BackgroundFinancial compensation of research participants has been standard practice for centuries, however, there is an ongoing debate among researchers and ethicists regarding the ethical nature of this practice. While these debates develop ethical arguments and theories, they fail to incorporate input from those most affected by financial compensation: potential research participants.MethodsTo identify attitudes surrounding clinical research, participants of a long-standing cohort completed a one-time interview. Open-ended questions stimulated a participant-driven discussion surrounding medical research. Following a grounded theory methodology, 58 semistructured (...) interview transcripts were coded, focusing on attitudes surrounding financial compensation of research participants.ResultsOf the interviews coded, the majority of participants identified as Black/African American and were women. Five major themes emerged. In support of financial compensation, participants felt that study participants should be compensated for time, effort and risk. However, participants were concerned that compensation may differentially impact low-income populations and entice them to hide potentially harmful side effects. Participants also mentioned that financial compensation may invalidate study results if participants knowingly provide false information to subvert inclusion/exclusion criteria.ConclusionThe emergence of both positive and negative themes reiterates the complicated issue of providing financial compensation for study participation. While compensation as a motivator for research participation raises ethical concerns, participants discussed weighing the benefits with the risks in order to make an informed decision. To avoid paternalistic behaviours, research staff must allow potential research participants to review the available information and make the decision that best reflects their wishes. (shrink)

Any successful interpretation of quantum mechanics must explain how our empirical evidence allows us to come to know about quantum mechanics. In this article, we argue that this vital criterion is not met by the class of ‘orthodox interpretations,’ which includes QBism, neo-Copenhagen interpretations, and some versions of relational quantum mechanics. We demonstrate that intersubjectivity fails in radical ways in these approaches, and we explain why intersubjectivity matters for empirical confirmation. We take a detailed look at the way in which (...) belief-updating might work in the kind of universe postulated by an orthodox interpretation, and argue that observers in such a universe are unable to escape their own perspective in order to learn about the structure of the set of perspectives that is supposed to make up reality according to these interpretations. We also argue that in some versions of these interpretations it is not even possible to use one’s own relative frequencies for empirical confirmation. Ultimately we conclude that it cannot be rational to believe these sorts of interpretations unless they are supplemented with some observer-independent structure which underwrites intersubjective agreement in at least certain sorts of cases. (shrink)

In this article we set out to understand the significance of the process matrix formalism and the quantum causal modelling programme for ongoing disputes about the role of causation in fundamental physics. We argue that the process matrix programme has correctly identified a notion of ‘causal order’ which plays an important role in fundamental physics, but this notion is weaker than the common-sense conception of causation because it does not involve asymmetry. We argue that causal order plays an important role (...) in grounding more familiar causal phenomena. Then we apply these conclusions to the causal modelling programme within quantum foundations, arguing that since no-signalling quantum correlations cannot exhibit causal order, they should not be analysed using classical causal models. This resolves an open question about how to interpret fine-tuning in classical causal models of no-signalling correlations. Finally we observe that a quantum generalization of causal modelling can play a similar functional role to standard causal reasoning, but we emphasize that this functional characterisation does not entail that quantum causal models offer novel explanations of quantum processes. (shrink)

In recent years the quantum foundations community has seen increasing interest in the possibility of using retrocausality as a route to rejecting the conclusions of Bell’s theorem and restoring locality to quantum physics. On the other hand, it has also been argued that accepting nonlocality leads to a form of retrocausality. In this article we seek to elucidate the relationship between retrocausality and locality. We begin by providing a brief schema of the various ways in which violations of Bell’s inequalities (...) might lead us to consider some form of retrocausality. We then consider some possible motivations for using retrocausality to rescue locality, arguing that none of these motivations is sufficient to show that local retrocausal theories should always be preferred to nonlocal retrocausal theories, and therefore there is no clear reason to focus research efforts entirely on seeking local retrocausal models. Next, we examine several different conceptions of retrocausality, concluding that ‘all-at-once’ retrocausality is more coherent than the alternative dynamical picture. We then argue that since the ‘all-at-once’ approach requires probabilities to be assigned to entire histories, locality is not playing any crucial role within this picture. Thus we conclude that using retrocausality as a way to rescue locality may not be the right route to retrocausality. Finally, we demonstrate that accepting the existence of nonlocality and insisting on the nonexistence of preferred reference frames leads naturally to the acceptance of a form of retrocausality, albeit one which is not mediated by physical systems travelling backwards in time. We argue that this is the more natural way to motivate retrocausal models of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is an extraordinarily successful scientific theory. But more than 100 years after it was first introduced, the interpretation of the theory remains controversial. This Element introduces some of the most puzzling questions at the foundations of quantum mechanics and provides an up-to-date and forward-looking survey of the most prominent ways in which physicists and philosophers of physics have attempted to resolve them. Topics covered include nonlocality, contextuality, the reality of the wavefunction and the measurement problem. The discussion is (...) supplemented with descriptions of some of the most important mathematical results from recent work in quantum foundations, including Bell's theorem, the Kochen-Specker theorem and the PBR theorem. (shrink)

We argued in a recent issue of this journal that if abortion is restricted,1 then there are parallel obligations for parents to donate body parts to their children. The strength of this obligation to donate is proportional to the strength of the abortion restrictions. If abortion is never permissible, then a parent must always donate any organ if they are a match. If abortion is sometimes permissible and sometimes not, then organ donation is sometimes obligatory and sometimes not. Our argument (...) was based on the following ideas: (a) that a fetus has full moral status, (b) that parents have special obligations to their offspring, fetus or not, and (c) that this special obligation is to protect them. The result is the conclusion that abortion restrictivists cannot also consistently deny that organ donation should be compulsory. (shrink)

Belief polarization occurs when subjects who disagree about some matter of fact are exposed to a mixed body of evidence that bears on that dispute. While we might expect mutual exposure to common evidence to mitigate disagreement, since the evidence available to subjects comes to consist increasingly of items they have in common, this is not what happens. The subjects’ initial disagreement becomes more pronounced because each person increases confidence in her antecedent belief. Kelly aims to identify the mechanisms that (...) underlie this phenomenon and assess whether these processes undermine the justification of polarized beliefs. He concludes that given evidentialism, justification is not undermined by the polarizing mechanisms. I take on board Kelly’s description of the polarizing mechanisms, but challenge his conclusion. I argue that on plausible versions of evidentialism, the beliefs that result from these routes to polarization are not justified. (shrink)

It's well-known that Kant believed that intuition was central to an account of mathematical knowledge. What that role is and how Kant argues for it are, however, still open to debate. There are, broadly speaking, two tendencies in interpreting Kant's account of intuition in mathematics, each emphasizing different aspects of Kant's general doctrine of intuition. On one view, most recently put forward by Michael Friedman, this central role for intuition is a direct result of the limitations of the syllogistic logic (...) available to Kant. On this view, Kant's reasons for introducing intuition are taken to be logical or mathematical, rather than philosophical. The other tendency, which I shall try to develop here, emphasizes an epistemological or phenomenological role for intuition in mathematics arising out of what may loosely be called Kant's ‘antiformalism.’This paper, which focuses specifically on the case of geometry, falls into two parts. First, I consider Kant's discussion of intuition in the Metaphysical Exposition of the concept of space. (shrink)

Disturbances to one's sense of self, the feeling that one has ‘lost a part of oneself’ or that one ‘no longer feels like oneself,’ are frequently recounted throughout the bereavement literature. Engaging Allan Køster's important contribution to this issue, this article reinforces his suggestion that, by rupturing the existential texture of self-familiarity, bereavement can result in experiences of estrangement that can be meaningfully understood according to the concept of self-alienation. Nevertheless, I suggest that whilst Køster's relational interpretation of alienation as (...) the withdrawal of heteronomy can be applied to the experience of world-collapse in bereavement, what sets bereavement apart from other limit situations is the fact that it involves an intersubjective relation between the living and the dead. In contrast to Køster, therefore, I suggest that the experience of self-alienation that is distinctive to bereavement results from the fact that the bereaved is exposed to, and co-opted by, the absolute alterity of death itself. (shrink)

When a loved one dies, it is common for the bereaved to feel profoundly lonely, disconnected from the world with the sense that they no longer belong. In philosophy, this experience of ‘loss and loneliness’ has been interpreted according to both a loss of possibilities and a loss of the past. But it is unclear how these interpretations apply to the distinctive way in which loss and loneliness manifest in old age. Drawing on the phenomenological analyses of old age given (...) by de Beauvoir and Améry, I consider how the diminishment of the capacity for projection and recollection complicate recent interpretations of loss and loneliness, whilst nevertheless reinforcing the conclusion that in old age subjectivity is necessarily impoverished. Developing a critical stance on de Beauvoir and Améry’s underlying conception of subjectivity, I turn to Levinas in considering whether or not there is a way to reimagine subjectivity such that the estrangement and alienation of older adults might be ameliorated rather than exacerbated. Grounded in the passive body-in-itself rather than the self-transcending capacity of the body-for-itself, I suggest it becomes possible to reconceptualise the experience of loss and loneliness in old age; both in terms of what is lost and what needs to be restored if older adults are to be helped to find themselves at home in the world in the midst of, and indeed because of, manifold loss. (shrink)

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in tabletop experiments intended to exhibit the quantum nature of gravity by demonstrating that it can induce entanglement. In order to evaluate these experiments, we must determine if there is any interesting class of possibilities that will be convincingly ruled out if it turns out that gravity can indeed induce entanglement. In particular, since one argument for the significance of these experiments rests on the claim that they demonstrate the existence of (...) superpositions of spacetimes, it is important to keep in mind that different interpretations of quantum mechanics may make different predictions about superpositions of spacetimes. ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-complete interpretations of quantum mechanics, like the Everett interpretation, almost universally predict the existence of superpositions of spacetimes, whereas in ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-incomplete, ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-nonphysical interpretations it seems more natural to predict that spacetime superpositions are not possible. Meanwhile ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-incomplete, ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-supplemented interpretations present us with a more complex picture where we may or may not end up predicting that spacetime superpositions are possible, depending on the particular way in which the coupling between spacetime and matter is constructed. This line of reasoning suggests that what would be ruled out by a successful result to these tabletop experiments is a class of quantum gravity models that we refer to as ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-incomplete quantum gravity —i.e. models of the interaction between quantum mechanics and gravity in which gravity is coupled to non-quantum beables rather than quantum beables. It follows that the results of tabletop experiments can also be regarded as giving us new evidence about the interpretation of quantum mechanics: roughly speaking, a positive result to these experiments should increase our confidence in ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-complete interpretations, whilst a negative result should instead increase our confidence in ψ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\psi$$\end{document}-incomplete interpretations. We introduce these ideas in Sect. 1, and then in Sect. 2 we make the reasoning more precise by presenting a set of inferences that may be made about the ontology of quantum mechanics based on the results of tabletop experiments. In Sect. 3 we discuss some existing PIQG models and consider what more needs to be done to make these sorts of approaches more appealing. There are two competing paradigms for the interpretation of these experiments, which have been dubbed the ‘Newtonian’ paradigm and the ‘tripartite’ paradigm: here we largely work within the tripartite paradigm, because the tripartite view is specifically concerned with ontological aspects of the mediating gravitational interaction and that makes it a suitable setting for enquiries about the ontology of quantum mechanics, but in Sect. 4 we consider what conclusions can be drawn if one does not presuppose the tripartite view. Finally in Sect. 5 we discuss a cosmological phenomenon which could be regarded as providing evidence for PIQG models. (shrink)

Epistemologists have addressed a variety of modal epistemic standings, such as sensitivity, safety, risk, and epistemic virtue. These concepts mark out the ways that beliefs can fail to track the truth, articulate the conditions needed for knowledge, and indicate ways to become a better epistemic agent. However, it is our contention that current ways of carving up epistemic modality ignore the complexities that emerge when individuals are embedded within a community and listening to a variety of sources, some of whom (...) are intentionally engaged in deception or bullshit. In this context we want our beliefs to be secure. In this paper we translate the epistemic modal standing of safety into a framework appropriate for social epistemology and argue for the importance of epistemic network-security and belief-security to be added to this framework. We discuss the virtues that are salient for promoting network-security and the vices that undermine it. In particular, we highlight monitoring, adjusting, and restructuring virtues and vices. Importantly, each of these vices can be other-regarding or self-regarding. For example, one tempting way of dealing with insecurity within a network is to completely cut oneself off from biased sources. However, we argue that this is a self-regarding restructuring vice because it closes oneself off from opportunities for epistemic growth. By contrast, an other-regarding restructuring vice would be to cut off others from hearing from sources of information that would make their network more secure. (shrink)

Boredom is an affective experience that can involve pervasive feelings of meaninglessness, emptiness, restlessness, frustration, weariness and indifference, as well as the slowing down of time. An increasing focus of research in many disciplines, interest in boredom has been intensified by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, where social distancing measures have induced both a widespread loss of meaning and a significant disturbance of temporal experience. This article explores the philosophical significance of this aversive experience of ‘pandemic boredom.’ Using Heidegger’s work as (...) a unique vantage point, this article draws on survey data collected by researchers in an ongoing project titled ‘Experiences of Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic’ to give an original phenomenological interpretation of the meaninglessness and monotony of pandemic boredom. On a Heideggerian interpretation, pandemic boredom involves either a situative confrontation with relative meaninglessness that upholds our absorption in the everyday world, or an existential confrontation with absolute meaninglessness that forces us to take up the question of our existence. Arguing that boredom during the pandemic makes this distinction difficult to sustain, I consider some of the ways in which pandemic boredom might be seen to expose and then exceed the distinctive methodological limitations of Heidegger’s philosophical interpretation of boredom. (shrink)

Given a rich environment, how do we decide on what information to use? A view of a single entity (e.g., a group of birds) affords many distinct interpretations, including their number, average size, and spatial extent. An enduring challenge for cognition, therefore, is to focus resources on the most relevant evidence for any particular decision. In the present study, subjects completed three tasks—number discrimination, surface area discrimination, and convex hull discrimination—with the same stimulus set, where these three features were orthogonalized. (...) Therefore, only the relevant feature provided consistent evidence for decisions in each task. This allowed us to determine how well humans discriminate each feature dimension and what evidence they relied on to do so. We introduce a novel computational approach that fits both feature precision and feature use. We found that the most relevant feature for each decision is extracted and relied on, with minor contributions from competing features. These results suggest that multiple feature dimensions are separately represented for each attended ensemble of many items and that cognition is efficient at selecting the appropriate evidence for a decision. (shrink)

Despite frequent calls by players, managers and fans, FIFA's resistance to the implementation of goal-line technology (GLT) has been well documented in national print and online media as well as FIFA's own website. In 2010, FIFA president Sepp Blatter outlined eight reasons why GLT should not be used in football. The reasons given by FIFA can be broadly separated into three categories; those dealing with the nature and value of the game of football, those related to issues of justice, and (...) those concerned with the practical implementation of GLT. This paper intends to evaluate these eight reasons in order to assess whether there are, indeed, any good arguments against GLT in football. (shrink)

This article contributes to a growing conversation about the role of numbers in promoting gendered agendas in potentially contradictory ways. Drawing from interviews with gender advisors—the professionals tasked with mainstreaming gender in development projects—in an East African country, I begin from the paradox that gender advisors articulate a strong preference for qualitative data to best capture the lives of the women they aim to assist while voicing a need for quantitative metrics. I demonstrate that gender advisors come to imagine metrics (...) as expeditious bureaucratic tools able to inspire cooperation from otherwise reluctant coworkers. I argue that development organizations are gendered in ways—acutely seen in how advisors struggle, are sidelined, and attempt to advance their goals with numbers—that lead to the utility of valuing quantitative metrics over qualitative ones. I establish two theoretical contributions: Gendered organizations theory is essential to understanding the adoption and globalization of performance metrics, and in an age of evidence-based decision making, the utility of quantified data to garner resources is heightened, rewarding those who adopt quantified knowledge production. I coin the term “the paradox of quantified utility” to describe how these material advantages encourage even skeptics to value quantitative metrics. (shrink)

In 1912, Julian Huxley published his first book The Individual in the Animal Kingdom which he dedicated to the then world-famous French philosopher Henri Bergson. Historians have generally adopted one of two attitudes towards Huxley’s early encounter with Bergson. They either dismiss it entirely as unimportant or minimise it, deeming it a youthful indiscretion preceding Huxley’s full conversion to Fisherian Darwinism. Close biographical study and new archive materials demonstrate, however, that neither position is tenable. The Bergsonian elements in play in (...) Julian Huxley’s early works fed into his first ideas about progress in evolution and even his celebrated theories of bird courtship. Furthermore, the view that Huxley rejected Bergson in his later years needs to be revised. Although Huxley ended up claiming that Bergson’s theory of evolution had no explanatory power, he never repudiated the descriptive power of Bergson’s controversial notion of the élan vital. Even into the Modern Synthesis period, Huxley represented his own synthesis as drawing decisively on Bergson’s philosophy. (shrink)

Play is a vital component of the social life and well-being of both children and adults. This book examines the concept of play and considers a variety of the related philosophical issues. It also includes meta-analyses from a range of philosophers and theorists, as well as an exploration of some key applied ethical considerations. The main objective of The Philosophy of Play is to provide a richer understanding of the concept and nature of play and its relation to human life (...) and values, and to build disciplinary and paradigmatic bridges between scholars of philosophy and scholars of play. Including specific chapters dedicated to children and play, and exploring the work of key thinkers such as Plato, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Deleuze and Nietzsche, this book is invaluable reading for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in education, playwork, leisure studies, applied ethics or the philosophy of sport. (shrink)

There is a long tradition, in the history and philosophy of science, of studying Kant’s philosophy of mathematics, but recently philosophers have begun to examine the way in which Kant’s reflections on mathematics play a role in his philosophy more generally, and in its development. For example, in the Critique of Pure Reason , Kant outlines the method of philosophy in general by contrasting it with the method of mathematics; in the Critique of Practical Reason , Kant compares the Formula (...) of Universal Law, central to his theory of moral judgement, to a mathematical postulate; in the Critique of Judgement , where he considers aesthetic judgment, Kant distinguishes the mathematical sublime from the dynamical sublime. This last point rests on the distinction that shapes the Transcendental Analytic of Concepts at the heart of Kant’s Critical philosophy, that between the mathematical and the dynamical categories. These examples make it clear that Kant's transcendental philosophy is strongly influenced by the importance and special status of mathematics. The contributions to this book explore this theme of the centrality of mathematics to Kant’s philosophy as a whole. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. (shrink)

This article briefly considers current positions about whether the inclusion of the perspectives and interests of marginalised groups in the construction of knowledge is of epistemic value. It is then argued that applied social epistemology is the proper epistemic stance to take in evaluating this question. Theorists who have held that diversity makes an epistemic contribution are interpreted as attempting to reform social pathways to knowledge in ways that make true belief more likely. Thus, the demand for diversity challenges the (...) individualistic and a priori nature of traditional epistemology. This stance has consequences for education. It supports greater attention to helping students examine the testimonial bases for their beliefs. And it prepares students for their role as citizens in supporting policies that maintain credible inclusive institutions of public knowledge. (shrink)

Wallace has recently argued that a number of popular approaches to the measurement problem can’t be fully extended to relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory; Wallace thus contends that as things currently stand, only the unitary-only approaches to the measurement problem are viable. However, the unitary-only approaches face serious epistemic problems which may threaten their viability as solutions, and thus we consider that it remains an urgent outstanding problem to find a viable solution to the measurement problem which can (...) be extended to relativistic quantum mechanics. In this article we seek to understand in general terms what such a thing might look like. We argue that in order to avoid serious epistemic problems, the solution must be a single-world realist approach, and we further argue that any single-world realist approach which is able to reproduce the predictions of relativistic quantum mechanics will most likely have the property that our observable reality does not supervene on dynamical, precisely-defined microscopic beables. Thus we suggest three possible routes for further exploration: observable reality could be approximate and emergent, as in relational quantum mechanics with the addition of cross-perspective links, or observable reality could supervene on beables which are not microscopically defined, as in the consistent histories approach, or observable reality could supervene on beables which are not dynamical, as in Kent’s solution to the Lorentzian classical reality problem. We conclude that once all of these issues are taken into account, the options for a viable solution to the measurement problem are significantly narrowed down. (shrink)

Being a substitute in sport appears to contradict the rationale behind being involved in that sport, especially in those sports whereby substitutes frequently remain unused or are brought on to the field of play for the final moments of that game. For the coach or manager, substitutes function as a way to improve the team achieving a particular end, namely to win the game; whether to replace an injured or tired player, to change a team’s structure or tactics, to complete (...) a specialised manoeuvre (such as goal kicking in American football or a short corner in hockey), or to run down the clock. Whether a substitute is afforded an opportunity of playing the game appears to be directed by others; arguably if one had a choice in the matter one would chose to be on the field of play rather than off it. Nevertheless, the Existentialist position is that our situation is always inexorably one that is freely chosen. To argue that one has not freely chosen one’s position is to be ‘inauthentic’. Furthermore, to conceptualise one’s manifestation and to be treated by others as a thing ‘in-itself’ – such as a substitute - is to fall into ‘bad faith’. Culbertson (1) has already argued that elite competitive sport is an arena which promotes rather than avoids bad faith due to its constituent factors. Culbertson’s frame of reference primarily applied to sporting events that involve individuals competing in co-active, parallel competition - such as athletics, swimming or weightlifting - whereby bad faith is generated via a tacit acceptance of ever improving and quantifiable performance. The purpose of this paper is a continuation of such an enquiry but with a redirection of focus away from parallel competition byindividuals, towards team competitions which are, by nature, less concerned with an unremitting contest against time, distance or some other measurable concept. This paper sets out to examine the nature of the substitute in sport, who appears to be equally liable to find herself being ‘inauthentic’ and/or in ‘bad-faith’. It attempts to consider the nature of these concepts and offer direction as to how substitutes can attempt to realize the Existential ideal. (shrink)

Marine chronometers, often considered precision instruments, proliferated in navigational practices during the nineteenth century. This paper examines their use in the hands of naval officers in the early-nineteenth century. It argues that both the instruments and their operators required careful management and regulation. In addition, officers learnt and adapted observatory practices relating to the process of data collection and management. Through these means, chronometric data was collected, organized, and reduced to negotiate accurate results.

Music as Agency: Diversities of Perspectives on Artistic Citizenship focuses on the concept, application, interpretation and manifestation of Artistic Citizenship in diverse contexts. The key concepts that the book tackles are: Cultural experience, artistic practice, musical identities, equity, democracy, community, activism, resistance and empathy. In giving an overview of aspects of the compound concept of artistic citizenship, Akuno and Westvall present the outcome of research and interrogation of practice by a global network of educator-researchers from Africa, the Americas, Asia and (...) Europe. The book articulates notions of artistic citizenship, coming up with the term artizenship as a derivative of the composite term. It further explains and analyses practical ways of perceiving and relating to art spaces, art practices and arts objects towards belonging, being and becoming in a global space that is disparate, polarised and often alienating, and thus responding to issues such as social justice, identity, participation and inclusion. With a focus on music, the book targets musicians, scholars, educators and enthusiasts keen on gaining a deeper understanding of how music and musicking can influence human interactions towards social integration, trust, cultural awareness and intercultural understanding. (shrink)

This article explores the idea that there is a spectrum of individuals who feel compelled to dwell in the past, either due to psychological or social conditions. I analyze both conditions respectively by critically examining two cases: post-traumatic stress disorder and racialized oppression. I propose that individuals with PTSD can feel psychologically compelled to dwell in the past in a dually negative sense: the individual lives in the past but also broods on it, causing them to feel “stuck” in the (...) past. This kind of “dwelling” can cause individuals to suffer disruptions to their sense of self and intersubjectivity. After exploring the psychological case of dwelling in the past, I explore the social sense in which individuals can dwell in the past due to oppressive social structures by examining the case of racialized oppression. The case of racialization is philosophically stimulating because of its intersubjective dimensions—it subverts the idea that dwelling in the past is simply a psychological phenomenon by capturing that others can help or hinder us with maintaining a sense of self and future-directed intentionality. By putting the phenomenological work of Al-Saji into conversation with recent phenomenological research on incarceration, I propose that racialization can be similarly disruptive to one’s sense of self and intersubjectivity. The proposed account is suggestive that traumatic and oppressive experiences may amplify and compound each other in ways not yet well elucidated in the literature. If this account is taken to be persuasive, it is indicative that both psychological and social conditions mediate one’s temporality and well-being. (shrink)

Though it has gone unnoticed so far in Beauvoir Studies, the term “singularity” is a technical one for Simone de Beauvoir. In the first half of the essay I discuss two reasons why this term has been obscured. First, as is well known Beauvoir has not been read in the context of the history of philosophy until recently. Second, in The Ethics of Ambiguity at least, singularité is translated both inconsistently and quite misleadingly. In the second half of the essay (...) I attempt to demonstrate the importance of this term in The Ethics. The will to disclose being is the will to disclose the singularity of the other, whether human, land, sky or painting. Ambiguity, which Beauvoir distinguishes from absurdity in Camus, is an image suggesting this necessarily mutual disclosure of singularity. (shrink)

Despite having paved the way for face, womb and penis transplants, hand transplantation today remains a small hybrid of reconstructive microsurgery and transplant immunology. An exceptionally limited patient population internationally complicates medical researchers’ efforts to parse outcomes “objectively.” Presumed functional and psychosocial benefits of gaining a transplant hand must be weighed in both patient decisions and bioethical discussions against the difficulty of adhering to post-transplant medications, the physical demands of hand transplant recovery on the patient, and the serious long-term health (...) risks of immunosuppressant drugs. This paper relates five narratives of hand transplantation drawn from an oral history project to show how narrative methods can and should inform ethical evaluations and the clinical process of hand transplantation. The interviews with patients and their partners analyzed here lead us to suggest that qualitative accounts of patient experiences should be used to complement clinical case studies reported in medical journals and to help develop instruments to assess outcomes more systematically. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Standing UpEmily QuinnA 10–year old and her mother walk into a male gynecologist’s office. That sounds like the beginning of a sick joke, right? Imagine how it must have felt to actually be that 10–year–old. I walked into the Salt Lake City ob–gyn office, terrified out of my mind. It was the year 1999 and due to the recent accessibility of the Internet, there was a surprising amount of (...) information about complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) available. There was also an active and prominent support group for women with CAIS and other similar conditions. Despite all of this, I was standing in the office of a doctor who knew nothing about my body. He did not direct me to any actual support, and for the next twelve years I went from doctor to doctor, none of them really knowing what to do with me. For as much as I was in and out of the doctor’s office, I never seemed to receive any “care.”It was really difficult to have doctors who knew nothing about my condition. It was scary to be a kid with hundreds of questions but without an adult who had the answers. So many doctors were excited to look at me, to talk to me, to get the chance to meet me. As a child it made me feel like a freak. I felt alone, and scared, like I was on parade for all of these people who didn’t know anything about me except that I was “special.”I was savvy enough to turn to the Internet for help, but searching for “sex disorders” online was a terrifying thing to do back then. Even now, it’s not a safe space for a pre–teen looking for answers. I was so scared and ashamed of my body, and I desperately wanted someone to talk to about it. I found articles about celebrities who were rumored to be like me, and I saw the word “hermaphrodite” thrown around as carelessly as it had been used in my doctor’s office. I wished desperately that one of those celebrities would admit to having a body like mine. Because if any of them were like me, maybe I wouldn’t be the freak that the adults made me feel like I was. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so alone.As hard as all of this was, in a way my doctor’s lack of knowledge turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. I felt cursed and ashamed of this different, “broken” body that couldn’t be “fixed.” I felt like a problem that nobody had the solution to. I was told so many lies—that I would definitely get cancer, that I could never have sex, that I needed surgery immediately. Not once was I ever told the truth—that there were hundreds of others out there I could talk to, that I didn’t do anything wrong, that I was going to be okay. My doctors didn’t point me in the direction of a support group or a therapist who could help me work through what it all meant. In Utah, the most important thing a woman can do is to have children, and it was devastating to learn I would not to be able to conceive. I wish any of my doctors had pointed me in the direction of a professional I could talk to about it.It wasn’t until I was older that I discovered the blessing amongst all of this pain. As it turns out, my doctors were so entirely ignorant about my condition that they didn’t know how to remove or even find my internal testes. I’ve managed to make it 25 years without surgery. Now, when I speak to medical students, many of them balk at this idea that surgery is something I’ve “escaped.” But I know how many affected individuals see it as I do. It’s incredibly lucky that somebody with CAIS is surgically untouched, and I fully believe that rarity to be the saddest thing. It shouldn’t be the norm to... (shrink)

Critics of the Implicit Association Test —a measure of the strength of a person’s automatic, memory-based association between two concepts, such as “black” and “threatening” or “white” and “caring”—have at least three main objections. Their symmetry argument is that the IAT should but does not give equally valid results for black-on-white and white-on-black racism. Their cultural-awareness argument is that the IAT illegitimately presupposes that use of racial stereotypes presupposes no stereotype acceptance, only stereotype awareness. Their completeness argument is that at (...) best the IAT measures only questionable or implicit, not explicit, bias because IAT ignores the fact that subjects’ conscious desires to avoid bias often enable them to check their biased behavior. Examining each of these anti-IAT stances, the paper summarizes the IAT and then argues for 6 main claims. Clarifying concepts like racism is important for progress in social science. IAT critics’ SA presupposes an ahistorical/acultural concept of racism. IAT critics’ AA presupposes a linguistically-insensitive concept of racism, one presupposing that the language we use provides no behavioral evidence for racism. IAT critics’ CA presupposes a concept of racism subject to conscious, deliberate control. IAT proponents endorse a more plausible concept of racism, one that is contextual, linguistically sensitive, and often not susceptible to conscious control. Although the IAT debate is unsettled, IAT critics’ use of a questionable concept of racism gives grounds for doubting their claims. (shrink)

Typical hermeneutical approaches to the Deuteronomic Code, and to scriptural legal codes more generally, attend to genre either for the sake of historical-critical concerns as an end in themselves, or as a gateway to abstracted content. This article argues, conversely, that the genre of the code is not disconnected from its content, and that its form—imaginative, pragmatic propositions based on communal hope—can and should be imitated in the practice of theological ethics. As best seen in Deuteronomy 15, the communicative genius (...) of the code is that it (1) imagines a specific, viable future, (2) empowers moral agency, (3) forges communal identity, and (4) addresses unique historical situations. Appropriating the genre, rather than the content, thus has unique potential to give traction to modern ethical scholarship through conscious, kerygmatic contingency. (shrink)

abstract: In 1880s Britain, Constance Naden defended “hylo-idealism,” a theory aiming to unify materialism with idealism. This paper offers the first sustained study of Naden’s metaphysical system. On this new reading of Naden’s hylo-idealism, her materialism is carefully qualified; and her idealism is distinctively Kantian, her construal of the external cosmos as Unknown placing her within the Victorian school of metaphysical agnostics. I distinguish Naden’s system from that of fellow hylo-idealist Robert Lewins and argue it lies closer to that of (...) evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley. Against various critics, I show that Naden has the resources to rebuff objections facing hylo-idealism. This paper seeks to open further avenues for Naden scholarship and help us better understand Victorian metaphysics more generally. (shrink)