Sexual difference as a basis of equality : an introduction to Irigarayan politics -- Irigaray on language : from the speech of dementia to the problem of sexual indifference -- Rethinking the politics of recognition : the declaration of Irigarayan sexuate rights -- Irigarayan performativity : is this a question of can saying it make it so? -- Sexuate genre : ethics and politics for improper selves -- Anticipating sexual difference : mediation, love, and divinity -- Interrogating an unasked question (...) : is there sexual difference? -- The impossible friend : traversing the heterosocial, the homosocial, and the successes of failure -- Sexed discourse and the language of the philosophers : to be two -- Effacement redoubled? : between the Orient and the Occident. (shrink)

The Logical Must is an examination of Wittgenstein's philosophy of logic, early and late, from an austere naturalistic perspective called "Second Philosophy.".

Mathematics depends on proofs, and proofs must begin somewhere, from some fundamental assumptions. For nearly a century, the axioms of set theory have played this role, so the question of how these axioms are properly judged takes on a central importance. Approaching the question from a broadly naturalistic or second-philosophical point of view, Defending the Axioms isolates the appropriate methods for such evaluations and investigates the ontological and epistemological backdrop that makes them appropriate. In the end, a new account of (...) the objectivity of mathematics emerges, one refreshingly free of metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

We adopt and extend the concept of ‘noncooperative space’ to analyze how (aspirant) black women intellectual activists attempt to sustain their efforts within settings that publicly endorse racial equality, while, in practice, the contexts remain deeply racist. Noncooperative spaces reflect institutional, organizational, and social environments portrayed by powerful white agents as conducive to anti-racism work and promoting racial equality but, indeed, constrain individuals who challenge racism. Our work, which is grounded in intersectionality, draws on an autoethnographic account of racially motivated (...) domestic violence suffered by our lead author. Our analysis suggests that (aspirant) black women intellectual activists must develop courage to sustain their ‘voice’ within noncooperative spaces. However, the three interlinked dimensions of noncooperative spaces—namely, deceiving design, hegemonic actors’ indifference to racism, and (some assimilated gatekeepers’) false equivalence—may gradually erode a black female scholar’s courage. This forces her ‘voice’ to vanish temporarily, or even permanently. Courage is thus fragile and depletable. Yet, courage can be regenerated, resulting in regaining voice. Consequently, we propose courageous collective action by white allies and black and brown individuals who voluntarily and officially cooperate within and across various spaces to achieve racial equality. (shrink)

Mathematicians tend to think of themselves as scientists investigating the features of real mathematical things, and the wildly successful application of mathematics in the physical sciences reinforces this picture of mathematics as an objective study. For philosophers, however, this realism about mathematics raises serious questions: What are mathematical things? Where are they? How do we know about them? Offering a scrupulously fair treatment of both mathematical and philosophical concerns, Penelope Maddy here delineates and defends a novel version of mathematical (...) realism. She answers the traditional questions and poses a challenging new one, refocusing philosophical attention on the pressing foundational issues of contemporary mathematics. (shrink)

Naturalism in Mathematics investigates how the most fundamental assumptions of mathematics can be justified. One prevalent philosophical approach to the problem--realism--is examined and rejected in favor of another approach--naturalism. Penelope Maddy defines this naturalism, explains the motivation for it, and shows how it can be successfully applied in set theory. Her clear, original treatment of this fundamental issue is informed by current work in both philosophy and mathematics, and will be accessible and enlightening to readers from both disciplines.

Professor Deutscher studies Beauvoir's philosophy on "otherness" not just through her famous views on gender (in her celebrated 1949 work The...

There’s a tendency to suppose that a naturalist is automatically, by virtue of her naturalism, committed to some particular view of logic. These days, for example, the classical Quinean picture is sometimes taken to be the naturalistic standard: logic lies at the center of the web of belief; remote from sense experience, but widely confirmed by its role in all our successful theorizing; a posteriori like the rest, but also the most resistant to change, given the principle of minimum mutilation; (...) and thus apparently, or even practically, a priori. 1 But others, at other times, have held that other views of logic followed directly from naturalism, say psychologism, or simple inductivism, or some form of linguistic conventionalism. The trouble is that ‘naturalism’ means something different in each case, or that it comes encumbered with various inessential add-ons (like holism). (shrink)

This second edition encourages the integration of technology into a pedagogically sound learning sequence for primary mathematics.

I discuss a thesis that I call ‘The Appearance of Mind-Independence’, to the effect that, to the subject of an ordinary perceptual experience, it seems that the experience involves the awareness of a mind-independent world. Although this thesis appears to be very widely accepted, I argue that it is open to serious challenge. Whether such a challenge can be maintained is especially relevant to the assessment of any theory, such as Berkeley’s idealism, according to which the only objects of which (...) we are aware in perception are mind-dependent. But the issue is of significance for the philosophy of perception more generally. In the course of my sceptical discussion, I argue that recent work by Campbell and Cassam may be flawed by a failure to take sufficiently seriously the requirements for genuine mind-independence. (shrink)

"An impressively reasoned and startlingly unorthodox treatise on religion." - Belles Lettres Florence Nightingale (1820-1920) is famous as the heroine of the Crimean War and later as a campaigner for health care founded on a clean environment and good nursing. Though best known for her pioneering demonstration that disease rather than wounds killed most soldiers, she was also heavily allied to social reform movements and to feminist protest against the enforced idleness of middle-class women. This original edition provides bold (...) new insights into Nightingale's beliefs and a new picture of the relationship between feminism and religion. Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth Among the Artisans of England (1860), which contains the novel Cassandra , is a central text in 19th-century history of feminist thought and is published here for the first time. Nightingale argues that work was the means by which every individual sought self-fulfillment and served God. She wrote influentially about the group most Victorians declared to be above work: unmarried, middle-class women. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim to be naturalists, but there is no common understanding of what naturalism is. Maddy proposes an austere form of naturalism called 'Second Philosophy', using the persona of an idealized inquirer, and she puts this method into practice in illuminating reflections on logical truth, philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics.

Traditional accounts of the feminist history of philosophy have viewed reason as associated with masculinity and subsequent debates have been framed by this assumption. Yet recent debates in deconstruction have shown that gender has never been a stable matter. In the history of philosophy 'female' and 'woman' are full of ambiguity. What does deconstruction have to offer feminist criticism of the history of philosophy? _Yielding Gender_ explores this question by examining three crucial areas; the issue of gender as 'troubled'; deconstruction; (...) and feminist criticism of the history of philosophy. The first part of the book discusses the work of Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and contemporary French feminist philosophy including key figures such as Luce Irigiray. Particular attention is given to the possibilities offered by deconstruction for understanding the history of philosophy. The second part considers and then challenges feminist interpretations of some key figures in the history of philosophy. Penelope Deutscher sketches how Rousseau, St. Augustine and Simone de Beauvoir have described gender and argues that their readings of gender are in fact empowered by gender's own contradiction and instability rather than limited by it. (shrink)

Face à des enjeux planétaires qui se multiplient et à leurs pronostics de plus en plus inquiétants, les injonctions à agir vite s’imposent avec une certaine évidence. Si la proposition semble tenir du bon sens et ne pas nécessiter qu’on s’y arrête, il convient de prendre un peu de recul, au contraire. S’autoriser à prendre le temps : le temps de la déconstruction des évidences, à commencer par celle de la définition de l’urgence qui invite à de nouveaux engagements, suivi (...) d’un temps nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une réponse appropriée, et ainsi de suite… Sans parler du temps du partage nécessaire, dès lors que la cause se doit d’être collective et non simplement individuelle et personnelle. Sans remettre en cause la légitimité des alertes écologiques, il convient de réfléchir à des modalités d’action permettant tout à la fois des engagements fermes en matière de transformation sociale et la prise en compte d’imprévus. L’article conclut par la présentation de quelques innovations dans le domaine des projets urbains qui tentent de combiner ces deux enjeux. La discussion s’oriente pour finir par une réflexion sur la nécessité de renouer avec un art menacé, celui de faire société. (shrink)

Sleep enhances integration across multiple stimuli, abstraction of general rules, insight into hidden solutions and false memory formation. Newly learned information is better assimilated if compatible with an existing cognitive framework or schema. This article proposes a mechanism by which the reactivation of newly learned memories during sleep could actively underpin both schema formation and the addition of new knowledge to existing schemata. Under this model, the overlapping replay of related memories selectively strengthens shared elements. Repeated reactivation of memories in (...) different combinations progressively builds schematic representations of the relationships between stimuli. We argue that this selective strengthening forms the basis of cognitive abstraction, and explain how it facilitates insight and false memory formation. (shrink)

La question de l'animal occupe une place singulière dans la philosophie occidentale moderne. L'animal y est certes présent, mais à un titre bien particulier. Il désigne l'être privé de tous les attributs qui sont censés caractériser l'humain : l'âme, la raison, la conscience, le langage, le monde... Cette approche privative a notamment conduit à une lecture mécaniste de la vie animale. S'opposant à cette conception, les approches phénoménologiques ont ruiné les fondements philosophiques du mécanisme, mais aussi du vitalisme. C'est en (...) effet en partant de l'animal comme " corporéité animée ", et en considérant son comportement comme la manifestation de la vie en lui - d'une vie qui n'est ni l'arrière-plan ni la cause des phénomènes vitaux - qu'un tout autre regard s'est mis en place. La reconnaissance de la liberté et de l'inquiétude, du fait du mouvement spontané, de la perception et de l'émotion, distingue la vie animale de la vie végétale, et permet d'y voir l'émergence d'une condition existentielle. (shrink)

What is the modal significance of sortal concepts? It is generally accepted that sortal concepts provide persistence conditions with modal implications that are de re, and not merely de dicto. I do not think that this important assumption has received the scrutiny that it deserves. In this paper, I examine the contrast between a ‘pure de dicto’ theory of the persistence conditions associated with sortal concepts and a variety of de re theories, both essentialist and non-essentialist. I conclude that although (...) there is a defensible argument against the pure de dicto theory, it has two interesting implications. First, the argument lends no support to an essentialist version of the de re theory. Secondly, it appears to support the rejection of the pure de dicto theory only by a theorist who is also a pluralist about coincidence. Hence it appears to provide no justification for the rejection of the pure de dicto theory on the part of a contingent identity theorist. (shrink)

Mathematical axioms have traditionally been thought of as obvious or self-evident truths, but current set theoretic work in the search for new axioms belies this conception. This raises epistemological questions about what other forms of justification are possible, and how they should be judged.

“I can’t read. Show me” is a student’s cry heard by teachers of the arts in all kinds of classes. Demonstrating a particular process one on one is a very effective way to learn, but sometimes teachers need a way for students to take notes or follow a guide to aid in remembering a complex technique. Notation systems have developed as the educational solution to this need.1 Adela Bay, a private piano teacher, relates in her book’s dedication the reason she (...) developed a notation system for her music students, saying they were “intimidated by traditional music instruction.”2 In the arts, written notations are available from places and times that most people cannot visit in order to learn a particular technique.3 .. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.