Conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) presents many opportunities in the psychotherapeutic landscape—such as therapeutic support for people with mental health problems and without access to care. The adoption of CAI poses many risks that need in-depth ethical scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to complement current research on the ethics of AI for mental health by proposing a holistic, ethical, and epistemic analysis of CAI adoption. First, we focus on the question of whether CAI is rather a tool or an (...) agent. This question serves as a framework for the subsequent ethical analysis of CAI focusing on topics of (self-) knowledge, (self-)understanding, and relationships. Second, we propose further conceptual and ethical analysis regarding human-AI interaction and argue that CAI cannot be considered as an equal partner in a conversation as is the case with a human therapist. Instead, CAI’s role in a conversation should be restricted to specific functions. (shrink)

Critical accounts over the past years have focused on neoliberalism as a subject of knowledge; there has been a recently growing interest in neoliberalism as an object of knowledge. This article considers the theoretical, epistemological and political implications of the relationship between neoliberalism as an epistemic subject and neoliberalism as an epistemic object. It argues that the ‘gnossification’ of neoliberalism – framing it an epistemic project, and deriving implications for political engagement from this – avoids engaging with numerous ambiguous elements (...) of the production of knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘scholastic fallacy’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s work in sociology of critique, the article lays out a framework for the study of the relationship between epistemic, moral, and political elements of critique of neoliberalism, including the conditions of its own production in contemporary academic contexts. (shrink)

This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of ‘sociological excuses’: the idea that sociological explanations can act as ‘excuses’ for otherwise unacceptable behaviour. The article builds on Austin’s distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary effects to discuss the relationship between sociological explanation, sociological justification and sociological critique. It argues that understanding how (and if) sociological explanations can act requires paying attention to (...) social and political conditions of performativity and their transformation in late liberalism. (shrink)

Environmental crises, which are consequences of resource-intensive lifestyles and are characterized to a large extent by both a changing climate and a loss of biodiversity, stress the urgent need for a global social-ecological transformation of the agro-food system. In this regard, the bioeconomy and bioeconomic innovations have frequently been seen as instrumental in addressing these grand challenges and contributing to more sustainable land use. To date, the question of how much bioeconomic innovations contribute to sustainability objectives remains unanswered. Against this (...) background, we study four bioeconomic innovations using the case study of animal production and manure utilization in relation to their potential contributions to a social-ecological transformation. The analysis is based on the application of analytical categories derived from the literature that assess the normativity of these innovations and their implicit cultural changes. The results show that the innovations examined manifest existing thought styles and the incumbent socio-technical regime rather than contribute to a more fundamental transition. In this respect, we stress the importance of evolving alterative ideas in innovation design, applying more integrative approaches, such as embedding innovation processes into transdisciplinary processes, and developing adaptive and reflective governance approaches. In return, bioeconomic innovations should adjust towards the design mission of a social-ecological transformation and include a multitude of actors to discuss and harmonize contesting imaginaries and ethical concerns. (shrink)

Lone conducted weekly philosophical discussions for first and second graders on human rights and how to be treated in society. With “The right to be treated equally” as a nearly unanimous response, Lone records these reactions in a formatted list.

In the 19th century, a gradual reform of art education began, which achieved its peak in the 1930s. This process manifested itself in the form of schools with an explicit anti-academic spirit – the Bauhaus in Europe and Black Mountain College in the United States. In this paper, I contend that such attempt at reform has never repeated again after the Black Mountain College case, where the combination of John Dewey’s educational principles, Josef Albers’ peculiar conception of art instruction, and (...) the college founders’ ideas concerning the essentiality of art for contemporary democratic societies created a unique environment for the development of an experimental form of art education. Examining this innovation with regard to the current situation of teaching art and the humanities, I argue that - despite a process of reform lasted more than a hundred years - art education still manifests residues of the old, conservative academic spirit, while art schools show features of exclusivity or even elitism. The pursuit for a wholesome social position of art, on the other hand, was the most striking endeavour of many brilliant thinkers in 19th and 20th century, something that art educators and art theoreticians of the 21st century must take this into a serious consideration. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to investigate certain selected parts of the extended evolutionary synthesis which all have a common denominator, namely evolution by meaning attribution. We start by arguing that living organisms can manipulate and interpret their genetic script via epigenetic modifications in a semiotic manner, that is, by meaning attribution. Genes do not build living beings to be transmitted to future generations. Genes have been shaped by evolution as a memory medium that is transmitted from one generation (...) to the next, but the actual reading of such scripts is modified by momentary contexts. Secondly, we show that phenotypic evolution variously re-uses already existing homologies which in evolving systems acquire a new meaning. We also suggest that the ways in which organisms perceive their environment and other living beings is an important but still largely neglected evolutionary force. Variations in perception influence the direction and intensity of sexual selection and some behaviourally mediated regimes of natural selection. Thirdly, we point out that especially if we want to study their evolution, living beings should not be considered in isolation but in their mutual coexistence, in their historically established being together. Recent attempts to view living beings as constructors of niches and holobionts seem compatible with the classical Umwelt theory. This approach seems capable of accounting for both competitiveness and cooperation, thus making the overall image of evolution more comprehensive. And finally, we argue that if we want to expand our understanding of biological evolution, in addition to variation, selection, and inheritance we also need to take into account processes which participate in meaning attribution. (shrink)

Understanding Chinese philosophy requires knowledge of the referential framework prevailing in Chinese intellectual traditions. But Chinese philosophical texts are frequently approached through the lens of Western paradigms. Analysing the most common misconceptions surrounding Western Sinology, Jana Rošker alerts us to unseen dangers and introduces us to a new more effective way of reading Chinese philosophy. Acknowledging that different cultures produce different reference points, Rošker explains what happens we use rational analysis, a major feature of the European intellectual tradition, to (...) read Chinese philosophy. We rely on impossible comparisons, arrive at prejudiced assumptions and fail to arrive at the truth, the consequence of applying a different methodology to the process of perceiving, understanding and interpreting reality. Instead of transferring concepts and categories from Western sinology onto socio-cultural Chinese contexts, Rošker constructs a new methodology of reading, understanding and interpreting Chinese philosophy. She opens our eyes to the basic problems of Western paradigms, encourages intercultural approaches and allows us to master a more autochthonous understanding of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

We present one of the first quantitative studies on auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agency voices or characters”) in healthy participants across states of consciousness. Tools of quantitative linguistic analysis were used to measure participants’ implicit knowledge of auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agencies, displayed in mentation reports from four different states. Analysis was conducted on a total of 569 mentation reports from rapid eye movement sleep, non-REM sleep, sleep onset, and waking. Physiology was controlled with the nightcap (...) sleep–wake mentation monitoring system. Sleep-onset hallucinations, traditionally at the focus of scientific attention on auditory verbal hallucinations, showed the lowest degree of VE and VA, whereas REM sleep showed the highest degrees. Degrees of different linguistic-pragmatic aspects of VE and VA likewise depend on the physiological states. The quantity and pragmatics of VE and VA are a function of the physiologically distinct state of consciousness in which they are conceived. (shrink)

Der Liberalismus beansprucht ein politisches Ordnungssystem zu sein, welches den Bürger*innen die Freiheit zuspricht und ihnen garantiert, sich selbst zu regieren. Doch löst er diesen Anspruch kohärent ein? Jana Katharina Funk zeigt auf, dass Freiheit nicht voraussetzungslos zu haben ist. In Anlehnung an Amartya Sen und Martha Nussbaum schlägt sie ein Konzept des Liberalismus vor, das die positive Freiheit in den Mittelpunkt stellt. Ein liberales Ordnungssystem muss demzufolge die Einzelnen zur Freiheit befähigen und ermächtigen. Es liegt an ihnen, sich (...) für ihre Version des guten Lebens zu entscheiden - aber sie müssen sich auch entscheiden können. (shrink)

Dentro de la filosofía de Mainländer, la nada posee un rol fundamental. La nada posee un sentido teleológico regulativo, es decir, es el fin o meta del universo, como resultado del primer movimiento: la muerte de Dios. Para comprender cómo este autor llega a plantear dicha tesis, es necesario sondear los pasos previos que confluyen en tal conclusión. Por ello, algunos de los aspectos centrales de esta filosofía serán expuestos en este artículo, con el fin de comprender la fundamentación de (...) esta propuesta. Y así, finalmente aclarar el rol excepcional que se le atribuye en este pensamiento a la nada. (shrink)

This article will provide an illustration of Max Weber’s theory of rationalization with a specific impetus on its interdependency with the development of capitalism. Following Horkheimer, I shall critically draw on Weber to outline a theory of human freedom, showing that rationalization not only implies economic and social liberation but entails a totalizing tendency that invades all spheres of socio-political life including people’s mental infrastructure. This mental colonization can be framed as a process of substituting value rationality with instrumental rationality. (...) I will claim that this substitution can be understood as an impediment for human freedom. Following contemporary theories of action, I will show the centrality of value orientation for understanding human freedom. Therefore, I propose a critical theory of freedom that centers value rational action as realization of freedom and can be understood as emancipative. (shrink)

Transformation in food systems poses new opportunities for improving environmental sustainability and reducing the use of farmed animals. Discussions about transforming current food systems have been centered mostly on replacing animal source proteins with plant-based alternatives and about how to minimize food waste and loss. Products from cellular agriculture are part of a novel food transition and are presented as new, sustainable alternatives for animal source proteins. However, justice and equity narratives in food system transition discussions concerning cellular agriculture are (...) rare. The aim of this study is to address how cellular agriculture may contribute to a just food system transition and to evaluate the prospects of such foods on this planet by reviewing narratives of cellular agriculture in 36 scientific articles. The data were analyzed using a justice transition framework. The results show that cellular agriculture has a potential to contribute to improving environmental sustainability if developers take justice into account as an important factor. Concerns are that cellular agriculture has the potential to be an exclusive food and may introduce regional variances exacerbating inequalities within the food system. We contribute to the discussion of just food system transitions by highlighting the importance of justice considerations in the context of cellular agriculture. Key aspects include the need for fair distribution along the value chain, global access to cellular agriculture benefits, and the recognition of social transformations in technological solutions. Additionally, transparent decision-making, open data access, and capacity building for stakeholders emerge as critical elements for fostering equitable and sustainable development in cellular agriculture. (shrink)

This paper explores the problem of racial privilege in US American feminist thought. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s analysis of ethics, particularly her ideas of epistemic discontinuity and teleopoietic reading, I argue that a specific kind of ethical openness can help feminist social-political philosophy better negotiate the legacy of white privilege. Spivak’s work calls for a reconsideration and reworking of the subject who theorizes. Her analysis of ethics suggests that racially privileged feminists must be able to confront their own complicity in (...) order to engage in political critique less likely to recreate historical patterns of racial domination and exclusion. (shrink)

This paper engages television comedy to critique the ethical values that are amenable to neoliberal capitalism. First, I explore the co-optation and containment of feminism as a collective social change movement by postfeminist and neoliberal cultures. I show how self-reliance and resilience become legible as classed, raced, and gendered values packaged for feminine, neoliberal women. Next, I address the specific challenges that neoliberal biopower poses for ethical values as they have been traditionally understood. I then argue that comedy is a (...) particularly effective medium through which to consider the generation of resistant values that can support feminist collectivity. I develop a provisional protocol for engaging ambivalent media and read two scenes from TV comedies focused on the femininity of class-aspiring or class-privileged women. This critically exposes what kinds of values might counter the co-optation of self-reliance and resilience. I conclude that cultural performances of femininity not only codify neoliberal values, they also are a resource for generating resistant feminist values inasmuch as they present intentionally frivolous modes of living. Within such a culture frivolousness becomes viable as a mode of everyday ethical commitment that can disrupt the negative impact of neoliberal biopower. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker’s stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more likely speakers will be denied recognition or credit. The four types of epistemic positioning – bounding (reducing a (...) knowledge claim to elements of personal identity), domaining (reducing a knowledge claim to discipline or field associated with identity), non-attribution (using the claim without recognizing the author) and appropriation (presenting the claim as one’s own) – are mutually reinforcing. Given the growing importance of visibility and recognition in the context of increasing competition and insecurity in academic employment, these practices play a role in the ability of underrepresented groups to remain in the academic profession. (shrink)

The aim of our research is to explore how Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are represented in the Slovak media. Data consisted of text documents from the Newton media database. Search criteria included TV, radio, print and web sources that mentioned the words “Alzheimer” and “dementia” between 2015 and 2018. A thematic discourse analysis was applied in order to identify the themes and their mutual semantic relations. The analysis was focused primarily on the headlines (n = 227). The results show that (...) the biomedical perspective currently dominates at the expense of a socio-psychological one. Persons with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are represented as tragic cases and victims of a cruel disease. Responsibility for care and prevention is individualized. Our findings suggest that a new perspective is needed. Such an approach should recognize the dignity and humanity of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia despite their cognitive deficits and respect their socio-psychological needs. (shrink)

This informative and entertaining study addresses ethical considerations for deceptive works and proposes cataloging solutions that are provocative and designed to spark debate. An extensive annotated bibliography describes books that are not what they seem.

We consider the problem of quadrilaterizing an orthogonal polygon P, that is to decompose P into nonoverlapping convex quadrangles without adding new vertices. In this paper we present a CREW-algorithm for this problem which runs in O time using Θ processors if the rectangle decomposition of P is given, and Θ processors if not. Furthermore we will show that the latter result is optimal if the polygon is allowed to contain holes.

The article deals with Béla Tarr’s longest film Sátántangó and examines relations between image, time and ways of looking, comparing it to Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s 1985 eponymous novel on which the film was based. It reveals connections between episodes and shots in Sátántangó that lead to a conception of time that passes extremely slowly. It is recurrent—leading toward similar, repetitive situations—but at the same represents an inability to change. The image in this film is often conceived as it is mediated and (...) Tarr frequently uses compositions involving ways of looking through some kind of optical device or a window. The only way of accessing reality is to look at it when there is no real opportunity, will or ability to intervene and change it. In this sense the article shows the relationship between the image of the fictional world of Sátántangó, inhabited by passive and demoralized characters, and the world of the film spectator and his or her relation to film image as such. (shrink)

The United States Constitution embodies both the real and the ideal. It is a concrete written text that uses particular words, has a history, and possesses certain limits; it is also a statement of the aspirations and dreams of a society. This dual identity requires that the Constitution be understood both as written positive law, and as an expression of a national vision and set of ideals. ;I argue for a conceptual theory of law that is positivistic in the sense (...) that it relies for the identification of law on social conventions that form the foundations for determining what counts as law. My view is drawn from H. L. A. Hart's legal positivist view, but it departs from this view to argue that judicial custom can be, along with Hart's rule of recognition, an additional social custom that provides criteria for identifying and creating law. Judicial custom involves the acceptance over time by judges of certain principles as authoritative in the context of adjudicative decisionmaking. I contend that both rules and principles can be part of law, and that principles attain the status of law through judicial custom. ;I rely on this understanding of law to argue for a theory of constitutional adjudication that is an alternative to both originalism and traditional non-originalist theories. Originalism is the view that judges can decide constitutional cases exclusively on the basis of two grounds: the text or the original intentions or understanding of its framers. The theory of law that I defend accepts that these grounds are important for any constitutional decision, but holds that constitutional decisions can also legitimately be made on the basis of constitutional theories. Such theories explain the often broad and abstract language of constitutional provisions by articulating hypotheses about the principles that underlie the text. I argue that the central constitutional commitment is to each individual's right to self-determination. This requires protection of an aspect of personal liberty that involves the deeply personal and unique nature of each person's aspirations, ideas, and initiatives. (shrink)

Cílem studie je stručně přiblížit historii eugeniky a zmapovat problematiku novodobé eugeniky, její metodologie a s ní souvisejících technologických, sociálních a bezpečnostních problémů a morálních úskalí. Studie se také snaží rehabilitovat pojem eugenika, který má především kvůli nacistickým zločinům negativní konotaci, a ukázat, že jako vědecký obor má eugenika stále své místo ve vědě. Představeny budou především eugenické metody, jejichž prostřednictvím by bylo možné ochránit lidstvo před vyhynutím, ale které jsou zároveň velice rizikové a k vyhynutí lidstva mohou rovněž přispět. (...) Text se také věnuje nejzávažnějším argumentům příznivců i kritiků novodobé eugeniky. (shrink)

As we journey into the fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of Americans express relief at a “return to normal,” experience pandemic fatigue, or embrace the idea of living with COVID-19 in much the same way we live with the seasonal flu. But transition to a new phase of life with SARS-CoV-2 does not diminish the importance of vaccination. The US Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration recently recommended another round of booster dose for (...) persons age 5 and up, or an initial series for those not previously vaccinated, with an updated bivalent formula that protects against both the original virus strain and Omicron subvariants that are now the dominant source of infection. By most accounts most of the population has been or will become infected with SARS-CoV-2. Suboptimal uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines among the approximately 25 million adolescents in the United States is a significant obstacle to population coverage, public health, and the health and well-being of adolescents. A major cause of low adolescent uptake is parental vaccine hesitancy. This article discusses parental vaccine hesitancy and argues that permitting independent adolescent consent to COVID-19 vaccination should be an ethical and policy priority as we continue to confront the threat of Omicron and other variants of the coronavirus. We discuss the central role of the pediatric healthcare team in caring for adolescent patients who disagree with their parents about vaccination. (shrink)

Scientific communities expect early career researchers to become intellectually independent and to develop longer-term research plans. How such programs emerge during the early career phase is still poorly understood. Drawing on semistructured interviews with German ECRs in plant biology, experimental physics, and early modern history, we show that the development of such a plan is a research process in itself. The processes leading to IRPs are conditioned by the fields’ epistemic practices for producing new knowledge. By linking the conditions under (...) which ECRs work to the epistemic properties of their IRPs, we identify mechanisms that produce these programs and conditions facilitating or hindering the operation of these mechanisms. (shrink)

This essay facilitates a critical dialogue between Freud’s early “cathartic method” and Fanon’s notion of a “neurotic situation.” Although Fanon does not explicitly develop this concept as a counterpoint to the Freudian understanding of neurosis, we can nevertheless glean from his work a robust understanding of the kind of psycho-political suffering it designates. To be in a “neurotic situation,” I argue, is to experience neurotic symptoms that are idiosyncratic to oneself and yet also a reflection of social and political structures (...) of oppression that affect all members of an oppressed group. It is a situation that contains both idiosyncratic psychic disturbance and non-idiosyncratic political truth. As such, addressing a neurotic situation requires overcoming the strict separation between therapy and consciousness-raising that some activists espouse. Specifically, in a neurotic situation, therapy and emancipatory consciousness-raising come to shape and condition each other’s objectives: an emancipatory consciousness becomes a condition for the therapeutic alleviation of neurotic symptoms, and therapeutic relief for neurotic symptoms becomes part of what it is like to attain an emancipatory consciousness in a neurotic situation. (shrink)

This book offers a thorough technical elaboration and philosophical defense of an objectivist informational interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which its novel content is located in its kinematical framework, that is, in how the theory describes systems independently of the specifics of their dynamics. -/- It will be of interest to researchers and students in the philosophy of physics and in theoretical physics with an interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Additionally, parts of the book may be used (...) as the basis for courses introducing non-physics majors to quantum mechanics, or for self-study by those outside of the university with an interest in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The search for knowledge has been the driving force behind mankind's existence since the dawn of civilization, and different cultures have developed their own theories of knowledge. _Searching for the Way: Theory of Knowledge in Premodern and Modern China_ deals with the analyses and interpretations of modern Chinese philosophical discourses, especially those concerning theories of knowledge. The author looks at how contemporary Chinese philosophy is awakening from a long slumber and substantiates the hypothesis that this new awakening is fully prepared (...) for fruitful confrontations with the new challenges presented by a globalized world. The study of 20th-century Chinese philosophy has not been the subject of any extensive and systematic discussion in neither the West in general nor in Western Sinology in particular. Hence, this book will be of immense interest to those who are interested in the emerging fields of comparative philosophy, Chinese studies and theology. (shrink)

Studie se zabývá problematikou renesančních historiae naturalis, zejména potom vztahem, který v tomto žánru zaujímala empirie a tradiční vědění. Článek analyzuje rozdíly mezi historiae naturalis Starého světa (Gessner, Aldrovandi) a světa Nového (Oviedo, Hernández). Hlavním cílem textu je charakterizovat specifika těchto dvou typů „přírodní historie“ a stejně tak ukázat jejich podobnosti a poukázat na „zdánlivé paradoxy“.

At the 2019 and 2021 International Conference on Environmental Psychology, discussions were held on the future of conferences in light of the enormous greenhouse gas emissions and inequities associated with conference travel. In this manuscript, we provide an early career researcher perspective on this discussion. We argue that travel-intensive conference practices damage both the environment and our credibility as a discipline, conflict with the intrinsic values and motivations of our discipline, and are inequitable. As such, they must change. This change (...) can be achieved by moving toward virtual and hybrid conferences, which can reduce researchers’ carbon footprints and promote equity, if employed carefully and with informal exchange as a priority. By acting collectively and with the support of institutional change, we can adapt conference travel norms in our field. To investigate whether our arguments correspond to views in the wider community of ECRs within environmental psychology, we conducted a community case study. By leveraging our professional networks and directly contacting researchers in countries underrepresented in those networks, we recruited 117 ECRs in 32 countries for an online survey in February 2022. The surveyed ECRs supported a change in conference travel practices, including flying less, and perceived the number of researchers wanting to reduce their travel emissions to be growing. Thirteen percent of respondents had even considered leaving academia due to travel requirements. Concerning alternative conference formats, a mixed picture emerged. Overall, participants had slightly negative evaluations of virtual conferences, but expected them to improve within the next 5 years. However, ECRs with health issues, facing visa challenges, on low funding, living in remote areas, with caretaking obligations or facing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 expected a switch toward virtual or hybrid conferences to positively affect their groups. Participants were divided about their ability to build professional relationships in virtual settings, but believed that maintaining relationships virtually is possible. We conclude by arguing that the concerns of ECRs in environmental psychology about current and alternative conference practices must be taken seriously. We call on our community to work on collective solutions and less travel-intensive conference designs using participatory methods. (shrink)

Nového knížka Filosof T. G. Masaryk (1994) má tři roviny, které se přirozeně neustále stýkají a prolínají: bilancování dosavadní masarykovské literatury s důrazem na rozbor literatury nejnovější, pokus o systematizaci Masarykova díla, postižení jeho vnitřní logiky a vřazení do evropských souvislostí (Brentano, Husserl), a konečně otevírání a řešení otázek, které je možné v užším slova smyslu označit za problémové a aktuální. Nový ukazuje, jak pomáhá Masarykovo myšlení vracet znovu otázku smyslu a řádu našeho usilování a tvoření.

New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness is an annotated translation by John Makeham of Xiong Shili's major philosophical work Xin weishi lun 新唯識論, one of the most difficult and least understood of the crucial Chinese theoretical works of the twentieth century. In this work Xiong has integrated central concepts, problems, and themes from traditional Chinese philosophy with those representative of Sinitic Buddhist philosophy in order to create an ambitious philosophical syncretism.On the one hand, the book is a modern Confucian (...) critique of the Buddhist theory of consciousness introduced to China by the pilgrim Xuanzang in the Tang dynasty. Xiong criticizes the original Yogācāra pioneers of this... (shrink)

Diotima, the priestess of Plato’s Symposium, is an important reference for Proclus’ thinking about the role of women in philosophical and religious practices. This character does not just offer Proclus an example for women’s ability to attain the same level of virtue than men, but she is also a model for the joint work of philosophical and religious practices. Thereby she stands for practices which are orientated on the human condition and therefore depend on intermediary entities as demons, and for (...) practices which transcend both the human condition and the intermediary entities. Most interesting in Proclus’ presentation of Diotima as a priestess and a philosopher is that he does not present her to fulfill these roles by masculinizing her soul through a sole focus on the intelligible entities – as for example Porphyry advises his wife Marcella – but by using the female element in her soul, i.e. the circuit of the Different, as an intermediate through which she can get in touch with the demons and – through them – also with higher entities. The ideal which Diotima incorporates is therefore not becoming masculine but harmonizing the male and female elements within the soul. (shrink)

This short article represents a contribution to the debate on the motion “Social science is explanation, or it is nothing.” While in the format of parliamentary debating the contribution would fall on the side of the opposition, I will not be arguing against explanation as such. The work of explaining is in no way oppositional to or mutually exclusive with critique. Instead, my contribution will revolve around two arguments: one is that both critique and explanation exhibit characteristics we commonly attribute (...) to science; the other is that reserving the label of science for explanation draws a boundary around social sciences in ways that exclude many of the interesting things it does. Some of the examples include the sociological analysis of governmental approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic, or critical analysis of concepts such as “cancel culture” or “terrorism.” The conclusion is that explanation and critique are mutually supporting elements of science, and that combined they give us insights we cannot glean from either alone. (shrink)

Under the shifting epistemic and political norms of post-truth politics, the conditions of feminist solidarity and agency are increasingly threatened. This article argues that feminist humour provides models for affective orientations that sustain feminist work and survival during such periods of political crisis. First, I explore a potential issue post-truth politics poses for feminists: That information overload can lead to truth burn-out that threatens intersectional feminist thinking and action. Next, I explain why comedy is well-suited to help maintain feminist work (...) in the context of post-truth politics. I then present a reading of Sarah Cooper’s skit, ‘How to medical’ to explore Cooper’s work and demonstrate how it operates as parodic political critique. I conclude that the affective stance of a feminist comedian models how feminists can keep surviving in the midst of post-truth crises. Such work shows how oppressive power can be engaged closely enough that deep critiques can be developed but with sufficient affective distance that feminist engagement can be sustained over time, through a multiplicity of crises. Cooper’s engagement can thus be read to generate strategies for how to (effectively) feminist affect under post-truth conditions. (shrink)