultural changes. The results show that the innovations examined manifest existing thought styles and the incumbent socio-technical regime rather than contribute to a more fundamental transition. In this respect, we stress the importance of evolving alterative ideas in innovation design, applying more integrative approaches, such as embedding innovation processes into transdisciplinary processes, and developing adaptive and reflective governance approaches. In return, bioeconomic innovations should adjust towards the design mission of a social-ecological transformation and include a multitude of actors to discuss and harmonize contesting imaginaries and ethical concerns. (shrink)

La capacitación inicial del docente requiere observar y reflexionar sobre la realidad educativa, fundamentando la teoría en la práctica de aula, y desarrollar competencias que posibiliten el desempeño profesional. En este estudio las percepciones de los futuros docentes, del Máster de Educación Secundaria, Bachillerato y Formación Profesional, sobre la calidad de la formación recibida en durante su formación. Los resultados evidencian dificultades en su relación con el alumnado de los centros de prácticas y falta de recursos para elaborar programaciones didácticas. (...) Como propuestas de mejora solicitan una formación basada en enfoques constructivistas que acerquen teoría y práctica y aumenten la calidad educativa. (shrink)

Assisted suicide is a tragic issue, one of those for which the tools of mere logic are inadequate and in which the power of the individual case is compelling and seductive but not necessarily clarifying. Meaningful dialogue is difficult. Persuasion is limited because the resolution of the issue, on a moral level, must be founded upon fundamental notions of what it means to be human, especially in the midst of suffering or disability or at the point of death.

En el presente artículo se tratan de establecer algunas analogías entre los conceptos de ¿lenguaje¿, ¿cita¿, ¿historia¿ y ¿traducción¿ presentes en la obra de Karl Kraus y Walter Benjamin. A partir de los textos de Benjamin sobre el escritor austriaco, se quieren poner de manifiesto la común consideración en estos autores del lenguaje como fuente originaria de sentido y su lucha contra la instrumentalización del texto escrito llevada a cabo por la prensa diaria.

This book tells a single story, in many voices, about a serious and sustained set of changes in mathematics teaching practice in a high school and how those efforts influenced and were influenced by a local university. It includes the writings and perspectives of high school students, high school teachers, preservice teacher candidates, doctoral students in mathematics education and other fields, mathematics teacher educators, and other education faculty. As a whole, this case study provides an opportunity to reflect on reform (...) visions of mathematics for all students and the challenges inherent in the implementation of these visions in US schools. It challenges us to rethink boundaries between theory and practice and the relative roles of teachers and university faculty in educational endeavors. (shrink)

In this article I provide a Spinozist perspective on popular power. It is written as a blog post for a popular audience, and draws on my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics (OUP: 2020).

L’article propose d’étudier la dislocation en italien, structure productive tant dans la dimension orale qu’écrite de la langue. A partir des caractéristiques communément attribuées à cette structure, le travail consiste, sur la base d’un corpus écrit, à analyser les occurrences de dislocation aux niveaux formel et communicatif, afin de montrer que cette construction syntaxique n’est pas un objet unique mais pluriel.

This book presents a series of case studies and reflections on the historiographical assumptions, methods, and approaches that shape the way in which philosophers construct their own past. The chapters in the volume advance discussion of the methods of historians of philosophy, while at the same time illustrating the various ways in which philosophical canons come into existence, debunking the myth of analytical philosophy's ahistoricism, and providing a deeper understanding of the roles historiographical devices play in philosophical thought. More importantly, (...) the contributors attempt to understand history of philosophy in connection with other historical and historiographical approaches: contributors engage classical history of science, sociology of knowledge, history of psychology and historiography, in dialogue with historiographical practices in philosophy more narrowly construed. Additionally, select chapters adopt a more diverse perspective, by making place for non-Western approaches and for efforts to construe new philosophical narratives that do justice to the voice of women across the centuries. Historiography and the Formation of Philosophical Canons will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in history of philosophy, meta-philosophy, philosophy of history, historiography, intellectual history, and sociology of knowledge. (shrink)

Philosophy and the Historical Perspective contains fourteen chapters, each of which is an attempt to enrich our conception of the relationship of analytical philosophy to history. Some chapters seek insight from the philosophical canon: Robert Pippin offers an insightful discussion of Hegel's historiographical methodology, and Brian Leiter presents aspects of Nietzsche's. Many of the chapters set research agendas that would deserve entire volumes. For instance, van Ackeren asks whether there are transhistorical philosophical problems, and Thomas Grundmann what philosophical progress looks (...) like. Christof Rapp casts doubt on the idea that hard-core... (shrink)

Livre fondateur de R. Carnap, "Der logische Aufbau der Welt" (1928) est une oeuvre philosophique allemande centrale du XXe siècle.Cet ouvrage veut montrer l'actualité de l'"Aufbau" tout en présentant la logique de pensée de Carnap et ses conséquences philosophiques.

À la différence du cinéma, les séries TV, genre mineure, regardé dans l’univers domestique, ont mis souvent en avant les femmes. À partir de la série Buffy, leurs héroïnes échappent aux stéréotypes de genre et allient violence, souci des autres et affirmation d’un pouvoir collectif. Au tournant du siècle certaines séries deviennent féministes et accompagnent la transformation de la vision des femmes, de leur âge, de leur orientation sexuelle, de leurs appartenances sociale et raciale. Il y a même des vieilles (...) et des méchantes. L’article détaille ces transformations dans l’évocation concrète des séries de référence. (shrink)

Ce volume permet de faire le point sur les interprétations récentes de Wittgenstein tout en fournissant une introduction aux problématiques centrales de son œuvre critique de la métaphysique et retour au langage ordinaire, redéfinition de la signification en termes de jeu de langage, émergence d'une anthropologie et d'une conception sociale du langage, mise en question du langage privé et déplacement de l'idée de subjectivité. Il suit un principe interprétatif commun à la plupart des nouvelles lectures de Wittgenstein, qui est d'instaurer (...) une continuité forte entre ce qu'on appelle le premier et le second Wittgenstein. L'ensemble de ces développements permet de mettre en œuvre une nouvelle description de Wittgenstein, à la fois innovante et accessible : elle concerne les étudiants et enseignants de philosophie qui veulent connaître et approfondir tes thèmes les plus importants de l'œuvre de Wittgenstein, et les lecteurs d'autres disciplines qui veulent découvrir son actualité. (shrink)

Offers a refreshing take on the relevance of psychoanalytic theory for the analysis of films and cinema.

Als "innerweltliche Askese" beschrieb Max Weber die reformierte Religion und Lebensführung. Für deutsche und "frankophone" Texte (Lehrbücher, Essays, Periodika, Reden/Rededramen, philosophische Romane) des ausgehenden 17. und des 18. Jahrhunderts zeigt diese vergleichende, literatur- und denkgeschichtliche Untersuchung, daß die Beschreibung Webers zwar zutrifft, aber zu kurz greift. Reformierte Morallehren stehen nicht nur am aufklärerischen (Wieder-)Beginn der deutschen Literatur, sondern prüfen die eigene Moral bereits "empirisch" und im Mittel der Literatur, um ihre Grenzen aufzuzeigen.

This manuscript identifies several important issues for philosophy of science at this moment in history raised in Fellows’ and Richardson’s generous comments. It also notes a couple of their assumptions that are problematic for this author, and tries to restate more clearly relevant arguments developed in Objectivity and Diversity.

Recent reports suggest that the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae caspase‐related metacaspase, Mca1, is required for cell‐autonomous cytoprotective functions that slow cellular aging. Because the Mca1 protease has previously been suggested to be responsible for programmed cell death (PCD) upon stress and aging, these reports raise the question of how the opposing roles of Mca1 as a protector and executioner are regulated. One reconciling perspective could be that executioner activation may be restricted to situations where the death of part of the population (...) would be beneficial, for example during colony growth or adaptation into specialized survival forms. Another possibility is that metacaspases primarily harbor beneficial functions and that the increased survival observed upon metacaspase removal is due to compensatory responses. Herein, we summarize data on the role of Mca1 in cell death and survival and approach the question of how a metacaspase involved in protein quality control may act as killer protein. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize a contemporary standoff in the American debate over the moral permissibility of human reproductive cloning in its prospective use as a eugenic enhancement technology. I shall argue that there is some significant and under-appreciated common ground between the defenders and opponents of human cloning. Champions of the moral and legal permissibility of cloning support the technology based on the right to procreative liberty provided it were to become as safe as in vitro (...) fertilization and that it be used only by adults who seek to rear their clone children. However, even champions of procreative liberty oppose the commodification of cloned embryos, and, by extension, the resulting commodification of the cloned children who would be produced via such embryos. I suggest that a Kantian moral argument against the use of cloning as an enhancement technology can be shown to be already implicitly accepted to some extent by champions of procreative liberty on the matter of commodification of cloned embryos. It is in this argument against commodification that the most vocal critics of cloning such as Leon Kass and defenders of cloning such as John Robertson can find greater common ground. Thus, I endeavor to advance the debate by revealing a greater degree of moral agreement on some fundamental premises than hitherto recognized. (shrink)

This Agenda 2050 piece is a call to action for management scholars to follow the lead of business associations, foundations, and businesses in studying and understanding the transformative change needed to bring about a more equitable and flourishing world for all living beings—including humans and other‐than‐humans. These entities advocate for a significant paradigm shift in how business is practiced as a way of responding to ‘polycrisis’—the interrelated set of civilization‐threatening crises that includes climate change, social inequality, and biodiversity loss. Yet (...) management scholars lag behind business discourse with issues of sustainability and ecological flourishing, adapting to the type of leadership needed for the future, and understanding the need for system change. We provide four keystone pathways to help scholars shape future discourse in business scholarship, practice, and curricula: 1) structural changes to management education, 2) piloting social impact, 3) development of regenerative business models, and 4) moral, legal, and financial cases for action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Recently, children’s books have used augmented reality as a resource, being called 4D books. Augmented reality allows the user to see through the world while interacting in real-time with images produced digitally, resulting in interactivity. The present study aims to introduce the results of a brief reflection on the illustrated book O reino encantado do pôneis 4D under the approach of the semiotics of culture, departing from the notion of semiosis and semiosphere. The semiosphere, drawn by Lotman (1990), in (...) analogy with the biosphere, can help understand the topology of the real and virtual worlds, referred to as the real subsemiosphere and virtual subsemiosphere, located in the interior of the broader semiosphere of the Brazilian culture. In 4D/Augmented reality books, the elements from the virtual subsemiosphere are placed into the real subsemiosphere, crossing their borders. (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04780-w.

The impetus for this special issue comes less from conventional debates in philosophical aesthetics itself and instead from one area of recent work on ethics. More specifically, our turn to aesthetics has been inspired by a rich conversation that has emerged in recent years between anthropology and philosophy on the idea and importance of the ordinary. Oftentimes, the ordinary continues “to be treated as a residual category of routine and repetition punctuated by the disruptions of the event.” Many similarly continue (...) to think of ethics as principally concerned with rules and their infringement, as a domain constituted by judgements made some distance from the everyday.But this new body of work has powerfully questioned these assumptions. Veena Das explains that ordinary ethics by contrast examines “What is it that blocks our ability to see the everyday and hence to imagine the ethical as inhering in the quotidian rather than standing out and announcing its presence though dramatic enactments of moral breakdown or heroic achievement.” In this sense, she writes, it “allows us also to think of the unethical as growing within the forms of life that people inhabit – it is, thus, not a matter of eliciting opinions about what behavior is considered ethical or unethical, or of cataloguing cultural practices on which we can bring judgment from an objective, distant position but rather of seeing how forms of life grow particular dispositions.” As these debates continue to develop, we began to see a further need for thinking about the possibility of ordinary aesthetics, a field which though intimately tied up with ethics, merits its own inquiry. (shrink)

This conceptual paper argues that change makers, here called transformation stewards, attempting to catalyze transformational change need three core skillsets specific to stewarding transformative change, and further argues that mindfulness practices can potentially enhance these capacities. One skillset is reflexive systems-based awareness and understanding. Another includes capacities for fostering what gives life in complexly wicked social-ecological systems. A third is having capacity for and willingness to steward whole system change, rather than lead it in the conventional sense, which is made (...) necessary because of the nature of organizing transformation stewards in complex, life-oriented systems. Tentative evidence from the literature supports the idea that a combination of experience and mindfulness practices of various sorts can enhance these capabilities. (shrink)