There has been much discussion about whether traditional epistemology's doxastic attitudes are reducible to degrees of belief. In this paper I argue that what I call the Straightforward Reduction - the reduction of all three of believing p, disbelieving p, and suspending judgment about p, not-p to precise degrees of belief for p and not-p that ought to obey the standard axioms of the probability calculus - cannot succeed. By focusing on suspension of judgment (agnosticism) rather than belief, we can (...) see why the Straightforward Reduction is bound to fail. I argue that, in general, suspending about p is not just a matter of having some specified standard credence for p, and in the end I suggest some ways to extend the arguments that will put pressure on other credence-theoretic accounts of belief and suspension of judgment as well. (shrink)

El artículo examina un aspecto del rebautismo donatista que ha recibido poca atención por parte de los especialistas. Los donatistas pedían a los convertidos del catolicismo a su grupo que se sometieran de nuevo al proceso catecumenal, a pesar de que hubieran sido anteriormente catecúmenos de la Iglesia católica. El artículo examina las primeras cartas de Agustín (ca. 392-399) en las que el Obispo de Hipona critica a los donatistas por someter a los que ya eran católicos y se habían (...) convertido a su iglesia al rito de la exsuflación. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have often maintained that in order to attribute mental states to other people one must have a ‘theory of mind’. This theory facilitates our grasp of other people’s mental states. Debate has then focussed on the form this theory should take. Recently a new approach has been suggested, which I call the ‘Direct Perception approach to social cognition’. This approach maintains that we can directly perceive other people’s mental states. It opposes traditional views on two counts: by (...) claiming that mental states are observable and by claiming that we can attribute them to others without the need for a theory of mind. This paper argues that there are two readings of the direct perception claims: a strong and a weak one. The Theory-theory is compatible with the weak version but not the strong one. The paper argues that the strong version of direct perception is untenable, drawing on evidence from the mirror neuron literature and arguments from the philosophy of science and perception to support this claim. It suggests that one traditional ‘theory of mind’ view, the ‘Theory-theory’ view, is compatible with the claim that mental states are observable, and concludes that direct perception views do not offer a viable alternative to theory of mind approaches to social cognition. (shrink)

We have investigated the emotional profile of dreams and the relationship between dream emotion and cognition using a form that specifically asked subjects to identify emotions within their dreams. Two hundred dream reports were collected from 20 subjects, each of whom produced 10 reports. Compared to previous studies, our method yielded a 10-fold increase in the amount of emotion reported. Anxiety/fear was reported most frequently, followed, in order, by joy/elation, anger, sadness, shame/guilt, and, least frequently, affection/eroticism. Unexpectedly, there was no (...) significant difference in the profiles of emotion reported by men and women. When the reports were scored for bizarreness, a significant correlation was found between the occurrence of bizarreness and major shifts in emotion. These results support the conclusion that dreaming is a mental state whose general emotional features are widely shared across individuals and strongly linked to cognitive features within individual dreams. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

Biobanks are proliferating rapidly worldwide because they are powerful tools and organisational structures for undertaking medical research. By linking samples to data on the health of individuals, it is anticipated that biobanks will be used to explore the relationship between genes, environment and lifestyle for many diseases, as well as the potential of individually-tailored drug treatments based on genetic predisposition. However, they also raise considerable challenges for existing legal frameworks and research governance structures. This book critically examines the current governance (...) structures in place for biobanks in England and Wales. It shows that the technologies, techniques and practices involved in biobanking do not always conform neatly to existing legal principles and frameworks that apply to other areas of medical research. Using a socio-legal approach, including interview data gathered from the scientific community, this book provides unique insights and makes recommendations about appropriate governance mechanisms for biobanking in the future. It also explores the issues around the secondary use of information, such as consent and how to protect privacy, when biobanks are accessed by a number of different third parties. These issues have relevance both within England and Wales and to a wide international audience, as well as for other areas where large datasets are used.--Back cover. (shrink)

This introduction outlines the core debates in the 8-piece symposium dedicated to critically engaging Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice. Among these is whether the establishment communities that are Sen’s primary interlocutors could ever be allies in the projects of freedom and social transformation that he so powerfully elucidated and the relationship of general theories of justice to the choice of some empirical examples over those that emerge from the places in the global South where conditions of self-determination for citizens (...) are most lacking. While asking whether we need a political ideal beyond justice, the richness of the articles and Sen’s very substantive reply are testament to his profound contribution both to scholarship and as a model alternative to the often unjust and ungenerous character of the contemporary academy. (shrink)

Innovative surgery raises four kinds of ethical challenges: potential harms to patients; compromised informed consent; unfair allocation of healthcare resources; and conflicts of interest. Lack of adequate data on innovations and lack of regulatory oversight contribute to these ethical challenges. In this paper these issues and the extent to which problems may be resolved by better evidence-gathering and more comprehensive regulation are explored. It is suggested that some ethical issues will be more resistant to resolution than others, owing to special (...) features of both surgery and innovation. (shrink)

Prompted by the ever-increasing cesarean rate, this paper considers the interpretive disjunct between two significant strands of feminist analysis that have arisen in the last four decades as a consequence of the phenomenon of medicalized birth. In contrast to the dominant paradigm of bioethical “Principalism,” both modes of analysis, understood as “the critique of industrialized labor” and “the critique of idealized labor,” are attentive to the way in which social discourses inform bioethical deliberation and practice, but significantly diverge in the (...) nature of their accounts. The “industrialization critique” understands the culture of medical intervention to be impelled by an “obstetric desire” to appropriate women's reproductive potency, whereas the “idealization critique” relates new mothers’ “low childbirth satisfaction” to a pernicious normative ideal propagated by the natural childbirth movement. This paper will explore the anatomy of both critiques and interrogate their fidelity to the phenomenological insight of the body as chiasm between material and ideal. I will argue that while the insights of the idealization critique are well grounded, we must exercise caution about the critique's tendency to reductively understand the embodied experience of labor as entirely discursively produced, a gesture that risks re-performing the dematerialization of women often effected through obstetric intervention itself. (shrink)

Johann Michael Haydn (1737–1806), court musician to the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, composed the Missa Sancti Hieronymi in 1777, apparently intended to mark the name-day of his employer: 30 September, the feast-day of St. Jerome. Because of its wind-band scoring, this Mass is unique, not only among Haydn’s Masses, but also in the Mass repertoire of Salzburg, and apparently in that of all late eighteenth-century Austria. The present article discusses the environment in which Haydn functioned and its effect on the practice (...) of church music in Salzburg and generally in Catholic Austria. Haydn’s employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was a proponent of Enlightenment thinking. He expressed in his Hirtenbrief of 1782 ideas opposed to the kind of sacred music then prevalent in Austria, in particular, the orchestral Mass. Reflective of the new Gottesdienstordnung promulgated by Emperor Joseph II, the proposed changes include the introduction of congregational hymns in the vernacular and severe reduction in numbers of liturgies and the amount of music allowed in them. Colloredo finds support for his ideas in the writings of St. Jerome and other church fathers. Given Haydn’s strong Catholic faith and dedication as a composer of sacred music, the article suggests that although he wrote the Missa as a dutiful servant of his employer, he meant it above all as a tribute to St. Jerome. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Making the "One" ImpossibleJane Gallop (bio)The last paragraph of the first chapter of Mother Tongues presents the book's argument. "What I hope to argue in this book," writes Johnson, "is that the plurality of languages and the plurality of sexes are alike in that they both make the 'one' impossible" [25]. While I am not convinced that Mother Tongues actually demonstrates the similarity between the plurality of languages and (...) the plurality of sexes, my reading nonetheless does find its thesis in this sentence. I would say that Johnson's project in this book is to "make the 'one' impossible," that throughout this book, Johnson continually and consistently argues against the "appeal" of "the 'one'"—repeatedly locates herself in, and exhorts us to join her in, resistance to the powerful seductions of "the 'one.'"In the sentence I just quoted, the word "one" is in quotation marks because the word is not quite the proper name for what Johnson is talking about. When I use the phrase "the 'one'" here, as I do in my title ("Making the 'One' Impossible"), and as I will do throughout this paper, the word "one" will always be in quotation marks, scare quotes.In Mother Tongues, "the 'one'" goes by a number of different names. In the last paragraph of the first chapter, for example, where we found our thesis, it is called "universality." Under that guise, we might recognize the politics of this resistance to "the 'one'" (a politics we are, at this point in critical history, all more than ready to climb on board for). Johnson's resistance to "the 'one'" in Mother Tongues, however, usually appears—I'm happy to say—in other, less politic, more perverse guises.The most widespread elaboration of Mother Tongues's resistance to "the 'one'" is through its active interest in the practice of translation. The theory and practice of translation elaborated in this book is one I'd like to call insubordinate translation. At a number of places, Johnson looks at multiple translations of a text along with the original, not in order to determine which is closer to the original, but in order to enlarge the network of meaning. At times, Johnson productively follows meanings which appear in a translation but are not in the original.The first time this occurs is in the first chapter, in a section entitled "Translation." Johnson is looking at two different English translations of Kafka's The Trial: an "old translation" she "happened to have on hand" and "a more recent edition" in which the old translation "had been revised." Studying the first sentence of the novel in the original and the two translations, Johnson seizes on the word traduce, which she finds in the old translation but not the revision and proclaims: "The translation... is thus even better than the original" [16, emphasis added].The next chapter of Mother Tongues gives us a sense of where, theoretically, this insubordination comes from: "the theory that transformed literary studies utterly transformed the practice of translation. Translating Derrida or Lacan became an art in itself" [32]. "An art in itself" suggests a primary creation, not secondary. (We would certainly want to recall here that Johnson herself translated Derrida's Dissemination). [End Page 77]In the third chapter, "The Task of the Translator," we find Johnson comparing an English translation of Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" to the German original. At one point she ponders the associations of "light" in the word lightly, which is translating the German fluchtig, associations that are not in the original. She concludes: "We have no way of talking about these creations ex nihilo of translation" [57]. Like the earlier "an art in itself," the phrase "creations ex nihilo" again makes translation a primary rather than secondary art. We may have "no way of talking about" these creations, but Mother Tongues does talk about them, regularly, throughout the book.The fifth chapter opens with an epigraph from a letter Benjamin wrote to Horkheimer, or rather an English translation of that letter. The conclusion to the first section of the chapter returns to the word apprehend, which appears in this epigraph: "the psychological... (shrink)

Latin is currently being trialled as a subject in 40 state secondary schools in England. This paper focuses on one of the justifications of this trial: that teaching Latin in state secondary schools provides students with cultural capital which in turn counters social injustice. By taking the example of Latin as a starting point, I reach two conclusions about cultural capital. The first is that providing students with cultural capital can be good for some individuals, and so justified on a (...) case-by-case basis depending on context. However, this justification does not hold for curriculum policy making. My second conclusion is that in the long term, pursuing cultural capital as part of curriculum policy exacerbates the social injustices it purports to address. Wherever an activity is introduced for the sake of cultural capital rather than its educational value, educationally valuable activities risk being pushed off the curriculum, potentially degrading the educational value of the curriculum. In the case of teaching Latin, it may provide benefits to particular students, but as part of curriculum policy it risks exacerbating social injustices and undermining the educational value of school curricula. Going beyond the place of Latin on the curriculum, I argue that all appeals to cultural capital provide a poor basis for curriculum policy making. (shrink)

A. C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Sciences (1978) is the only Western-language translation of the obscure and textually corrupt chapters of the Mozi that purportedly constitute the foundations of ancient Chinese logic. Graham's presentation and interpretation of this difficult material has been largely accepted by scholars. This article questions the soundness of Graham's reconstruction of these chapters (the so-called "Neo-Mohist Canons"). Upon close examination, problems are revealed in both the structure and the content of the framework Graham uses (...) to interpret the Canons. Without a more reliable framework for interpreting the text, it seems best to remain skeptical about claims that the Canons represent evidence for the study of logic in early China. (shrink)

Scholars of early Chinese philosophy frequently point to the non transcendent, organismic conception of the cosmos in early China as the source of China's unique perspective and distinctive values. One would expect recent works in Confucian ethics to capitalize on this idea. Reviewing recent works in Confucian ethics by P. J. Ivanhoe, David Nivison, R. P. Peerenboom, Henry Rosemont, and Tu Wei‐Ming, the author analyzes these new studies in termsof the extent to which their representation of Confucian ethics reflects and (...) is consistent with the view that in early China the cosmos was conceived to be organismic, nontranscendent, and nondualistic. (shrink)

Translation of "Von der Armut am Geiste; ein Dialog des jungen Lukács," by Ágnes Heller. This translation originally appeared in The Philosophical Forum, Spring-Summer 1972.

Eager to change the world? Learn how you can have a greater social impact through your everyday purchases. The money we routinely spend on food, clothes, gifts, and even indulgences is an untapped superpower. What would happen if we slowed down to make more thoughtful decisions about what we buy? For "mom and pop" stores across the country, and artisan and agricultural communities around the world, every purchase matters. Consumers--whether individuals, small businesses, or corporations--are paying more attention than ever to (...) how their goods are made; and retailers--large and small--are responding by investing in ethical and eco-friendly production. Yet figuring out which brands to support can feel overwhelming. Jane Mosbacher Morris has devoted her career to creating economic opportunities for vulnerable communities around the world, and in this valuable book, she shares her passion and insights on how we, as consumers, can create positive change too. Covering topics that range from why not all factories are evil, to how our morning coffee can be the easiest way for us to use our purchasing power for good, Buy the Change You Want to See makes us better informed consumers. Morris tells inspiring stories about how victims of human trafficking and natural disasters have been empowered by economic opportunity, and she offers practical ideas about how we can support these communities through our purchases--whether it comes to jewelry made from recycled materials in Haiti, sustainably grown and ethically sourced coffee and chocolate from farmers in some of the poorest regions of the world, or mass-produced jeans and shoes made in factories where workers are guaranteed decent working conditions and a fair wage. (shrink)

Increased attention to the relationship between democracy and education in the UK has been accompanied over the past thirteen years by an interest in how art can be used to promote democratic citizenship.While this approach has led to increased funding for the arts, it is not without its problems,and has often entailed an apolitical and instrumentalist view of both art and education. This paper turns to the political philosophy of Mouffe and Rancière, the work of Rancière in aesthetics, and Biesta’s (...) educational philosophy to develop an alternative way of understanding the significance of art for democracy and education. Building on their work, I take a performative and collective view of democratic subjectivity as the basis on which to construct this alternative understanding. I further argue that this conceptualisation can aid our understanding of democratic learning and our ability to provide opportunities for it through art and educational practice. (shrink)

Edith Stein is honored today not only because of her sainthood but because of what is now seen as important and groundbreaking work in phenomenology done under especially arduous conditions. Thus it may be said with some accuracy that Stein is, among philosophers, in the comparatively rare category of being acknowledged both for her work and her exemplary life. Writing on Stein has standardly proceeded with an emphasis on the biographical factors that caused her to live and write as she (...) did. One often reads that Stein was reared in a strongly Judaic tradition—her family was more observant, for example, than the family of Simone Weil—but that experiences she had as a young woman caused her to turn in the .. (shrink)

A central figure in Western history and American political thought, Thomas Paine continues to provoke debate among politicians, activists, and scholars. People of all ideological stripes are inspired by his trenchant defense of the rights and good sense of ordinary individuals, and his penetrating critiques of arbitrary power. This volume contains Paine’s explosive _Common Sense_ in its entirety, including the oft-ignored Appendix, as well as selections from his other major writings: _The American Crisis_, _Rights of Man,_ and _The Age of (...) Reason. _It also contains several of Paine’s shorter essays. All the documents have been transcribed directly from the originals, making this edition the most reliable one available. Essays by Ian Shapiro, Jonathan Clark, Jane Calvert, and Eileen Hunt Botting bring Paine into sharp focus, illuminating his place in the tumultuous decades surrounding the American and French Revolutions and his larger historical legacy. (shrink)

The Porosity of the Self delivers an original interpretation of the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology and one of the most important philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Laura Jane Nanni provides a unique exploration of the philosophical problem of the self, challenging prevailing accounts of self and personhood that are predominantly one-dimensional and fail to capture the intricate double-sidedness of how we experience ourselves, others, and the world around us in everyday life. Nanni demonstrates (...) how Husserl's philosophy offers an important alternative account of the self as porous - a notion that emerges through a thematic reconstruction of Husserl's conceptions of embodiment, habituality, temporality, relationality, personhood, intersubjectivity, and sociality. Here, the case is made that the self should be understood as multidimensional, dynamic, and complex by highlighting its fundamentally permeable nature. The main argument of the book is that no one element of the self is experienceable in isolation, and that Husserl's understanding can equally accommodate the uniqueness of subjective experience as well as social, cultural, and historical inflections, without yielding constitutive priority to one dimension over the other. The book is original as it encourages broad engagement with Husserl by simplifying some of his more complex texts using clear and accessible language, and adopting a thematic rather than chronological approach to his life's work. It shows how Husserlian phenomenology can provide a rich supplementary perspective for fields such as critical phenomenology and feminist philosophy, and offers a renewed way of engaging with Husserl's philosophy. (shrink)

This essay argues that Aristotle's categories of oratory are not as useful in judging the methods of Sophistical rhetoric as his presentation of time. The Sophistical argumentative method of “making the weaker the stronger case” is re-evaluated as a political practice. After showing this argument's relation to power and ideology, Aristotle's philosophy, which privileges a procedure of argument consistent with the politics of a polis-ideal rhetoric, is offered as reason for objecting to Sophistical rhetoric. The essay concludes that Sophistical rhetoric (...) prefers the concept of possibility over Aristotelian actuality, and offers a need for an ideological space of radical, generative possibility in rhetorical theory. (shrink)