In the case of an intellectually disabled patient, the attending physician was restricted from writing a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) order. Although the rationale for this restriction was to protect the patient from an inappropriate quality of life judgment, it resulted in a worse death than the patient would have experienced had he not been disabled. Such restrictions that are intended to protect intellectually disabled patients may violate their right to equal treatment and to a dignified death.

The original essays in this volume, while written from diverse perspectives, share the common aim of building a constructive dialogue between two currents in philosophy that seem not readily allied: Wittgenstein, who urges us to bring our words back home to their ordinary uses, recognizing that it is our agreements in judgments and forms of life that ground intelligibility; and feminist theory, whose task is to articulate a radical critique of what we say, to disrupt precisely those taken-for-granted agreements in (...) judgments and forms of life. Wittgenstein and feminist theorists are alike, however, in being unwilling or unable to "make sense" in the terms of the traditions from which they come, needing to rely on other means—including telling stories about everyday life—to change our ideas of what sense is and of what it is to make it. For both, appeal to grounding is problematic, but the presumed groundedness of particular judgments remains an unavoidable feature of discourse and, as such, in need of understanding. For feminist theory, Wittgenstein suggests responses to the immobilizing tugs between modernist modes of theorizing and postmodern challenges to them. For Wittgenstein, feminist theory suggests responses to those who would turn him into the "normal" philosopher he dreaded becoming, one who offers perhaps unorthodox solutions to recognizable philosophical problems. In addition to an introductory essay by Naomi Scheman, the volume’s twenty chapters are grouped in sections titled "The Subject of Philosophy and the Philosophical Subject," "Wittgensteinian Feminist Philosophy: Contrasting Visions," "Drawing Boundaries: Categories and Kinds," "Being Human: Agents and Subjects," and "Feminism’s Allies: New Players, New Games." These essays give us ways of understanding Wittgenstein and feminist theory that make the alliance a mutually fruitful one, even as they bring to their readings of Wittgenstein an explicitly historical and political perspective that is, at best, implicit in his work. The recent salutary turn in philosophy toward taking history seriously has shown how the apparently timeless problems of supposedly generic subjects arose out of historically specific circumstances. These essays shed light on the task of feminist theorists—along with postcolonial, queer, and critical race theorists—to "rotate the axis of our examination" around whatever "real need[s]" might emerge through the struggles of modernity’s Others. Contributors are Nancy E. Baker, Nalini Bhushan, Jane Braaten, Judith Bradford, Sandra W. Churchill, Daniel Cohen, Tim Craker, Alice Crary, Susan Hekman, Cressida J. Heyes, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Christine M. Koggel, Bruce Krajewski, Wendy Lynne Lee, Hilda Lindemann Nelson, Deborah Orr, Rupert Read, Phyllis Rooney, and Janet Farrell Smith. (shrink)

I argue that Nelson's feminist transformation of empiricism provides the basis of a dialogue across three currently competing feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theories, and postmodern feminism, a dialogue that will result in a dissolution of the apparent tensions between these epistemologies and provide an epistemology with the openness and fluidity needed to embrace the concerns of feminists.

El presente artículo busca señalar la existencia de dos conflictos, al menos, que se presentan en Colombia. El primero es un conflicto directo mayoritariamente sufrido en zonas rurales. El segundo es un tele-conflicto. De su raíz griega es un conflicto que se vive desde lejos (tele). Este último, si bien es virtual, produce efectos reales en los sujetos con un alto poder de decisión, especialmente en zonas urbanas. Con ello se busca señalar el rol de los medios como condición de (...) posibilidad para la existencia del conflicto, pero no sólo debido al uso (abuso) que se pueda dar de ellos para la continuación del conflicto, sino por la misma manera en que es medializado. Para ello se analiza como caso empírico la refrendación de los acuerdos de paz de La Habana entre el estado colombiano y la guerrilla de las FARC-EP. Para ello se hará un análisis fenomenológico de la manera en que los medios interactúan con el sujeto. Con ello se busca observar el rol constitutivo de los medios de la experiencia humana. Con este punto como pivote, se señala la existencia de los dos conflictos previamente nombrados. (shrink)

The thesis is two-fold: to show that to be human is to have a nature disposed to inalienable conflict of interests, and to show that creativity is the best principle by which to organize interests.

We think of modern liberalism as the novel product of a world reinvented on a secular basis after 1945. In The Theology of Liberalism, one of the country's most important political theorists argues that we could hardly be more wrong. Eric Nelson contends that the tradition of liberal political philosophy founded by John Rawls is, however unwittingly, the product of ancient theological debates about justice and evil. Once we understand this, he suggests, we can recognize the deep incoherence of (...) various forms of liberal political philosophy that have emerged in Rawls's wake.--. (shrink)

Descartes held that practicing mathematics was important for developing the mental faculties necessary for science and a virtuous life. Otherwise, he maintained that the proper uses of mathematics were extremely limited. This article discusses his reasons which include a theory of education, the metaphysics of matter, and a psychologistic theory of deductive reasoning. It is argued that these reasons cohere with his system of philosophy.

We discuss potential benefits of research in which attention is directed toward or away from a spoken channel and measures of the allocation of attention are used. This type of research is relevant to at least two basic, still-unresolved issues in cognitive psychology: the extent to which unattended information is processed and the extent to which unattended information that is processed can later be remembered. Four recent studies of this type that address these questions in various ways are reviewed as (...) illustrations. We conclude from these studies that unattended information appears to be partially processed automatically, though attention enhances the processing considerably, and the unattended information that is processed may not be retrievable in direct or many indirect memory tasks, though it remains possible that there is an automatically stored memory trace. (shrink)

Although the words “nature” and “ecology” have to be qualified in discussing either Daoism or Heidegger, the author argues that a different and potentially helpful approach to questions of nature, ecology, and environmental ethics can be articulated from the works of Martin Heidegger and the early Daoist philosophers Laozi (Lao-Tzu) and Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu). Despite very different cultural contexts and philosophical strategies, they bring into play the spontaneity and event-character of nature while unfolding a sense of how to be responsive to (...) the world through a practice of “non-coercive-activity” (wuwei) and “letting be” (Gelassenheit). Significant ecological implications can be drawn from the recognition of nature reinterpreted as dao (way) and as Sein (being). The openness and receptiveness of experiencing the world as being-under-way suggests what might be called a “pluralistic holism,” involving the recognition of both the interconnectedness and the unique singularity of things, and the possibility of being responsive to the phenomena themselves in their mutuality as wellas in their particular givenness. (shrink)

Peppered throughout with previously unreported, and sometimes incendiary, higher education anecdotes, Nelson is at his flame-throwing best.The book calls on ...

Despite Heidegger’s critique of ethics, his use of ethically-inflected language intimates an interpretive ethics of encounter involving self-interpreting agents in their hermeneutical context and the formal indication of factical life as a situated dwelling open to possibilities enacted through practices of care, interpretation, and individuation. Existence is constituted practically in Dasein’s addressing, encountering, and responding to itself, others, and its world. Unlike rule-based or virtue ethics, this ethos of responsive encounter and individuating confrontation challenges any grounding in a determinate or (...) exemplary model of reason, human nature, the virtues, or tradition. (shrink)

Building on developments in feminist science scholarship and the philosophy of science, I advocate two methodological principles as elements of a naturalized philosophy of science. One principle incorporates a holistic account of evidence inclusive of claims and theories informed by and/or expressive of politics and non-constitutive values; the second takes communities, rather than individual scientists, to be the primary loci of scientific knowledge. I use case studies to demonstrate that these methodological principles satisfy three criteria for naturalization accepted in naturalized (...) philosophy of science, and allow for the differential assessment of episodes in which values and sociopolitical factors inform, or contribute to the adoption of, theories for which there is sufficient evidential warrant — and episodes in which such factors inform, or contribute to the adoption of, theories for which there is not. I contend that in terms of their empirical and normative import, these principles constitute a further naturalization of the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The “received” concept of wilderness as a place apart from and untouched by humans is five-times flawed: it is not universalizable, it is ethnocentric, it is ecologically naive, it separates humans from nature, and its referent is nonexistent. The received view of wilderness leads to dilemmas and unpalatable consequences, including the loss of designated wilderness areas by political and legislative authorities. What is needed is a more flexible notion of wilderness. Suggestions are made for a revised concept of wilderness.

This paper explores Dilthey’s radical transformation of epistemology and the human sciences through his projects of a critique of historically embodied reason and his hermeneutics of historically mediated life. Answering criticisms that Dilthey overly depends on epistemology, I show how for Dilthey neither philosophy nor the human sciences should be reduced to their theoretical, epistemological, or cognitive dimensions. Dilthey approaches both immediate knowing (Wissen) and theoretical knowledge (Erkenntnis) in the context of a hermeneutical phenomenology of historical life. Knowing is not (...) an isolated activity but an interpretive and self-interpretive practice oriented by situated reflexive awareness (Innewerden) and self-reflection (Selbstbesinnung). As embedded in an historical relational context, knowing does not only consist of epistemic validity claims about representational contents but is fundamentally practical, involving all of human existence. Empirically informed Besinnung, with its double reference to sense as meaning and bodily awareness, orients Dilthey’s inquiry rather than the “irrationalism” of immediate intuition or the “rationalism” of abstract epistemological reasoning. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider, and reject, the claim that all elderly patients’ desires for suicide are irrational. The same reasons that have led to a growing acceptance for the rationality of suicide in terminal cases should lead us to view other desires for suicide as possibly rational. In both cases, desires for suicide can and do materialize in the absence of mental illness. Furthermore, we claim that desires for suicide can remain rational even in the face of some mental (...) illnesses so long as four criteria are met: individuals must demonstrate rationality, have realistic information and judgments about their life-world, be in a state of mind (e.g., their emotions and will) that is not be severely compromised by mental illness, and make choices that are congruent with their fundamental values and critical interests. We conclude that some rational suicides can be ethically justifiable. (shrink)

As one of the preeminent philosophers of the twentieth century, W. V. Quine made groundbreaking contributions to the philosophy of science, mathematical logic, and the philosophy of language. This collection of essays examines Quine's views, particularly his holism and naturalism, for their value to feminist theorizing today. Some contributors to this volume see Quine as severely challenging basic tenets of the logico-empiricist tradition in the philosophy of science—the analytic/synthetic distinction, verificationism, foundationalism—and accept various of his positions as potential resources for (...) feminist critique. Other contributors regard Quine as an unrepentant empiricist and, unlike feminists who seek to use or extend his arguments, they interpret his positions as far less radical and more problematic. In particular, critics and advocates of Quine's arguments that the philosophy of science should be "naturalized"—understood and pursued as an enterprise continuous with the sciences proper—disagree deeply about whether such a naturalized philosophy is "philosophy enough." Central issues at stake in these disagreements reflect current questions of special interest to feminists and also bridge the analytic and postmodern traditions. They include questions about whether and how the philosophy of science, as a form of practice, is or can be normative as well as questions concerning the implications of Quine's philosophy of language for the transparency and stability of meaning. In representing feminist philosophy centrally engaged with the analytic tradition, this volume is important not only for what it contributes to the understanding of Quine and naturalized epistemology but also for what it accomplishes in working against restrictive conceptions of the place of feminism within the discipline. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Louise M. Antony, Richmond Campbell, Lorraine Code, Jane Duran, Maureen Linker, Phyllis Rooney, and Paul A. Roth. (shrink)

This article examines republican conception of political theory in Europe during the early modern period. It explains that there were two distinct kinds of republican political theory. One was Roman in origin and the other was Greek which valued the natural ordering of the state made possible by the regulation of wealth. The article discusses republicanism in Italy and suggests that the battle between Rome and Greece defined the development of republican political theory throughout the early-modern period.

I TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY THE "ESSAY OF MIRACLES" DID NOT APPEAR IN THE "TREATISE" BUT DID IN THE "ENQUIRY". I ARGUE THAT THE ESSAY WAS ORIGINALLY DIRECTED AGAINST REVEALED KNOWLEDGE; SO DIRECTED, IT FITTED INTO THE TIGHTLY ORGANIZED PROGRAM OF THE "TREATISE", BUT HAD TO BE SUPPRESSED FOR PRUDENTIAL REASONS. RECONSTRUCTED AS AN ESSAY DIRECTED MERELY AGAINST NON-SCRIPTURAL MIRACLES ITS APPEARANCE IN THE "ENQUIRY" PRESENTED NO PHILOSOPHICAL OR PRUDENTIAL DIFFICULTIES.

In this paper I attempt to show, first, that doxastic theories of seeing must be rejected on at least two counts: paradoxically, they commit us on the one hand to pyrrhonic skepticism and on the other they fail to account for cases of defeasibility that a theory of perceiving ought to account for. So much for the “why”. As for the “how” I attempt to show that a non-doxastic conception of seeing can be formulated, with the aid of theoretic interpretations (...) of the perceiving of brute animals, which succeeds in overcoming the above two failings of doxastic theories. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers often claim that the giving and criticizing of deductive arguments is the main or only business of philosophy. I argue that this is mistaken and show analytic philosophers also use formal schemas, distinctions, examples, and analogies so as to make some aspect of reality manifest. That is, some analytic philosophers sometimes simply try to ‘tell it like it is’. This ‘method of descriptive manifestation’ is less commonly recognized than it should be given its divergence from the self-image of (...) analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Implicit bias is one of the most successful cases in recent memory of an academic concept being translated into practice. Its use in the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program—which seeks to promote gender equality in STEM careers through institutional transformation—has raised fundamental questions about organizational change. How do advocates translate theories into practice? What makes some concepts more tractable than others? What happens to theories through this translation process? We explore these questions using the ADVANCE program as a case study. (...) Using an inductive, theory-building approach and combination of computational and qualitative methods, we investigate how the concept of implicit bias was translated into practice through the ADVANCE program and identify five key features that made implicit bias useful as a change framework in the academic STEM setting. We find that the concept of implicit bias works programmatically because it is demonstrable, relatable, versatile, actionable, and impartial. While enabling the concept’s diffusion, these characteristics also limit its scope. We reflect on implications for gender theories of organizational change and for practitioners. (shrink)

O presente trabalho pretende situar a amizade e sua descrição em Montaigne, que evoca a figura de seu amigo La Boétie. A partir dessa célebre amizade que foi rompida com a morte de La Boétie, segue-se uma análise dos conceitos amizade e beleza nos Essais de Montaigne e de suas principais fontes. A interpretação do texto permitirá reflexões sobre o sentido maior da amizade à luz da individualidade e da beleza.

O presente trabalho pretende situar o conceito da amizade em Montaigne. Desse modo, da amizade nasce a justiça, porque as pessoas amam reciprocamente. Elas têm como referência a comunicação. Esta indica uma nova imagem das pessoas: a fraternidade, que promove a comunhão e partilha de ideias e experiências. A análise do texto permitirá reflexões sobre o sentido maior da amizade à luz da imagem da família, da amizade e da fraternidade.

Responding to critiques of Dilthey’s interpretive psychology, I revisit its relation with epistemology and the human sciences. Rather than reducing knowledge to psychology and psychology to subjective understanding, Dilthey articulated the epistemic worth of a psychology involving (1) an impure phenomenology of embodied, historically-situated, and worldly consciousness as individually lived yet complicit with its naturally and socially constituted contexts, (2) experience- and communication-oriented processes of interpreting others, (3) the use of third-person structural-functional analysis and causal explanation, and (4) a recognition (...) of the ungroundability, facticity, and conflict inherent in knowledge and life. (shrink)