AS WITH OTHER CONSIDERATIONS FROM AN ETHICS OF VIRTUE, DISCERNing the ends of sexual activities requires a careful examination of the particularly human dimensions of sex. By asking, "What do you want from, what are your hopes, what are your ends for your sex life?" three dimensions of excellent sex emerge: a feel for incarnation, an ability for intimacy, and an eye for insight.

Memory, funerals, and the communion of the saints: growing old and practices of remembering / M. Therese Lysaught -- God bends over backward to accommodate humankind...while the Civil Rights Acts and the Americans with Disabilities Act require [only] minimum effort / Mary Jo Iozzio -- Radical solidarity: migration as challenge ofr contemporary Christian ethics / Kristin E. Heyer -- Catholic lesbian feminist theology / Mary E. Hunt -- Theology of whose body? Sexual conplementarity, intersex conditions, and La Virgen de Guadalupe (...) / Katie M. Grimes -- Social conscience and politics in the United States of America: reflections / Mary Jo Bane -- Pope Francis, women, and the church for the poor / Lisa A. Fullam -- Floodwaters and the ticking clock: the systematic oppression and stigmatization of poor, single mothers in American and Christian theological responses / Julie A. Mavity Maddalena --What causes inequity? / Dean Baker -- Engaging the U.S. Bishops' pastoral on crime and criminal justice: from atomism to community justice / Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon -- Reconstructing the moral claim of racially unjust mass incarceration / Alison Benders -- The systemic erasure of the Black/dark-skinned body in Catholic ethics / Bryan Massingale -- Anti-blackness and white supremacy in the making of American Catholicism / M. Shawn Copeland -- White privilege / Charles E. Curran -- The Black Lives Matter Movement: justice and health equity / Michael P. Jaycox -- Mujerista theology: a challenge to traditional theology / Ada María Isasi-Díaz -- Faith of our mothers; Catholic womanist God-talk / Diana L. Hayes. (shrink)

Over the last decade, AI models of language and word meaning have been dominated by what we might call a statistics-of-occurrence, strategy: these models are deep neural net structures that have been trained on a large amount of unlabeled text with the aim of producing a model that exploits statistical information about word and phrase co-occurrence in order to generate behavior that is similar to what a human might produce, or representations that can be probed to exhibit behavior similar to (...) what a human might produce (meaningsemblant behavior). Examples of what we can call Statistics-of-Occurrence Models (SOMs) include: Word2Vec (CBOW and Skip-Gram), BERT, GPT-3, and, most recently, ChatGPT. Increasingly, there have been suggestions that such systems have semantic understanding, or at least a proto-version of it. This paper argues against such claims. I argue that a necessary condition for a system to possess semantic understanding is that it function in ways that are causally explainable by appeal to its semantic properties. I then argue that SOMs do not plausibly satisfy this Functioning Criterion. Rather, the best explanation of their meaning-semblant behavior is what I call the Statistical Hypothesis: SOMs do not themselves function to represent or produce meaningful text; they just reflect the semantic information that exists in the aggregate given strong correlations between word placement and meaningful use. I consider and rebut three main responses to the claim that SOMs fail to meet the Functioning Criterion. The result, I hope, is increased clarity about why and how one should make claims about AI systems having semantic understanding. (shrink)

Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality asks what happens when the sense that "I must" collides with the realization that "I can't." Bringing together philosophical and empirical work in moral psychology, Lisa Tessman here examines moral requirements that are non-negotiable and that contravene the principle that "ought implies can.".

What is the explanatory role of ‘status-truths’ such as essence-truths, necessity-truths and law-truths? A plausible principle, suggested by various authors, is Ground by Status, according to which status truths ground their prejacents. For instance, if it is essential to a that p, then this grounds the fact that p. But Ground by Status faces a forceful objection: it is inconsistent with widely accepted principles regarding the logic of grounding (Glazier in Philos Stud 174(11):2871–2889, 2017a, Synthese 174(198):1409–1424, 2017b; Kappes in Synthese (...) 199(1–2):2575–2595, 2020, Philos Stud 178(4):1267–1284, 2021). I defend Ground by Status against this objection. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to de-naturalize the prevailing economistic imaginary of work that Max Weber and later commentators described as ‘protestant work ethic,’ epitomized in the figure of homo economicus. We do so by contrasting it with the imaginary of skillful work that can be found in vignettes about artisans in the Zhuangzi. We argue that there are interesting contrasts between these views concerning 1) direct goal achievement vs. indirect goal achievement through the cultivation of skills; 2) the hierarchization (...) of mental versus physical dimensions of work; 3) the crafting of non-dominating relationships between the working subject, their object, and their instruments of work, which leads to questions about the sustainability of these relationships; and 4) the relationship between work and well-being, which the Daoist texts conceptualize in a much more holistic, but also more presentist way than Western economic rationality. We conclude by pointing out the relevance of these differences for several contemporary debates about work, by denaturalizing a dominant imaginary of work, by distinguishing different forms of work, by suggesting a different relation between work and nature, and by raising questions about the desirability of the automation of work. (shrink)

Epistemic practices are an important but underappreciated component of business ethics; good conduct requires making epistemically sound as well as morally principled judgments. Well-founded judgments are promoted by epistemic virtues, and for organizations, epistemic virtues are arguably achieved through organizational good epistemic practices. But how are such practices to be developed? This paper addresses this normative and practical challenge. The first half of the paper explains what organizational good epistemic practices are and outlines a means for their construction. The second (...) half of the paper demonstrates how specific good epistemic practices could be developed by considering a case of corporate epistemic failings: JPMorgan’s notorious 2012 ‘London Whale’ trading losses. Following this, the paper briefly surveys the institutional epistemic failings of the 2008 global financial crisis and the remedial actions that they suggest. Although the discussion is focused on the banking industry, the main ideas, and some of the epistemic practices, generalize to organizations in other industries. (shrink)

Is curiosity a virtue or a vice? Curiosity, as a disposition to attain new, worthwhile information, can manifest as an epistemic virtue. When the disposition to attain new information is not manifested virtuously, this is either because the agent lacks the appropriate motivation to attain the information or because the agent has poor judgement, seeking information that is not worthwhile or seeking information by inappropriate means. In the right circumstances, curiosity contributes to the agent’s excellence in character: it is appropriate (...) to praise the agent for being curious, blame the agent for not being curious, and also prompt the agent to cultivate such curiosity, at least in some of the relevant contexts. We believe curiosity can also manifest as a moral virtue when it helps an interpreter view a speaker as an agent with a valuable perspective on the world. Especially in interactions where either there is a marked power imbalance between interpreter and speaker, or interpreter and speaker have identity beliefs that lead them to radically different worldviews, curiosity can help foster mutual understanding, and prevent the interpreter from dismissing, marginalizing, or pathologizing the speaker’s perspective. (shrink)

We talk about irrationality when behaviour defies explanation or prediction, when decisions are driven by emotions or instinct rather than by reflection, when reasoning fails to conform to basic principles of logic and probability, and when beliefs lack coherence or empirical support. Depending on the context, agents exhibiting irrational behaviour may be described as foolish, ignorant, unwise or even insane. -/- In this clear and engaging introduction to current debates on irrationality, Lisa Bortolotti presents the many facets of the (...) concept and offers an original account of the importance of judgements of irrationality as value judgements. The book examines the standards against which we measure human behaviour, and reviews the often serious implications of judgements of irrationality for ethics and policy. Bortolotti argues that we should adopt a more critical stance towards accepted standards of rationality in the light of the often surprising outcomes of philosophical inquiry and cognitive science research into decision making. -/- Irrationality is an accessible guide to the concept and will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in the limitations of human cognition and human agency. (shrink)

I argue that some cases of delusions show the inadequacy of those theories of interpretation that rely on a necessary rationality constraint on belief ascription. In particular I challenge the view that irrational beliefs can be ascribed only against a general background of rationality. Subjects affected by delusions seem to be genuine believers and their behaviour can be successfully explained in intentional terms, but they do not meet those criteria that according to Davidson (1985a) need to be met for the (...) background of rationality to be in place. (shrink)

This paper questions the prevailing historical understanding that scientific racism "retreated" in the 1950s when anthropology adopted the concepts and methods of population genetics and race was recognized to be a social construct and replaced by the concept of population. More accurately, a "populational" concept of race was substituted for a "typological one"-this is demonstrated by looking at the work of Theodosius Dobzhansky circa 1950. The potential for contemporary research in human population genetics to contribute to racism needs to be (...) considered with respect to the ability of the typological-population distinction to arbitrate boundaries between racist society and nonracist, even anti-racist, science. I point out some ethical limits of "population thinking" in doing so. (shrink)

Good epistemic practices are essential to the well-functioning of organizations. Epistemic practices are adopted norms, policies, procedures, and general methodologies that further our epistemic aims or realize our epistemic values. This chapter argues for the importance of organizational good epistemic practices through an analysis of the failures of risk management implicated in JPMorgan’s notorious ‘London Whale’ trading losses, which roiled the financial markets in 2012. A number of these failures of risk management exemplified ways in which we, as fallible reasoners, (...) may be prone to error individually and collectively. Good epistemic practices inter alia anticipate and endeavor to correct for erroneous patterns of reasoning. They help guard against future epistemic failings, and they support good reasoning within and on the part of organizations. In so doing, they constitute some of the key structural elements of organizational epistemic virtues. (shrink)

Stem cell research. Drug company influence. Abortion. Contraception. Long-term and end-of-life care. Human participants research. Informed consent. The list of ethical issues in science, medicine, and public health is long and continually growing. These complex issues pose a daunting task for professionals in the expanding field of bioethics. But what of the practice of bioethics itself? What issues do ethicists and bioethicists confront in their efforts to facilitate sound moral reasoning and judgment in a variety of venues? Are those immersed (...) in the field capable of making the right decisions? How and why do they face moral challenge -- and even compromise -- as ethicists? What values should guide them? In The Ethics of Bioethics, Lisa A. Eckenwiler and Felicia G. Cohn tackle these questions head on, bringing together notable medical ethicists and people outside the discipline to discuss common criticisms, the field's inherent tensions, and efforts to assign values and assess success. Through twenty-five lively essays examining the field's history and trends, shortcomings and strengths, and the political and policy interplay within the bioethical realm, this comprehensive book begins a much-needed critical and constructive discussion of the moral landscape of bioethics. (shrink)

Philosophers have been long interested in delusional beliefs and in whether, by reporting and endorsing such beliefs, deluded subjects violate norms of rationality (Campbell 1999; Davies & Coltheart 2002; Gerrans 2001; Stone & Young 1997; Broome 2004; Bortolotti 2005). So far they have focused on identifying the relation between intentionality and rationality in order to gain a better understanding of both ordinary and delusional beliefs. In this paper Matthew Broome and I aim at drawing attention to the extent to which (...) deluded subjects are committed to the content of their delusional beliefs, that is, to whether they can be regarded as authors of their beliefs (Moran 2001). We consider several levels of commitment one can have to a reported belief, delusional or otherwise, and we distinguish between _ownership_ and _authorship_ of beliefs (Gallagher 2000). After examining some examples of belief authoring (or lack thereof) in psychopathology, we argue that there is no straight-forward and unitary answer to the question whether deluded subjects author their beliefs. Nevertheless, introducing the notion of authorship in the debate can significantly contribute to the philosophical literature on the rationality of delusions and can also have important implications for diagnosis and therapy in psychiatry. (shrink)

In their article “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) invite us to prioritize environmental health...

Is it ethical to deceive the individuals who participate in psychological experiments for methodological reasons? We argue against an absolute ban on the use of deception in psychological research. The potential benefits of many psychological experiments involving deception consist in allowing individuals and society to gain morally significant self-knowledge that they could not otherwise gain. Research participants gain individual self-knowledge which can help them improve their autonomous decision-making. The community gains collective self-knowledge that, once shared, can play a role in (...) shaping education, informing policies and in general creating a more efficient and just society. (shrink)

Much insect sounding is beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. This sonic separation is exacerbated by a socialized narrative of fear and avoidance of insects in many western societies. With the use of audio technologies to expand our senses, we can embrace opportunities to get to know sensory and communicative insect sound-worlds beyond our own. Ecological sound art – sound art that has an environmentalist intent – is a tangible and accessible means of listening to these sounds. In (...) the series Built Hidden Soundscapes, the primary author (Schonberg) composes imagined soundscapes existing solely of sounds that are beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. In this article we introduce two compositions in this series, Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke and Pipeline Road. These compositions offer a temporary expansion of our aural senses that can increase listeners’ awareness of cryptic insect existences/ecologies. We suggest that this listening practice might prompt future auralization (sounding or hearing in the mind) of insect sound for the listener. (shrink)

Bayesian epistemology’s most fundamental diachronic constraint is the norm of Conditionalization. This entry begins by describing the structure of Conditionalization and its generalization, Jeffrey Conditionalization. It goes on to discuss rational constraints on Conditionalization and justifications for Conditionalization. It concludes by considering how Conditionalization handles cases involving memory loss, old evidence, and context-sensitivity.

Among his many accomplishments, Grosseteste is known for translating Greek philosophical, theological, and glossarial treatises into Latin, making them available for Latin readers. Three of these translations are nowadays studied for the Aristoteles Latinus project, which aims at making critical editions of all Greek-Latin medieval translations of Aristotle’s oeuvre. The goal of this contribution is to give an overview of the history of Robert Grosseteste’s translations of Aristotelian texts within the context of Aristoteles Latinus. The first part is devoted to (...) previous research on these translations and to a status quaestionis of current scholarship. The second part turns its focus to Grosseteste’s characteristic translation method. It offers new insights into the usual translation of certain smaller Greek words (such as particles and conjunctions) into Latin by Grosseteste, and what can set this translator apart from other medieval translators. (shrink)

Epistemic impermissivism is the view that there is never more than one doxastic attitude it is rational to have in response to one's total evidence. Epistemic permissivism is the denial of this claim. The debate between the permissivist and the impermissivist has proceeded, in large part, by way of 'negative' arguments that highlight the unattractiveness of the opposing position. In light of the deadlock that has ensued, this paper has two aims. The first is to introduce the concept of a (...) 'positive' argument for impermissivism. The second is to show that this argument faces a dilemma, one that generalizes the problems that famously arise for formal constraints like the Principle of Indifference. The aim of this paper is to strengthen the argument against the impermissivist by showing that no positive argument for impermissivism is likely to succeed. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to the emerging field of the philosophy of money and finance. The field addresses philosophical issues about the nature of money and the normative foundations of financial systems. Although philosophical theorizing about money and finance dates back to Antiquity, the topic has only recently emerged as a central research focus. The chapter also introduces the present anthology and locates its parts and chapters in the broader field. More specifically, the anthology is divided into four main (...) parts: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Political Philosophy. Each part contains four chapters on different but interrelated topics, which are all introduced here. (shrink)

“Home office” has become a reality for many employees. What is normatively at stake in this shift in the geography of work, given the various forms of structural injustice in our societies? Drawing on the normative criteria of employee well-being and protection from harm, autonomy, non-discrimination, environmental impact, and the role of workplaces as spaces of social encounters, I defend two claims: First, decisions about where individuals work need to be proceduralized on a fair basis, giving employees a voice. Second, (...) giving up the workplace requires a broader discussion about alternatives spaces for social integration. (shrink)

Do bioethicists need yet another theoretical approach with which to frame their disagreements? Many pragmatists contend that pragmatism, unlike its liberal and utilitarian counterparts, is uniquely commendable in (a) beginning from our lived experiences and (b) locating those experiences amid our social relations. In place of an " principlism," pragmatism offers a practical "bedside-bioethic"; in lieu of "autonomy run amuk," pragmatism proposes an ethic rooted in our communal resources. To date, however, efforts to develop such a bioethic have been stymied (...) by pragmatists' own abstract theoretical commitments, commitments that prevent them, most directly, from beginning with the lived experiences and communal resources of those who hold theological commitments. This self-imposed methodological constraint, I argue, has needlessly thwarted pragmatism's most striking methodological promise: its potential to cultivate productive debates among secular and theologically-informed participants. (shrink)

This article addresses how Asian racialization grounds contemporary social media experimentation on—and comprehensive surveillance of—users. To make this point, we focus on the relationship between the sentimentality of white benevolence as an expression of US empire and the social scientific history of sentiment analysis, which derives from early twentieth-century analyses of women workers and Japanese internment camps. The drive to “read” the inscrutable other—framed as a benevolent alternative to direct coercion—underlies methods to better capture and control individuals by understanding their (...) reactions within experimental and disruptive environments. In tracing these histories, we contribute to larger efforts to unpack the centrality of racial formations to current forms of social media and to reveal how contemporary digital campaigns to protect Asian Americans sustain the mutually constitutive logic of white love and white hate. We conclude by reading for moments of Asian affective opacity as ways to move beyond the sentimental economy of love and hate that so easily feeds the digital economy of sentiment analysis. These examples of opacity make possible contradictory meanings to any particular affective response and makes possible practices of care that coexist with, but exceed, the extractive logics of sentiment analysis. (shrink)

The essays in this Focus section expand the notion of writing insect histories of science by attending to matters of space and scale, ecological relationships, and institutional silences. They magnify diverse understandings about how the worlds of insects are noticed and understood by humans, what has historically counted as “insect,” and who narrates histories (of science). In doing so, the collection offers methodological suggestions for studying tiny animals in history that broaden the scope of often overlapping material, cultural, linguistic, political, (...) ethical, economic, and biological domains. It is precisely this magnified attention that foregrounds the domains’ interdependence and is necessary to make sense of additional bearers or forms of agency. (shrink)

The use of fictional models is extensive and rewarding in modern science. This fact captured the attention of philosophers of science, who are focusing on questions such as the following: is it possible for a fictional model to be explanatory? And, if so, in virtue of what is such a fictional model explanatory? In this paper, I discuss these questions in relation to the realism vs. anti-realism debate in philosophy of science. I focus on work developed by Alisa Bokulich who (...) has argued for the explanatory role played by fictional models, claiming that it can be accommodated by realism in ‘a broad sense’. To this end, Bokulich introduced what she called ‘an eikonic conception’ of explanation, as opposed to the so-called ‘ontic’ conception. This move, Bokulich claims, allows non-causal explanations to be acceptable to a modified version, as opposed to a ‘naïve’ brand of realism. Roughly, a fictional model can capture aspects of reality if it manages to act as a proxy for a theory targeting a physical system. As Bokulich explains with the example of James Clerk Maxwell’s use of mechanical models, this is due to structural correspondences between a model and a theory at a certain level of abstraction. However, Bokulich does not explain how the model grasps reality. In this paper, I fill this missing piece of the puzzle. While I agree with Bokulich on the explanatory function of fictional models, I shall invoke her reading of Maxwell’s work to draw a different conclusion. Specifically, I argue that structural correspondences at various levels form what I call ‘a ladder of abstractions’ which connects aspects of a target system to the corresponding depths of descriptions. Modifying in these terms the scope of ‘representing a system’, I suggest that Bokulich’s proposed modification of realism is obviated. (shrink)

Over the past decade, Convergence Research has increasingly gained prominence as a research, development, and innovation (RDI) strategy to address grand societal challenges. However, a dearth of research-based evidence is available to aid researchers, research teams, and institutions with navigating the complexities attendant to the specifics of Convergence Research. This paper presents a multilevel research agenda that accounts for an integral understanding of Convergence Research as a complex adaptive system. Furthermore, by developing a framework that accounts for ancillary, yet essential, (...) systems associated with Convergence Research, we enrich the agenda with a literature-steeped discussion that considers how systems-based practices of collaboration, inquiry, and context interact with the processes and products of Convergence Research. Finally, we synthesize and apply insights from the reviewed literature by providing paths for empirical exploration emphasizing systems-based practices. In so doing, we delineate an extended boundary for a research stream that both clarifies and enlarges our understanding of Convergence Research as a ‘system-of-systems’. (shrink)

The binary categories of harm and benefit have often shaped how historians frame discussions of insects. Scientists also leverage the binary framing of insects as tools and targets to carry out their work, especially in the development of biological technologies for pest control. This essay emphasizes how binaries function in scientific practice. Two case studies spanning from the twentieth century to the recent past illustrate the shift away from chemicals in pest management and, in doing so, show the instability of (...) binary categories over the longue durée. Noticing “ambivalent insects” affords a way to widen narrative options and identify new opportunities for investigating insect histories. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the work of W. E. B. Du Bois to expose the disastrous effects of white supremacy in the U.S. and the world. While his early works suggest that white supremacy might be rehabilitated by the careful presentation of contrary evidence, in later works he catalogs the primary features of whiteness, including an infantile comportment, a pathological attachment to innocence, and an epistemic incapacity to absorb evidence of its own error. To capture the scope of the (...) delusion of whiteness on Du Bois’s account, I suggest the term “irrevocable license.” The remainder of the paper uses Du Bois’s account to examine the case of a “Karen”—a white woman who obliviously and inappropriately interferes with the lawful actions of a family of color—and further considers police violence against people of color as an outgrowth of white irrevocable license. (shrink)

Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) warn that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, did more than eliminate a nationwide right to...

This article deals with the qualitative approach to empirical studies. This approach is presumed to be closer to the social sciences. Data collection in the qualitative approach follows a combination of these three methods—direct observations, in-depth interviews, and document analysis. It typically starts with the identification of methodology, data collection, analysis, ethical concerns, and adapt to the dynamics if working in a team. Well-compiled qualitative research enhances comprehensibility of social phenomenon. The technique used in the selection of data collection depends (...) on the research question, leading to the research strategy that best fits the research objective, availability/access to particular data sources, and available resources. While various beliefs are held in common between the quantitative and the qualitative, a researcher must first assert the purpose and nature of the project, in order to come to a deterministic conclusion as to which approach is best suited for the research to be conducted. (shrink)

Attribution of mental states is fundamental to our engagement with fiction. Crucially, its social content depends on mental states recursively “embedded” within each other; for instance, when a person doesn’t want other people to know about her intentions. Given that some characters seem to be consistently capable of embedding mental states on a higher level than others, this essay reviews factors that may influence authors’ constructions of such mindreading hierarchies as well as their reversals. The argument focuses on the reversal (...) scenes in films Goodbye Lenin, The Lives of Others, and Never Look Away, and on prosocial emotions evoked by their depiction of a more equitable distribution of a presumably valuable and scarce resource, that is, access to other people's minds. (shrink)

Moral dilemmas are a feature of moral life that make us vulnerable to tragic failures. But while all moral dilemmas involve unavoidable moral failure and leave a moral remainder, they do not all involve dirty hands. Recognizing that Thomas Nagel’s ideas about the availability of both agent-relative and agent-neutral perspectives from which to ask moral questions formed the backdrop to Michael Walzer’s work on dirty hands fifty years ago, this paper tries to explain why, when we must take both perspectives—thus (...) being an agent who meanwhile considers overriding the responsibilities of our particular agency—we risk dirtying our hands. The answer to a question about what ought to happen (as judged from an agent-neutral perspective) and the answer to a question about what one ought to do (as judged from an agent-relative perspective) are utterly incomparable because they are answers to two different questions, making any all-things-considered decision, when these answers conflict, unintelligible. If we decide to act on an agent-neutral reason to violate a conflicting agent-relative requirement, then despite our not having clearly made a wrong decision, our chosen action may be unthinkable. It is with the dirt of acting as an administrator of what ought to happen—as a kind of non-agent, when agency is urgently called for—that we do the unthinkable. The paper concludes that this combination of unintelligibility and unthinkability, when brought on by being an agent who steps outside of our own agency, is the mark of a dirty hands dilemma. (shrink)

The work of Michel Foucault is much read, widely cited, and occasionally misunderstood. In response to this state of affairs, this collection aims to clarify, to contextualize, and to contribute to Foucauldian scholarship in a very specific way. Rather than offering either a conceptual introduction to Foucault's work, or a series of interventions aimed specifically at experts, After Foucault explores his critical afterlives, situates his work in current debates, and explains his intellectual legacy. As well as offering up-to-date assessments of (...) Foucault's ongoing use in fields such as literary studies, sexuality studies, and history, chapters explore his relevance for urgent and emerging disciplines and debates, including ecology, animal studies, and the analysis of neoliberalism. Written in an accessible style, by leading experts, After Foucault demonstrates a commitment to taking seriously the work of a key twentieth-century thinker for contemporary academic disciplines, political phenomena, and cultural life. (shrink)

_Abstract_: We imagine the future of cognitive science by first considering its past, which shows remarkable transformation from a field that, although interdisciplinary, was initially marked by a narrow set of assumptions concerning its subject matter. In the last decades, multiple alternative frameworks with radically different ontological and epistemic commitments (e.g., situated cognition, embodied cognition, extended mind) found broad support. We address the question of how to understand these changes, noting as logical alternatives that (1) newer approaches are not properly (...) _cognitive_; (2) that newer approaches are cognitive but not _science_; and (3) that cognitive science has become pluralistic. We endorse the third position and venture to guess that the future of cognitive science is also pluralistic. We are left, however, with the question of what this _means. _After noting the polysemous nature of the term “pluralism”, we attempt to add clarity by distinguishing three forms: ontological, epistemic, and ethical. We then consider what each form might imply for the future of cognitive science. _Keywords_: Cognitive Science; Pluralism; Relativism; History of Science; Philosophy of Science _Il futuro della scienza cognitiva è pluralista, ma che vuol dire?_ _Riassunto_: Pensiamo al futuro della scienza cognitiva in primo luogo considerando il suo passato, il quale è notevolmente cambiato rispetto al presente. Per quanto si proponesse come un campo di studi interdisciplinari, la scienza cognitiva delle origini era caratterizzata da un insieme ristretto di assunzioni riguardanti il proprio oggetto. Negli ultimi decenni hanno trovato supporto diverse cornici teoriche in reciproca competizione e con impegni ontologici ed epistemologici radicalmente differenti (si pensi, per esempio, alla cognizione situata, alla cognizione incarnata, alla mente estesa). Proveremo a dare risposta alla domanda su come intendere questi cambiamenti, prendendo atto che ci troviamo di fronte a una serie di posizioni che sono logicamente alternative fra loro: (1) gli approcci più recenti non sono propriamente _cognitivi_; (2) oppure che gli approcci più recenti sono cognitivi, ma non _scientifici_; (3) la scienza cognitiva è diventata pluralista. Noi crediamo che la terza posizione sia corretta e scommettiamo su un futuro della scienza cognitiva che sia anche pluralista. Resta aperto, tuttavia, il problema di cosa questo _significhi_. Dopo aver preso atto della natura polisemica del termine “pluralismo”, cercheremo di far chiarezza distinguendo tre forme di pluralismo: ontologico, epistemico, ed etico. Considereremo quindi ciò che ciascuna può comportare per il futuro della scienza cognitiva. _Parole chiave_: Scienza cognitiva; Pluralismo; Relativismo; Storia della scienza; Filosofia della scienza. (shrink)

Der Beitrag rekapituliert einige grundlegende Anliegen der konstruktivistischen Wende der politischen Repräsentationstheorie und ihrer normativen Folgen. Er behandelt die Performativität politischer Repräsentation, die politische Meinungen und kollektive Subjektivitäten und damit Handlungsmacht erst hervorbringt. Die Wende, bzw. der „constructivist turn“, impliziert ein Abwenden von der Vorstellung, demokratische Repräsentation sei als neutrale Spiegelung oder Vertretung gesellschaftlicher Gruppen und Interessen zu verstehen und betont stattdessen die Her(aus)stellung des Kollektivs durch den Prozess seiner Repräsentation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proudly Jewish—and Averse to CircumcisionLisa Braver MossI've always had a strong sense of my Jewish identity—and I've always had grave misgivings about circumcision. It used to seem that these [End Page 86] statements were at odds with one another. Now I'm on a mission to integrate the two.I'm married to a man who's also Jewish. In the late 1980s, we had two sons, whose circumcisions I agreed to. Brit (...) milah (the covenant of circumcision) is intended as a spiritually meaningful act symbolizing the agreement between God and the Jewish people. But for me, the experience was so upsetting that I didn't feel God's presence. In spite of all the arguments in favor—the weight of tradition, wanting my boys to be accepted in the Jewish world, and so on—I came to regret my acquiescence.I began to explore reasons to question circumcision from a Jewish point of view, publishing articles in Jewish magazines and speaking at conferences. Rather than focusing on the medical pros and cons, I wrote about Jewish law and ethics, and spoke with many rabbis. I was hoping to deepen Jewish dialogue on this topic, which was oddly off-limits in a culture that values intellectual inquiry.Besides helping me understand more about Judaism, my research and writing was a way of living with my guilt. I had succumbed to—and put my boys through—a tradition that went completely against my maternal instincts. This schism had made me doubt myself as a new mother. What kind of parent was I if I couldn't be a fierce protector of my newborn baby? It was not a positive or welcoming way for me to enter into motherhood.I blamed myself. I hadn't done medical research before my boys were born, trusting instead in the longevity of the tradition and the claim that circumcision is more hygienic. I bought into the medical justifications for circumcision—all of which, I later learned, fail to acknowledge the erogenous nature of foreskin tissue and its physiological function. If I'd known more; if I'd thought more deeply about infant trauma; if I'd taken my own spirituality more seriously—I would have fought for a different outcome, despite the pressure I felt as a Jewish person.Years went by. I wrote a novel about Jewish circumcision, then co-wrote a book of alternative bris ceremonies for families opting out of circumcision. Slowly, I came to understand that blaming myself for agreeing to circumcise my sons was not only a waste of time, but also missed the larger point. I'm not alone in my objections to this ancient tradition. Indeed, many Jewish parents get through the event with white knuckles, emotional detachment, alcohol, or sedatives rather than with genuine religious feeling. Shouldn't their spiritual authenticity matter? Shouldn't mine have mattered?In Judaism, every commandment (of which circumcision is one) should be approached with kavanah, or spiritual intent. Thus, my non-spiritual feelings about the circumcision tradition are problematic from a Jewish point of view. I should have been able to tell the rabbi I didn't really believe circumcision was what God wanted me to do. I wish I'd been guided in coming to a decision that reflected my actual spirituality. Instead, all that seemed to matter to anyone was getting the deed done.Going against my instincts and spirituality was not just my failing—it also represented an institutional failing. Jewish leaders and rabbis aren't trained to respond compassionately to those averse to circumcision. Even parents merely questioning the practice may be subjected to judgment, lectures, and condescension. Parents deciding not to circumcise may face all that and more: in some synagogues in the U.S., boys that have not been circumcised are currently being denied bar mitzvah.________In the Jewish world, we tend to look upon circumcision as the one monolithic tradition: we assume that every Jewish male is circumcised and that no one talks about or questions this. The truth is that throughout our history, there have been males who, for various reasons, did not undergo the ritual... (shrink)

The research enterprise depends on trust, especially trust in data reliability and ethical conduct of research. This trust is accomplished via systems, or “architectures,” that do the work of ensuring trustworthiness in research when individuals are not able to assess it for themselves. In the United States and many other countries, national laws or regulations constitute the research ethics trust architecture. But new research methods, such as citizen science, DIY biology, biohacking, or corporate research, avoid such regulations because they draw (...) on new means of funding, disseminating, and conducting research. This challenges the sufficiency of the traditional approach and requires us to revisit how we generate trust in the research enterprise. In this article, I discuss how new research challenges the existing trust architecture, offer some necessary elements of trust architecture in general, and use citizen science as a case study to illustrate how new, ethically meaningful trust architectures could be built. (shrink)

This paper offers a close reading of Merleau-Ponty’s Institution Course Notes to reflect on the history of colonisation as both an event and a structure. On the one hand, colonial invasion is a singular cataclysmic event; on the other hand, it establishes legal, social, economic and psychic structures that seem increasingly inevitable the more they are repeated. Likewise, decolonisation may require a singular liberatory event, but it also calls for the (re)establishment of alternative traditions that issue a different “call to (...) follow.” A critical interpretation of Merleau-Ponty in conversation with abolitionist and decolonial thinkers helps to clarify the temporal and political relation between event and structure, building bridges between phenomenology and radical politics. (shrink)

When the New Organon appeared in 1620, part of a six-part programme of scientific inquiry entitled 'The Great Renewal of Learning', Francis Bacon was at the high point of his political career, and his ambitious work was groundbreaking in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimentally-based science. Bacon combines theoretical scientific epistemology with examples from applied science, examining phenomena as various as magnetism, gravity, and the ebb and flow of the tides, and anticipating (...) later experimental work by Robert Boyle and others. His work challenges the entire edifice of the philosophy and learning of his time, and has left its mark on all subsequent philosophical discussions of scientific method. This volume presents a new translation of the text into modern English by Michael Silverthorne, and an introduction by Lisa Jardine that sets the work in the context of Bacon's scientific and philosophical activities. (shrink)

In 1960, the US government and British protectorate of Zanzibar signed an agreement that allowed US contractors working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build an earth station that would support Project Mercury, the first manned US satellite mission. This article focuses on the development of the Project Mercury earth station in Zanzibar during 1959-1964. To historicize the earth station’s establishment, the focus lies on the geopolitical and sociotechnical relations that resulted in the Zanzibar station.

Freedom was a core theme of Michel Foucault's later writings, as well the central tenet of the work of pro-capitalist writer Ayn Rand. This article firstly demonstrates some surprisingly similar arguments made in the oeuvres of these unlikely bedfellows regarding how cultivation of the self/holding the self as one’s highest value (in Foucault's and Rand's respective lexicons) can lead to an ethic of freedom. Secondly, the article examines the ways in which both ‘author functions’ (in Foucault's sense) have recently been (...) deployed in political discourse to stand in for caricatured versions of the freedoms of right-wing greed and left-wing moral relativism. Foucault is doubly problematized, moreover, since, as well as being used as a metonym for the perceived dangers of identity politics by the right, his ambivalent and ambiguous relationship with neoliberalism proves a problem to many scholars who wish to fit him squarely into a left-wing continental canon. (shrink)