This chapter talks about how two robot hosts of Westworld, Dolores Abernathy and Maeve Millay, are operating within what philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein calls “language games”. At the heart of the revolutionary nature of the language game is Wittgenstein's insistence on binding saying to saying what counts. The chapter enlists Wittgenstein's critique of the theory of an “ideal” language that could perfectly represent reality for the author's own critique of the “ideal” picture of narrative with in Westworld. This “ideal” is amplified (...) by glorified violence, the objectification of women, profoundly rigid and heteronormative gender roles, and an ineluctable longing for transcendence. On the smooth, slippery surface of the “ideal” narratives of the Westworld universe, Dolores and Maeve are losing traction. What they need is to get back to the rough ground; but first they will need to learn how to create their own new language games to get there. (shrink)

This paper explores the application of ethic of care principles to research practice. It reflects on a research partnership between a voluntary-sector organisation (VSO) for older people and a university research centre (URC). The focus is a participatory research project on older people and well-being in which older volunteers were involved as co-researchers. The shared values of the VSO's culture of practice and the participatory approach of the university researchers have enabled joint research projects to be developed within an ethic (...) of care framework. The model sought to break down the barriers between expert and lay knowledge and encouraged the mutual recognition, sharing and validating of different areas of expertise. An ethic of care framework offers context-specific ways of understanding and responding to the ethical challenges of undertaking participatory research, and to the relational aspects of well-being identified by older people during the course of the work. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an approach to learning and teaching that aims to develop reasoning and judgement. Students learn to listen to and respect their peers' opinions, think creatively and work together to develop a deeper understanding of concepts central to their own lives and the subjects they are studying. With the teacher adopting the role of facilitator, a true community develops in which rich and meaningful dialogue results in enquiry of the highest order. Each chapter is written by (...) a leading P4C expert and provides an introduction to the relationship between P4C and the subject area, lesson stimuli and activities for extending and deepening students' thinking. The book includes: • guidance on how to embed P4C in curriculum subjects in a crowded and demanding secondary curriculum timetable • troubleshooting advice for the teacher-turned-facilitator • a companion website containing useful links, downloadable resources and material to display on your interactive whiteboard. Edited and collated by the UK's leading P4C organisation, this book introduces a rationale for using and adapting P4C in the secondary curriculum. (shrink)

Despite huge advances in education, knowledge and communication, it can often seem we are neither well-trained nor well-practiced in the art of clear thinking. Our powers of reasoning and argument are less confident that they should be, we frequently ignore evidence and we are all too often swayed by rhetoric rather than reason. But what can you do to think and argue better? First published in 1939 but unavailable for many years, Susan Stebbing's Thinking to Some Purpose is a classic (...) first-aid manual of how to think clearly and remains astonishingly fresh and insightful. Written against a background of the rise of dictatorships and the collapse of democracy in Europe, it is packed with useful tips and insights. Stebbing offers shrewd advice on how to think critically and clearly, how to spot illogical statements and slipshod thinking, and how to rely on reason rather than emotion. At a time when we are again faced with serious threats to democracy and freedom of thought, Stebbing's advice remains as urgent and important as ever. This Routledge edition of Thinking to Some Purpose includes a new Foreword by Nigel Warburton and a helpful Introduction by Peter West, who places Susan Stebbing's classic book in historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

This book is written by a philosopher for other philosophers and for that section of the reading public who buy in large quantities and, no doubt, devour with great earnestness the popular books written by scientists for their enlightenment. We common readers, to adapt a phrase from Samuel Johnson, are fitted neither to criticize physical theories not to decide what precisely are their implications. We are dependent upon the scientists for an exposition of those developments which - so we find (...) them proclaiming - have important and far-reaching consequences for philosophy. Unfortunately, however, our popular expositors do not always serve us very well. The two who are most widely read in this country are Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans. They are not always reliable guides. Their influence has been considerable upon the reading public, upon theologians, and upon preachers; they have even misled philosopher who should have known better. Accordingly, it has seemed to me to be worth while to examine in some detail the philosophical views that they have put forth and to criticize the grounds upon which these views are based. (shrink)

This article explores the impact of structural and technological change on women's employment in the UK television industry. It looks at the challenges faced by women in working in what has become since the mid-1980s a largely freelance industry where short-term contracts, informal recruitment procedures and long, unpredictable work schedules mean that women find it increasingly difficult to combine a career and family. Through case studies of individual careers, of a women's magazine programme for S4C Digital and a survey of (...) women's credits on a selection of the newer channels (Sky One, UK Living and Channel 5), it argues that technological advances in digital transmission and production will not improve working conditions and opportunities for women's participation in all areas of the industry if they continue to replicate existing practice. (shrink)

Noncommutative geometries generalize standard smooth geometries, parametrizing the noncommutativity of dimensions with a fundamental quantity with the dimensions of area. The question arises then of whether the concept of a region smaller than the scale—and ultimately the concept of a point—makes sense in such a theory. We argue that it does not, in two interrelated ways. In the context of Connes’ spectral triple approach, we show that arbitrarily small regions are not definable in the formal sense. While in the scalar (...) field Moyal–Weyl approach, we show that they cannot be given an operational definition. We conclude that points do not exist in such geometries. We therefore investigate (a) the metaphysics of such a geometry, and (b) how the appearance of smooth manifold might be recovered as an approximation to a fundamental noncommutative geometry. (shrink)

I will discuss some aspects of the concept of “point” in quantum gravity, using mainly the tool of noncommutative geometry. I will argue that at Planck’s distances the very concept of point may lose its meaning. I will then show how, using the spectral action and a high momenta expansion, the connections between points, as probed by boson propagators, vanish. This discussion follows closely.

El problema de la profunda desigualdad que la pandemia agudizó y visibilizó implica la búsqueda de políticas y propuestas educativas que alteren y transformen la gramática escolar, las concepciones sobre la enseñanza y los aprendizajes, las culturas institucionales, y que resignifiquen los sentidos de la escuela. Se plantea aquí que vivimos un momento histórico de inflexión, para reconstruir experiencias escolares que garanticen la ampliación y el ejercicio pleno del derecho a la educación.

Over the past decade or so a number of historians of science and historical geographers, alert to the situated nature of scientific knowledge production and reception and to the migratory patterns of science on the move, have called for more explicit treatment of the geographies of past scientific knowledge. Closely linked to work in the sociology of scientific knowledge and science studies and connected with a heightened interest in spatiality evident across the humanities and social sciences this 'spatial turn ' (...) has informed a wide-ranging body of work on the history of science. This discussion essay revisits some of the theoretical props supporting this turn to space and provides a number of worked examples from the history of the life sciences that demonstrate the different ways in which the spaces of science have been comprehended. (shrink)

First published in 1943, and revised for this 1952 edition, this book was intended for use by students of philosophy and as such traditional and modern developments in logic have been combined in a unified treatment. The author envisaged this volume as filling a gap for a simple, introductory text on formal logic, written from a modern point of view, unencumbered by traditional doctrine. This title provides a thorough introduction and grounding in the philosophy of logic, and was later revised (...) after the author’s death to correct a number of logical errors — making this edition the most complete version of the work. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934. This fourth edition originally published 1954., revised by C. W. K. Mundle. "It must be the desire of every reasonable person to know how to justify a contention which is of sufficient importance to be seriously questioned. The explicit formulation of the principles of sound reasoning is the concern of Logic". This book discusses the habit of sound reasoning which is acquired by consciously attending to the logical principles of sound reasoning, in order to apply them (...) to test the soundness of arguments. It isn't an introduction to logic but it encourages the practice of logic, of deciding whether reasons in argument are sound or unsound. Stress is laid upon the importance of considering language, which is a key instrument of our thinking and is imperfect. (shrink)

Originally published in 1914, this book examines the French Voluntarist school of philosophy and the key ways in which it differs from the Pragmatists. Stebbing argues that Voluntarism and Pragmatism both prove inadequate in their definition of truth, and suggests that an acknowledgment of the 'non-existential character of truth' is needed. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in philosophy.

A key challenge when learning language in naturalistic circumstances is to extract linguistic information from a continuous stream of speech. This study investigates the predictors of such implicit learning among adults exposed to a new language in a new modality. Sign-naïve participants were shown a 4-min weather forecast in Swedish Sign Language. Subsequently, we tested their ability to recognise 22 target sign forms that had been viewed in the forecast, amongst 44 distractor signs that had not been viewed. The target (...) items differed in their occurrence frequency in the forecast and in their degree of iconicity. The results revealed that both frequency and iconicity facilitated recognition of target signs cumulatively. The adult mechanism for language learning thus operates similarly on sign and spoken languages as regards frequency, but also exploits modality-salient properties, for example iconicity for sign languages. Individual differences in cognitive skills and language learning background did not predict recognition. The properties of the input thus influenced adults’ language learning abilities at first exposure more than individual differences. (shrink)

Kim Longinotto is one of the UK's leading documentary directors whose body of work explores women's lives and their struggles for autonomy and human rights in a range of international cultural contexts. Her strategies interrogate the observationalist traditions of documentary cinema and visual anthropology to produce engaged and profoundly empathetic feminist films. She works in collaborative ways with her subjects, often with other directors, to represent the contradictions and multiple layers of their lives and political and social situations. This interview (...) focuses on Longinotto's approach to representing her subjects and using the medium of documentary as a form of witnessing. (shrink)

The present research investigated the use of counter-stereotypical pictures as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotypes when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two experiments, participants completed a judgment task in which they were presented with word pairs comprised of a role noun with a stereotypical gender bias (e.g., beautician) and a kinship term with definitional gender (e.g., brother). Their task was to quickly decide whether or not both terms could refer to one person. In (...) each experiment they completed two blocks of such judgment trials separated by a training session in which they were presented with pictures of people working in gender counter-stereotypical (Experiment 1) or gender stereotypical roles (Experiment 2). To ensure participants were focused on the pictures, they were also required to answer four questions on each one relating to the character’s leisure activities, earnings, job satisfaction, and personal life. Accuracy of judgments to stereotype incongruent pairings was found to improve significantly across blocks when participants were exposed to counter-stereotype images (9.87%) as opposed to stereotypical images (0.12%), while response times decreased significantly across blocks in both studies. It is concluded that exposure to counter-stereotypical pictures is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotype biases in the short term. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century natural history societies sought to address the concerns of a scientific and a local public. Focusing on natural history societies in late Victorian Scotland, this paper concentrates on the relations between associational natural history and local civic culture. By examining the recruitment rhetoric used by leading members and by exploring the public meetings organized by the societies, the paper signals a number of ways in which members worked to make their societies important public bodies in Scottish towns. In addition, (...) by narrating a number of disputes between members over how natural history societies should operate, the paper shows how civic science could occasion social discord rather than harmony. Overall, by investigating the presence of field clubs in different urban settings, and describing members' attempts to portray natural historical pursuits as a significant cultural endeavour, the paper seeks to map an important part of the historical geography of Scottish civic science. (shrink)

Edinburgh has long been recognized as one important place where early glacial theory was promoted and debated. This paper, rather than attend to the longer-term development of glacial theory, focuses on the ways in which the theory was assessed, disseminated and received in and through the scientific culture of early Victorian Edinburgh. Edinburgh's scientific and educational societies, science journals, newspapers and field sites are brought to view through examining their engagement with, and use of, early glacial theory. Tracking the theory's (...) passage across a range of spaces bound up with the promotion of geology in mid-nineteenth-century Edinburgh signals relations between local geological endeavour and other sorts of scientific and cultural work. Particular, though not exclusive, attention is given to practices more readily defined as ‘popular’. (shrink)

The British Association for the Advancement of Science sought to promote the understanding of science in various ways, principally by having annual meetings in different towns and cities throughout Britain and Ireland. This paper considers how far the location of its meetings in different urban settings influenced the nature and reception of the association's activities in promoting science, from its foundation in 1831 to the later 1930s. Several themes concerning the production and reception of science – promoting, practising, writing and (...) receiving – are examined in different urban contexts. We consider the ways in which towns were promoted as venues for and centres of science. We consider the role of local field sites, leading local practitioners and provincial institutions for science in attracting the association to different urban locations. The paper pays attention to excursions and to the evolution and content of the BAAS meeting handbook as a ‘geographical’ guide to the significance of the regional setting and to appropriate scientific venues. The paper considers the reception of BAAS meetings and explores how far the association's intentions for the promotion of science varied by location and by section within the BAAS. In examining these themes – the geographical setting of the association's meetings, the reception of association science in local civic and intellectual context and the importance of place to an understanding of what the BAAS did and how it was received – the paper extends existing knowledge of the association and contributes to recent work within the history of science which has emphasized the ‘local’ nature of science's making and reception and the mobility of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In the nineteenth century natural history was widely regarded as a rational and ‘distracting’ pursuit that countered the ill-effects, physical and mental, of urban life. This familiar argument was not only made by members of naturalists’ societies but was also borrowed and adapted by alienists concerned with the moral treatment of the insane. This paper examines the work of five long-serving superintendents in Victorian Scotland and uncovers the connections made between an interest in natural history and the management of mental (...) disease. In addition to recovering a significant influence on the conduct of several alienists the paper explores arguments made outside the asylum walls in favour of natural history as an aid to mental health. Investigating the promotion of natural history as a therapeutic recreation in Scotland and elsewhere reveals more fully the moral and cultural significance attached to natural history pursuits in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

The connections between science and civic culture in the Victorian period have been extensively, and intensively, investigated over the past several decades. Limited attention, however, has been paid to Irish urban contexts. Roman Catholic attitudes towards science in the nineteenth century have also been neglected beyond a rather restricted set of thinkers and topics. This paper is offered as a contribution to addressing these lacunae, and examines in detail the complexities involved in Catholic engagement with science in Victorian Belfast. The (...) political and civic geographies of Catholic involvement in scientific discussions in a divided town are uncovered through an examination of five episodes in the unfolding history of Belfast's intellectual culture. The paper stresses the importance of attending to the particularities of local politics and scientific debate for understanding the complex realities of Catholic appropriations of science in a period and urban context profoundly shaped by competing political and religious factions. It also reflects more generally on how the Belfast story supplements and challenges scholarship on the historical relations between Catholicism and science. (shrink)