Val Plumwood’s 1993 paper, “The politics of reason: towards a feminist logic” (hence- forth POR) attempted to set the stage for what she hoped would begin serious feminist exploration into formal logic – not merely its historical abuses, but, more importantly, its potential uses. This work offers us: (1) a case for there being feminist logic; and (2) a sketch of what it should resemble. The former goal of Plumwood’s paper encourages feminist theorists to reject anti-logic feminist views. The paper’s (...) latter aim is even more challenging. Plumwood’s critique of classical negation (and classical logic) as a logic of domination asks us to recognize that particular logical systems are weapons of oppression. Against anti-logic feminist theorists, Plumwood argues that there are other logics besides classical logic, such as relevant logics, which are suited for feminist theorizing. Some logics may oppress while others may liberate. We provide details about the sources and context for her rejection of classical logic and motivation for promoting relevant logics as feminist. (shrink)

This third volume continues Richard Routley's explorations of an improved Meinongian account of non-referring and intensional discourse. It focuses on the essays 8 to 12 of the original monograph, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, following on from the material of the first two volumes and further explores aspects and implications of the Noneist position. It begins with a discussion of the value of nonexistent objects championed by noneism, especially as regards theories of perception, universals, value theory and a commonsense account (...) of belief. It continues with: a detailed analysis of what it means to exist; the importance of nonexistent objects to adequate accounts of mathematics and the theoretical sciences; and an account of noneisms' distinctiveness from other accounts of nonexistent objects. These essays are supplemented with scholarly essays from Naoya Fujikawa, and Maureen Eckert and Charlie Donahue. (shrink)

What today divides analytical from Continental philosophy? This paper argues that the present divide is not what it once was. Today, the divide concerns the styles in which philosophers deal with intellectual problems: solving them, pressing them, resolving them, or dissolving them. Using ‘the boundary problem’, or ‘the democratic paradox’, as an example, we argue for two theses. First, the difference between most analytical and most Continental philosophers today is that Continental philosophers find intelligible two styles of dealing with problems (...) that most analytical philosophers find unintelligible: pressing them and resolving them. Second, when it comes to a genuine divide in which not understanding the other side’s basic philosophical purposes combines with disagreement on fundamental questions of doctrine, the only such divide today is that between those analytical philosophers who tend to solve problems and those Continental philosophers who tend to press problems. It is among these subgroups that there is a real philosophical divide today. So the analytical–Continental divide is more a matter of style than of substance; but as we try to show, differences in style shape differences over substance. (shrink)

Epistemic relationism in the theory of assertion is the view that an assertion's epistemic propriety depends purely on the relation between the asserter and the proposition asserted. Many accounts of assertion are relationist in this sense, including the familiar knowledge, belief, and justification accounts. A notable feature of such accounts is that they give no direct importance to the role of hearer: as far as such accounts are concerned, we need make no mention of hearers in characterising an assertion's propriety (...) conditions. This paper develops an account which rejects relationism, by giving central importance to the role of hearer. The paper introduces the knowledge provision account, according to which an assertion that p is proper only if it is fit to give a hearer knowledge that p. The paper aims to show: (i) that we can understand this account in a way which does not leave it open to obvious counterexamples, (ii) that it does not reduce to any familiar relationist account, and (iii) that it carries certain advantages over familiar relationist accounts. (shrink)

Drawing together researchers from diverse theoretical positions, the aim of this book is to work towards a coherent and unified account of how we develop an understanding of one's and others' mental states.

Safety is a notion familiar to epistemologists principally because of the way in which it has been used in the attempt to cast light on the nature of knowledge. In particular, some have argued that an important constraint on knowledge is that one knows p only if one believes p safely. In this paper, I use safety for a different purpose: to cast light on the nature of assertion. I introduce what I call the safety account of assertion, according to (...) which one asserts p properly only if one asserts p safely. The central idea is that an assertion’s propriety depends on whether one could easily have asserted falsely in a similar case. I argue that the safety account is well motivated, since it neatly explains our intuitions about a wide range of assertions of different kinds. Of particular interest is the fact that the account explains our intuitions about several kinds of assertions which appear to raise problems for well-known rival accounts. (shrink)

There has been much recent interest in questions about epistemic norms of assertion. Is there a norm specific to assertion? Is it constitutive of the speech act? Is there a unique norm of this sort? What is its content? These are important questions, so it's understandable that they have received the attention which they have. By contrast, little attention—little separate attention, at least—has been given to parallel questions about telling: Which norm or norms govern telling, etc.? A natural explanation for (...) this disparity in interest is that it's felt generally to be obvious that there can be no significant distinction between the two types of norms, and hence no need to consider them separately. This paper challenges that general feeling. The first part argues that it's not obvious that the same norms govern assertion and telling. The second part argues that far from being obvious, this idea is mistaken: there are significant differences between the two types of norms. (shrink)

The Public Justification Principle requires that coercive institutions be justified to all who live under them. I argue that this principle often cannot be satisfied without persons depending on the pure informative testimony of others, even under realistically idealized situations. Two main results follow. First, the sense of justification relevant to this principle has a strongly externalist component. Second, normative expectations of trust are essential to public justification. On the view I propose, whether the Public Justification Principle is satisfied depends (...) on the features of the network of testifiers in which persons are embedded. I consider several such networks to show which features are plausibly relevant. The importance of testimony for public justification ultimately suggests that we should moderate our expectations about the kind of conciliation we can achieve with the social order in which we live. (shrink)

In this paper I draw attention to a shortcoming in Miranda Fricker's 2007 account of hermeneutical injustice: that the only hermeneutical resource she acknowledges is a shared conceptual framework. Consequently, Fricker creates the impression that hermeneutical injustice manifests itself almost exclusively in the form of a conceptual lacuna. Considering the negative hermeneutical impact of certain societal taboos, however, suggests that there can be cases of hermeneutical injustice even when an agent's conceptual repertoire is perfectly adequate. I argue that this observation (...) highlights the need to expand Fricker's account to accommodate a wider range of hermeneutical resources and, in turn, a broader taxonomy of hermeneutical injustice. Specifically, my central case of a societal taboo presses the need to recognize as a valuable hermeneutical resource an expressively free environment, in which individuals can put their conceptual-interpretative resources to good hermeneutical effect. (shrink)

This paper develops an evolutionary account of shame and its moral value. In so doing, it challenges the standard thinking about shame. Typically, those who approach shame from an evolutionary perspective deny that it is a morally valuable emotion, focusing instead on its social significance. And those who see shame as morally valuable typically set aside questions about shame’s biological origins, if they see them as relevant at all. On my account, shame is an emotion that sensitizes us to self-originating (...) threats to our identities. So understood, shame is morally valuable because it brings a concern to protect our moral identities from damage that we (might) do to them. To develop my identity-driven account, I first argue that we can specify distinctly moral and social forms of shame in terms of the moral and non-moral identities that undergird them. I then show that the resulting account not only makes empirically-supported predictions, but that it also accords with the claim that shame is an evolutionary adaptation. The result is a novel account of the origins and cognitive foundations of a moral emotion. (shrink)

Collective procedural memory is a group’s memory of how to do things, as opposed to a group’s memory of facts. It enables groups to mount effective responses to periodic events (e.g., natural hazards) and to sustain collective projects (e.g., combatting climate change). This article presents an account of collective procedural memory called the Ability Conception. The Ability Conception has various advantages over other accounts of collective procedural memory, such as those appealing to collective know-how and collective identity. It also demonstrates (...) new applications for collective procedural memory. I develop three in this article: to social epistemology, to the ethics of memorialization, and to a pattern of group vulnerability to recurring hazardous events that I call the saeculum effect. (shrink)

Despite the now considerable literature on intellectual virtue, there remains relatively little philosophical discussion of intellectual vice. What discussion there is has been shaped by a powerful assumption—that, just as intellectual virtue requires that we are motivated by epistemic goods, intellectual vice requires that we aren't. In this paper, I demonstrate that this assumption is false: motivational approaches cannot explain a range of intuitive cases of intellectual vice. The popularity of the assumption is accounted for by its being a manifestation (...) of a more general understanding of vice as an inversion or mirror image of virtue. I call this the inversion thesis, and argue that the failure of the motivational approach to vice exposes its limitations. I conclude by suggesting that recognizing these limitations can help to encourage philosophical interest in intellectual vice. (shrink)

Changing the appraisal of stress to foster adaptive coping for students is explored by proposing an alternative lens theory of viewing the stress response from the perspective of Greek philosophy of Stoicism. The connection of Lazarus’s challenge appraisal to resilience and Stoicism is a novel perspective brought about by re-examining the foundations of current practices and has the potential to elicit new research, theories, and resources to help students learn to cope with stress differently. The concepts of stress, Stoicism, and (...) resilience are all inextricably linked, however Stoicism is at the root of these ideas. This proposal to view stress through the lens of Stoicism is an opportunity to alter the way students think and respond to challenges by using an ancient philosophy to have a positive outlook on the stresses of modern university life. (shrink)

It is controversial whether masses (what mass nouns refer to) exist. But on the assumption that they do, here are two uncontroversial facts about them: first, they satisfy a fusion principle which takes any set of masses of kind K and yields a mass fusion of kind K; secondly, a mass must have all and only the same parts at every time at which it exists. These two theses are usually built into the concept 'mass'. I argue that the latter (...) follows from the former. This shows that the concept 'mass' is unified, not gerrymandered. Moreover, since my arguments show that any entity which follows a certain fusion principle is also mereologically constant, and since these two properties are sufficient for being a mass, my arguments make it easier to argue that there are masses. (shrink)

Two epistemic principles are Knowledge Exclusion and Belief Exclusion. Knowledge Exclusion says that it is necessarily the case that if an agent knows that p, then she does not believe that ∼p, and Belief Exclusion says that it is necessarily the case that if an agent believes that q, then she does not believe that ∼q. Many epistemologists find it reasonable to reject the latter principle and accept the former. I argue that this is in fact not reasonable by proposing (...) a case in which an agent can use that she has contradictory beliefs towards a proposition as decisive evidence for that proposition. A natural response is that this case conflicts with common assumptions about the relation between knowledge, contradictory beliefs and rationality. I reply by drawing ideas from Lasonen-Aarnio’s remarks on unreasonable knowledge to explain why these common assumptions do not threaten my argument. (shrink)

Can one gain testimonial knowledge from unsafe testimony? It might seem not, on the grounds that if a piece of testimony is unsafe, then any belief based on it in such a way as to make the belief genuinely testimonial is bound itself to be unsafe: the lack of safety must transmit from the testimony to the testimonial belief. If in addition we accept that knowledge requires safety, the result seems to be that one cannot gain testimonial knowledge from unsafe (...) testimony. In a pair of recent papers, however, Sanford Goldberg has challenged this apparently plausible line of thought. Goldberg presents two examples intended to show that a testimonial belief can be safe, even if the testimony on which it is based is unsafe: the lack of safety need not transmit from the testimony to the testimonial belief. In this paper, I question whether Goldberg’s examples really do show that one can gain safe testimonial belief from unsafe testimony. The problem, I explain, is that both examples appear (for different reasons) to be open to objection. Nevertheless, I argue that although Goldberg’s examples do not establish his conclusion, the conclusion itself is true: one can gain safe testimonial belief from unsafe testimony. I base my argument on an example which differs in structure from Goldberg’s examples, and I argue that due to this difference, my example avoids the problems which Goldberg’s examples face. (shrink)

A prominent argument for moral realism notes that we are inclined to accept realism in science because scientific inquiry supports a robust set of critical practices—error, improvement, explanation, and the like. It then argues that because morality displays a comparable set of critical practices, a claim to moral realism is just as warranted as a claim to scientific realism. But the argument is only as strong as its central analogy—and here there is trouble. If the analogy between the critical practices (...) of science and morality is loosely interpreted, the argument does not support moral realism—for paradigmatically constructivist discourses like fashion display the relevant critical practices just as well. So if the argument is to have force, the realist must say more about why the critical practices of morality are sufficiently like those of science to warrant realism. But this cannot be done—moral inquiry differs from scientific inquiry in too many important ways. So the analogy with the critical practices of science fails to vindicate moral realism. But there are further lessons: in looking closely at the critical practices of our moral discourse—and in comparing them to the critical practices of science and fashion—we gain insight into what is distinctive about morality objectivity and moral metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that those who accept the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception should reject the traditional view that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive. I start by outlining the general strategy that conceptualists have adopted in response to the familiar ‘fineness of grain’ objection, and I show why a commitment to what I call the indiscriminability claim seems to form a natural part of this strategy. I then show how together, the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim (...) –the claim that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive –entail a further, suspicious-looking claim that I call the problematic claim. My argument then splits into two parts. In the first part, I show why the conceptualist does indeed need to reject the problematic claim. Given that this claim is jointly entailed by the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim, the conceptualist is then left with a straight choice: reject the indiscriminability claim, or reject the non-transitivity claim. In the second part, I then explain why the conceptualist should choose the latter option. (shrink)

Public reason liberals claim that legitimate rules must be justifiable to diverse perspectives. This Public Justification Principle threatens that failing to justify rules to reprehensible agents makes them illegitimate. Although public reason liberals have replies to this objection, they cannot avoid the challenge of powerful deceivers. Powerful deceivers trick people who are purportedly owed public justification into considering otherwise good rules unjustified. Avoiding this challenge requires discounting some failures of justification according to what caused people’s beliefs. I offer a conception (...) of public justification that accommodates these externalist considerations while positioning Public Reason Liberalism to provide insight into real cases of deception. (shrink)

It is widely held that for an agent to have any intellectual character virtues, they must be fundamentally motivated by a love of epistemic goods. In this paper, I challenge this ‘strong motivational requirement’ on virtue. First, I call into question three key reasons offered in its defence: that a love of epistemic goods is needed to explain the scope, the performance quality, or the value of virtue. Secondly, I highlight several costs and restrictions that we incur from its acceptance. (...) In so doing, I show that my titular question is more than just a question about the nature of virtuous motivation or the structure of intellectual virtue. Ultimately, it is a question about the very function of virtue epistemology itself. (shrink)

Late in their architectural career, Alison and Peter Smithson designed an eighty-square-foot, indoor-outdoor space for a man and his cat. The Smithsons described this modest space in methodological and phenomenal terms, noting that the addition to Axel Bruchhäuser’s Hexenhaus could be read “as an exemplar of a method by which a small physical change—a layering-over of air adhered to an existing fabric—can bring about a delicate tuning of persons with place.” The Hexenhaus’ tuning elements—second skin, tree screen, and double-acting mesh—create (...) a “treillage’d space” that supplants mediation, reframes attunement, and elicits an active weaving of person, place, and phenomena. This paper seeks to understand what the architects meant by “tuning” and in the process to outline operations for spatial weaving. (shrink)

It is by now something of a commonplace for readers of Blanchot to claim that the limpid quality of his prose and the wealth of allusion woven through even his more opaque writings often have the paradoxical effect of making his work both engagingly lucid and approachable and utterly resistant to interpretation or even comprehension in any ordinary sense. At the core of this paradoxical experience is a theory of creativity that Blanchot frequently alludes to and often appears to be (...) about to reveal before allowing it to vanish into what he calls his “third night,” a darkness beyond both day and night, being and non-being, from which the artist, writer or composer draws the inspiration required for both the initiation and completion of the textual artefact or, as will be argued here, the musical event. Focusing on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice that Blanchot outlines most fully in “The Gaze of Orpheus,” and deploying this writer’s own theory and practice of xenosonics, the fundamental question here will be – and to borrow from his friend Bataille – the “use-value” of Blanchot’s evasive theory of creativity for the creator of music, text or art. (shrink)

Mark's Gospel is a narrative parable of the meaning of the life and death of Jesus which draws the reader into the personal engagement that takes place in interpretation and appropriation of the text in a life of discipleship.

The categories associated with modern French commensality help to illuminate various forms of Roman public dining, most notably, meals linked to events of the life cycle and religious festivals, as well as those sponsored by collegia and by the emperor himself. A comparative approach of this sort brings into sharper focus the nature of this social practice by underscoring the propensity of meals in the ancient world both to unite and to separate diners by social rank.

That there exists a law of restitution concerned with reversing unjust enrichments is widely considered to be uncontroversial. However, the once orthodox view that unjust enrichment explains all instances of restitutionary liability is fast becoming a minority position. Indeed, the ability of ‘unjust enrichment’ to account for all restitutionary claims has been doubted by many of those who fought most strongly for its recognition as an independent head or source of liability, chief amongst these Professor Peter Birks. Because of this, (...) while there is widespread acceptance that unjust enrichment plays some role within the law of restitution, there is considerable uncertainty as to what this exact role is, so much so that what is meant by unjust enrichment can be seen to be in doubt. Beginning with an examination of Birks’ understanding of unjust enrichment and the classificatory scheme into which it slots, this article addresses the question of what role a conception of unjust enrichment can and should play in presenting and justifying the law of restitution. (shrink)

Although there is an increasing body of opinion that awards of damages for breach of contract should take account of the claimant’s performance interest, there has been little in the way of analysis of what the performance interest is. Commonly the concept is put forward as simply a reformulation or reconceptualization of the expectation interest, itself hitherto regarded as the one true contractual interest. Such thinking is flawed. A closer analysis of contract doctrine shows there to be two distinct contractual (...) interests; in receiving performance, and in being compensated for losses caused by non-performance. Receiving compensatory damages for non-performance is not the same as receiving performance. At present, this important difference is not fully appreciated, resulting in a failure to develop a principled approach to the claims that can be made following a breach of contract. Recognition of this distinction forces us to confront the fundamental question of how committed we are to the notion that contracts entail a right to performance. This article examines the distinction between these two interests, how the performance interest may be given effect by a damages award, and what the consequences of this analysis are for our understanding of the nature of contractual obligation. (shrink)

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self that I collectively refer to (...) as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (2014, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media. (shrink)

This paper delves into the intricate connections between the Abrahamic religions and the ancient mystery cults, reaching as far back as to Neolithic shamanism. They all unite in a shared pursuit: the quest for divine knowledge. Long before the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the biblical Genesis took on its profound symbolic meaning, shamanic initiation held a distinctly different view of botany. Indeed, It regarded plants primarily for their psychedelic properties, as a medium to perceive “reality” with (...) heightened intensity. However, the sacred Tree has a uniquely numinous character, and their consumption is sternly prohibited by God, in both, the Bible and the Quran. Therefore, this effectively positions all monotheistic religions in an unequivocal distance from their prehistoric origins. More precisely, we can argue that these mythologies are in fact constructed as counternarratives, advocating, primarily for a social ethic (based on the holy writings of the Bible), and evoking secondly a fundamental gnostic quest. (shrink)

In his essay on 'Broad on Induction and Probability' (first published in 1959, reprinted in this volume), Professor G. H. von Wright writes: "If Broad's writings on induction have remained less known than some of his other contributions to philosophy . . . , one reason for this is that Broad never has published a book on the subject. It is very much to be hoped that, for the benefit of future students, Broad's chief papers on induction and probability will (...) be collected in a single volume . . . . " The present volume attempts to perform this service to future students of induction and probability. The suggestion of publishing a volume of this kind in Synthese Library was first made by Professor Donald Davidson, one of the editors of the Library, and was partly prompted by Professor von Wright's statement. In carrying out this suggestion, the editors of Synthese Library have had the generous support of Professor Broad who has among other things supplied a new Addendum to 'The Principles of Problematic Induction' and corrected a number of misprints found in the first printings of this paper. The editors gratefully acknow ledge Professor Broad's help and encouragement. A bibliography of Professor Broad's writings (up to 1959) has been compiled by Dr. C. Lewy and has appeared in P. A. Schilpp, editor, The Philosophy of C. D. Broad (The Library of Living Philosophers), pp. 833-852. (shrink)

Previous examinations of the scope of moral concern have focused on aggregate attributions of moral worth. However, because trade‐offs exist in valuing different kinds of entities, tabulating total amounts of moral expansiveness may conceal significant individual differences in the relative proportions of moral valuation ascribed to various entities. We hypothesized that some individuals (“tree‐huggers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to animals and ecosystems than to humans from marginalized or stigmatized groups, while others (“human‐lovers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to outgroup (...) members than to the natural world. Additionally, because moral valuation is often treated as being zero‐sum, we hypothesized that there would be no difference in aggregate levels of moral concern between tree‐huggers and human‐lovers. Finally, because attributions of mental capacities substantially contribute to moral valuation, we predicted that tree‐huggers and human‐lovers would show different patterns of mind attribution for animals versus humans. Three studies (N = 985) yielded evidence in support of our hypotheses. First, over one‐third of participants valued nature over outgroups. Second, extending moral value to animals and nature was not indicative of more expansive moral concern overall; instead, tree‐huggers and human‐lovers were identical in their aggregate ascriptions of moral worth. Third, tree‐huggers had relatively amplified tendencies to attribute mental capacities to animals and relatively reduced tendencies to attribute mental capacities to outgroup members—thus having elevated rates of both anthropomorphism and dehumanization. These findings necessitate a reconceptualization of both the extension of moral worth and the attribution of minds. (shrink)

Cet article propose une approche de la société traditionnelle corse à travers la représentation qu’en délivre un de ses membres féminins. Nous privilégions, pour se faire, la correspondance échangée, autour de 1900, entre une soeur, restée au village (Sarrola-Carcopino, Corse du Sud) et son frère, soldat colonial en campagne à Madagascar. Nous y voyons apparaître les aspects de son rôle d’informatrice privilégiée et l’existence d’une division sexuelle des tâches d’information (regroupant les distinctions privé/public, affect/social, maison/patrimoine...). Cet échange ouvre tant du (...) côté d’une histoire du quotidien que de celui d’une ethnologie des relations groupales et des distinctions sexuelles, faisant de l’analyse des pratiques épistolaires un guide efficace des mouvements et des rythmes de la vie villageoise corse autour de 1900 et de la lente intégration de l’île à l’ensemble national. (shrink)

Spoil islands are overlooked places combining dirt with paradise, waste-land with “brave new world,” and wildness with human intervention. Mundane products of dredging, these islands form an uninvestigated archipelago that demonstrates the potential value and contested re-valuation of landscapes of waste. Research navigates the U.S. east coast from New York City to Key West, examines these marginalized topographies to understand emergent concerns of 21st-century placemaking, public space, and infrastructure, and discovers that spoil islands constitute an unprecedented public commons, where human (...) agency and nature are inextricably linked. (shrink)

I argue that the “But Everyone Does That” (BEDT) defense can have significant exculpatory force in a legal sense, but not a moral sense. I consider whether legal realism is a better theory of the law than the more orthodox view of respecting the law as it is written. I next examine what the purpose of the law is, especially attending to how widespread disobedience is treated. Finally, I attempt to fit BEDT within Paul Robinson’s framework for categorizing defenses. I (...) conclude that, first, BEDT can have significant exculpatory force; second, a BEDT plea does not comport with either Robinson’s definition of an excuse or other commonly held conceptions and so needs its own classification; and finally, BEDT does not exonerate the offender in a moral sense—only in a legal context. (shrink)

What is everyday life like under a militarized pandemic where the brute force of the state is deployed to contain an outbreak? What lifeworld is generated against the backdrop of authoritarian control? What holds us together when our lives are quarantined? I will answer these questions by looking at the practice of mass listening. In particular, I look at a recorded prayer to provide a picture of an island life. In this essay, I call attention to what may be termed (...) the vernacular will to life in a carceral regime in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the oratio imperata as a case study, I think more broadly about the meaning of freedom, restraint, and contingency. Namely, I describe the lifeforce buried in everyday acts of praying wherein repressive social forces, be they the police or religious authorities, come to enable world-making possibilities for ordinary lives in paradoxical ways. I argue that the recorded prayer helps us to grasp the dynamics of repression and agency. Using memoir and ethnography, I propose the theory of vernacular biopoetics to explore the possibility of freedom in a carceral condition wherein the constriction of spaces becomes an opening for alternative forms of imagination. (shrink)

A standard objection to Cappelen and Lepore’s Semantic Minimalism is that minimal propositions are explanatorily idle. But Schoubye and Stokke recently proposed that minimal proposition and the question under discussion of a conversation jointly determine what is said in a systematic and explanatory way. This note argues that their account both overgenerates and undergenerates.