_ Source: _Volume 55, Issue 4, pp 239 - 272 According to Peter Auriol, OFM, efficient causation is a composite being consisting of items belonging to three distinct categories: a change, an action, and a passion. The change functions as the subject bearing action and passion. After presenting Aristotle’s account of action and passion, which constitutes the background to Auriol’s theory of causation, this paper considers Auriol’s interpretation of Aristotle’s account in contrast to an alternative interpretation defended by Hervaeus Natalis (...) and William of Ockham. Finally, it shows how Auriol, on the basis of his interpretation of Aristotle, develops his own account of efficient causation as a composite being. (shrink)

This paper considers Thomas Aquinas’s claim that we can use certain habitus at will. Focusing on moral habitus, this claim is interpreted as a claim about the freedom human beings have with regard to their character traits: they can freely choose to act or not act according to their character traits. After giving a brief account of how, for Aquinas, character traits influence our actions via our emotions, the paper examines whether this freedom is of a libertarian or of a (...) compatibilist kind. A libertarian reading is defended on the basis of certain remarks of Aquinas’s about the act of contrition. (shrink)

This paper examines the accounts of limit decision advanced by Hervaeus Natalis and Durand of St. Pourçain in their respective discussions of the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin. Hervaeus and Durand argue, against Aristotle, that the temporal limits of certain changes, including Mary’s sanctification, should be assigned in discrete rather than continuous time. The paper first considers Hervaeus’ discussion of limit decision and argues that, for Hervaeus, a solution of temporal limits in terms of discrete time can coexist with an (...) Aristotelian continuous time solution because Hervaeus takes continuous and discrete time to be two non-intersecting, but correlated time-series. The paper next examines Durand’s account of limit decision and argues that Durand rejects Hervaeus’ correlation assumption as well as Aristotle’s continuous time solution. (shrink)

This paper examines Aquinas's theory of dualist mental causation, that is, his theory of how human beings can efficiently cause changes in their bodies in virtue of two non-physical mental states of theirs, specifically an act of the intellect and an act of the will. It is first shown that Aquinas's hylomorphism does not lie at the heart of this theory. Rather, a relation that he calls “contact of power” (tactus virtutis) does. The remainder of the paper then investigates the (...) nature of this relation. Since Aquinas discusses key marks of it by contrasting it with physical contact, the paper focuses on this contrast. It is argued that, for Aquinas, the human soul stands in a relation of contact of power to the body or, more precisely, a certain part of the body when it causes a change in it and is holenmerically co-located with it. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 156-193.

This paper examines Aristotle’s account of the individuation of causal powers, which dominated much of scholastic thought about powers, and argues that John Buridan rejected it. It contends that Buridan criticizes Aristotle’s account on two counts. First, he attacks Aristotle’s view that we ought to individuate powers by appeal to their respective activities. Second, Buridan objects to Aristotle’s “single-track” account, which correlates one type of power with only one type of activity. Against this, it is argued, Buridan adopts a multi-track (...) approach, according to which a single power type may be correlated with many different types of activities. The paper claims that the basic idea of Buridan’s multi-track view is still defensible today, and can be viewed as a viable alternative to the contemporary single-track account of power individuation defended, for instance, by Jonathan Lowe. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Thomas Aquinas’ and John Duns Scotus’ respective views on the action-passion identity thesis. This thesis, which goes back to Aristotle, states that when an agent causes a change in a patient, then the agent’s causing of the change is identical to the patient’s undergoing of said change. Action and passion are, on this view, one and the same change in the patient, albeit under two distinct descriptions. The first part of the paper considers Aquinas’ defence of this (...) thesis. The second part discusses Scotus’ attack on this thesis. As this paper shows, Scotus argues, against Aquinas and other scholastics, that action and passion are discrete entities inhering in two distinct bearers: action in the agent and passion in the patient. (shrink)

abstract: Henry of Ghent contends that a causal power is a relation that a substance bears to an act. Scholars have taken this relational account to commit Henry to the Megaric view that a power exists only if it is actualized. We argue that this reading is mistaken because, for Henry, a power is not a “real relation” between a substance and an act. Rather, it is a “relation of reason.” We then consider the worry that if a power is (...) a relation of reason, it is a partially mind-dependent entity. We argue that this worry is unfounded because Henry’s claim that a power is a relation of reason is not so much a claim about what a power is, metaphysically speaking, but rather a claim about how we must conceptualize it. (shrink)

This article examines Bonaventure’s account of the soul and its powers, which seeks to strike a middle path between the better-known identity and distinction views of the thirteenth century. Bonaventure contends that the powers of the soul are neither fully distinct from the soul nor completely identical to it. The article argues that Bonaventure’s view comprises four key theses. Bonaventure maintains that the soul’s powers are necessary features of the soul; that they depend on the soul; that they are in (...) the same category as the soul; but that they belong to this category “by reduction”. The article also considers an objection to Bonaventure’s view raised by Peter John Olivi. (shrink)

This book offers a novel account of Aquinas's theory of the human act. It argues that Aquinas takes a human act to be a composite of two power-exercises, where one relates to the other as form to matter. The formal component is an act of the will, and the material component is a power-exercise caused by the will, which Aquinas refers to as the 'commanded act.' The book also argues that Aquinas conceptualizes the act of free choice as a hylomorphic (...) composite: it is, materially, an act of the will, but it inherits a form from reason. As the book aims to show, the core idea of Aquinas's hylomorphic action theory is that the exercise of one power can structure the exercise of another power, and this provides a helpful way to think of the presence of cognition in conation and of intention in bodily movement. (shrink)

The focus of the article is the self-predication principle, according to which the/a such-and-such is such-and-such. We consider contemporary approaches (Frege, Russell, Meinong) to the self-predication principle, as well as fourteenth-century approaches (Burley, Ockham, Buridan). In crucial ways, the Ockham-Buridan view prefigures Russell’s view, and Burley’s view shows a striking resemblance to Meinong’s view. In short the Russell-Ockham-Buridan view holds: no existence, no truth. The Burley-Meinong view holds, in short: intelligibility suffices for truth. Both views approach self-predication in a uniform (...) way. We were unable to find a medieval philosopher who, like Frege, approaches self-predication in a non-uniform way. We do not want to dispute that there are also considerable differences between the contemporary and the fourteenth-century approach to self-predication. Importantly, fourteenth-century accounts of self-predication rely strongly on the identity theory of predication, and this theory is not endorsed by contemporary philosophers of language. Nevertheless, some basic tenets seem to us to be clearly shared between fourteenth-century and contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

(2013). Can Informed Consent Go Too Far? Balancing Consent and Public Benefit in Research. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 1-2. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.778645.

In this paper, I identify a form of epistemic insensitivity that occurs when someone fails to make proper use of the epistemic tools at their disposal in order to bring their beliefs in line with epistemically relevant evidence that is available to them. I call this kind of insensitivity agential insensitivity because it stems from the epistemic behavior of an individual agent. Agential insensitivity can manifest as a failure to either attend to relevant and available evidence, or appropriately interpret evidence (...) that is attended to. The concept of agential insensitivity allows us to conceptualize the kind of not-knowing involved in forms of ignorance that are cultivated and maintained by individual agents, especially when this ignorance is enabled or encouraged by social structures. I use the skepticism about racial disparities in policing practices that is displayed by many white Americans as a lens for exploring this connection. Understanding agential insensitivity thus provides insight into both social and epistemic phenomena. (shrink)

This paper critques a new mathod which I have termed third person analysis and gives perspective on its range and application in clinical practice. Third person analysis turns the analysand into a narrator who will speak of herself in the third person. It is believed that the basic analytic principle inherent in narration can be employed in the form of third person analysis with a wide variety of patients. This new form of psychotherapy provides the analysand with the necessary tool (...) of the narrator, an objectivity needed for the construction of her story. The idea of this paper, then, is not to denigrate the values of free association but rather to shed light on a new form of the mechanism. Free association in the third person may allow the narrating analysand a more creative spontaneity wherein a certain leakage of unguarded and heretofore unrealized material may guiltlessly emerge. (shrink)

_Challenging the central place that “practices” have recently held in Christian theology, Lauren Winner explores the damages these practices have inflicted over the centuries_ Sometimes, beloved and treasured Christian practices go horrifyingly wrong, extending violence rather than promoting its healing. In this bracing book, Lauren Winner provocatively challenges the assumption that the church possesses a set of immaculate practices that will definitionally train Christians in virtue and that can’t be answerable to their histories. Is there, for instance, an account of (...) prayer that has anything useful to say about a slave‑owning woman’s praying for her slaves’ obedience? Is there a robustly theological account of the Eucharist that connects the Eucharist’s goods to the sacrament’s central role in medieval Christian murder of Jews? Arguing that practices are deformed in ways that are characteristic of and intrinsic to the practices themselves, Winner proposes that the register in which Christians might best think about the Eucharist, prayer, and baptism is that of “damaged gift.” Christians go on with these practices because, though blighted by sin, they remain gifts from God. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to CommentariesLauren Freeman (bio) and Heather Stewart (bio)We are grateful and humbled that this esteemed group of scholars and healthcare practitioners have dedicated the time to read and engage with our book. Their thoughtful, critical comments have given us new ways of reflecting on our own work, compelled us to develop and expand some of our claims, and have also nudged us to move in new directions that (...) we hope to explore in future research. In what follows, we reply to each of the commentaries, focusing on what we take to be the most central insights, critiques, and areas for further exploration from each contribution.Catherine Sherron (2024) offers an expansive commentary on chapter 4, "Epistemic Microaggressions," focusing on the nature of epistemic agency, situating epistemic agency within the bioethical context of the principle of autonomy, considering epistemic microaggressions and the phenomenon of silencing of patients, asking whose evidence counts when making claims within medical contexts, and questioning how we might develop a system of reward and admonishment to healthcare professionals who respectively mitigate and commit microaggressions. She presents far more content than we can adequately respond to here. We have chosen to focus on Sherron's specific point about why certain patients experience epistemic microaggressions and what they can do about it. Her line of reasoning echoes an argument found in popular articles about women's health and healthcare that, while seemingly reasonable at first glance, is fraught with problematic assumptions and implications that we would like to draw out and reflect on. Doing so helps pinpoint where the locus of our attention should be in our aim to diminish microaggressions in medical contexts, without placing that burden on the very people who experience and are harmed by them.Within the context of discussing possible contributing factors that perpetuate epistemic microaggressions for patients, Sherron mentions the reality that "patients often don't have good scientific or medical literacy, or education generally, so they might not be in a position to advocate for themselves as epistemic [End Page 169] agents" (150). We surmise that Sherron's more complete argument runs something like this. Many patients lack scientific or medical literacy, postsecondary and postgraduate education, and the language, concepts, and frameworks to be fully empowered epistemic agents and best communicate with healthcare professionals on their terms. As a consequence—and combined with other factors pertaining to their identities and the accompanying stereotypes and biases that healthcare professionals (and all of us) hold—patients who are members of marginalized groups are often not treated as epistemic equals or epistemic peers by healthcare professionals; they are also unable to best advocate for themselves or to speak up in the aftermath of experiencing microaggressions (or macroaggressions) in medical contexts. Thus, if patients were more literate, educated, and able to speak the language of healthcare professionals, they would be able to better advocate for themselves, and they would be better positioned to speak up and respond when epistemic microaggressions (and other injustices and harms) occur. As a result, their situation and relationships with healthcare professionals, their epistemic credibility, and consequently, their care (and maybe even their health outcomes) would improve. Thus, the line o argument implies that we ought to focus our attention on empowering patients: helping them learn how to better educate and advocate for themselves so that they can improve their epistemic situation and, consequently, receive better medical care.This line of argument is common in popular books and articles about women's health (see Dusenbery [2018], who criticizes the argument and Gainty [2023], Jacqueline [2024], Lichtman et al. [2015], Onque [2022], and Singh [2015] where the argument is promoted). The consensus seems to be that yes, there is a problem: women and members of marginalized groups are not getting adequate healthcare, and if only they took better control of and responsibility for their care, they could and would receive better care. We are highlighting this line of reasoning because it is commonplace, problematic, and dangerous.Such an argument is worrisome for at least two reasons. First, the suggested solution—that members of marginalized groups just need to become better advocates for themselves—is not only a form of (unintentional... (shrink)

Martin Heidegger's account of attunement [Befindlichkeit] through mood [Stimmung] is unprecedented in the history of philosophy and groundbreaking vis-à-vis contemporary accounts of emotion. On his view, moods are not mere mental states that result from, arise out of, or are caused by our situation or context. Rather, moods are fundamental modes of existence that are disclosive of the way one is or finds oneself [sich befinden] in the world. Mood is one of the basic modes through which we experience the (...) world and through which the world is made present to us. Moreover, moods are the lenses through which things, people, animals, events, and aspects in the world matter to us. In this paper, I make the case that Heidegger's insights with respect to mood can and ought to be extended beyond the narrow scope of his fundamental ontology in which they were developed. I argue that contemporary accounts of mood within psychology ought to take these Heideggerian insights seriously and use them when defining, studying, evaluating, and drawing conclusions about the nature of moods. There are three sections to my paper. In section 1, I delineate Heidegger's account of mood. In section 2, I turn to some key studies on mood in psychology, and I elaborate upon some of the main shortcomings in this literature. In section 3, I suggest how psychology might benefit from understanding and utilizing a Heideggerian-inspired phenomenology of mood. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates how the problematic kinds of epistemic power that physicians have can diminish the epistemic privilege that pregnant women have over their bodies and can put them in a state of epistemic powerlessness. This result, I argue, constitutes an epistemic injustice for many pregnant women. A reconsideration of how we understand and care for pregnant women and of the physician–patient relationship can provide us with a valuable context and starting point for helping to alleviate the knowledge/power problems that (...) are symptomatic of the current system and structure of medicine. I suggest that we can begin to confront this kind of injustice if medicine adopts a more phenomenological understanding of bodies and if physicians and patients—in this case, pregnant women—become what I call “epistemic peers.”. (shrink)

This is the first book to offer a philosophical engagement with microaggressions. It aims to provide an intersectional analysis of microaggressions that cuts across multiple dimensions of oppression and marginalization, and to engage a variety of perspectives that have been sidelined within the discipline of philosophy. The volume gathers a diverse group of contributors: philosophers of color, philosophers with disabilities, philosophers of various nationalities and ethnicities, and philosophers of several gender identities. Their unique frames of analysis articulate both how the (...) concept of microaggressions can be used to clarify and sharpen our understanding of subtler aspects of oppression and how analysis, expansion, and reconceiving the notion of a microaggression can deepen and extend its explanatory power. The essays in the volume seek to defend microaggressions from common critiques and to explain their impact beyond the context of college students. Some of the guiding questions that this volume explores include, but are not limited to, the following: Can microaggressions be established as a viable scientific concept? What roles do microaggressions play in other oppressive phenomena like transphobia, fat phobia, and abelism? How can epistemological challenges around microaggressions be addressed via feminist theory, critical race theory, disability theory, or epistemologies of ignorance? What insights can be gleaned from intersectional analyses of microaggressions? Are there domain-specific analyses of microaggressions that would give insight to features of that domain, i.e. microaggressions related to sexuality, athletics, immigration status, national origin, body type, or ability. Microaggressions and Philosophyfeatures cutting-edge research on an important topic that will appeal to a wide range of students and scholars across disciplines. It includes perspectives from philosophy of psychology, empirically informed philosophy, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, disability theory, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and social and political philosophy. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the novel case of Phoenix, a non-binary adult requesting ongoing puberty suppression to permanently prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, as a way of affirming their gender identity. We argue that the aim of OPS is consistent with the proper goals of medicine to promote well-being, and therefore could ethically be offered to non-binary adults in principle; there are additional equity-based reasons to offer OPS to non-binary adults as a group; and the ethical defensibility (...) of facilitating individual requests for OPS from non-binary adults also depends on other relevant considerations, including the balance of potential benefits over harms for that specific patient, and whether the patient’s request is substantially autonomous. Although the broadly principlist ethical approach we take can be used to analyse other cases of non-binary adults requesting OPS apart from the case we evaluate, we highlight that the outcome will necessarily depend on the individual’s context and values. However, such clinical provision of OPS should ideally be within the context of a properly designed research study with long-term follow-up and open publication of results. (shrink)

Social scientists appeal to various “structures” in their explanations including public policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies. Significant debate surrounds the explanatory relevance of these factors for various outcomes such as health, behavioral, and economic patterns. This paper provides a causal account of social structural explanation that is motivated by Haslanger (2016). This account suggests that social structure can be explanatory in virtue of operating as a causal constraint, which is a causal factor with unique characteristics. A novel causal framework (...) is provided for understanding these explanations–this framework addresses puzzles regarding the mysterious causal influence of social structure, how to understand its relation to individual choice, and what makes it the main explanatory (and causally responsible) factor for various outcomes. (shrink)

In several recent publications, Professor Adolf Grünbaum has inveighed against the conventionalism of writers like Einstein, Poincaré, Quine and especially Duhem. Specifically, Grünbaum has assailed the view that a single hypothesis can never be conclusively falsified. Grünbaum claims that the conventionalists’ insistence on the immunity of hypotheses from falsification is neither logically valid nor scientifically sound. Directing the weight of his argument against Duhem, Grünbaum launches a two-pronged attack. He insists, first, that conclusive falsifying experiments are possible, suggesting that Duhem's (...) denial of such experiments is a logical non-sequitur. He then proceeds to show that, more than being merely possible, crucial falsifying experiments have occurred in physics. I do not intend to make a logical point against Grünbaum's critique so much as an historical and exegetical one. Put briefly, I believe that he has misconstrued Duhem's views on falsifiability and that the logical blunder which he discusses should not be ascribed to Duhem, but rather to those who have made Duhem's conventionalism into the doctrine which Grünbaum attacks. Whether there are any writers who accept the view he imputes to Duhem, or whether he is exploiting “straw-men” to give weight to an otherwise trivial argument is an open question. For now, I simply want to suggest that his salvos are wrongly directed against Duhem. (shrink)

Pre-college philosophy has proliferated greatly over the last few decades, including in the form of ‘philosophy across the curriculum’. However, there has been very little sustained examination of the nature of philosophy as a subject relative to other standard pre-college subjects and the kinds of expertise an effective philosophy teacher at this level should possess. At face value, the minimal academic preparation expected for competence in secondary philosophy instruction, compared to the high standards for teaching other subjects, raises questions and (...) concerns. In this paper I make some provisional observations about the subject of philosophy and how it is taught from p4c through to the post-secondary level. I begin by examining the concept of ‘philosophy across the curriculum’ and offer a working analysis of the main features of philosophy's form and content that enable us to determine its relevance to, and difference from, other subjects. Next, I examine and critique what I term the ‘populist’ conception of philosophy, which correlates to lower expectations of teacher training, and use my own experience of teaching philosophy across the curriculum to shed doubt on the viability of this approach. In the third section I consider what I term the ‘autonomous’ conception of philosophy, which correlates to more stringent expectations of teacher capacity, and explain why it is preferable to the populist conception with some qualifications. I conclude by reflecting on how philosophy compares to other subjects that are advanced cross-curricularly and argue for more training of high school philosophy teachers. (shrink)

When developing computational models to analyze the tradeoffs between climate risk management strategies (i.e., mitigation, adaptation, or geoengineering), scientists make explicit and implicit decisions that are influenced by their beliefs, values and preferences. Model descriptions typically include only the explicit decisions and are silent on value judgments that may explain these decisions. Eliciting scientists’ mental models, a systematic approach to determining how they think about climate risk management, can help to gain a clearer understanding of their modeling decisions. In order (...) to identify and represent the role of values, beliefs and preferences on decisions, we used an augmented mental models research approach, namely values-informed mental models (ViMM). We conducted and qualitatively analyzed interviews with eleven climate risk management scientists. Our results suggest that these scientists use a similar decision framework to each other to think about modeling climate risk management tradeoffs, including eight specific decisions ranging from defining the model objectives to evaluating the model’s results. The influence of values on these decisions varied between our scientists and between the specific decisions. For instance, scientists invoked ethical values (e.g., concerns about human welfare) when defining objectives, but epistemic values (e.g., concerns about model consistency) were more influential when evaluating model results. ViMM can (i) enable insights that can inform the design of new computational models and (ii) make value judgments explicit and more inclusive of relevant values. This transparency can help model users to better discern the relevance of model results to their own decision framing and concerns. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore disciplinary variation in valuation practices by comparing the way research groups accumulate credibility across four epistemic cultures. Our analysis is based on case studies of four high-performing research groups representing very different epistemic cultures in humanities, social sciences, geosciences and mathematics. In each case we interviewed about ten researchers, analyzed relevant documents and observed a couple of meetings. In all four cases we found a cyclical process of accumulating credibility. At the same time, we found (...) significant differences in the manifestation of the six main resources that are part of the cycle, the mechanisms of conversion between these resources, the overall structure and the average speed of the credibility cycle. The different ways in which the groups use data and produce arguments affect the whole cycle of accumulating credibility. In some cultures, journal publications are the main source of recognition, but in others one can earn significant amounts of recognition for conference contributions or service to the academic community. Moreover, the collaboration practices in the respective fields strongly influence the connection between arguments and publications. In cultures where teams of researchers collaboratively produce arguments, it is more strongly embedded in the process of writing publications. We conclude that the credibility cycle can only be used as an analytical tool to explain the behavior of researchers or research groups when taking differences across epistemic cultures into account. (shrink)

In the United States, the dominant model of decision‐making capacity (DMC) is the “four abilities model,” which judges DMC according to four criteria: understanding, appreciation, reasoning, and communicating a choice. Some critics argue that this model is “too cognitive” because it ignores the role of emotions and values in decision‐making. But so far there is no consensus about how to incorporate such factors into a model of DMC while still ensuring that patients with unusual or socially disapproved values still have (...) their autonomous decisions respected. In this paper, we aim to give an account of the role of values in decision‐making which can answer some of the lingering questions about capacity. In the current literature, defenders of the inclusion of values in DMC tend to propose solutions which focus on the distorted or incoherent attributes of the values themselves. We argue that shifting the focus onto valuing as an ability is a better solution and that a complete picture of capacity includes understanding, appreciation, reasoning, communicating a choice, and the ability to value. On the basis of a conceptual analysis of the necessary conditions for autonomous decision‐making, we derive a conception of the ability to value. On our account, the ability to value has four components: the possession of values, the ability to access those values, the ability to engage in practical reasoning with one's values, and the ability to act on the result of that reasoning. We describe the positive components of the ability to value, some indicators of impairment, and some implications of our account. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to C. Victor Fung and Leonard Tan, “‘Love of All Wisdoms’: Toward A Multiphilosophical Approach To Music Education”Lauren Kapalka RichermeFung and Tan’s arguments regarding the limits of our profession’s longstanding narrow focus on Eurocentric and American philosophical traditions are crucially important, and I think the majority of PMER readers will agree about the need to engage with philosophies written by those from diverse geographic locations and with other (...) forms of contrasting lived experiences. Additionally, this essay contains many thoughtful clarifications, including the importance of local and individualized needs, accruing philosophical wisdoms over time, and ongoing reflexivity. I found the conceptualization of boundaries “as a connecting agent rather than a separation device” particularly intriguing. Moreover, I applaud Fung and Tan for their work outside of this paper; their efforts to translate and extend various Asian philosophical ideas have certainly enriched the graduate philosophy classes that I teach.1 For me, the joy of any philosophical inquiry is the questions and imaginings it incites, and these authors have certainly given me a lot to contemplate. I begin this response with a couple of wonderments and then provide a possible extension of this valuable work. [End Page 185]One of my wonderments regards the relationship between culturally sustaining pedagogy and the proposed multiphilosophical approach. Fung and Tan write, “Ontological and axiological questions regarding the meaning of music in education and in the broader life are still unaddressed” and specifically ask “To what extent should musics of the students’ cultural tradition be customized and incorporated in the curriculum?” Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy or CSP, which is a primary contemporary outgrowth of the multicultural education movement, provides a clear response. Django Paris and H. Sami Alim write that Culturally Responsive Pedagogy:seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation. CSP positions dynamic cultural dexterity as a necessary good, and sees the outcome of learning as additive rather than subtractive.... Culturally sustaining pedagogy exists wherever education sustains the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling.2Given the similarities between this explanation and Fung and Tan’s description of a multiphilosophical approach, I wonder if they could say more about points of alignment and disagreement. Might their arguments serve as an extension of CSP?Another wonderment I have is: What does a multiphilosophical approach exclude? I’m intrigued by Fung and Tan’s rich metaphor of a Chinese medicine cabinet and find it applicable to an array of philosophies. Yet, equating students to “patients” and a music educator to a “doctor” who “writes a prescription for a patient” is incompatible with some philosophies. For example, such language implies a banking model of education that undermines Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire’s core tenets.3 Given that no metaphor or philosophical approach can address everything, I wonder if in addition to inclusions, a multiphilosophical approach necessarily relies on certain exclusions. I spend the remainder of this response positing three potential ways that exclusions might extend Fung and Tan’s ideas.First, inclusive approaches such as Fung and Tan’s multiphilosophy necessarily exclude philosophies resistant to openness and varying viewpoints. Philosophies that forward single prescribed educational ends or limited ways of being musical cannot function within a multiphilosphical approach and therefore must be excluded. Moreover, Fung and Tan’s references to democracy and use of Dewey suggest that a main purpose of a multiphilosophical approach is to propagate liberal pluralism. Such thinking aligns with Meira Levinson’s ideas about liberal education. She writes: “liberal citizenship does require certain habits and virtues, and pluralism is rightly restricted to individuals holding conceptions of [End Page 186] the good which are compatible with liberal citizenship.”4 Specifically, Levinson argues that these habits and virtues include respecting the democratic process, paying attention to public issues, and public involvement through voting and other forms of engagement. While I agree with Fung and Tan that “contemporary diverse needs are localized and always evolving,” those needs exist within larger socio-political-economic structures that inevitably rely on certain exclusions. The nature of those exclusions informs how “diverse needs” are understood and addressed... (shrink)

We argue for the rejection of an anthropocentric and instrumental system of normative ethics. Moral arguments for the preservation of the environment cannot be based on the promotion of human interests or goods. The failure of anthropocentric arguments is exemplified by the dilemma of Third World development policy, e.g., the controversy over the preservation of the Amazon rain forest. Considerationsof both utility and justice preclude a solution to the problems of Third World development from the restrictive framework of anthropocentric interests. (...) A moral theory in which nature is considered to be morally considerable in itself can justify environmental policies of preservation, even in the Third World. Thus, a nonanthropocentric framework for environmental ethics should be adopted as the basis for policy decisions. (shrink)

This article interprets Teresa Brennan’s work on the forgetting of affect transmission in conjunction with Sylvia Wynter’s argument concerning the rise of Western Man through the dehumanization of native and African peoples. While not directly in dialogue, Wynter’s decolonial reading of Foucault’s epistemic ruptures enriches Brennan’s inquiry into this “forgetting,” given that callous, repeated acts of cruelty characteristic of Western imperialism and slavery required a denial of the capacity to sense suffering in others perceived as differently human. Supplementing Brennan with (...) Wynter, we can better describe the limits of sympathy discourses as resting on identification and perceived sameness. In turn, Brennan comes to Wynter’s defense in her call for a new science of plural cultures to redefine the human, which some have interpreted as a positivist misreading of Frantz Fanon. Brennan and Wynter alike have been criticized for their appeals to science; yet, I defend their respective proposals for social-scientific inquiry with support from Brennan’s response to the 1996 Sokal Hoax: the influence of the social on the biological body is, indeed, difficult to study, but this does not invalidate the inquiry as such. (shrink)

A fundamental goal of research in neuroscience is to uncover the causal structure of the brain. This focus on causation makes sense, because causal information can provide explanations of brain function and identify reliable targets with which to understand cognitive function and prevent or change neurological conditions and psychiatric disorders. In this research, one of the most frequently used causal concepts is ‘mechanism’ — this is seen in the literature and language of the field, in grant and funding inquiries that (...) specify what research is supported, and in journal guidelines on which contributions are considered for publication. In these contexts, mechanisms are commonly tied to expressions of the main aims of the field and cited as the ‘fundamental’, ‘foundational’ and/or ‘basic’ unit for understanding the brain. Despite its common usage and perceived importance, mechanism is used in different ways that are rarely distinguished. Given that this concept is defined in different ways throughout the field — and that there is often no clarification of which definition is intended — there remains a marked ambiguity about the fundamental goals, orientation and principles of the field. Here we provide an overview of causation and mechanism from the perspectives of neuroscience and philosophy of science, in order to address these challenges. (shrink)

This book draws on the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer to inform a feminist perspective of social identities. Lauren Swayne Barthold moves beyond answers that either defend the objective nature of identities or dismiss their significance altogether. Building on the work of both hermeneutic and non-hermeneutic feminist theorists of identity, she asserts the relevance of concepts like horizon, coherence, dialogue, play, application, and festival for developing a theory of identity. This volume argues that as intersubjective interpretations, social identities are vital ways (...) of fostering meaning and connection with others. Barthold also demonstrates how a hermeneutic approach to social identities can provide critiques of and resistance to identity-based oppression. (shrink)

What might Adam Smith have learned from Jane Austen and other novelists of his moment? This paper finds and examines a serious problem at the center of Adam Smith’s moral psychology, stemming from an unacknowledged tension between the effort of the spectator to sympathize with the feelings of the agent and that of the agent to moderate her feelings. The agent’s efforts will result in her opacity to spectators, blocking their attempts to read her emotions. I argue that we can (...) resolve this tension by looking to developments in eighteenth-century literature, as perfected in the hands of Jane Austen. I focus on two techniques, focalization and free indirect style, and I show that the problems for spectatorship diminish when we see that good Smithian spectators are savvy readers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Corporate social responsibility has been hailed as a new means to address gender inequality, particularly by facilitating women’s empowerment. Women are frequently and forcefully positioned as saviours of economies or communities and proponents of sustainability. Using vignettes drawn from a CSR women’s empowerment programme in Ghana, this conceptual article explores unexpected programme outcomes enacted by women managers and farmers. It is argued that a feminist Foucauldian reading of power as relational and productive can help explain this since those involved are (...) engaged in ongoing processes of resistance and self-making. This raises questions about the assumptions made about women and what is it that such CSR programmes aim to empower them ‘from’ or ‘to.’ Empowerment, when viewed as an ethic of care for the self, is better understood as a self-directed process, rather than a corporate-led strategy. This has implications for how we can imagine the achievement of gender equality through CSR. (shrink)

The role of emotions in mental life is the subject of longstanding controversy, spanning the history of ethics, moral psychology, and educational theory. This paper defends an account of love’s cognitive power. My starting point is Plato’s dialogue, the Symposium, in which we find the surprising claim that love aims at engendering moral virtue. I argue that this understanding affords love a crucial place in educational curricula, as engaging the emotions can motivate both cognitive achievement and moral development. I first (...) outline the state of the challenge between dominant rival theories regarding emotions in learning. Next, I demonstrate how Platonic virtue ethics offers the most tenable prospect for an education of reason and emotion. Third, I sketch three practical ways educators might constructively engage emotions in the classroom. I conclude that love’s virtue is its peerless power to motivate the creative and lateral thinking which leads to moral development. (shrink)

A recent wave of scholarship has challenged the traditional way of understanding of self-command in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments as ‘Stoic’ self-command. But the two most thorough alternative interpretations maintain a strong connection between self-command and rationalism, and thus apparently stand opposed to Smith’s overt allegiance to sentimentalism. In this paper I argue that we can and should interpret self-command in the context of Smith’s larger sentimentalist framework, and that when we do, we can see that self-command is (...) ‘sentimentalized’. I offer an interpretation of Smithian self-command, arguing that self-command has its motivational basis in the natural desire for the pleasure of mutual sympathy; that self-command is guided by the sentimental standard of propriety; and that self-command works through the psychological mechanism of the ‘supposed’ impartial spectator. And I show that Smithian self-command is a home-grown, sentimentalist virtue and not an awkward rationalistic transplant. (shrink)

Fold‐switching proteins, which remodel their secondary and tertiary structures in response to cellular stimuli, suggest a new view of protein fold space. For decades, experimental evidence has indicated that protein fold space is discrete: dissimilar folds are encoded by dissimilar amino acid sequences. Challenging this assumption, fold‐switching proteins interconnect discrete groups of dissimilar protein folds, making protein fold space fluid. Three recent observations support the concept of fluid fold space: (1) some amino acid sequences interconvert between folds with distinct secondary (...) structures, (2) some naturally occurring sequences have switched folds by stepwise mutation, and (3) fold switching is evolutionarily selected and likely confers advantage. These observations indicate that minor amino acid sequence modifications can transform protein structure and function. Consequently, proteomic structural and functional diversity may be expanded by alternative splicing, small nucleotide polymorphisms, post‐translational modifications, and modified translation rates. (shrink)

In his dialogues, Plato presents different ways in which to understand the relation between Forms and particulars. In the Symposium, we are presented with yet another, hitherto unidentified Form-particular relation: the relation is Love (Erôs), which binds together Form and particular in a generative manner, fulfilling all the metaphysical requirements of the individual’s qualification by participation. Love in relation to the beautiful motivates human action to desire for knowledge of the Form, resulting in the lover actively cultivating and bringing into (...) being new beauty in the world, and in herself. Chapters 1 and 2 of this thesis offer a survey of the arguments and examples Plato puts forward in the text of the corpus regarding the nature of Forms and the nature of participation, alongside a framework of the traditional interpretations of these two Platonic concepts in the literature. Chapter 3 turns to a close examination of Erôs in the Symposium, arguing that the love Plato presents in this dialogue is of a different sort than appetitive emotion. It is an aesthetic and intellectual attraction, capable of stimulating cognitive achievement. Erôs, however, does not stop there. The lover is led not only to contemplation of beauty, but to the generation of beauty, which is the subject of Chapter 4. The emotive-turn-to-cognitive relation of Erôs, I argue, is the clearest picture Plato paints of how possession of properties can be explained through participation in Forms. Erôs leads the lover to produce beauty in the world and in the soul, which explains how love in relation to the beautiful can lead to becoming beautiful. The object of love is the generation of beauty, the mortal mechanism of participation in the Form by which the lover herself becomes beautiful. Finally, Chapter 5 focusses on beauty itself and its role in moral education. Beauty, for Plato, is required for creative generation and can be understood as a uniquely powerful virtue of soul. (shrink)

The work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy shares with the thinkers of the ‘theological turn in phenomenology’ the programmatic desire to place the ‘theological’, in the broad sense of rethinking the religious traditions in our secular time, back on the agenda of critical thought. Like those advocating a theological turn in phenomenology, Nancy’s deconstructive approach to philosophical analysis aims to develop a new sensibility for the other, for transcendence, conceptualized as the non-apparent in the realm of appearing phenomena. This (...) is why Nancy launches a project looking for the ‘unthought’ and unexpected within the Christian traditions, called deconstruction of Christianity. However, the deconstructive approach to the non-apparent differs fundamentally from that of the thinkers of the turn (1) in its being non-apologetic and non-restorative with regard to religion, because it starts from a problematization of the—typically modern, that is romantic—desire to defend and protect what would be ‘lost’ and possibly to restore this, (2) in its focus on the complex difference-at-work (différance) between religion and secularism, a difference that can be termed entanglement and complicity between these two, (3) in its hypothesis that this entanglement is essentially one between (the meaning and experience of, the rituality around) presence and absence in modern culture, (4) in its conviction that the philosophy and history of culture must join, support, complete and maybe even turn around phenomenology when dealing with the difficult task of determining what exactly would be ‘left’ of the ‘theological’ in our time. In this article, both positions are compared and confronted further, leading to an account of Nancy’s re-readings of the Christian legacy (its theology, doctrine, art, rituals etc.), and ending in a more detailed, exemplary inquiry into the tension between distance and proximity, characteristic of the Christian God. (shrink)

[We] perform the cultural work of fitting individuals into categories; yet the active labor that goes into making sex appear dichotomous is generally invisible to the broader society, or at least rarely remarked upon.Wording matters. It doesn’t just affect a person’s willingness to check the box and be counted—it also highlights the existence of those identities. Perhaps if we weren’t so regularly confronted with a simple choice—“Are you male or female?”—our thinking about gender wouldn’t be so binary.To be sure, there (...) are truths about bodies.Yet such truths can be expressed without the notion of sex.Contrary to what many people believe, the classificatory system by which sexes are neatly divided into the two... (shrink)

We argue that a Bayesian explanation of strategic choices in games requires introducing a psychological theory of belief formation. We highlight that beliefs in epistemic game theory are derived from the actual choice of the players, and cannot therefore explain why Bayesian rational players should play the strategy they actually chose. We introduce the players’ capacity of mindreading in a game theoretical framework with the simulation theory, and characterise the beliefs that Bayes rational players could endogenously form in games. We (...) show in particular that those beliefs need not be ratifiable, and therefore that rational players can form action-dependent beliefs. (shrink)

By applying classical and contemporary insights of the phenomenological tradition to key findings within the literature on stereotype threat, this paper considers the embodied effects of everyday exposure to racism and makes a contribution to the growing field of applied phenomenology. In what follows, the paper asks how a phenomenological perspective can both contribute to and enrich discussions of ST in psychology. In answering these questions, the paper uses evidence from social psychology as well as first personal testimonies from members (...) of marginalized groups to argue that subjectively experienced racial oppression is embodied and thus has effects on selfhood that are harmful. More specifically, it makes the case that what are most often considered to be temporary or context-based consequences of ST are in fact more wide reaching and harmful than assumed in that the harms that result from suffering ST become a part of one’s identity, and thus a background lens through which one experiences the world. (shrink)

Neoclassical economics has become the predominant school of economic thought, influencing scholarship on management, organizations, and business ethics. However, many feminist economists challenge the individualist and positivist foundations of neoclassical economic epistemology, arguing instead that purportedly gender-neutral and value-free methods routinely and systematically leave out and undervalue women. Extending this proposition, this article introduces the epistemic foundations of feminist economics and illustrates how they can produce novel insights relevant for business ethics. In particular, by examining economic phenomena from the point (...) of view of the people they affect, feminist economic epistemology is able to elucidate the ways in which power asymmetries and gender norms that constitute the social world can be reflected in business practices. I apply this methodological insight to three case studies of global supply chains to challenge the neoclassical assertion that including women in labor markets necessarily catalyzes gender equality. (shrink)

In the Mengzi there is a hypothetical situation relating how the ancient sage-king Shun 舜 would respond if his father had committed murder. This has recently become a source of debate among Chinese philosophers. Here we will apply arguments made by Johannes de silentio (Kierkegaard's pseudonym) about the “teleological suspension of the ethical” related to the action of the biblical Abraham, and link them up to alternative interpretations of the actions of Shun. This challenges the current and traditional interpretations of (...) his actions, suggesting how this new approach can overcome ethical quandaries related to the Mengzian account of Shun's behavior. (shrink)