Moira Gatens investigates the ways in which differently sexed bodies can occupy the same social or political space. Representations of sexual difference have unacknowledged philosophical roots which cannot be dismissed as a superficial bias on the part of the philosopher, nor removed without destroying the coherence of the philosophical system concerned. The deep structural bias against women extends beyond metaphysics and its effects are felt in epistemology, moral, social and political theory. The idea of sexual difference is contextualised in (...) _Imaginary Bodies_ and traced through the history of philosophy. Using her work on Spinoza, Gatens develops alternative conceptions of power, new ways of conceiving women's embodiment and their legal, political and ethical status. (shrink)

This volume of specially-commissioned essays provides accessible introductions to all aspects of George Eliot's writing by some of the most distinguished new and established scholars and critics of Victorian literature. The essays are comprehensive, scholarly and lucidly written, and at the same time offer original insights into the work of one of the most important Victorian novelists, and into her complex and often scandalous career. Discussions of her life, the social, political, and intellectual grounding of her work, and her relation (...) to Victorian feminism provide valuable criticism of everything from her early journalism to her poetry. Each essay contributes to a new understanding of the great fiction, from Adam Bede and The mill on the floss to Daniel Deronda. With its supplementary material, including a chronology and a guide to further reading, this Companion is an invaluable tool for scholars and students alike. (shrink)

Clarke, Moira On the East coast of America, every 13 or 17 years, billions of red-eyed magicicadas emerge from underground. For the next few weeks every tree resounds with a near-deafening symphony, a courting ritual that has been measured at 94 decibels. Finally, the resulting offspring burrow back into the earth, there to remain inactive for the exact same duration, 13 or 17 years.

Spinoza took it to be an important psychological fact that belief cannot be compelled. At the same time, he was well aware of the compelling power that religious and political fictions can have on the formation of our beliefs. I argue that Spinoza allows that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fictions. His complex account of the imagination and fiction, and their disabling or enabling roles in gaining knowledge of Nature, is a site of disagreement among commentators. The novels of George (...) Eliot (who translated Spinoza's works) represent a significant development for those who aim to resolve such disagreement in favour of the epistemic value of the imagination and fiction. Although Eliot agreed with Spinoza that belief cannot be compelled, she nevertheless affirmed the potential of certain kinds of fiction to be not only compelling but also edifying. The parallel reading of Eliot and Spinoza offered here raises the question of whether his philosophy can accommodate a theory of art in which the artist is seen to be capable of attaining and imparting dependable knowledge. (shrink)

Why would the work of the 17th century philosopher Benedict de Spinoza concern us today? How can Spinoza shed any light on contemporary thought? In this intriguing book, Moira Gatens and Genevieve Lloyd show us that in spite of or rather because of Spinoza's apparent strangeness, his philosophy can be a rich resource for cultural self-understanding in the present. _Collective Imaginings_ draws on recent re-assessments of the philosophy of Spinoza to develop new ways of conceptualising issues of freedom and (...) difference. This ground-breaking study will be invaluable reading to anyone wishing to gain a fresh perspective on Spinoza's thought. (shrink)

This extremely accessible textbook provides a wide-ranging analysis of the relations between philosophy and feminist thought. Examining not only feminist critiques of philosophical ideas, Gatens also looks at the ways in which feminist theory can be informed by philosophical analysis and debates. Gatens adopts an historical approach, beginning with an analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft's critique of Rousseau. She then examines attempts by Harriet Taylor and J. S. Mill to extend liberal principles to women's situation. Other chapters discuss the work of (...) more recent philosophers, including Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Mary Daly and Dale Spender. Gatens concludes with a discussion of current debates in the politics of sexual difference. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the objectivity of persons is best understood in terms of intellectual virtue, the telos of which is an enduring commitment to salient and accurate information about reality. On this view, an objective reasoner is one we can trust to manage her perspectives, beliefs, emotions, biases, and responses to evidence in an intellectually virtuous manner. We can be confident that she will exercise intellectual carefulness, openmindedness, fairmindedness, curiosity, and other intellectual virtues in her reasoning. I (...) argue further that the cultivation and exercise of such virtues is a social phenomenon and thus challenge highly individualistic notions of intellectual character, epistemic autonomy, and personal objectivity. An advantage of this account of objectivity is that it better enables us to address bias in scientific research, science policy, and public debates about science. (shrink)

Moira Howes and Catherine Hundleby ABSTRACT: While anger can derail argumentation, it can also help arguers and audiences to reason together in argumentation. Anger can provide information about premises, biases, goals, discussants, and depth of disagreement that people might otherwise fail to recognize or prematurely dismiss. Anger can also enhance the salience of certain premises...

Parental burnout is a specific syndrome resulting from enduring exposure to chronic parenting stress. But why do some parents burn out while others, facing the same stressors, do not? The main aim of this paper was to propose a theory of parental burnout capable of predicting who is at risk of burnout, explaining why a particular parent burned out and why at that specific point in time, and providing directions for intervention. The secondary goal was to operationalize this theory in (...) a tool that would be easy to use for both researchers and clinicians. The results of this two-wave longitudinal study conducted on 923 parents suggest that the Balance between Risks and Resources (BR 2 ) theory proposed here is a relevant framework to predict and explain parental burnout. More specifically, the results show that (1) the BR 2 instrument reliably measures parents' balance between risks (parental stress-enhancing factors) and resources (parental stress-alleviating factors), (2) there is a strong linear relationship between BR 2 score and parental burnout, (3) parental burnout results from a chronic imbalance of risks over resources, (4) BR 2 predicts parental burnout better than job burnout and (5) among the risk and resource factors measured in BR 2, risks and resources non-specific to parenting (e.g., low stress-management abilities, perfectionism) equally predict parental and job burnout, while risks and resources specific to parenting (e.g., childrearing practices, coparenting) uniquely predict parental burnout. (shrink)

Spinoza scholars disagree about the role and value of the imagination in his philosophy. The notion of ‘beings of reason’ poses interesting questions about what fiction and poetry can contribute to philosophical thought. What are the pros and cons of imaginative and poetic thought and how do these relate to analogical versus deductive reasoning? These questions are treated in the context of Spinoza’s practical as well as speculative philosophy. It is concluded that beings of reason are unsuitable for use in (...) speculative philosophy. (shrink)

The paper is in four parts. The first part offers a brief reminder of the historical context for human rights as women's rights. The second part notes the relative lack of attention in human rights theory to the roles of social meaning and what has been called the ‘social imaginary’. The third part suggests that the social imaginary — understood in terms of the always present backdrop to meaningful social action — may be seen as a fruitful ‘middle ground’ upon (...) which negotiations may take place between human rights and cultural norms. The fourth part examines a case where women's entitlements to basic human rights are compromised by men's claims to cultural or group rights. I conclude by arguing that if human rights are to accommodate women's rights then women must be recognized as legitimate stakeholders in, and valuable contributors to, the necessarily ongoing re-invention and recreation of social meaning and cultural identity. (shrink)

Some critics have claimed that Spinoza's philosophy has nothing to offer aesthetics. I argue that within his conception of an ars vivendi one can discern a nascent theory of art. I bring the figure of the prophet in relation to that of the artist and, alongside a consideration of Spinoza's views on goodness and beauty, show that the special talent of the artist should be understood in terms of the entirely natural expression of the conatus.

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

Through a critical reading of Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, Woman Warrior, this paper addresses Amy Allen’s criticism that Seyla Benhabib’s conception of narrative agency involves the idea of a gender-neutral core self. Allen’s criticism of Benhabib is found wanting and the notion of an ungendered self is judged incoherent. Rather, gender is one of a number of markers at work in the open-ended narrative construction of identity.

With rapidly expanding technological capacity, research has outpaced the existing infrastructure of ethical and regulatory guidance. In the area of incidental findings, this is particularly true.The regulations under which most Institutional Review Boards operate were established over 25 years ago and have not been substantially altered in the intervening years. The technology available today that creates the opportunity for IFs was not conceived of, or considered, in the crafting of those regulations. Therefore, little guidance can be derived directly from these (...) regulations. Rather, aspects of existing ethical guidance and regulations can be adapted to assist IRBs and researchers in dealing with issues surrounding IFs. (shrink)

Aristotle's Conception of Freedom MOIRA M. WALSH That human being is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's. ' 1. INTRODUCTION THERE IS NO PLACE in the Nicomachean Ethics, or the Politics, where Aristotle provides us with an explicit definition of freedom. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean Aristotle's notion of freedom from a series of passages in the Politics, in which Aristotle discusses such matters as the existence of the natural slave, and (...) the understanding of freedom underlying certain forms of democracy. This effort is useful insofar as it not only helps us to understand Aristotle, but also presents us with a conception of freedom interestingly different from many contemporary versions and perhaps worth our consideration. ~ The reader will notice that I deliberately retain, for the most part, the generic use of 'man' and of masculine pronouns in translating and commenting on Aristotle, a practice which cannot go without explanation in this day and age. Such terms in English convey just the same ambiguity as Aristode's Greek does when, for instance, he uses the masculine adjectives eleutheros or agathos as generic terms -- that is, they leave the reader uncertain as to whether women are considered capable of freedom or goodness in the same way that men are, with the suspicion that they are not. I do not share the opinion, apparently held by Aristotle, that members of my gender are.. (shrink)

"A collection of essays on the metaphysical, political, theological, ethical and psychological writings of Spinoza.

Feminist critiques of science show that systematic biases strongly influence what scientific communities find salient. Features of reality relevant to women, for instance, may be under-appreciated or disregarded because of bias. Many feminist analyses of values in science identify problems with salience and suggest better epistemologies. But overlooked in such analyses are important discussions about intellectual virtues and the role they play in determining salience. Intellectual virtues influence what we should find salient. They do this in part by managing the (...) emotions, which are cognitively involved in what we actually do find salient. One reason intellectual virtues do not factor more strongly in feminist epistemology is the mistaken assumption that they could not serve as explicit epistemic community standards for scientific inquiry. There are good reasons, however, to think in terms of community intellectual virtue and consequently, to advance explicit public standards of intellectual virtue for scientific research. To show how explicit public standards for intellectual virtue might improve reasoning in biased conditions, I analyze a striking oversight in several evolutionary immunological hypotheses concerning women's reproduction and sexuality. I conclude that feminist epistemology would benefit from greater consideration of intellectual virtues, particularly in connection with social epistemological insights. (shrink)

Debates about female genital mutilation/cutting have polarized opinion between those who see it as an abuse of women’s health and human rights, to be ‘eradicated’, and those who may or may not oppose the practice, but see a double standard on the part of western campaigners who fail to challenge other unnecessary surgical interventions — such as male circumcision or cosmetic surgery — in their own communities and cultures. This article interrogates these debates about FGM/c in the context of measures (...) to reduce it in the UK over recent decades. It does not suggest that FGM/c is a legitimate practice, seeing it, rather, as an abuse of women’s and children’s rights that should be combated using a combination of measures. However, it argues that reduction strategies are undermined by inconsistencies in the law and the failure to back up the law with research and education. (shrink)

This paper treats a recalcitrant problem in Spinoza scholarship, namely, how to reconcile the conception of 'power' in his political writings with that found in his Ethics. Some have doubted the capacity of Spinoza's political philosophy to yield an adequate normative theory. If he is unable to provide a normative ground for political philosophy then perhaps this exposes a problem in Spinoza's philosophy taken as a whole. I argue that the considerable normative resources of his ethical and political philosophy, as (...) well their continuing relevance today, are best appreciated through attending to his notion of the exemplar. (shrink)

Modern, or continental, rationalism refers to the works of the seventeenth‐century philosophers René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. While there is much to mark each philosopher off from the others, there are nevertheless several shared fundamental assumptions that warrant the common title of “rationalist.” Each philosopher believed that mathematics and geometry were appropriate models on which to base philosophical methodology. Each, whilst critical of founding knowledge on mere faith – which they believed could only lead to skepticism – nevertheless (...) relied on theological arguments at various points in their philosophies. All three philosophers share a distrust of the notion that sensation, emotion (passion), and the body are capable of providing knowledge. Reason alone, on all three philosophers' accounts, is the a priori faculty which can provide secure foundations for human knowledge. It is Descartes' philosophy that has received most critical attention from feminist theorists. Spinoza has received less attention and Leibniz is all but ignored. At the end of this article, some attempt will be made to explain this uneven treatment of the modern rationalists. (shrink)

Sets out Catholic teaching on hotly debated issues such as stem cell research, reproductive technologies, euthanasia and much more.

ABSTRACT Are there limits to the ability of Spinoza’s philosophy to speak to our present? Perhaps his notion of ‘the mind of God’ is too foreign for contemporary sensibilities to contemplate? After offering a brief refutation of Spinoza as atheist or pantheist, I venture the idea that contemporary understandings of nature may benefit from a consideration of Spinoza’s account of ‘God or Nature’. I suggest that the expression of the virtue of fortitudo (strength of character) can be (re)conceived as the (...) love of God, or Nature. (shrink)

When people argue, they are vulnerable to unwanted and costly changes in their beliefs. This vulnerability motivates the position that belief involuntarism makes argument inherently adversarial, as well as the development of alternatives to adversarial argumentation such as “invitational rhetoric”. The emphasis on involuntary belief change in such accounts, in our perspective, neglects three dimensions of arguing: the diversity of arguer intentions, audience agency, and the benefits of belief change. The complex impact of arguments on both audiences and arguers involves (...) vulnerabilities related to various forces of argument, not just the intellectual force of premise-conclusion complexes. Shifting emphasis from adversariality to vulnerability, we propose a more holistic understanding of argument, in which vulnerability reveals various sources of strength and opportunity in addition to risk. (shrink)