El artículo es una creación en la que convergen las experiencias, indagaciones, discusiones suscitadas en los antecedentes y el desarrollo del Proyecto “Investigar, leer y escribir en la universidad:el docente investigador mediador y aprendices investigadores autónomos”, que identifica la problemática sobre la orientación de investigación formativa en pregrado, en la relación docencia-investigación; así, formula la pregunta directriz ¿Cómo orientar el proceso de investigación formativa en la formulación de proyectos de investigación? La propuesta recoge la experiencia docente e investigativa en lectura, (...) escritura, procesos de mediación y autorregulación. Además, reconoce la necesidad de articular los proyectos de investigación estudiantiles, planteados comotrabajos de grado, al sistema de investigación universitario. (shrink)

This fine collection of essays by a leading philosopher of science presents a defence of integrative pluralism as the best description for the complexity of scientific inquiry today. The tendency of some scientists to unify science by reducing all theories to a few fundamental laws of the most basic particles that populate our universe is ill-suited to the biological sciences, which study multi-component, multi-level, evolved complex systems. This integrative pluralism is the most efficient way to understand the different and complex (...) processes - historical and interactive - that generate biological phenomena. This book will be of interest to students and professionals in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In _Sciences from Below_, the esteemed feminist science studies scholar Sandra Harding synthesizes modernity studies with progressive tendencies in science and technology studies to suggest how scientific and technological pursuits might be more productively linked to social justice projects around the world. Harding illuminates the idea of multiple modernities as well as the major contributions of post-Kuhnian Western, feminist, and postcolonial science studies. She explains how these schools of thought can help those seeking to implement progressive social projects refine (...) their thinking to overcome limiting ideas about what modernity and modernization are, the objectivity of scientific knowledge, patriarchy, and Eurocentricity. She also reveals how ideas about gender and colonialism frame the conventional contrast between modernity and tradition. As she has done before, Harding points the way forward in _Sciences from Below_. Describing the work of the post-Kuhnian science studies scholars Bruno Latour, Ulrich Beck, and the team of Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowtony, and Peter Scott, Harding reveals how, from different perspectives, they provide useful resources for rethinking the modernity versus tradition binary and its effects on the production of scientific knowledge. Yet, for the most part, they do not take feminist or postcolonial critiques into account. As Harding demonstrates, feminist science studies and postcolonial science studies have vital contributions to make; they bring to light not only the male supremacist investments in the Western conception of modernity and the historical and epistemological bases of Western science but also the empirical knowledge traditions of the global South. _Sciences from Below_ is a clear and compelling argument that modernity studies and post-Kuhnian, feminist, and postcolonial sciences studies each have something important, and necessary, to offer to those formulating socially progressive scientific research and policy. (shrink)

I argue that diversity and pluralism are valuable not just for science but for philosophy of science. Given the partiality and perspectivism of representation, pluralism preserving integration can...

C a s e studies have a wide variety of uses in ethics courses,from increasing ethical sensitivity to developing moral reasoning skills. This article focuses on ways to avoid 2 potential pitfalls of using typical case studies: lack of theoretical background and lackof suficient detail. Thefirst part explains how a personal ethics experience can be discussed as early as thefirst day of class in a way that sets the tone and expectations of an ethics course despite students' lack of exposure (...) to ethical principles. Second, is an explanation of how a film can be used as an extended case that is rich enough in detail to sustain discussions about ethical theory over several weeks. (shrink)

As suggested by David E. Boeyink, casuistry is a promising method for making ethical decisions in journalism because its “case-oriented strategy fits [the] general approach” of many journalists while its stress on consistency guards against arbitrariness. Despite its emphasis on consistency, however, casuistry gives self-interested decision makers enough wiggle room to rationalize whatever is expedient. For this reason, casuistry relies also on character. Yet writers who have studied casuistry have said relatively little about the link between character and casuistry and, (...) when they have, they have focused on the intellectual virtue of phronesis. This article articulates the essential moral virtues necessary to prevent arbitrariness in casuistry when practiced by journalists and demonstrates their relevance in relation to a recent case in which the journalist’s character was a key factor. The article concludes with several strategies for nurturing good character among journalists. (shrink)

This article argues that empathic listening deceives naive sources into thinking that they will be portrayed favorably in news stories. It suggests that a fair practice of interviewing obligates journalists to obtain informed consent from their sources in advance. Journalists may waive this obligation only when the personal integrity of sources is protected against the pragmatic calculations that tend to prevail in journalism ethics.

In 'No Apocalypse. Not Now' Derrida claims that 'literature produces its referent as a fictive or fabulous referent, which is itself dependent on the possibility of archivising...'. Taking the Kipling archive as its point of reference, this article considers the claims involved in the idea of a literary archive (with its appeals to authority, intention, origin, propri ety). In view of the continuing fascination with the details and events of Kipling's life (the interweaving of his public and private self, and (...) especially his connections with India and with Imperialism, and with Indian and English worlds and values), what does the history of Kipling's archive tell us, and how is this related to the location and repression of cultural anxieties (and, in particular, to notions of nation and national character). From the unacknowledged use of a quotation from 'If' in an advertisement for a patent tonic in 1919 to the appear ance of Kipling as hypertext in the 1997 Microsoft Word advertisement in the Sunday Supplements, which or whose 'Kipling' is in question in the iconicity of the continuing and contemporary representations of him. As in Derrida's description of De Man, Kipling is now a ghost of the culture. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

This paper aims to bring together the appeal to the ordinary in the ethics of care and the ‘destruction’ or philosophical subversion which Wittgenstein references in his Philosophical Investigations: Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems to destroy everything interesting, all that is great and important? What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards. The paper pursues a connection between the ethics of care and ordinary language philosophy as represented by Wittgenstein, Austin and Cavell, (...) in particular in a feminist perspective. The central point of Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice may not be the idea of a ‘feminine morality’ but a claim for an alternative form of morality. Gilligan’s essay seeks to capture a different, hitherto neglected yet universally present alternative ethical perspective, one easy to ignore because it relates to women and women’s activities. The ethics of care recalls a plea for ‘realism’; in the sense given to it in Cora Diamond’s The Realistic Spirit to mean the necessity of seeing (or attending to) what lies close at hand. Reflection on care brings ethics back to everyday practice much as Wittgenstein sought to bring language back from the metaphysical level to its everyday use. (shrink)

In attempting to improve ethical decision-making in business organizations, researchers have developed models of ethical decision-making processes. Most of these models do not include a role for law in ethical decision-making, or if law is mentioned, it is set as a boundary constraint, exogenous to the decision process. However, many decision models in business ethics are based on cognitive moral development theory, in which the law is thought to be the external referent of individuals at the level of cognitive development (...) that most people have achieved. Other theoretical bases of ethical decision models, social learning, and experientialism, also imply a role for law that is rarely made explicit. Law is a more important aspect of ethical decision-process models than it appears to be in the models. This paper will derive explicit roles for the law from the cognition, experientialism, and social learning theories that are used to build ethical decision-making models for business behavior. (shrink)

Que chez J. L. Austin le langage soit action n’est pas nouveau. Il est toutefois important de comprendre – et cela est plus radical – comment l’introduction de l’idée des actes de langage transforme non seulement la conception du langage, mais la conception de l’action et fragilise conjointement la signification, et l’action. Chez Austin, c’est le triplet « acte de langage »/« échec »/« excuse » qui est central – j’essaierai à partir de cette articulation de montrer en quel sens, (...) chez Austin, la dimension sociale est cruciale. Dans ce sens, ce travail, bien qu’il ne constitue pas une étude historique en ethnométhodologie, est sans doute guidé par l’idée de l’enquête sociologique héritée de Harold Garfinkel, où l’ordre social n’est pas une réalité indépendante, et où l’on cherche à élucider la fabrication constante de l’ordre social, tel qu’il est reconnaissable, intelligible, analysable et rapportable par les participants. (shrink)

Pierre Hadot, professor of ancient philosophy at the Collège de France, published, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of the earliest work on Wittgenstein to appear in French. Hadot conceived of philosophy as an activity rather than a body of doctrines and found in Wittgenstein a fruitful point of departure for ethical reflection. Hadot's understanding of philosophy as a spiritual exercise — articulated through his reading of ancient philosophy but also the American transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph (...) Waldo Emerson — will find an echo in Wittgenstinian thinkers such as Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond. Ultimately philosophy for Hadot is a call to personal and political transformation. (shrink)

Burnout is a phenomenon characterized by fatigue and frustration, usually related to work stress and dedication to a cause, a way of life that does not match the person’s expectations. Although it seems to be associated with risk factors stemming from a professional environment, this problem may affect any person. Palliative care is provided in a challenging environment, where professionals often have to make demanding ethical decisions and deal with death and dying. This article reports on the findings of a (...) systematic review aimed at identifying described burnout levels in palliative care nurses and physicians, and the related risks and protective factors. The main findings indicate that burnout levels in palliative care, or in health care settings related to this field, do not seem to be higher than in other contexts. (shrink)

The Loop: Political Science Blog of the ECPR hosted a forum on Jean-Paul Gagnon's project to explore the 'total texture' of democracy. In my contribution, I express skepticism that Jean-Paul Gagnon's novel methods offer an advance over more conventional approaches.

The Journal of Mass Media Ethics publishes case studies in which scholars and media professionals outline how they would address a particular ethical problem. Cases are drawn from actual experience...

En la actual campaña electoral uruguaya de 2019, se perfila un cuadro de descontentos generalizados que desborda claramente los estándares tradicionales de la política del país. Muchos de estos descontentos se articulan con diversos factores que los autores han venido destacando en trabajos anteriores, como señales de una mutación gradual pero efectiva de la política uruguaya. En continuidad con ese abordaje de investigación, en el artículo se indagará acerca de las posibilidades efectivas de que esta mutación política adquiera proporciones realmente (...) significativas en las actuales circunstancias, con la posibilidad de confirmación de "cisnes negros" que parecen atisbarse en la campaña electoral en curso. Para ello, luego de algunos discernimientos teóricos y metodológicos, se trabajará el itinerario de distintos indicadores de opinión pública a nivel nacional durante el período 1995-2017, vinculados con el objeto de estudio planteado. A partir de esos insumos, se realizarán algunas breves consideraciones de proyección analítica. (shrink)

Human-eyelid conditioning was the principal source of information on Pavlovian conditioning, especially human, in the 1950s and 1960s, but it suffered a sharp decline in productivity, beginning in the late 1960s. The present article treats the decline as a case study with potential implications concerning the survival contingencies of research specialties. We make use of questionnaire data from eyelid-conditioning researchers and examine a variety of publication, topic-of-investigation, and institutional data to identify the major factors in the decline of human-eyelid conditioning.

This article examines popular representations of accountants’ ethics by studying their depiction in cinema. As a medium that both reflects and shapes public opinion, films provide a useful resource for exploring the portrayal of the profession’s ethics. We employ a values theoretical framework to analyze 110 movie accountants on their basic ethical character, ethical behavior, and values. We use factor analysis to reduce 22 personal characteristics to five factors encompassing two terminal and three instrumental value sets, which we relate to (...) ethical behavior. Findings indicate that in popular cinema, the ethical behavior of accountants is positively associated with intrinsic terminal values, but negatively related to competency (instrumental) values. (shrink)

This article focuses on the complex ways in which artistic innovation and creativity have been fostered by the experience of living in late apartheid and post-apartheid society. It argues that contemporary South African artists, film-makers and performers have developed highly inventive formal and conceptual vocabularies in their effort to negotiate the ever-changing landscape of contradictory and sometimes irreconcilable realities they encounter on a daily basis, often attaining major international acclaim in the process. Blurring the boundaries between long-established artistic genres, and (...) challenging racial, sexual and other stereotypes, they have refused to abandon the hope of achieving the ideals of a renewal and respacialization of the current socio-cultural landscape. Many of them have done so against the odds of vociferous opprobrium from state officials and legal challenges by the ANC, which in recent years has questioned the right to freedom of expression of a number of artists. (shrink)

The Virginia School's economics of natural equals makes consent critical for policy. Democracy is understood as government by discussion, not majority rule. The claim of efficiency unsupported by consent, as common in orthodox economics, appeals to social hierarchy. Politics becomes an act of exchange among equals where the economist is only entitled to offer advice to citizens, not to dictators. The foundation of natural equality and consent explains the common themes of James Buchanan and John Rawls as well as Ronald (...) Coase and the Fabian socialists. What orthodox economics treats as efficient racial discrimination violates the fair chance entitlement to which people consent in a market economy. The importance of replication stressed by Gordon Tullock, developing themes from Karl Popper, is another expression of natural equality since the foresight of replication induces care into research. The publication of previously unpublished correspondence and documentation allows the reader to judge recent controversy. (shrink)

Western Michigan University’s Center for the Study of Ethics in Society has always had a “generalist” approach—that is to say, an interdisciplinary orientation toward studying a broad range of ethical issues. This article explains how the center’s “generalist” orientation developed and why it is desirable for promoting public reflection about ethical issues. It focuses on these dimensions: valuing an across-the-curriculum approach to promote understanding of complex ethical issues; adopting a broad, rather than narrow focus, when it comes to ethics; committing (...) to practical ethics, which bridges theory and practice to shed light on issues of practical relevance to all; and decentering philosophy as the arbiter for what counts as “doing ethics.” The article ends with a look at challenges concerning stable funding and administrative support for a center that does not fit neatly into a single academic unit or specialty and shares some lessons learned. (shrink)

The use of robots had already been proven to encourage the promotion of social interaction and skills lacking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, who typically have difficulties in recognizing facial expressions and emotions. The main goal of this research is to study the influence of a humanoid robot to develop socio-emotional skills in children with ASD. The children’s performance in game scenarios aiming to develop facial expressions recognition skills is presented. Along the sessions, children who performed the game scenarios (...) with the robot and the experimenter had a significantly better performance than the children who performed the game scenarios without the robot. The main conclusions of this research support that a humanoid robot is a useful tool to develop socio-emotional skills in the intervention of children with ASD, due to the engagement and positive learning outcome observed. (shrink)

Les Petits Mystères d’Agra : des mystères orphiques à l’époque de Pisistrate. La possibilité de reconnaître dans les Petites Mystères d’Agra des mystères orphiques dès le vie siècle peut s’appuyer sur des sources littéraires et iconographiques, et faire référence au contexte historique. Cette hypothèse correspond bien à la situation socio-culturelle de l’époque des Pisistratides où l’on voit se développer les cultes de Dionysos, Déméter/Gaia/Meter et Perséphone, ainsi que des textes comme ceux que la tradition attribue à Onomacrite.The Little Mysteries of (...) Agra: Orphic Mysteries at the time of Peisistratos. The possibility of recognising Orphic elements in the Little Mysteries of Agra as early as the 6th century may be supported by evidence from literary and iconographic sources as well as from the historical context. This hypothesis ties in with the socio-cultural situation of Peisistratid times in which we can see the development of the cult of Dionysus and those of Demeter/Gaia/Meter and Persephone, and the flourishing of written texts, such as those attributed to Onomacritos. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the central ontological presupposition in the philosophy of sport is the ‘sport-as-play’ paradigm. In reconstructing its archaeological origins, a normative narrative is...

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2012). 'Democracy and the multitude: Spinoza against Negri'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 59(131), 21-40. Translated by María Cecilia Padilla and Gonzalo Ricci Cernadas. Negri celebra una concepción de la democracia en la que los poderes concretos de los individuos humanos no se alienan sino que se agregan: una democracia de la multitud. Pero ¿cómo puede actuar la multitud sin alienar el poder de nadie? Para contestar esta dificultad, Negri explícitamente apela (...) a Spinoza. Sin embargo, en este trabajo, sostengo que la filosofía de Spinoza no respalda el proyecto de Negri. Por el contrario, argumento que la multitud spinozista evita la jerarquía interna por medio de la mediación de las instituciones políticas y no a pesar de ellas; de la misma manera, estas instituciones tampoco simplemente emanan de la multitud tal cual es, sino que estructuran, contienen y canalizan sus pasiones. En particular, las instituciones requeridas no son las de la democracia simple y directa. Puede ser que existan otros argumentos no spinozistas en los cuales Negri pueda basar su teoría, pero no puede defender legítimamente su concepción de la multitud democrática apelando a Spinoza. (shrink)

Political protesters often don’t play by the rules. Think of the Occupy Movement, which brought lower Manhattan to a standstill in 2011 under the slogan, “We are the 99%”. Closer to home, think of the refugee activists who assisted a breakout from South Australia’s Woomera detention centre in 2002. Both are examples of contentious politics, or forms of political engagement outside the institutional channels of political decision-making. The democratic credentials of contentious politics are highly ambivalent. On the one hand, contentious (...) politics appears to have insufficient respect for democratic decision. Protesters are often forceful, uncivil and rowdy, aiming to disproportionately influence policy. But shouldn’t proposals be put forward with civility through the proper channels? And shouldn’t their proponents accept with good grace if they are democratically rebuffed? A closer look at the history of political thought can provide us with the framework to assess the case for and against the democratic reasonableness of contentious politics. (shrink)

The European Hobbes Society Online Colloquium featured my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics. This is a précis of the book.

The European Hobbes Society Online Colloquium featured my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics, with critical commentaries from Alissa MacMillan, Chris Holman, and Justin Steinberg. This is my response to their commentaries.

This article attempts to elucidate the ethical meaning behind the words ‘the ethics of self’ and ‘an ethical self’, particularly in the light of Noddings’ ‘ethical self’, in order to show the relevance of these terms to the practice of ethical caring. It examines the relationship that Noddings believes exists between one’s actual self and the vision one has of one’s ideal self. I attempt to draw out a meaning derived from the texts in which this concept has been captured, (...) while at the same time juxtaposing the concept ‘ethic of care’ from my own research, together with the meaning given by philosophers Peta Bowden, Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil, who have written on the subject, albeit indirectly in some instances. A participant in a colleague’s research on care and patient satisfaction used similar expressions, and gave the impetus for this article. (shrink)

L’A. présente la pertinence anthropologique de la thèse d’indétermination de la traduction de Quine, en suggérant qu’elle joue contre le relativisme, mais aussi contre une certaine forme d’universalisme : c’est ce que montre une analyse de la notion de prélogicité, critiquée par Quine qui invente à cette occasion le « principe de charité ». L’examen des usages et de la portée d’un tel principe, et sa confrontation aux thèses de Lévy-Bruhl, permet, au-delà de Quine, de repenser l’invocation devenue trop courante (...) et indéterminée d’une anthropologie en philosophie. (shrink)

Is there something about the deep logic of democracy that destines it to succeed in the world? Democracy, the form of politics that includes everyone as equals – does it perhaps suit human nature better than the alternatives? After all, surely any person who is excluded from the decision-making in a society will be more liable to rise up against it. From ancient thinkers like Seneca to contemporary thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, we can see some version of this line of (...) thought. Seneca thought that tyrannies could never last long; Fukuyama famously argued that liberal democracy is the end of history. I want to focus instead on the person credited with giving the most direct and uncompromising statement of this thought: Benedict de Spinoza. However, in this article, I argue to the contrary that Spinoza’s view of aristocracy should give pause to radical democrats. He does not see a historical movement towards democracy, nor does he see the superiority of democracy as written into human nature. (shrink)