Adolescent pregnancy results from the complex interaction between various internal and external vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities persist after the infant's birth when the adolescent becomes a parent. Adolescent parents are unfairly stereotyped as unmotivated and incompetent. Some legislations prohibit adolescents from giving consent on the grounds of incompetency. Despite being different, “competency” is frequently used interchangeably with “capacity”; thus, incompetent individuals are often mistaken to lack capacity. Consequently, legally incompetent adolescents who became parents are frequently disregarded during their infant's decision-making process. (...) This article discusses the distinction between the competence and capacity of adolescent parents, the various vulnerabilities that contribute to an adolescent's incompetency, and advocates respect for the adolescent's capacity in making decisions for her infant. We propose a workflow for obtaining informed consent for infants born to adolescents ethically guided by the respect for individuals principle while staying within the country's legal framework. (shrink)

For over 100 years, the field of contemporary public health has existed to improve the health of communities and populations. As public health practitioners conduct their work – be it focused on preventing transmission of infectious diseases, or prevention of injury, or prevention of and cures for chronic conditions – ethical dimensions arise. Borrowing heavily from the ethical tools developed for research ethics and bioethics, the nascent field of public health ethics soon began to feel the limits of the (...) clinical model and began creating different frameworks to guide its ethical challenges. Several public health ethics frameworks have been introduced since the late 1990s, ranging from extensions of principle-based models to human rights and social justice perspectives to those based on political philosophy. None has coalesced as the framework of choice in the discipline of public health. This paper examines several of the most-known frameworks of public health ethics for their common theoretical underpinnings and values, and suggests next steps toward the formulation of a single framework. (shrink)

Twentieth-century political philosopher Eric Voegelin is best known as a severe critic of modernity. Much of his work argues that modernity is a Gnostic revolt against the fundamental structure of reality. For Voegelin, “Gnosticism” is the belief that human beings can transform the nature of reality through secret knowledge and social action, and he considered it the crux of the crisis of modernity. As Voegelin struggled with this crisis throughout his career, he never wavered in his judgment that philosophers of (...) the modern continental tradition were complicit in the Gnostic revolt of modernity. But while Voegelin’s analysis of those philosophers is at times scathing, his work also bears marks of their influence, and Voegelin has much more in common with the theorists of the modern continental tradition than is usually recognized. _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought _evaluates this political philosopher—one of the most original and influential thinkers of our time—by examining his relationship to the modern continental tradition in philosophy, from Kant to Derrida. In a compelling introduction, editors Lee Trepanier and Steven F. McGuire present a review of the trajectories of Voegelin’s thought and outline what often is portrayed as his derisive critique of modernity. Soon, however, they begin to unravel the similarities between Voegelin’s thought and the work of other thinkers in the continental tradition. The subsequent chapters explore these possible connections by examining Voegelin’s intellectual relationship to individual thinkers, including Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The essays in this volume go beyond Voegelin’s own reading of the modern philosophers to offer a reevaluation of his relationship to those thinkers. In _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition_, Voegelin’s attempt to grapple with the crisis of modernity becomes clearer, and his contribution to the modern continental tradition is illuminated. The book features the work of both established and emerging Voegelin scholars, and the essays were chosen to present thoughtful and balanced assessments of both Voegelin’s thought and the ideas of the other thinkers considered. As the first volume to examine the relationship—and surprising commonalities—between Voegelin’s philosophy and the continental tradition as a whole, this text will be of interest not only to Voegelin disciples but to philosophers engaged by continental modernism and all disciplines of political philosophy. (shrink)

Marx holds that mankind has developed from nature and in mutual interaction with nature: nature is not an “other” but is man’s body. Capitalism is a necessary stage in mankind’s historical development of the mastery of nature, but it regards nature as an “other” to be exploited. Thus, a further historical development is necessary: the overcoming of the dichotomy between man as subject and nature as object.Capitalism bases its concept of wealth on unnecessary production rather than on socially useful production (...) and on the maximization of true leisure and free and creative activity for all. It creates excess pollution and depletes nonrenewable resources as a result of this wasteful, exploitative, unnecessary production. A Marxian solution to environmental problems involves the replacement of capitalism with a rational humane, environmentally unalienated social order. Unfortunately, the actual practice of Marxism has not generally been in accord with its own theory. Such rational, humane social orders have not yet been instituted, but they must be soon. We must take one aspect of Marx’s ideas to its logical conclusion: Marxist practice has been, at best, homocentric, but now it must overcome that limitation and truly see nature as our “body.” Marxism must become ecologically aware; mankind must become the steward of its “body”: the ecosystem upon which it depends and which now depends upon it for its health (homeostasis). (shrink)

This article has the purpose of examining the commentation that Sung-ho Yi Ik and Da-san Jung Yak-yong developed of Sa-chil Debate (사칠논쟁) Which was a philosophical debate in Chosun Dynasty. Sa-chil Debate began from Toe-gye Yi Whang and Ko-bong Gi Dae-sung and soon as a result of Yul-gok Yi Yi and Woo-gae Sung Hon repeating the debate, It appeared as a kind of philosophical theme. After that, Yul-gok and Toe-gye's students formed a kind of school. They also made the (...) debate extended and the theory more sophisticated by criticizing a counterpart's argument on base of ideologizing their teacher's theory. About 200 years after Toe-gye died, Sung-ho Yi Ik was born and after about 250 years, Da-san Jung Yak-yong was born. Both they experienced a western naturalscience and a catholic theory as Silhak Scholars (실학자). Therefore their this kind of interpretation about Sung-li Debate must be offering a deeply interesting investigation to us. In conclusion, Sung-ho advocated Toe-gye's theory at all, adding more explanation to it and Da-san evaluated all of Toe-gye's and Yul-gok's theory to be right because their theories have a unique logicality of making a sense. Sung-ho stood on a Shilhak view point gave up a organic cosmology ofSung-li theory which has a continuity to cosmology and moral theory, arguing Sa-chil-Li bal-Yil-lo Theory (四七理發一路說) by understanding Sa-chil Debate based on only moral perspective. Even though Da-san also said Yang-si Theory (兩是論) that both their theories are all right, he argued that Toe-gye's theory is much more important in the aspect of moral practice owing to his religious opinion by a catholic affect. By the way, Sung-ho supplemented and explained Toe-gye's theory, but he had not a sufficient logic and was not objective because of his leaning into advocating Toe-gye's theory much further. Da-san had an advantage of evaluating both Toe-gye's and Yul-gok's theory to be all right, but came to argue an insufficient philosophy on account of its simplicity. (shrink)

The advent of AI has ushered into public consciousness the question whether the moment of technological singularity—when computational intelligence will surpass humanity’s—is soon upon us. But even...

This study explores the potential of contemporary large language models (LLMs) to achieve Gilles Deleuze’s goal of integrating art into daily life. Deleuze’s philosophy, with its focus on creative repetition, finds a parallel in LLMs, which replicate and innovate artistic styles by transforming text prompts into various artistic expressions. Although LLMs can very effectively blend and mimic these styles, they remain mere tools – as suggested by the metaphor of a stochastic parrot; the true creative force remains the human artist. (...) Currently, these models are experimental, and their artistic outputs, while impressive, are still viewed as pastiches rather than genuine art. Nonetheless, we can expect advances that may soon enable artists to use LLMs to create genuine artworks. (shrink)

From the time of the earliest self-conscious emergence of modern painting around 1905, there have not been widely accepted criteria by which to judge the artistic significance and value of the abstract and nonobjective styles that displaced the traditions of representational art. This circumstance has made the education of artists problematic. For the arts of literature and music, modernism was a relatively short-lived phase of innovation and experimentation that was played out in works that defied easy appreciation. The attention of (...) readers was soon exhausted by literary works such as James Joyce’s Ulysses, as was the attention of listeners exhausted by Arnold Schoenberg’s serialism. Authors returned to writing... (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

1. Introduction. The germ of the clock paradox was contained in Einstein's fundamental paper on the special theory of relativity, where he declares that the retardation of a moving clock “still holds good if the clock moves from A to B in any polygonal line, and also when the points A and B coincide.” This remark soon gave rise to a criticism which was to play a prominent role in the discussions of the consistency of the theory of relativity. (...) It was charged that this theory allows the paradoxical conclusion that at the instant of the return of a moving clock U1 to its point of departure A, the time shown by Ul is both earlier and later than the corresponding reading of a clock U2 which has remained stationary at A during U1's journey. Critics based this contention on the following assumptions, for which they claimed the sanction of relativity: The relative motion of U1 and U2 is such that the kinematic process seen by an observer on one of these clocks is of the same character as that seen by an observer on the other, and this symmetry allows each of these two clocks to be used as a reference frame from which to describe the motion of the other, and there is reciprocity between these two reference frames such that in each of them, the moving clock must be slow upon returning to the stationary one. (shrink)

The standard semantics for counterfactuals ensures that any counterfactual with a true antecedent and true consequent is itself true. There have been many recent attempts to amend the standard semantics to avoid this result. I show that these proposals invalidate a number of further principles of the standard logic of counterfactuals. The case against the automatic truth of counterfactuals with true components does not extend to these further principles, however, so it is not clear that rejecting the latter should be (...) a consequence of rejecting the former. Instead I consider how one might defuse putative counterexamples to the truth of true-true counterfactuals. (shrink)

This paper contributes to biodiversity and species extinction literature by examining the relationship between corporate accountability in terms of species protection and factors affecting such accountability from forward-thinking companies. We use triangulation of theories, namely deep ecology, legitimacy, and we introduce a new perspective to the stakeholder theory that considers species as a ‘stakeholder’. Using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood regression, we examine a sample of 200 Fortune Global companies over 3 years. Our results indicate significant positive relations between ecologically conscious companies (...) that are accountable for the protection of biodiversity and species extinction and external assurance, environmental performance, partnerships with socially responsible organizations and awards for sustainable activities. Our empirical results appear to be robust in controlling for possible endogeneities. Our findings contribute to the discussion on the concern of species loss and habitat destruction in the context of corporate accountability, especially in responding to the sixth mass extinction event and COVID-19 crisis. Our results can also guide the policymakers and stakeholders of the financial market in better decision making. (shrink)

Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna’s The Mind-Body Politic sets out to combine both the philosophy of essentially embodied cognition (EEM) and emancipatory political theory to put forth a “new critique of contemporary social institutions.” There remains, however, an explanatory gap between the general, normative foundations of their approach in EEM, and the particular critiques of neoliberalism and the alternative presented. This paper explores an alternative totalitarian pathway (as understood by Arendt) that such general EEM normativity might lead us, as a (...) friendly invitation for further elaboration on the normative basis of MBP’s critiques of—and proposed alternative to—neoliberal institutions. (shrink)

These are carefully placed in the context of Chinese society, demonstrating how Confucius responded to the conflicts and pressures of his time and offered ...

Throughout history, humans have always indulged in certain irrationalities and held some fairly wrong-headed beliefs. But in his newest book, philosopher Lee McIntyre shows how we've now reached a watershed moment for ignorance in the modern era, due to the volume of misinformation, the speed with which it can be digitally disseminated, and the savvy exploitation of our cognitive weaknesses by those who wish to advance their ideological agendas. In _Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age_, McIntyre issues a (...) call to fight back against this slide into the witless abyss. In the tradition of Galileo, the author champions the importance of using tested scientific methods for arriving at true beliefs, and shows how our future survival is dependent on a more widespread, reasonable world. (shrink)

Totalitarianism is perhaps unanimously regarded as one of the greatest political evils of the last century and has been the grounds for much of Anglo-American political theory since. Confucianism, meanwhile, has been gaining credibility in the past decades among sympathizers of democratic theory in spite of criticisms of it being anti-democratic or authoritarian. I consider how certain key concepts in the classical Confucian texts of the Mencius and the Xunzi might or might not be appropriated for ‘legitimising’ totalitarian regimes. Under (...) an Arendtian approach to understanding totalitarianism, it is precisely an unproblematised relation to a normative History and Nature that underlies the potential compatibility or incompatibility. I argue against a longstanding prejudice that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it would have to be Xunzian. Against this, I hope to show that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it might well be a naturalistic Mencian Confucianism instead of a constructivist Xunzian one. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper considers the question of whether journalism can be considered to be a social practice. After considering some of the goods of journalism the paper moves to investigate how external goods can corrupt the practice and make it somewhat ineffective. The paper therefore looks to consider ways in which the goods claimed have been better served in ‘radical’ journalism. Bristol Independent Media Centre is then evaluated as an example of an active project in which the goods of community are (...) pursued through an inclusive form of participatory journalism. (shrink)

The emphasis on evidence based medicine (EBM) has placed increased focus on finding timely answers to clinical questions in presence of patients. Using a combination of natural language processing for the generation of clinical excerpts and information theoretic distance based clustering, we evaluated multiple approaches for the efficient presentation of context-sensitive EBM excerpts.

The scholar Jin Tian-zhu (1690 ~ 1765) was a Muslim of the Hui 回 ethnic group in the Qing dynasty who adhered to Islamic traditions handed down from generation to generation. In Qing Zhen Shi Yi, Jin Tian-zhu attempts to combine Confucianism and Islam through a simple comparison of their rituals. Jin Tian-zhu expresses his respect for Allah by attesting Allah’s existence and insisting that humans should obey Allah. He admits that in reality, besides Allah, the ruler is also clearly (...) an object of loyalty. In addition, he asserts that it is basic propriety for Muslims to be filial to their parents and that the scope of practice of filial piety must also apply to their ancestors beyond their parents. Jin Tian-zhu further expands his view of zhongxiao 忠孝 by asserting that the ultimate Muslim interest is in renlun 人倫, which he believes must be rectified. (shrink)

In a number of papers, Sydney Shoemaker has argued that first-order belief plus rationality implies second-order belief. This paper is a critical discussion of Shoemaker's argument.

This paper focuses on an early Chinese conception of genealogical argumentation in the late Warring States text Han Feizi and a possible response it has to the problem of genealogical self-defeat as identified by Amia Srinivasan —i.e., the genealogist cannot seem to support their argument with premises their interlocutor or they themselves can accept, given their own argument. The paper offers a reading of Han Fei’s genealogical method that traces back to the meditative practice of an earlier Daoist text the (...) Zhuangzi and its communicative strategy, providing a conception of genealogy aimed at undoing fixations on political systems in order to bring about a more adaptive state—specifically, genealogy that does not require epistemological commitment to its premises. (shrink)

Han Feizi’s criticisms of Confucian and Mohist political recommendations are often thought to involve materialist or historicist arguments, independently of their epistemological features. Drawing largely on Amia Srinivasan’s recent taxonomy of genealogical arguments, this paper proposes a genealogical reading of passages in “The Five Vermin [五蠹 wudu]” and “Eminence in Learning [顯學 xianxue].” This reveals Han Feizi’s arguments to be more comprehensively appreciated as problematizing Confucian and Mohist political judgments as arising from undermining contingencies, rendering them irrelevant, if not detrimental, (...) to any lasting excellence of a state. In doing this, it is also suggested that there is a ‘master argument’ underlying Han Feizi’s criticisms, according to which the epistemology of the Confucians and Mohists are fundamentally unreliable. (shrink)

False consciousness requires a general explanation for why, and how, oppressed individuals believe propositions against, as opposed to aligned with, their own well-being in virtue of their oppressed status. This involves four explanatory desiderata: belief acquisition, content prevalence, limitation, and systematicity. A social constructionist approach satisfies these by understanding the concept of false consciousness as regulating social research rather than as determining the exact mechanisms for all instances: the concept attunes us to a complex of mechanisms conducing oppressed individuals to (...) mistake social understandings of themselves as natural self-understandings—the limits lie where these overlap (sometimes), or are entirely absent. (shrink)

Shun Kwong-loi argues that the distinction between first- and third-person points of view does not play as explanatory a role in our moral psychology as has been supposed by contemporary philosophical discussions. He draws insightfully from the Confucian tradition to better elucidate our everyday experiences of moral emotions, arguing that it offers an alternative and more faithful perspective on our experiences of anger and compassion. However, unlike the distinction between first- and third-person points of view, Shun’s descriptions of anger and (...) compassion leave unarticulated what would be necessary to differentiate these responses from non-moral responses. Here, I make a friendly suggestion on how this explanatory gap might be filled, providing complementary grounding for Shun’s observations by way of K. C. Bhattacharyya’s phenomenological analysis of feeling. It fills the gap by means of a gradation in the possible depth of emotional responses found in the a priori structure of a feeling experience for any subject. The payoff of such a comparison between Shun’s explication of Confucian moral psychology and Bhattacharyya’s explication of rasa theory is not only a possible phenomenological grounding for the former but also a potential way to articulate a missing ethics in Bhattacharyya’s thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:EXISTENTIAL PROPOSITIONS IN THE THOUGHT OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS A REVALENT VIEW of St. Thomas Aquinas's position on the logic of propositions has been that according to him propositions of the :form, x is, hold a privileged place, that they are in a special sense " existential," and that such propositions straight.forwardly attribute the act of exi,stence to an individual or to a class of individuals.1 Some texts seem (...) to support such an interpretation. For example, in his commentary on Aristotle's Perihermeneias, Aquinas says: " To clarify this we must note that the verb 'is ' itself is sometimes predicated in an enunciation, as in ' Socrates is.' By this we intend to signify that Socrates really is." 2 This passage seems to treat the predicate " exists " or " is " as unproblematical, as though it had a straightforward meaning needing little clarification, at least in the context of a logical treatise. On the basis of such a text, one may be tempted to infer that for Aquinas " Socrates exists " has the same logical form as " Socrates sits," and that " Men exist " is of the same form as " Men are mortal.'' Peter Geach has shown, however, that Aquinas's doctrine here is not as simple as it may first appear. For Aquin,as some of the propositions which have the grammatical form of x is have 'a different logical form.3 Geach points out that for Aquinas the sentence, "Blindness exists," for example, actual1 E.g., Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952), 190-215. 2 Super Peri, Bk. II, lect. 2, # 212. Cf. Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. II, ch. 37 at "FJ11J hoc..•." a Peter Geach, in P. T. Geach and G. E. M. Anscombe, Three Philosophers (New York: Cornell University, 1961), 88 ff; Peter Geach, "Form and Existence," in Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. A. Kenny (New York: Notre Dame U., 1969), pp. 41-47. 605 606 PATRICK LEE ly means, Something or other is blind. That is, blind is the real predicate rather than exists. Mo11eover, Geach argues, the logical peculiarity of this sentence is equally found in any sentence of the form, "an F exists." Such a proposition, " does not,attribute actuality (existence) to an F, but F-ness to something or other..." 4 And yet Geach will not apply rthis interpretation to all sentences of the form, " x is." He al'lgues that sentences in which " is " or " exists " is. joined to a logically pl'oper name are in a different category. Unlike in general propositions such as "an F exists," in such singular propositions, those using logically proper names, Geach,argues, actual existence is attributed to or predicated of an individual. "We have here a sense of 'is ' or 'exists ' that seems to me to be certainly a genuine predicate of individuals: the sense of ' exists ' in which one says that an individual came to exist, still exists, no longer exists, etc...."5 I believe that, while Geach's position is more accurate than the first interpretation, mentioned above, it is nevertheless still inaccurate on certain key points. While it is misleading to say that for Aquinas exists is never a genuine predicate; nevertheless, I will argue that it is his position that exists or existence is not a genuine predicate in any proposition which does not refer back to a previous proposition (or to what is known in or by previous propositional knowledge). Let us crull a proposition which refers to something known in a previous proposition a " second-order p11oposition," and one that does not thus refer a " first-order proposition." Then, I shall argue that for Aquinas exists is not a genuine predicate in any first-order proposition. Moreover, I believe that these points are crucial to understanding Aquinas's position on existence as well as his position on how knowledge is related,to reality, i.e., his realism. In this article I would like to examine Aquinas's thought on the logic of existential propositions and discuss its significance for epistemology. 4 Geach, " Form and Existence," Zoo. int., p. 45. 5 Ibid., p. 46. EXISTENTIAL PROPOSITIONS IN AQUINAS 607 In sections... (shrink)

What are the prospects for a linguistic approach to ontology? Given that it seems that there are true subject-predicate sentences containing empty names, traditional linguistic approaches to ontology appear to be flawed. I argue that in order to determine what there is, we need to determine which sentences ascribe properties (and relations) to objects, and that there does not appear to be any formal criterion for this. This view is then committed to giving an account of what predicates do in (...) sentences when they do not ascribe properties. I sketch an approach to the varieties of predication. (shrink)

Dorothy Edgington’s work has been at the centre of a range of ongoing debates in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and epistemology. This work has focused, although by no means exclusively, on the overlapping areas of conditionals, probability, and paradox. In what follows, I briefly sketch some themes from these three areas relevant to Dorothy’s work, highlighting how some of Dorothy’s work and some of the contributions of this volume fit in to these debates.

L’objectif de cet article est de proposer une analyse de deux conceptions distinctes de la causalité chez Spinoza. Selon la première la nature-dieu serait la cause directe de toute action qui a lieu au niveau des choses finies; tandis que, selon la seconde toute action finie ferait partie d’une chaîne infinie de causes qui est répandue dans la durée. Je montre que cette causalité-ci n’est ni illusoire ni simplement derivative, contre les suggestions de plusieurs travaux récents sur Spinoza. En deuxième (...) lieu nous proposons un modèle pour la causalité consécutive qui assure la possibilité que les êtres finis puissent fonctionner comme des causes adéquates au sens spinoziste dans le champ physique. Ici l’analyse s’oppose à plusieurs chercheurs qui soutiennent qu’il existe une rupture entre les attributs de la pensée et de l’étendue dans le système spinoziste.This study addresses the problem of analyzing two distinct conceptions of causality in Spinoza. According to the first god-nature is the direct cause of every action which occurs at the level of finite things; while, according to the second , every finite action would be part of an infinite chain of causes extended into duration. I show that sequential causality is neither illusory nor simply derivative, contrary to the suggestions made by several recent studies of Spinoza. Secondly, I offer a model for sequential causality which assures the possibility that finite beings may function as adequate causes within the physical field. Here my analysis is opposed to those commentators who argue for a rupture in Spinoza between the attributes of thought and extension. (shrink)

Using a base of philosophical athropology, this article suggests that an ethical analysis of persuasion must include not just the logic human response, but culture and experience as well. The authors propose potential maxims for ethical behavior in advertising and public relations and applies them to two case studies, political advertising and the Bridgestone/Firestone controversy.

This paper presents a novel approach to teaching critical thinking. The approach centers around developing the student’s ability to engage in analytic reasoning. By “analytic” in the previous sentence I mean reasoning about analyticity, i.e., coming to know truths about analytic propositions as opposed to synthetic propositions. I consider the ability to engage in this kind of reasoning to be what some philosophers call “conceptual competence”. I argue that focusing on conceptual competence in critical thinking courses benefits philosophy departments in (...) two ways. First, focusing on conceptual competence distinguishes the content of a critical thinking course from, say, courses on logic or probability/statistics. Second, conceptual competence is a skill that is unique to philosophy. I argue that it is also a fundamentally important skill for all students. Thus, teaching critical thinking as conceptual competence can situate philosophy at the center of any school’s general education plan. (shrink)

Ethnography of Singapore Chinese Names: Race, Religion, and Representation Singapore Chinese is part of the Chinese Diaspora. This research shows how Singapore Chinese names reflect the Chinese naming tradition of surnames and generation names, as well as Straits Chinese influence. The names also reflect the beliefs and religion of Singapore Chinese. More significantly, a change of identity and representation is reflected in the names of earlier settlers and Singapore Chinese today. This paper aims to show the general naming traditions of (...) Chinese in Singapore as well as a change in ideology and trends due to globalization. (shrink)