Online research in philosophy

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- Preface; A.McRobbie -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction; C.Scharff & R.Gill -- PART I: SEXUAL SUBJECTIVITY AND THE MAKEOVER PARADIGM -- Pregnant Beauty: Maternal Femininities under Neoliberalism; I.Tyler -- The Right to Be Beautiful: Postfeminist Identity and Consumer Beauty Advertising; M.M.Lazar -- Spicing It Up: Sexual Entrepreneurs and The Sex Inspectors; L.Harvey & R.Gill -- '(M)Other-in-Chief: Michelle Obama and the Ideal of Republican Womanhood'; L.Guerrero -- Scourging the Abject Body: Ten Years (...) Younger and Fragmented Femininity under Neoliberalism; E.Tincknell -- PART II: NEGOTIATING POSTFEMINIST MEDIA CULTURE -- Are You Sexy, Flirty, Or A Slut? Exploring 'Sexualisation' and How Teen Girls Perform/Negotiate Digital Sexual Identity on Social Networking Sites; J.Ringrose -- 'Feminism? That's So Seventies': Girls and Young Women Discuss Femininity and Feminism in America's Next Top Model; A.L.Press -- Media 'Sluts': 'Tween' Girls' Negotiations of Postfeminist Sexual Subjectivities in Popular Culture; S.Jackson & T.Vares -- Is 'the Missy' a New Femininity?; J.Kim -- PART III: TEXTUAL COMPLICATIONS -- Of Displaced Desires: Interrogating 'New' Sexualities abd 'New' Spaces in Indian Diasporic Cinema; B.Bose -- Notes on Some Scandals: The Politics of Shame in Vers le Sud; S.Wearing -- The Limits of Cross-Cultural Analogy: Muslim Veiling and 'Western' Fashion and Beauty Practices; C.Pedwell -- PART IV: NEW FEMININITIES: AGENCY AND/AS MAKING DO -- Through the Looking Glass? Sexual Agency and Subjectification Online; F.Attwood -- Reckoning with Prostitutes: Performing Thai Femininity; J.Haritaworn -- Migrant Women Challenging Stereotypical Views on Femininities and Family; U.Erel -- Negotiating Sexual Citizenship: Lesbians and Reproductive Health Care; R.Ryan-Flood -- PART V: NEW FEMINISMS, NEW CHALLENGES -- The New German Feminisms: Of Wetlands and Alpha-Girls; C.Scharff -- The Contradictions of Successful Femininity: Third-Wave Feminism, Postfeminism and 'New' Femininities; S.Budgeon -- Skater Girlhood: Resignifying Femininity, Resignifying Feminism; D.H.Currie, D.M.Kelly & S.Pomerantz -- Will These Emergencies Never End? Some First Thoughts about the Impact of Economic and Security Crises on Everyday Life; G.Bhattacharyya -- Index. (shrink)

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution characterized all life as engaged in a “struggle for existence”. To struggle requires internal data processing to detect and interpret patterns to guide behavior, a mechanism to struggle for existence. The cognitive bootstrapping A-PR cycle (Autonomy | Pattern Recognition) couples the origin of life and mind, enabling their symbiotic co-evolution. Life processes energy to create order. Mind processes data to create meaning. Life and mind co-evolve toward increased functional effectiveness, using A-PR feedback cycles that reflect (...) the two Laws deduced from Ockham’s Razor. The Law of Parsimony is only one of two laws that have emerged from debate about Ockham’s Razor. Less well known is the “other edge of Ockham’s Razor”, the Law of Succinctness which, when viewed through the lens of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, enables the A-PR Hypothesis to fulfill the criteria of Ockham’s Razor. (shrink)

Since 1998, physician-assisted suicide has been legal in the American state of Oregon. In this paper, I defend Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide (PAS) law against two of the most common objections raised against it. First, I try to show that it is not intrinsically wrong for someone with a terminal disease to kill herself. Second, I try to show that it is not intrinsically wrong for physicians to assist someone with a terminal disease who has reasonable grounds for wanting to kill (...) herself. (shrink)

Aristotle's conception of being is dynamic. He believes that a thing is most itself when engaged in its proper activities, governed by its nature. This paper explores this idea by focusing on Metaphysics , a text that continues the investigation of substantial being initiated inMetaphysics Z. Q.1 claims that there are two potentiality-actuality distinctions, one concerned with potentiality in the strict sense, which is involved in change, the other concerned with potentiality in another sense, which he says is more useful (...) for the present project. His present project is the investigation of substantial being, and the relevant potentiality is the potentiality for activity, the full manifestation of what a thing is. I explore Aristotle's two potentiality-actuality distinctions AND argue that the second distinction is modeled on the first, with one crucial modification. Whereas a change is brought about by something other than the object or by the object itself considered as other (as when a doctor cures himself), an activity is brought about byte object itself considered as itself. This single modification yields an important difference: whereas a change leads to a state other than the one an object was previously in, an activity maintains or develops what an object already is. (shrink)

: Aristotle's metaphysics has stimulated intense renewed debate in the past twenty years. Much of the discussion has focused on Metaphysics Z, Aristotle's fascinating and difficult investigation of substance (ousia), and to a lesser extent on H and Θ. The place of the central books within the larger project of First Philosophy in the Metaphysics has engaged scholars since antiquity, and that relationship has also been reexamined. In addition, scholars have been exploring the Metaphysics from various broader perspectives—first, in relation (...) to Aristotle's natural philosophy, his physics, biology, and psychology, and to the Organon, his so-called "logical" works, which include the Categories, Topics, and Posterior Analytics; and second, in relation to the broader philosophical tradition, both Plato before him and the ancient commentary tradition in late antiquity. (shrink)

This volume presents fourteen essays by leading figures in the fields of ancient philosophy and contemporary metaphysics, discussing Aristotle's theory of the unity and identity of substances, a topic that remains at the center of metaphysical enquiry. The contributors examine the nature of essences, how they differ from other components of substance, and how they are related to these other components. The central questions discussed are: What does Aristotle mean by "potentiality" and "actuality?" How do these concepts explicate matter and (...) form, and how are they related to the actuality of a substance? What is the role of actuality in accounting for the unity and identity of substance? These questions are crucial to an understanding of the unity of composite substances and their identity over time. The aim of the volume is both exegetical and philosophical: to give answers to central problems in Aristotle's metaphysics, and also to stimulate further investigation of the problems defined and the controversies embodied. (shrink)

How can Christian ethics make a significant contribution to health care ethics in today's Western, pluralistic society? Robin Gill examines the 'moral gaps' in secular accounts of health care ethics and the tensions within specifically theological accounts. He explores the healing stories in the Synoptic Gospels, identifying four core virtues present within them - compassion, care, faith and humility - that might bring greater depth to a purely secular interpretation of health care ethics. Each of these virtues is examined (...) in turn, using a range of topical issues including health care rationing, genetics, HIV/AIDS, withholding/withdrawing nutrition from PVS patients, and the empirical evidence which suggests a connection between religion and health. Professor Gill also argues that these four virtues are shared by other major religious and humanistic traditions and that, together with secular principles, they can enrich health care ethics even in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

Christopher Gill offers a new analysis of what is innovative in Hellenistic--especially Stoic and Epicurean--philosophical thinking about selfhood and personality. His wide-ranging discussion of Stoic and Epicurean ideas is illustrated by a more detailed examination of the Stoic theory of the passions and a new account of the history of this theory. His study also tackles issues about the historical study of selfhood and the relationship between philosophy and literature, especially the presentation of the collapse of character in Plutrarch's (...) Lives, Senecan tragedy, and Virgil's Aeneid. As all Greek and Latin is translated, this book presents original ideas about ancient concepts of personality to a wide range of readers. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction Christopher Gill, Tim Whitmarsh and John Wilkins: 1. Galen's library Vivian Nutton; 2. Conventions of prefatory self-presentation in Galen's On the Order of My Own Books Jason König; 3. Demiurge and emperor in Galen's world of knowledge Rebecca Flemming; 4. Shock and awe: the performance dimension of Galen's anatomy demonstrations Maud Gleason; 5. Galen's un-Hippocratic case-histories G. E. R. Lloyd; 6. Staging the past, staging oneself: Galen on Hellenistic exegetical traditions Heinrich von Staden; 7. (...) Galen and Hippocratic medicine: language and practice Daniela Manetti; 8. Galen's Bios and Methodos: from ways of life to paths of knowledge Ve;ronique Boudon-Millot; 9. Does Galen have a medical programme for intellectuals and the faculties of the intellect? Jacques Jouanna; 10. Galen on the limitations of knowledge R. J. Hankinson; 11. Galen and Middle Platonism Riccardo Chiaradonna; 12. 'Aristotle! What a thing for you to say!' Galen's engagement with Aristotle and Aristotelians Philip van der Eijk; 13. Galen and the Stoics, or: the art of not naming Teun Tieleman. (shrink)

This brief comment is a point-by-point response to some elements of Ron Hall’s review of my recent book, The Tacit Mode: Michael Polanyi’s Postmodern Philosophy.

How much of the “science of man” that Hume goes on to develop is a recapitulation of the work of the other British philosophers and how much is new? When is Hume borrowing the insights of those who came before and when is he innovating? It is difficult to answer these questions, and not just because the rules of attribution in the eighteenth century were looser than in ours. For at times the verve with which Hume writes can lead one (...) to think that he is in the grip of a new discovery when he is in fact recounting the ideas of a predecessor. And at other times Hume puts others’ ideas to work in a manner that they themselves never considered or would have actively opposed. (shrink)

The cornerstone of the British human-centred tradition lies in the two notions, human machine symbiosis and socially useful technology. The contemporary tradition has its roots in the LUCAS PLAN of the 1970s and has recently been shaped by a number of European social and technological movements in Scandianvia, Germany, France, Ireland and Italy. The emergence of the information society places the human-centred debate in wider socio-economic and cultural contexts. The paper explores the shaping of the European dimension of the human-centred (...) tradition and proposes a research agenda for social innovation for inclusive information society. (shrink)

Knowledge networking in the cross-cultural setting here focuses on promoting a culture of shared communication, values and knowledge, seeking cooperation through valorisation of diversity. The process is seen here in terms of creating new alliances of creators, users, mediators and facilitators of knowledge. At the global level, knowledge networking is seen as a symbiotic relationship between local and global knowledge resources. This focus is informed by the human-centred vision of the information society, which seeks a symbiotic relationship between technology and (...) society. It explores the nature of the knowledge in transition, raising issues of technology and knowledge transfer in the local–global context. The notions of human–machine symbiosis and of diversity and coherence provide a handle to explore the role of technology for sustainable development. The centrality of knowledge in stimulating knowledge networking for cross-cultural collaboration is illustrated through an exemplar of an EU–India Cross-Cultural Innovation Network project, a collaboration between European and Indian universities and institutes. (shrink)

When making moral judgments, people are typically guided by a plurality of moral rules. These rules owe their existence to human emotions but are not simply equivalent to those emotions. And people’s moral judgments ought to be guided by a plurality of emotion-based rules. The view just stated combines three positions on moral judgment: [1] moral sentimentalism, which holds that sentiments play an essential role in moral judgment,1 [2] descriptive moral pluralism, which holds that commonsense moral judgment is guided by (...) a plurality of moral rules2, and [3] prescriptive moral pluralism, which holds that moral judgment ought to be guided by a plurality of moral rules. In what follows, we will argue for all three positions. We will not present a comprehensive case for these positions nor address many of the arguments philosophers have developed against them. What we will try to show is that recent psychological work supports sentimentalist pluralism in both its descriptive and prescriptive forms. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers in the Western tradition have used phenomenological claims as starting points for philosophical inquiry; aspects of moral phenomenology have often been taken to be anchors to which any adequate account of morality must remain attached. This paper raises doubts about whether moral phenomena are universal and robust enough to serve the purposes to which moral philosophers have traditionally tried to put them. Persons’ experiences of morality may vary in a way that greatly limits the extent to which (...) moral phenomenology can constitute a reason to favor one moral theory over another. Phenomenology may not be able to serve as a pre-theoretic starting point or anchor in the consideration of rival moral theories because moral phenomenology may itself be theory-laden. These doubts are illustrated through an examination of how moral phenomenology is used in the thought of Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Francis Hutcheson, and Søren Kierkegaard. (shrink)

Four related themes in Greek thought are examined in this book: (1) personality and self, (2) ethics and values (3) individuals and communities, and (4) the idea of nature as a moral norm. Although the focus is on Greek philosophy (the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic period), links between philosophy and literature or the wider culture are also explored. The book combines a survey of recent scholarship on these topics with the author's own interpretations. It can be used by (...) students or teachers of classical studies or philosophy as an introduction to key themes and issues in Greek ethics or psychology. One aspect of the subject given special emphasis is the relationship between ancient and modern ideas on the issues treated here. The book closes with a selective bibliography on modern work on Greek philosophy. (shrink)

The number and variety of books received since Keimpe Algra’s last set of booknotes (vol. XLIX.2, 2004) indicate the current high level of scholarly interest in this area (which I am taking as being Greek and Roman thought from the third century BC to about 200 AD). There are important new contributions on all three main Hellenistic philosophical theories, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Scepticism, as well as some studies on broader or related topics. The first book discussed here is on Hellenistic-Roman (...) medicine, a volume by Manuela Tecusan on the Methodists.1 Despite its massive scale (over 800 pages), this is envisaged only as the first of three volumes; the second volume is to provide commentary, and a third volume, a companion to vol. 1, will cover the most important Methodist, Soranus. The present book includes about 100 pages of introduction and supporting material, consisting in part of a list of fragments and their sources and a thematic synopsis of the contents of the material included. The introduction offers a lucid and informative overview of the main features and figures of the Methodist school, and outlines the methodological principles and issues involved in making this collection. As with Stoicism (illustrated shortly), several of the most problematic interpretative questions arise in connection with Galen, who is the most important single source for this volume, though he is often highly critical of Methodism. Tecusan explains (pp. 41-2) that her original plan was to base the collection on an independent study of the manuscript tradition. In the event, she has adopted the policy of using the best or most recent available edition, but with her own textual revisions, highlighted in a selective apparatus. The translations are all her own, aiming where possible at consistency of terminology. The evidence assembled, as indicated in the synopsis of themes, covers the history and approach of the Methodist school, their relations with other schools, the main practitioners, key philosophical concepts, the medical theory and pathology of the school and individual Methodists.. (shrink)

In our everyday moral deliberations, we attend to two central types of considerations – outcomes and moral rules. How these considerations interrelate is central to the long-standing debate between deontologists and utilitarians. Is the weight we attach to moral rules reducible to their conduciveness to good outcomes (as many utilitarians claim)? Or do we take moral rules to be absolute constraints on action that normatively trump outcomes (as many deontologists claim)? Arguments over these issues characteristically appeal to commonsense intuitions about (...) various cases. As a result, an important portion of the debate involves empirically tractable questions — questions that can be investigated by probing for people’s judgments in cases in which the two types of considerations come into conflict with one another. (shrink)

The Cambridge Platonists were a group of religious thinkers who attended and taught at Cambridge from the 1640s until the 1660s. The four most important of them were Benjamin Whichcote, John Smith, Ralph Cudworth, and Henry More. The most prominent sentimentalist moral philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment – Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith – knew of the works of the Cambridge Platonists. But the Scottish sentimentalists typically referred to the Cambridge Platonists only briefly and in passing. The surface of Hutcheson, (...) Hume, and Smith's texts can give the impression that the Cambridge Platonists were fairly distant intellectual relatives of the Scottish sentimentalists – great great-uncles, perhaps, and uncles of a decidedly foreign ilk. But this surface appearance is deceiving. There were deeply significant philosophical connections between the Cambridge Platonists and the Scottish sentimentalists, even if the Scottish sentimentalists themselves did not always make it perfectly explicit. (shrink)

I. Introduction Most philosophers today have never heard of Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83), and most of the few who have heard of him know only that he was the founder of Cambridge Platonism.1 He is well worth learning more about, however. For Whichcote was a vital influence on both Ralph Cudworth and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, through whom he helped shape the views of Clarke and Price, on the one hand, and Hutcheson and Hume, on the other. Whichcote should thus (...) be seen as a grandparent of both the rationalist and the sentimentalist strands of eighteenth century British ethical theory. In this paper, I will elucidate the particular ethical positions of Whichcote’s that played such an important role. Whichcote’s thought is interesting in its own right, moreover, as a lens for examining the implications of certain prevalent religious and moral commitments. In what follows, then, I will also seek to show that Whichcote’s profoundly theistic view of human nature is ultimately incompatible with the belief that is fundamental to his Christianity. Perhaps the idea of an irresolvable conflict between Whichcote’s Christianity and his theism sounds at first a bit paradoxical. I hope, though, that by the end of this paper it will be clear how, for many 17th century rationalists, such a conflict was virtually inevitable. (shrink)

Galen is well known as a critic of Stoicism, mainly for his massive attack on Stoic (or at least, Chrysippean) psychology in On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP) 2-5. Galen attacks both Chrysippus' location of the ruling part of the psyche in the heart and his unified or monistic picture of human psychology. However, if we consider Galen's thought more broadly, this has a good deal in common with Stoicism, including a (largely) physicalist conception of psychology and a (...) strongly teleological view of natural entities, shared features which are acknowledged in several treatises outside PHP. Why, then, is Galen such a remorseless and negative critic of Stoicism in PHP? Various factors are relevant, including the shaping influence on Galen of the Platonic-Aristotelian (part-based) psychological framework. But, it is suggested here, an important underlying factor is the contrast between two ways of thinking about the part-whole relationship, a 'composition' and a 'structure' approach or an atomistic and holistic approach. This contrast is most evident and explicit in one section of PHP 5, where Galen, criticising Chrysippus' holistic psychology, denies that the Stoic thinker is entitled to use the concept of part at all. But the contrast is also seen as pervading Galen's response to Stoic thought more generally, in PHP and elsewhere, in ways that inform his explicit disagreements with Stoic theory. Stoicism is presented here as having a consistently 'structure' (or holistic) approach. Galen's approach is seen as more mixed, sometimes sharing, or aspiring towards, a holistic picture, and yet sometimes (especially in PHP 5), adopting a strongly 'composition' or atomistic standpoint. This (partial) contrast in conceptual frameworks is presented as offering a new perspective on Galen's critique of Stoic psychology in PHP and on his relationship to Stoic thought more generally. (shrink)

Shaftesbury's philosophy combined a powerfully teleological approach, according to which all things are part of a harmonious cosmic order, with sharp observations of human nature (see section 2 below). Shaftesbury is often credited with originating the moral sense theory, although his own views of virtue are a mixture of rationalism and sentimentalism (section 3). While he argued that virtue leads to happiness (section 4), Shaftesbury was a fierce opponent of psychological and ethical egoism (section 5) and of the egoistic social (...) contract theory of Hobbes (section 6). Shaftesbury advanced a view of aesthetic judgment that was non-egoistic and objectivist, in that he thought that correct aesthetic judgment was disinterested and reflected accurately the harmonious cosmic order (section 7). Shaftesbury's belief in an harmonious cosmic order also dominated his view of religion, which was based on the idea that the universe clearly exhibits signs of perfect divine design (section 8). According to Shaftesbury, the ultimate end of religion, as well as of virtue, beauty, and philosophical understanding (all of which are turn out to be one and the same thing), is to identify completely with the universal system of which one is a part. (shrink)

Arguments in favor of legalized assisted suicide often center on issues of personal privacy and freedom of choice over one's body. Many disability advocates assert, however, that autonomy arguments neglect the complex sociopolitical determinants of despair for people with disabilities. Specifically, they argue that social approval of suicide for individuals with irreversible conditions is discriminatory and that relaxing restrictions on assisted suicide would jeopardize, not advance, the freedom of persons with disabilities to direct the lives they choose. This paper examines (...) the idea promoted by some proponents of assisted suicide that it is reasonable to be depressed about one's diminished quality of life in cases of irreversible illness or disability and, therefore, such depression should not call into question the individual's competence to request assistance in dying. The concept of rational depression is defined and examined in the context of: four real-life cases involving individuals with disabilities who requested assistance in dying; a set of criteria commonly applied to decision-making to determine rationality; and research bearing on the emotional status of people with disabilities. It is concluded that although disability is associated with particular socially mediated stressors, there is no theoretical or empirical evidence to indicate that depression and its role in the right to die is dynamically different, more natural, or more reasonable for disabled people than for non-disabled people. (shrink)

The number and variety of books received since Keimpe Algra’s last set of booknotes (vol. XLIX.2, 2004) indicate the current high level of scholarly interest in this area (which I am taking as being Greek and Roman thought from the third century BC to about 200 AD). There are important new contributions on all three main Hellenistic philosophical theories, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Scepticism, as well as some studies on broader or related topics. The first book discussed here is on Hellenistic-Roman (...) medicine, a volume by Manuela Tecusan on the Methodists.1 Despite its massive scale (over 800 pages), this is envisaged only as the first of three volumes; the second volume is to provide commentary, and a third volume, a companion to vol. 1, will cover the most important Methodist, Soranus. The present book includes about 100 pages of introduction and supporting material, consisting in part of a list of fragments and their sources and a thematic synopsis of the contents of the material included. The introduction offers a lucid and informative overview of the main features and figures of the Methodist school, and outlines the methodological principles and issues involved in making this collection. As with Stoicism (illustrated shortly), several of the most problematic interpretative questions arise in connection with Galen, who is the most important single source for this volume, though he is often highly critical of Methodism. Tecusan explains (pp. 41-2) that her original plan was to base the collection on an independent study of the manuscript tradition. In the event, she has adopted the policy of using the best or most recent available edition, but with her own textual revisions, highlighted in a selective apparatus. The translations are all her own, aiming where possible at consistency of terminology. The evidence assembled, as indicated in the synopsis of themes, covers the history and approach of the Methodist school, their relations with other schools, the main practitioners, key philosophical concepts, the medical theory and pathology of the school and individual Methodists.. (shrink)

This paper comments on some of the different senses of the notion of discourse in the various relevant literatures and then overviews the basic features of a coherent discourse analytic programme in Psychology. Parker's approach is criticised for (a) its tendency to reify discourses as objects; (b) its undeveloped notion of analytic practice; (c) its vulnerability to common sense assumptions. It ends by exploring the virtues of 'interpretative repertoires' over 'discourses' as an analytic/theoretical notion.

Aristotle’s notoriously difficult Metaphysics Ζ, which investigates substance, has been the subject of intense debate in the past twenty years. Myles Burnyeat’s Map of Metaphysics Zeta is a ground-breaking intervention in that discussion. Burnyeat examines the overall shape of Ζ, particularly the signposts that structure the argument and link it to the larger project of First Philosophy in Metaphysics, as well as to the Organon. On his approach, to understand what Ζ says, we must first attend to how the issues (...) are addressed and why they are addressed in that way. The result is a book that challenges cherished assumptions and forces the rethinking of Ζ from several new perspectives. (shrink)

Through a focus on one child’s extended stay in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, I raise four general questions about pediatric medicine: How should physicians communicate with parents of very sick children? How should physicians involve parents of very sick children in treatment decisions? How should care be coordinated when a child is being treated by different medical teams with rotating personnel? Should the guidelines for making judgments of medical futility and discontinuation of treatment differ when the patient is a (...) child rather than an adult? (shrink)

The increasing number of companies providing internet services and auction tools helped popularize the online reverse auction trend for purchasing commodities and services in the last decade. As a result, a number of owners, both public and private, accepted the online reverse auctions as the bidding technique for their construction projects. Owners, while trying to minimize their costs for construction projects, are also required to address their ethical responsibilities to the shareholders. In the case of online reverse auctions for construction (...) projects, the ethical issues involved in the bidding technique directly reflects on the owner’s ethical and social responsibilities to their shareholders. The goal of this paper is to identify the shareholder ethics and responsibilities in online reverse auctions for construction projects by analyzing the ethical issues for the parties involved in the process. The identification of the ethical issues and responsibilities requires clear definition and understanding of professional ethics and the roles of the involved parties. In this paper, first, the concept of professional ethics and social responsibility is described in a general form. To illustrate the ethical issues and responsibilities, a sample case of bidding for a construction project using online reverse auction techniques is presented in which the shareholders were actively involved in questioning the ethical issues. The issues involved in the bidding process and their reflection on the shareholder responsibilities are described and analyzed for each stage of the process. A brief discussion of the overall process is also included to address the general ethical issues involved in online reverse auctions. (shrink)

Within today's emerging global society, educational systemic change is a dynamic, complex process that must seek to engage active participation of all stakeholders. This article examines alternative models of this process, providing different perspectives of the recursive and comprehensive nature of change when viewed from the vantage points of those stakeholders within the process. An envisioned school or educational system that addresses preparation of a citizenry dedicated to democratic principles and issues of social justice must consciously examine the relationships, that (...) form and reform interconnecting and unifying diverse subsystems within the school's constructed meaning and purpose. (shrink)

Of the many objections moral rationalists have raised against moral sentimentalism, none has been more long-lived and central than the claim that sentimentalism cannot accommodate the non-consequentialist aspects of our moral thinking. John Balguy raised an early version of the non-consequentialist objection just two years after Francis Hutcheson published the first systematic development of moral sentimentalism. As Balguy understood it, Hutcheson's sentimentalism implied that what makes an action virtuous is its effects, such as the advantages or pleasures it produces. According (...) to Balguy, however, what we actually think makes an action virtuous is an intrinsic quality it possesses, which is independent of any .. (shrink)

It is well known that the heart of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy is the role of the body in all human experience and knowing, including even in the use of speech. Thus it is appropriate that his philosophy of language revolves around the notion of gesture. This essay explores the ramifications of this understanding of language in relation to the “speech” of deaf people through “American Sign Language,” which represents language as gesture par excellence.

Under certain circumstances the act of apologizing has moral import. It requires a commitment to truth, adherence to moral standards, and a willingness to acknowledge and regret one's own moral failures. In this paper I examine the moral import of apologizing within the U.S. legal system and as a response to historical acts of injustice. In both of these contexts apologies are expressed in a public forum, which adds an interesting dynamic to their moral significance. Within the legal system the (...) judge, representing the interests of the community, may use apologizing to directly address the harm done to victims, as an indicator of recidivism on the part of offenders, and to help create an atmosphere of respect for law in the community at large. Different moral aspects of apologizing come to the fore in the context of historical acts of injustice. Interesting philosophical questions arise, e.g. the legitimacy of moral judgments across time and culture and the very possibility of group action. And skepticism is commonly expressed about the value of such apologies: aren't they empty words that provide no real benefit to victims or the descendants of victims? Aren't they irrelevant to the future? I identify what I hope are convincing reasons to believe that historical apologies can in fact have considerable moral value and a significant impact on the future. (shrink)

Reason and quest for revelation, by P. Tillich.--On the ontological mystery, by G. Marcel.--The problem of non-objectifying thinking and speaking, by M. Heidegger.--The problem of natural theology, by J. Macquarrie.--Metaphysical rebellion, by A. Camus.--Psychoanalysis and religion by E. Fromm.--Why I am not a Christian, by B. Russell.--The quest for being, by S. Hook.--The sacred and the profane; a dialectical understanding of Christianity, by T. J. J. Altizer.--Three strata of meaning in religious discourse by C. Hartshorne.--The theological task, by J. B. (...) Cobb.--Theology and objectivity, by S. A. Ogden.--Can faith validate God-talk? by K. Nielsen.--The logic of God, by J. Wisdom.--Mapping the logic of models in science and theology, by F. Ferré.--On understanding mystery, by I. T. Ramsey.--Teilhard de Chardin; a philosophy of precession, by E. R. Baltazar.--The nature of apologetics, by H. Bouillard.--Metaphysics as horizon, by B. Lonergan.--Deciding whether to believe, by M. Novak. (shrink)

This response to review essays (covering all of my major scholarly writing) by David Rutledge and Dale Cannon appreciatively affirms most points emphasized in their respective analyses. I acknowledge that my scholarship has served my teaching, as Rutledge notes; I frequently use diagrams because I believe they usually are pedagogically very effective. My writing has strong interdisciplinary overtones and I have special interest in religion, art and education. Slowly, I have worked to integrate the ideas of Polanyi and other important (...) thinkers emphasized by my teacher William Poteat, and, as Cannon recognizes, this is not an easy task. I frequently use the term “postmodern” rather than Polanyi’s “post-critical” because the term engages the current philosophical dialogue outside of Polanyi circles. I believe that metaphorical thinking and speaking is the heart of our embodied, everyday discourse and it liberates our language and thought from the restrictions imposed by the “pseudo-objectivism” of the standard way of carrying on philosophical endeavor. I have focused on the epistemological rather than the existential aspects of Polanyi’s thought. (shrink)

Samuel C. Rickless [To appear in Ancient Philosophy] Abstract: Plato’s Sophist is puzzling inasmuch as it presents us with seven completely different definitions of sophistry. Though not all seven definitions could be accurate, Plato never explicitly indicates which of the definitions is mistaken. Recently, Kenneth Sayre, Mary Louise Gill, and Noburu Notomi have proposed a clever solution to this puzzle. In this paper I explain why the Sayre-Gill-Notomi solution is mistaken, and suggest a better solution.

Friendship, in its nature, purpose, and effects, has been an important concern of philosophy since antiquity. It was of particular significance in the life of Gilles Deleuze, one of the most original and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. Taking L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze -- an eight-hour video interview that was intended to be aired only after Deleuze's death -- as a key source, Charles J. Stivale examines the role of friendship as it appears in Deleuze's work and life. (...) Stivale develops a zigzag methodology practiced by Deleuze himself to explore several concepts as they relate to friendship and to discern how friendship shifts, slips, and creates movement between Deleuze and specific friends. The first section of this study discusses the elements of creativity, pedagogy, and literature that appear implicitly and explicitly in his work. The second section focuses on Deleuze's friendships with Foucault, Derrida, Claire Parnet, and Félix Guattari and reveals his conception of friendship as an ultimately impersonal form of intensity that goes beyond personal relationships. Stivale's analysis offers an intimate view into the thought of one of the greatest thinkers of our time. (shrink)

In this article I examine the relation between the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze by looking at the way in which they refer to Henri Bergson’s time theory. Although Merleau-Ponty develops some fundamental Bergsonian insights on the nature of time, he presents himself as a critical reader of the latter. I will show that although Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Bergson differs fundamentally from Deleuze’s interpretation, Merleau-Ponty’s “corrections” of Bergson’s theory fit Deleuze’s reading of Bergson very well. This indicates a (...) similarity with respect to what is at stake in the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Hence the critical reference that Deleuze makes to Merleau-Ponty’s conception of cinema and thus of movement is not justified, but is the result of a selective and prototypical reading of the early Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Discover the truth about sex in the city (and the country). Mapping Desire explores the places and spaces of sexuality from body to community, from the "cottage" to the Barrio, from Boston to Jakarta, from home to cyberspace. Mapping Desire is the first book to explore sexualities from a geographical perspective. The nature of place and notions of space are of increasing centrality to cultural and social theory. Mapping Desires presents the rich and diverse world of contemporary sexuality, exploring how (...) the heterosexed body has been appropriated and resisted on the individual, community and city scales. Editors David Bell and Gill Valentine have brought together contributors with a wealth of approaches to ways in which the spaces of sex and the sexes of space are being mapped out across contemporary culture. Among the many sexual geographies covered are: Lesbians at home and on the streets; gay men on fantasy islands; bisexual identities; The heterosexualization of the workplace; bachelor farmers and spinsters; surveillance and sexuality; prostitution; queer politics; sexual citizenship, and the transformation of intimacy. The book is divided into four sections: cartographies/identities; sexualized spaces: global/local; sexualized spaces: local/global; sites of resistance. Each section is separately introduced. Beyond the bibliography, an annotated guide to further reading is also provided to help the reader map their own way through the literature. Mapping Desire will be a valuable and accessible travelogue of information for anyone interested in social, cultural and political geography, lesbian and gay studies, cultural studies, or simply those who want to find out more about the sexual landscape of contemporary society. Contents: Part I: Cartographies/Identities; Resolving Riddles: The Sexed Body, Julia Cream ; Locating Bisexual Identities: Discourses of Bisexuality and Contemporary Feminist Theory, Clare Hemmings; Of Moffies, Kaffiers and Perverts: Male Homosexuality and the Discourse of Moral Order in the Apartheid State, Glen Elder; Femme on the Streets, Butch in the Sheets (a Play on Whores), Alison Murray; Body Work: The Performance of Gendered and (Hetero)Sexualized Identities in City Workplaces, Linda McDowell; Part II: Sexualized Spaces: Global/Local; Whenever I Lay My Girlfriend That's My Home: The Performance and Surveillance of Lesbian Identities in Domestic Environments, Lynda Johnston and Gill Valentine; The Lesbian Flaneur, Sally Munt; Fantasy Islands: Popular Topographies of Marooned Masculinities, Gregory Woods; Sexuality and Urban Space: A Framework for Analysis, Lawrence Knopp; Part III: Sexualized Spaces: Local/Global; "And She Told Two Friends...": Lesbians Creating Urban Social Space, Tamar Rothenberg; Trading Places: Consumption, Sexuality and the Production of Queer Space, Jon Binnie; Bachelor Farmers and Spinsters: Gay and Lesbian Identities and Communities in Rural North Dakota, Jerry Lee Kramer; (Re)Constructing a Spanish Redlight District: Prostitution, Space and Power, Angie Hart; Part IV: Sites of Resistance; "Surveilliant Gays": HIV, Space and the Construction of Identities, David Woodhead; Sex, Scale and the "New Urban Politics": HIV-Prevention Strategies from Yaletown, Vancouver, Michael Brown; "Boom, Bye, Bye": Jamaican Ragga and Gay Resistance, Tracey Skelton; The Diversity of Queer Politics and the Redefinition of Sexual Identity and Community in Urban Space, Tim Davis; Perverse Dynamics, Sexual Citizenship and the Transformation of Intimacy, David Bell; Guide to Further Reading; Bibliography. (shrink)

Since their publication, these books have had a profound impact on the study of film and philosophy. Film, media, and cultural studies scholars still grapple today with how they can most productively incorporate Deleuze's thought.

In the 1890's, Freud attempted to lay out the foundations of a complete, interdisciplinary neuroscience of the mind. The conference that gave rise to this collection of papers, Neuroscience of the Mind on the Centennial of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology, celebrated the centrepiece of this work, the famous Project (1895a). Freud never published this work and by 1896 or 1897 he had abandoned the research programme behind it. As he announced in the famous Ch. VII of The Interpretation (...) of Dreams (1900), he would thereafter restrict himself to psychology proper, i.e., what could be done within the ambit of psychological descriptions. The task of characterizing the neural implementation of the psychological was impossible to carry out given the state of knowledge in his time. As Pribram and Gill (1976), Kitcher (1992) and others have demonstrated, Freud's attempt to sketch an interdisciplinary model of the mind using the language of neurons, quantities of energy, etc., was extremely advanced for its time and was probably about as good as could have been done with what was known in 1895. Knowledge of the brain, evolutionary biology, etc., was too limited to allow more. (shrink)

If [C1-3] are true, then we must identity some analyticity-relevant property other than character and content which differs between “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus.” On Gill’s view this is the property of having a certain reference determiner.

: Gill and Sade, in the preceding article in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, argue that living individuals should be free from legal constraints against selling their organs. The present commentary responds to several of their claims. It explains why an analogy between kidneys and blood fails; why, as a matter of public policy, we prohibit the sale of human solid organs, yet allow the sale of blood; and why their attack on Kant's putative argument (...) against the sale of human body parts is misplaced. Finally, it rejects the claim that the state is entitled to interfere with the actions of individuals only if such actions would harm others. We draw certain lines grounded in what Rawls has termed "public reason" beyond which we do not give effect to the autonomous self-regarding decisions of individuals. Public resistance to the sale of human body parts, no matter how voluntary or well informed, is grounded in the conviction that such a practice would diminish human dignity and our sense of solidarity. A system of organ donation, in contrast, conveys our respect for persons and honors our common humanity. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. Teleology, Platonic and Aristotelian David Sedley; 2. Biology and metaphysics in Aristotle Robert Bolton; 3. The unity and purpose of On the Parts of Animals I James G. Lennox; 4. An Aristotelian puzzle about definition: Metaphysics Z.12 Alan Code; 5. Unity of definition in Metaphysics H.6 and Z.12 Mary Louise Gill; 6. Definition in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics Pierre Pellegrin; 7. Male and female in Aristotle's Generation of Animals Aryeh Kosman; 8. Metaphysics Θ. 7 (...) and 8: some issues concerning actuality and potentiality David Charles; 9. Where is the activity? Sarah Broadie; 10. Political community and the highest good John M. Cooper; Publications of Allan Gotthelf. (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 2, Page 175-180, June 2011.