This is an interview with Professor Lynda Birke, one of the key figures of feminist science studies. She is a pioneer of feminist biology and of materialist feminist thought, as well as of the new and emerging field of hum-animal studies. This interview was conducted over email in two time periods, in the spring of 2008 and 2010. The format allowed for comments on previous writings and an engagement in an open-ended dialogue. Professor Birke talks about her key arguments (...) and outlooks on a changing field of research. The work of this English biologist is typical of a long and continuous feminist engagement with biology and ontological matters that reaches well beyond the more recently articulated ‘material turn’ of feminist theory. It touches upon feminist issues beyond the usual comfort zones of gender constructionism and human-centred research. Perhaps less recognized than for instance the names of Donna Haraway or Karen Barad, Lynda Birke’s oeuvre is part of the same long-standing and twofold critique from feminist scholars qua trained natural scientists. On the one hand, theirs is a powerful critique of biological determinism; on the other, an acutely observed contemporary critique of how merely cultural or socially reductionist approaches to the effervescently lively and biological might leave the corporeal, environmental or non-human animal critically undertheorized within feminist scholarship. In highlighting the work and arguments of Lynda Birke, it is hoped here to provide an accessible introduction to the critical questions and challenges that circumvent contemporary discussions within feminist technoscience as theory and political practice. (shrink)

Birke, a feminist biologist who has written extensively on the connections between feminism and science, seeks to bridge the gap between feminist cultural analysis and science by looking "inside" the body, using ideas in anatomy and physiology to develop the feminist view that the biological body is socially and culturally constructed. She rejects the assumption that the body's functioning is fixed and unchanging, claiming that biological science offers more than just a deterministic narrative of how nature works. Annotation copyrighted by (...) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

The book then addresses the human/animal opposition implicit in much feminist theorizing, arguing that the opposition helps to maintain the essentialism that feminists have so often criticized. The final chapter brings us back from ideas of what 'the animal' is, to ask how these questions might relate to environmental politics, including ecofeminism and animal rights.

This article gives a historical-philosophical overview of three generations of pragmatist thinking centered around the question of democracy. It serves as an introduction and contextualization to the papers that develop a third generation pragmatic point of view in the remainder of the special issue. The perspective is from one American-trained philosopher of education who has studied and written widely in pragmatism and European social theory. The article has sections on three generations generally described and with primary influences of John Dewey, (...) Richard Rorty, and Bruno Latour. In each generation, other important philosophic contributions discussed come from C. S. Peirce and William James, Hilary Putnam, Donna Haraway, and Isabelle Stengers as well as relevant commentators. The first two, Dewey and Rorty, contribute to a sub-theme of democracy in their writings that the third, Latour, continues in politics in a section elaboration. The introduction sets forth a generational theme and an international setting for pragmatism. The conclusion summarizes the article's key ideas and points to a need in education for a democratic future. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to clarify an aspect of Descartes’s conception of mind that seriously impacts on the standard objections against Cartesian dualism. By a close reading of Descartes’s writings on imagination, I argue that the capacity to imagine does not inhere as a mode in the mind itself, but only in the embodied mind, that is, a mind that is not united to the body does not possess the faculty to imagine. As a mode considered as a (...) general property, and not as an instance of it, belongs to the essence of the substance, and as imagination (like sensation) arises from the mind-body union, then the problem arises of knowing to what extent a Cartesian embodied mind is separable from the body. (shrink)

This article considers how scientists involved in animal experimentation attempt to defend their practices. Interviews with over 40 scientists revealed that, over and above direct criticisms of the antivivisection lobby, scientists used a number of discursive strategies to demonstrate that critics of animal experimentation are ethically and epistemologically infenor to British scientific practitioners. The scientists portrayed a series of negative "others" such as foreign scientists, farmers, and pet owners. In this manner, they attempted to create a "socioethical domain" which rhetorically (...) insulated them from criticism while simultaneously problematizing the critiques of the anti- animal-experimentation public. Some of the implications for relations between science and the public, especially regarding scientific credibility, are discussed. (shrink)

Controversies in science are an essential feature of scientific practice: defined here as current problems that are unresolved because there are no accepted procedures by which they can be resolved or there are differing assumptions that affect the interpretation of evidence. Although there has been much attention in science education literature addressing socio-scientific and historical controversies in science, less has been paid to the teaching of contemporary scientific controversies. Using semi-structured qualitative interviews with 18 teachers at different career stages in (...) England, we investigated teachers’ social representations of scientific controversies using the discourse of the collective subject. We found a lack of controversy in teachers’ responses. Whilst scientific controversies were seen as an essential feature of how science works, they were not viewed as essential in science education and were represented as a distraction and dealt with informally, outside the planned curriculum and in response to students’ questions. Subject knowledge was considered a barrier. We argue that teaching about carefully selected scientific controversies has the potential to contribute to teachers’ and students’ understandings of science and the nature of science. There are perceived to be few opportunities for teachers to exercise this in the English context. We suggest how the collective subject discourses might be used to open up a discussion about teaching controversies in professional learning situations. Materials to stimulate discussion of scientific controversies could be useful in future curriculum development in science, but these would need to address the barriers of subject knowledge, access to literature and conflict with assessment-related priorities and a perceived need to advocate for trust in science. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze written reflections of final year computing students taking a professionalism module that covered the social, legal, professional and ethical aspects of computing. Society's dependence on computers makes it essential that computing students, whose future work may involve the analysis, storage and security of private data, are capable of identifying ethical issues and of making reflective moral judgements. The capacity to make moral judgements has been linked to an ability to reflect, so the (...) aim of this research was twofold, to investigate students' familiarity with the concepts the module covered and their reflective ability.Design/methodology/approachThe research takes the form of an exploratory case study with qualitative data from written reflections examined using NVivo and word cloud analysis.FindingsThe students found it difficult to write reflectively and the majority of their reflections were either descriptive writing or descriptive reflection which considered events from one perspective. Awareness of the topics covered by the module appeared to be low prior to taking the module.Research limitations/implicationsThis research identifies the need to develop students' reflective skills and professional awareness in order to enhance their professional performance.Practical implicationsReflective writing and concepts such as profession and ethics need to be included throughout computing degrees, not just in a final year module. As students are strategic learners these topics also need to be covered in enough depth at each level so they are assessed and treated seriously by students.Social implicationsGiven the ubiquitous nature of computers and society's high level of dependence on them it is essential that students' moral reasoning skills are developed throughout their course, so on graduation they are capable of ethical thinking and can make reflective moral judgements.Originality/valueNo other qualitative research was found which covered this area and no research was found which raised these issues. (shrink)

This monograph presents an interpretation of Descartes's dualism, which differs from the standard reading called 'classical separatist dualism' claiming that the mind can exist without the body. It argues that, contrary to what it is commonly claimed, Descartes’s texts suggest an emergent creationist substance dualism, according to which the mind is a nonphysical substance (created and maintained by God), which cannot begin to think without a well-disposed body. According to this interpretation, God’s laws of nature endow each human body with (...) the power to be united to an immaterial soul. While the soul does not directly come from the body, the mind can be said to emerge from the body in the sense that it cannot be created by God independently from the body. The divine creation of a human mind requires a well-disposed body, a physical categorical basis. This kind of emergentism is consistent with creationism and does not necessarily entail that the mind cannot survive the body. This early modern view has some connections with Hasker’s substance emergent dualism (1999). Indeed, Hasker states that the mind is a substance emerging at one time from neurons and that consciousness has causal powers which effects cannot be explained by physical neurons. An emergent unified self-existing entity emerges from the brain on which it acts upon. For its proponents, Hasker’s view explains what Descartes’s dualism fails to explain, especially why the mind regularly interacts with one and only one body. After questioning the notion of emergence, the author argues that the theory of emergent creationist substance dualism that she attributes to Descartes is a more appropriate alternative because it faces fewer problems than its rivals. This monograph is valuable for anyone interested in the history of early modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Prelude : scientists as prophets and the rhetoric of prophecy -- The Delphic oracle and ancient prophetic ethos -- The natural magician and the prophet : Francis Bacon's ethical alchemy -- Confirming signs : the prophetic ethos of the early Royal Society -- Interlude : competing ethical models and a catch-22 -- J. Robert Oppenheimer : cultic prophet -- Rachel Carson, kairotic prophet -- Media, metaphor, and the "oracles of science" -- Climate change and the technologies of prophecy -- Postlude (...) : problems and solutions. (shrink)

This essay addresses the troubling and uncanny figure of Mother in feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, literary criticism, and real life. Readings of feminist literary criticism and the films Alien and Aliens explore the liminality of Mother and the consequences for feminist thought and practice of the persistent narrative modes (the sentimental and the gothic) locatable in all of these discourses on/of Motherhood.

What role do nonhuman animals play in the construction of medical knowledge? Animal researchers typically claim that their use has been essential to progress – but just how have animals fitted into the development of biomedicine? In this article, I trace how nonhuman animals, and their body parts, have become incorporated into laboratory processes and places. They have long been designed to fit into scientific procedures – now increasingly so through genetic design. Animals and procedures are closely connected – animals (...) in science are disassembled and reassembled in various ways. Indeed, biomedical knowledge can be said to rest on a large pile of animal bodies and body parts. The process of producing animal body parts to order has implications for how we conceptualize the body (human or nonhuman), which I discuss in the final section. (shrink)

This paper explores the interaction between medicine and metaphysics in modern natural philosophy and especially in Descartes ' philosophy. I argue that Descartes ' hypothetical account of birthmarks in connection with his embryology provides an argumentative proof of the metaphysical necessity of a substantial union between mind and body, which however does not threaten his doctrine of the real distinction between these two substances. It would appear that his argument relies on a temporal conception of alethic modalities and provides a (...) new answer to Henricus Regius who in 1641 claimed that, for Descartes, the human being is an ens per accidens. (shrink)

This paper examines the rise of what is popularly called "natural horsemanship" , as a definitive cultural change within the horse industry. Practitioners are often evangelical about their methods, portraying NH as a radical departure from traditional methods. In doing so, they create a clear demarcation from the practices and beliefs of the conventional horse-world. Only NH, advocates argue, properly understands the horse. Dissenters, however, contest the benefits to horses as well as the reliance in NH on disputed concepts of (...) the natural. Advocates, furthermore, sought to rename technologies associated with riding while simultaneously condemning technologies used in conventional training . These contested differences create boundaries and enact social inclusion and exclusion, which the paper explores. For horses, the impact of NH is ambiguous: Depending on practitioners, effects could be good or bad. However, for the people involved, NH presents a radical change—which they see as offering markedly better ways of relating to horses and a more inclusive social milieu. (shrink)

This paper explores how horses are represented in the discourses of "natural horsemanship" , an approach to training and handling horses that advocates see as better than traditional methods. In speaking about their horses, NH enthusiasts move between two registers: On one hand, they use a quasi-scientific narrative, relying on terms and ideas drawn from ethology, to explain the instinctive behavior of horses. Within this mode of narrative, the horse is "other" and must be understood through the human learning to (...) communicate and through appropriate training. On the other hand, NH enthusiasts—like many horse owners—seek to emphasize partnership. In this type of discourse, people portray their horses as almost human. The tensions between these two ways of talking about horses reflect contradictory ideas about control versus freedom in relating to horses, especially as related to emotions expressed by caregivers about their relationships with horses. (shrink)

In the UK, Art and Design Higher Education currently faces multiple challenges regarding its validity, efficacy and cultural value. These challenges are tractable against a complex historical background of successive governmental agendas aimed at both widening social participation and increasing professionalization/standardization. A specific problematic in this context is the teaching of 'critical', 'theoretical', or 'cultural' studies components on undergraduate degrees especially where written outputs are viewed as separate to visual work. The complexity of equitable and effective instruction is increased by (...) the high proportion of neurodiverse, as opposed to neurotypical, learners engaging with this sector of education. In this paper, the pedagogic potential of re-interpreting the problematics of traditional academic writing for Arts students through a neurodiversity framework will be assessed through case studies of the two primary dynamics evidenced in literature, both of which are at play in the teaching of non-visual concepts to art and design students. Adopting a neurodiverse framework, so I will argue, undermines the most pernicious aspects of neoliberal management routed through competitive differences, and empowers students to access truly emancipatory forms of learning. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the standard assumption that ethical disagreements on abortion and human embryonic stem cells research are grounded on metaphysical claims that underlie these ethical issues. Contrary to what some philosophers have claimed, I argue that, although the bioethical positions about the human embryo’s moral status are partly grounded on metaphysical claims, incorporating metaphysical arguments in the debates about the ethics of reproduction will not resolve this issue.

While imagination was a major concern for Descartes throughout his work, Cartesian scholars have paid little attention to this faculty, especially regarding to the Meditations of First Philosophy. This article highlights the epistemic role of imagination in the First Meditation. I argue that the way Descartes’s conception of imagination is elaborated in the First Meditation helps question our interpretation of his dualism, and enables us to formulate the hypothesis that imagination belongs to the essence of the mind. It results that (...) Descartes’s dualism should not be interpreted as separation (or separability) regarding to existence. (shrink)

This article explores relationships of youth power in a set of threads leading to the potential of today’s youth activism to combat the climate crisis. Following an introduction featuring Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, the threads are these: First from an American context is history of youth development, with one emphasis on the construction of adolescence. Second is learning experience about the US environment with its own national ‘exceptionalist’ history. Third is the role of inspiring youth movements, from history and contemporary times. (...) Fourth is a turn to climate activism by youth as central to democracy. One general thematic about youth power across the article is that it oftentimes takes on a mythical character. (shrink)

This paper explores the many meanings attached to the designation,"the rodent in the laboratory". Generations of selective breeding have created these rodents. They now differ markedly from their wild progenitors, nonhuman animals associated with carrying all kinds of diseases.Through selective breeding, they have moved from the rats of the sewers to become standardized laboratory tools and saviors of humans in the fight against disease. This paper sketches two intertwined strands of metaphors associated with laboratory rodents.The first focuses on the idea (...) of medical/scientific progress; in this context, the paper looks at laboratory rodents often depicted as epitomizing medical triumph or serving as helpers or saviors. The second strand concerns the ambiguous status of the laboratory rodent who is both an animal and not an animal.The paper argues that, partly because of these ambiguous and multiple meanings, the rodent in the laboratory is doubly "othered"—first in the way that animals so often are made other to ourselves and then other in the relationship of the animal in the laboratory to other animals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article posits an interpersonal ethical commitment to combat dangers to democracy in current times. Largely within an American context, two complementary pillars of ethics are presented. The first is from Nel Noddings and the ethics of care and the second developed primarily from Richard Rorty in a neo-pragmatist view. The contexts of present dangers, worldwide, especially in the USA, and then of this nation’s schooling, situate the ethics. A suggestion for teachers, students, and their schools as ‘citizen educators’ to (...) be active in their communities offers one road forward. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall suggest that, what Descartes supported in his letter to More of August 1649, when he claimed that God’s essence might be present everywhere, was not that God can’t exist without being extended, i.e. being omnipresent, but that God has necessarily the disposition to be extended. If my interpretation is correct, then the claim that God’s essence is omnipresent is consistent with the thesis that God is omnipresent ratione potentiæ.

Our bodies are ourselves: yet we are also more than our bodies. In the early years of “second‐wave” feminism in the West, embodiment was acknowledged implicitly in the action of women's health groups, and campaigns for reproductive rights. But simultaneously, bodies failed to enter our theorizing. Central to theorizing then was a distinction between “sex,” (which anatomically distinguishes males and females) from “gender” (the processes of becoming “woman” or “man”). Although recent feminist writing tends to decry that simple opposition, the (...) ghost of biology still haunts us: biological sex, the biological body, remain problematic concepts for feminist theorizing. (shrink)

For L’encyclopédie Philosophique (online).

Most contemporary metaphysicians think that a teleological approach to mereological composition and the whole-part relation should be ignored because it is an obsolete view of the world. In this paper, I discuss Descartes’s conception of individuation and composition of material objects such as stones, machines, and human bodies. Despite the fact that Descartes officially rejected ends from his philosophy of matter, I argue, against some scholars, that to appeal to the notion of disposition was a way for him to maintain (...) teleological reference within a mechanistic conception of nature. Through a study of Descartes’s texts, I also want to make clear why it might be difficult to entirely ignore teleological notions, when one wants to account for composition and unity of material objects. (shrink)

Malgré l’adoption de la Convention Internationale des Droits de l’Enfant en 1989, la question de savoir pourquoi l’enfant devrait détenir des droits fait toujours débat. En raison de sa jeunesse, l’enfant est habituellement considéré comme n’étant pas suffisamment rationnel pour détenir les mêmes droits que les adultes. Mais l’enfant est aussi reconnu comme une personne humaine dont les droits ne devraient pas être entravés. Bien que durant les vingt dernières années, les études en droits de l’enfant se soient multipliées, ce (...) domaine de recherche ne semble plus progresser significativement. Peut-être la question des droits de l’enfant, habituellement comparés aux droits de l’Homme, pourrait-elle être différemment posée. En effet, comprendre pourquoi un enfant devrait avoir des droits implique de réfléchir à ce qui peut limiter ses droits et donc, en premier lieu, à ce qui fonde moralement les droits parentaux. Cet article réinvestit la question des droits de l’enfant à partir d’une nouvelle perspective qui n’est pas celle des droits de l’Homme, mais celle des fondements moraux des droits parentaux. Une perspective déjà adoptée au XVIIème siècle par le philosophe britannique John Locke sous la forme de la théorie de l’investissement parental. (shrink)

This article reviews three recent books that enhance our understanding of the work of French feminist Luce Irigaray: Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche and The Irigaray Reader, and Philosophy in the Feminine, a commentary on Irigaray's work by Margaret Whitford. The author emphasizes a dynamic reading of Irigaray's philosophy and integrates theoretical concepts with poetic/utopian passages from the works.