This collection brings together an internationally known and interdisciplinary group of scholars, including a major new essay by Laruelle himself. Together they use non-philosophy to cross the boundaries between philosophy and performance.

Reilly offers an account of cosmopolitan feminism as emancipatory political practice in an age of globalization. This entails a critical engagement with international human rights law; a global feminist consciousness that contests patriarchal, capitalist, and racist power dynamics in a context of neoliberal globalization; cross-boundaries dialogue that recognizes the intersectionality of forms of oppression; collaborative transnational strategizing on concrete issues; and the utilization of global forums as sites of cosmopolitan solidarity and citizen action.

Implicitly or explicitly, youth work practitioners, scholars and advocates typically invoke a set of egalitarian values to explain, justify and promote the ethical basis of their work. Despite such commitments, there exists conceptual ambiguity surrounding equality across much of the youth work literature which has significant consequences for how youth work is framed and defended. This article introduces the interdisciplinary field of Equality Studies and argues that an Equality Studies approach provides a means to (i) clarify equality-related normative goals within (...) the youth work field and (ii) enhance radically orientated youth work by strengthening the conception of equality at its core. It analyses three areas of conceptual ambiguity within the youth work literature with respect to the value of equality, in each case demonstrating how an Equality Studies approach can help remedy the problem. These areas are: (i) the assumption that equality means ‘sameness’; (ii) the limits of equality of opportunity and anti-discrimination; and (iii) the relationship between equality and other values. It then evaluates the concept of ‘equity’, arguing that it is a vague, inadequate and unnecessary vehicle for capturing egalitarian concerns. The article concludes with some comments on the feasibility of radically egalitarian youth work. (shrink)

Driving simulators are becoming increasingly common in driver training and assessment. Since virtual reality is generally regarded as an appropriate environment for measuring risk behavior, simulators are also used to assess hazard perception, which is considered to be one of the most important skills for safe driving. Simulators, which offer challenges that are indeed comparable to driving in real traffic, but at a very low risk of physical injury, have the potential to complement theoretical and practical driver trainings and tests. (...) Although configurations and fidelity differ considerably between driving simulators, studies comparing the impact of their distinct features on driving performance and test validity remain rare. In this context, prior research demonstrated that a wider field of view led to earlier speed adjustments in response to potential hazards—especially for experienced drivers. The wider field of view was assumed to cause the drivers to be more present in the virtual world, which in turn provoked more natural scanning of the road and therefore, earlier hazard detection in experienced drivers. Research on spatial presence in other contexts support this assumption. The present experiment investigated whether this effect could be enhanced by an even more immersive presentation technique for driving simulation: a head-mounted display. Moreover, we studied the interplay between display mode, sense of presence and simulation sickness. Eighty experienced and less experienced drivers completed six simulation-based hazard perception scenarios, which were displayed either via a triple-monitor set-up or an HMD. Results indicate that the experienced drivers showed very similar driving and risk behavior as the inexperienced drivers in both experimental conditions. However, there were significant differences between the two display conditions. The use of an HMD resulted in a clearer and more abrupt speed reduction, more virtual presence, and a higher degree of simulation sickness. However, the interrelation between these three variables could not be conclusively clarified in the present study and thus represents a research aim that could be addressed in future studies. (shrink)

We argue that adopting a sociocultural lens to the origins of intergroup bias is important for understanding the nature of attacking and defending behavior at a group level. We specifically propose that the potential divergence in the development of in-group affiliation and out-group derogation supports De Dreu and Gross's framework but does indicate that more emphasis on early sociocultural input is required.

Edward O. Wilson's sociobiology, as advocated in On Human Nature, is often criticized for its sensationalism and its anthropomorphisms. Critics have not recognized, however, that the so?called anthropomorphisms are essential to sociobiology, in so far as it seeks to address the humanities, and that the sensationalism derives from them. They are not just the sloppiness usually found in popularizations. Section I reviews the grounds for these criticisms and then ends by demonstrating that it is no less a confusion to label (...) these misuses of language ?anthropomorphisms?. Section II analyzes the style of reasoning, characteristic of scientism in general and sociobiology in particular, that sanctions misuses of language such as Wilson's. The flaw in this reasoning is that it depends upon the very language it sets out to debunk, in a way that renders its own arguments unintelligible. (shrink)

Wijdicks and colleagues1 recently presented the Full Outline of UnResponsiveness (FOUR) scale as an alternative to the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)2 in the evaluation of consciousness in severely brain-damaged patients. They studied 120 patients in an intensive care setting (mainly neuro-intensive care) and claimed that “the FOUR score detects a locked-in syndrome, as well as the presence of a vegetative state.”1 We fully agree that the FOUR is advantageous in identifying locked-in patients given that it specifically tests for eye movements (...) or blinking on command. This is welcomed given that misdiagnosis of the locked-in syndrome has been shown to occur in more than half of the cases (see Laureys and colleagues3 for review). As for the diagnosis of the vegetative state, the scale explicitly tests for visual pursuit, and hence can disentangle the vegetative state from the minimally conscious state (MCS). The diagnostic criteria for MCS have been proposed4 only recently, but Wijdicks and colleagues1 do not mention the existence of this clinical entity in their article. As for the vegetative state, MCS can be encountered in the acute or subacute setting as a transitional state on the way to further recovery, or it can be a more chronic or even permanent condition. The MCS refers to patients showing inconsistent, albeit clearly discernible, minimal behavioral evidence of consciousness (eg, localization of noxious stimuli, eye fixation or tracking, reproducible movement to command, or nonfunctional verbalization).4 The FOUR scale does not test for all of the behavioral criteria required to diagnose MCS.4 It is known from the literature (see Majerus and colleagues5 for review) that about a third of patients diagnosed with vegetative state are actually in MCS, and this misdiagnosis can lead to major clinical, therapeutic, and ethical consequences. We tested the ability of the newly proposed FOUR scale to correctly diagnose the vegetative state in an acute (intensive care and neurology ward) and chronic (neurorehabilitation) setting.. (shrink)

This article examines the emergence of a ‘financial subject’ in the transformation of the UK economy since 1979, using a critical realist approach to subjectivity that investigates underlying causal mechanisms and structures as they affect daily life. Financial restructuring, including widespread borrowing and increasing personal investment, has forged links between finance markets and personal finance, as workers’ wages are financialized. This engenders entrepreneurial subjectivity, with individuals interpellated to be self-reliant in managing possible risks. It argues that the process of subjectivation, (...) where individuals recognize themselves and their goals relative to financial markets, exemplifies the development of financialization itself, since it gives an insight into the successful reproduction of social relations of finance. It illustrates the instability related to wages and inequality, as some subjects have to contend with unpredictable employment prospects as potential future risks that complicate the practices of personal investment and borrowing, creating new hierarchies bound up with the financialization of the economy. (shrink)

Public health responses to emerging infectious disease rarely try to interrupt the mobility of goods and information. Rather, designed under the rubric of ‘‘public health security,’’ they extend the rationale of free circulation through efforts to intensify movement and communication between international agencies, national health departments, and the pharmaceutical industry. In this way, public health security extends postliberal modes of transnational regulation. This article examines an unfolding scenario which is testing public health’s fidelity to the ethos of international trade agreements: (...) Indonesia has withdrawn from the World Health Organization’s ‘‘virus-sharing’’ scheme because WHO has facilitated the use of Indonesian samples of H5N1 for the commercial development of potentially profitable vaccines without consultation with the Indonesian labs in which they originated. It has been argued that the Indonesian move is one that contests the current securitization of global health. However, I argue that what we are witnessing is the process of emergence of a distinct form of biological sovereignty in the form of rival global health security aggregates, each working to inject a new form of postliberal sovereignty into the field of global public health. (shrink)

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the ‘secularization thesis’. Conflicts between the claims of women's equality and the claims of religion are well-documented vis-à-vis all major religions and across all regions. The (...) ongoing moral panic about the presence of Islam in Europe, marked by a preoccupation with policing Muslim women's dress, reminds us of the centrality of women and gender power relations in the interrelation of religion, culture and the state. Added to postmodern and other critiques of the secular-religious binary, most sociological research now contradicts the equation of modernization with secularization. This article focuses on the challenges that these developments pose to politically oriented feminist thinking and practice. It argues that non-oppressive feminist responses require a new critical engagement with secularism as a normative principle in democratic, multicultural societies. To inform this process, the author maps and links discussions across different fields of feminist scholarship, in the sociology of religion and in political theory. She organizes the main philosophical traditions and fault lines that form the intellectual terrain at the intersection of feminism, religion and politics in two broad groups: feminist critiques of the Enlightenment critique of religion; and feminist scholarship at the critical edges of the Enlightenment tradition. The author argues that notwithstanding the fragmented nature of feminist debates in this area, common ground is emerging across different politically oriented approaches: all emphasize ‘democracy’ and the values that underpin it as the larger discursive frame in which the principle of secularism can be redefined with emancipatory intent in a neo-secular age. (shrink)

This article examines discourse on immunity in general public engagements with pandemic influenza in light of critical theory on immuno-politics and bodily integrity. Interview and focus group discussions on influenza with members of the general public reveal that, despite endorsement of government advice on how to avoid infection, influenza is seen as, ultimately, unavoidable. In place of prevention, members of the general public speak of immunity as the means of coping with influenza infection. Such talk on corporeal life under microbial (...) threat is informed by self/not-self, network and ‘choice’ immunity, and therefore makes considerable allowance for cosmopolitan traffic with others, microbes, ‘dirt’ and immune-boosting consumer products. The immuno-political orientation of members of the general public, therefore, appears to trend towards a productive cosmopolitanism that contrasts with more orthodox bioscientific and governmental approaches to pandemic influenza. We reflect on the implications of the immuno-cosmopolitanism of everyday life for the advent of global public health emergency and for biopolitical rule in general. (shrink)

Philanthropy is a contentious and often polarising topic within egalitarian social movements. There are good reasons for this. Philanthropy is reliant on the inequalities inherent in the capitalist system, is fundamentally at odds with democratic relationships, and can moderate or control the activities of recipients. This article therefore starts from the premise that philanthropy violates egalitarian ideals in very significant ways. However, it goes on to suggest that, absent a ruptural change that would drastically weaken the bases of philanthropic wealth, (...) there is a strategic and contingent case for its selective use so long as it pushes existing configurations of power in more egalitarian directions. In making this case, the article draws primarily on the work of Wright ( 2010 ) but also on recent developments in the political theory of philanthropy. It calls for a critical literacy around philanthropy that combines an openness to experimentation with a clear-eyed sense of its significant risks. In this respect, it outlines specific conditions and strategies that movements should adopt if they pursue or accept philanthropic funding. Firstly, movements must deliberately articulate and actively defend their transformative vision, clarifying in the process the tactical place of philanthropy within this. Secondly, they must resist funder conditionalities, and preserve egalitarian modes of organising in the face of practices which undermine participatory ideals and threaten relations of care and solidarity. The article’s chief contribution is to integrate normative insights with lessons from the sociological literature on movement-philanthropy relations, for the sake of systematically untangling a live and troublesome issue within the praxis of radical movements. (shrink)

Over the past two decades there has been a burgeoning interest and research into experiments and innovations in participatory governance. While advocates highlight the merits of such new governance arrangements in moving beyond traditional interest group representations and deepening democracy through deliberation with a broad range of civic associations, critics express concern about the political legitimacy and democratic accountability of participating associations, highlighting in particular the dangers of co-option and faction. Addressing these concerns, a number of theorists identify an important (...) role for civic associations in linking deliberations at micro policy levels to those within the public sphere more broadly. These normative contributions raise an important empirical question—does civic associational engagement at micro levels leave scope to engage both laterally across associations and vertically with members and citizens more broadly? More simply put, is civic associational engagement within micro-policy fora “good” for democracy more broadly? Drawing from a study of civic associational engagement in Ireland’s national Social Partnership process over a ten-year period this article argues that, where deliberations become overshadowed by more traditional communicative norms of bargaining and negotiation, it is not. Evidence is presented from the Irish case to show how civic actors, having internalized the dominant communicative norms of the process, have contributed toward a narrowing of the deliberative space within, but most particularly outside, this process. This, it is argued, has resulted in a considerably weakened public sphere with neither the institutional apparatus nor the discursive capacity to seek accountability from political and civic leaders at a time of profound crisis within the Irish state. (shrink)

The notion of a ‘financial subjectivity’ is fast becoming an important way of understanding how people rationalize the need to take risks in daily life as crucial to personal success. This paper therefore traces the structural changes and institutional fixes – that is, the institutional stabilization of crisis tendencies in capitalism – to understand how individual strategies for making ends meet have been shaped by finance. In particular, I look at regulation theory’s depictions of the ‘ideology of shareholder value’ as (...) partially responsible for the flourishing business sector in which competition and the threat of takeover led to the prioritization of corporate performance over job security and workers’ benefits. However, it is also necessary to understand the particular mechanisms that enable independence from the welfare state at the level of the household, in the form of expanded borrowing and financial services, which I explore further in this paper. (shrink)

Revealing what is happening in organizations in relation to ethical issues and what corrective action can be taken to prevent unethical practices, the author deals with a different aspect of ethical (or unethical) management within each chapter concluding with a quiz and case study.

Adults reason by exclusivity to identify the meanings of novel words. However, it is debated whether, like children, they extend this strategy to disambiguate other referential expressions. To further inform this debate, this study tested 41 adults on four conditions of a disambiguation task: label/label, fact/fact, label/fact, and fact/label. Participants also provided a verbal explanation for their referent selections to tease apart the underlying processes. Results indicated that adults successfully discerned the target object in the label/label and label/fact condition, yet (...) not the remaining two conditions. Verbal reports indicated that the strategy utilized to disambiguate differed depending upon communicative context. These findings confirm that the tendency to reason by exclusivity becomes restricted to word-learning situations with growing linguistic and communicative experience. (shrink)

Rakover has thought about the nature of explanation for a long time and he has written some insightful pieces on the possibility of incorporating mentalistic language into serious explanations of our activities. Here he takes an extreme tack and grounds his arguments on the oldest of all chestnuts, the mind/body problem. Ironically, as an undergraduate he may have misinterpreted the words of his favorite professor so as to lead him to agonize for decades over the proper interpretation of private experience (...) [for him it’s “mentalistic”]. This has ultimately led to this article, proposing a Multi-Explanation Framework that mixes what he calls “mentalistic” and “mechanistic” elements in behavioral sequences, incorporating a Mentalistic Purposive Explanation Scheme that has the virtue, in his eyes, of adding what “radical behaviorism” lacks. The reader is left with the impression that the explanations produced using this framework would seem more satisfying only because the vocabulary involved is the one we learned as children, and that their usefulness would be no more than that of the folk psychology that has always prevailed. Rakover and many others confuse radical behaviorism with behavior analysis, which leads to tiresome and pointless critiques of the former. (shrink)

Chromosomes that harbor dominant sex determination loci are predicted to erode over time—losing genes, accumulating transposable elements, degenerating into a functional wasteland and ultimately becoming extinct. The Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome is fairly far along this path to oblivion. The few genes on largely heterochromatic Y chromosome are required for spermatocyte‐specific functions, but have no role in other tissues. Surprisingly, a recent paper shows that divergent Y chromosomes can substantially influence gene expression throughout the D. melanogaster genome.1 These results show (...) that variation on Y has an important influence on the deployment of the genome. BioEssays 30:409–411, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Parents in Iran, China and the United States were asked 1) about their potential influence on their children’s religious and scientific views and 2) to consider a situation in which their children expressed dissent. Iranian and US parents endorsed their influence on the children’s beliefs in the two domains. By contrast, Chinese parents claimed more influence in the domain of science than religion. Most parents spoke of influencing their children via Parent-only mechanisms in each domain, although US parents did spontaneously (...) note Multiple sources for the transmission of religious views. Parents proposed a similar stance towards children’s dissenting religious and scientific views. Chinese and US parents were more likely to express Supportive approaches and Iranian parents were more likely to express a Directive approach by comparison. The present research informs our understanding of the cultural transmission of views about science and religion. (shrink)

We conceptualise CSR communication as a process of reciprocal influence between organisations and their audiences. We use an illustrative case study in the form of a conflict between firms and a powerful stakeholder which is played out in a series of 20 press releases over a 2-month period to develop a framework of analysis based on insights from linguistics. It focuses on three aspects of dialogism, namely (i) turn-taking (co-operating in a conversation by responding to the other party), (ii) inter-party (...) moves (the nature and type of interaction characterising a turn, i.e. denial, apology or excuse) and (iii) intertextuality (the intensity and quality of verbal interaction between the parties). We address the question: What is the nature and type of verbal interactions between the parties? First we examine (a) whether the parties verbally interact and then (b) whether the parties listen to each other. We find evidence of dialogism suggesting that CSR communication is an interactive process which has to be understood as a function of the power relations between a firm and a specific stakeholder. Also, we find evidence of intertextuality in press releases by six firms which engage in verbal interaction with the stakeholder. We interpret this as linguistic evidence of isomorphic processes relating to CSR practices resulting from the pressure exerted by a powerful stakeholder. The lack of response by ten firms that fail to issue press releases suggests a strategy of ‘watch-and-wait’ with respect to the outcome of the conflict. (shrink)

This essay extends the recent trend toward greater emphasis on writing-related pedagogical practices in introductory philosophy courses to upper-division courses, providing a holistic model for course design that centers on certain techniques and practices that have been developed in the context of the new wave of multidisciplinary writing programs in the United States. I argue that instructors can more effectively teach philosophy and encourage philosophical thinking by incorporating the methods of writing instruction into their courses in systematic ways and offer (...) practical guidance on how to do so. (shrink)

This compilation presents importance research on philosophy. Some topics discussed herein include scepticism, corruption, hope and belief, the conscious and unconscious mind and the soul.

The doctrine of inerrant divine “middle knowledge” of future contingent events, first developed by the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, has resurfaced as a prominent position within contemporary debates over divine foreknowledge, creaturely freedom, and the ontological status of possibilities. As yet, the only substantive response to the new Molinism from a process perspective has come in a brief section on “Hartshorne and the Challenge of Molinism,” in an essay on Hartshorne’s view of “The Logic of Future Contingents” (...) by George W. Shields and Donald W. Viney, in Shields’ edited anthology Process and Analysis.Shields and Viney offer an insightful critique of Molinism. However, their use of Hartshorne’s understanding of possibility presents problems for those, like me, who prefer Whitehead’s more robustly realist notion of eternal objects. Here, I defend Whitehead’s Platonism from the main lines of criticism leveled against itby Hartshorne, while demonstrating that a “thick” conception of the objective content of the possible within the context of the divine understanding need not crossover into a deterministic conception of God’s foreknowledge, à la Molina. (shrink)

I argue for a re-appropriation of the religious/philosophical concept of ‘anxiety’ regarding human finitude and fallibility as an ‘epistemic virtue’ thatshould frame the relationship between personal (including religious) belief and political participation and procedures. I contend that moral justificationsof liberal norms based on ‘respect for persons’ and ‘tolerance’ are insufficient without relation to such a (complementary) epistemic basis. Furthermore, Iargue that a careful examination of the internal logic of religious belief, per se, undermines traditional understandings of ‘faith’ (as being categoricallyopposed (...) to ‘doubt’) and reveals support for liberal norms as an necessary implication thereof. (shrink)

Heide Schluepmann _Abendroethe der Subjektphilosophie: Eine Aesthetik des Kinos_ Frankfurt am Main/Basel: Stromfeld, 1998 ISBN 3-87877-740-X 187 pp.

Discusses similarities and differences between James and Skinner and criticizes Skinner for failing to provide an adequate description of complex behaviors. Similarities include opposition to a dualistic approach in which mind and body are seen as qualitatively different, and to the notion that mental phenomena are causal entities. In addition, there is agreement that mental events are actions and not copies of external reality. Skinner is criticized for providing an over-simplified account of complex phenomena and translating such a description to (...) operant terms. James is seen as being more painstaking in his description and more cautious in applying general principles. In particular, James's account of the concept of interest is seen as being more cognizant of the subtleties and complexities involved, whereas Skinner's translation of the concept to operant reinforcement is faulted as too narrow. (shrink)