A lecture about the troublesome questions of identity, authenticity and trust.

ABSTRACT To address challenges to the primacy of the subject in speculative realism, we put Levi R. Bryant's object-oriented ontology in conversation with Jacques Lacan's register theory. In so doing, we recuperate an autonomous materiality for itself, providing a reading of the debate between Slavoj Žižek and Ernesto Laclau over the Lacanian Real and simultaneously providing a rich map of the being of subjectivity and modes of the rhetorical. We systematize Žižek's claim that each element of the register resonates with (...) the others to produce an ontical cartography: a map of the different intersections of the materially autonomous Real with the Symbolic and Imaginary elements of the Lacanian subject. By delimiting the characteristics of these intersections, we can better understand the different valences in which rhetoric operates without foreclosing the agency of objects and the objectivity of subjects. (shrink)

Advanced Cell Technology's Ethics Advisory Board has been called window dressing for a corporate marketing plan. But the scientists and managers have paid attention, and the lawyers have gone along.

Discussions in English of Benedetto Croce’s concept of the pure or logical concept are few in comparison with treatments of his aesthetics and theory of history. Yet an understanding of the Crocean concrete universal is a necessary prerequisite for a comprehension of his humanistic philosophy. With regard to Croce’s aesthetics, for instance, the autonomy of art depended upon his view of the relations that existed among the categories of thought and will; and his theory of history followed from his definitions (...) of pure concept and pseudoconcept. (shrink)

The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined these questions in a pre-registered experiment with a working adult sample, a conceptual replication of that experiment with a student sample, and an analysis of data compiled and (...) posted by a psychology researcher on their public weblog with the stated goal to improve research replicability by rank-ordering psychology researchers by their “estimated false discovery risk.” Participants in the experiments were randomly assigned to read a news article describing a successful vs. failed replication attempt of original work from a male vs. female psychological scientist, and then completed measures of researcher competence, likability, integrity, perceptions of the research, and behavioral intentions for future interactions with the researcher. In both working adult and student samples, analyses consistently yielded large main effects of replication outcome, but no interaction with researcher gender. Likewise, the coding of weblog data posted in July 2021 indicated that 66.3% of the researchers scrutinized were men and 33.8% were women, and their rank-ordering was not correlated with researcher gender. The lack of support for our pre-registered gender-replication hypothesis is, at first glance, encouraging for women researchers’ careers; however, the substantial effect sizes we observed for replication outcome underscore the tremendous negative impact the reproducibility movement can have on psychologists’ careers. We discuss the implications of such negative perceptions and the possible downstream consequences for women in the field that are essential for future study. (shrink)

The spring, summer, and fall 2006 editions of Critical Inquiry hosted a heated exchange between Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek regarding the proper definition of the Lacanian Real. Žižek claims "the Real is the inexorable abstract spectral logic of capital that determines what goes on in social reality". In response, Laclau states that Žižek's "spectral logic of capital" is a gross distortion of Lacanian theory: "The Real is not a specifiable object endowed with laws of movement on its own but, (...) on the contrary, something that only exists and shows itself through its disruptive effects within the Symbolic". Laclau's formulation of the Real, however, forecloses the possibility of... (shrink)

Foundation models such as GPT-4 are fine-tuned to avoid unsafe or otherwise problematic behavior, such as helping to commit crimes or producing racist text. One approach to fine-tuning, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, learns from humans' expressed preferences over multiple outputs. Another approach is constitutional AI, in which the input from humans is a list of high-level principles. But how do we deal with potentially diverging input from humans? How can we aggregate the input into consistent data about "collective" (...) preferences or otherwise use it to make collective choices about model behavior? In this paper, we argue that the field of social choice is well positioned to address these questions, and we discuss ways forward for this agenda, drawing on discussions in a recent workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety held in Berkeley, CA, USA in December 2023. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore Peirce's work for insights into a theory of learning and cognition for education. Our focus for this exploration is Peirce's paper The Fixation of Belief (FOB), originally published in 1877 in Popular Science Monthly. We begin by examining Peirce's assertion that the study of logic is essential for understanding thought and reasoning. We explicate Peirce's view of the nature of reasoning itself—the characteristic guiding principles or ‘habits of mind’ that underlie acts of inference, the dimensions (...) of and interaction between doubt and belief, and his four methods of resolving or ‘fixing’ belief (i.e., tenacity, authority, a priori, and experimentation). The four methods are then juxtaposed against current models of teaching and learning such as constructivism, schema theory, situated cognition, and inquiry learning. Finally, we discuss Peirce's modes of inference as they relate educationally to the resolution of doubt and beliefs and offer an example of belief resolution from an experienced teacher in a professional development environment. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to expose the true nature and merit of Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric and to correct the views of previous scholars. The author accordingly provides a thorough analysis of the opinions of some of the foremost commentators on major issues in the translation and interpretation of the Rhetoric, and he offers at the same time his own carefully reasoned position. Although this study is primarily a product of scholarship of the mid-seventies, evidently written before the (...) recent surge of interest in the Rhetoric that produced the commentaries of W. M. A. Grimaldi and L. Arnhart, it is nevertheless a useful summary of earlier scholarship and a new and insightful interpretation. Ryan says that he developed this study because no one had attempted a thorough investigation of "the entire theory of argumentation" as it appears in the Rhetoric nor had they viewed the text in relation to other works of Aristotle that are closely related, such as the Ethics and the Politics. Scholars, instead, focused on one or another feature of the work, the enthymeme, in particular. (shrink)

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 concept of the gene has been the central organizing theme of 20th century biology. Biology has become increasingly influential both for philosophers seeking a naturalized basis for epistemology, ethics, and the understanding of the mind, as well as for the human sciences generally. The central task of this work is to get the story right about genes and in so doing provide a critical and enabling resourse for use in the further pursuit of human self-understanding. ;The work begins with (...) a wide-ranging historical reconstruction and conceptual analysis of the meaning of "the gene" that results in defining and distinguishing two different "genes". Each of these can be seen as an heir to one of the two major historical trends in explaining the source of biological order---preformationism and epigenesis. The preformationist gene predicts phenotypes but only on an instrumental basis where immediate medical and/or economic benefits can be had. The gene of epigenesis , by contrast, is a developmental resource that provides templates for RNA and protein synthesis but has in itself no determinate relationship to organismal phenotypes. The seemingly prevalent idea that genes constitute information for traits is based, I argue, upon an unwarranted conflation of these two senses which is in effect held together by rhetorical glue. Beyond this historical, conceptual, and rhetorical inquiry the bulk of the dissertation then concerns itself with an empirically up-to-date analysis of the cell and molecular basis of biological order and of the pathological loss of same. In each of these chapters I structure my analysis with the idea in mind that the "conflated" view can be held empirically accountable. Major touchpoints in this work include the ideas of I. Kant, J. Blumenbach, K. E. von Baer, J. Muller, R. Virchow, W. Johannsen, R. Falk, J. Sapp, E. Schrodinger, M. Delbruick, G. Gamow, R. Doyle, L. Kay, S. Kauffman, E. Jablonka, J. Rothman, K. Yamamoto, P. Rous, H. Temin, J. M. Bishop, H. Harris, E. Stanbridge, D. L. Smithers, B. Vogelstein, E. Farber and H. Rubin. (shrink)

This essay argues that the Phaedrus’s Palinode articulates an account of love (erōs) in which the experience of love can morally and intellectually transform both lover and beloved. After situating this account of love within the dialogue’s thematization of soul-leading (psuchagōgia), I show how Socrates’s account of love makes an intervention into typical Greek thought on pederasty and argue against Jessica Moss’s contention that soul-leading love suffers severe limitations in its soul-leading capacity, showing that Moss is wrong to (...) think that love can only efficaciously lead souls that are already well-formed. By contrast, the Palinode portrays the moral and intellectual formation of the lover, who first approaches the beloved in the spirit of rapacity only to be turned by his experience of beauty toward genuine service, ordered to the beloved’s benefit. The beloved likewise undergoes such a transformation as a result of his nascent return-love (anterōs). (shrink)

This is a reply to Luckiesh's comments (see 18: 608) on Tinker's\nreview of Luckiesh and Moss' book, _Reading as a visual task_\n(see 17: 962). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all\nrights reserved).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Knowing the EastPatti M. MarxsenKnowing the East. By Paul Claudel. Translated by James Lawler. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. 136 pp.Fifty years after his death, Paul Claudel (1868–1955) is remembered for many things. Not only was he a major twentieth-century poet and playwright, he was an astute observer of Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese art. Not only was he the brother of sculptor Camille Claudel, he was a (...) diplomat who lived for nearly twenty years in Asia, including a stint as the French ambassador to Japan (1921–1927). When he was elected as a member of the Académie Française in 1946 at nearly 80 years of age he quipped, "For an academic, that is puberty." He died at 87, having lived large in two centuries and on three continents.Following an adolescence marked with indifference toward religion, Claudel experienced a profound conversion to Catholicism during a Christmas night service at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at the age of 18. With Christianity at the center of his universe and under the influence of Symbolist poets Rimbaud and Mallarmé, he developed a response to the world that was at once poetic and spiritual. Through his poetry, plays, and essays, he insisted on a fundamental unity between matter and spirit, a harmonious and vast universe into which the human mind could enter. And, at least for him, the point of entry was the portal of the Church. He struggled at times, but never lost sight of his faith. For all this, he is often credited with the revival of French Catholicism in the wake of WWI. After all, if Paul Claudel could take religion seriously and find meaning in it, pourquoi pas the rest of us?The facts of his extraordinary biography form a peculiar background to the recent translation by James Lawler of Claudel's collection of prose poems titled Knowing [End Page 229] the East. First published in 1946 as Connaissance de l'est, these sixty-one texts were written between 1895 and 1905 during Claudel's first visits to China and Japan as a young vice-consul stationed in Shanghai. He was twenty-six and still finding his poetic voice. And though his stance in the world is decidedly Christian, the content of this intriguing work reveals an inner dialogue with Buddhist ideas of interconnection, harmony, the ongoing quest for a higher life condition, and the overwhelming impact of nature in the lives of mere humans.In "Pagoda," Claudel describes a seven-story Chinese pagoda as it "amplifies and multiplies the roof, exaggerates the horned corners that rise with an elegant surge, and turns their curves upward to the sky." This form that "does away with walls" and concentrates on the uplifting roof creates a space where "Buddha, Prince of Peace, dwells inside with all the gods." In this architecture he reads a structuring of physical and spiritual space, a kind of never ending upward movement divided into "the seven mystical heavens." The culminating effect is the heavenly achievement of the unknowable. And so, after going as far as he can go into the world of the spirit, he ends this prose poem with an abrupt return to temporal reality. "I have no more to say of the Pagoda. I do not know its name."Elsewhere, in "The Wanderer," he turns his sense of awe toward nature. "Every tree has its personality, every small beast its role, every voice its part in the symphony," he writes. "As one understands music, so I understand nature, like a detailed narrative of proper names; as my walk and the day advance, so does the elaboration of the doctrine." The "doctrine," it seems, is the idea of dependent origination, the interrelation of all life that springs from a single source. In the last line, he states, "I understand the world's harmony. When will I grasp its melody?"In "The Temple of Consciousness" Claudel climbs "the black rock's vertical wall, and only at this late afternoon hour do I know myself to be on the right track." Below, he observes golden rice fields. Ahead there is an "old stairway overlaid with hoary moss... (shrink)

The Aristotelian syllogistic cannot account for the validity of certain inferences involving relational facts. In this paper, we investigate the prospects for providing a relational syllogistic. We identify several fragments based on (a) whether negation is permitted on all nouns, including those in the subject of a sentence; and (b) whether the subject noun phrase may contain a relative clause. The logics we present are extensions of the classical syllogistic, and we pay special attention to the question of whether reductio (...) ad absurdum is needed. Thus our main goal is to derive results on the existence (or nonexistence) of syllogistic proof systems for relational fragments. We also determine the computational complexity of all our fragments. (shrink)

Recent research on the metaethical beliefs of ordinary people appears to show that they are metaethical pluralists that adopt different metaethical standards for different moral judgments. Yet the methods used to evaluate folk metaethical belief rely on the assumption that participants interpret what they are asked in metaethical terms. We argue that most participants do not interpret questions designed to elicit metaethical beliefs in metaethical terms, or at least not in the way researchers intend. As a result, existing methods are (...) not reliable measures of metaethical belief. We end by discussing the implications of our account for the philosophical and practical implications of research on the psychology of metaethics. (shrink)

Machery & Mallon [The moral psychology handbook (pp. 3–47). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010] argue that existing evidence does not support the claim that moral cognition, understood as a specific form of normative cognition, is a product of evolution. Instead, they suggest that the evidence only supports the more modest claim that a general capacity for normative cognition evolved. They argue that if this is the case then the prospects for evolutionary debunking arguments are bleak. A debunking argument (...) which relied on the fact that normative cognition in general evolved might threaten all areas of normative belief, including the epistemic norms upon which the argument relies. For the sake of argument, we accept their claim that specifically moral cognition did not evolve. However, we reject their contention that this critically undermines evolutionary debunking arguments of morality. A number of strategies are available to solve what we call the “containment problem,” or how to effectively debunk morality without thereby debunking normative cognition tout court. Furthermore, debunking arguments need not rely on the claim that normative cognition in general evolved. So long as at least some aspects of moral cognition have evolved, this may be sufficient to support an evolutionary debunking argument against many of our moral beliefs. Thus, even if Machery & Mallon are right that specifically moral cognition did not evolve, research in evolutionary psychology may have radical implications for moral philosophy. (shrink)

The study ascertained (1) whether an observer's scope of justice with reference to either the moral agent or the target person of a moral act, would affect his/her judgements of the ethicality of the act, and (2) whether observer judgements of ethicality parallel the moral agent's decision processes in systematically evaluating the intensity of the moral issue. A scenario approach was used. Results affirmed both research questions. Discussions covered the implications of the findings for the underlying cognitive processes of moral (...) judgements, for the link between judgements of fairness and ethicality, as well as for the debate of ethical absolutism versus relativism. (shrink)

Since 1994, when the first fetal imaging boutique appeared in Texas, many sites have been established around the country for parents to receive nonmedical fetal imaging using three- and four-dimensional ultrasound machines. These businesses boast the benefits they offer to parental-fetal bonding, but the medical community objects to the use of ultrasound machines for nonmedical purposes. In this article, I present the statements released by the medical community, highlighting the alarmist strategies used to paint boutique ultrasounds as bad science and (...) elevate the medical use of ultrasounds. Through a close reading of the statements, it is shown that the medical community's primary concern is not the health of the fetus or the woman but rather their place as the sole users of fetal ultrasounds. This detailed analysis reveals a medical community fearful that its authority is being usurped and is therefore responding with statements meant to denigrate boutique fetal ultrasounds. (shrink)

The first comprehensive study of Nietzsche's earliest book, The Birth of Tragedy, this important volume by M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern examines the work in detail: its place in Nietzsche's philosophical career; its value as an account of ancient Greek culture; its place in the history of German ideas, and its value as a theory of tragedy and music. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Lesley Chamberlain, illuminating its enduring (...) importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this accessible study has been revived for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

The community representative plays a very important role in an institutional review board but there is sparse data about their understanding of their role in an IRB. This study was conducted to assess perceptions of community members serving on IRBs of one region in India. A validated questionnaire was administered to community members of IRBs in a prospective cross-sectional study. The questions related to demography, perceptions of their role in the IRB, experiences while serving on the IRBs, difficulties faced by (...) them, and suggestions to improve their contributions. Of the 56 IRBs contacted, all 15 of the public institutions shared details of their community members, while only 26 of the 41 IRBs of private institutions responded. When questioned about why they joined the IRB, one third of the respondents said either that there was “no specific reason” for joining or that they accepted the invitation to serve on the insistence of other members of the IRBs or the head of their institution. All except one felt that community members were needed for optimal functioning. Six participants said that they did not review informed consent documents, and 10 were unaware that their presence was vital for quorum to be met. Twenty-eight said they participated actively in meetings and did not feel intimidated by the presence of clinicians. Twelve reported difficulties in understanding medical terminologies in ICDs. Although the majority of participants were aware about their role in an IRB, some did not review important documents such as ICDs. Restricted participation by private hospital IRBs was a striking observation in our study. There is a need to define eligibility criteria and develop targeted training modules for community members to ensure their effective contribution to effective oversight of clinical research. (shrink)

All illness represents a state of diminished autonomy and therefore the doctor-patient relationship necessarily and justifiably involves a degree of medical paternalism argues the author, an American medical student. In a broad-ranging paper he discusses the concepts of autonomy and paternalism in the context of the doctor-patient relationship. Given the necessary diminution of autonomy which illness inflicts, a limited form of medical paternalism, aimed at restoring or maximising the patient's autonomy is entirely acceptable, and indeed fundamental to the relationship he (...) argues. However, the exercise of this paternalism should be flexible and related to the current 'level of autonomy' of the patient himself. An editorial in this issue comments briefly on this paper. (shrink)

Among Plato's works, the Statesman is usually seen as transitional between the Republic and the Laws. This book argues that the dialogue deserves a special place of its own. Whereas Plato is usually thought of as defending unchanging knowledge, Dr Lane demonstrates how, by placing change at the heart of political affairs, Plato reconceives the link between knowledge and authority. The statesman is shown to master the timing of affairs of state, and to use this expertise in managing the conflict (...) of opposed civic factions. To this political argument corresponds a methodological approach which is seen to rely not only on the familiar method of 'division', but equally on the unfamiliar centrality of the use of 'example'. The demonstration that method and politics are interrelated transforms our understanding of the Statesman and its fellow dialogues. (shrink)

This book offers a major reinterpretation of the `secularization' of medieval ideas by examining scholastic discussions on the nature of the common good. It challenges the view that the rediscovery of Aristotle was the primary catalyst for the emergence of a secular theory of the state. A detailed exposition of the content and the context of late scholastic political and ethical thought reveals that the roots of medieval 'secularization' were profoundly theological.

Although it is common in liberal and progressive circles to scoff at the idea that the Unites States is “exceptional”—a derision driven by an admirable suspicion of the chauvinistic connotations of the exceptionalist view—doing so obscures a significant reality. The United States is different, or at least rather unusual, in its social, cultural, and geo-strategic circumstances, especially when compared to the nations of Europe from which it draws the core of its intellectual traditions. What's more, the critique of American exceptionalism (...) has acquired its own troublesome politics. “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever…. (shrink)