In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Naturalized Context of Moral Reasoning1Elizabeth BaetenAmerican philosophy of the past century seems to have availed itself of the advances in science primarily under the rubric of philosophy of science, especially using physics as the exemplar of scientific inquiry and almost entirely in service of developing an adequate epistemology (and related logic). Though there has been some philosophical work using biological sciences as areas of inquiry, this is most (...) often a matter of investigating either the logic or content of the life sciences as it relates to that of physics or chemistry; for example, trying to determine the proper method and scope of reduction. Cognitive science has been a fruitful avenue for philosophy of mind, but in most cases the dominant model sees mind as “software” able to be understood independently of the process of evolution that led to the human brain.Very little work (until the past half decade) has used advances in the life sciences as fodder for philosophic speculation in areas such as ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and so on, though some subfields, like medical ethics, provide exceptions. American pragmatic naturalists, on the other hand, from the second half of the ninteenth century into the middle of the twentieth, insisted that the content of the life sciences was essential in understanding human nature. John Dewey, for example, thoroughly incorporated the premise of humans as biological organisms making our way in environments that must be navigated using natural powers and natural solutions to impediments to action. George Herbert Mead provides another example of a fully naturalized conception of human existence, especially as biological organisms in social interaction in various spheres.What I am particularly concerned with here is making sense of the moral sphere with a conception of the human subject as a product of evolution and both socially constituted and uniquely integrated in an environment (more [End Page 63] carefully—a related suite of environments). The beginning point of this re-framing is in Mead’s notion of the social constitution of human being. Most readers of Mead take up such constitution only in the arena of what Mead calls “significant gesture,” using spoken language, especially in propositional form, as exemplary and as providing the foundation for mind, self-consciousness, and so on. But Mead’s concept of sociality is much wider in scope than this; the concept is fundamental to his cosmology. Furthermore, Mead’s notion of sociality is closely linked to his claim that the emergence of true novelty is possible in a fully naturalized cosmos.Without exploring in greater depth Mead’s contribution to thinking about sociality as a precondition for the most fundamental natural processes,2 I would like to use a broadened version of this to frame some contemporary work in biology, ecology, and cognitive science as they relate to human existence, especially in terms of how we may think productively about the moral sphere.In earlier work, I noted that there is a ubiquitous premise in Western moral theories that I believe is mistaken—or at least worthy of serious reconsideration. Most moral theory takes as axiomatic that whatever feature makes us uniquely human is the same feature that, when perfected, makes us moral. That is, that being “good” at being human makes us “good” humans. This is obviously so for Aristotle, insofar as it is rationality that is our special ergon, and it is using rationality well and beautifully that constitutes human virtue. But I think similar assumptions underlie much of moral theory, ancient and modern, and extend to contemporary work that takes language (or concept) use as peculiarly human and sees linguistic (or conceptual) analysis of moral claims as the proper domain of ethical theory.It seems that this presupposition, in part insisting that morality is uniquely human, is put in question if we take seriously evolution through natural selection and understand the human species to be as much a product of natural selection as any other species. There has been a good deal of ethological work done in the past several decades pointing out the protomoral capacities of other highly social animals, especially in those species to which we are most closely related (see, for example... (shrink)

Much of twentieth- and twenty-first-century theorizing about cognitive processes, whether in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, or related disciplines, spins accounts of cognition totally devoid of any consideration of cognition as an attribute of animals making a living (or not) in various habitats. A significant shift in discussions of mind and cognition follows if we take seriously the fact that humans are animals, products of evolutionary processes and situated squarely within suites of ecosystems. Ignoring evolutionary history is an (...) easy step to take when the starting places for understanding mind and cognition are relatively “sophisticated” mental accomplishments such as .. (shrink)

The basic tenets of “classical” naturalism (exemplified in the work of Mead, Buchler, and Randall, among others) are delineated and distinguished from other versions of naturalism. Classical naturalism is also distinguished from reductive materialism and idealism. Nature is asserted to be indefinitely plural and not amenable to monistic or dualistic categorial schemes; that is, the principle of “ontological parity” is maintained. The method of inquiry of naturalism is outlined, along with the notion of truth as perspectivally objective. The metaphysical hypotheses (...) are then used to examine culture. Culture is found to be the specific environment of human being, arising out of, but irreducible to, other natural processes. Culture is described as the cumulative gestures of the human social organism as it discovers and creates itself in mutual constitution with other natural processes and products. (shrink)

This essay argues against Richard Joyce, using him as an exemplar of a number of writers who purport to show that the best a naturalized ethics can provide are demands that we can hold only as moral agnostics; that is, that no moral claims can be shown to be epistemically warranted, hence no moral claims have the property of “inescapable authority” necessary for real moral discourse or deliberation. The prudent course of action is therefore to act as if moral claims (...) had categorical standing, knowing full well that we cannot, in principle, know this. The essay proposes instead that a fully naturalized account of moral reasoning and sentiments, compatible with the commitment to understanding human beings as products of evolutionary processes, can provide “existence imperatives” necessarily implicated in our being social animals. It argues that, on the one hand, we're mistaken in believing that real moral discourse must include imperatives that hold with inescapable authority as a foundation and, on the other, that a naturalistic perspective can offer demands that are authoritative enough to make moral judgment sound. (shrink)

Analyzes the theories of myth of Cassirer, Barthes, Eliade, and Hillman and offers an alternative original account of myth-making as an essential strand of cultural production.

Evolutionary biology and other fields presupposing humans as products of natural selection have much to contribute to philosophic inquiry. This seems especially true for American philosophy in a broad "pragmatist" or "naturalist" tradition. I examine sociality as a precondition of being human , embodied cognition, and culture as a product of ecological niche construction. I then make some suggestions, with Dewey in mind, as to the shape of our thinking about our moral lives once we recognize humans as squarely within (...) the field shaped by evolutionary forces. (shrink)

This new and important study of semantic change examines how new meanings arise through language use, especially the various ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions in the flow of strategic interaction with addressees. In the last few decades there has been growing interest in exploring systemicities in semantic change from a number of perspectives including theories of metaphor, pragmatic inferencing, and grammaticalization. Like earlier studies, these have for the most part been based on (...) data taken out of context. This book is the first detailed examination of semantic change from the perspective of historical pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on extensive corpus data from over a thousand years of English and Japanese textual history, Traugott and Dasher show that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy. (shrink)

Disability is primarily a social phenomenon -- a way of being a minority, a way of facing social oppression, but not a way of being inherently or intrinsically worse off. This is how disability is understood in the Disability Rights and Disability Pride movements; but there is a massive disconnect with the way disability is typically viewed within analytic philosophy. The idea that disability is not inherently bad or sub-optimal is one that many philosophers treat with open skepticism, and sometimes (...) even with scorn. The goal of this book is to articulate and defend a version of the view of disability that is common in the Disability Rights movement. To be physically disabled is not to have a defective body, but simply to have a minority body. (shrink)

Instead of treating art as a unique creation that requires reason and refined taste to appreciate, Elizabeth Grosz argues that art-especially architecture, music, and painting-is born from the disruptive forces of sexual selection. She approaches art as a form of erotic expression connecting sensory richness with primal desire, and in doing so, finds that the meaning of art comes from the intensities and sensations it inspires, not just its intention and aesthetic. By regarding our most cultured human accomplishments as (...) the result of the excessive, nonfunctional forces of sexual attraction and seduction, Grosz encourages us to see art as a kind of bodily enhancement or mode of sensation enabling living bodies to experience and transform the universe. Art can be understood as a way for bodies to augment themselves and their capacity for perception and affection-a way to grow and evolve through sensation. Through this framework, which knits together the theories of Charles Darwin, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Jakob von Uexküll, we are able to grasp art's deep animal lineage. Grosz argues that art is not tied to the predictable and known but to new futures not contained in the present. Its animal affiliations ensure that art is intensely political and charged with the creation of new worlds and new forms of living. According to Grosz, art is the way in which life experiments with materiality, or nature, in order to bring about change. (shrink)

Philosophical theories of gender are typically understood as theories of what it is to be a woman, a man, a nonbinary person, and so on. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake. There’s good reason to suppose that our best philosophical theory of gender might not directly match up to or give the extensions of ordinary gender categories like ‘woman’.

Metaphysical orthodoxy maintains that the relation of ontological dependence is irreflexive, asymmetric, and transitive. The goal of this paper is to challenge that orthodoxy by arguing that ontological dependence should be understood as non- symmetric, rather than asymmetric. If we give up the asymmetry of dependence, interesting things follow for what we can say about metaphysical explanation— particularly for the prospects of explanatory holism.

More than forty years have passed since Congress, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, enacted sweeping antidiscrimination laws in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. As a signal achievement of that legacy, in 2008, Americans elected their first African American president. Some would argue that we have finally arrived at a postracial America, butThe Imperative of Integration indicates otherwise. Elizabeth Anderson demonstrates that, despite progress toward (...) racial equality, African Americans remain disadvantaged on virtually all measures of well-being. Segregation remains a key cause of these problems, and Anderson skillfully shows why racial integration is needed to address these issues. Weaving together extensive social science findings--in economics, sociology, and psychology--with political theory, this book provides a compelling argument for reviving the ideal of racial integration to overcome injustice and inequality, and to build a better democracy. -/- Considering the effects of segregation and integration across multiple social arenas, Anderson exposes the deficiencies of racial views on both the right and the left. She reveals the limitations of conservative explanations for black disadvantage in terms of cultural pathology within the black community and explains why color blindness is morally misguided. Multicultural celebrations of group differences are also not enough to solve our racial problems. Anderson provides a distinctive rationale for affirmative action as a tool for promoting integration, and explores how integration can be practiced beyond affirmative action. -/- Offering an expansive model for practicing political philosophy in close collaboration with the social sciences, this book is a trenchant examination of how racial integration can lead to a more robust and responsive democracy. (shrink)

Intention is one of the masterworks of twentieth-century philosophy in English. First published in 1957, it has acquired the status of a modern philosophical classic. The book attempts to show in detail that the natural and widely accepted picture of what we mean by an intention gives rise to insoluble problems and must be abandoned. This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Darwinian matters : life, force and change -- Biological difference -- The evolution of sex and race -- Nietzsche's Darwin -- History and the untimely -- The eternal return and the overman -- Bergsonian differences -- The philosophy of life -- Intuition and the virtual -- The future.

University students are at elevated risk for psychological distress, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to warmly contact our students and investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the subjective wellbeing and levels of psychological symptoms of university students in Belgium. All bachelor and master students of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels were invited for a brief structured telephone interview in March, 2021. In total, 7,154 students were assessed by a structured interview, based on (...) the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and the Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment. Compared to a representative sample, students considered their life during the pandemic as less satisfying compared to their life before the pandemic. Overall, all students have suffered from COVID-19 and the measures taken to contain the pandemic. Twenty percent of our sample of 7,154 VUB students scored above the K6 cutoff, indicating a heightened risk for having a diagnosable mental illness severe enough to cause functional limitations and to require treatment. This study highlights the need for psychological support for all students, during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, (...) diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom. (shrink)

'Since the middle of the twentieth century,' writes Elizabeth Johnson, 'there has been a renaissance of new insights into God in the Christian tradition. On different continents, under pressure from historical events and social conditions, people of faith have glimpsed the living God in fresh ways. It is not that a wholly different God is discovered from the One believed in by previous generations. Christian faith does not believe in a new God but, finding itself in new situations, seeks (...) the presence of God there. Aspects long-forgotten are brought into new relationships with current events, and the depths of divine compassion are appreciated in ways not previously imagined.' This book sets out the fruit of these discoveries. The first chapter describes Johnson's point of departure and the rules of engagement, with each succeeding chapter distilling a discrete idea of God. Featured are transcendental, political, liberation, feminist, black, Hispanic, interreligious, and ecological theologies, ending with the particular Christian idea of the one God as Trinity. >. (shrink)

Social constructionism is often considered a form of anti-realism. But in contemporary feminist philosophy, an increasing number of philosophers defend views that are well-described as both realist and social constructionist. In this paper, I use the work of Sally Haslanger as an example of realist social constructionism. I argue: that Haslanger is best interpreted as defending metaphysical realism about social structures; that this type of metaphysical realism about the social world presents challenges to some popular ways of understanding metaphysical realism.

Climate Change and the Moral Agent examines the moral foundations of climate change and makes a case for collective action on climate change by appealing to moralized collective self-interest, collective ability to aid, and an expanded understanding of collective responsibility for harm.

Disability rights activists often claim that disability is not—by itself—something that makes disabled people worse off. A popular objection to such a view of disability is this: were it correct, it would make it permissible to cause disability and impermissible to cause nondisability. The aim of this article is to show that these twin objections don’t succeed.

Women as commercial baby factories, nature as an economic resource, life as one big shopping mall: This is what we get when we use the market as a common ...

A teaching method may not work for all students. Therefore, attention should be paid to the type of students entering the learning environment in order to explain how they perceive the learning environment and achieve. This study investigates students? perceptions and achievement in four learning environments that differed in the degree to which case-based and lecture-based learning were implemented (either separately or combined), hereby making use of students? motivational and learning profiles. Participants were 1098 first-year student teachers who took a (...) course on child development. Results showed that autonomously motivated deep-strategic learners were significantly more positive about each type of learning environment than little motivated and less pronounced deep-strategic learners. However, with regard to achievement, student profiles did not differ. Instead, the learning environment proved to be of significant influence: students in a gradually implemented case-based setting and a completely lecture-based setting scored significantly higher than students in a completely case-based setting. (shrink)

Anscombe guides us through the Tractatus and, thereby, Wittgenstein's early philosophy as a whole. She shows in particular how his arguments developed out of the discussions of Russell and Frege. This reprint is of the fourth, corrected edition.

Affektregulierung als wichtiger Bestandteil von Mentalisierung beinhaltet unterschiedliche Teilaspekte, die in der psychoanalytischen Literatur zum Thema Affekt ausführlich beschrieben werden. Der vorliegende Beitrag bespricht eine Affekttheorie aus der französischsprachigen psychoanalytischen Literatur, die die Transformation von heftigen Affektzuständen mittels Signalen und Zeichen zur Symbolisierung in Bildern und Sprache verdeutlicht.Mithilfe phänomenologischer sowie entwicklungspsychologischer Ansätze wird es möglich, zwischen den Theorien Lacans und Greens eine Brücke zu schlagen. Anhand eines kinderanalytischen Prozesses wird illustriert, wie das normale Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Affekt und Sprache aufgrund einer (...) traumatischen Vorgeschichte besonders starken Belastungen ausgesetzt sein kann. Die detaillierte Analyse klinischen Materials aus der Phase der Diagnostik und aus zwei Therapiesitzungen gibt einen Einblick in die Ängste und Kontaktwünsche eines traumatisierten Kindes und veranschaulicht, wie affektregulierende Therapie im Dienste der Symbolisierung aussehen kann. (shrink)

Much recent literature in metaphysics attempts to answer the question, ‘What is metaphysics?’ In this paper I argue that many of the most influential contemporary answers to this question yield the result that feminist metaphysics is not metaphysics. I further argue this result is problematic.

What gender are you? And in virtue of what? These are questions of gender categorization. Such questions are increasingly at the core of many contemporary debat.

In this paper, I argue for a new way of characterizing ontological emergence. I appeal to recent discussions in meta-ontology regarding fundamentality and dependence, and show how emergence can be simply and straightforwardly characterized using these notions. I then argue that many of the standard problems for emergence do not apply to this account: given a clearly specified meta-ontological background, emergence becomes much easier to explicate. If my arguments are successful, they show both a helpful way of thinking about emergence (...) and the potential utility of discussions in meta-ontology when applied to first-order metaphysics. (shrink)

Credences are similar to levels of confidence, represented as a value on the [0,1] interval. This chapter sheds light on questions about credence, including its relationship to full belief, with an eye toward the empirical relevance of credence. First, I’ll provide a brief epistemological history of credence and lay out some of the main theories of the nature of credence. Then, I’ll provide an overview of the main views on how credences relate to full beliefs. Finally, I’ll turn to the (...) empirical, and suggest some ways that cognitive science does and could answer questions about credence, such as what credences one has, how credences relate to beliefs, and the extent to which we can control our credences. (shrink)