This book describes and analyses the activities and procedures through which the professional economist may advise on matters of public policy, specifically on the performance of an economic system. The author shows that the decision-making component within a system may be defined in terms of optimal policies for attaining well-specified objectives, but that the choice of rules by which the system is governed must remain 'outside' the system due to its dependence upon the legislative process. He proposes a 'generating mechanism' (...) for arriving at public policy choices based on the interaction between the economic system and the legislative process. (shrink)

In the exceptional book _Divine Holiness and Divine Action_, Mark Murphy defends what he calls the _holiness framework _for divine action. The purpose of our essay-response to Murphy’s book is to consider an alternative framework for divine action, what we call the _agapist framework_. We argue that the latter framework is more probable than Murphy’s holiness framework with respect to_ select _theological desiderata.

The thesis of this paper is that certain nonhuman animals could be conceived of as capable of moral motivation and subsequent moral behavior, with the appropriate behavioral, psychological and cognitive evidence. I argue that a certain notion of morality—morality as the process of conscious, reasoned deliberation over explicit moral concepts—is excessively exclusionary, and that such a notion describes one mode of moral cognition, but not, as others have argued, morality's essence. Instead, morality and moral behaviors could be viewed as natural (...) phenomena that arose as a means by which social species could better cohere and survive, and one that consists of a spectrum of behaviors. Ultimately, I argue that the aforementioned notion of moral cognition has unfairly worked to exclude (certain) nonhuman animals from the sphere of morality as beings capable of moral behavior, and that instead we should be looking at moral behavior as a function of what I call ‘moral responsiveness.'. (shrink)

According to the parent analogy, as a caretaker’s goodness, ability and intelligence increase, the likelihood that the caretaker will make arrangements for the attainment of future goods that are unnoticed or underappreciated by their dependents also increases. Consequently, if this analogy accurately represents our relationship to God, then we should expect to find many instances of inscrutable evil in the world. This argument in support of skeptical theism has recently been criticized by Dougherty. I argue that Dougherty’s argument is incomplete, (...) for there are two plausible ways of construing the parent analogy’s conclusion. I supplement Dougherty’s case by offering a new argument against the parent analogy based on failed expectations concerning the amount of inscrutable evils encountered in the world. Consequently, there remains a significant empirical hurdle for skeptical theism to overcome if it is to maintain its status as a defeater for our reliability when tracking gratuitous evils. (shrink)

A major puzzle in contemporary political theory is how to extend notions of justice to the environment. With environmental entities unable to communicate in ways that are traditionally recognised within the political sphere, their interests have largely been recognised instrumentally: only important as they contribute to human interests. In response to the multispecies justice project's call to reimagine our concepts of justice to include other-than-human beings and entities, we offer a novel reading of Edmund Burke's account of political representation that, (...) we argue, can be applied to the environment. Burke claimed that interests are ‘unattached’ to any actual class or group, and that it is the duty of the representative to represent these unattached interests. Beyond providing an original application of Burke's work, the paper offers an alternative to the ‘allure’ of authoritarian environmentalism, an alternative which conservative thinkers may use as an entryway into debates on environmental justice. (shrink)

Should animal advocates be allowed to publicly display graphic footage of how animals live (and die) in industrial animal use facilities? Cube of truth (‘cube’) demonstrations are a form of animal advocacy aimed at informing the public about the realities of animals’ experiences in places such as slaughterhouses, feedlots, and research facilities, by showing footage of mostly lawful practices within these workplaces. Activists engaging in cube-style protests have recently been targeted by law enforcement agencies in two Australian states on the (...) basis that the footage on display was too offensive to be shown in public. In this paper, I argue that these justifications do not stand up to scrutiny. Using an original politics of sight analysis, this paper demonstrates how the democratic costs associated with targeting cube protests outweigh the costs to the public. Cube activists are engaging in public dialogue by drawing attention to sites of potential injustice, and are playing an important role in highlighting the agency of the animals involved in exploitative industries. I further make the case that, where such demonstrations fall foul of the law, they should be regarded as legitimate acts of civil disobedience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Delatores And The Tradition Of Violence In Roman OratorySteven H. RutledgeTwo very prominent scholars have asserted that oratory became more violent and aggressive during the early Principate, as delatores (professional accusers and informants) came to dominate the genre. 1 This assumption has a place in a number of studies on Roman history, culture, and literature which accept their premise. 2 However, such an assumption, before it is accepted, needs (...) to be set in the larger context of Roman oratory over the period from the Republic to the Empire. It is my object here to do just that, for I propose that the new style—one which is generally perceived as more violent—represents not so much a change as a continuity in Roman rhetorical practice, and that the perceived transformation is more a product of how our sources represent orators in the first century c.e. rather than oratory’s metamorphosis into something with a perceptibly more violent style. To that end my argument has two parts. First, we need to put professional accusers into their republican as well as imperial context. Professional accusers in [End Page 555] particular were by no means exclusive to the Empire, and even in Cicero’s time they were associated with a more violent style. 3 After we set them in their larger historical context, we may then set them in their rhetorical context: Roman rhetorical theorists expected prosecution, in which delatores specialized, to be more violent by its very nature—something generally overlooked by scholars. All of this is not to deny that rhetoric underwent a fundamental change between the Republic and Empire; that is indisputable. Rather, I suggest that given the nature of what delatores did, in and of itself, and given our sources, it is very difficult to conclude that the style of delatores was essentially more “savage and aggressive” than that of their predecessors under the Republic. It was the inherent nature of Roman oratory and the ever-competitive milieu of Roman politics—during both the Republic and the Empire—which worked in unison to create such continuity. It is the nature of our sources under the Empire, on the other hand, which has led scholars to a distorted impression of oratory in the first century c.e.Let us turn first to accusatio under the Republic. Accusation appears to have always been a morally dubious undertaking, and the revulsion felt by Tacitus and Pliny under the Empire at those who pursued it professionally was by no means unique to their age. Cicero, our main source for this activity during the late Republic, by all indica-tions felt accusation generally unethical and something to be avoided, for while he noted that it could indeed make a reputation, he also remarked that prosecution ought to be undertaken only in certain circumstances. 4 Pursuit of such activity, if it turned into a habit, could become [End Page 556] an embarrassment for the accuser’s family, as Cicero indicates it was for M. Brutus’: Isdem temporibus M. Brutus, in quo magnum fuit, Brute, dedecus generi vestro, qui, cum tanto nomine esset patremque optimum virum habuisset et iuris peritissimum, accusationem factitaverit (Brut. 130). But even if it was not the habit of an individual to accuse, it was necessary to justify at length the acceptance of a case for the prosecution, as Cicero illustrates in his apology, in Divinatio in Caecilium (passim), for taking up the accusation against Verres. That prosecution was an ethically questionable activity is by no means in doubt; we see an inherent bias against prosecution in Rome in Cicero’s day, one which was carried over into the Empire and which left its mark on our sources. 5This did not prevent orators, however, from habitually undertaking prosecutions. One of the initial indications that orators had started to specialize in accusation is found in Cicero’s Pro S. Roscio Amerino (89–90), where he notes that the dominatio of Cinna and Sulla served as impetus for such activity: 6Verum ego forsitan propter multitudinem patronorum in grege adnumerer, te pugna Cannensis accusatorem sat bonum fecit. Multos caesos non ad Trasumenum lacum, sed ad Servilium vidimus. Quis ibi non... (shrink)

The fundamental postulate of sociobiology is that individuals exploit favorable environments to increase their genetic representation in the next generation. The data on fertility differentials among contemporary humans are not cotvietent with this postulate. Given the importance ofHomo sapiensas an animal species in the natural world today, these data constitute particularly challenging and interesting problem for both human sociobiology and sociobiology as a whole.The first part of this paper reviews the evidence showing an inverse relationship between reproductive fitness and “endowment” (...) in contemporary, urbanized societies. It is shown that a positive relationship is observed only for those cohorts who bore their children during a unique period of rising fertility, 1935–1960, and that these cohorts are most often cited by sociobiologists as supporting the central postulate of sociobiology. Cohorts preceding and following these show the characteristic inverse relationship between endowment and fertility. The second section reviews the existing so-ciobiological models of this inverse relationship, namely, those of Barkow, Burley, and Irons, as well as more informal responses among sociobiologists to the persistent violation of sociobiology's central postulate, such as those of Alexander and Dawkins. The third section asks whether the goals of sociobiology, given the violation of its fundamental postulate by contemporary human societies, might not be better thought of as applied rather than descriptive, with respect to these societies. A proper answer to this question begins with the measurement of the pace and direction of natural selection within modern human populations, as compared to other sources of change. The vast preponderance of the shifts in human trait distributions, including the IQ distribution, appears to be due to environmental rather than genetic change. However, there remains the question of just how elastic these distributions are in the absence of reinforcing genetic change. (shrink)

Trent Dougherty argues (contra Jonathan Matheson) that when taking into consideration the probabilities involving skeptical theism (ST) and gratuitous evils, an agent may reasonably affirm both ST and that gratuitous evils exist. In other words, Dougherty thinks that assigning a greater than .5 probability to ST is insufficient to defeat the commonsense problem of evil. I argue that Dougherty’s response assumes, incorrectly, that ST functions solely as an evidential defeater, and that, when understood as a closure of inquiry defeater, ST (...) may still defeat reasonable belief in gratuitous evils, even in the face of strong evidence that gratuitous evils exist. (shrink)

Respondents to the argument from evil who follow Michael Bergmann’s development of skeptical theism hold that our failure to determine God’s reasons for permitting evil does not disconfirm theism at all. They claim that such a thesis follows from the very plausible claim that we have no good reason to think our access to the realm of value is representative of the full realm of value. There are two interpretations of ST’s strength, the stronger of which leads skeptical theists into (...) moral skepticism and the weaker of which fails to rebut the argument from evil. As I demonstrate, skeptical theists avoid the charge of moral skepticism while also successfully rebutting the argument from evil only by embracing an equivocation between these two interpretations of ST. Thus, as I argue, skeptical theists are caught in a troubling dilemma: they must choose between moral skepticism and failure to adequately respond to the argument from evil. (shrink)

It does not derive its authority, as many authors have supposed, from some logically prior discipline, whether physics, economics, or philosophy, these ultimately depend on law itself, in its fundamental expression of human intellect and purpose. Law, he holds, is inseparably connected to everything in the world that goes to make up personal identity and meaning.

We investigate the dynamics of sensory integration for perceiving musical performance, a complex natural behavior. Thirty musically trained participants saw, heard, or both saw and heard, performances by two clarinetists. All participants used a sliding potentiometer to make continuous judgments of tension (a measure correlated with emotional response) and continuous judgments of phrasing (a measure correlated with perceived musical structure) as performances were presented. The data analysis sought to reveal relations between the sensory modalities (vision and audition) and to quantify (...) the effect of seeing the performances on participants' overall subjective experience of the music. In addition to traditional statistics, functional data analysis techniques were employed to analyze time-varying aspects of the data. The auditory and visual channels were found to convey similar experiences of phrasing but different experiences of tension through much of the performances. We found that visual information served both to augment and to reduce the experience of tension at different points in the musical piece (as revealed by functional linear modeling and functional significance testing). In addition, the musicians' movements served to extend the sense of phrasing, to cue the beginning of new phrases, to indicate musical interpretation, and to anticipate changes in emotional content. Evidence for an interaction effect suggests that there may exist an emergent quality when musical performances are both seen and heard. The investigation augments knowledge of human communicative processes spanning language and music, and involving multiple modalities of emotion and information transfer. (shrink)

This review essay describes David Nikkel’s broad conception of embodiment as a remedy for the insanity of modern mind/body dualism. He employs Polanyian themes, supplemented by the insights of cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, to show that all knowing is bodily, that tradition functions in knowing in a way similar to the body, and that thinking metaphorically of the world as God’s body leads to a new appreciation of panentheism.

This book explores and expounds upon questions of paradox and contradiction in theology with an emphasis on recent contributions from analytic philosophical theology. It addresses questions such as: What is the place of paradox in theology? Where might different systems of logic (e.g., paraconsistent ones) find a place in theological discourse (e.g., Christology)? What are proper responses to the presence of contradiction(s) in one's theological theories? Are appeals to analogical language enough to make sense of paradox? Bringing together an impressive (...) line-up of theologians and philosophers, the volume offers a range of fresh perspectives on a central topic. It is valuable reading for scholars of theology and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that no strong doctrine of the Fall can undermine the propriety of epistemic self-trust. My argument proceeds by introducing a common type of philosophical methodology, known as reflective equilibrium. After a brief exposition of the method, I introduce a puzzle for someone engaged in the project of self-reflection after gaining a reason to distrust their epistemic selves on the basis of a construal of a doctrine of the Fall. I close by introducing the worry as (...) a formal argument and demonstrate the self-undermining nature of such an argument. (shrink)

This is an overview of the publications of Jerry Gill, sketching his background, common themes in his work, and some strengths and weaknesses in that work. I note the accessibility of his treatments of postmodern philosophy, and the usefulness of these works for undergraduate classrooms. The “search for a post-critical philosophy” of religion, language, epistemology, and education has given direction to Gill’s career.

This paper offers a comprehensive look at the state of empirical research in the field of arbitration. Its release coincides with the reintroduction of the Arbitration Fairness Act, which would constitute the most significant reform of arbitration law in the United States since the FAA's enactment. Moving beyond typical the typical punch/counterpunch that has characterized much of the policy debate in this area, this paper identifies areas of common ground on which arbitration's proponents and opponents can agree. It then consider (...) an issue-by-issue critique of arbitration and responds in detail to several of the recent attacks on the field. The paper closes by charting out a research agenda on arbitration and urges Congress to act cautiously before deciding whether to reform this important method of dispute resolution. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious research suggests that labelling emotions, or describing affective states using emotion words, facilitates emotion regulation. But how much labelling promotes emotion regulation? And which emotion regulation strategies does emotion labelling promote? Drawing on cognitive theories of emotion, we predicted that labelling emotions using fewer words would be less confusing and would facilitate forms of emotion regulation requiring more cognitively demanding processing of context. Participants mentally immersed themselves in an emotional vignette, were randomly assigned to an exhaustive or minimal emotion (...) labelling manipulation, and then completed an emotion regulation strategy planning task. Minimal emotion labelling promoted higher subjective emotional clarity. Furthermore, in terms of specific emotion regulation strategies, minimal emotion labelling prompted more plans for problem solving and marginally more plans for reappraisal, but did not affect plans for behav... (shrink)

BackgroundThere is concern in the academic publishing community that it is becoming more difficult to secure reviews for peer-reviewed manuscripts, but much of this concern stems from anecdotal and rhetorical evidence.MethodsWe examined the proportion of review requests that led to a completed review over a 6-year period (2009–2015) in a mid-tier biology journal (Molecular Ecology). We also re-analyzed previously published data from four other mid-tier ecology journals (Functional Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, and Journal of Applied Ecology), (...) looking at the same proportion over the period 2003 to 2010.ResultsThe data from Molecular Ecology showed no significant decrease through time in the proportion of requests that led to a review (proportion in 2009 = 0.47 (95 % CI = 0.43 to 0.52), proportion in 2015 = 0.44 (95 % CI = 0.40 to 0.48)). This proportion did decrease for three of the other ecology journals (changes in proportions from 2003 to 2010 = −0.10, −0.18, and −0.09), while the proportion for the fourth (Functional Ecology) stayed roughly constant (change in proportion = −0.04).ConclusionsOverall, our data suggest that reviewer agreement rates have probably declined slightly but not to the extent suggested by the anecdotal and rhetorical evidence. (shrink)

In a recent exchange with prominent skeptical theists, Paul Draper has argued that skeptical theism bears no relevance to Humean versions of the argument from suffering. His argument rests, however, on a particular way of construing epistemically rational updating procedures that is not adopted by all forms of skeptical theism. In particular, a perspectival variety of skeptical theism, I argue, is relevant to his Humean arguments. I then generalize this result and explain how any argument from evil employing probabilistic premises (...) is similarly threatened. (shrink)

BackgroundIt is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.Main bodyWe examine responses of individuals to review invitations for six journals in ecology and evolution. The proportion of invitations that lead to a submitted review has been decreasing steadily over 13 years (2003–2015) for four of the six (...) journals examined, with a cumulative effect that has been quite substantial (average decline from 56% of review invitations generating a review in 2003 to just 37% in 2015). The likelihood that an invitee agrees to review declines significantly with the number of invitations they receive in a year. However, the average number of invitations being sent to prospective reviewers and the proportion of individuals being invited more than once per year has not changed much over these 13 years, despite substantial increases in the total number of review invitations being sent by these journals—the reviewer base has expanded concomitant with this growth in review requests.ConclusionsThe proportion of review invitations that lead to a review being submitted has been declining steadily for four of the six journals examined here, but reviewer fatigue is not likely the primary explanation for this decline. (shrink)

Andrew Torrance has recently argued that we can distinguish analytic theology from analytic philosophy of religion if we understand theology as, fundamentally, a scientific enterprise. However, this distinction holds only if philosophy of religion is not itself a science in the sense intended by Torrance. I argue that philosophy of religion is a science in this sense, and so, that Torrance cannot distinguish theology from philosophy of religion in the way suggested. Nevertheless, I offer two alternative routes to the distinction (...) based on the nature of the respective objects of study in theology and philosophy of religion. Thus, I demonstrate that there is a coherent model available to Torrance which preserves the distinction he seeks. (shrink)

Recently, JT Turner has argued that proponents of temporally-extended models of purgatory are committed to denying the doctrine of the parousia. Such persons typically argue that temporally-extended models of purgatory are needed to prevent the possibility that a morally imperfect human might become morally perfect too abruptly. In this article, I argue that Turner is mistaken and that by invoking hypertime and a clarification of the sort of abruptness at issue, temps can affirm both purgatory and the doctrine of the (...) parousia. After clarifying the nature of hypertime, I then present a non-temporal model of purgatory. This model permits those uncomfortable with endorsing the metaphysical possibility of hypertime to nevertheless affirm the key intuition motivating temporally-extended models without rejecting the doctrine of the parousia. (shrink)

Full appreciation of Bill Poteat’s work requires an understanding of Michael Polanyi. This essay briefly recounts Polanyi’s biography, then describes central features of his thought, especially the centrality of discovery, commitment, and tacit knowing. It then reports on Poteat’s own summary of Polanyi’s thought in his major work, Polanyian Meditations.

What did the twentieth century threaten in the deepest way? What were those who were eventually defeated at such staggering cost fighting from the start? The individual, the sacredness and value of the individual, and spirit itself, seen in us in being seen as an individual, and seen beyond us. The home in the secular world for both these, the individual and spirit, is the legal mind and the legal form of thought. The individual in modern law is a mystery (...) because its presence runs counter to the thrust of what are called modern efforts to understand the world. But it will be the legal mind - rooted in and the possession of people in circles out and out from those professionally involved with it - that can protect humanity and the rest of the sentient world from reliving the twentieth century in the twenty-first. (shrink)

Many Christian traditions affirm a doctrine of assurance. According to this doctrine, those who are saved have assurance of their own salvation; that is, the doctrine of assurance tells us that the elect can know their status as elect. In this paper, I explore two developments of the doctrine of assurance by theologians (i.e. John Calvin & Kenneth Keathley) and argue that they fail to accommodate the fallibilistic nature of human knowing. I then develop a fallibilistic doctrine of assurance, which (...) makes such assurance available to most Christians, and respond to an objection from the camp of pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Arthur Prior’s argument for the A-theory of time in “Thank Goodness That’s Over” is perhaps his most famous and well-known non-logical work. Still, I think that this paper is one of his most misunderstood works. Because of this, much of its brilliance has yet to be properly appreciated. In this paper, I suggest that the explanation of this is that it has been treated as though it were following the standard model for a piece of Analytic philosophy. That is, it (...) has been assumed that what Prior was doing was deductively demonstrating the truth of a proposition which can be discussed via any sentences with the same semantic content. Here, I argue that this assumption is wrong on two fronts: Most importantly, the strongest reading of the structure of Prior’s argument is as an abduction rather than as a deduction. Many of the most important lessons of the argument are lost by focusing on the bare propositional content of its premise and conclusion statements. In other words, we can learn as much from the manner in which this argument is presented and expressed as we can from that which is expressed. (shrink)

About 6% of women in the world live in countries that ban all abortions, and 34% in countries that only allow abortion to preserve maternal life or health. In the USA, over the last decades—even before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the federal right to abortion—various states have sought to restrict abortion access. Often times, this legislation has been advanced based on legislators’ personal moral values. At the bedside, in contrast, provision of abortion care should adhere to the (...) normative principles of medical ethics and reproductive justice, centreing patients and their individual reproductive intentions and desires. Abortion regulations, through their influence on patients and providers, may facilitate or impede such ethical care at the bedside. In this paper, we present a framework to model how abortion legislation should fit into the patient–provider relationship and to clarify the dynamics by which legislation may affect healthcare encounters. Our proposed framework serves as a tool to analyse the ethical impact of abortion regulations. We propose a model for assessing abortion policies based not on legislators’ or advocates’ individual moral claims, but on the shared, normative framework of clinical medical ethics. Through contrasting case studies, we demonstrate how a robust normative ethical framework can recentre patients and their reproductive needs. Our model is one way to account for—and safeguard—patients’ diverse viewpoints and needs in the development of abortion policy, and it can serve to ground narratives for advocacy by healthcare workers and their professional organisations. (shrink)

This book analyzes the relationship between forgiveness, atonement, and reconciliation from a Christian theological perspective. Drawing on both theological and philosophical literature, it addresses the problem of whether atonement is required for forgiveness and considers important related concepts such as sin and justice. The author develops a sacrificial model of atonement that connects an understanding of Christian forgiveness with the biblical narrative of Christ’s sacrifice and makes reconciliation between God and humanity possible. Offering a fresh and coherent argument, the book (...) will be relevant to scholars of Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Vine Deloria, Jr. was named by TIME magazine as one of the greatest religious thinkers of the twentieth century. He was a leading Native American thinker whose research, writings, and teachings on history, law, religion, and politics changed the face of Indian Country, and his influence continues to impact present and future generations of Native and non-Native Americans alike. He has authored many acclaimed and bestselling books, including The World We Used to Live In; Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths; (...) Red Earth, White Lies; Spirit and Reason; and Custer Died for Your Sins. Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation said of him, "All humans benefited from the knowledge Vine shared with us." Vine Deloria, Jr. died in 2005. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:...

Contemporary analytic theological discussions of atonement do not attend extensively to questions of how narrative might relate to the atoning work of Christ. Liberation theologians, on the other hand, utilize narrative in their scholarly method regularly and often employ it when discussing atonement or reconciliation. This essay argues that analytic theologians should consider the notion of narrative (and narrative identity) as a mechanism of atonement in the broad sense of the term introduced when William Tyndale coined ‘atonement’ to translate 2 (...) Corinthians 5. I then offer some psychological grounds for thinking that reframing one’s self-narrative in terms of a transcendent narrative is often conducive to human flourishing, and I consider the work of James H. Cone as an instance of such transcendent narrative reframing at work. (shrink)

A dazzling insight into what gives meaning to our life and to us as a species. What makes us human? From Professor Brian Cox on the particles of dust that make us, to Caitlin Moran on the joy of Friday nights, and A C Grayling on how we express ourselves through culture: this illuminating book shares over 100 mind-expanding answers to that question. We all want to understand our place in the universe and find a sense of purpose in the (...) life. This book will help the reader navigate that journey with the help of leading names from the worlds of literature, history, philosophy, politics, sport, comedy and popular culture. Originally broadcast as a popular feature on the Jeremy Vine Show, What Makes Us Human? includes short essays from: Andrew Marr, Carlo Rovelli, Justin Welby, Marian Keyes, Alain de Botton, Robert Webb, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, and many more"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This article discusses the politics of sex, gender and knowledge in the development of the Lilith myth in Jewish folklore. More generally, it discusses the contemporary intersection of discourses on Rabbinic Judaism, postmodernism and sexuality, and considers the ironic implications of expectations that post-modernism and its precursors might help to `redeem' Western epistemologies from their logocentric, masculinist biases. The insight - arguably not alien to Rabbinic thought - that knowledge or discourse involves a sexually marked set of practices and performances, (...) is put forward as being `reversible', i.e. as implying that sexual markings (such as binary sex distinctions) might therefore be considered as discursive. The efficacy of contemporary critiques of knowledge production is closely bound up with acknowledgement of this point. (shrink)