The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) defines melancholia as “A mental state characterized by very severe depressi...

Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, hyperbolized autonomy, abstract individualism, and exploitation of people and places that western epistemologies of mastery have legitimated. It proposes a politics of epistemic location, sensitive to the interplay of particularity and diversity, and focused on responsible epistemic practices. Starting from an epistemological approach implicit in Rachel Carson’s scientific projects, the book draws, constructively and critically, on ecological theory (...) and practice, on (post-Quinean) naturalized epistemology, and on feminist and post-colonial theory. Analyzing extended examples from developmental psychology, from medicine and law, and from circumstances where vulnerability, credibility, and public trust are at issue, the argument addresses the constitutive part played by an instituted social imaginary in shaping and regulating human lives. The practices and examples discussed invoke the responsibility requirements central to this text’s larger purpose of imagining, crafting, articulating a creative, innovative, instituting social imaginary, committed to interrogating entrenched hierarchical social structures, en route to enacting principles of ideal cohabitation. (shrink)

The arguments in this book are informed at once by the moral-political implications of how knowledge is produced and circulated and by issues of gendered subjectivity. In their critical dimension, these lucid essays engage with the incapacity of the philosophical mainstream's dominant epistemologies to offer regulative principles that guide people in the epistemic projects that figure centrally in their lives. In its constructive dimension, ____Rhetorical__ ____Spaces__ focuses on developing productive, case-by-case analyses of knowing other people in situations where social-political inequalities (...) create asymmetrical patterns of epistemic power and privilege. (shrink)

The Jewish religious tradition summons its adherents to save life. For religious Jews preservation of life is the ultimate religious commandment. At the same time Jewish law recognizes that the agony of a moribund person may not be stretched. When the time to die has come this has to be respected. The process of dying should not needlessly be prolonged. We discuss the position of two prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities – the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi J David Bleich (...) – towards the role of life-sustaining treatment in end-of-life care. From the review, the characteristic halachic and heterogeneous character of Jewish ethical reasoning appears. The specificity of Jewish dealing with ethical dilemmas in health care indicates the importance for contemporary healthcare professionals of providing care which is sensitive to a patient’s culture and worldview. (shrink)

I evaluate post-Quinean naturalized epistemology as a resource for postcolonial and feminist epistemology. I argue that naturalistic inquiry into material conditions and institutions of knowledge production has most to offer epistemologists committed to maintaining continuity with the knowledge production of specifically located knowers. Yet naturalistic denigrations of folk epistemic practices and stereotyped, hence often oppressive, readings of human nature challenge the naturalness of the nature they claim to study. I outline an ecologically modelled epistemology that focuses on questions of epistemic (...) responsibility and community, while refusing the reductivism of totalizing theory, and producing realistic moral-epistemic analyses of specific, local epistemic resources to ground its normative injunctions. (shrink)

Fifteen essays examine the work of German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer to provide feminist interpretations of his views on science, language, history, ...

Order and Organism shows how Alfred North Whitehead's thought can reconcile some of the most insistent demands of common sense with the esoteric results of modern physics and mathematics.

Samuel Butler, a contemporary critic of Charles Darwin, proffered an alternative, vitalistic account of evolution. At the same time, he put into question all modern naturalistic treatments of this fundamental idea which presuppose that evolution is mainly a scientific problem. On the contrary, Butler in effect insists, this extremely vague idea calls for not an `explanation' but rather a fairly comprehensive, plausible story that helps elucidate an inherently complex idea. Butler can thus be read as outlining an anthropomorphic metaphorics that (...) evokes a living Cosmos wherein it might be possible to do justice to the problem which Darwin left unresolved---the problem of heredity. In this picture of the Cosmos Butler links the fundamental notion of organization not to the allegedly universal and immutable `laws of nature,' as the moderns would have it, but rather to dynamically evolving relationships between only more or less stable habits. The variations in extant habits that emergence elicits are moreover the products of quasi-intelligent responses to new challenges from the environment. For Butler follows Lamarck in holding that all organisms possess powers capable of responding to felt needs and/or desires to make alterations in the habits (or instincts) that characterize their modes of existence. He thus in the end effectively bequeaths to his readers a challenge to extend and amplify, if possible, his outline of a promising metaphysical imaginary that can take into account some highly unorthodox conjectures. Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}. (shrink)

Advances in modern mathematics indicate that progress in this field of knowledge depends mainly on culturally inflected imaginative intuitions, or intuitive imaginings—which mysteriously result in the growth of systems of symbolism that are often efficacious, although fallible and very likely evolutionary. Thus the idea that a trouble-free epistemology can be constructed out of an intuition-free mathematical naturalism would seem to be question begging of a very high order. I illustrate the point by examining Philip Kitcher’s attempt to frame an empiricist (...) philosophy of mathematics, which he calls “mathematical naturalism,” wherein he proposes to explain novelty in mathematics by means of the notion of ‘rational interpractice transitions,’ only to end with an appeal to science to supply a meaning for rationality. A more promising naturalistic approach is adumbrated by Noam Chomsky who begins with a straightforward acceptance of mind and language as ‘natural’ or concrete facts which bespeak the need for a linguistic faculty. This indicates in turn that there may also be a mathematical faculty capable of generating and exploiting the powers of mathematical symbolisms in a manner analogous to the linguistic faculty. (shrink)

In this lively and accessible book Lorraine Code addresses one of the most controversial questions in contemporary theory of knowledge, a question of fundamental concern for feminist theory as well: Is the sex of the knower epistemologically significant? Responding in the affirmative, Code offers a radical alterantive to mainstream philosophy's terms for what counts as knowledge and how it is to be evaluated. Code first reviews the literature of established epistemologies and unmasks the prevailing assumption in Anglo-American (...) philosophy that "the knower" is a value-free and ideologically neutral abstraction. Approaching knowledge as a social construct produced and validated through critical dialogue, she defines the knower in light of a conception of subjectivity based on a personal relational model. Code maps out the relevance of the particular people involved in knowing: their historical specificity, the kinds of relationships they have, the effects of social position and power on those relationships, and the ways in which knowledge can change both knower and known. In an exploration of the politics of knowledge that mainstream epistemologies sustain, she examines such issues as the function of knowledge in shaping institutions and the unequal distribution of cognitive resources. What Can She Know? will raise the level of debate concerning epistemological issues among philosophers, political and social scientists, and anyone interested in feminist theory. (shrink)

Having adequate knowledge of the world is not just a matter of survival but also one of obligation. This obligation to "know well" is what philosophers have termed "epistemic responsibility." In this innovative and eclectic study, Lorraine Code explores the possibilities inherent in this concept as a basis for understanding human attempts to know and understand the world and for discerning the nature of intellectual virtue. By focusing on the idea that knowing is a creative process guided by imperatives (...) of epistemic responsibility, Code provides a fresh perspective on the theory of knowledge. From this new perspective, Code poses questions about knowledge that have a different focus from those traditionally raised in the two leading epistemological theories, foundationalism and coherentism. While not rejecting these approaches, this new position moves away from a primary concentration on determinate products and towards an examination of ever-changing processes. Arguing that knowledge never exists as an ungrounded abstraction but rather emerges through dialogue between variously authoritative "knowers" situated within particular social and historical contexts, she draws extensively on examples from lived social experience to illustrate the ways in which human beings have long tried to recognize and meet their epistemic responsibilities. This edition of Epistemic Responsibility includes a new preface from Lorraine Code"--Provided by the publisher. (shrink)

Information?rich environments are created to promote data use in schools for the purpose of self?evaluation and quality assurance. However, providing feedback does not guarantee that schools will actually put it to use. One of the main stumbling blocks relates to the interpretation and diagnosis of the information. This study examines the relationship between data literacy competences, support given in interpreting the information, actual use of the feedback and potential school improvement effect. A randomised field experiment with 188 school principals from (...) primary education was set up and a post?test was used to investigate the effects of a support initiative. The results revealed that a minority of schools invested significantly in the interpretation and diagnosis of the school performance feedback (SPF), despite the fact that most of the respondents showed an interest in the SPF report. In addition, data competence support and the subsequent use of feedback were found to be limited. (shrink)

In a remarkable development, I have constructed a new definition for a self-delimiting universal Turing machine (UTM) that is easy to program and runs very quickly. This provides a new foundation for algorithmic information theory (AIT), which is the theory of the size in bits of programs for selfdelimiting UTM's. Previously, AIT had an abstract mathematical quality. Now it is possible to write down executable programs that embody the constructions in the proofs of theorems. So AIT goes from dealing with (...) remote idealized mythical objects to being a theory about practical down-to-earth gadgets that one can actually play with and use. (shrink)

Modern, science-centered naturalisms can be charged with a certain moral laxity, according to S. T. Coleridge. This fault reflectsnbsp; a devitalizing, materialistic metaphysics informed by a narrow and self-serving conception of reason. Thus seeking a remedy that can bring justice to the spiritual as well as the physical aspects of experience, Coleridge envisages a lsquo;true naturalismrsquo; that will not only address the question lsquo;What is Life?rsquo; but also frame a lsquo;true realismrsquo; that includes what might be called a lsquo;true moralismrsquo;. (...) This calls, however, for a Heraclitean metaphysics capable of linking lsquo;goodnessrsquo; in both thinking and acting to a *Logos*mdash;that is, an essentially nonmodern theory of actuality that can do justice at once to the quicknesses and the uniformities of both Life and Thought. Coleridgersquo;s thus presents an outline of how one might respond to a challenge that can be best met, I argue, with the help of certain insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, A. N. Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and C. S. Peirce. By enlisting Hannah Arendtrsquo;s individual-centered conception of morality, which ties ethics to public concerns, it is also possible to sketch a metaphysically grounded response to Friedrich Nietzschersquo;s call for a lsquo;healthy moralityrsquo; capable of overturning the nihilistic values entrenched in modern thought. br /. (shrink)

Addresses the meaning of rationality. The author argues that common conceptions of this notion are founded upon dubious myths of reason; and that systematic approaches to rational understanding are inherently limited by denying the cognitive value of myth and metaphor.

Alfred North Whiteheadrsquo;s critique of modern naturalisms suggest that they betray reason by ignoring the vast extent and depth of the problematic of symbolism. This is partly borne out by the still unexplained fact that highly abstract systems of symbolism, as in mathematics, can throw light on the hidden workings of nature. But since these include ordinary perception itself, and since symbolisms always mediate between minds and nature, all reasonings about truth or reality elicit references to mysterious natural powers. Good (...) reasoning in natural philosophy thus requires an artful dialectic which is primarily concerned not with exact analyses of meanings but rather with the element of creativity in their ongoing production. Such a dialectic must be based on a polar logic that is opposed to the modern tendency to treat fundamental conceptual contrasts, such as nature-culture, subject-object, matter-spirit, and so on, as separable. (shrink)

To ask this famous question in 2017 under the threat of an imminent global catastrophe is to invite a host of very tricky interlocking questions, not the least of which is whether a rescue could be effected in the short time that we seem to have available. This is apart from the worry whether a sufficiently determined collective will would be able to effect the changes in thinking that are needed. Then again, the impending environmental crisis, which is generally referred (...) to as anthropogenic `climate change,' may be but one of many symptoms of a civilization that is passing through the last stages of its finite time on Earth. (shrink)

A consumer society that has embraced global capitalism while striving to preserve all the comforts and conveniences provided by technoscience is arguably fatally ill. Much support for this gloomy diagnosis is provided by, among others, Hannah Arendt, Northrop Frye, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Their reflections on the health of a human culture point up the urgency of the need to rethink the idea of good reasoning that predominates in the West. However, they also indicate that a healthier, more life-enhancing conception of (...) good reasoning will arise only when a concern for justice and wisdom displaces the traditional ideals of pure and certain knowledge or eternal truths. To this end, Nietzsche recommends that philosophy ought now to concentrate on producing `cultural physicians' who would strive to fashion a philosophy of concern. This type of philosophical therapist requires a radically nonmodern approach to philosophy that must pivot on a vitalistic metaphysics capable of overcoming pervasive nihilistic ideologies which illustrate a globally spreading mythology of unconcern. Hence an effective and lasting cultural therapy will depend on the emergence of a general will/desire to broaden the conception of good reasoning beyond the narrow perspectives established by modern science. And this will depend in turn on the education of future educators who stress above all the importance of cultivating the mythopoeic imaginations of the young. (shrink)

Following A.N. Whitehead, this book takes up the principal challenge facing a natural philosopher who wishes to engage with Nature while rescuing both Life and Thought from materialistic approaches which rob them of their 'quicknesses'. Selecting certain insights and intuitions from the writings of Peirce, Coleridge, Deleuze and Nietzsche, the author proffers a remedy for the pervasive nihilism of 'the moderns' which illustrates Deleuze's suggestion that philosophy should be imaged as a dynamic collage that is forever in the making.

The path-breaking Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories is an accessible, multidisciplinary insight into the complex field of feminist thought. The Encyclopedia contains over 500 authoritative entries commissioned from an international team of contributors and includes clear, concise and provocative explanations of key themes and ideas. Each entry contains cross references and a bibliographic guide to further reading; over 50 biographical entries provide readers with a sense of how the theories they encounter have developed out of the lives and situations of their (...) authors. Areas covered: * traditional taxonomies of feminist theory (eg socialist thought) * theoretical subdivisions (eg ecofeminism and feminist spirituality) * discipline-specific issues (eg philosophy and anthropology) * the conceptual apparatus of gender theory (eg biologism) * methodologies (eg deconstruction and narrative theory) * intersections (eg with racial theory, queer theory) * political issues (eg citizenship, reproductive rights). (shrink)

Feminist epistemologists who attempt to refigure epistemology must wrestle with a number of dualisms. This essay examines the ways Lorraine Code, Sandra Harding, and Susan Hekman reconceptualize the relationship between self/other, nature/culture, and subject/object as they struggle to reformulate objectivity and knowledge.