In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 341 Petrus Liu Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus Originally formulated to dispute biologically deterministic explanations of women’s subordination, the analytical distinction between sex and gender has developed in unexpected ways in transitions from one language to another. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from John Money’s sexological writings to Simone de Beauvoir’s (...) dictum, “One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one,” Anglophone feminists in the 1970s developed the distinction between sex (understood as anatomy) and gender (understood as social identity) to argue that a woman’s biological sex ought not dictate the kind of work she should do or the kind of life she should live.1 In her landmark 1975 essay, “The Traffic in Women,” Gayle Rubin coined the phrase “sex/gender system” to examine “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied.”2 In more recent years, however, the distinction 1. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Paris: Gallimard, 1949; New York: Knopf, 1993), 281. Citations refer to the Knopf edition. For an account of feminist reformulations of John Money and Robert Stoller, see Jennifer Germon, Gender: A Genealogy of an Idea (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 2. Gayle S. Rubin, Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 34. It is worth mentioning that sex in Rubin’s sex/gender system refers to sexual practice rather than the distinction between male and female. This understanding forms the basis of her theoretical disagreements with Judith Butler, who preserves the semantic ambiguity of sex (as 342 Petrus Liu between sex and gender has taken on an entirely different meaning as it comes to inform transgender movements and politics seeking to decouple a person’s sex assignment at birth from their future gender identity. At the same time, theories of intersectionality, women-of-color feminisms, and transnational feminisms have all developed their own theses of gender variability to contest the myth of the universal woman. The life of gender—in academic theory, politics, and social movements— has confounded the original intentions of its American theorists. It is clear that there is no singular or stable account of gender; rather, gender is always in a state of flux, incessantly rethought and reforged by the demands of an increasingly complex and asymmetric world.3 Gender is always a translation—from one discipline, context, or language to another—ineluctably intertwined with the geopolitical problems created by the violences of imperialism, colonialism, and transnational capitalism. The translation of gender into non-European languages, such as Chinese, raises questions about whether spaces previously resistant or exterior to world capitalism are now being assimilated and enfolded into the structure of neoliberal globalization defined by the Washington Consensus. Against this view, some critics maintain that China’s precipitous ascent presents an alternative model of development for the Global South called the Beijing Consensus. Considering how gender has entered different languages, including Chinese, to create new coinages that may at times appear as instruments of an imperial takeover, Judith Butler argues that the translation of gender actually offers a path of linguistic humility for English, a reminder that we cohabit a multilingual world in which no one ever owned the term.4 But how exactly do we describe that complex, multilingual world and how does gender both gender and sexuality) as the point of departure for a different kind of feminist inquiry. See Gayle Rubin with Judith Butler, “Interview: Sexual Traffic,” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6, nos. 2–3 (1994): 67. 3. See Heather Love, ed. “Rethinking Sex.” Special issue, GLQ 17, no. 2 (2011): 1–221. This collection of essays conveys a sense of how Rubin’s methodological distinction between sex and gender has given rise to new ways of thinking across different disciplines about sex radicalism, crip sexuality, Black feminism, and sex trafficking. 4. Judith Butler, “Gender in Translation: Beyond Monolingualism,” philoSOPHIA 9, no. 1 (Winter 2019). Petrus Liu 343 transform it? How is the translation of gender inflected by the material conditions... (shrink)

In this collection of newly commissioned essays, the contributors present a variety of approaches to it, engaging with historical and empirical aspects of the subject as well as contemporary philosophical work.

This is a very short introduction to ethics. It divides into three parts: first, introducing and discussing reasons for skepticism about ethics; second introducing themes of birth, death, happiness, desire and freedom to show how deeply our lives are interwoven with ethics; third, introducing attempts to found ethics, due to Aristotle, Kant, and the contractarian tradition.

Many animals will invent new behaviour patterns, adjust established behaviours to a novel context, or respond to stresses in an appropriate and novel manner. This is the first ever book on the topic of 'animal innovation'. Bringing together leading scientific authorities on animal and human innovation, this book will put the topic of animal innovation on the map, and heighten awareness of this developing field.

It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton’s methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton’s theory of motion, and that the right space-time structure for Newton’s Principia requires the notion of parallelism of spatial directions at different times and nothing more. Only relative motions are definable in this framework, never absolute (...) ones. (shrink)

Graham Harman describes the allure of art as the tension and fusion of a real object to sensual qualities so that it makes it seem that the inwardness of reality is opened to us. Yet real objects are withdrawn; how are we aware of their fusion? Since Harman’s ontology mandates that contact between real objects occurs only through sensual objects, this essay explores the idea that art’s allure must be a tension between sensual objects that draw the experiencer to believe, (...) or alieve, they are in contact with the withdrawn real. By looking at the examples in representational painting and sleight of hand magic, we see that ontographic art objects use at least four, carefully separated sensual objects to produce their aesthetic effect. The conclusion summarises allure as a sensual object process, speculates on art’s dialetheic confusion of sensual and real objects giving an enduring allure to idealism, and notes potential motifs of an infra-realist resistance. (shrink)

> καὶ πῶς τις ἀνάξει αὐτοὺς εἰς φῶς, ὥσπερ > > ἐξ Ἅιδου λέγονται δή τινες εἰς θεοὺς ἀνελθεῖν; > > Plato Republic 521c This study reconstructs Empedocles’ eschatology and cosmology, arguing that they presuppose one another. Part one surveys body and soul in Empedocles and argues that the transmigrating daimon is a long-lived compound made of the elements air and fire. Part two shows that Empedocles situates our current life in Hades, then considers the testimonies concerning different cosmic levels (...) in Empedocles and compares them with the afterlife schemes in Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode and Plato’s Phaedo myth. Part three offers a new edition of section d lines 5–10 of the Strasbourg papyrus of Empedocles that reinforces the connection between transmigration and different cosmic locations for souls. Part four reconstructs Empedocles’ cosmology, identifies three different levels or habitats of soul, and, more tentatively, suggests that Empedoclean “long-lived gods” are best understood as stars. (shrink)

A relationist will account for the use of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in terms of relative orientations, and other properties and relations invariant under mirroring. This analysis will apply whenever mirroring is a symmetry, so it certainly applies to classical mechanics; we argue it applies to any physical theory formulated on a manifold: it is in this sense an a priori symmetry. It should apply in particular to parity violating theories in quantum mechanics; mirror symmetry is only broken in such theories (...) as a special symmetry. (shrink)

Online exam supervision technologies have recently generated significant controversy and concern. Their use is now booming due to growing demand for online courses and for off-campus assessment options amid COVID-19 lockdowns. Online proctoring technologies purport to effectively oversee students sitting online exams by using artificial intelligence systems supplemented by human invigilators. Such technologies have alarmed some students who see them as a “Big Brother-like” threat to liberty and privacy, and as potentially unfair and discriminatory. However, some universities and educators defend (...) their judicious use. Critical ethical appraisal of online proctoring technologies is overdue. This essay provides one of the first sustained moral philosophical analyses of these technologies, focusing on ethical notions of academic integrity, fairness, non-maleficence, transparency, privacy, autonomy, liberty, and trust. Most of these concepts are prominent in the new field of AI ethics, and all are relevant to education. The essay discusses these ethical issues. It also offers suggestions for educational institutions and educators interested in the technologies about the kinds of inquiries they need to make and the governance and review processes they might need to adopt to justify and remain accountable for using online proctoring technologies. The rapid and contentious rise of proctoring software provides a fruitful ethical case study of how AI is infiltrating all areas of life. The social impacts and moral consequences of this digital technology warrant ongoing scrutiny and study. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that moral agency is defined by an agent’s capacity for rational reflection and self-governance. It is only through the exercise of such capacities, these philosophers contend, that one’s actions can be judged to be of distinctively moral value. The moral phenomenology of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup, currently enjoying a revival of interest amongst Anglo-American moral philosophers, is an exception to this view. Under the auspices of his signature theory of the ‘sovereign expressions of (...) life,’ Løgstrup provides a rich moral phenomenology aimed at establishing the ethical value of ‘spontaneous,’ non-deliberative actions, such as those exemplified in the showing of trust and acts of mercy. In this thesis, my aim is to investigate what mode of moral agency, if any, is compatible with Løgstrup’s phenomenology of the sovereign expressions of life. I argue that Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology is compatible with a distinctive medio-passive mode of agency. According to this conception of moral agency, the subject’s agency is constituted not through her capacity to stand back and make a judgment on how to act, but rather in the way the subject comports herself in relation to situations and encounters that are experienced first-personally as overwhelming and encompassing. I will proceed by providing detailed analyses of the core aspects of Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology and his theory of the sovereign expressions of life. In the process, I will elucidate the decisive influence that thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard had on Løgstrup’s way of thinking about ethics. Thus, in this thesis my aim is to contribute both to Løgstrup scholarship and to central on-going debates in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action. (shrink)

Readings of Derrida’s work on law and justice have tended to stress the distinction between them. This stress is complicated by Derrida’s own claim that it is not ‘a true distinction’. In this essay I argue that ordinary experiences of the inadequacy of existing laws do indeed imply a claim about what would be more just, but that this claim only makes sense insofar as one can appeal to another more adequate law. Exploring how Derrida negotiates a subtle path between (...) classical Platonism and classical conventionalism about justice, the attempt is made to take seriously Derrida’s aim to affirm the idea of a ‘mystical’ foundation of the authority of laws by taking ‘the use of the word “mystical” in what I venture to call a rather Wittgensteinian direction’. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the famous passage in "on denoting" where russell appears to be attacking frege's theory of the sense and reference of proper names. We argue that russell's attack has been misinterpreted and unjustly condemned. The strategy is to show what difficulties do genuinely face a two-Part theory, And then to show that it is quite easy to interpret russell as having perceived them.

A volume of studies in philosophical logic by a group of younger philosophers in the UK. There is a core of problems in the theory of meaning which have been accorded a central importance by philosophers, logicians and theoretical linguists, and which have stimulated some of the most powerful and original work in these subjects. The contributors to the volume have a common interest in these topics, insist on their continuing and fundamental importance, and offer here a distinctive and original (...) contribution to them. (shrink)

Il est désormais connu que Michel Foucault s’est intéressé à la fin de sa vie à l’ ”herméneutique du sujet.” Mais cette histoire de la constitution du sujet (ou de la subjectivité) fait étrangement l’économie d’une réflexion sur le rôle de la compréhension, alors que Foucault qualifie son travail d’ ”ontologie historique de nous-mêmes.” C'est sur ce point précis qu’est ici mis à l'épreuve le caractère médiateur de l’œuvre de Paul Ricœur, dont l’herméneutique du soi prend en charge une ontologie (...) de la compréhension. Suite à ces considérations, la seconde partie de l’article cherche à démontrer que la théorie de l’agir de Ricœur peut favoriser le passage d’une reconnaissance de type objectale à une reconnaissance des capacités du sujet à se tenir pour responsable. Ce passage sera opéré directement sur le modèle d’analyse du “dernier Foucault,” c’est-à-dire son concept-clé de “processus de subjectivation.” In his later work, Michel Foucault manifested a strong interest for the “hermeneutics of the subject.” Yet this history of the constitution of the subject (or subjectivity) does without any reflection on the role of understanding, even though Foucault characterizes his project as a historical ontology of ourselves . The power of mediation emphasized in the work of Paul Ricœur may help us redefine an ontology of understanding through a hermeneutics of the self. Following this, the second part of the article aims to show that Ricœur’s theory of action can facilitate a transition from the recognition of the self, first described as “objectivation,” to a recognition of the subject’s capacity to be held responsible. This passage will draw on the model of analysis in the later Foucault, specifically, on his key concept of the subjectivation process . . (shrink)

Physicians make some medical decisions without disclosure to their patients. Nondisclosure is possible because these are silent decisions to refrain from screening, diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Nondisclosure is ethically permissible when the usual presumption that the patient should be involved in decisions is defeated by considerations of clinical utility or patient emotional and physical well-being. Some silent decisions - not all - are ethically justified by this standard. Justified silent decisions are typically dependent on the physician's professional judgment, experience and (...) knowledge, and are not likely to be changed by patient preferences. We condemn the inappropriate exclusion of the patient from the decision-making process. However, if a test or treatment is unlikely to yield a net benefit, disclosure and discussion are at times unnecessary. Appropriate silent decisions are ethically justified by such considerations as patient benefit or economy of time. (shrink)

Is it possible to approach quantum theory in a 'therapeutic' vein that sees its foundational problems as arising from mistaken conceptual presuppositions? The book explores the prospects for this project and, in doing so, discusses such fascinating issues as the nature of quantum states, explanation in quantum theory, and 'quantum non-locality'.

Empirical research on human–robot interaction has demonstrated how humans tend to react to social robots with empathic responses and moral behavior. How should we ethically evaluate such responses to robots? Are people wrong to treat non-sentient artefacts as moral patients since this rests on anthropomorphism and ‘over-identification’ —or correct since spontaneous moral intuition and behavior toward nonhumans is indicative for moral patienthood, such that social robots become our ‘Others’?. In this research paper, I weave extant HRI studies that demonstrate empathic (...) responses toward robots with the recent debate on moral status for robots, on which the ethical evaluation of moral behavior toward them is dependent. Patienthood for robots has standardly been thought to obtain on some intrinsic ground, such as being sentient, conscious, or having interest. But since these attempts neglect moral experience and are curbed by epistemic difficulties, I take inspiration from Coeckelbergh and Gunkel’s ‘relational approach’ to explore an alternative way of accounting for robot patienthood based on extrinsic premises. Based on the ethics of Danish theologian K. E. Løgstrup I argue that empathic responses can be interpreted as sovereign expressions of life and that these expressions benefit human subjects—even if they emerge from social interaction afforded by robots we have anthropomorphized. I ultimately develop an argument in defense of treating robots as moral patients. (shrink)

The ability to analyze arguments is critical for higher-level reasoning, yet previous research suggests that standard university education provides at best modest improvements in students’ analytical reasoning abilities. What techniques are most effective for cultivating these skills? Here we investigate the effectiveness of a 12-week undergraduate seminar in which students practice a software-based technique for visualizing the logical structures implicit in argumen- tative texts. Seminar students met weekly to analyze excerpts from contemporary analytic philosophy papers, completed argument visualization problem sets, (...) and received individualized feedback on a weekly basis. We found that Seminar students improved substantially more on LSAT Logical Reasoning test forms than Control students (d = .71, p < .001), suggesting that learning how to visualize arguments in the seminar led to large generalized improvements in students’ analytical reasoning skills. Moreover, blind scoring of final essays from Seminar students and Control students, drawn from a parallel lecture course, revealed large differences in favor of seminar students (d = 0.87, p = .005). Seminar students understood the arguments better, and their essays were more accurate and effectively structured. Taken together, these findings deepen our understanding of how visualizations support logical reasoning, and provide a model for improving analytical reasoning pedagogy. (shrink)

The concept of magic is frequently used to discuss technology, a practice considered useful by some with others arguing that viewing technology as magic precludes a proper understanding of technology. The concept of magic is especially prominent in discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Based on an anthropological perspective, this paper juxtaposes ML technology with magic, using descriptions drawn from a project on an ML-powered system for propulsion control of cargo ships. The paper concludes that prior scholarly work on (...) technology has failed to both define magic adequately and use research into magic. It also argues that although the distinction between ML technology and magic is important, recognition of the similarities is useful for understanding ML technology. (shrink)

Computational modeling should play a central role in philosophy. In this introduction to our topical collection, we propose a small topology of computational modeling in philosophy in general, and show how the various contributions to our topical collection fit into this overall picture. On this basis, we describe some of the ways in which computational models from other disciplines have found their way into philosophy, and how the principles one found here still underlie current trends in the field. Moreover, we (...) argue that philosophers contribute to computational modeling not only by building their own models, but also by thinking about the various applications of the method in philosophy and the sciences. In this context, we note that models in philosophy are usually simple, while models in the sciences are often more complex and empirically grounded. Bridging certain methodological gaps that arise from this discrepancy may prove to be challenging and fruitful for the further development of computational modeling in philosophy and beyond. (shrink)

Der Artikel diskutiert Niklas Luhmanns Konzeption von Kommunikation als emergentem Phänomen. Erstens soll gezeigt werden, dass sich Luhmann, entgegen jüngster Einwände, in der Tat als sozialer Emergentist rekonstruieren und als solcher in die aktuelle Debatte um Reduktion und Emergenz des Sozialen einordnen lässt. Zweitens soll dadurch Licht auf die generellen Probleme und Voraussetzungen einer emergentistischen Soziologie geworfen werden. Um diese Ziele zu erreichen, wird zunächst geklärt, welche Positionen sich in der Soziologie grundsätzlich gegenüber stehen und auf welcher Grundlage Luhmann als (...) Emergentist einzuordnen ist. Anschließend soll die Emergenz der Kommunikation als eigenständiges soziales Phänomen erläutert und ins Verhältnis zum Individuum gesetzt werden. Schließlich wird Luhmanns Konzeption mit Hilfe einiger Adäquatheitsbedingungen aus der allgemeinen Wissenschaftsphilosophie als unzureichend kritisiert. Ziel ist dabei auch die Klärung der Bedingungen für eine plausible Emergenztheorie innerhalb der Soziologie. Nach einer abschließenden Zusammenfassung der wesentlichen Ergebnisse soll ein Ausblick auf eine aussichtsreiche soziologische Emergenzkonzeption geboten werden. (shrink)

Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health. The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes. The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect independently of public redistributive policies. After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the non-distributive effect a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy. We find (...) that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources. Data for 50 autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 is then used to examine whether that press freedom has a positive impact on life expectancy independently of government responsiveness. (shrink)

A standard criticism of utilitarianism is that it is only indirectly concerned with the distribution of welfare between individuals and, therefore, does not take adequate account of the separateness between individuals. This has led some to conclude that the utilitarian must either downplay the moral significance of distinct identities (e.g. Parfit) or concede that justice represents a prior and independent constraint on the pursuit of the good (e.g. Rawls). An intriguing alternative presents itself if we accept that intrinsic value for (...) the world is independently generated by the receipt of welfare and the degree to which receipt accords with the demands of justice. Fred Feldman, for example, argues that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the sum of both these sources of intrinsic value. The proposal retains the aggregative structure of utilitarianism and takes into account the morally relevant differences between individuals. In response I argue that justice-adjusted utilitarianism collapses into a deontological theory because (i) the axiology assigns lexical priority to justice and (ii) the alleged intrinsic value of justice is entirely derivative. (shrink)

In this short think-piece we trace the newly emerging and rapidly expanding dimensions and dynamics of the “neuro-complex.” What this amounts to, we suggest, are a series of bio or neuro “convergences” of sorts regarding the brain and mental worlds, which in turn are traceable through what we term the bio-psych, pharma-psych, subjectivity-selves, wellness-enhancement, and the neuroculture-neurofutures relational nexuses. These issues are then illustrated through two brief case studies regarding brain scanning technologies and the problems and prospects of cognitive enhancement. (...) The paper concludes with some final reflections on these matters and a call for further research in this rich and challenging domain as the neuro-complex continues to expand in expected and unexpected, yet equally rich and fascinating, ways. (shrink)

Simon Castonguay | : Cet article cherche à montrer de quelle manière l’aveu constitue la voie d’accès privilégiée à l’herméneutique pour Paul Ricoeur et Michel Foucault. Mais alors que pour Ricoeur, l’aveu sert une anthropologie phénoménologique de l’homme coupable indexée à une herméneutique de la finitude, la confession est plutôt conçue, chez Foucault, comme une technique de gouvernementalité dont il est possible d’entreprendre la généalogie. Le problème de l’aveu permet ainsi de relever deux apories inhérentes à ces problématisations respectives (...) de la constitution du sujet éthique. | : This article aims at showing how the confession is, for both Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault, a conceptual access to the hermeneutics. However, if the confession serves, according to Ricoeur, a phenomenological anthropology of the « guilty man » that is linked to an hermeneutics of the finitude, for Foucault, the confession is rather a technique of governmentality that can be analysed through a genealogy of ethics. The philosophical problem of the confession then becomes a way of picking up two aporias inherent in those respective conceptions of the ethical subject. (shrink)