Adorno and Foucault are among the 20th century’s most renowned social critics but little work has been done to compare their ideas about the activity of critique. ‘Adorno, Foucault and Critique’ attempts to fill this lacuna. It takes as its starting point the Kantian legacy that informs Adorno’s and Foucault’s notions of critique, or their ‘ontologies of the present’, as Foucault calls them. Exploring the ontological foundations of critique, the article then addresses the principal objects of critique: domination and fascism. (...) It ends with a comparative account of the central aims of Adorno’s and Foucault’s critiques of western societies. (shrink)

It has long been a truism of the history of philosophy that intentionality is an invention of the medieval period, and within this standard narrative, the central place of Arabic philosophy has always been acknowledged. Yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the theories of intentionality advanced by the two main Arabic thinkers whose works were available to the West, Avicenna and Averroes. In the first part of this paper I offer an overview of the general accounts of intentionality and intentional (...) being found in the linguistic, psychological, and metaphysical writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and I trace the terminology of “intentions” to a neglected passage from Avicenna’s logic. In the second part of the paper I examine the way that Avicenna and Averroes apply their general theories of intentionality to the realm of sense perception. I offer an explanation of why Avicenna might have chosen to denominate the objects of the internal sense faculty of estimation as “intentions”, and I explore the implications of Averroes’s decision to attribute intentionality to the external senses and the media of perception. (shrink)

The concept of ‘‘certitude” is central in Arabic discussions of the theory of demonstration advanced by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics. In the Arabic tradition it is ‘‘certitude,” rather than ‘‘knowledge”, that is usually identified as the end sought by demonstrations. Al-Fārābī himself devotes a short treatise, known as the Conditions of Certitude, to determining the criteria according to which a subject can claim to have absolute certitude of any proposition. In this article the author traces the roots of the (...) concept of certitude to the Arabic translation of the Posterior Analytics. She then offers a close reading of the text of al-Fārābī's Conditions and its parallels in his Epitome of the Posterior Analytics. She argues that the identification of certitude as a cognitive state distinct from knowledge enabled al-Fārābī to introduce a number of interesting and sometimes problematic innovations into Arabic epistemology. Foremost amongst his positive innovations is the recognition that contingent as well as necessary propositions allow for an attenuated form of certitude, and the introduction of reliabilism into the justification of claims to certitude. But al-Fārābī is also one of the first philosophers to articulate explicitly the idea that certitude must include an element of ‘‘knowing that one knows,” a controversial principle that tends to undermine both al-Fārābī’s reliabilism and his efforts to loosen some of the strictures in traditional Aristotelian epistemology. (shrink)

Recently, there has been growing interest in methodological issues of non-ideal theoretical philosophy. While some explicitly commit to non-ideal theorising, others doubt that there is anything useful about the ideal/non-ideal distinction in theoretical philosophy. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I propose a way of doing non-ideal theoretical philosophy, once we realise how limited certain idealised projects are. Since there is a big overlap between projects that are called non-ideal and applied, the second aim is (...) to distinguish between these categories in order to show that applied theoretical philosophy is only worth pursuing if it operates in a non-ideal framework. I argue that we should be pluralistic about possible non-ideal theories and view the ideal/non-ideal differences as a matter of degree, rather than kind. As an example, I show how my version of non-ideal theory is useful to a concrete debate in philosophy of language. My proposal allows us to identify already existing non-ideal approaches to linguistic meaning and encourages us to further engage in the debate on non-ideal theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

Verbal derogation is not only a linguistic but also, and perhaps more importantly, a political phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that to do justice to the political relevance of derogatory terms, we must not neglect the social practices and structures in which the use of these terms is embedded. I aim to show that inferentialist semantics is especially helpful to account for this social embeddedness and, consequently, the political relevance of derogatory terms. I am concerned with specifying the linguistic (...) and political aspects of terms that are at the core of derogatory language use. I explain them with the help of Brandomian inferentialism which tends to be quickly dismissed or ignored in discussions about the meaning of derogatory terms. My inferentialist account is in line with Lynne Tirrell’s broader inferentialist framework for understanding derogatory communicative practices. I provide the semantic details of her broader inferentialist view and thereby aim to show that inferentialist semantics is a promising theory which cannot be neglected in further discussion of meaning and politics in derogatory language use. (shrink)

Inferentialism seems to be an unpopular theory where derogatory terms are concerned. Contrary to most theorists in the debate on the meaning of derogatory terms, I think that inferentialism constitutes a promising theory to account for a broad range of aspects of derogatory language use. In order to make good on that promise, however, inferentialism must overcome four main objections that are usually raised against Michael Dummett's and Robert Brandom's inferentialist explanations of derogatory terms. This paper aims at debunking these (...) objections and thereby further developing the inferentialist interpretation of derogatory terms. I shall first discuss and reject three of the objections by pointing to the core assumptions of Brandomian inferentialism. Overcoming the fourth objection requires adjusting Dummett's and Brandom's explanation of the meaning of derogatory terms. In order to do so, I shall elaborate on the role that the explication of implicit material inferences plays with regard to different kinds of derogatory terms. The inferentialist account I am proposing fares better in terms of its explanatory power and broadness of application than Dummett's and Brandom's sketchy and oft-criticised views. (shrink)

This article discusses issues of social and distributive justice in the context of global capitalism in the twenty-first century and the necessity of incorporating values-clarification and ethical leadership as part of the core curriculum for university graduates.

Language can be used as an instrument to exert power over people, as in issuing an order or a ban, or when it exercises an intrinsic power by virtue of its semantic or pragmatic content. The Politics of Meaning focuses on this latter aspect and answers the following question: what does it mean for linguistic meaning to be embedded in social structures and practices if we have good reasons to assume that these practices rest on asymmetrical power relations and are (...) often unjust? My comprehensive study of meaning in morally and politically problematic language use accomplishes four major goals. Firstly, I defend a theory of meaning which is able to account for a broad range of politically significant aspects of language use. Secondly, I relate these aspects to non-linguistic aspects of social practices which are structured by asymmetrical power relations. Thirdly, my work responds to topical questions of public debates concerning language criticism, political disagreement, and political correctness. Fourthly and finally, my approach involves reflecting on the methodological problems that arise when we engage in politically relevant philosophical questions. It is both a plea for and an instance of non-ideal philosophy of language. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction Metatheoretical and Methodological Issues Applied and Synthetic Ethics Traditional and Emerging Issues Conclusion Websites and Other Resources.

Since the advent of the women's movement, women have made unprecedented gains in almost every field, from politics to the professions. Paradoxically, doctors and mental health professionals have also seen a staggering increase in the numbers of young women suffering from an epidemic of depression, eating disorders, and other physical and psychological problems. In The Cost of Competence, authors Brett Silverstein and Deborah Perlick argue that rather than simply labeling individual women as, say, anorexic or depressed, it is time (...) to look harder at the widespread prejudices within our society and child-rearing practices that lead thousands of young women to equate thinness with competence and success, and femininity with failure. They argue that continuing to treat depression, anxiety, anorexia and bulimia as separate disorders in young women can, in many cases, be a misguided approach since they are really part of a single syndrome. Furthermore, their fascinating research into the lives of forty prominent women from Elizabeth I to Eleanor Roosevelt show that these symptoms have been disrupting the lives of bright, ambitious women not for decades, but for centuries. Drawing on all the latest findings, rare historical research, cross-cultural comparisons, and their own study of over 2,000 contemporary women attending high schools and colleges, the authors present powerful new evidence to support the existence of a syndrome they call anxious somatic depression. Their investigation shows that the first symptoms usually surface in adolescence, most often in young women who aspire to excel academically and professionally. Many of the affected women grew up feeling that their parents valued sons over daughters. They identified intellectually with their successful fathers, not with their traditional homemaker mothers. Disordered eating is one way of rejecting the feminine bodies they perceive as barriers to achievement and recognition. Silverstein and Perlick uncover medical descriptions matching their diagnosis in Hippocratic texts from the fourth century B.C., in anthropological studies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and in case studies of many noted psychologists and psychiatrists, including the "hysteric" patients Freud used to develop his theories on psychoanalysis. They have also discovered that statistics on disordered eating, depression, and a host of other symptoms soared in eras in which women's opportunities grew--particularly the 1920s, when record numbers of women entered college and the workforce, the boyish silhouette of the flapper became the feminine ideal, and anorexia became epidemic, and again from the 1970s to the present day. The authors show that identifying this devastating syndrome is a first step toward its prevention and cure. The Cost of Competence presents an urgent message to parents, educators, policymakers, and the medical community on the crucial importance of providing young women with equal opportunity, and equal respect. (shrink)

We argue that while the proposed memory model by Bastin et al. can explain familiarity-based memory judgements through the interaction of a core representation system and an attribution system, recollection-based memory judgements are not based on non-mnemonic signals being attributed to memory.

Se realizó un análisis del proyecto "Acciones intersectoriales en la estimulación temprana del desarrollo del lenguaje" con el objetivo propiciar un estudio social sobre la gestión del conocimiento y la innovación tecnológica en la dirección de programas para la estimulación del desarrollo de menores en edad preescolar, desde la visión de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad. Se muestran conceptos afines al tema, necesarios en la comprensión de la idea de reorganización de los servicios vinculados a la estimulación y atención temprana del (...) desarrollo del lenguaje desde la comunidad, con la participación de profesionales de diferentes instituciones, y se demuestra la necesidad de comprender los estudios de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad como un campo de acción en la actualidad en Cuba. An analysis of the project Intersectorial actions in early stimulation of the language was carried out with the purpose of favoring a social study of knowledge negotiation and technological innovation in the direction of programs to stimulate the development of children in preschool age at the vision of science, technology and society. Concepts related with the topic and necessary to comprehend the idea of reorganizing the services related with the stimulation and early attention of the language development starting in the community and with the participation of professionals from different institutions are shown. The need of comprehend the studies of science, technology and society as a field of action nowadays in Cuba is also demonstrated. (shrink)

Our aim is to put into consideration the topics of “semantics”, “types”, “lifeworld” and “intersubjectivity” following the social theories of Alfred Schutz and Niklas Luhmann. First of all, and inversely to Luhmann’s perspective which receives the schutzian theory comparing equal types and semantics, we will show that types are inherent to subjectivity. Secondly, and consequently, we state that the social systems theory in the analysis of the “lifeworld”, does not pay attention to the past character of its constitution. Last, but (...) not least, we will point out that all these aspects are framed in a critique of the phenomenological notion of intersubjectivity, which from the luhmannian point of view, ignores the autonomy of consciousness, as well as the emergent character of the social. (shrink)

Por mucho tiempo, las teorías del mestizaje han sido utilizadas para analizar e interpretar la hibridez de las identidades y culturas latinoamericanas, pero el mestizaje –al igual que sus críticas– no es un concepto adecuado en el caso de los espacios sociales, culturales y políticos que ocupan en los Estados Unidos las comunidades latinas y sus producciones musicales. A través del análisis de las profundas líneas de falla que existen en la intersección de los conceptos latinoamericanos de mestizaje y los (...) conceptos bipolares estadounidenses sobre raza e identidad racial, este ensayo dilucida el impacto concreto y material que estas discrepancias conceptuales tienen en las comunidades latinas estadounidenses y en sus prácticas musicales. (shrink)

The externality of the inside: body images of pregnancyThis paper draws on literature, empirical data and a range of theoretical perspectives on the maternal body to examine understandings of the relationship between a pregnant woman and her foetus, with a particular focus on the body images used by women to represent this relationship. Psychoanalytic and nursing accounts of the relationship between mother and foetus have often described a symbiotic ‘oneness’ or unity during pregnancy. Such accounts, however, stress the temporary nature (...) of this unity and identify a series of ‘stages’ of separation or ‘polarisation’ between mother and foetus during pregnancy. In contrast, many of the 25 women who participated in our interview study of new motherhood described a confusion of the boundary between self and foetus. For many women the experience of pregnancy and the relationship with the unborn baby was ambiguous and uncertain. Importantly, none of these women described her relationship with the foetus as a series of developmental stages, but rather saw it as fluctuating throughout pregnancy. These findings are more consistent with the work of feminist theorists who describe pregnancy as a dynamic and fluid merging of the inside and the outside of the body/self. (shrink)

In this paper, we pay attention to the impact on staff of what was a new place, Ko Awatea, within a large New Zealand hospital. The place became a space from within which a particular mood arose. This paper seeks to capture that mood and its impact. Using a Heideggerian hermeneutic approach, the study reported on drew on data from interviews with 20 staff. Philosophical notions about the nature and mood of place/space are explored. As staff claimed this space, the (...) mood that emerged was of liveliness, buzz and comfort. It became a space where people wanted to be, where they met others, where conversations unfolded, where thinking happened in new ways. Staff places tend to be sacrificed or poorly resourced in resource-tight environments. We argue that creating a space that feels home-like, where staff come, linger and engage in community is a priority for generating the mood and thinking of an organization. Such spaces do not happen by chance; it takes forethought and intentionality. The gift of such space is the thinking that is sparked and grown. (shrink)

There are surprisingly few texts in which Avicenna discusses our knowledge of separate substances. The most extensive account occurs in Metaphysics 3.8, a text which was cited by Aquinas in a small number of works from relatively early in his academic career. Aquinas’s attitude to Avicenna’s account, which he dubbed knowledge per impressionem, is by no means uniform, even within a single work. Sometimes Avicenna is an adversary; sometimes he is an ally; still other times he is an innocent bystander. (...) I explore the reasons for Aquinas’s shifting evaluation of Avicenna’s theory and show that Aquinas’s attitude depends in part upon whether the separate substance in question is God or the angels, and whether he is considering the soul as separated or embodied. Ultimately I argue that Aquinas’s abandonment of knowledge per impressionem reflects his general move away from any Avicennian influences that smack of dualism in his eyes. (shrink)

The extensive literature on the Learning Organisation proposes that a competitive advantage can be achieved through the systematised generation and application of knowledge. Consequently, much of the debate concerns the processes, routines and organisational features that a firm should adopt to learn more, and faster, than its competitors. Less attention is given to understanding the nature of the knowledge that is created by these Learning Organisations. We hold that the topic is more important than its current weight in the literature (...) because the performance claims of the models proposed critically depend upon the newly acquired knowledge replacing ignorance or knowledge with less utility. In this paper we explore the nature of knowledge that Learning Organisation theory seeks to create by articulating implicit epistemological assumptions found within the literature. We show that the capacities of each epistemology to help an organisation reject falsehood and make greater use of its knowledge are critically undermined by these very routines. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of a sceptical epistemology and outlines a process that would strengthen doubting behaviour. (shrink)

Ken Mogg 'Small World: Deborah Thomas's _Beyond Genre_' _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 7 no. 4, February 2003 Mike Chopra-Gant 'Hollywood Spaces: Deborah Thomas's _Reading Hollywood_' _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 7 no. 5, February 2003.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 78-98 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience:The Role of Knowledge in Our Art Viewing Experiences Richard Lachapelle, Deborah Murray, and Sandy Neim [Figures] Thinking calls for images, and images contain thought. Therefore, the visual arts are a homeground of visual thinking. 1A common misconception about the nature of art and of aesthetic appreciation is that these activities are (...) essentially a question of "feeling," as if tuning in to the right feeling will automatically lead to a full understanding of the work of art. Another widespread misunderstanding essentially reduces art viewing to a simple question of perception, as if looking long and hard isalways enough to apprehend the work of art's message. Fortunately, a growing body of research into adults' art viewing experiences is debunking these widely held beliefs as oversimplifications of the art viewing process. We can now assert, with a good degree of certainty, that our art viewing experiences solicit four key areas: the affective, perceptual, communicative, and cognitive dimensions of human experiencing. 2 Therefore, we would be hard-pressed not to agree with Rudolph Arnheim's reflections, presented above, on the important role of thought in shaping our artistic and aesthetic experiences.While acknowledging at the outset the essential roles of affect, perception, and communication in our art viewing experiences, this paper focuses more specifically on aspects of the intellectual dimension of this experience. First, we will present and discuss a model that we have developed over the last several years. This model identifies the kinds of knowledge and learning involved in art viewing activities. Second, we will present the results of an empirical study conducted to provide support for the model. Finally we will briefly discuss the model's usefulness for the purposes of aesthetic education. [End Page 78] The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience The Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience provides an explanation of the process of understanding and appreciating a work of art from an educational perspective: it identifies the types of knowledge involved and it also pinpoints the kinds of learning at each stage in the process leading to an understanding of the aesthetic object.In this model, the process of viewing and understanding a work of art is visualized as a two-phased type of informed experience. Through a process of experiential learning, the viewer first encounters the work of art and formulates an initial interpretation. Then, through a process involving theoretical learning, the viewer compares his or her first interpretation with a related body of external, scientific information. This second step in the learning process leads to a reconstruction of knowledge about the work of art. Tandem use of the two processes assists the viewer in furthering his or her understanding of the art object; it also promotes growth in his or her art viewing skills. In the course of each new encounter with an aesthetic object, the interplay of experiential and theoretical learning leads to additional development of the viewer's background knowledge in art, resulting in better preparedness to successfully engage the next work of art. 4 Theoretical Foundations of the Model Three different theories informed the development of the model. 5 By using anecdotal evidence obtained from a group of fifty-two museum professionals, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Rick E.Robinson were able to identify the four major dimensions of aesthetic experience: intellect, communication, perception, and emotion. Each one of these dimensions constitutes, to some extent, a challenge that the work of art addresses to the viewer. According to these researchers, the intellectual dimension of aesthetic experience consists of all aspects of the viewer's attempts to use knowledge in order to find meaning in the work of art (TAS, 27-71). Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson also propose a model that describes the aesthetic encounter in terms of an interaction between the viewer, the work of art, and the artist. To this encounter, the viewer brings his skills in aesthetic appreciation; these may be... (shrink)

In classical Arabic philosophy, the topic of consciousness is commonly associated with Avicenna's ‘Flying Man’ thought experiment. But Avicenna's explorations of the nature of consciousness are not confined to the Flying Man, and he is by no means the only classical Islamic thinker to deem consciousness an important feature of our experience. Consciousness also plays a important role in the epistemology and moral psychology of Avicenna's intellectual rivals, the theologians (mutakallumūn), who represent important sources for Avicenna's own theorizing about consciousness. (...) And while Avicenna's philosophical successor and critic, Averroes, seems to banish consciousness from the core of his cognitive psychology, in doing so he seems to anticipate contemporary efforts to expand the scope of consciousness through the notion of the ‘extended’ mind. This paper examines the varieties of consciousness recognized by Avicenna and several other classical Islamic thinkers with a view to understanding the extent to which their accounts can be mapped on to some of the concepts of consciousness delineated by contemporary philosophers of mind. (shrink)

Epistemologists debate the nature of epistemic responsibility. Rarely do they consider the implications of this debate on assigning responsibility for undesirable beliefs such as racist and sexist ones. Contrary to our natural tendency to believe and to act as if we are responsible for holding undesirable beliefs, empirical evidence indicates that beliefs such as implicit biases are not only unconsciously held but are intractably held. That is, even when we become consciously aware of our biases, we have enormous difficulty changing (...) them and believing differently than we do. This paper considers five responses to epistemic involuntarism. It considers how each response provides or fails to provide a principled means for holding individuals epistemically responsible for their undesirable beliefs. The involuntaristic nature of at least some beliefs seems obvious, but, in the end, we can choose to cultivate epistemic virtues that can influence these beliefs. (shrink)

An expanded conceptualization of the dialogal research methodology was used to gain a deeper understanding of the dyadic experience of Being a couple. Twenty-two committed couples from a variety of backgrounds were interviewed, responding to the question: “What does it mean to ‘Be’ a couple?” The interviews were videotaped, allowing the researchers to engage with both verbal and nonverbal interpersonal expression. The authors describe the dialogal process used, and identify and discuss three core themes expressed by the couples regarding the (...) meaning of being a couple: commitment, morphogenesis, and transcending paradox through witness. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Logic and language Psychology and metaphysics Political philosophy.

Este artigo discute se o recurso ao povo ou ao legislador, como instrumento de resolução dos conflitos entre os poderes, viola a separação de poderes e a independência do poder judiciário ou se, antes disso, dá fiel execução à separação de poderes. Para alcançar esse objetivo, esse artigo investiga se existe relação entre o recurso ao legislador e os regimes autoritários; se a Constituição Federal de 1988 proíbe outro guardião constitucional, que não o Supremo Tribunal Federal, e quais as consequências (...) e inconsistências teóricas em se recorrer ao povo como árbitro do conflito constitucional. (shrink)