In The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies, Roslyn Weiss argues that the Socratic paradoxes—no one does wrong willingly, virtue is knowledge, and all the virtues are one—are best understood as Socrates’ way of combating sophistic views: ...

Street art has exploded: it pervades our back alleys, surrounds us at bus-stops, covers billboards, competes with advertising and generally serves as urban wallpaper in most cities. But what is street art? A far cry from mere graffiti, street art has gained some social acceptance, but it remains neither officially sanctioned like public art, nor institutionally condoned, like its more traditional artistic cousins in museums. Somewhere in between these two extremes, street art has emerged, occupying a metaphysically suspect grey area (...) between illegal activity and bona fide art. This paper explores the nature of this emerging art form and draws out some of the differences between street art, public art and ‘mere’ graffiti. (shrink)

One of very few monographs devoted to Plato's Meno, this study emphasizes the interplay between its protagonists, Socrates and Meno. It interprets the Meno as Socrates' attempt to persuade his interlocutor, by every device at his disposal, of the value of moral inquiry—even though it fails to yield full-blown knowledge—and to encourage him to engage in such inquiry, insofar as it alone makes human life worth living.

In this article, I explore the relationship between witness-bearing arts as a form of creative activism designed to respond to social injustices. In the first section, I present some common features of bearing witness, as conceptualized within media studies and journalism. Then I explain how artworks placed in the streets can bear witness in a similar way. I argue that witness-bearing art transmits knowledge about certain unjust and harmful events, which then places a moral burden or responsibility on the viewer. (...) To defend this view, I offer some examples of activist art that bears witness to certain events. I suggest that witness-bearing art is placed in the streets in order to make certain truths publicly available, by offering evidence of them embedded in the artwork. The final section considers why the bearing witness is especially effective for activist art. Witness-bearing art plays a crucial knowledge-transmitting function, one which enables art to engage in creative activism. I conclude by considering how witness-bearing art offers a powerful and persuasive voice for the oppressed. (shrink)

In Socrates Dissatisfied, Weiss argues against the prevailing view that the personified Laws in the latter part of the Crito are Socrates' spokesmen. She reveals and explores many indications that Socrates and the Laws are, both in style and in substance, adversaries. Deft, provocative, and compelling, with new translations providing groundbreaking interpretations of key passages, Socrates Dissatisfied challenges the standard conception of the history of political thought.

Roslyn Weiss offers a new interpretation of Platonic moral philosophy based on an unconventional reading of the Republic. Her basic argument begins with the point that Plato means for us to react badly to the philosopher-rulers of Book 7. She then makes the case that there are two distinct kinds of philosopher in the Republic--one that is ideal and one that is farcical--and that each represents a separate type of justice. Finally, she argues that Plato recognizes this dualism and (...) points the way toward a resolution"--Publisher's Web site. (shrink)

In Back to the Dance Itself, Sondra Fraleigh edits essays that illuminate how scholars apply a range of phenomenologies to explore questions of dance and the world; performing life and language; body and place; and self-knowing in performance. Some authors delve into theoretical perspectives, while others relate personal experiences and reflections that reveal fascinating insights arising from practice. Collectively, authors give particular consideration to the interactive lifeworld of making and doing that motivates performance. Their texts and photographs study body (...) and the environing world through points of convergence, as correlates in elemental and constant interchange modeled vividly in dance. Selected essays on eco-phenomenology and feminism extend this view to the importance of connections with, and caring for, all life. Contributors: Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe, Joanna McNamara, Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, and Amanda Williamson. (shrink)

This study assesses the extent to which job application forms violate the New Zealand Human Rights Act. The sample for the study includes 229 job application forms, collected from a variety of large and small, public- and private-sector organizations that together employ approximately 200,000 workers. Two hundred and four or 88% of the job application forms contain at least one violation of the Act. One hundred and sixty five or 72% contain two or more and 140 or 61% contain three (...) or more violations. The most common violations concern age, gender, nationality, and disability. The least common concern political opinion, ethical belief, religious belief, and sexual orientation. Despite widespread violations, many forms do have non-discriminatory questions that yield the same kind of useful information as discriminatory questions. Employers could incorporate these into their job application forms to bring themselves into compliance with the law. The same lessons also generally apply to North American employers, given the high degree of comparability between American, Canadian, and New Zealand anti-discrimination laws. (shrink)

Providing a broad base of essential knowledge critical to undergraduate students, Situating Feminism will also inspire new directions in critical thought and theoretical advancement for academics and professionals in the areas of women's and culture studies, political science, social work, communication, sociology, and psychology.

Many works are attributed to artists after their death, even when someone else has contributed substantively to the content of the work or when the work left by the artist is deemed incomplete by any standard of completion. Call these works posthumous works.1 Consider, for instance, Garden of Eden, Mysterious Stranger, Silmarillion, Symphony No. 10, Symphony No. 7, Sagrada Familia, the film A.I., Woyzeck, to name just a few. These are examples where..

This paper is an attempt so to construe the arguments of the Hippias Minor as to remove the justification for regarding it as unworthy of Plato either because of its alleged fallaciousness and Sophistic mode of argument or because of its alleged immorality. It focuses, therefore, only on the arguments and their conclusions, steering clear of the dialogue's dramatic and literary aspects. Whereas I do not wish to deny the importance of these aspects to a proper understanding of the dialogue (...) – on the contrary, in a dialogue so heavily laden with irony and caricature, these aspects are necessarily more significant than they are in other dialogues – I do think there is something to be gained from concentrating on the arguments themselves. Although there can be little doubt that Socrates is up to something in the Hippias Minor, the task of determining just what he is up to can only be simplified by clarifying the arguments first.The Hippias Minor has traditionally been thought to contain two independent arguments, each having its own paradoxical conclusion. The first argument begins, it is said, when Hippias characterizes the two Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus as the true man and the false man respectively. Through its discovery that both the false man and the true man have δύναμις, it results in the paradox that the false man and the true are identical. The second argument, on this view, leaves the subject of ⋯ ⋯ληθ⋯ς and ⋯ ψευδ⋯ς and compares instead all sorts of agents in intentional and unintentional action. Finding that the intentional agent is in every case better than the unintentional, the argument concludes that the intentional evil-doer is also better than the unintentional. Viewing the dialogue as thus containing two distinct topics treated in two self-sufficient arguments is perhaps not the best way to understand it. (shrink)

Are 'the people' too ignorant or stupid to rule? Commentators are beginning to seriously argue that the answer might be 'yes.' In this take-no-prisoners book, Roslyn Fuller shows how many thinkers have embraced the idea that there can be 'too much democracy,' and deftly unravels their attempts to end majority rule.

This is the first complete English translation of Hasdai Crescas's Light of the Lord, a seminal work of medieval Jewish philosophy. Crescas challenges the Aristotelian underpinnings of medieval thought, introduces alternative physical and metaphysical theories, and presents service to the God of love and benefaction as the goal for humankind.

Kaveny recommends models drawn from the Gospel of John and the practices of the early church for modern Christians in their response to older women and their health needs. She draws upon a historical reconstruction of the early Christian Order of Widows to propose a normative standard of care for elderly women, one that attends seriously to their bodily needs but also to their needs for inclusion and engagement in the social and vocational world both as givers and recipients of (...) care. This is also to serve as an overarching model for a bioethics that prizes the embodied existence of all women and rejects judgments of appropriate treatment based on their social utility. The following response raises questions about the exegetical and historical foundations of Kaveny?s analysis. However, these caveats may not detract substantially from the normative usefulness of her work. (shrink)

Several scholars, and even a few journalists,1 have written about the figure of the international tourist who uses South Asia as a canvas upon which one can create and recreate the self. Perhaps the most discernable example in the pop culture imagination is Elizabeth Gilbert's trip to an ashram in India, documented in Eat Pray Love (2006), which inspired a problematic succession of travelers who followed her footsteps to communities that simply could not accommodate the traffic. International travel and tourism (...) from the Global North to places like India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka frequently represent a form of neocolonialism wherein destinations and the people who live there are imagined not as places with a complex... Read More. (shrink)

Collaboration in the arts is no longer a conscious choice to make a deliberate artistic statement, but instead a necessity of artistic survival. In today’s hybrid world of virtual mobility, collaboration decentralizes creative strategies, enabling artists to carve new territories and maintain practice-based autonomy in an increasingly commercial and saturated art world. Collaboration now transforms not only artistic practices but also the development of cultural institutions, communities and personal lifestyles. This book explores why collaboration has become so integrated into a (...) greater understanding of creative artistic practice. It draws on an emerging generation of contributors—from the arts, art history, sociology, political science, and philosophy—to engage directly with the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of collaborative practice of the future. (shrink)

Playing with LEGO is naturally educational—it supports free play, imagination, and creativity. LEGO is forward‐thinking—it was one of the first toys to promote gender equality. LEGO advertises itself as a lifestyle choice whose values include being part of a team that educates people, that does the right thing, and that prides itself on its wholesomeness. This image is rather different from the reality of LEGO as a for‐profit company. The Greenpeace video undermines the entire ideology behind the LEGO brand and (...) everything it stands for. This chapter examines the relation between one's ideology and politics, on the one hand, and one's status as a consumer of LEGO toys, on the other. It also considers LEGO's long‐standing and problematic partnership with Shell. Shell, of course, is one of the world's largest and most profitable oil companies. The Greenpeace video hints at many possible criticisms of LEGO's relationship with Shell. (shrink)

Arthur Danto's style matrix brings together many facets of his thinking about philosophy and about art, particularly his intentionalism, art criticism, and historicism. This chapter presents the mechanics of the style matrix and offers modifications of the view in the light of certain criticisms. The style matrix has an interesting consequence for the range of artistic properties that can apply to artworks. In describing the style matrix, Danto relies on causal relations among artworks as a way of identifying stylistic properties. (...) The chapter considers some of the most influential Danto scholars and their interpretations of Danto's style matrix in relation to the debate about epistemic and metaphysical nature of the properties of artworks. Adopting a metaphysical interpretation of the style matrix also allows us to understand another, more general claim that Danto defends about the evolution of art. The correct interpretation of the style matrix hangs on adequate defenses of epistemic and metaphysical historicism. (shrink)

Lowering the standard of care in a pandemic is a recipe for inferior care and discrimination. Wealthy white patients will continue to get “standard of care” medicine, while the poor and racial mino...

As healthcare providers engage in the politics of reforming and humanizing our immigration and asylum “system” it is critical that they are able to refer their patients whose health is directly impacted by our immigration laws and policies to experts who can help them navigate the system and obtain the healthcare they need.