In my dissertation I approach the subject of the attributes of God in Spinoza's metaphysics by considering three pivotal and closely linked problems. I discuss the problem of the relation of God to the attributes, the problem of the essence of God, and the problem of the true conception of God. ;I examine three interpretations of God and the attributes in Spinoza: that of Jonathan Bennett, according to which God is the thing that has the attributes and modes as properties, (...) that of Edwin Curley and Alan Donagan, according to which God is the collection of attributes, and that of H. F. Hallett and Steven Parchment, according to which God is the totality of attributes. I examine each stance relative to the three problems. I reveal the weaknesses of each interpretation by making explicit the problems that each interpretation is unable to deal with successfully and by exposing new problems that some of the interpretations create. I then discuss topics in Spinoza that need to be understood in order to arrive at the correct answers to the three problems. For example, I carefully examine 2D2---a definition that commentators on Spinoza generally consider imperative in the discussion of the essence of God. ;I then suggest an interpretation of God and the attributes that is motivated by Spinoza's claim in 1P34 that God's power is God's essence. I claim that an adequate idea of the essence of God is a de re conception of God; and I invoke Michael Della Rocca's account of the opacity of attribute-contexts in order to support my view of de re conceptions of God. I show that, for Spinoza, the essence of a thing is given by the definition of the thing; and I show that 1D6 correlates with his claim in 1P34 that God's power is God's essence. I argue that God's essence is absolutely infinite and eternal power, and that power is what is constituted and expressed by each of the infinite attributes. (shrink)

The American Educational Research Association and American Psychological Association published standards for reporting on research. The transparency of reporting measures and data collection is paramount for interpretability and replicability of research. We analyzed 57 articles that assessed alphabet knowledge using researcher-developed measures. The quality of reporting on different elements of AK measures and data collection was not related to the journal type nor to the impact factor or rank of the journal but rather seemed to depend on the individual author, (...) reviewers, and journal editor. We propose various topics related to effective reporting of measures and data collection methods that we encourage the early childhood and literacy communities to discuss. (shrink)

Evolution: The Basics is an engaging introduction to the history, development and science of the theory of evolution. Beginning pre-Darwin and concluding with the latest research and controversies, readers are introduced to the origins of the idea of evolution, the ways in which it has developed and been adapted over time and the science underpinning it all. Topics addressed include: • early theories of evolution • the impact of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species • the discovery of genetics and (...) Mendel’s experiments • molecular evolution and the discovery of DNA • the expansion of life and the persistence of disease • revisiting evolutionary ethics and the development of empathy. Evolution: The Basics examines the role of evolution in current debates and discusses the possible future developments in the field. This book is invaluable reading for all students and individuals seeking to understand the wide ranging sphere of evolutionary theory.  . (shrink)

This paper presents a basically new theory of values. Potential goods such as flying machines have been creatively actualized and thus value is creative actualization. Norms, ideals, standards, and theories also require creative actualization. As actions melioristically transform the world for the better, the goals of action provide purpose and meaning, as well as the ground of change, a superior goal providing the end for which agents undertake action. The kinds of value represent irreducibly plural categories of good: beauty, knowledge, (...) prosperity, intimacy, and so on. (shrink)

Uptake is typically understood as the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. According to one theory of uptake, the hearer’s role is merely as a ratifier. The speaker, by expressing a particular communicative intention, predetermines what kind of illocutionary act she might perform. Her hearer can then render this act a success or a failure. Thus the hearer has no power over which act could be performed, but she does have some power over whether it is performed. Call this (...) the ratification theory of uptake. Several philosophers have recently endorsed an alternative theory of uptake, according to which the hearer can determine the nature of the act the speaker performs. According to this theory, if the hearer regards an utterance as illocutionary act y, then it is act y, even if the speaker intended to perform act x. Call this the constitution theory of uptake. The purported advantage of this theory is that it identifies a common but underanalysed way in which speakers can be silenced. I argue that despite its initial intuitive pull, the constitution theory of uptake should be rejected. It is incompatible with ordinary intuitions about speech, it entails a conceptual impossibility, and it has unsavoury political implications, entailing that marginalised speakers barely qualify as agents. (shrink)

This book treats values as the basis for all of philosophy, an approach distinct from critiquing theories of value and far rarer. "First Philosophy," the effort to justify the foundations for a system of philosophy, is one of the main issues that divide philosophers today. McDonald's philosophy of values is a comprehensive attempt to replace philosophies of "existence," "being," "experience," the "subject," or "language," with a philosophy that locates value as most basic. This transformation is a radical move within (...) Western philosophy as a whole, since it has never been done in such a thoroughgoing way. Hugh P. McDonald makes a comprehensive case against first philosophy as metaphysical, by mounting a case against all metaphysical systems of philosophy. Radical Axiology: A First Philosophy of Values is a fresh start for a rebirth of philosophy. While other movements debate the "death of philosophy," this book radically re-evaluates the direction of philosophy by discovering values at the basis of all philosophy. This reorientation addresses the question of what the love of wisdom can mean for us today. (shrink)

The body is a rich object for aesthetic inquiry. We aesthetically assess both our own bodies and those of others, and our felt bodily experiences have aesthetic qualities. The body features centrally in aesthetic experiences of visual art, theatre, dance and sports. It is also deeply intertwined with one's identity and sense of self. Artistic and media representations shape how we see and engage with bodies, with consequences both personal and political. This volume contains sixteen original essays by contributors in (...) philosophy, sociology, dance, disability theory, critical race studies, feminist theory, medicine, and law. They explore bodily beauty, sexual attractiveness, the role of images in power relations, the distinct aesthetics of disabled bodies, the construction of national identity, the creation of compassion through bodily presence, the role of bodily style in moral comportment, and the somatic aesthetics of racialized police violence. -/- Contents: Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, "Black Silhouettes on White Walls: Kara Walker’s Magic Lantern"; A. W. Eaton, "Taste in Bodies and Fat Oppression"; C. Winter Han, "From 'Little Brown Brothers' to 'Queer Asian Wives': Constructing the Asian Male Body"; Deborah L. Rhode, "Appearance as a Feminist Issue"; Shirley Anne Tate, "A Tale of Two Olympians—Beauty, 'Race,' Nation"; Glenn Parsons, "The Merrickites"; Stephen Davies, "And Everything Nice"; Tobin Siebers, "In/Visible: Disability on the Stage"; Jill Sigman, "Live, Body-Based Performance: An Account from the Field"; Barbara Gail Montero, "Aesthetic Effortlessness"; Peg Brand Weiser and Edward B. Weiser, "Misleading Aesthetic Norms of Beauty: Perceptual Sexism in Elite Women's Sports"; Yuriko Saito, "Body Aesthetics and the Cultivation of Moral Virtues"; George Yancy, "White Embodied Gazing, the Black Body as Disgust, and the Aesthetics of Un-Suturing"; Richard Shusterman, "Somaesthetics and the Fine Art of Eating"; Ann J. Cahill, "Sexual Desire, Inequality, and the Possibility of Transformation"; Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin, "Sex Objects and Sexy Subjects: A Feminist Reclamation of Sexiness" -/- . (shrink)

As aesthetic beings, we are receptive to and engaged with the sensuous phenomena of life while also knowing that we are targets of others’ awareness: we are both aesthetic agents and aesthetic objects. Our psychological health, our standing within our communities, and our overall wellbeing can be profoundly affected by our aesthetic surroundings and by whether and how we receive aesthetic recognition from others. When our embodied selves and our cultural products are valued, and when we have rich opportunities for (...) aesthetic experience and for the exercise of aesthetic agency, the aesthetic can foster and sustain wellbeing and help to make our lives worthwhile. But when we are subjected to aesthetic blight, restriction of our aesthetic agency, and aesthetic devaluing of our embodied selves and our communities’ cultural products, the aesthetic can do great harm: such aesthetic maneuvers play a significant role in oppression and social hierarchy related to race, gender, fatness, and disability. This essay explores the notions of aesthetic objects and aesthetic agents, their relations with each other, and the unique affordances of persons’ status as simultaneously aesthetic objects and aesthetic agents. It examines the prospects for bodily aesthetic experience to promote wellbeing and, at the end, considers how the aesthetic might play a role in establishing forms of mutual vulnerability and recognition to combat oppressive social hierarchies. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a philosophical analysis of the act of ‘liking’ a post on social media. First, I consider what it means to ‘like’ something. I argue that ‘liking’ is best understood as a phatic gesture; it signals uptake and anoints the poster’s positive face. Next, I consider how best to theorise the power that comes with amassing many ‘likes’. I suggest that ‘like’ tallies alongside posts institute and record a form of digital social capital. Finally, I consider (...) whether ‘likes’ have ultimately improved online discourse. I argue that while the ‘liking’ function itself is relatively innocuous, public ‘like’ tallies introduce a corrosive motivation to online communication. By making the prospect of increased social capital perpetually salient to us, they encourage us to prioritise high levels of engagement over meaningful engagement. (shrink)

Ethical perspectives on regional, rural, and remote healthcare often, understandably and importantly, focus on inequities in access to services. In this commentary, we take the opportunity to examine the implications of normalizing metrocentric views, values, knowledge, and orientations, evidenced by the recent (2022) New South Wales inquiry into health outcomes and access to hospital and health services in regional, rural and remote New South Wales, for contemporary rural governance and justice debates. To do this, we draw on the feminist inspired (...) approach to rural health ethics involving analysis of power relationships developed by Simpson and McDonald and related ideas from critical health sociology. In presenting this analysis, we extend contemporary thought about spatial health inequities and structural violence. (shrink)

Open Access: This article argues for an aesthetic approach to resisting oppression based on judgments of bodily unattractiveness. Philosophical theories have often suggested that appropriate aesthetic judgments should converge on sets of objects consensually found to be beautiful or ugly. The convergence of judgments about human bodies, however, is a significant source of injustice, because people judged to be unattractive pay substantial social and economic penalties in domains such as education, employment and criminal justice. The injustice is compounded by the (...) interaction between standards of attractiveness and gender, race, disability, and gender identity. -/- I argue that we should actively work to reduce our participation in standard aesthetic practices that involve attractiveness judgments. This does not mean refusing engagement with the embodiment of others; ignoring someone’s embodiment is often a way of dehumanizing them. Instead, I advocate a form of practice, aesthetic exploration, that involves seeking out positive experiences of the unique aesthetic affordances of all bodies, regardless of whether they are attractive in the standard sense. I argue that there are good ethical reasons to cultivate aesthetic exploration, and that it is psychologically plausible that doing so would help to alleviate the social injustice attending judgments of attractiveness. -/- This essay was the winner of the 30th Anniversary of the American Society for Aesthetics Feminist Caucus Committee Feminist Research Essay prize in 2020. (shrink)

Taylor Swift’s choice to re-record several of her early studio albums might seem purely commercial. But the depth and intensity of the project suggests that Taylor’s Versions are new artworks, not just financially motivated copies. The elements of appropriation, audience participation, and institutional critique tie Swift’s project to a tradition dating back more than a century: conceptual art. I will stop short of arguing outright that Taylor’s Versions is a conceptual art project: it is foremost a contribution to popular music. (...) But considering it in relation to conceptual art sheds light on its achievements and one notable limitation. In the realm of appropriation, the fact that the re-recordings exhibit both close resemblance to and subtle differences from the originals has prompted an intensity of close listening by audience members, with distinctive aesthetic experiences in the realm of the uncanny. In the realm of participation, Swift has creatively motivated her fans to abandon her beloved original albums, and the fans have in turn evolved a variety of strategies to shift their allegiance to the new versions and hold each other accountable. When it comes to institutional critique—the movement in conceptual art that highlights and challenges the power structures governing art institutions—Swift’s project has raised awareness of troubling and exploitative power dynamics in the music industry. However, consideration of historical precursors of Swift’s institutional critique may lead us to question some elements of her self-presentation as a victim of gendered exploitation. (shrink)

According to a common sense theory, facial expressions signal specific emotions to people of all ages and therefore provide children easy access to the emotions of those around them. The evidence, however, does not support that account. Instead, children’s understanding of facial expressions is poor and changes qualitatively and slowly over the course of development. Initially, children divide facial expressions into two simple categories (feels good, feels bad). These broad categories are then gradually differentiated until an adult system of discrete (...) categories is achieved, likely in the teen years. Children’s understanding of most specific emotions begins not with facial expressions, but with their understanding of the emotion’s antecedents and behavioral consequences. (shrink)

SummaryThe importation of Spencerism and Social Darwinism into Japan in the early Meiji era (from 1868 to the early 1880s) occurred against a background of rapid economic and industrial change which provoked widespread political unrest. This accelerated modernization was forced by Western demands for trade liberalization and the threat of Western imperialism. In this context, selected elements of Western scientific naturalism and liberalism could provide a prestigious ratification of élite agendas for the management of change, provided they could be made (...) culturally recognizable. It is suggested that traditional and Western knowledge claims were combined by key Meiji intellectuals in such a way that the product, Meiji Social Darwinism, supplied both the prestige of Western scientific positivism and the familiarity conferred by traditional resources. The clear differentiation between the constituents which made up Meiji Social Darwinism enables us to identify the distinct cultural functions performed by each of these sets of resources. In this study, these cultural functions emerge as elements in an élite class strategy. (shrink)

The numbering in the new edition of Wittgenstein's Remarks does not in general correspond to the part and section numbers of the 1956 edition. The following concordance is useful for making cross references between the two editions.

Ethical choice paralysis is a major barrier to the implementation of ethical design materials into the technology design process. Choice paralysis seems to result from tacit background assumptions propagated by humanistic modes of critical inquiry. I propose that one way of obviating choice paralysis at the professional level is to educate STEM students on how to select ethical design materials for a project. In order to advance that endeavor, I propose some obligations especially for humanistically trained STEM ethics educators. Specifically, (...) I propose that these include obligations to affirm that students can indeed select workable ethical design materials for their projects, to avoid using humanistic modes of critical ethical inquiry when instructing on how to make those selections, and to note that maximizing for ideally ethical results may not be a primary selection criterion. (shrink)

This paper introduces and defends a new principle for when a structural equation model is apt for analyzing actual causation. Any such analysis in terms of these models has two components: a recipe for reading claims of actual causation off an apt model, and an articulation of what makes a model apt. The primary focus in the literature has been on the first component. But the problem of structural isomorphs has made the second especially pressing (Hall 2007; Hitchcock 2007a). Those (...) with realist sympathies have reason to resist the standard response to this problem, which introduces a normative parameter into the metaphysics (Hall 2007; Halpern and Hitchcock 2010, 2015; Halpern 2016a; Menzies 2017; Gallow 2021). However, the only alternative solution in the literature leaves central questions unanswered (Blanchard and Schaffer 2017). I propose an independently motivated aptness requirement, Evident Mediation, that provides the missing details and resolves the structural isomorph problem without need for a normative parameter. (shrink)

Aesthetic responses to human embodiment play important roles in our individual and social flourishing. Our ability to feel comfortable with and even take pleasure in our own embodiment contributes to our well-being, and our capacity to appreciate the embodiment of others contributes to our full recognition of them as persons and to their feeling of being valued and at home in the world. We are socialized into practices of appreciating bodily beauty: the facial and bodily qualities that a culture picks (...) out for special valuing. But these practices are deeply intertwined with objectionable social hierarchies. I argue that we should can and should opt out of practices of appreciating bodily beauty, despite the pleasures they afford, and choose instead to participate in other practices. Practices of appreciating the variety of aesthetic affordances of human bodies in all their diversity are both aesthetically rewarding and more compatible with our duties to ourselves and each other. (shrink)

Experiments in psychology and experimental philosophy suggest that judgments about actual causation are partially governed by norms: norm violations are more likely to be singled out as causes, while structurally analogous factors that obey the norms are unlikely to be singled out. The norm-sensitivity of causal judgment has, in turn, lent support to a normative analysis of causation itself. In this paper, I question whether the support stands. I articulate and examine two principal reasons support might be so derived. For (...) each, I argue that, in fact, a non-normative analysis is better supported. (shrink)

The first generation of children to grow up with electronic toys and games saw computers as our “nearest neighbors.” They spoke of computers as rational machines and of people as emotional machines, a fragile formulation destined to be challenged. By the mid-1990s, computational creatures, including robots, were presenting themselves as “relational artifacts,” beings with feelings and needs. One consequence of this development is a crisis in authenticity in many quarters. In an increasing number of situations, people behave as though they (...) no longer place value on living things and authentic emotion. This paper examines watershed moments in the history of human–machine interaction, focusing on the pertinence of relational artifacts to our collective perception of aliveness, life’s purposes, and the implications of relational artifacts for relationships. For now, the exploration of human–robot encounters leads us to questions about the morality of creating believable digital companions that are evocative but not authentic. (shrink)

This book challenges readers to rethink rural health ethics. Traditional approaches to health ethics are often urban-centric, making implicit assumptions about how values and norms apply in health care practice, and as such may fail to take into account the complexity, depth, richness, and diversity of the rural context. There are ethically relevant differences between rural health practice and rural health services delivery and urban practice and delivery that go beyond the stereotypes associated with rural life and rural health services. (...) This book examines key values in the rural context that have not been fully explored or taken into account when we examine health ethics issues, including the values of community and place, and a need to “revalue” relationships. It also advocates for a greater attention to meso and macro level analysis in rural health ethics as being critical to ethical analysis of rural health care. This book is essential reading for those involved in health ethics, rural health policy and governance, and for rural health providers. (shrink)

This dissertation begins by addressing the question of when a causal model is apt for deciding questions of actual causation with respect to some target situation. I first provide relevant background about causal models, explain what makes them promising as a tool for analyzing actual causation, and motivate the need for a theory of aptness as part of such an analysis (Chapter 1). I then define what it is for a model on a given interpretation to be accurate of, that (...) is, say only true things about, some target situation. This involves a systematization of various representational principles mentioned and/or discussed throughout the literature into a method of interpretation, which I propose be taken as standard (Chapter 2). Next, I explain and address two reasons for which accuracy as I’ve defined it is insufficient for aptness. The first reason – already discussed in the literature – is the problem of structural isomorphs. In response, I propose the aptness condition of Explicit Partial Mediation (Chapter 3). The second reason – which has yet to be noticed – is the problem of the indeterminacy of accuracy. As I demonstrate, a model is accurate of a target situation only relative to a set of background possibilities – what I call a modal profile. It follows that a model represents a situation only relative to some modal profile or other. I go on to discuss the ramifications of this observation for a theory of actual causation in terms of models. I argue that the relativity be taken at face value and built into our metaphysical account of causation, resulting in a view that I call causal relativism (Chapter 4). I explore one advantage of this view in detail: that the resulting account can defend the principle of strong proportionality against several objections (Chapter 5). Finally, I apply the earlier discussion of aptness to attempts to provide a semantics of counterfactuals in terms of causal models – an interventionist semantics. I show how just as a similarity semantics relies on an opaque notion of similarity, an interventionist semantics relies on an analogous notion of aptness. The challenge of articulating aptness thus undermines the claim that an interventionist semantics avoids representational problems inherent in a similarity semantics (Chapter 6). I close with a recap and suggestions for future research (Chapter 7). -/- . (shrink)

Much of the recent psychological literature on boredom aims to define, categorize, and measure boredom in order to assess it, to identify correlated mental pathologies, to find the psychophysiological bases of boredom, or to apply the findings to specific settings or social groups. This literature uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to seek an objective, scientific understanding of boredom. It presupposes that boredom is an aversive, individual experience, which psychology can help ameliorate, prevent, or divert. By contrast, Kierkegaard uses his (...) methods of ‘experimenting psychology’ and ‘indirect communication’ to deploy boredom in awakening his reader to the task of becoming a self. He uses literary devices and exemplary characters to this end. Heidegger pursues a similar aim: to awaken the reader/listener to the possibility of attuning herself to profound boredom in a way that will enable her to become an authentic self. Heidegger uses a method of historical, hermeneutic phenomenology to enable his reader to hear the call of being through an attunement to profound boredom. He starts with the familiar experience of boredom, then defamiliarizes his listener to enable an original grasp of the meaning of being. (shrink)