In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.3 (2000) 193-220 [Access article in PDF] Unveiling Esther as a Pragmatic Radical Rhetoric Susan Zaeske Ahasuerus, king of Persia, hosted in the courtyard of his pavilion a grand feast bountiful in royal wine. Likewise, Queen Vashti gave a feast for the women in the king's palace. On the last day of the celebration, an inebriated Ahasuerus commanded Vashti to appear wearing her crown (...) (only her crown, according to some interpretations 1 ) to show the people her beauty. She refused. Burning with anger, Ahasuerus consulted his advisors with regard to how he should respond to the affront. They concluded that not just the king, but all husbands of the kingdom had been wronged. They advised the king to depose Vashti and issue a law commanding all wives to obey their husbands. Following this advice, Ahasuerus uncrowned Vashti and selected as his new queen the beautiful Esther, who hid the fact that she was a Jew.Esther had been raised in the provinces by her cousin, Mordecai, 2 who came with her to the king's city. One day when Mordecai encountered the king's prime minister, Haman, he refused to obey the law commanding all to bow before the king's official because Haman was an infamous enemy of the Jews. Haman was so angered by Mordecai's insolence that he decided to seek revenge by destroying not just Mordecai, but all the Jews in the kingdom. After casting lots to determine the best time to approach the king, Haman obtained Ahasuerus's permission to annihilate the Jews.When he learned of the imminent execution, Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes and made his way through the streets of Susa, wailing. Through a messenger, Mordecai bid Esther to intercede with the king on behalf of her people. She protested that doing so would be a dangerous act because approaching the king without summons was an offense punishable by death. Reminded by Mordecai that inaction on her part meant death for her people, and possibly herself, Esther resolved to beseech the king. She commanded Mordecai to gather all the Jews in the city to fast and pray for her for three days. Then, Esther pledged, "I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!" (Esther 4:16). [End Page 193]On the third day, Esther stood waiting in the inner courtyard of the palace, in front of the king's quarters, where he was sitting on his throne. When Ahasuerus noticed the queen, she won his favor and he extended his gold scepter. The king then said to her, "What do you want Queen Esther? What is your petition? Even if it be half of my kingdom, you may have it"(Esther 5:3). Esther did not immediately state her request, but invited the king and Haman to a banquet she would prepare for them. At the banquet, the king again invited her request. Again, she deferred, instead asking both men to another banquet.During the night between banquets, the king suffered a bout of insomnia and ordered the book of records brought to him. Ahasuerus read that Mordecai the Jew had saved his life by informing the king's guards of an assassination plot. The next day, the king asked Haman how best to honor a man for his loyalty. Thinking that Ahasuerus wished to honor him, Haman suggested that such a man should be paraded through the streets on a fine horse. To Haman's horror, he was ordered to lead a celebratory parade for his worst enemy, Mordecai.Haman was so distraught that he was almost late for the second banquet in the queen's chambers. Once all were assembled, the king repeated his offer to receive Esther's petition. She answered, "If I have obtained your favor, Your Majesty and if it please the king, let my life be granted to me at my request. And my people's at my petition! For we've been sold, I and my people, for destruction! For slaughter and annihilation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.3 (2000) v-vii [Access article in PDF] On Feminizing the Philosophy of Rhetoric Molly Meijer Wertheimer When asked to define his editorial policies in choosing articles to publish in Philosophy and Rhetoric, Henry W. Johnstone Jr. disavowed following any strict editorial guidelines; instead, he gave two examples to show how selection worked as a process. In one case, he agreed to publish an "off the wall (...) article" by a distinguished classicist; in another, he accepted an unusually long article--a "behemoth"--by an eminent rhetorician. These examples demonstrate what was to me one of Henry's most unusual and endearing traits as an editor and scholar: he was willing always to go wherever the argument led. It was probably in this spirit that he agreed to publish a special issue on "Feminizing the Philosophy of Rhetoric." I want to thank him posthumously for that decision. As "guest editor" of the issue, I feel privileged to present four well-written essays and two reviews that lead the readers of Philosophy and Rhetoric to consider some philosophical issues that emerge when we overlap concepts of "gender," "culture," and "rhetoric."The essays in this issue explore tactics women have used to get their messages across to others who would not--even could not--entertain speech seriously if presented by a woman. In the first essay, "Unveiling Esther as a Pragmatic Radical Rhetoric," Susan Zaeske reads the Book of Esther as a rhetorical manual of exile and empowerment. She traces features of the narrative that were useful as a model of rhetorical behavior early on, as well as appropriations that were made throughout the Middle Ages, Antebellum South, and even in our own day. Her essay emphasizes the riskiness to the speaker that is often entailed by the act of speaking, especially when the listener is "all-powerful" (199); when "his decisions are based not on careful deliberation, but on who influences him the most, usually by prodding his sense of power and manliness" (200). In the narrative, the speaker, Queen Esther, is depicted as utterly thoughtful, careful, well planned and well timed. She seems very much in control of an "indirect" rhetoric. Says Zaeske, "[T]he book teaches that direct, resistant rhetoric is ineffective, even dangerous, while clever, indirect, noncon- frontational methods will succeed in gaining the desired end--power" (202). [End Page v] This is a "conciliatory strategy wise women are forced to use in the patriarchal world" (qtd. on p. 202). And this kind of strategy is contrasted to the defiant rhetoric of Vashti, the former queen, Esther's predecessor, who was banished for saying no to one of the king's commands. Silence and supplication, according to Zaeske, when adopted self-consciously as strategies, are effective with hostile, neanderthal-type auditors. They are "radical," at least in the sense that they are "extreme."Nan Johnson, in her essay "Reigning in the Court of Silence: Women and Rhetorical Space in Postbellum America," furthers discussion of women's rhetorical options. In Zaeske's essay, women assume positions of supplicants or petitioners, or they stand defiant in the face of an oppressive listener (the king). The former are idolized; the latter are demonized. Centuries later, in the fifty years following the Civil War, similar representations of women appeared in conduct literature. Johnson describes a media blitz of ideas and images in etiquette and other self-help manuals that sought to define rhetorical behaviors and actions appropriate for men and women. Some of the writings idolized the "quiet woman" of the home, who reigned silently as queen stitching together via indirection a rhetoric of nurturance that moved beyond the home only through the actions of husbands and sons. This kind of rhetoric was viewed as a natural consequence of femininity. Other writings demonized the woman who spoke from the public platform as a teacher, preacher, and advocate, and who needed a rhetorical education to do so effectively. Many writings highlighted the negative consequences of rhetorical experience to women (who risked their femininity and the love of their families) and to their families (who risked the true source of... (shrink)

Organizations are increasingly embedded with consultants and other non-employees who have the opportunity to engage in wrongdoing. However, research exploring the reporting intentions of employees regarding the discovery of wrongdoing by consultants is scant. It is important to examine reporting intentions in this setting given the enhanced presence of consultants in organizations and the fact that wrongdoing by consultants changes a key characteristic of the wrongdoing. Using an experimental approach, the current paper reports the results of a study examining employees' (...) reporting intentions subsequent to their discovery of wrongdoing by a consultant. The results of the study indicate that perceptions about the seriousness of a wrongdoing, personal costs and personal responsibility related to reporting a wrongdoing, and moral-equity judgments are significantly associated with reporting intentions for a normal reporting channel. Only perceptions of seriousness and personal costs are significantly associated for an anonymous reporting channel. Lastly, while personal costs for the anonymous reporting channel were lower than the normal reporting channel, reporting intentions were similar across the two channels. (shrink)

Background Dynamic consent has been proposed as a process through which participants and patients can gain more control over how their data and samples, donated for biomedical research, are used, resulting in greater trust in researchers. It is also a way to respond to evolving data protection frameworks and new legislation. Others argue that the broad consent currently used in biobank research is ethically robust. Little empirical research with cohort study participants has been published. This research investigated the participants’ opinions (...) of adding a dynamic consent interface to their existing study. Methods Adult participants in the Extended Cohort for E-health, Environment and DNA longitudinal cohort study who are members of the EXCEED Public and Participant Engagement Group were recruited. Four focus groups were conducted and analysed for thematic content. Discussion topics were derived from a review of the current literature on dynamic consent. Results Participants were in favour of many aspects of a dynamic consent interface, such as being able to update their information, add additional data to their records and choose withdrawal options. They were supportive provided it was simple to use and not intrusive. Participants expressed a markedly high level of trust in the study and its investigators and were unanimously happy with their current participation. No strong support was found for adding a dynamic consent interface to EXCEED. Conclusions Trust in the study researchers was the strongest theme found. Openness and good data security were needed to retain their trust. While happy to discuss dynamic consent, participants were satisfied with the current study arrangements. There were indications that changing the study might unnecessarily disturb their trust. This raised the question of whether there are contexts where dynamic consent is more appropriate than others. This study was limited by the small number of participants who were committed to the study and biased towards it. More research is needed to fully understand the potential impact of adding a dynamic consent interface to an existing cohort study. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 247-279.

Confessional modes of self-representation have become crucial in feminist epistemologies that broaden and contextualize the location and production of knowledge. In some versions of confessional feminism, the insertion of “I” is reflective, the product of an uncomplicated notion of experience that shuttles into academic discourse apersonal truth. In contrast to reflective intrusions of the first person, reflexive confessing is primarily a questioning mode that imposes self-vigilance on the process of self positioning.

Catharine MacKinnon's investigation of the role of sexuality in the subordination of women is a logical culmination of radical feminist thought. If this is correct, the position of her work relative to radical feminism is analogous to the place Parmenides's work occupied in ancient Greek philosophy. Critics of MacKinnon's work have missed their target completely and must engage her work in a different way if feminist theory is to progress past its current stalemated malaise.

Language is the species-specific human version of the animal system of communication. In contrast to non-human animals, language enables humans to invent a plurality of possible worlds; reflect upon signs; be responsible for our actions; gain conscious awareness of our inevitable mutual involvement in the network of life on this planet; and be responsibly involved in the destiny of the planet. The author looks at semiotics, the study of signs, symbols, and communication as developing sequentially rather than successively, more synchronically (...) than diachronically. She discusses the contemporary phenomenon that people in today's society have witnessed and participated in, as part of the development of semiotics. Although there is a long history preceding semiotics, in a sense the field is, as a phenomenon, more "of our time" than of any time past. Its leading figures, whom Petrilli examines, belong to the twentieth and twenty-first century. Semiotics is associated with a capacity for listening. This capacity is also the condition for reconnecting to and recovering the ancient vocation of semiotics as that branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs or symptoms. The pragmatic aspect of global semiotics studies the impact of language or signs on those who use them, and looks for consequences in actual practice. In this respect, Petrilli theorizes that the task for semiotics in the era of globalization is nothing less than to take responsibility for life in its totality. (shrink)

While primary malignant brain tumors account for only two percent of all adult cancers, these neoplasms cause a disproportionate amount of cancer-related disabilities and death. The five-year survival rates for brain tumors are the third lowest among all types of cancer. Malignant gliomas comprise the most common types of primary central nervous system tumors and have a combined incidence of five to eight cases per 100,000 people. The median survival rate of conservatively treated patients with malignant gliomas is 14 weeks; (...) with surgical resection alone, 20 weeks; with surgery and radiation, 36 weeks; and with the addition of newer biochemotherapies such as temozolomide and bevacizumab, upward of 14-18 months.The profound cost of caring for terminally ill patients with primary malignant brain tumors raises ethical considerations for the American public; the stewardship of health care dollars for the population at large maintains a juxtaposed tension against a dynamic, necessary balance of hope, care, rehabilitation and research efforts for affected patients and their advocates. (shrink)

Evidence is summarised for and against the hypothesis that potentiation or facilitation of neural responses during a train of threshold-level stimuli occurred in the experiments reported by Libet et al. . It is concluded that such potentiation probably did occur. Since the main arguments for the existence of subjective backwards referral take it as given that such potentiation did not occur, it is further concluded that the main arguments for the existence of subjective backwards referral fail.

It was thus the combination of observational and experimental approaches that ultimately led to confirmation of the outgrowth theory. The observational method was essential for defining various possible methods of nerve fiber development. The multicellular, protoplasmic bridge and outgrowth theories were each postulated to explain purely observational evidence. However, the lack of truly suitable equipment and techniques to study the developing nervous system made it impossible to agree on a single theory on this basis alone. The experimental method provided a (...) means of choosing between these theories. Without the preceding observations that had led to the formulation of various hypotheses, however, the experimental approach might not have been so successful, for the power of this method is more of selection than of generation.Therefore it is impossible to weigh separately the contributions of the observational and experimental approaches to the question of nerve fiber development. Both were necessary for the ultimate acceptance of the outgrowth theory. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A8402051 00004. (shrink)

I present a reading of non-action in the Laozi that describes the relation of desire to non-action, the highest form of ethical action. Rather than advocating elimination of desires, or even of “self-oriented” desires, the text recommends simply reducing desires if they impede the quietism that is of primary importance. To defend my interpretation, I demonstrate its agreement with early commentaries on the Laozi.

Susan Sontag’s talk at the UNESCO meeting on which the French edition of Diogëne 201 was based has been replaced in this English edition of Diogenes 201 by extracts from her published work: her article ‘Looking At War’ in The New Yorker (December 2002).

In this article, I explore, through the novels of Elena Ferrante, the role played by the ‘abject’ in mediating ageing in women, focusing on its role in the movement from a disempowered to a more powerful subject position. The article has three sections. The first describes the role of the abject in constituting the feminine, focusing on the place of temporality and ageing in this process. Represented by the symbolic figure of the hag, the old woman is a source of (...) primal fear which forms the foundation of a violently misogynistic gendered (self-)formation. However, following Barbara Creed, there are two representational forms of the hag, that of victim (hag) and that of monster (Hag), which I argue also suggest alternative subjectivities associated with ageing femininity. In the second section, I explore the movement from one form to the other by means of conceptual models drawn from Simone de Beauvoir and Margaret Morganroth Gullette, in which process a battle over the symbolic meaning of abjection is central. Moreover, ageing itself is significant in mediating the shift from an oppressed/fragmented to a powerful/integrated subject position. Whilst the structures of feeling involved in this subjectivity are emergent, fiction and imaginative literature may provide helpful early depictions and in the last section I illustrate the psychosocial domain with material drawn from two early novels by Elena Ferrante. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that stories about difference do not promote critical self and social understanding; rather, on the contrary, it is the way we understand ourselves that makes some stories relevantly different. I discuss the uncritical reception of a story about homosexuality in Cuba, urging attention to generalizations explaining judgments of importance. I suggest that some stories from the South will never be relevant to discussions about human flourishing until we critically examine ideas about freedom and democracy, and (...) their role in national identity, explaining the significance we give, or not, to such stories. (shrink)

Charles Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and Thomas Sebeok all develop original research itineraries around the sign and, despite terminological differences, canbe related with reference to the concept of dialogism and modelling. Jakob von Uexküll’s biosemiosic “functional cycle”, a model for semiosic processes, is alsoimplied in the relation between dialogue and communication.Biological models which describe communication as a self-referential, autopoietic and semiotically closed system (e.g., the models proposed by Maturana,Varela, and Thure von Uexküll) contrast with both the linear (Shannon and Weaver) and (...) the circular (Saussure) paradigms. The theory of autopoietic systems is only incompatible with dialogism if reference is to a linear causal model which describes communication as developing from source to destination, or to the conversation model governed by the turning around together rule. Dialogism understood in biosemiotic terms overlaps with the concepts of interconnectivity,interrelation, intercorporeity and presupposes the otherness relation.As Uexküll says, the relation with the umwelt in nonhuman living beings is stable and concerns the species; on the contrary, in human beings it is, changeableand concerns the single individual, which is at once an advantage and a disadvantage. Thanks to “syntactics”, human beings can construct, deconstruct and reconstruct an infinite number of worlds from a finite number of elements. This distinguishes human beings from other animals and determines their capacity for posing problems and asking questions. The human being not only produces his or her own world, but can also endanger it, and even destroy it to the point of causing the extinction of all other life forms on Earth. The unique capacity for reflection on signs makes human beings responsible for life across the planet, both human and nonhuman. Such reflections shift semiotic research in the direction of semioethics. (shrink)

Through an exacting yet accessible reconstruction of eleven of Freud's essential theoretical writings, Susan Sugarman demonstrates that the traditionally received Freud is the diametric opposite of the one evident in the pages of his own works. Whereas Freud's theory of the mind is typically conceived as a catalogue of uninflected concepts and crude reductionism - for instance that we are nothing but our infantile origins or sexual and aggressive instincts - it emerges here as an organic whole built from (...) first principles and developing in sophistication over time. Sugarman's exciting interpretation, tracking Freud's texts in the order in which he wrote them, grounds his claims in the reasoning that led to them and reveals their real intent. This fresh reading will appeal to specialists and students across a variety of disciplines. (shrink)

According to Bakhtin, the reason that literature is the most ideological of all ideological spheres may be discovered in the structure of genre. He criticizes the formalists for ending their theory with a consideration of genre; genre, he observes, should be the first topic of poetics. The importance of genre lies in its two major capacities: conceptualization and “finalization.” A genre’s conceptualization has both inward and outward focus: the artist does not merely represent reality; he or she must use existing (...) means of representation in tension with the subject at hand. This process is analogous to the dual nature of the utterance, its orientation simultaneously toward its past contexts and its present context. “A particular aspect of reality can only be understood in connection with the particular means of representing it” .Genre’s production of perception is not simply a matter of physical orientation; it is also a matter of ideology: “Every significant genre is a complex system of means and methods for the conscious control and finalization of reality” . According to Bakhtin, nonideological domains are “open work,” not subject to an ultimate closure; but one goal of works of art is precisely to offer closure, a “finalization” that accounts for their ideological power and their capacity to produce consciousness. In the particular finalization of genre, we see a continual tension between tradition and situation.25 As Terry Eagleton suggests in Criticism and Ideology, “A power-loom, for one thing, is not altered by its products…in the way that a literary convention is transformed by what it textually works.”26 Analogously, Bakhtin writes that “the goal of the artistic structure of every historical genre is to merge the distance of space and time with the contemporary by the force of all-penetrating social evaluation” . It is perhaps because of this purported goal that Bakhtin himself seemed to prefer the novel, which he viewed as a meta-genre incorporating at once all domains of ideology and all other literary genres. Finally, we must emphasize that Bakhtin’s model of genre rests upon his insistence that literary evolution is not the result of device reacting against device, as Viktor Shklovsky believed, but rather of ideological, and ultimately socioeconomic, changes. 25. For a discussion of the tension between genre and performance, and between tradition and situation, in folkloric performances, see Hymes, “Folklore’s Nature and the Sun’s Myth,” Journal of American Folklore 88 : 345-69.26. Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology, p. 73. Susan Stewart is associate professor of English at Temple University. She is the author of a book of poetry, Yellow Stars and Ice , and two books of literary theory, Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature and On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, and the Collection. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to determine whether there exists good reason to apply to Rorty the label “deliberative democrat.” There are elements of Rorty’s work that count both for and against applying this label, which I investigate here. I conclude that, if we can conceive of a deliberative democracy that is not informed by a social epistemology that relies on Reason; if we can conceive of a deliberative democracy that has a wider view of reason and of reasons (...) than is traditionally understood, then we can think of Rorty as a deliberativist; perhaps as a virtue deliberativist with an expansive idea of what counts a reason and what counts as a virtue. (shrink)

The random]ized clinical trial is widely accepted as the optimal approach to evaluating the safety and efficacy of medical treatments. Resistance to randomized treatment assignment arises regularly, most commonly in situations where the disease is life-threatening and treatments are either unavailable or unsatisfactory. Historical control designs, in which all participants receive the experimental treatment with results compared to a prior cohort, are advocated by some as more ethical in such circumstances; however, such studies are often highly biased in favor of (...) the new treatment and frequently yield misleading results. Alternative controlled designs motivated by the desire to maximize the number of patients with the treatment ultimately determined to be superior have been proposed, but have been challenged on both methodological and ethical grounds. Debates about appropriate and ethical study designs recurred during the recent Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in West Africa. Despite its devastating nature, the EVD epidemic showed the ongoing necessity of conducting randomized trials to obtain convincing evidence of the safety and efficacy of therapeutic interventions. (shrink)

The Harlem Renaissance espoused the modernist belief in radical new beginnings and the celebration of interventions into old certainties, while resisting the “monologism” of w...

Charles V was a scholarly king who commissioned French versions of ancient & medieval treatises for the express purpose of guiding his government. To translate Aristotle's "Politics" he chose Nicole Oresme, an ingenious philosopher whose aptitude & attitudes made him an effective supporter of the Valois monarchy. Oresme's task was to take his text out of the language of a small but international community of scholars & adapt it to serve the French people, making it accessible to a new & (...) broad audience. Contents: Oresme & his Version of the "Politics"; Oresme & the Commentary Tradition of the "Politics"; Nat. Sovereignty & the Hierarchy of Communities; The Public State & the Common Good; The "Politics," the "Livre de Politiques," & the Church; Aristotle, Oresme, & Gallicanism; Conclusion; & Bibliography. (shrink)

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

Chris Voparil’s Reconstructed Pragmatism provides an opportunity to reconsider existing debates from a new pragmatist vantage point, one that takes seriously Rorty’s contribution to the tradition. In this commentary, I take advantage of this vantage point to briefly reconsider debates about deliberative democracy, including pragmatist contributions to them. Typically, such debates revolve around either the ethical/political constraints or the epistemic benefits of deliberation. Yet Voparil’s redrawn pragmatist map reconfigures the relationship between the ethical/political and epistemic dimensions of communities engaged in (...) democratic deliberation. I use the vantage point made accessible by Voparil’s map to think about how the ethical/political and epistemic are simultaneously instantiated in the creation and expansion of communities, which suggests many existing attempts to justify or explain democratic deliberation are misguided. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 15-30.

In this paper, we reflect upon our experience in Mexico, as weIl as review the literature on reflection developed by adult educators in the United States in order to begin to develop a theory of “relevant retlection” useful for family literacy practitioners. We feel that engaging in relevant reflection can help to empower family literacy practitioners in the United States to work more effectively with participants and help participants think more critically about the meaning of literacy in their lives. It (...) is the participant’s perception of their life-world that we hold to be valid. In the context of family literacy, our initial interest is in promoting the exploration of the educational validity of a certain form of reflection as it relates to learning process and outcomes. Our theory derived from reviewing the literature on reflection and critical reflection is thus stated: When family literacy paticipants are encouraged to reflect upon the relevance of literacy as it relates to their life-world, learning is significantly enhanced. Relevant reflection can be facilitated through engaging participants in reflecting upon the relevance of literacy to their lives, their families, their communities and their livelihoods. Indeed, this can be done individuaIly, in dialogue with another and/or as a group. Family literacy practitioners are provided a framework for facilitating relevant reflection for participants. (shrink)