While recently reading the 1914-1919 Congressional Record debates over woman suffrage, I was struck by the familiarity of the content. The concerns of the early 1900s mirror those of the early 2000s: concentration of wealth within a tiny percentage of the population, equal pay across sex and race lines, the risk of U.S. entanglement in foreign wars, food safety, workers' rights, potable water, taxation, and so on. I also was struck by the familiarity of the debate's form. Much like the (...) rebuttal speeches I was trained to deliver as an intercollegiate debater, the pro-suffrage speeches contain systematic, comprehensive, and specific refutation of anti-suffrage arguments.Yet, it took decades of activism outside of... (shrink)

We summarize the ethnographic literature illustrating that “abnormal birth” circumstances and “ill omens” operate as cues to terminate parental investment. A review of the medical literature provides evidence to support our assertion that ill omens serve as markers of biological conditions that will threaten the survival of infants. Daly and Wilson (1984) tested the prediction that children of demonstrably poor phenotypic quality will be common victims of infanticide. We take this hypothesis one stage further and argue that some children will (...) be poor vehicles for parental investment yet are not of demonstrably poor quality at birth. We conclude that when people dispose of infants due to “superstitious beliefs” they are pursuing an adaptive strategy in eliminating infants who are poor vehicles for parental investment. (shrink)

Five studies examined the extent to which autobiographical memory retrieval is hierarchical, whether a hierarchical search depends on central executive resources, and whether retrieving memories that are “higher” in the hierarchy impairs problem‐solving ability. The first study found that random generation (assessed using a button‐pressing task) was sensitive to changes in memory load (digit span). The second study showed that when participants fail to retrieve a target event, they respond with a memory that is higher up the hierarchy. The third (...) study showed that memory is more generic only when participants use low imageable cues under cognitive load. The final two experiments showed that experimental manipulation of memory specificity affects problem solving (MEPS performance). The data are consistent with Conway and Pleydell‐Pearce's hierarchical retrieval model of autobiographical memory, and suggest that overgeneral memory in nonclinical participants is associated with reduced executive capacity only when retrieval is “top‐down” (generative). (shrink)

The value of and the need for rich data for criminal justice research is increasingly apparent, especially following recent restrictions on primary data collection due to COVID-19. Whilst the benefits of using administrative data for research are well established, less understood are the perspectives of data contributors and their expectations for the ethical governance and use of these data. This study describes the findings from a preliminary study comprising four focus groups with a total of seventeen adult males serving sentences (...) in a Category A prison in England. Participants were asked to offer opinions about the possibility of making survey data collected from them as part of the prison inspection process more widely accessible, beyond the organizational priorities for which it was initially collected. Generally, participants were content for survey data to be shared with recipients who intended to use the data to bring about change within prisons; this aligns with the purpose for data collection. Participants were opposed to data being made accessible to recipients who might produce spurious findings. We discuss implications for the future accessibility of a vast wealth of prisoner survey data in England and Wales and highlight the importance of consultation with incarcerated persons on this subject. (shrink)

Recognizing the importance of health‐promoting relationships in engaging people who are experiencing homelessness in care, most research on health clinics for homeless persons has involved some recognition of client–provider relationships. However, what has been lacking is the inclusion of a critical analysis of the policy context in which relationships are enacted. In this paper, we question how client–provider relationships are enacted within the culture of community care with people who are experiencing homelessness and how clinic‐level and broader social and health (...) policies shape relationships in this context. We explore these questions within a critical theoretical perspective utilizing a critical ethnographic methodology. Data were collected using multiple methods of document review, participant observation, in‐depth interviews and focus groups. The participants include both clients at a community health clinic, and all clinic service providers. We explore how clients and providers characterized each other as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For providers, this served as a means by which they policed behaviours and enforced social norms. The means by which both providers’ and clients’ negotiated relationships are explored, but this is couched within both local and system‐level policies. This study highlights the importance of healthcare providers and clients being involved in broader policy and systemic change. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

Harrison, Helen Adelaide's first bishop, Francis Murphy, was baptised in Navan, County Meath, Ireland, on 24 May 1795. His parents were Arthur Murphy and Bridget nee Flood. Baptismal records suggest his siblings included John Joseph, Arthur, Catherine, John Joseph Michael and Christopher. It is unlikely that all of these survived for long because by the time Francis Murphy was Bishop of Adelaide, he was writing to 'my sister' and 'my brother'.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Epistemic Microaggressions and Their HarmsCatherine Sherron (bio)In Microaggressions in Medicine (2024), Lauren Freeman and Heather Stewart raise many philosophical issues undermining, and practical advice for improving, the practice of medicine. Here I offer some thoughts specifically on chapter 4, "Epistemic Microaggressions."Epistemic microaggressions "pertain to our status as knowers" and are "defined as intentional or unintentional verbal or gestural slights made by healthcare professionals that dismiss, ignore, or otherwise fail (...) to recognize knowledge claims made by patients" (Freeman and Stewart 2024, 98). Note that intention is irrelevant; only the impact of how the harm befalls the patient is the focus here. Could there be extenuating circumstances for any particular healthcare professional? Possibly, but the point is to acknowledge the harm and do better both as individual healthcare professionals and within healthcare systems (subsequent chapters of the book point out various specific steps and strategies to address and rectify both individual and systemic shortcomings).Epistemologically, healthcare professionals (hereafter "practitioner") are experts on human medicine, but each patient is generally an expert on their own body. Here I organize some thoughts around specific issues in order to further our thinking about where the knowledge construction goes wrong and see where we might improve.1. Issue 1: Epistemic agencyQuestions in this realm pertain to, for example, who is a knower, whose knowledge counts, and who has epistemic privilege? Epistemologically, subjective knowledge about pain or what is normal for my body is my individual knowledge. While a patient might not have a sufficient vocabulary to accurately describe how it feels to them, the practitioner cannot know better than them. What a practitioner might be able to do is help the patient figure out how to communicate their experience, as well as values, more clearly or effectively. [End Page 147] One way that microaggressions function is by freezing out or shutting down the patient and thus limiting their epistemological contributions to the shared problem.In contrast, building on the work of feminist philosopher of science, Helen Longino (1990), medical knowledge, like scientific knowledge, can be conceived as social knowledge. It is built on the experiences and studies of the scientific and medical communities. The knowledge is held across individuals, not within any one person and no one person can override the community's knowledge. Note that like all scientific knowledge, it is falsifiable or defeasible such that if new evidence arises, the scientific community or subcommunity might need to reassess. In this way, scientific knowledge is dynamic, not static.Returning to the practice of medicine, we would say that is a shared epistemological endeavor across both practitioner and patient. Both parties bring something to the knowledge table, so to speak. But this "table" is not equally welcoming to all people. As we try to understand microaggressions in a US societal context, we would notice that whole groups of people are often not taken seriously by our society as epistemic agents. Most people, including practitioners, hold implicit and explicit racial bias. Statistically, people of color are devalued. Women are consistently devalued, not taken as credible even about their own bodies and experiences (Freeman and Stewart 2024, 114). Specifically in medicine, practitioners consistently have underestimated the claims women make about pain. Freeman and Stewart call this "medical gaslighting" in chapter 5. An additional example to the cases in the book can be found in the 2023 New York Times podcast, The Retrievals, about dozens of women (perhaps as many as 200) undergoing fertility treatment, including egg retrievals that were performed without pain medicine because, as it was later discovered, someone on staff with a drug problem was replacing the fentanyl used for sedation with saline. Even when the women were visibly in pain and requesting more relief, they were told things like "if you want a baby, you have to suffer" and "we are giving you all that we can—you just need to tough it out" (Burton 2023, "The Clinic"). Some of the women reported they felt they were being treated like "hysterical women" (Burton 2023, "The Patients").With a social tendency for people with less power and status to present as less confident, more deferential, and less willing to speak up, we... (shrink)

Philosophical investigation in synthetic biology has focused on the knowledge-seeking questions pursued, the kind of engineering techniques used, and on the ethical impact of the products produced. However, little work has been done to investigate the processes by which these epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical forms of inquiry arise in the course of synthetic biology research. An attempt at this work relying on a particular area of synthetic biology will be the aim of this chapter. I focus on the reengineering of (...) metabolic pathways through the manipulation and construction of small DNA-based devices and systems synthetic biology. Rather than focusing on the engineered products or ethical principles that result, I will investigate the processes by which these arise. As such, the attention will be directed to the activities of practitioners, their manipulation of tools, and the use they make of techniques to construct new metabolic devices. Using a science-in-practice approach, I investigate problems at the intersection of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of science. I consider how practitioners within this area of synthetic biology reconfigure biological understanding and ethical categories through active modelling and manipulation of known functional parts, biological pathways for use in the design of microbial machines to solve problems in medicine, technology, and the environment. We might describe this kind of problem-solving as relying on what Helen Longino referred to as “social cognition” or the type of scientific work done within what Hasok Chang calls “systems of practice”. My aim in this chapter will be to investigate the relationship that holds between systems of practice within metabolic engineering research and social cognition. I will attempt to show how knowledge and normative valuation are generated from this particular network of practitioners. In doing so, I suggest that the social nature of scientific inquiry is ineliminable to both knowledge acquisition and ethical evaluations. (shrink)

Sociality of science has long been the topic of investigation in science studies and the social constructivist approaches advanced within critical race theory and feminist epistemology. Helen Longino’s career has provided a number of canonical and crucial advances in philosophical understanding of the sociality of science, and recently, she has argued that it is the sociality of interaction within scientific groups that makes them knowledge producing. In this article, forthcoming in a volume dedicated to the work of Longino's career, (...) we use case studies in potato science research to offer a friendly but important amendment to Longino's recent analysis of the sociality of interaction. (shrink)

L’introduction et la traduction de ce texte ont constitué un mémoire de diplôme à l’E.P.H.E. soutenu en 1996. La Préface de S. Mimouni (p. 7-17) est intitulée « Présentation générale des traditions sur l’enfance de Jésus et de Marie ». Elle s’adresse à des lecteurs sachant ce que peuvent être « la stagnation adoptionisante » et « la déviation docétisante », avertis de « la fameuse opposition entre la ’christologie d’en bas’ et la ’christologie d’en haut’ » (p. 8) et (...) au fait des ébionites et d.. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 553-554, July 2012.

As Helen Longino's overview of Hypatia's engagement with feminist epistemology suggests, the last twenty-five years’ contributions to this field reveal a strong focus on the topic of knowledge. In her short outline, Longino questions this narrow focus on knowledge in epistemological inquiry. The main purpose of this article is to provide a framework for systematically taking up the questions raised by Longino, one that prevents us from running the risk of becoming unreflectively involved in sexist, racist, or otherwise problematic (...) inquiry. I argue that a specific form of the method of Reflective Equilibrium, as it is widely discussed in moral epistemology, logic, and theories of rationality, enables us to cope with the problems of traditional epistemology, which feminist theorizers such as Sally Haslanger have pointed to. With the account of Reflective Equilibrium I am offering—drawing in many respects on the model provided by Catherine Z. Elgin—we have an ameliorative method that allows us to rethink epistemological values, goals, and standards in a systematic way, and that largely avoids implicit and explicit biases in epistemology. (shrink)

Having only emerged in the past few decades, Feminist Philosophy is rapidly developing its own thrust in areas of particular importance to feminism-and women more generally-while also reevaluating and reshaping most other fields of philosophy, from ethics to logic and Marxism to environmentalism.

This article uses philosopher Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice to shed light on the legal concept of the fiduciary, alongside demonstrating the wider contribution Fricker’s work can make to business ethics. Fiduciary, from the Latin fīdūcia, meaning “trust,” plays a fundamental role in all financial and business organisations: it acts as a moral safeguard of the relationship between trustee and beneficiary. The article focuses on the ethics of the fiduciary, but from a unique historical perspective, referring back to the (...) original formulation of the fiduciary within a familial context to investigate presuppositions regarding agential capabilities, whilst also paying attention to the power mechanism embedded in the trustee–beneficiary relationship. Using Fricker’s theory of pre-emptive testimonial injustice, the analysis elucidates the impact of cumulative beneficiary silencing in contemporary contexts, and the article uncovers ethical issues of an epistemological kind at the core of the fiduciary—of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the structural domination of whiteness as it intersects with the potential of individual critique and reflexivity. I reflect on my positioning as a white nurse researcher while researching international nurse migration. I draw on two large qualitative studies and one small focus group study to discuss my reactions as a white researcher to evidence of institutional racism in the British health services and my growing awareness of how racism is reproduced in the British nursing profession.

The aim of this literature review was to compose a narrative review supported by a systematic approach to critically identify and examine concerns about accountability and the allocation of responsibility and legal liability as applied to the clinician and the technologist as applied the use of opaque AI-powered systems in clinical decision making. This review questions if it is permissible for a clinician to use an opaque AI system in clinical decision making and if a patient was harmed as a (...) result of using a clinician using an AIS’s suggestion, how would responsibility and legal liability be allocated? Literature was systematically searched, retrieved, and reviewed from nine databases, which also included items from three clinical professional regulators, as well as relevant grey literature from governmental and non-governmental organisations. This literature was subjected to inclusion/exclusion criteria; those items found relevant to this review underwent data extraction. This review found that there are multiple concerns about opacity, accountability, responsibility and liability when considering the stakeholders of technologists and clinicians in the creation and use of AIS in clinical decision making. Accountability is challenged when the AIS used is opaque, and allocation of responsibility is somewhat unclear. Legal analysis would help stakeholders to understand their obligations and prepare should an undesirable scenario of patient harm eventuate when AIS were used. (shrink)

The current international healthcare focus on ensuring the perspectives and needs of individual persons, families or communities are met has led to the core tenet of person‐centred care for all. The nurse–patient relationship is central to the provision of care, and enhancing this relationship to ensure trust and respect supports optimal care outcomes for those accessing healthcare services. Engaging authentically is one of the recognised key approaches in person‐centred practice, and this scoping review of the literature aims to gain an (...) understanding of the role this process plays in developing effective relationships between nurses and the people they care for. A systematic search of databases and grey literature was undertaken, and twenty‐one research papers met the inclusion criteria. A thematic analysis revealed four themes: ‘getting to know the patient as a person’, ‘the complexity of relationship building—it takes time’, ‘the nurse: characteristics and behaviours that support the nurse–patient relationship’ and ‘the patient voice’. Nurses and patients both benefit from effective relationships, feeling valued and experiencing greater satisfaction with care. Key elements of engaging authentically were revealed as a nurse–patient relational process through this literature review; however, further research is needed to gain a greater understanding of this concept. (shrink)

Teacher-student discourse is increasingly mediated through, by and with information and communication technologies: in-class discussions have found new, textually-rich venues online; chalk and whiteboard lectures are rapidly giving way to PowerPoint presentations. Yet, what does this mean experientially for teachers? This paper reports on a phenomenological study investigating teachers’ lived experiences of PowerPoint in post-secondary classrooms. As teachers become more informed about the affordances of information and communication technology like PowerPoint and consequently take up and use these tools in their (...) classrooms, their teaching practices, relations with students, and ways of interpreting the world are simultaneously in-formed – conformed, deformed and reformed – by the given technology-in-use. The paper is framed in light of Martin Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking” (1951) and “The Thing” (1949). In these writings, Heidegger shows how a thing opens a new world to us, revealing novel structures of experience and meaning, and inviting us to a different style of being, thinking and doing. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , May 2010, Volume 10, Edition 1. (shrink)

In this article, drawing upon a feminist epistemology, we examine the critical roles that philosophical standpoint, historical usage, gender, and language play in a knowledge arena which is increasingly opaque to the general public. Focussing on the language dimension in particular, in its historical and social dimensions, we explicate how some keywords in use across artificial intelligence (AI) discourses inform and misinform non-expert understandings of this area. The insights gained could help to imagine how AI technologies could be better conceptualised, (...) explained, and governed, so that they are leveraged for social good. (shrink)

Elaborates the author’s conception of plasticity by proposing a new way of thinking through Heidegger’s writings on change.

La question du sujet est ici abordée à partir de l´enseignement de Lacan à partir d´exemple clinique d´enfants suivis dans un cadre institutionnel relevant de l´Aide sociale à l´enfance. On tente d´y démontrer la vacuité du concept de sujet philosophique ou psychologique quant il s´agit de se repérer sur une éthique de la jouissance, d´un sujet de l´inconscient qui se soutient du phallus, d´une séparation du fantasme maternel, d´un abandon dans le réel, de l´effet-sujet attendu de la mise en place (...) d´un suivi psychanalytique. (shrink)

In an outline of a paper found amongst his philosophical papers and correspondence after his untimely death in 2001—“Nihil Obstat: An Analysis of Ability,” reproduced in this volume—David Lewis sketched a new compatibilist account of abilities, according to which someone is able to A if and only if there is no obstacle to their A-ing, where an obstacle is a ‘robust preventer’ of their A-ing. In this paper, we provide some background context for Lewis’s outline, a section-by-section commentary, and a (...) general discussion of the account’s main features. (shrink)