In this paper, my aim is to offer some comments on the study of Mu‘tazilite kalām, framed around the study of a particular episode in the Mu‘tazilite dispute about man – a question with a deceptively Aristotelian cadence that is not too difficult to dispel. Within this episode, my focus is on one of the major arguments used by the late Baṣrans to hold up their side of the dispute, and on the relationship between the mental and the physical which (...) emerges from it. The most interesting – and most surprising – aspect of this relationship is that the mental and the physical do not seem to be treated as distinct terms, thus creating the space for questions about how the two relate. The first person perspective seems to be identified with the physical body. My interest then is in the response of the reader to this surprising presentation – or rather, in a certain kind of reader response, and thus a certain kind of interpretive mode, whose value and viability it is part of my aim to help clarify. (shrink)

Introduction -- The legal aspects -- Corporate governance and corporate performance -- Complexity and corporate governance -- Conclusion.

Efforts to include women in the canon have long been beset by reactionary gatekeeping, typified by the charge “That's not philosophy.” That charge doesn't apply to early and mid‐analytic female philosophers—Welby, Ladd‐Franklin, Bryant, Jones, de Laguna, Stebbing, Ambrose, MacDonald—with job titles like lecturer in logic and professor of philosophy and publications in Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. It's hopeless to dismiss their work as “not philosophy.” But comparable reactionary gatekeeping affects them, this paper argues, (...) typified by the labels “bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy.” Virtue and vice epistemology help explain why these women have been neglected and why their own approaches are epistemically virtuous. Their contemporaries and historians are deficient in scholarly virtues in labelling these women's work “bad” or derived from male mentors with no or specious justification. Their disparaged qualities—intellectual humility, modesty, critical self‐reflection, disclosing biases—are often epistemic virtues. (shrink)

_Synthesizes the most important recent work on wonder and brings a number of disciplines into conversation. _.

The present study investigates Taiwanese graduate students’ general understanding and misunderstanding of Responsible Conduct of Research. A total of 580 graduate students responded to the self-developed Responsible Conduct of Research Reasoning Test. The results reveal that, first, students did not have sufficient knowledge to reason why a particular instance of research conduct was doable or not. Second, the statistical results show that female students, students majoring in the humanities or the social sciences, doctoral-level students, and students with RCR-related training outperformed (...) others. In addition, the misbehaviors that students judged relatively uncritically comprise the following nine categories: seeing authorship as a property or power, misinterpreting research coauthors’ responsibilities, inaccurately conducting the informed-consent process, fabricating and falsifying research data, misinterpreting the correct citation of research sources, holding vague concepts of self-plagiarism, misinterpreting the Taiwan Copyright Act, accepting duplicate-publication practices, and accepting piecemeal publication practices. The present study discusses participative students’ major misunderstandings of actual RCR-related practices. The study also presents further implications and suggestions based on the findings. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of female nature has received mostly negative treatment, emphasising what he says females cannot do. Building on recent research, this book comprehensively revises such readings, setting out the complex and positive role played by the female in Aristotle's thought with a particular focus on the longest surviving treatise on reproduction in the ancient corpus, the Generation of Animals. It provides new interpretations of the nature of Aristotle's sexism, his theory of male and female interaction in generation, and his (...) account of inherited features. It also discusses a range of more general issues which can and should be re-examined in light of Aristotle's account of female animals: his methodology, hylomorphism, teleology and psychology. Aristotle on Female Animals will be valuable to all those interested in Aristotle's philosophy and the history of gender. (shrink)

Grace de Laguna’s philosophical work was bold and original. She was also able to connect together seemingly disparate strands of the pragmatic, metaphysical and psychological research going on around her, as Joel Katzav shows in his paper. This commentary gives some historical background to her academic career in an attempt to explain how she could have been forgotten as a philosopher. Social and institutional factors led to her work not being recognized when she wrote and thus sinking into obscurity in (...) philosophical circles afterwards. Although her work was initially widely read, her research seems not to have had any continuing direct impact on later developments in philosophy. However, it is crucial to restore her thought to its rightful place in the history of our subject. (shrink)

This book defends an original and pluralist theory of when and why discrimination wrongs people, in particular, through unfair subordination, through the violation of their right to a particular deliberative freedom, or through the denial to them of access to a basic good.

With its pessimistic vision and bleak message of world-denial, it has often been difficult to know how to engage with Schopenhauer's philosophy. Schopenhauer's arguments have seemed flawed and his doctrines marred by inconsistencies; his very pessimism almost too flamboyant to be believable. Yet a way of redrawing this engagement stands open, Sophia Vasalou argues, if we attend more closely to the visionary power of Schopenhauer's work. The aim of this book is to place the aesthetic character of Schopenhauer's standpoint (...) at the heart of the way we read his philosophy and the way we answer the question: why read Schopenhauer - and how? Approaching his philosophy as an enactment of the sublime with a longer history in the ancient philosophical tradition, Vasalou provides a fresh way of assessing Schopenhauer's relevance in critical terms. This book will be valuable for students and scholars with an interest in post-Kantian philosophy and ancient ethics. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 55-86, June 2022.

This paper analyses the main perceptions of capitalism and crises from a mainstream and heterodox perspective. Broadly defined within the neoclassical structure, the mainstream approaches support the idea of long-term stability of capitalism and describe crises as exogenous events. The heterodox perceptions, on the contrary, perceive crises as an internal feature of capitalism and propose to reframe the global economy within the limits of the socio-environmental systems. Despite the historical recurrence of crises, the neoclassic capitalist framework and the related mainstream (...) perceptions are still dominating the international economic debate. Most of the crises have then been addressed with reforms oriented to adjust some elements of the system without changing the overall economic structure. On the contrary, limited numbers of initiatives have been implemented to reorganise the economy according to the heterodox perspectives. Within this context, further analysis would be needed to investigate the feasibility of the proposed heterodox solutions. By discussing the main perceptions of capitalism and crises and by considering the ethical implications of the mainstream and the heterodox approaches, the present paper contributes to the existing debate around stability of capitalism and provides a starting point for analysis oriented to investigate the feasibility of alternative economic structures. (shrink)

Attending to the rich entanglements of scientific and critical theory, contributors to this issue scrutinize phenomena in nature to explore new territory in feminist science studies. With a special focus on relating theory to method, these scholars generate new feminist approaches to scientific practice. Contributors probe this relationship by way of topics from poetics of human-jellyfish interactions to a feminist reconsideration of a well-known thought experiment in thermodynamics. Two contributors analyze plant-insect encounter research to spin their own symbiotically inflected account (...) of “affective ecologies.” Technologies of human memory storage and retrieval lead one writer to interrogate how our understandings of memory and amnesia are currently under revision. Another contributor tracks the lively evolutionary and morphological theories that textile artisans manifest in material models of sea creatures. What emerges from these diverse essays is an approach to critical thinking that inhabits, elaborates, and feeds upon scientific theory, holding feminist theory accountable to science and vice versa. _Sophia Roosth_ is Assistant Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. _Astrid Schrader_ is Visiting Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Sarah Lawrence College. _Contributors_: Karen Barad, Lina Dib, Eva Hayward, Carla Hustak, Vicki Kirby, Natasha Myers, Sophia Roosth, Astrid Schrader. (shrink)

In this paper my aim is to consider the picture of God's immediate knowledge of the mind as this appears in Wittgenstein's work, where its soundness seems to be brought into question. My argument is that the response to this denial should take the form, not of an investigation of a theological position concerning God's knowledge ("can God look into the human mind?"), but of a negotiation of the difficulties affecting our use of this picture. A great part of the (...) latter can be seen as difficulties in mastering the communicative relation between God and man which lies at the heart of the religious form of life, and which arises from the dislocation which familiar language-games undergo within it. (shrink)

Must good deeds be rewarded and wrongdoers punished? Would God be unjust if He failed to punish and reward? And what is it about good or evil actions and moral identity that might generate such necessities? These were some of the vital religious and philosophical questions that eighth- and ninth-century Mu'tazilite theologians and their sophisticated successors attempted to answer, giving rise to a distinctive ethical position and one of the most prominent and controversial intellectual trends in medieval Islam. The Mu'tazilites (...) developed a view of ethics whose distinguishing features were its austere moral objectivism and the crucial role it assigned to reason in the knowledge of moral truths. Central to this ethical vision was the notion of moral desert, and of the good and evil consequences--reward or punishment--deserved through a person's acts. Moral Agents and Their Deserts is the first book-length study of this central theme in Mu'tazilite ethics, and an attempt to grapple with the philosophical questions it raises. At the same time, it is a bid to question the ways in which modern readers, coming to medieval Islamic thought with a philosophical interest, seek to read and converse with Mu'tazilite theology. Moral Agents and Their Deserts tracks the challenges and rewards involved in the pursuit of the right conversation at the seams between modern and medieval concerns. (shrink)

Absent as a breeding bird from Britain for at least a century, avocets began nesting on the east coast of Britain, in Suffolk, shortly after the end of the Second World War, having homed in on two spots on Britain’s coast that had been flooded for war-related reasons. The avocets’ presence was surrounded in secrecy, while a dedicated few kept up a protective watch over them. As the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds took over responsibility for the flourishing (...) colony, they claimed the episode as a symbol of success for British protection, later making the bird their logo. Counter to the RSPB’s story of protecting a British bird, I read the narratives of events in terms of making a bird British. I show how, as postwar Britain slumped economically and spiritually and tried to rebuild itself, the birds became a vehicle for formulating national identity: of Britain as a home to which to return and belong. Exploring the themes of returning servicemen and closed territories, the paper also examines the episode in terms of the naturalisation of the military and the militarisation of nature. (shrink)

We agree with Svirsky, Howard, and Berman that the US Food and Drug Administration plays various roles, only one of which is the technical review and evaluation of product safety and e...

Aristotle's voluminous writings on animals have often been marginalised in the history of philosophy. Providing the first full-length comprehensive account of Aristotle's biology, its background, content and influence, this Companion situates his study of living nature within his broader philosophy and theology and differentiates it from other medical and philosophical theories. An overview of empiricism in Aristotle's Historia Animalium is followed by an account of the general methodology recommended in the Parts of Animals. An account of the importance of Aristotle's (...) teleological perspective and the fundamental metaphysics of biological entities provides a basis for understanding living capacities, such as nutrition, reproduction, perception and self-motion, in his philosophy. The importance of Aristotle's zoology to both his ethics and political philosophy is highlighted. The volume explores in detail the changing interpretations and influences of Aristotle's biological works from antiquity to modern philosophy of science. It is essential for both students and scholars. (shrink)

In cases of self-gaslighting, the subject worries that other people will be skeptical of one of her beliefs—for instance, the belief that she has been sexually harassed. Prompted by this worry, she...

For the past 40 years, the 14-day rule has governed and, by defining a clear boundary, enabled embryo research and the clinical benefits derived from this. It has been both a piece of legislation and a rule of good practice globally. However, methods now allow embryos to be cultured for more than 14 days, something difficult to imagine when the rule was established, and knowledge gained in the intervening years provides robust scientific rationale for why it is now essential to (...) conduct research on later stage human embryos. In this paper, I argue that the current limit for embryo research in vitro should be extended to 28 days to permit research that will illuminate our beginnings as well as provide new therapeutic possibilities to reduce miscarriage and developmental abnormalities. It will also permit validation of potentially useful alternatives. Through consideration of current ethical arguments, I also conclude that there are no coherent or persuasive reasons to deny researchers, and through them humanity, the knowledge and the innovation that this will generate. (shrink)

Background Encounters of moral distress have long-term consequences on healthcare workers’ physical and mental health, leading to job dissatisfaction, reduced patient care, and high levels of burnout, exhaustion, and intentions to quit. Yet, research on approaches to ameliorate moral distress across the health workforce is limited. Research Objective The aim of our study was to qualitatively explore multi-professional perspectives of healthcare social workers, chaplains, and patient liaisons on ways to reduce moral distress and heighten well-being at a southern U.S. academic (...) medical center. Participants & Research Context Purposive sampling and chain-referral methods assisted with recruitment through hospital listservs, staff meetings, and newsletters. Interested participants contacted the principal investigator and all interviews were conducted in-person. Consent was attained prior to interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Research Design Directed content analysis was used to deductively organize codes and to develop themes in conjunction with the National Academy of Medicine’s National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being. Rigor was attained through peer-debriefing, data triangulation methods, and frequent research team meetings. Ethical Considerations Ethics approval was obtained from the university and medical center institutional review boards. Findings Themes demonstrate that rather than offering interventions in the aftermath of moral distress, multilevel daily practices ought to be considered that pre-emptively identify and reduce morally distressing encounters through (1) the care team, (2) management and leadership, and (3) the health care industry. Strategies include interdisciplinary decision-making, trusting managerial relationships, and organizational policies and practices that explicitly invest in mental health promotion and diverse leadership opportunities. Conclusion Moral distress interventions ought to target short-term stress reactions while also addressing the long-term impacts of moral residue. Health systems must financially commit to an ethical workplace culture that explicitly values mental health and well-being. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the final proof with Greek mathematics and the possibility of intermediates in the Phaedo. The final proof in Plato’s Phaedo depends on a claim at 105c6, that μονάς, ‘unit’, generates περιττός ‘odd’ in number. So, ψυχή ‘soul’ generates ζωή ‘life’ in a body, at 105c10-11. Yet commentators disagree how to understand these mathematical terms and their relation to the soul in Plato’s arguments. The Greek mathematicians understood odd numbers in one of two ways: either that which is (...) not divisible into two equal parts, or that which differs from an even number by a unit. Plato uses the second way in the final proof. This paper argues that a proper understanding of these mathematical terms within Greek mathematics shows that the argument for the final proof is better than previously thought. Such an interpretation of the final proof lends credence to Platonic intermediates. (shrink)

Sophia Vasalou investigates the 'virtues of greatness' in the Islamic world. Examining the virtue of magnanimity in ancient philosophical ethics and the 'greatness of spirit' in the Arabic tradition, she traces the genealogy of these ideals, explores the influences that shaped them, and highlights the contemporary relevance of these ideals.

This paper sets out to chart the fortunes of one of the most significant moral propositions in Mu'tazilite moral theory — namely, that it is evil to lie, and it is evil irrespective of the consequences of so doing. The reasons which promote this principle to significance relate to the broader context of Mu'tazilite theological orientation, which aims to vindicate God's justice through demonstrating that moral value does not derive from revelation. Yet this principle suffers the difficulties which commonly afflict (...) deontological precepts, particularly the challenges posed by their conflict with teleological moral demands in certain situations, as well as the difficulty of empirically ascertaining that a moral principle has in fact given the agent his reason for action, as the Mu'tazilites attempt to do. These were difficulties which Aš'arite critics of Mu'tazilite moral claims were quick to pick up on, and it is in the light of such hostile fire that the coherence of the Mu'tazilite position on the evilness of lies is examined. This is the principal focus of this essay, and it is complemented by an examination of how the principle carries over to the realm of divine morality: can God tell a lie? If not, why not? And what does this reveal about the ordering of moral values in Mu'tazilite thought? (shrink)

I argue that there is an important analogy between sex selection and selective abortion of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome. There are surprising parallels between the social construction of Down syndrome as a disability and the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual difference in many societies. Prevailing concepts of gender and mental retardation exert a powerful influence in constructing the sexual identities and life plans of people with Down syndrome, and also affect their families' lives.1.

EVER SINCE BALME’S GROUNDBREAKING WORK on the subject, there has been substantial progress in our understanding of the importance of biology in Aristotle’s philosophy. Despite a certain reluctance to incorporate treatises on animals into the undergraduate curriculum, it is now inadvisable to avoid any reference to Aristotle’s biological work when discussing most aspects of his thought. The new tendency of scholarship on Aristotle’s biology employs various methodologies but, in the main, argues for the importance of Aristotle’s biological treatises on the (...) basis of the assistance they might provide for understanding some of the more intractable problems in Aristotle’s thought. (shrink)

Addressing a gap in political thought, this book examines the interplay between ethos and practical reason in everyday life. It suggests that the burgeoning literature on the ‘ethotic’ dimension of democracy leaves untreated the issue of practical reason and how it infuses political judgment and action.

In style typical of this series Introducing Postfeminism uses text and integrated illustration to trace the effect of French feminist theory on contemporary gender, politics and culture.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 642-651, May 2022. Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue that (...) these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

RésuméDans cette réponse à mes commentateurs, je réagis aux critiques de Alysia Blackham, Jessica Eisen, Pablo Gilabert, Andrea Sangiovanni, Dale Smith, Iyiola Solanke, et Daniel Viehoff incluses dans ce numéro spécial consacré à mon livre, Faces of Inequality. Parmi les sujets abordés, j'analyse les liens entre l’égalité et la discrimination, le rôle que joue la subordination dans ma théorie de la discrimination, et la méthodologie dans les théories de la discrimination.

The prevalence of the term post-truth suggests that we have, in the last few years, moved from being members of societies dedicated to truth to being members of ones that cannot agree on truth’s parameters and, even worse, have given up trying. But is this really what has happened? The author argues that, under the sway of the Enlightenment, truth has actually been unstable and a source of contention in public life ever since the founding moment for modern democracies in (...) the late eighteenth century; the ‘post’ in ‘post-truth’ elides this complex history even as it accurately describes some of the conditions of our moment. What that means, though, is that rather than attempt to turn the clock back to past models and practices for restoring the reign of truth, we should be looking for new, post-Enlightenment paradigms for how to define and locate truth in the context of democracy, as well as new mechanisms for making this possible. (shrink)

Inspired by Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, many East Asian ethical leaders have aspired to emulate seemingly unattainable sages and buddhas throughout history. This aspiration challenges the common psychological view that significant gaps between role models and actual selves might hinder emulation motivation. It also differs from Western findings, which suggest that ethical leadership often emerges from emulating attainable exemplars like immediate supervisors or mentors. To decipher this intriguing emulation behavior in East Asia, this study employed a multiple-case approach involving 25 (...) ethical leaders from Taiwan. Results indicate that these ethical leaders formulate three approaches to sustain emulation motivation for seemingly unattainable exemplars. First, they draw on East Asian philosophies to address demotivating factors such as ego threats and goal unattainability. Second, they embrace the cultural values of the Sinosphere, amplifying motivators like self-betterment, altruism, and life purpose. Lastly, they capitalize on the collective tendency of their culture to assimilate positive environmental influences, including societal norms and social support. These findings elucidate how and why many East Asian ethical leaders sustain buddha/sage emulation: The cultural resources of the Sinosphere nurture effective psychological strategies, underpinned by universal psychological mechanisms that suggest wider applicability across various societies. (shrink)

Al-Ghazālī and the Idea of Moral Beauty rethinks the relationship between the good and the beautiful by considering the work of eleventh-century Muslim theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. A giant of Islamic intellectual history, al-Ghazālī is celebrated for his achievements in a wide range of disciplines. One of his greatest intellectual contributions lies in the sphere of ethics, where he presided over an ambitious attempt to integrate philosophical and scriptural ideas into a seamless ethical vision. The connection between ethics and aesthetics (...) turns out to be a signature feature of this account. Virtue is one of the forms of beauty, and human beings are naturally disposed to respond to it with love. The universal human response to beauty in turn provides the central paradigm for thinking about the love commanded by God. While al-Ghazālī's account of divine love has received ample attention, his special way of drawing the good into relation with the beautiful has oddly escaped remark. In this book Sophia Vasalou addresses this gap by offering a philosophical and contextual study of this aspect of al-Ghazālī's ethics and of the conception of moral beauty that emerges from it. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in Islamic ethics, Islamic intellectual history, and the history of ethics. (shrink)