This volume brings together for the first time the highly influential essays, many of them classics, of one of the most prominent scholars in social philosophy and feminist theory. These essays provide a compelling view of many of the major trends in social theory over the past fifteen years—trends that Linda Nicholson herself helped to shape. The Play of Reason examines the legacies of modernity in contemporary political, social, and feminist thought and the unraveling of these legacies in postmodern (...) times. Linda Nicholson first focuses on the tension in modern social theory between attempts to recognize change and diversity and struggles to capture such change in overarching frameworks of meaning and value. She illuminates the consequences of these conflicting tendencies in relation to Marxism, feminist theory, and classical liberal accounts of the family and the state. Nicholson then asks how theory and the resolution of difference are possible after such overarching frameworks are abandoned. She shows how a pragmatic understanding of theory answers widespread fears about relativism. The Play of Reason is a powerful demonstration of a politically engaged social theory. (shrink)

In provocative readings of major figures in the continental tradition, Alcoff shows that the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Michel Foucault can help rectify key ...

What purpose is served by renovation or redesign of professionalism, and how successful a process is it likely to be? This article addresses these questions by examining the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism. The 'new' professionalisms purported to have been fashioned over the last two or three decades across the spectrum of UK education sectors and contexts have been the subject of extensive analysis, (...) and this article avoids going over old ground and revisiting issues that have already been much debated. Nevertheless, the example of UK government education policy during this period is used as a basis for considering the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda. The article's analysis incorporates redefinition and examination of the concept and substance of professionalism and offers new perspectives in the form of three distinct conceptions: demanded, prescribed and enacted professionalism. Exploring the existentialist status of 'new' or 'modified' professionalisms and the relationship between professionality, professional culture and professionalism, it examines how professionalism may be interpreted and utilised for the development of education professionals. (shrink)

Women, Art, and Power?seven landmark essays on women artists and women in art history?brings together the work of almost twenty years of scholarship and speculation.

For many decades, race and racism have been common areas of study in departments of sociology, history, political science, English, and anthropology. Much more recently, as the historical concept of race and racial categories have faced significant scientific and political challenges, philosophers have become more interested in these areas. This changing understanding of the ontology of race has invited inquiry from researchers in moral philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and aesthetics. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of (...) Race offers in one comprehensive volume newly written articles on race from the world's leading analytic and continental philosophers. It is, however, accessible to a readership beyond philosophy as well, providing a cohesive reference for a wide student and academic readership. The Companion synthesizes current philosophical understandings of race, providing 37 chapters on the history of philosophy and race as well as how race might be investigated in the usual frameworks of contemporary philosophy. The volume concludes with a section on philosophical approaches to some topics with broad interest outside of philosophy, like colonialism, affirmative action, eugenics, immigration, race and disability, and post-racialism. By clearly explaining and carefully organizing the leading current philosophical thinking on race, this timely collection will help define the subject and bring renewed understanding of race to students and researchers in the humanities, social science, and sciences. (shrink)

Sexual violence has become a topic of intense media scrutiny, thanks to the bravery of survivors coming forward to tell their stories. But, unfortunately, mainstream public spheres too often echo reports in a way that inhibits proper understanding of its causes, placing too much emphasis on individual responsibility or blaming minority cultures. -/- In this powerful and original book, Linda Martín Alcoff aims to correct the misleading language of public debate about rape and sexual violence by showing how complex (...) our experiences of sexual violation can be. Although it is survivors who have galvanized movements like #MeToo, when their words enter the public arena they can be manipulated or interpreted in a way that damages their effectiveness. Rather than assuming that all experiences of sexual violence are universal, we need to be more sensitive to the local and personal contexts – who is speaking and in what circumstances – that affect how activists’ and survivors’ protests will be received and understood. -/- Alcoff has written a book that will revolutionize the way we think about rape, finally putting the survivor center stage. (shrink)

Drawing on qualitative research evidence, this article offers an interpretation of morale which focuses on individual needs fulfilment. Three conceptual areas are discussed: morale as a group or an individual phenomenon; the dimensionality of morale; and the relationship between morale and satisfaction. It is suggested that work on morale has often been weakened by misinterpretation and misapplication and that what has often been presented as morale is, in fact, group cohesiveness or job satisfaction. Inappropriate generalisation has tended to obscure the (...) intricacies of morale and greater attention should now be paid to the individuality of influential factors. Salary and working conditions may be much less influential on morale than is generally thought. More significant, it is suggested, is the extent to which the job fulfils the individual's ‘ideal’. (shrink)

The term “gender” has played a key role in feminist theory and politics since the late 1960s. Debates over its meaning reflect major turning points within the women's movement of the past thirty years.

Quelles politiques linguistiques vont le mieux permettre de mettre en valeur les avantages du bilinguisme et l'apprentissage des langues tout en favorisant la pérennité des langues minoritaires à l'ère de la mondialisation? Cet article tente de répondre à la question en basant son propos sur l'exemple des politiques d'aménagement linguistique du Canada et du Québec. Il montre que la mondialisation linguistique exerce une pression supplémentaire sur un équilibre déjà fragile entre les francophones et les anglophones au Canada et il suggère (...) de réviser les principes actuels afin d'assurer la pérennité du français, notamment au Québec.What language policies will best help highlight the benefits of bilingualism and language learning while promoting the sustainability of minority languages ​​in the era of globalization? This article attempts to answer the question, basing his remarks on the example of language planning policies of Canada and Quebec. It shows that linguistic globalization puts additional pressure on already fragile balance between Francophones and Anglophones in Canada and suggested revising the current principles in order to ensure the sustainability of the French, especially in Quebec. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie moderne Religionsgeschichte hat Mazdak, Anführer einer sozioreligiösen Reformbewegung im Sasanidenreich, auf divergierende Weise konzeptualisiert. Insbesondere die diskrepanten Quellenhinweise auf angeblich von Mazdak geforderte Frauen- und Gütergemeinschaften eröffneten Spielraum, eigene, zumeist anachronistische und somit problematische Vorannahmen in Bezug auf das Verhältnis von sogenannten ‚sozialen‘ und ‚religiösen‘ Faktoren der Reformbewegung zu projizieren. Die in Bezug auf Mazdak besonders deutlich hervortretende Problematik nachträglicher Zuschreibungen und narrativer Überlagerungen unterstreicht die grundsätzliche Notwendigkeit, Forschungsgeschichte und Begrifflichkeiten konsequent zu historisieren, und schliesst damit an die übergeordnete (...) Fragestellung an, wie historische Gegenstände (re-)konstruiert werden können. (shrink)

This book reveals the power of critical thinking to make sense of overwhelming and often subjective media by detecting ideology, slant, and spin at work. Building off the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework, Fact over Fake focuses on the internal logic of the news as well as societal influences on the media.

This volume of the Thinker’s Guide Library analyzes the intellectual standards by which reasoning is judged by skilled thinkers. It broadens the discussion of essential standards such as clarity, accuracy, relevance, and fairness to encompass banks of standards useful for any teacher, administrator, or professional in an evaluative role.

Parables are not frequently found in critical thinking textbooks. And, yet, because parables are relatively simple, engaging stories, they can present various principles of good reasoning and attitudes of a critical thinker in a way that is fun and accessible to the students in our classrooms. Using two well-known parables, W. K. Clifford’s Ship Owner and John Wisdom’s Invisible Gardener, I outline how parables like these can be used in the teaching of critical thinking, and what the benefits of doing (...) so are. I also argue that the religious context in which the parables were set is not a detriment to their pedagogical value but, rather, can be an added benefit. (shrink)

In this paper I set out the problem of feminist social science as the need to explain and justify its method of theory choice in relation to both its own theories and those of androcentric social science. In doing this, it needs to avoid both a positivism which denies the impact of values on scientific theory-choice and a radical relativism which undercuts the emancipatory potential of feminist research. From the relevant literature I offer two possible solutions: the Holistic and the (...) Constructivist models of theory-choice. I then rate these models according to what extent they solve the problem of feminist social science. I argue that the principal distinction between these models is in their contrasting conceptions of truth. Solving the problem of feminist social science will require understanding that what is at stake in the debate is our conception of truth. This understanding will serve to clarify, though not resolve, the various approaches to and disagreements over methodologies and explanations in feminist social science. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 231-248.

Linda LeMoncheck introduces a new way of thinking and talking about women's sexual pleasures, preferences, and desires. Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, she discusses methods for mediating the tensions among apparently irreconcilable feminist perspectives on women's sexuality and shows how a feminist epistemology and ethic can advance the dialogue in women's sexuality across a broad political spectrum. She argues that in order to capture the diversity and complexity of women's sexual experience, women's sexuality must be examined from (...) two equally compelling perspectives: that of women's sexual oppression under conditions of individual and institutional male dominance; and that of women's sexual liberation, both in terms of each woman's pursuit of sexual agency and self-definition, and in terms of women's sexual liberation as a class. Loose Women, Lecherous Men sheds crucial new light on such much-debated topics as promiscuity, adultery, sexual deviance, prostitution, pornography, sexual harassment, and sexual violence against women. Her book supports a dialogue that encourages both women and men to take up a feminist perspective in exploring the meaning and value of sexuality in their lives. (shrink)

In her article, Alcoff argues for the need to examine the reality of race philosophically. According to Alcoff, liberal notions of universality as well as the postmodern critique of essentialism make it difficult to address race and its ongoing significance in social life. By engaging with authors like Charles W. Mills and Paul Gilroy, Alcoff aims to show that it is possible to develop an account of race as social and historical reality without essentializing the category of race.

This is the biography of one of the most original and widely significant, yet largely forgotten, British scientists. Frederick Soddy is an intriguing figure who was deeply concerned with and involved in politics, economics, and the role of science in the world. He was one of the first generation of English atomic scientists, working with Rutherford on the initial discoveries about atomic disintegration, and received the Nobel Prize in 1921 for hi research on isotopes. Soddy's worry about the responsibility of (...) science and scientists to society began with his fear that the atomic energy he and Rutherford had discovered could be disastrous if suitable political controls were not enforced, and led to his abandoning scientific research. He lived to see his worst fears realized with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soddy was a pioneer in the field of energy conservation and environmental ethics, and was committed to social reform. Frederick Soddy was a remarkable and talented man who was not recognized as such in his own life-time, largely because his ideas and attitudes did not fit in with the times in which he lived. However he has become more appreciated since his death, not only because his scientific work has gained its rightful recognition, but also because of the increased awareness today of the environment and the role of science in it. (shrink)

Differentiating self from other has been investigated at the neural level, and its incorporation into the model proposed Hurley is necessary for the model to be complete. With an emphasis on the feed-forward model in layer 2, we examine the role that self and other disruptions, including auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), may have in expanding the model proposed by Hurley.

FOR women, it is supposed to trigger one of the most intense orgasms imaginable, with waves of pleasure spreading out across the whole body. If the "G spot orgasm" seems semi-mythical, however, that's because there has been scant evidence of its existence. Now for the first time gynaecological scans have revealed clear anatomical differences between women who claim to experience vaginal orgasms involving a G spot and those who don't. It might mean that there is a G spot, after all. (...) What's more, a simple test could tell you if it's time to give up the hunt, or if your partner just needs to try harder. (shrink)

Just prior to his last fight, Beowulf delivers a long speech on the headlands above the dragon's cave . It is, with the exception of his report to Hygelac on returning from Heorot, Beowulf's longest and perhaps his most puzzling speech. Little has been written about the speech as a whole; in fact, rather little attention has been paid to any of Beowulf's speeches, which is perhaps not surprising given Beowulf's stated preference for deeds over words. “It is better for (...) a man to avenge his friend than to mourn much,” Beowulf tells Hrothgar, and indeed in a heroic narrative we might ordinarily expect actions to take precedence over words. So it dismays those who would judge the poem primarily as a heroic narrative to find, as Klaeber did, that despite the hero's initial appearance as “an aggressive war hero of the Achilles or Sigfrit type,” Beowulf is in fact “somewhat tame, sentimental, and fond of talking,” and nowhere more so than in this speech. (shrink)

This book examines the intersections of bioethics, human rights and health equity. It does so through the contextual lenses of nation states while presenting global themes on rights, colonialism and bioethics. The book is framed by the following propositions on indigenous health: it is a human rights issue; it is located within the politics of colonization; and subjugated indigenous knowledges require restoring.

This chapter surveys the variety of ways in which people who may appear at first to be bystanders, or mere bystanders, to wrongdoing, harm or danger might instead share responsibility with other actors. My discussion divides cases into three rough, non- exclusive categories: (a) shared responsibility for wrongs and harms; (b) shared responsibility to provide aid; and (c) shared responsibility to enforce moral norms. The third category has received the least discussion to date. My modest goal for this portion of (...) the chapter is to highlight some ways in which the responsibilities of witnesses to wrongdoing need to be more thoroughly theorized. But, furthermore, I want to suggest that these cases show that active bystanders are not always preferable to passive ones. Sometimes, it is better for witnesses to wrongdoing to remain mere bystanders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:To Recognize the Person: Learning from Narratives of Psychiatric TreatmentLinda J. MorrisonTo know what patients endure at the hands of illness and therefore to be of clinical help requires that doctors enter the worlds of their patients, if only imaginatively, and to see and interpret these worlds from the patient’s point of view(Charon, 2006, p. 9).These narratives of psychiatric hospitalization are rich and evocative. We are fortunate to have (...) twelve descriptions appearing side-by-side, each unique in its focus, outlook, detail and narrative tone. Together their interwoven contexts describe personal and work relationships, internal and external help-seeking, encounters in community and hospital settings, and experiences of the psychiatric (psychiatrized) self as supplicant, victim, recipient, participant, product, and active agent over time (Morrison, 2005).Through their collected narratives, the authors create a distinct counterpoint to the more familiar clinical narratives of psychiatric encounters. Ordinarily the professional narrative drives interpretation of a clinical experience, whether medical or psychiatric. The caregivers populating these narratives would probably tell different stories, and the hospital notes and treatment records yet another (Hinsby & Baker, 2004; VanDerNagel et al., 2009). The disjunction between professional and patient narrative is especially true for psychiatric hospitalizations, in which the inpatient’s active narrative becomes a part of the diagnostic and treatment process (Steslow, 2010).In this symposium, the patient’s narrative is a window for interpretive insights into personal experience of the process. Each is a situated retrospective, in which added dimensions of feeling, thought and interaction provide the reader a fuller and more complex awareness of the experience of psychiatric hospitalization. The narratives provide insights about choice and agency, control and harm, safety and strength, hope and frustration, resilience and recovery, empathy and humanity; they also reveal various ethical issues related to the experience of help-seeking and treatment.It is vital to consider what each person wrote: what choices they made in representing their experience; what aspects they focused on, and what they (we imagine) left out. The authors used their own voices to create their own representations. In each narrative, “the person” provides an important standpoint. Who is this person, what is his or her experience? Where is the person in the situation; in what way does he or she appear to those who provide treatment or care? How, if at all, is the treatment pertinent to the person’s concerns? Does it feel helpful or harmful? How does the person find a way to continue, to push through, with the help of (or in spite of) those we hope are providing care? This is the first sign of agency, of choice, of “dreaming.” [End Page 35]As V. Barnard writes in Dreaming: A Recovery Story, “to make a film, one has to dream it first.” All of the authors in this symposium took the risk and the opportunity to create their own stories: what to include, what to leave out, how to tell what they wanted to say. These choices gave them the power to dream: how it was, how it might have been; how it felt, good and bad; the chance to represent their own reality—to themselves, and to unknown others (Morrison, 2006).Dreaming, Choice and Agency“My psychiatric illness is only one part of me. I am a person with hopes, dreams, love, an artist and a fellow helper of my peers.” V. BarnardV.’s narrative describes the potential for positive action, of dreaming herself as a whole into existence. Her themes of choice and agency emphasize the importance of autonomy and the capacity for autonomous action. On the farm, V. was free to choose and take risks, to take on responsibilities, to be “treated with respect as a human being trying to get better rather than a criminal suffering from something that was optional.” From disconnection, she was able to find connection, on her own terms.The support of peers adds a valuable dimension. Being recognized as a peer, a person who shares similar psychiatric experiences and respects the challenge of everyday life, brings another level to supportive relationships. Negative judgments and stigma are reduced by mutual support and acknowledgement of common goals. Mental health... (shrink)