The author examines Hegel's incorporation of the Sophists into the history of philosophy. The basic argument is that Hegel's history of the Sophists operates along tropological lines, the exact same lines that the truth claims of his philosophy oppose. Using the tropes of metaphor, metonymy and prolepsis, the author shows that when Hegel places the Sophists in the process of the teleological unfolding of reason he employs the very rhetorical mechanisms he denounces.

This paper clarifies the terms “institutions” and “social structures” and related terms “rules”, “conventions”, “norms”, “values” and “customs”. Part one explores the similarities between institutions and social structures whilst the second and third parts explore differences. Part two considers institutions, rules, habits or habitus and habituation, whilst part three critically reflects on three common conceptions of social structures. The conclusion comments upon reflexive deliberation via the internal conversation.

'Post-truth', Oxford Dictionary's 2016 word of the year, appears to cover only the turn away from reason in contemporary politics. In fact the truth behind 'post-truth' is historically and philosophically more complex. As Fuller shows in this book, it reaches into the nature of knowledge itself.

Whilst the concept of causal powers is central to much post-positivist social science in general, and to critical realism in particular, it has not been significantly developed by critical realists since the initial work of Harré and Madden and Bhaskar in the mid-1970s. To deepen our understanding of powers we need to start with a ‘package’ of related terms. In §1 of the paper I introduce this package, clear up some terminological ambiguity and inconsistency, and focus the discussion upon things, (...) properties and powers. The real problems begin when we try to figure out how things, properties and powers relate to one another. In §2 I introduce and evaluate three possible ontologies: an ontology where powers are primary; an ontology where properties are primary; and an ontology where neither properties, powers are primary, but all emerge to form a unity. The last ontology is defended. §3 deals with ambiguities surrounding three other terms that often crop up when discussing powers, namely, dispositional properties, transfactuals and processes. The net result is a far less ambiguous concept of powers, firmly anchored in an ontology of things, properties and powers as a unity. (shrink)

Socially responsible investing (SRI) has emerged in recent years as a dynamic and quickly growing segment of the U.S. financial services industry involving over $2 trillion in professionally managed assets. Its conceptual origins can be found in the early history of civilization, with it's modern roots in the 1960s. This paper provides an overview of the breadth and depth of the concept and practice of socially and environmentally responsible investing, describes the investment strategies that together define SRI as currently practiced (...) in the U.S., offers several observations about some of the factors fueling its dramatic growth, and presents data showing that investors who choose to invest in a socially and environmentally responsible manner can do so without giving up investment returns. SRI has matured to a point where virtually any investment need can be met through portfolio design that integrates an investor's personal values, institutional mission, and/or social priorities. The socially responsible investment industry in the United States is a young phenomenon. Even referring to it as an "industry" ten years ago may have been a bit of a stretch. While it has grown dramatically in recent years, it is an area of work, of study and of practical application that continues to evolve in many significant ways. One intriguing example of the ongoing development of the field can be found in the analysis of the language used to describe it. The terms social investing, socially responsible investing, ethical investing, socially aware investing, socially conscious investing, green investing, values-based investing, and mission-based or mission-related investing all refer to the same general process and are often used interchangeably. (shrink)

Examining the origin and development of my views of social epistemology, I contrast my position with the position held by analytic social epistemologists. Analytic social epistemology (ASE) has failed to make significant progress owing, in part, to a minimal understanding of actual knowledge practices, a minimised role for philosophers in ongoing inquiry, and a focus on maintaining the status quo of epistemology as a field. As a way forward, I propose questions and future areas of inquiry for a post-ASE to (...) address. (shrink)

Despite inroads made by critical realism against the ‘scientific method’ in social science, the latter remains strong in subject-areas like human resource management. One argument for the alleged superiority of the scientific method lies in the taken-for-granted belief that it alone can formulate empirically testable predictions. Many of those who employ the scientific method are, however, confused about the way they understand and practice prediction. This paper takes as a case study empirical research on the alleged empirical association between human (...) resource management practices and organisational performance. By unpacking the confusion surrounding the two basic notions of prediction used, it reveals what is wrong with them, why the scientific method cannot actually make accurate predictions and why, therefore, the scientific method fails to meet its own criteria for scientificity. Finally, explanation is considered in order to prevent any confusion between it and prediction and to offer what we call tendential prediction. (shrink)

This paper examines from a cognitive perspective the rhetorical and epistemic advantages that can be gained from the use of (extended) metaphors in political discourse. We defend the assumption that extended metaphors can be argumentatively exploited, and provide two arguments in support of the claim. First, considering that each instantiation of the metaphorical mapping in the text may function as a confirmation of the overall relevance of the main core mapping, we argue that extended metaphors carry self-validating claims that increase (...) the chances of their content being accepted. Second, we show how the recognition of an extended metaphor’s sophistication and relevance (on behalf of the addressee) can benefit the speaker’s perceived competence (ethos). We then assess whether these two arguments measure against the dual epistemic monitoring postulated in the notion of epistemic vigilance (i.e., assessment of the source of a message and assessment of the message) and conclude that extended metaphors may fulfil the requirements of epistemic vigilance and lead to the stabilisation of a belief. We illustrate our account with an analysis of the extended metaphor of the USA as an empire found in a political pamphlet written by the Swiss politician Oskar Freysinger. (shrink)

Appeals to intuitions as evidence in philosophy are challenged by experimental philosophers and other critics. A common response to experimental philosophical criticisms is to hold that only professional philosophers? intuitions count as evidence in philosophy. This ?expert intuitions defence? is inadequate for two reasons. First, recent studies indicate significant variability in professional philosophers? intuitions. Second, the academic literature on professional intuitions gives us reasons to doubt that professional philosophers develop truth-apt intuitions. The onus falls on those who mount the expert (...) intuitions defence to meet these objections because it is implicitly being claimed that training and practice caused professional philosophers to acquire reliably accurate intuitions and we are owed an account of how this transformation takes place. A possible response to this situation is to attempt to reform philosophical practice to improve the quality of intuitions. Another possible response, advocated here, is to avoid appeals to intuitions as evidence. (shrink)

‘Academic rentiership’ is an economistic way of thinking about the familiar tendency for academic knowledge to consolidate into forms of expertise that exercise authority over the entire society. The feature that ‘rentiership’ high-lights is control over what can be accepted as a plausible knowledge claim, which I call ‘modal power’. This amounts to how the flow of information is channelled in society, with academic training and peer-reviewed research being the main institutional drivers. This paper begins by contextualizing rentiership in the (...) deeper issues surrounding ‘cognitive economy ’that lie at the heart of the Western philosophical tradition. The psychological phenomenon of the ‘Gestaltshift’ is used to illustrate various ways in which the flow of information can be channelled to enable or disable certain possible ways of regarding the world. Against this background, such familiar concepts from academic practice as ‘quality control’ and ‘plagiarism’ acquire a new look. Quality control aims to maintain rentiership, whereas plagiarism aims to undermine it. The second half of the paper is largely concerned with the historical swings back and forth between rentiership and anti-rentiership in academia. Rentiership’s decline is associated with corruption of its quality control processes, which reveals academia’s reliance on equally corrupt power elites in society. In addition, the introduction of new communication media over which academia cannot exert proprietary control also serves to open up the sphere of plausible knowledge claims. The ongoing Internet revolution is likely to permanently alter the terms on which academic rentiership will be possible in the future. (shrink)

Social persons routinely tell themselves and others richly elaborated autobiographical stories filled with details about deeds, plans, roles, motivations, values, and character. Saul, let us imagine, is someone who once sailed the world as a young adventurer, going from port to port and living a gypsy existence. In telling his new acquaintance, Jess, of his former exotic life, he shines a light on his present character and this may guide to some extent their interaction here and now. Perhaps Jess also (...) spent time at one of these port locations; perhaps their paths might even have crossed. They might be drawn into recounting some common events that indeed do establish a common link. Did they visit a certain famous landmark? Did they meet up at the same bars? And so on. When we open up to friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and close others through the stories we tell them, we do so by revealing bits of ourselves. (shrink)

Philip Tetlock underestimates the import of his own Expert Political Judgment. It is much more than a critical scientific evaluation of the accuracy and consistency of political pundits. It also offers a blueprint for challenging expertise more generally-in the name of scientific advancement. “Thinking the unthinkable”-a strategy Tetlock employs when he gets experts to consider counterfactual scenarios that are far from their epistemic comfort zones-has had explosive consequences historically for both knowledge and morality by extending our sense of what is (...) possible. Thinking the unthinkable might also put into question contemporary assumptions about the legitimacy of science. (shrink)

Over one-third of the white working class in America vote for Republicans. Some scholars argue that these voters support Republican economic policies, while others argue that these voters’ preferences on cultural and moral issues override their economic preferences. We draw on in-depth interviews with 120 white working-class voters to defend a broadly “economic” interpretation: for this segment of voters, moral and cultural appeals have an economic dimension, because these voters believe certain moral behaviors will help them prosper economically. Even the (...) very word “conservative” is understood as referencing not respect for tradition generally, but avoidance of debt and excessive consumption specifically. For many respondents, the need to focus on morality and personal responsibility as a means of prospering economically—what we call “walking the line”—accords with the rhetoric they associate with Republicans. Deindustrialization may have heightened the appeal of this rhetoric. (shrink)

Despite being a prevalent theme in popular cinema, revenge has received little dedicated attention within film studies. The majority of research concerning the concept of revenge is located within moral philosophy, but that body of literature has been overlooked by film studies scholars. Philosophers routinely draw on filmic examples to illustrate their discussions of revenge, but those interpretations are commonly hindered by their authors’ inexperience with film studies’ analytical methods. This article seeks to bridge those gaps. The 2010 remake of (...) I Spit on Your Grave is used as a case study to illustrate the benefits of an interdisciplinary engagement with revenge. Philosophical literature on the topic has routinely posited that revenge is either appealing or appalling, and that impasse has stifled conceptual understanding. The interdisciplinary approach employed here elucidates that revenge is simultaneously appealing and appalling; this dualistic nature is evident in I Spit on Your Grave since it is built into the narrative design. I conclude that an interdisciplinary approach to revenge has the potential to advance understanding of revenge-qua-concept both within films studies and philosophy. (shrink)

How should billions of species observations worldwide be shared and made reusable? Many biodiversity scientists assume the ideal solution is to standardize all datasets according to a single, universal classification and aggregate them into a centralized, global repository. This ideal has known practical and theoretical limitations, however, which justifies investigating alternatives. To support better community deliberation and normative evaluation, we develop a novel conceptual framework showing how different organizational models, regulative ideals and heuristic strategies are combined to form shared infrastructures (...) supporting data reuse. The framework is anchored in a general definition of data pooling as an activity of making a taxonomically standardized body of information available for community reuse via digital infrastructure. We describe and illustrate unified and pluralistic ideals for biodiversity data pooling and show how communities may advance toward these ideals using different heuristic strategies. We present evidence for the strengths and limitations of the unification and pluralistic ideals based on systemic relationships of power, responsibility and benefit they establish among stakeholders, and we conclude the pluralistic ideal is better suited for biodiversity data. (shrink)

Although overshadowed by its filmic adaptations (Hideo Nakata, 1998 and Gore Verbinski, 2002), Koji Suzuki’s novel Ring (1991) is at the heart of the international explosion of interest in Japanese horror. This article seeks to explore Suzuki’s overlooked text. Unlike the film versions, the novel is more explicitly focused on the line between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, critiquing the ease with which the former is privileged over the latter. In the novel then, the horror of Sadako’s curse raises questions about the (...) terrors of moral obligation: the lead protagonist (Asakawa) projects the guilt he feels over his self-interested actions, envisaging them as an all-consuming apocalypse. (shrink)

The purpose of the Cambridge Edition is to offer translations of the best modern German edition of Kant's work in a uniform format suitable for Kant scholars. When complete the edition will include all of Kant's published writings and a generous selection from the unpublished writings such as the Opus postumum, handschriftliche Nachlass, lectures, and correspondence. This volume contains the first translation into English of notes from Kant's lectures on metaphysics. These lectures, dating from the 1760s to the 1790s, touch (...) on all the major topics and phases of Kant's philosophy. Most of these notes have appeared only recently in the German Academy Edition; this translation offers many corrections of that edition. As is standard with the volumes in the Cambridge Edition there is an extensive editorial apparatus, including extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, a detailed subject index, and glossaries of key terms. (shrink)

We prove a number of results about countable Borel equivalence relations with forcing constructions and arguments. These results reveal hidden regularity properties of Borel complete sections on certain orbits. As consequences they imply the nonexistence of Borel complete sections with certain features.

Oliver Cromwells historical reputation underwent significant change during the nineteenth century. Writers such as Thomas Carlyle were prominent in this reassessment, creating a Cromwell that found particular support among Nonconformists in the north of England. Projects to memorialize Cromwell included the raising of public statues. This article traces the history of the Manchester statue, the first major outdoor statue of Cromwell to be unveiled in the country. The project originated among Manchester radical Liberal Nonconformists in the early 1860s but was (...) not realized until 1875. It was the gift of Elizabeth Heywood; the sculptor was Matthew Noble. The project, including its intended site in Manchesters new Town Hall, was contentious, exposing political and religious divisions within the community, reinforcing the view that the reassessment of Cromwells place in the making of modern Britain was far from settled. (shrink)

I aim to recover some of the original cultural significance that was attached to the realism-instrumentalism debate (RID) when it was hotly contested by professional scientists in the decades before World War I. Focusing on the highly visible Mach-Planck exchange of 1908-13, I show that arguments about the nature of scientific progress were used to justify alternative visions of science education. Among the many issues revealed in the exchange are realist worries that instrumentalism would subserve science entirely to human interests, (...) as well as instrumentalist worries that realism could become the basis of a science-based religion. I conclude by addressing some issues relating to RID that are now occluded because of Planck's triumph over Mach. (shrink)

"One of the freshest books that I have read in a long time. It will shake you up. You will not always agree with Fuller, but he will force you to rethink some of your pet conceptions about how science works." —Isis This is the book that launched the research program of social epistemology, which has fueled imaginations and provoked debates across many disciplines around the world. Its opening question remains as pressing as ever: How should knowledge production be organized? (...) The second edition contains a substantial new introduction, in which Steve Fuller reflects on social epistemology’s place in the history of analytic and continental epistemology and discusses the inspiration he has drawn from a wide variety of fields in the humanities and social sciences. It also includes a spirited attack on alternative philosophical groundings for social epistemology and a detailed response to the standard criticism that social epistemology has received from realist philosophers and natural scientists during the "Science Wars." In its new edition, the book remains a provocative contribution to the debate on the production, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in the sciences. (shrink)

Transformative technologies can radically alter human lives making us stronger, faster, more resistant to disease and so on. These include enhancement technologies as well as cloning and stem cell research. Such technologies are often approved of by many liberals who see them as offering us opportunities to lead better lives, but are often disapproved of by conservatives who worry about the many consequences of allowing these to be used. In this paper, we consider how a democratic government with mainly liberal (...) values that is governing a population divided between liberals and conservatives can introduce new transformative technologies and try to achieve consensus about the introduction of such technologies. To do so, we draw on recent work in moral psychology which enables us to better understand the intuitive and emotional responses that underpin conservative objections to such new technologies. We then show how a government may introduce incremental changes in our social practices that have the long-term effect of weakening conservative objections to transformative technologies and better enabling governments to achieve consensus about these. (shrink)

Just as political theorists have long argued that democracy is viable only in communities of certain sizes and shapes, perhaps epistemologists should also entertain the idea that knowledge is possible only within certain social parameters-ones which today's world may have exceeded. This is what I mean by the "postepistemic" society. I understand an "epistemic society" in Popperian terms as an environment that fosters the spirit of conjectures and refutations. After castigating analytic philosophers for their failure to see this point, I (...) show how Rousseau and Feyerabend occupy analogous positions as critics of, respectively, the nation-state and Big Science. Rather than endorsing the disestablishment of the state, however, I offer a proposal for reinjecting the critical attitude into Big Science. It involves heightening the sporting character of scientific disputes, perhaps even to the point of enabling the public to bet on their outcomes. (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils? educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their local authority because of poor pupil attendance, below?average examination results and low rates of continuing in full?time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and coeducational. Over 800 pupils aged 12?14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils? experience of home, school and their (...) peers. A sub?sample of 48 pupils, selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools, also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self?concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self?concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the origins and subsequent reception of the paper "Ontological Gerrymandering: The anatomy of social problems explanations", published in 1985. It describes the circumstances of my turning up at McGill University as a Visiting Professor in Sociology and meeting Dorothy, then a graduate student and the TA assigned to an undergraduate course on Social Problems which I was asked to teach. The paper reflects on the twin benefits: of an interloper, from Europe and from Science and Technology (...) Studies (STS), entering the exotic and heady fray of North American social problems; and of Dorothys steady and resolute guidance in introducing me to a new field. The paper suggests some reasons for the endurance of the papers arguments, more than 35 years after its publication, drawing on some parallel developments in Social Problems and STS. It asks why has there been rather little mutual interaction between these disciplines, given their common concern with questions, among others, about values, effects and interventions in academic scholarship. The paper concludes that many more of us might have done well to pursue the path of strident agnosticism. (shrink)

‘Uncanny’ works by a number of contemporary artists are analysed in relation to the themes and insights of both cybernetics and existentialist philosophy. This reveals that central ideas from these largely neglected fields remain current and potent within innovative art practices. Artists employ cybernetic systems to provoke aesthetic sensations of the uncanny, while simultaneously encapsulating existentialist concerns. Pierre Huyghe’s mysterious installation responds to the life-breath of visitors to mutate human cancer cells. Susan Collins and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer construct cybernetic worlds-within-worlds to (...) render us beings-for-others during intimate encounters with strangers. Urich Lau and TC&A involve and implicate the audience in eerie expressions of what existentialist term being-towards-death. These artworks prompt feelings of separation, alienation and existential angst; and emphasize human estrangement within a mysterious, incomprehensible or absurd world. But a cybernetic-existentialist reading also reveals that their evocation of human disquiet and isolation is tempered by an equal emphasis on positive notions of feedback loops, ‘separation with communion’, existential freedom and authentic interactions with the world and with Others. The artworks articulate cybernetics’ and existentialism’s shared interest in collapsing boundaries and erasing distinctions: between agents within a system; between the self and the Other; and between perceiving, feeling and acting. (shrink)