This article explores how the concept of agency in social theory changes when it is conceptualized as a relational rather than an individual phenomenon. It begins with a critique of the structure/agency debate, particularly of how this emerges in the critical realist approach to agency typified by Margaret Archer. It is argued that this approach, and the critical realist version of relational sociology that has grown from it, reify social relations as a third entity to which agents have a cognitive, (...) reflexive relation, playing down the importance of interaction. This upholds the Western moral and political view of agents as autonomous, independent, and reflexive individuals. Instead, the article considers agency from a different theoretical tradition in relational sociology in which agents are always located in manifold social relations. From this, an understanding is created of agents as interactants, ones who are interdependent, vulnerable, intermittently reflexive, possessors of capacities that can only be practised in joint actions, and capable of sensitive responses to others and to the situations of interaction. Instead of agency resting on the reflexive monitoring of action or the reflexive deliberation on structurally defined choices, agency emerges from our emotional relatedness to others as social relations unfold across time and space. (shrink)

This essay examines the physicist John Tyndall’s journal writing in the mid-nineteenth century and focuses on how Tyndall used his journal during a series of transitions that occurred when he was a young man: when he went from being a surveyor to a public school instructor and then from a Ph.D. student and budding experimenter in Germany to Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution in London. As well as providing insight into these various transitions, the journal more importantly (...) shows how Tyndall developed a particular ethical conception of self, based on his readings of Carlyle, Emerson, and Fichte, and how that sense of self shaped—and was shaped by—his early experimental practices. Thus, the article is a case study in the development of a particular scientific self that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, whose novel claim to authority was based on a particular fusion of the ethical and the epistemological. (shrink)

InThe Gramscian MomentPeter Thomas fundamentally revises the ‘textbook’ Gramsci – a theorist whose work centred on a primordial East/West distinction, focused on the superstructure, and upon the ways a ruling class secured subaltern consent to its rule. Placing special emphasis on the Notebooks from 1932, Thomas critiques readings of Gramsci by Perry Anderson and Louis Althusser, and finds that Gramsci articulated the ‘philosophy of praxis’ not so much as a synonym for, or declaration of independence from, Marxism, but rather as (...) a tendency within Marx’s legacy that Gramsci hoped to make hegemonic within the working-class movement. Two friendly amendments emerge with respect to this persuasive account. First, the emphasis on Gramsci’sphilosophyleads the author to an over-simplified account of the role of evolutionary theory within Gramsci’s own perspective and privileges ‘philosophy’ over other fields to which Gramsci’s vision was even more decisive. Is the ‘Gramscian moment’ really best analysed by looking at those intellectuals commonly deemed philosophers? And second, does not this moment also entail a more fundamental rethinking of the orthodox concepts and methods of revolutionary-left historiography than the author sometimes implies? (shrink)

The critical environmental justice (CEJ) framework contends that inequalities are sustained through intersecting social categories, multi-scalarity, the perceived expendability of marginalized populations, and state-vested power. While this approach offers new pathways for environmental justice research, it overlooks the role of firms, suggesting a departure from long-standing political-economic theories, such as the treadmill of production (ToP), which elevate the importance of producers. In focusing on firms, we ask: how do firms operationalize diverse social forces to produce environmental injustice? What organizational logics (...) sustain these inequalities? To understand the firm-level dynamics shaping treadmill acceleration and environmental injustice, we utilize two concepts—social embeddedness and managerial authority—from economic sociology research on firms. The former refers to the social and non-economic factors that guide economic decision-making, whereas the latter refers to the power that reinforces worksite hierarchies. This theoretical paper argues that social embeddedness and managerial authority interact within firms to produce an organizational logic that sustains environmental injustice and ecological disorganization. We draw from historical and contemporary evidence on sugarcane plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean, with cases ranging from the colonial period to the present day. By bringing economic sociological concepts to bear on the CEJ and ToP frameworks, we advance debates on how firm-level dynamics shape environmental inequalities. (shrink)

Fully named _Discourse on the Method for Reasoning Well and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences_, this work offers the most complete presentation and defense of René Descartes’ method of intellectual inquiry— a method that greatly influenced both philosophical and scientific reasoning in the early modern world. Descartes’s timeless ideas strike an uncommon balance of novelty and familiarity, offering arguments concerning knowledge, science, and metaphysics that are as compelling in the 21st century as they were in the 17th. Ian Johnston’s (...) new translation of the original French text is modern, clear, and thoroughly annotated, ideal for readers unfamiliar with Descartes’ intellectual context. An approachable introduction engages both the historical and the philosophical aspects of the text, enabling the reader to interpret this easily misunderstood work within Descartes’ larger project. This edition joins Broadview’s growing list of affordable classic texts from the philosophical canon, adapted from Andrew Bailey’s popular anthology series _First Philosophy_. (shrink)

Paul Levi was leader of the German Communist Party in the vital years 1919 and 1920; he was subsequently expelled for his opposition to the adventurist March Action in 1921. Three recent books cast new light on this complex figure: David Fernbach’s selection of his writings, Frédéric Cyr’s biography and Paul Frölich’s memoirs. Levi was a man of great talent and courage, but his leadership style was defective; he was neither Leninist nor Luxemburgist, and his greatest weakness was his inability (...) to relate to ultra-leftism. His limitations are revealed by a comparison with his comrade Clara Zetkin. (shrink)

The publication of the Bradley review in the United Kingdom is a watershed in the development of policy regarding the way that the Criminal Justice System responds to individuals with mental health problems. It then goes on to explore one aspect of that response: the role of the Appropriate Adult under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984).

Spontaneous mutations that perturb myelination occur in a range of species including man, and together with engineered mutations have been used to study disease, normal myelination and axon/glial inter‐relationships. Only a minority of the currently defined mutations have an apparently simple pathogenesis due to lack of a functional protein. Mutations in the myelin basic protein gene lead to a lack of protein, resulting in changes in the structure of myelin, which can be rescued by transgenic complementation. The pathogenesis of autosomal (...) dominant and X‐linked mutations affecting either oligodendrocytes or Schwann cells is more complex. Point mutations may act in a dominant negative manner and gene dosage is clearly linked to phenotypic change. Mutations in regulatory genes, such as those encoding transcription factors, can also disturb myelination by selected cell types. Other less‐well studied and unexpected consequences of myelin mutations, such as seizures in mutations affecting genes expressed in Schwann cells and axonal changes associated with dysmyelination, are also considered. With the major developments in gene mapping and cloning it is now relevant to study mutations in a variety of species with the real prospect of defining their molecular basis. Examples are given of unusual, but potentially useful, uncharacterised mutations in dog and bovine. (shrink)

In 1871 the travel writer and anthropologist W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875) was inspired by his correspondence with Darwin to turn his narrow ethnological research on West African tribes into the broadest history imaginable, one that would show Darwin's great principle of natural selection at work throughout the evolutionary history of humanity, stretching back to the origins of the universe itself. But when Martyrdom of Man was published in 1872, Reade confessed that Darwin would not likely find him a very good (...) Darwinian, as he was unable to show that natural selection was anything more than a secondary law that arranges all details. When it came to historicising humans within the sweeping history of all creation, Reade argued that the primary law was that of development, a less contentious theory of human evolution that was better suited to Reade's progressive and teleological history of life. By focussing on the extensive correspondence between Reade and Darwin, this paper reconstructs the attempt to make an explicitly Darwinian evolutionary epic in order to shed light on the moral and aesthetic demands that worked to give shape to Victorian efforts to historicise humans within a vastly expanding timeframe. -/- . (shrink)

This essay examines the working relationship between Charles Darwin and the Edinburgh gardener John Scott that developed in the wake of the publishing of the Origin of Species (1859). As the essay shows, Darwin sought to utilize Scott’s horticultural knowledge and experimental expertise in order to provide some of the specialized botanical evidence that the Origin was not intended to provide. Scott, meanwhile, sought to use Darwin’s patronage and tutelage in order to overcome his modest status as a gardener while (...) making contributions to scientific knowledge. And for an intense two-year period (1862–4), Darwin and Scott’s relationship was productive and mutually beneficial: not only did Scott’s work supplement Darwin’s ongoing botanical research on sexual development and fertility, but also his Primula experiments appeared to provide ‘physiological’ evidence of speciation via selective breeding. What the essay argues, however, is that there were limits to what Scott was able to achieve due in part to his social standing and perceived character that ultimately cast a shadow over his findings. (shrink)

In this study, I examined 12 reports published by a neoliberal think tank proposing to reshape public education in New Zealand. In terms of the larger social processes and structures involved, the think tank’s self-declared positioning of this advocacy is that of a primary definer, ostensibly an expert voice, communicating through the media. My two research goals in this study were to identify the types of educational change being promoted and to uncover the discursive means employed. The sample of 12 (...) reports, published from 2013 to 2018, comprised 647 pages of text. I performed three types of analysis: thematic analysis to identify the ideology of the advocacy, genre analysis of their discursive resources and corpus analysis. The thematic findings reveal proposals to reshape public education through performativity, managerialism and marketization. The genre analysis found the reports followed the structure of the business case genre and drew on elements of business memos, data presentation, sound bite and opinion journalism. The corpus findings provide further linguistic evidence for the main themes. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen and Max Weber are conventionally understood as initiators not only of two distinct and opposing processes of concept formation, but also of two discrete and contrasting theoretical frameworks for the study of law. _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political: Concept Formation in Hans Kelsen and Max Weber _places the conventional understanding of the theoretical relationship between the work of Kelsen and Weber into question. Focusing on the theoretical foundations of Kelsen’s legal positivism and Weber’s sociology of law, and guided (...) by the conceptual frame of the juridico-political, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume explore convergences and divergences in the approach and stance of Kelsen and Weber to law, the State, political science, modernity, legal rationality, legal theory, sociology of law, authority, legitimacy and legality. The chapters comprising _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political _uncover complexities within as well as between the theoretical and methodological principles of Kelsen and Weber and, thereby, challenge the enduring division between legal positivism and the sociology of law in contemporary discourse. (shrink)

Schizoanalysis is Deleuze and Guattari's fusion of psychoanalytic-inspired theories of the self, the libido and desire with Marx-inspired theories of the economy, history and society. Schizoanalysis holds that art's function is both political and aesthetic - it changes perception. If one cannot change perception, then, one cannot change anything politically. This is why Deleuze and Guattari always insist that the artists operate at the level of the real (not the imaginary or the symbolic). Ultimately, they argue, there is no necessary (...) distinction to be made between aesthetics and politics. One is simply the flipside of the other because both concern the formation and transformation of social and cultural norms. Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art explores how every artist, good or bad, contributes to the structure and nature of society because their work either reinforces social norms, or challenges them. On this view of things, we are all artists, we all have the potential to exercise what might be called a 'aesthetico-political function' and change the world around us; or, just as easily, we can dwell like assassins, and not only let the status quo endure but fight to preserve it as though it were freedom itself. (shrink)

Defines a new way of thinking about the unprecedented environmental pressures of our day. McCallum offers a compelling argument that we must think differently about ourselves and the earth if we are to take seriously the survival of wilderness areas.

BackgroundAs a consequence of precision medicine initiatives, genomic technologies have rapidly spread around the world, raising questions about genetic privacy and the ethics of data sharing. Previous scholarship in bioethics and science and technology studies has made clear that different nations have varying expectations about trust, transparency, and public reason in relation to emerging technologies and their governance. The key aims of this article are to assess genetic literacy, perceptions of genetic testing, privacy concerns, and governing norms amongst the Singapore (...) population by collecting surveys.MethodsThis study investigated genetic literacy and broad public attitudes toward genetic tests in Singapore with an online public survey (n = 560). To assess potential changes in attitudes following receipt of results from a genetic test, we also surveyed undergraduate students who underwent a genetic screen as part of a university class before and after they received their test results (n = 25).ResultsPublic participants showed broad support for the use of genetic tests; scored an average of 48.9% in genetic literacy; and expressed privacy concerns over data sharing and a desire for control over their genetic data. After taking a genetic test and receiving genetic test results, students reported less fear of genetic tests while other attitudes did not change significantly.ConclusionThese findings highlight the potential of genetic education and active engagement with genetic testing to increase support and participation in genomic projects, PM, and biobanking initiatives; and they suggest that data privacy protections could potentially reduce discrimination by giving participants control over who can access their data. More specifically, these findings and the dataset we provide may be helpful in formulating culturally sensitive education programs and regulations concerning genomic technologies and data privacy. (shrink)

Thinking about ethics -- Philosophical ethics -- Why not do wrong? -- Is the ethical a human construct or a factual realm? -- Do you just do what is right or do you try to predict the outcomes? -- Natural law and virtue ethics -- Ethics and the bible -- Learning from the wisdom of the world -- Humanism : do we need god to realize that people just matter? -- Ethical dilemmas -- Dilemmas in bed -- Dilemmas in business (...) -- Dilemmas in medicine -- Dilemmas involving violence and power -- Dilemmas in government and leadership -- Dilemmas and the future : the environment, animals, and plants -- Dilemmas in the cyber world -- Making a decision -- Becoming a morally serious person -- Taking an ethical position. (shrink)

(1999). Sponsorship, academic independence and critical engagement: A forum on shell, the Ogoni dispute and the royal geographical society (with the institute of British geographers) Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 242-246.

In the final section of their work Empire, Hardt and Negri discuss the coming into being of the multitude, the unified force that overthrows the system of ‘Empire’. Absent from the account of this unification of the multitude is the influence of religion. I endeavor to show that contrary to Hardt’s and Negri’s assumption, religion is not dissipating among the multitude and that its impact will be contrary to the creation of a unified multitude. Thus the creation of the unified (...) multitude requires an absence of religion, but the creation of the multitude under the system of Empire entails a creation of more theists, leading to a seeming contradiction in the process of creating a unified multitude. In order for the creation of the multitude envisioned by Hardt and Negri to be complete, the issue of religion must be addressed, it cannot simply be assumed away as unimportant or non-existent. (shrink)

Information on religious and philosophical thinkers from China, India, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world.