This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

In this paper we investigate how different discourses on frugal innovation are articulated, and how the dynamics between these different discourses have led to a certain dominant understanding of frugal innovation today. We analyse the dynamic interactions between three discourses on frugal innovation: innovations for the poor, grassroots innovations by the poor, and more recently co-creating frugal innovations with the poor. We argue that this latter discourse is articulated as a hegemonic project as it is designed to accommodate demands from (...) both business and poor communities. We draw on Laclau and Mouffe’s concepts of ‘chain of difference’, ‘empty signifier’ and ‘floating signifier’ to explain the advent of the hegemonic discourse on co-creating innovations with the poor. We show how a floating signifier with radical potential, frugal innovation, has been hijacked and co-opted in a hegemonic project that has leveraged powerful ambiguous signifiers, with co-creation acting as an empty signifier. To clarify what is problematic in this hegemonic intervention, we expose how contemporary frugal innovation discourse contributes to a project of governing and exploiting rather than helping the poor, in ways that benefit formal economic actors while further worsening global inequalities. (shrink)

It may appear that there are grounds for an alliance between opponents of enhancement and disability advocates. People from both camps condemn parents who aspire to improve the physical and psychological traits their children would otherwise be born with, a condemnation often expressed as an accusation of eugenics. Despite these superficial appearances, the author will argue that disability advocates have nothing to applaud in Michael Sandel’s critique of enhancement, which is based on false and sometimes pernicious claims about the value (...) of ‘normal’ human beings. However, they will also argue that disability advocates fail to provide convincing reasons for condemning parental decisions to avoid or eliminate certain traits their children would otherwise be born with. Contrary to what disability advocates and opponents of enhancement suggest, it is often a violation rather than an instantiation of parental virtue to abandon judgements about whether one’s children’s biological givens should be changed. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in disability is rapidly expanding. Philosophers are beginning to grasp the complexity of disability--as a category, with respect to well-being and as a marker of identity. However, the philosophical literature on justice and human rights has often been limited in scope and somewhat abstract. Not enough sustained attention has been paid to the concrete claims made by people with disabilities, concerning their human rights, their legal entitlements and their access to important goods, services and resources. This book discusses (...) how effectively philosophical approaches to distributive justice and human rights can support these concrete claims. It argues that these approaches often fail to lend clear support to common disability demands, revealing both the limitations of existing philosophical theories and the inflated nature of some of these demands. Moving beyond entitlements, the author also develops a unique conception of dignity, which she argues illuminates the specific indignities experienced by people with disabilities in the allocation of goods, in the common experience of discrimination and in a wide range of interpersonal interactions. Disability with Dignity offers an accessible and extended philosophical discussion of disability, justice and human rights. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the benefits and pitfalls of theories of human rights and justice for advancing justice for the disabled. It brings the moral importance of dignity to the centre, arguing that justice must be pursued in a way that preserves and promotes the dignity of people with disabilities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Serene Khader’s effort to develop a decolonized approach to transnational feminism takes a helpfully nonideal approach. Much of decolonial theory has criticized universalism in order to espouse pluralism. Khader attempts to develop a form of minimalist universalism compatible with a significant dose of pluralism in regard to how we understand liberation from gender-based forms of oppression, and she effectively shows how the nonideal, meliorative approach can do this. I address three issues here: (1) the serious challenge her universalist account (...) poses to critical theory and some other trends in continental philosophy; (2) the persuasive analysis of, approach to, and critique that she makes of ‘gender role eliminativism’ and (3) the epistemic and dialogic questions left remaining in her defense of feminist universalism, in relation to who can theoretically formulate the universal. (shrink)

This book examines the works of major artists between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as important barometers of individual and collective values toward non-human life. Once viewed as merely representational, these works can also be read as tangential or morally instrumental by way of formal analysis and critical theories. Chapter Two demonstrates the discrimination toward large and small felines in Genesis and The Book of Revelation. Chapter Three explores the cruel capture of free roaming animals and how artists depicted their (...) furs, feathers and shells in costume as symbols of virtue and vice. Chapter Four identifies speciest beliefs between donkeys and horses. Chapter Five explores the altered Dutch kitchen spaces and disguised food animals in various culinary constructs in still life painting. Chapter Six explores the animal substances embedded in pigments. Chapter Seven examines animals in absentia-in the crafting of brushes. The book concludes with the fish paintings of William Merritt Chase whose glazing techniques demonstrate an artistic approach that honors fishes as sentient beings. (shrink)

To account for a perceived distinction it is necessary to postulate a real distinction. Our process of experiencing the world is one of, mostly unconscious, interpretation of observed distinctions to provide us with a partial world-picture that is sufficient to guide action. The distinctions, themselves, are acorrigible (they do not have a truth value), directly perceived, structured, and capable of being interpreted. Interpreted experience is corrigible, representational and capable of guiding action. Since interpretation is carried out mostly unconsciously and in (...) real time, the two aspects are present in experience together so that it is difficult to separate them out. (shrink)

This paper examines whether the prospect of compensation may render otherwise disproportionate harms proportionate. It argues that we should reject this possibility. Instead, it distinguishes duties of compensation as a requirement of rectificatory justice from a harm’s degree of compensability, and argues that only the latter is relevant to proportionality. On this view, failing to compensate constitutes a distinct wrong, while harms that are not adequately compensable carry extra weight in proportionality calculations. This explains how the prospect of compensation affects (...) permissions to harm, without relying on the dubious assumption that disproportionate harms may be rendered proportionate by future compensation. (shrink)

In his epistles, St. Paul sounded a universalism that has recently been taken up by secular philosophers who do not share his belief in Christ, but who regard his project as centrally important for contemporary political life. The Pauline project—as they see it—is the universality of truth, the conviction that what is true is true for everyone, and that the truth should be known by everyone. In this volume, eminent New Testament scholars, historians, and philosophers debate whether Paul's promise can (...) be fulfilled. Is the proper work of reading Paul to reconstruct what he said to his audiences? Is it crucial to retrieve the sense of history from the text? What are the philosophical undercurrents of Paul's message? This scholarly dialogue ushers in a new generation of Pauline studies. (shrink)

Hoping to expand upon public philosophy endeavors within higher education, the following captures the story behind the course Dialogue, Integration, and Action. The course has yielded a number of innovative pedagogical tools and engagement strategies likely to be of value to philosophy instructors seeking to explore a more participatory, experiential educational approach. As a transdisciplinary, community-engaged philosophy class, it engages students in the theories and practices of deliberative democracy and activism, encouraging the development of dialogic skills for their personal, professional, (...) and civic lives. By documenting the community-instructor-student collaborative design of the university course; the feminist pragmatist philosophic commitments underlying its design; the community-led and student-facilitated dialogue and the subsequent public report, as well as the impact of this work on the students, the community partner, and the instructor, the article highlights the benefits and the challenges of undergraduate philosophic engagement that emerges from and responds to place-based needs. (shrink)

A major theme in recent psychoanalytic thinking concerns the use of therapist subjectivity, especially "countertransference," in understanding patients. This thinking converges with and expands developments in qualitative research regarding the use of researcher subjectivity as a tool to understanding, especially but not exclusively in observational and interview-based studies. Psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approaches to research add an emphasis on unconscious motivational processes in both researchers and research participants that impact research experience and data. Building upon Anglo-Saxon and continental traditions, this special (...) issue provides examples of the use of researcher subjectivity, informed by psychoanalytic thinking, in expanding research understanding. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Charles Wade Mills was one of the most influential and recognized philosophers in the English- speaking world and played a major role in changing the discourse of political philosophy. But how did he come to be? This article offers a personal remembrance and an account of his emerging ideas about race and racism as developed in some of his key texts. It also explores the relationship between his philosophy and his Jamaican background, arguing that the everyday practices of cognitive (...) resistance in Jamaican society provided him with both inspiration and specific ideas. (shrink)

This paper focuses on disagreement spaces fused with emotion. Following Gilbert’s emotional mode of argumentation (1997), further expansions of the mode are made here, specifically for the purposes of being able to classify different types of emotional arguments. First, general concerns with arguments that stray from the traditional approach are addressed. Then a classification system for different types of emotional arguments is developed. Some of the criteria that help determine emotional arguments include dialogue types, arguers involved, as well as the (...) use of emotion. (shrink)

This is an edited collection that is intended both as a primer for core concepts and principles in research ethics and as an in-depth exploration of the contextualisation of these principles in practice across key disciplines.

The concept of the soul, one of the greatest 'inventions' of Greek philosophy, which crossed the whole history of the Western civilisation, was defined in its fundamental philosophical features by Plato. Developing the numerous issues naturally linked to this concept, Plato's thought does not only focus on metaphysical and religious themes, but also to all issues related to spirituality and the human psyche, including their ethical consequences. Therefore, the concept of soul opens the door to an endless process involving the (...) analysis of a subject's interiority. It is not by chance, that this Platonic theme recurs in many texts and even represents the backbone of whole dialogues. In this collection, some of the most important contemporary Platonic scholars looked at these complex philosophical issues from innovative perspectives, especially with regard to texts that previously were either underestimated or largely ignored. This perspective gives the reader a chance to evaluate the hermeneutic power of different approaches and interpretations of Plato's texts, revaluating as well the richness of Plato's contribution to questions that have been received and developed in contemporary philosophical reflections. (shrink)

As a companion to How to Read a Paragraph, this volume in the Thinker’s Guide Library helps students develop clear, effective and meaningful written communication skills using critical thinking tools. If you want your students to develop well reasoned papers, and improve their overall reasoning abilities, this guide is a must.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Xiong Shili’s Treatise on Reality and Function by Xiong ShiliLinda Anna Pietrasanta (bio)Xiong Shili’s Treatise on Reality and Function. By Xiong Shili, an Annotated Translation by John Makeham. Oxford Chinese Thought Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. Pp. xliii + 252, Paper $39.95, ISBN 978-0-19-768869-4.John Makeham’s translation of Xiong Shili’s 熊十力 (1885-1968) Tiyong lun 體用 論 [Treatise on Reality and Function] is a major steppingstone for the (...) study of Xiong’s thought. This text, especially when compared to his earlier works, has been largely overlooked both by his contemporaries and scholars interested in his philosophy up to the present day. After all, writing about Buddhism and focusing on the examination of the metaphysical problem of ti and yong during the 1950s--the Tiyong lun was redacted between 1956 and 1957--had considerably less grasp on the general Weltanschauung of the time, compared to the 1920s and 1930s when Xiong produced his most influential works. However, the Tiyong lun is crucial for gaining a comprehensive understanding of Xiong’s philosophical system, as it represents the culmination of his intellectual endeavours. And with this translation, alongside his 2015 translation of the Xin Weishi lun 新唯識論 [Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness], John Makeham provides English-speaking readers with the essential tools to do so. In fact, Xiong himself described the Tiyong lun as a revision of his Xin Weishi lun, making Makeham’s choice of translating precisely these two treatises even more fitting.The Treatise consists of four chapters, with a fifth one--titled Ming xin pian 明心篇 [Explaining Mind]--originally included but later removed and published as a separate book. Generally speaking, the first and fourth chapters--Ming bian 明 變 [Explaining Transformation] and Chengwu 成物 [Forming Material Things]--are primarily focused on presenting the author’s distinctive philosophical position, while the two central chapters--Fofa shang 佛法上 [Buddhist Teachings, A] and Fofa xia 佛法下 [Buddhist Teachings, B]--offer a thorough critique of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhism.The main aim of the Treatise is to solve “the cosmological problem of the non-duality of Reality and function” (p. 5). Reality (ti 體) is glossed by Xiong as benti 本體 or shiti 實體, understood as the unconditioned, constitutive foundation and origin of ‘its’ function (yong 用), which refers to the realm of phenomena that, in turn, take Reality (ti) as their essence or intrinsic nature. The [End Page 1] fundamental idea underlying Xiong’s entire philosophical endeavour is that ti and yong are not two separate realms (contrary, for example, to the traditional creationist framework of monotheistic religions, where the principle transcends the things it creates) and must be understood as literally “not two” (bu er 不二).The Tiyong lun, although written in the 1950s during the Communist era, does not directly address political issues. As mentioned, it focuses on the problem of ti-yong and, therefore, is a text that should (in Xiong’s view at least) be considered abstracted from its specific historical context, since the conclusion of the non-duality of Reality and function is absolute and universal. However, it is interesting to note that Xiong includes a brief critique of materialism (weiwuzhuyi 唯物主義 ) in the text--again by means of the ti-yong framework--which is somewhat unusual given the materialistic foundation of Marxism (and Communism, as its derivation). Beyond the specific case of the Tiyong lun, the issue of Xiong’s relationship with Communist hegemony is debated.1 On the one hand, the fact that he managed to write and publish a metaphysical work such as the Tiyong lun during the 1950s shows that he retained some leeway and room for manoeuvre. This was likely due to the fact that, by this point, his philosophical works were not as influential as those written during the Republican era. On the other hand, especially in the case of his post-1949 works on ethics (such as Yuan Ru 原儒 [To the Origin of the Ru]), it should be noted that Xiong began to employ Marxist terminology and even attempted a “Marxisation” of the figure of Confucius. However, this is not strongly reflected in the Tiyong lun.Although the scope of the Treatise is laid out straightforwardly, it is a... (shrink)

In this text we will focus on the interpretation of law, specifically on the question of how the meaning of legal texts is created and recreated through judicial interpretation of law. To be able to explain how this happens, we will use the philosophy of language, in particular the philosophy of the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wilfrid Sellars and Robert B. Brandom. In their view, language is not a tool that serves primarily and exclusively to describe a world that exists independently (...) of us and our attitudes, but through language we co-create the world we live in. Many of the things we perceive in the world around us are accessible to us and exist because of our language. (shrink)

Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy is the go-to text for readers interested in Hannah Arendt’s theory of judgment. Arendt’s discussion of Kantian aesthetic judgments of taste is typically associated with her own view. However, readers who find her interpretation idiosyncratic, if not wrongheaded, distinguish the author of the Critique of Judgment from Arendt’s Kant. Rather than debate who got Kant ‘right’, this essay explores what Arendt discovered about judging politically by reading Kant in her own Arendtian way. Judgment was present (...) early in her political thinking, for judgment deals with the particular and ‘the problem of the new’. As such, judgment concerns the realm of human affairs that the Western philosophical tradition has found unworthy of serious study due to its ever-changing and contingent nature. Beholden to the standards set by philosophy, political thought has been unable to make sense of its subject matter, which is action and ‘men in the plural’. Clarifying what it means to judge politically was crucial to Arendt’s lifelong effort to disentangle politics from philosophy and its focus on ‘Man in the singular’. (shrink)

"Here is an excerpt. If you like where Collier goes with this you'll like the rest of the book: "I believe we make a mistake if we think that modern man is a rational creature. While it is a mark of primitive man to respond directly to the non logical and less rationally defensible images projected by the psyche, similar primitive or elemental responses lurk behind the civilized faced of which we are so proud. For example, we might be (...) somewhat amused by the cave dweller's belief that because he possessed the image of an animal he had gained some power capable of controlling the creature's life. But do we not believe something of the sort when we cherish the photograph of someone important to us and think carefully as to where it should be placed - where is the place we can contemplate it the most effectively? Can we honestly say that in possessing this image of a person we do not feel that some intangible link exists between us and them? And could we willfully and with passion deface the photograph without the irrational thought overtaking us that we had done some harm to the relationship and to the person concerned?"" -- customer review, Amazon.com. (shrink)

Exploring a fifty-mile territory, Linda and Carolyn Dufurrena vividly depict the heart of the West and its fabled ranch culture in a beautiful collaboration of essays and full color images.

This paper examines what prevents us from legally enforcing the moral imperative of protecting human rights during military operations carried out for distinctly humanitarian purposes. The answer, I argue, lies not in familiar objections to bringing the law into greater congruence with morality, but in international law's indeterminacy regarding the use of force. Preserving stability within the nascent international legal system comes at the cost of a law that eschews the protection of individual rights even in cases in which the (...) protection of human rights is what justifies military action. The tension between state sovereignty and the protection of human rights thus not only generates well-known controversies about the lawfulness of military intervention. It also prevents us from devising laws to protect human rights during wars whose very purpose it is to stop human rights violations. Protecting human rights during humanitarian interventions may thus remain an undertaking as quixotic as it is morally urgent. (shrink)

A delightfully straightforward and lyrical retelling of the ancient Indian epic of loyalty, betrayal, redemption, and insight into the true nature of life -- one of history's most sacred ethical works, rendered with completeness and sterling accuracy for the modern reader. Here is one of the world's most hallowed works of sacred literature, the grand, sweeping epic of the divine bowman and warrior Rama and his struggles with evil, power, duplicity, and avarice. The Ramayana is one of the foundations of (...) world literature and one of humanity's most ancient and treasured ethical and spiritual works. 'This new version is so simply and beautifully written -- it will stir the soul!' --David Lynch. (shrink)

This essay assesses the debate over “moral reading” and “originalist” approaches to constitutional interpretation, as elaborated in James E. Fleming, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution: For Moral Readings and Against Originalism (2015), by evaluating the recent, momentous constitutional controversy in the United Sates of America over access by same-sex couples to civil marriage. Justice Kennedy’s landmark majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which held that such couples have a fundamental right to marry, employed a “moral reading” in emphasizing evolving (...) understandings of constitutional guarantees of equality, the “promise of liberty” and the institution of marriage. By contrast to the dissenters, the majority rejected a static, narrow reading of the fundamental right to marry —and marriage— and stressed the role “insight” and generational progress. Evolving understanding played a similar role in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2013), which provided a template for Kennedy’s rejection of a narrow originalism focused only on historical practices or original intent. Such moral readings of the Constitution have played a significant role in making the Fourteenth Amendment less of (in Justice Ginsburg’s words) an “empty cupboard” for gay men and lesbians, just as they have played a role in making it less empty in the context of sex equality. This essay demonstrates how the contrasting approaches to interpretation in the majority and dissenting opinions in DeBoer v. Snyder (reversed by Obergefell) previewed the interpretive battle between the Obergefell majority and dissents, but with the sides reversed. It then observes that, while some legal scholars offered, in amicus briefs filed in Obergefell, originalist arguments for same-sex marriage, such arguments persuaded neither other originalist scholars nor the Obergefell dissenters. (shrink)

United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) and UN agencies utilized techniques of power and negotiation to implement radiation exposure regulations. USAEC affiliated scientists’ expertise was cultivated while establishing a radiation protection regime based on classified experiments. World Health Organization (WHO) leadership sought to manifest a human right to health, including a right to protection from radiation contamination. The careers of a few technical experts and interagency UN correspondence shows how American risk models of radiation regulation traveled and ultimately inhibited WHO (...) attempts to frame radiation as a public health threat. The USAEC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) navigated WHO’s way of perceiving radiation with technical experts and bureaucratic and legislative means. This paper shows the underpinning at the UN of competing models of radiation regulation, one state centric and the other, an individual right to health. This narrative provides insights into the nature of the UN’s current conceptualization of radiation regulation and argues for further research into UN, radiation, and human rights history. (shrink)

Academic medical ethics must be a bulwark against a disturbing trend toward post-truth cultures. Activism of course has its place in massive cultural debates like abortion. The fact that so many people care so deeply about these debates is part of what makes them so important. But especially when coming from clinicians, academics, and others to whom we entrust the care of our public discourse, interventions into the debates must be disciplined by a thoroughgoing commitment to engage with the available (...) data to back up the central claims even when those claims seem like common sense—perhaps especially when they seem like common sense. (shrink)

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.