Perceived discrimination has consistently been shown to be associated with diminished mental health, but the psychological processes underlying this link are less well understood. The present series of four studies assessed the role of a history traumatic events in generating a proliferation of discrimination stressors and threat appraisals, which in turn predict psychological distress (depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms) (mediation model), or whether prior traumatic events sensitize group members, such that when they encounter discrimination, the link to stress-related symptoms is (...) heightened (moderation model). Each of the studies assessed a different marginalized group in Canada, including Indigenous peoples, Blacks, Jews, and a diverse sample of women. Participants completed measures assessing history of traumatic events, perceived explicit and ambiguous discrimination, discrimination threat appraisals, and symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. The four populations varied in their experiences, with Indigenous peoples encountering the highest levels of trauma, discrimination, and psychological distress symptoms. A mediated model was evident among Indigenous peoples and women, possibly reflecting the role of systemic processes that engender discrimination when traumatic events are experienced. There was evidence for a moderating role of a history of traumatic events on the relations between discrimination and depressive symptoms among Jewish and Black participants. Although the hypothesized synergistic effects of traumatic experiences were noted when assessing the relation between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms among Jews, the presence of trauma blunted these relations among Blacks. The results suggest that trauma-informed approaches to addressing stress-related processes and psychological outcomes need to consider the unique social context of members of various socially marginalized groups. (shrink)

Recently, more attention has been paid to the nature and value of the intellectual virtue of epistemic autonomy. One underexplored issue concerns how epistemic autonomy is related to other intellectual virtues. Plausibly, epistemic autonomy is closely related to a number of intellectual virtues like curiosity, inquisitiveness, intellectual perseverance, and intellectual courage to name just a few. Here, however, I will examine the relation between epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility. I will argue that epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility bear an interesting (...) relationship to one another in that they are interconnected and mutually supporting intellectual virtues. In sections 2 and 3 I will provide a brief overview of the predominant accounts of intellectual humility (section 2) and epistemic autonomy (section 3) in the literature. With an understanding of these intellectual virtues in hand, we will examine their relationship of mutual support in section 4. Section 5 will explore a challenge to this relationship coming from the epistemology of disagreement, and section 6 concludes. (shrink)

This unique Handbook provides a sophisticated, scholarly overview of the most advanced thought regarding the idea of life after death. Its comprehensive coverage encompasses historical, religious, philosophical and scientific thinking. Starting with an overview of ancient thought on the topic, The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife examines in detail the philosophical coherence of the main traditional notions of the nature of the afterlife including heaven, hell, purgatory and rebirth. In addition (and breaking with traditional conceptions) it also explores the most (...) recent exciting advance – digital models. Later sections include analysis of various possible metaphysical accounts that might make sense of the afterlife (including substance dualism, emergent dualism and materialism) and the science of near death experiences as well as the links between human psychology and our attitude to the afterlife. Key features: • Grounded in the most advanced philosophical, theological and scientific thinking • Contributions by eminent scholars from the world’s top universities • Balanced treatment of fundamental issues that are relevant to everyone • Diverse approaches ranging from the religious to the scientific, from the optimistic to the pessimistic • A major section on the meaning of the afterlife which includes chapters on fear, purpose, evil, and issues regarding identity The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife is essential reading for scholars, researchers and advanced students researching attitudes to and effects of beliefs about death and life after death from philosophical, historical, religious, psychological and scientific perspectives. (shrink)

The critique of psychologism -- Phenomenology and other 'eidetic sciences' -- Phenomenology and transcendental philosophy -- The transcendental reduction -- The structure of intentionality -- Intuition, evidence, and truth -- Categorial intuition and ideation (eidetic seeing) -- Time-consciousness -- The ego and selfhood -- Intersubjectivity -- The crisis of the sciences and the idea of the 'lifeworld' -- Conclusion: mastering Husserl.

How might people be wronged in relation to their feelings, moods, and emotions? Recently philosophers have begun to investigate the idea that these kinds of wrongs may constitute a distinctive form of injustice: affective injustice (Archer & Mills 2019; Mills 2019; Srinivasan 2018; Whitney 2018). In previous work, we have outlined a particular form of affective injustice that we called emotional imperialism (Archer & Matheson 2022). This paper has two main aims. First, we aim to provide an expanded account (...) of the forms that emotional imperialism can take. We will do so by drawing inspiration from William Reddy’s concept of an emotional regime and investigating ways in which colonial powers of the 18th to 20th Centuries sought to impose their emotional regimes on their colonial subjects. Second, we will offer more expansive accounts of both emotional imperialism and affective injustice that can accommodate these additional forms of emotional imperialism. (shrink)

In 1988, Michael Nyman composed the score for Peter Greenaway’s film Drowning by Numbers (or did something that we would ordinarily think of as composing that score). We can think of Nyman’s compositional activity as a “generative performance” and of the sound structure that Nyman indicated (or of some other abstract object that is appropriately related to that sound structure) as the product generated by that performance (ix).1 According to one view, Nyman’s score for Drowning by the Numbers—the musical work—is (...) the product generated by Nyman’s compositional activity (namely, an abstract object) and, more generally, artworks are identified with the products generated by compositional or other creative activities. Let’s call this view The Product Theory. By contrast, according to another view, Nyman’s score for Drowning by Numbers is the generative performance itself (namely, Nyman’s compositional activity) and, more generally, artworks are identified with generative performances themselves. Following David Davies in Art as Performance, let’s call this view The Performance Theory (80). In that book, Davies argues for The Performance Theory and against The Product Theory. (shrink)

Some philosophers working on the epistemology of disagreement claim that conciliationist responses to peer disagreement embody a kind of intellectual humility. Others contend that standing firm or ‘sticking to one's guns’ in the face of peer disagreement may stem from an admirable kind of courage or internal fortitude. In this paper, we report the results of two empirical studies that examine the relationship between conciliationist and steadfast responses to peer disagreement, on the one hand, and virtues such as intellectual humility, (...) courage, grit, and actively open-minded thinking, on the other. We observed positive correlations between measures of conciliationism, intellectual humility, and actively open-minded thinking but failed to find any reliable association between steadfastness, courage, and grit. Our studies reveal that there are at least two important intellectual virtues associated with conciliationist responses to peer disagreement (viz., intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking) and two vices associated with steadfast responses (intellectual arrogance and myside bias). These findings shed new light on the overall epistemic goodness of the conciliationist perspective. (shrink)

We sometimes seek expert guidance when we don’t know what to think or do about a problem. In challenging cases concerning medical ethics, we may seek a clinical ethics consultation for guidance. The assumption is that the bioethicist, as an expert on ethical issues, has knowledge and skills that can help us better think about the problem and improve our understanding of what to do regarding the issue.The widespread practice of ethics consultations raises these questions and more:What would it take (...) to be a moral expert?Is anyone a moral expert, and if so, how could a non-expert identify one?Is it in any way problematic to accept and follow the advice of a moral expert as opposed to coming to moral conclusions on your own?What should we think and do when moral experts disagree about a practical ethical issue?In what follows, we address these theoretical and practical questions about moral expertise. (shrink)

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue on the philosophy of epistemic autonomy. In addition to giving some background on various conceptions of epistemic autonomy it provides brief summaries of the articles in the special issue.

Absolutely no one still believes that every physical interactionconsists of material bodies bumping into each other. Those who have tried to work out a completely mechanistic physics have been unable to explain common phenomena like liquidity, gravitation and magnetism. In fact, there is great reason to doubt that such a physics could ever account for attractive forces in general.

The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement.What exactly is deliberative democracy? Why is it more defensible than its rivals? By offering clear answers to these timely questions, Gutmann and (...) Thompson illuminate the theory and practice of justifying public policies in contemporary democracies. They not only develop their theory of deliberative democracy in new directions but also apply it to new practical problems. They discuss bioethics, health care, truth commissions, educational policy, and decisions to declare war. In "What Deliberative Democracy Means," which opens this collection of essays, they provide the most accessible exposition of deliberative democracy to date. They show how deliberative democracy should play an important role even in the debates about military intervention abroad.Why Deliberative Democracy? contributes to our understanding of how democratic citizens and their representatives can make justifiable decisions for their society in the face of the fundamental disagreements that are inevitable in diverse societies. Gutmann and Thompson provide a balanced and fair-minded approach that will benefit anyone intent on giving reason and reciprocity a more prominent place in politics than power and special interests. (shrink)

Is it appropriate to honour and admire people who have created great works of art, made important intellectual contributions, performed great sporting feats or shaped the history of a nation if those people have also acted immorally? This book provides a philosophical investigation of this important and timely question. -/- The authors draw on the latest research from ethics, value theory, philosophy of emotion, social philosophy and social psychology to develop and substantiate arguments that have been made in the public (...) debates about this issue. They offer a detailed analysis of the nature and ethics of honour and admiration, and present reasons both in favor and against honouring and admiring the immoral. They also take on the important matter of whether we can separate the achievements of public figures from their immoral behavior. Ultimately, the authors reject a "one-size-fits-all" approach and argue that we must weigh up the reasons for and against honouring and admiring in each particular case. -/- Honouring and Admiring the Immoral is written in an accessible style that shows how philosophy can engage with public debates about important ethical issues. It will be of interest to scholars and students working in moral philosophy, philosophy of emotion, and social philosophy. (shrink)

Some philosophers working on the epistemology of disagreement claim that conciliationist responses to peer disagreement embody a kind of intellectual humility. Others contend that standing firm or “sticking to one’s guns” in the face of peer disagreement may stem from an admirable kind of courage or internal fortitude. In this paper, we report the results of two empirical studies that examine the relationship between conciliationist and steadfast responses to peer disagreement, on the one hand, and virtues such as intellectual humility, (...) courage, grit, and actively open-minded thinking, on the other. We observed positive correlations between measures of conciliationism, intellectual humility, and actively open-minded thinking but failed to find any reliable association between steadfastness, courage, and grit. Our studies reveal that there are at least two important intellectual virtues associated with conciliationist responses to peer disagreement (viz., intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking) and two vices associated with steadfast responses (intellectual arrogance and myside bias). These findings shed new light on the overall epistemic goodness of the conciliationist perspective. -/- keywords: disagreement, conciliationism, steadfastness, intellectual humility, courage, actively open-minded thinking. (shrink)

Is it appropriate to honor artists who have created great works but who have also acted immorally? In this article, after arguing that honoring involves identifying a person as someone we ought to admire, we present three moral reasons against honoring immoral artists. First, we argue that honoring can serve to condone their behavior, through the mediums of emotional prioritization and exemplar identification. Second, we argue that honoring immoral artists can generate undue epistemic credibility for the artists, which can lead (...) to an indirect form of testimonial injustice for the artists’ victims. Third, we argue, building on the first two reasons, that honoring immoral artists can also serve to silence their victims. We end by considering how we might respond to these reasons. (shrink)

Imagination is celebrated as our vehicle for escape from the mundane here and now. It transports us to distant lands of magic and make-believe, and provides us with diversions during boring meetings or long bus rides. Yet the focus on imagination as a means of escape from the real world minimizes the fact that imagination seems also to furnish us with knowledge about it. Imagination seems an essential component in our endeavor to learn about the world in which we live--whether (...) we're planning for the future, aiming to understand other people, or figuring out whether two puzzle pieces fit together. But how can the same mental power that allows us to escape the world as it currently is also inform us about the world as it currently is? Ten original essays grapple with this neglected question; in doing so, they present a diverse array of positions ranging from cautious optimism to deep-seated pessimism. Blending perspectives from philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, Knowledge Through Imagination sheds new light on the epistemic role of imagination. (shrink)

In disputes about the ontology of music, musical idealism—that is, the view that musical compositions are ideas—has proven to be rather unpopular. We argue that, once we have a better grip on the ontology of ideas, we can formulate a version of musical idealism that is not only defensible, but plausible and attractive. We conclude that compositions are a particular kind of idea: they are completed ideas for musical manifestation.

In Markets with Limits: How Commodification of Academia Derails Debate, James Stacey Taylor presents a well-written book that is, in great part, a response to Peter Jaworski and Jason Brennan’s work Markets Without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests. In the first part of Taylor’s book, he effectively illustrates the misguided nature of many of Jaworski and Brennan’s arguments. Taylor maintains that Brennan and Jaworski misinterpret the work of their “anti-commodification” opponents. After this critique, the book takes a dramatic turn (...) as Taylor critiques the market incentives involved in academia and attempts to explain the structures that allow for inferior work, like that of Brennan and Jaworski, to be incentivized. By directly linking the two parts of the work and holding up Markets Without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests as an example of inferior academic work, there is sometimes an undercurrent of an academic spat at play. Also, given the shift in the book and scope of both projects undertaken by Taylor, I believe this work could have been developed into several manuscripts, or a series of articles. In its current form, chapters 8–10 seem more rushed than the rest of the work and could have benefitted from additional space to be flushed out in the detail they deserve. It is this later section that I believe could benefit the most from revision and expansion. (shrink)

This article describes some of the main arguments for the existence of other minds, and intersubjectivity more generally, that depend upon a transcendental justification. This means that our focus will be largely on ‘continental’ philosophy, not only because of the abiding interest in this tradition in thematising intersubjectivity, but also because transcendental reasoning is close to ubiquitous in continental philosophy. Neither point holds for analytic philosophy. As such, this essay will introduce some of the important contributions of Edmund Husserl, Martin (...) Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Karl-Otto Apel, all of whom use transcendental reasoning as a key part of their analyses of intersubjectivity, and we also consider the work of Peter Strawson who does likewise in the analytic tradition. (shrink)

In recent analytic metaphysics, the view that ‘ordinary inanimate objects such as sticks and stones, tables and chairs, simply do not exist’ has been defended by some noteworthy writers. Thomasson opposes such revisionary ontology in favour of an ontology that is conservative with respect to common sense. The book is written in a straightforward, methodical and down-to-earth style. It is also relatively non-specialized, enabling the author and her readers to approach problems that are often dealt with in isolation in a (...) more unified way.Thomasson's arguments are mainly counter-attacks on six ‘eliminativist’ arguments against ordinary objects. A causal redundancy argument espoused by Trenton Merricks holds that to suppose that there are ordinary objects is to suppose that these objects have distinctive causal powers. However, the casual efficacy of a baseball, for example, is exhausted by that of some suitably arranged …. (shrink)

It is hard to gauge the significance of Jacques Rancière’s conception of politics for contemporary political theory without addressing his attempt to break with the Habermasian linguistic-pragmatic paradigm and to set up an alternative model of political speech (“dissensus”) which “has the rationality of disagreement as its very own rationality.” But Rancière’s departure from Habermas’s theory of communicative action is subtle and difficult to assess. In this essay we aim to explicate and examine their disagreement. In doing so we also (...) seek to measure the distance between the two thinkers. We argue that Rancière’s critique of Habermas is cogent and represents an innovative and provocative contribution to the theory of democracy. (shrink)

The authors offer ways to encourage and educate Americans to participate in the public deliberations that make democracy work and lay out the principles of..

How do people form beliefs, and how should they do so? This book presents seventeen new essays on these questions, drawing together perspectives from philosophy and psychology. The first section explores the ethics of belief from an individualistic framework. It begins by examining the question of doxastic voluntarism-i.e., the extent to which people have control over their beliefs. It then shifts to focusing on the kinds of character that epistemic agents should cultivate, what their epistemic ends ought to be, and (...) the way in which these issues are related to other traditional questions in epistemology. The section concludes by examining questions of epistemic value, of whether knowledge is in some sense primary, and of whether the ethics of belief falls within the domain of epistemology or ethics. The second section extends this traditional debate to issues concerning the social dimensions of belief formation. It begins with essays by social psychologists discussing the past three decades of research in 'lay epistemics'. It continues by examining Humean, Kantian, and feminist insights into the social aspects of belief formation, as well as questions concerning the ethics of assertion. The section concludes with a series of essays examining a topic that is currently of great interest to epistemologists: namely, the significance of peer disagreement. (shrink)

Many of those working on moral responsibility assume that "once blameworthy, always blameworthy." They believe that blameworthiness is like diamonds: it is forever. We argue that blameworthiness is not forever; rather, it can diminish through time. We begin by showing that the view that blameworthiness is forever is best understood as the claim that personal identity is sufficient for diachronic blameworthiness. We argue that this view should be rejected because it entails that blameworthiness for past action is completely divorced from (...) the distinctive psychological features of the person at the later time. This is because on none of the leading accounts of personal identity does identity require the preservation of any distinctive psychological features, but merely requires some form of continuity. The claim that blameworthiness is forever should therefore be rejected. We then sketch an account of blameworthiness over time, and consider two objections. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

In Phenomenological Reduction in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit: a New Proposal, Matheson Russell investigates the indebtedness of the Heidegger of Being and Time to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology by way of distinguishing in it differing types of transcendental reduction. He supplies an overview of recent attempts to identify such reductions in order then to propose a new interpretation locating two levels of reduction in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. These concern, first, an enquiry going back to the horizon of 'existence', and, second, (...) one going back to the horizon of 'temporality'. While the first level is argued to be explicit in the published text, the second, Russell claims, lies within the horizon of the unfinished parts of Being and Time. (shrink)

What, if anything, is problematic about the involvement of celebrities in democratic politics? While a number of theorists have criticized celebrity involvement in politics (Meyer 2002; Mills 1957; Postman 1987) none so far have examined this issue using the tools of social epistemology, the study of the effects of social interactions, practices and institutions on knowledge and belief acquisition. This paper will draw on these resources to investigate the issue of celebrity involvement in politics, specifically as this involvement relates to (...) democratic theory and its implications for democratic practice. We will argue that an important and underexplored form of power, which we will call epistemic power, can explain one important way in which celebrity involvement in politics is problematic. This is because unchecked uses and unwarranted allocations of epistemic power, which celebrities tend to enjoy, threaten the legitimacy of existing democracies and raise important questions regarding core commitments of deliberative, epistemic, and plebiscitary models of democratic theory. We will finish by suggesting directions that democratic theorists could pursue when attempting to address some of these problems. (shrink)

Following WWII the French state deployed television as an instrument of nation-building. The televising of philosophy, visible in 3500 programs aired between 1951 and 1999, contributed to this project. This article examines forty philosophy shows produced for national broadcast in France during the 1960s. It argues that philosophy's dialogic structure rendered it suited to capitalize on television technology. These shows (featuring Hyppolite, Canguilhem, Ricoeur, Foucault and Badiou) also demonstrate how the state used philosophy to reify an image of national superiority (...) at a time when, under the impress of decolonization and modernization, France's role in the global arena was in question. (shrink)

The Northern Irish footballer James McClean chooses not to take part in the practice of wearing a plastic red poppy to commemorate those who have died fighting for the British Armed Forces. Each year he faces abuse, including occasional death threats, for his choice. This forms part of a wider trend towards ‘poppy enforcement’, the pressuring of people, particularly public figures, to wear the poppy. This enforcement seems wrong in part because, at least in some cases, it involves abuse. But (...) is there anything else wrong with it? We will consider the various ways the existing literature on the ethics of commemoration might help us understand what is wrong with poppy enforcement. We will argue that this cannot provide a complete account of what is wrong with poppy enforcement. We then argue that such pressure can constitute two distinct forms of affective injustice, which are wrongs done to people specifically in their capacity as affective beings. In McClean’s case, we argue first that poppy enforcement is a violation of affective rights and second that he faces a particular type of affective injustice that we call emotional imperialism. (shrink)

Against the enthusiasm for dialogue and deliberation in recent democratic theory, the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito and French philosopher Jacques Rancière construct their political philosophies around the nondialogical figure of the third person. The strikingly different deployments of the figure of the third person offered by Esposito and Rancière present a crystallization of their respective approaches to political philosophy. In this essay, the divergent analyses of the third person offered by these two thinkers are considered in terms of the critical (...) strategies they employ. Contrasting Esposito’s strategy of “ethical dissensus” with Rancière’s strategy of “aesthetic dissensus,” it is argued that Esposito’s attempts to recruit the figure of the third person to dismantle the dispositif of the person are politically problematic, while Rancière’s alternative account of the third person is more promising for political theory and practice. (shrink)

Empathy has for a long time, at least since the eighteenth century, been seen as centrally important in relation to our capacity to gain a grasp of the content of other people's minds, and predict and explain what they will think, feel, and do; and in relation to our capacity to respond to others ethically. In addition, empathy is seen as having a central role in aesthetics, in the understanding of our engagement with works of art and with fictional characters. (...) A fuller understanding of empathy is now offered by the interaction of research in science and the humanities. This volume draws together nineteen original chapters by leading researchers across several disciplines, together with an extensive Introduction by the editors. The individual chapters reveal how important it is, in a wide range of fields of enquiry, to bring to bear an understanding of the role of empathy in its various guises. It offers the ideal starting-point for the exploration of this intriguing aspect of human life. (shrink)

The effective altruism movement (EA) is one of the most influential philosophically savvy movements to emerge in recent years. Effective Altruism has historically been dedicated to finding out what charitable giving is the most overall-effective, that is, the most effective at promoting or maximizing the impartial good. But some members of EA want the movement to be more inclusive, allowing its members to give in the way that most effectively promotes their values, even when doing so isn’t overall-effective. When we (...) examine what it means to give according to one’s values, I argue, we will see that this is both inconsistent with what EA is like now and inconsistent with its central philosophical commitment to an objective standard that can be used to critically analyze one’s giving. While EA is not merely synonymous with act utilitarianism, it cannot be much more inclusive than it is right now. (shrink)

If musical works are abstract objects, which cannot enter into causal relations, then how can we refer to musical works or know anything about them? Worse, how can any of our musical experiences be experiences of musical works? It would be nice to be able to sidestep these questions altogether. One way to do that would be to take musical works to be concrete objects. In this paper, we defend a theory according to which musical works are concrete objects. In (...) particular, the theory that we defend takes musical works to be fusions of performances. We defend this view from a series of objections, the first two of which are raised by Julian Dodd in a recent paper and the last of which is suggested by some comments of his in an earlier paper. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, (...) and overlooked by ethicists.Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action.Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so. (shrink)

This challenging study places fiction squarely at the centre of the discussion of metaphysics. Philosophers have traditionally treated fiction as involving a set of narrow problems in logic or the philosophy of language. By contrast Amie Thomasson argues that fiction has far-reaching implications for central problems of metaphysics. The book develops an 'artifactual' theory of fiction, whereby fictional characters are abstract artifacts as ordinary as laws or symphonies or works of literature. By understanding fictional characters we come to understand how (...) other cultural and social objects are established on the basis of the independent physical world and the mental states of human beings. (shrink)

Can a musical work be created? Some say ‘no’. But, we argue, there is no handbook of universally accepted metaphysical truths that they can use to justify their answer. Others say ‘yes’. They have to find abstract objects that can plausibly be identified with musical works, show that abstract objects of this sort can be created, and show that such abstract objects can persist. But, we argue, none of the standard views about what a musical work is allows musical works (...) both to be created and to persist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chaos and LiteratureCarl Matheson and Evan KirchhoffIChaos theory was the intellectual darling of pop-science writers of the late 1980s. 1 In their eyes, it would provide a new paradigm by which to describe the world, one that liberated scientists from clockwork determinism—or, alternatively, from incomprehensible randomness. In an introductory textbook of the period, Robert Devaney called chaos theory “the third great scientific revolution of the 20th century, along (...) with relativity and quantum mechanics.” Similar attitudes propagated into philosophy; for example, Stephen Kellert argued that an acceptance of chaos theory would involve a reconfiguration of scientific methodology. 2It was in the domain of literary theory, however, that chaos found its most enthusiastic reception in the humanities, and the enthusiasm lives on. Many literary theorists display no hesitation in touting the supposedly revolutionary implications of chaos science. Katherine Hayles, the chief among them, argues that because the concept of order has undergone a “radical reevaluation” in recent decades, “textuality is conceived in new ways within critical theory and literature, and new kinds of phenomena are coming to the fore within an emerging field known as the science of chaos” (CO, p. 1). She infers that the new “paradigm of orderly disorder” (CB, p. xiii) represented by chaos theory signifies a conceptual revolution in modern culture as a whole. 3 She attempts to establish a parallel between chaos theory and various poststructuralist philosophical positions, including those of Derrida and Foucault, claiming that this new paradigm “may well prove to be as important to the second half of the century as the field concept was to [End Page 28] the first half” (CB, p. xiii), and that chaos may soon be “on a par with evolution, relativity, and quantum mechanics in its impact on the culture” (CO, p. 4). Other theorists make claims for the interpretive power of chaos; according to William Demastes, “chaos theory can help in comprehending several paths that the theatre has followed since the inception of postmodernism” (p. 242). 4 By a conservative estimate, over fifty papers have been published which link chaos theory to literature or literary theory. Clearly, the idea that chaos theory has application outside of science is not restricted to one or two over-eager humanists.In this essay, we wish to address some of the claims which concern the relationship between chaos science and the study of literature. Three such claims are:a. There are significant similarities between the science of chaos, contemporary literary theory, and/or philosophy.b. We can trace a common etiology for chaos theory and poststructuralist criticism. The two are so intimately related that they are really different formulations of a common claim, as filtered through two different fields.c. The science of chaos can help us interpret and understand specific literary works, and perhaps contemporary literature in general.However, before assessing the relationship between chaos and literature, we will briefly introduce chaos theory itself and demonstrate that even a minimal understanding is sufficient to undercut the supposed revolutionary significance of chaos theory. 5IIChaotic systems are deterministic: an exact description of a system at any given time, together with the laws of nature that apply to it, will entail the entire future behavior of the system. In this sense, chaotic systems form a subclass of classical systems (and are to be distinguished from quantum systems, which are indeterministic). However, chaotic systems differ from the systems studied throughout most of the history of science in two major ways. First, the differential equations used to model them are nonlinear, while the history of mathematical physics is largely devoted to a treatment of linear differential equations. Technical issues aside, the ramifications of nonlinearity are: (i) equations which are impossible to solve using the general strategies designed for [End Page 29] linear equations; and consequently (ii) the need for solutions by methods of numerical approximation, generally performed on a computer. Second, chaotic systems exhibit a feature known as “sensitive dependence”—or, more colorfully, as “the butterfly effect,” a figure of speech intended to evoke the worry that our long-term forecasts of the weather can be hopelessly disrupted by the atmospheric fluctuations due to a single butterfly... (shrink)

Although unprecedented in scope and beyond all our life experiences, sweeping social distancing measures are not without historical precedent. Historically, racism, stigma, and discrimination resul...

How should we respond to historical figures who played an important role in their country’s history but have also perpetrated acts of great evil? Much of the existing philosophical literature on this topic has focused on explaining why it may be wrong to celebrate such figures. However, a common response that is made in popular discussions around these issues is that we should not judge historical figures by today’s standards. Our goal in this paper is to examine the most plausible (...) way to understand this objection. We will examine three different interpretations of this argument. First, we will examine a view we call Temporal Moral Relativism, according to which moral standards are relative to particular points in time. Next, we outline Blame Relativism, the view that people from the past may be excused from blame for acts of conventionalized wrongdoing. Finally, we outline Ideals Relativism, according to which our moral ideals are partially relative to the time in which we live. We argue that Ideals Relativism provides the most plausible interpretation of this argument. (shrink)

Why do laws and regulations marking boundaries between humans and other animals proliferate amid widespread proclamations of the waning of the species concept and the consensus that life is a continuum? Here I consider a recent spate of new guidelines and regulations in the United Kingdom and United States that work to estrange human bodies from other animals in biomedicine. Using the idea of a bioconstitutional moment to understand how state institutions deliberate over “human–animal chimeras,” I address how nations differently (...) establish separations between humans and other animals. New chimeric entities, containing human hereditary material, have consecrated regulatory ground and signify increased attention to fields of research that have long used interspecies mixing. Regulators and policy makers now find themselves in a curious position. On the one hand, they continue to regulate the estrangement between humans and other animals, but on the other, they support the creation of chimeric life––a form of life that draws into question the very basis of such separations. (shrink)

Irrelevant emotional stimuli often capture attention, disrupting ongoing cognitive processes. In two experiments, we examined whether availability of rewards can prevent...