According to Margaret Cavendish the entire natural world is essentially rational such that everything thinks in some way or another. In this paper, I examine why Cavendish would believe that the natural world is ubiquitously rational, arguing against the usual account, which holds that she does so in order to account for the orderly production of very complex phenomena (e.g. living beings) given the limits of the mechanical philosophy. Rather, I argue, she attributes ubiquitous rationality to the natural world in (...) order to ground a theory of the ubiquitous freedom of nature, which in turn accounts for both the world's orderly and disorderly behavior. (shrink)

The current feminist debate over ecology raises important and timely issues about the theoretical adequacy of the four leading versions of feminism-liberal feminism, traditional Marxist feminism, radical feminism, and socialist feminism. In this paper I present a minimal condition account of ecological feminism, or ecofeminism. I argue that if eco-feminism is true or at least plausible, then each of the four leading versions of feminism is inadequate, incomplete, or problematic as a theoretical grounding for eco-feminism. I conclude that, if eco-feminism (...) is to be taken seriously, then a transformative feminism is needed that will move us beyond the four familiar feminist frameworks and make an eco-feminist perspective central to feminist theory and practice. (shrink)

This innovative critical study reinterprets Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy for the study of modernist and contemporary literature and brings Wittgenstein into literary conversations around problems of difficulty, ethical instruction, and the yearning for transformation. Central to Karen Zumhagen-Yekple͹'s book are her critical readings of key modernist texts by Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. Throughout, Zumhagen-Yekplé brings to bear an interpretive framework that she derives from Wittgenstein's gnomic "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (first published in English in 1922, the "annus mirabilis" of (...) modernism), which she treats not as a theory of logic or metaphysics but as a complex mock-theoretical puzzle. The book's final chapter turns to recent fiction by J. M. Coetzee, a living author conscious of his debts both to Wittgenstein and his modernist literary precursors. This book will interest students of literary modernism, Wittgenstein, and the interconnections between fiction and ordinary language philosophy. (shrink)

I examine recent arguments to the effect that there are significant logical, conceptual, historical, or psychosexual connections between the subordination of women and the subordination of nature and argue that they are all problematic. Although there are important connections between women’s emancipation and the achievement of important environmental goals, they are practical connections rather than conceptual ones.

This book explains how gossip contributes to knowledge. Karen Adkins marshals scholarship and case studies spanning centuries and disciplines to show that although gossip is a constant activity in human history, it has rarely been studied as a source of knowledge. People gossip for many reasons, but most often out of desire to make sense of the world while lacking access to better options for obtaining knowledge. This volume explores how, when our access to knowledge is blocked, gossip becomes (...) a viable path to knowledge attainment, one that involves the asking of questions, the exchange of ideas, and the challenging of preconceived notions. (shrink)

To make possible the integration proposed by Domjan et al., psychologists first need to close the research gap between behavioral ecology and the study of Pavlovian conditioning. I suggest two strategies, namely, to adopt more behavioral ecological approaches to social behavior or to co-opt problems already addressed by behavioral ecologists that are especially well suited to the study of Pavlovian conditioning.

This theory of identity statements is extremely implausible. However, I hope to show that it is in fact Fred Kroon’s theory, and that he has some interesting arguments for it. On the other hand, I do not think the arguments succeed, and I think the theory really is as implausible as it sounds. In this paper I argue that Kroon is wrong about the evidence he claims supports his view, and that as an account of what is conveyed by speakers (...) who utter identity statements, it ought to be rejected. (shrink)

This paper develops an approach to humanist social critique that combines insights from Marx and Fanon. I argue that the concept of the human operative in humanist social critique should be understood both as the normative background against which questions of human flourishing and dehumanization can come into view, and as the evolving demand for universal human emancipation. Far from being abstract, essentialist, or ahistorical, Marx and Fanon show that humanist social critique operates through a dialectic between particular, socially and (...) historically situated forms of oppression and struggle, and the universal species-context of the human life-form in which particular forms of suffering and injustice can come into view as instances of dehumanization. In developing this approach to humanist social critique, I defend humanism against three prominent objections: the charge of speciesism, the charge of essentialism, and the recent charge from Kate Manne who argues that humanism underdescribes relations of social antagonism and that recognition of humanity is compatible with inhumane treatment. In addition to considering the necessary relation between the particular and the universal, I also consider the relation between the psychological and social/political, arguing against the recent approach to the problem of dehumanization in the work of David Livingstone Smith. (shrink)

Introduction for the Synthese Special Issue on Spacetime Functionalism.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

My aim in this paper is to examine Aristotle's puzzling and contentious claim inPolitics1.13 that the deliberative faculty in women is ‘without authority’ :The freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present in different ways. For the slave lacks the deliberative faculty altogether; the woman has it, but it is (...) without authority, and the child has it, but it is immature. (shrink)

Nursing staff of many specialities are taking on and developing their roles in new and advanced practice areas. Patients will be offered new services from highly skilled advanced nurse practitioners. Such nurses need guidance, direction and information to assist them in their new roles. This book will offer insight and guidance on a variety of issues that are likely to be encountered by the Nurse Practitioner in everyday practice.

When Anthony Ashley-Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Roman emperor was a relatively new member of the Stoic tradition as it was seen through early modern eyes. This article discusses two books owned and annotated by Shaftesbury, one a translation of Marcus Aurelius into English, the other a version of the Greek text. These books are a record of his study of earlier scholarship on the Meditations, primarily (...) the edition and notes of Thomas Gataker. This article gives a sense of how a reader who was influential in the dissemination of Stoic thought, studied the scholarship of an earlier age. (shrink)

Offers career guidance to Ph.D. degree holders, addressing such issues as publishing, interviews, CVs, cultivating references, avoiding career path mistakes, and transitioning to non-academic work.

Los libros de literatura testimonial del secuestro en Colombia ayudaron a fundamentar el discurso contra-terrorista del segundo periodo presidencial de Uribe, puesto que no solo cuestionaron a la guerrilla de las FARC desde su discurso, sino desde su accionar visto desde adentro. A partir del análisis de cuatro libros testimoniales, se establecen las representaciones de la guerrilla como victimaria y de los secuestrados como víctimas. Estos libros develan un grupo armado “salvaje”, incompasivo, sanguinario, poco humano, que no expresa coherencia entre (...) lo que dice que hace y lo que realmente hace. A partir de diversas operaciones discursivas, se recrea a la organización alzada en armas y al sujeto guerrillero como el Otro violento que hay que derrotar, en tanto exhibe unas condiciones psicológicas e ideológicas sancionables. Sin embargo, se pueden establecer diferencias en la manera cómo los autores representan a la guerrilla y esto tiene que ver también con la manera cómo los testimoniantes se representan a sí mismos como víctimas. El hecho de haber presenciado los hechos victimizantes convierte a los autores de los testimonios en testigos por excelencia, cuya palabra debe creerse. Aunque una parte significativa de los relatos testimoniales está compuesta por las descripciones de los vejámenes de la guerrilla hacia los secuestrados y las pésimas condiciones en que estos vivían, los testimonios también son documentos de resistencia y recomposición de la identidad. (shrink)

This volume seeks to improve an understanding of and conversations about the nature, meaning and significance of higher education's public service within the scope of a democratic society. Contributors offer educators and students a praxis-oriented, hope-infused, contemplative approach to conceiving, developing and in some cases, returning to public service and public identity in the twenty-first century.

It is widely acknowledged that the gradual emergence of the modern nation-state is associated with intensified interest in the government of childhood. Grounded in the Foucauldian literature on governmentality and drawing on a broad range of disciplines, this book examines the government of childhood in the West from the early modern period to the present. The book deals with three key time periods, examining shifts in the conceptualization and regulation of childhood and child-rearing between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth (...) century; between the late eighteenth century and the mid/late twentieth century and the period from the late twentieth century to the present day. Building on the work of Chris Jenks, The Government of Childhood deploys the images of the Dionysian and Apollonian images of childhood as symbolic targets of power/knowledge and presents a third model - the Athenian child - as a symbolic target of modes of exercising power over the young that is grounded in children's capacity for agency. (shrink)

Despite its importance for early analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege's account of existence statements, according to which they classify concepts, has been thought to succumb to a number of well-worn criticisms. This article does two things. First, it argues that, by remaining faithful to the letter of Frege's claim that concepts are functions, the Fregean account can be saved from many of the standard criticisms. Second, it examines the problem that Frege's account fails to generalize to cases which involve definite descriptions (...) and proper names. To deal with this the proffered analysis deviates from the letter of Frege's views, while remaining within its spirit. It proposes, in opposition to Frege, that expressions which grammatically look like singular terms should not always be read as referring to objects, but are sometimes best analysed as indicating functions. (shrink)

This study draws upon naturalistic ethnographic data to expand current understandings regarding the socio-communicative capabilities and challenges of children with autism spectrum disorders in mid-childhood. Affording a view of the children’s spontaneous interactions within naturally occurring family and community settings, the study explores a range of discursive resources utilized by the children to accomplish socially reciprocal positive politeness practices in tandem with others. Emphasizing contextualized deployment of politeness forms in interaction, the practice-based conception developed here construes positive politeness as a (...) discursive process encompassing both socio-cultural and interpersonal knowledge/skills; and contributes to a perspective in which social and communicative realms are conceptualized as integrated domains of functioning. (shrink)

Using exploratory factor analysis on a unique dataset of global executives, we find that their perceptions of their national government’s risk management effectiveness are largely driven by two latent factors: leadership virtue, and governance. We show that the leadership virtue signal is potentially a stronger signal. We hypothesize that this may be because making decisions and taking actions to manage risk is a continuous process requiring inter alia foresight and moral discipline in looking to the interests of others and acting (...) in service to those interests above self-interest. This suggests at least two propositions for further testing, for which, we offer rhetorical argument and anecdotal evidence at the end of this paper and suggest methodologies for further testing. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to uncover this connection empirically between national risk management and leadership virtue. (shrink)

This article explores the representational practices of feminist theorising around gender and violence. Adapting Liz Kelly’s notion of the continuum of women’s experiences of sexual violence, I argue that ‘continuum thinking’ can offer important interventions which unsettle binaries, recognise grey areas in women’s experiences and avoid ‘othering’ specific communities. Continuum thinking allows us to understand connections whilst nevertheless maintaining distinctions that are important conceptually, politically and legally. However, this is dependent upon recognising the multiplicity of continuums in feminist theorising – (...) as well as in policy contexts – and the different ways in which they operate. A discussion of contemporary theory and policy suggests that this multiplicity is not always recognised, resulting in a flattening of distinctions which can make it difficult to recognise the specifically gendered patterns of violence and experience. I conclude by considering how focusing on men’s behaviour might offer one way of unsettling the contemporary orthodoxy which equates gender-based violence and violence against women. (shrink)

Karen Frost-Arnold's response to comments Respuesta de Karen Frost-Arnold a los comentarios Karen Frost-Arnold's response to comments.

The French studies scholar Patrick Coleman made the important observation that over the course of the eighteenth century, the social meanings of anger became increasingly democratized. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an outstanding example of this change. In Man or Citizen, Karen Pagani expands, in original and fascinating ways, the study of anger in Rousseau’s autobiographical, literary, and philosophical works. Pagani is especially interested in how and to what degree anger—and various reconciliatory responses to anger, such as forgiveness—functions (...) as a defining aspect of one’s identity, both as a private individual and as a public citizen. Rousseau himself was, as Pagani puts it, “unabashed” in his own anger and indignation—toward society on one hand (corrupter of our naturally good and authentic selves) and, on the other, toward certain individuals who had somehow wronged him (his famous philosophical disputes with Voltaire and Diderot, for example). In Rousseau’s work, Pagani finds that the extent to which an individual processes, expresses, and eventually resolves or satisfies anger is very much of moral and political concern. She argues that for Rousseau, anger is not only inevitable but also indispensable, and that the incapacity to experience it renders one amoral, while the ability to experience it is a key element of good citizenship. (shrink)

This discussion contributes to the ongoing debates regarding the (re)sexualisation of female bodies in popular and visual culture. Visual texts display the upper middle-class white female as the carrier of mainstream neo-liberal values in Western societies, and the success of this approach is the twinning of the culture of individualism, self-interest and market values with feminist vocabularies; namely, choice, freedom and independence. Drawing on a broad feminist scholarship that includes discussions on the influence of the HBO series Sex and the (...) City, semiotic analysis is combined with intersectionality to gain an understanding of how gender, class and sexuality shape and reinforce whiteness as entitled to luxury in an advertising campaign for Michael Kors luxury goods. Contemporary representations have expanded to include representations of affluent women who appear to have it all. These new post-feminist subjectivities promote an aesthetic of wealth, to display privileged whiteness, heterosexuality, normative Western beauty ideals and individualism. An intersectional approach reveals the apparent neutrality of neo-liberal values as being an expression of whiteness, specifically in representations of white women as economically independent neo-liberal subjects who display their status through the conspicuous consumption of luxury brands. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 1162-1175, December 2021.

Thinking of the animal-as-non-human is an idea that does not solely belong to a myopic yet ameliorable moment of Western philosophy’s past. It is central to, even constitutive of that past. It remains characteristic of its present and will likely dominate the character of philosophy—of thinking’s—foreseeable future. My contention is that thinking-difference has not, and cannot happen because of thinking-the-animal, and this is precisely due to the conceptual companionship that animality has played between the human and the non-human. This paper (...) explores thinking otherwise-thananimality through the activation of the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of becoming-plant. Plant life is genuinely heterogeneous to animal life. In this paper I explore the complex phenomenon of plant communication. Thinking through and activating the vital difference expressed by plant signalling can play a role in the activation of real difference in thought, not merely its companionable extension. (shrink)

Nursing is a profession rooted in ethics, yet nurses often find it difficult to navigate the ethical quandaries faced in clinical practice. The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant moral distress among staff. To support nurses and promote ethical reasoning, the Ethics Liaison Program for nursing was developed. The 36-hour program, run over nine months, proved to be highly effective in improving nurse work satisfaction, participant’s confidence and knowledge about ethics and ethical reasoning, connectivity to the clinical ethics service, and patient care. (...) This article describes program development, implementation, and evaluation. (shrink)