El presente trabajo ofrece una interpretación hermenéutica del espectáculo Limbo, de la artista mexicana Gabriela Muñoz, también conocida como “Chula the clown”, a partir de los conceptos desierto y exilio, presentes en este ejercicio escénico, así como en el pensamiento de María Zambrano, donde se muestran como un problema filosófico, y en la obra del investigador Ignacio Izuzquiza. Exilio y desierto aparecen también en Esperando a Godot de Samuel Beckett, obra que se revela como influencia del trabajo de Muñoz y (...) con la que comparte algunos signos poéticos. El texto, asimismo, retoma los apuntes de la investigadora Melissa Lima Caminha, principalmente la noción de deconstrucción del clown femenino moderno y la categoría de monstruosidad para hablar de quienes han sido expulsados o expulsadas del grupo social por ser considerados diferentes y con lo cual viven, precisamente, en los linderos del exilio. En Muñoz, como sucede con la tradición clown, esta figura cómica se muestra como símbolo de lo excluido, lo deforme, lo anormal e, incluso, de lo despreciable. A partir de estas claves, la artista muestra el limbo como un estado emocional donde se diluyen las fronteras del tiempo y el espacio, en un ambiente que se mueve entre la desolación y la comicidad. (shrink)

Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and (...) practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--. (shrink)

In History After Lacan, Teresa Brennan argues that Jacques Lacan was not an ahistorical post-structuralist. She tells the story of a social psychosis, beginning with a discussion of Lacan's neglected theory of history which argued that we are in the grip of a psychotic's era which began in the seventeenth century and climaxes in the present. By extending and elaborating on Lacan's theory, Brennan develops a general theory of modernity. Contrary to postmodern assumptions, she argues, we need a general (...) historical explanation. An understanding of historical dynamics is essential if we are to make the connections between the outstanding facts of modernity--ethnocentrism, the relation between the sexes, and ecological catastrophe. A challenging feminist, interdisciplinary study, History After Lacan will be essential reading for social, cultural, and political theorists, historians, psychoanalysts, and literary theorists. (shrink)

Both the diagnosis and medical treatment of gender dysphoria —particularly in children and adolescents—have been the subject of significant controversy in recent years. In this paper, we outline the means by which GD is diagnosed in children and adolescents, the currently available treatment options, and the bioethical issues these currently raise. In particular, we argue that the families and healthcare providers of children presenting with GD currently face two main ethical dilemmas in decision making regarding treatment: the pathway dilemma and (...) the consent dilemma. (shrink)

The idea that one can 'soak up' someone else's mood or sense the tension in a room is familiar - as in 'negative energy'. This ability to borrow or share states of mind is now pathologized, as the author shows in relation to affective transfer in psychiatric clinics.

This article argues that a particular metaphysical model permeates cultural practices surrounding pregnancy: the foetal container model. Widespread uncritical reliance on this view of pregnancy has been highly detrimental to women's liberty and reproductive autonomy. In this article, I extend existing critiques of the medical treatment of pregnant women to the context of the burgeoning commercial surrogacy industry. In doing so, I aim to show that our philosophical analysis in both spheres is constrained by the presupposition that the foetus and (...) pregnant woman are metaphysically and ethically distinct entities. By exploring the similarities and differences between the expectations placed on pregnant women in these two spheres, I show that the foetal container model is not a homogeneous understanding of pregnancy applied consistently across contexts; rather, it has been used to justify various practices and attitudes toward pregnancy and pregnant women through different moral frameworks, in the service of different overarching aims. (shrink)

Ever since Mary Astell was introduced as the “First English Feminist” in 1986, scholars have been perplexed by her dual commitments to natural equality and social, political, and ecclesiastical hierarchy. But any supposed “paradox” in her thought is the product of a modernist conceit that treats equality and hierarchy as antonyms, assuming the former must be prior, normative, and hostile to the latter. Seeing this, two other crucial features of Astell’s thought emerge: her ethics of ascent and her psychology of (...) superiority. These, in turn, illuminate her lifelong fascination with ambition as a feminine virtue, as well as her curious embrace of Machiavelli. Astell’s politics and ethics are thus doubly worthy of recovery, both as the product of a singularly brilliant early modern mind and as a fascinating but forgotten vision of “equality before egalitarianism” that sheds light on the persistent complexities of equality and hierarchy to this day. (shrink)

This paper presents reasons against semantic relativism. Semantic relativism is motivated by intuitions that are presumed to raise problems for traditional or contextualist semantics in contested domains of discourse. Intuition-based arguments are those based on competent speakers’ putative intuitions about seeming faultless disagreement, eavesdropper, and retraction cases. I will organize the discussion in three parts. First, I shall provide a brief introduction to the intuition-based arguments offered in favor of semantic relativism. Second, I shall indicate that there are ways for (...) contextualism to explain the (appearance of) intuitions that support semantic relativism. Third, I shall review some experimental results and independent arguments that put into question the appeal of semantic relativism. (shrink)

El autor nos relata, mediante esta crónica, los pormenores del reciente Foro Social Mundial, realizado en la ciudad de Caracas, Venezuela. En su texto revela la preocupación por la intervención gubernamental de la administración chavista en un evento cuya máxima es justamente la independencia y la autogestión de las organizaciones que le dan forma. Sin embargo, Bracho rescata la oportunidad única de haber podido reflexionar en torno a una nueva conciencia que parece surgir de los propios actores participantes y (...) que es fruto del diálogo y del reconocimiento de saberes ancestrales por tanto tiempo desplazados de la cultura occidental moderna. (shrink)

Lacan was not an ahistorical post-structuralist. Starting from this controversial premiss, Teresa Brennan tells the story of a social psychosis. She begins by recovering Lacan's neglected theory of history which argued that we are in the grip of a psychotic's era which began in the seventeenth century and climaxes in the present. By extending and elaborating Lacan's theory, Brennan develops a general theory of modernity. Contrary to postmodern assumptions, she argues, we need general historical explanation. An understanding of historical (...) dynamics is essential if we are to make the connections between the outstanding facts of modernity - ethnocentrism, the relationship between the sexes and ecological catastrophe. (shrink)

The `riddle of femininity', like Freud's reference to women's sexuality as a `dark continent', has been treated as a romantic aside or a sexist evasion, rather than a problem to be solved. In this first comprehensive study, Teresa Brennan suggests that by placing these theories in the context of Freud's work overall, we will begin to understand why femininity was such a riddle for Freud.

Assisted reproduction often involves biological contributions by third parties such as egg/sperm donors, mitochondrial DNA donors, and surrogate mothers. However, these arrangements are also characterised by a biological relationship between the child and at least one intending parent. For example, one or both intending parents might use their own eggs/sperm in surrogacy, or an intending mother might conceive using donor sperm or gestate a donor embryo. What happens when this relationship is absent, as in the case of 'double‐donor surrogacy' arrangements (...) (DDS)? Here, a child is conceived using both donor eggs and sperm, carried by a surrogate, and raised by the commissioning parents. In this paper, I critically examine proposals to allow DDS in the United Kingdom, and the intentionalist justification for treating this practice distinctly (morally and legally speaking) from private adoption. I argue that the intentionalist approach cannot plausibly justify such a distinction and that other approaches to moral parenthood are also unlikely to succeed. (shrink)

A través del personaje Agnes de la novela La inmortalidad de Milán Kundera, se hace una reflexión acerca de la singularidad en el mundo contemporáneo, singularidad que se halla invadida por los imagólogos, los medios masivos de comunicación y los lugares comunes que estos fenómenos provocan. La reflexión se acercará al personaje como símbolo de una singularidad en peligro y como posibilidad estética de resistencia a través de un derrumbamiento como posibilidad singular.

El presente artículo recorre críticamente la situación venezolana a partir de la actual vinculación de lo indígena con un Estado denominado socialista. Sin embargo, el par conceptual indígena/socialista puede ser examinado a la luz de antecedentes socio-históricos que dan cuenta de realidades muy diferentes a las retóricas chavistas. Por otra parte, las acciones del gobierno respecto al petróleo demuestran la lejanía que tiene la cuestión indígena en las preocupaciones del Estado. Los derechos indígenas siguen quedando tras las bambalinas de la (...) política, a lo cual se suma la indiferencia gubernamental por los problemas ecológicos. (shrink)

What paths are taken by post-posi tiv ist so - cial the ory?. Be yond the three ba sic types of contemporarty the o ries stud ied in this pa per, the pre sup po si tions of which com bine struc ture and agent, the study of so ci ety in which ac knowl - edge ment of the prop er ties of dis tinct..

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

The `riddle of femininity', like Freud's reference to women's sexuality as a `dark continent', has been treated as a romantic aside or a sexist evasion, rather than a problem to be solved. In this first comprehensive study, Teresa Brennan suggests that by placing these theories in the context of Freud's work overall, we will begin to understand why femininity was such a riddle for Freud.

In this landmark collection of original essays, outstanding feminist critics in Britain, France, and the United States present new perspectives on feminism and psychoanalysis, opening out deadlocked debates. The discussion ranges widely, with contributions from feminists identified with different, often opposed views on psychoanalytic criticism. The contributors reassess the history of Lacanian psychoanalysis and feminism, and explore the significance of its institutional context. They write against the received views on 'French feminism' and essentialism. A remarkable restatement of current positions within (...) psychoanalysis and feminism, the volume as a whole will change the terms of existing debates, and make its arguments and concerns more generally accessible. (shrink)

In this landmark collection of original essays, outstanding feminist critics in Britain, France, and the United States present new perspectives on feminism and ...

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

_Exhausting Modernity_ is a bold new work on the exhaustion of our resources, both natural and human. Drawing on the insights of Marx and Freud, it provides a compelling analysis of the exhaustion pervading modern capitalism: environmental collapse, rising poverty levels and increasing global economic disparity. This is essential reading for political and social theorists, philosophers, economists, and all those interested in the environment.

Exhausting Modernity is a bold and exciting new work on the exhaustion of our resources, both natural and human. Brennan marshalls the insights of Marx and Freud to provide a compelling analysis of the pervading modern capitalism: environmental collapse, rising poverty levels, and the increased global economic disparity. Linking the consumption of environmental resources to our own depleted psychic life, she shows that modernity must be rethought if we are to find a sustainable future for both the environment and our (...) own psychic life. (shrink)

Many factors contribute to the inappropriate use of medicines, including not only a lack of information but also inaccurate and misleading promotional information. This review examines how the promotion of pharmaceuticals directly affects the prescribing and use of medicines. We define promotion broadly as all actions taken directly by pharmaceutical companies with the aim of enhancing product sales. We look in greater detail at promotion techniques aimed at prescribers, such as sales representatives, pharmaceutical advertisements in medical journals and use of (...) key opinion leaders, along with the quality of information provided and the effects thereof. We also discuss promotion to the public, through direct-to-consumer advertising, and its effects. Finally, we consider initiatives to regulate promotion that come from industry, government and nongovernmental organizations. (shrink)

The classical liberal doctrine of free expression asserts the priority of speech as an extension of the freedom of thought. Yet its critics argue that freedom of expression, itself, demands the suppression of the so-called “silencing speech” of racists, sexists, and so on, as a threat to the equal expressive rights of others. This essay argues that the claim to free expression must be distinguished from claims to equal speech. The former asserts an equal right to express one’s thoughts without (...) interference; the latter the right to address others, and to receive a hearing and consideration from them, in turn. I explore the theory of equal speech in light of the ancient Athenian practice of isegoria and argue that the equality demanded is not distributive but relational: an equal speaker’s voice should be counted as “on a par” with others. This ideal better captures critics’ concerns about silencing speech than do their appeals to free expression. Insofar as epistemic and status-harms provide grounds for the suppression and exclusion of some speech and speakers, the ideal of equal speech is more closely connected with the freedom of association than of thought. Noticing this draws attention to the continuing—and potentially problematic—importance of exclusion in constituting effective sites of equal speech today. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one right logic. A particular version of the view, what is sometimes called domain-specific logical pluralism, has it that the right logic and connectives depend somehow on the domain of use, or context of use, or the linguistic framework. This type of view has a problem with cross-framework communication, though: it seems that all such communication turns into merely verbal disputes. If two people approach the same domain with different logics (...) as their guide, then they may be using different connectives, and hence talking past each other. In this situation, if we think we are having a conversation about “¬A\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\lnot A$$\end{document}”, but are using different “¬\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\lnot $$\end{document}”s, then we are not really talking about the same thing. The communication problem prevents legitimate disagreements about logic, which is a bad result. In this paper I articulate a possible solution to this problem, without giving up pluralism, which requires adopting a notion of metalinguistic negotiation, and allows people to communicate and disagree across domains/contexts/frameworks. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Most existing literature on the ethics of full ectogenesis has proceeded under the presupposition that science will at some point produce sophisticated technologies for full‐term gestation (from embryo to infant) outside the human womb, delivering neonate health outcomes comparable with (or even superior to) biological gestation. However, the development of this technology—as opposed to the support systems currently being advanced—would require human subject experiments in embryo‐onwards development using ectogenic prototypes. Literature on ectogenic research ethics has so far focused on (...) ‘backwards’ development of partial ectogenesis: incubation and ectogestation technologies that would allow the support of earlier and earlier neonates and foetuses. However, little has been said about the ethics of ‘forwards’ development of (partial or full) ectogenesis, involving the development of embryos and foetuses in prototype environments. Such a prototype might allow us to produce a gestateling or live neonate from a human embryo, but with poorer expected development and health outcomes than from biological gestation; it might also produce only gestatelings (healthy or otherwise) before the technology was developed to a stage where full‐term gestation was achievable. This paper explicates some of the ethical issues that this raises for the development of ‘full’ ectogenesis, and presents prima facie reasons to consider this research problematic and therefore to require extensive further argument in its defence. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic feminism is that body of writing which uses psychoanalysis to further feminist theory and, in principle, feminist practice.

Este libro es parte de lacolección e-Libro en BiblioBoard.

Este capítulo introduce al lector a teorías contemporáneas sobre el lenguaje dañino, y su impacto político y social. Distinguiré entre las formas directas y las formas indirectas por medio de las cuales el lenguaje puede hacer daño. El discurso puede dañar directamente a través del insulto, el lenguaje despectivo o la deshumanización. Y puede perjudicar indirectamente, por ejemplo, al socavar normas sociales y morales de manera subrepticia. La presentación que haré aquí tendrá que ser concisa e incompleta. Utilizaré el caso (...) del lenguaje peyorativo o despectivo para ilustrar cómo el lenguaje puede ser directamente dañino, y propondré que el análisis defendido para el discurso despectivo se puede extender al discurso de odio. Utilizaré además los fenómenos de los silbatos de perro y las perversiones del significado para ilustrar cómo el lenguaje puede ser indirectamente dañino. Mucho del trabajo actual sobre los efectos perjudiciales del lenguaje se debe a escritos de filósofas como Rae Langton, y empezaré con un resumen de un artículo suyo para situar la discusión. Seguidamente, el capítulo tendrá dos secciones principales: la sección 2 se dedica al lenguaje directamente dañino, y la sección 3 al lenguaje indirectamente dañino. (shrink)

We are logical pluralists who hold that the right logic is dependent on the domain of investigation; different logics for different mathematical theories. The purpose of this article is to explore the ramifications for our pluralism concerning normativity. Is there any normative role for logic, once we give up its universality? We discuss Florian Steingerger’s “Frege and Carnap on the Normativity of Logic” as a source for possible types of normativity, and then turn to our own proposal, which postulates that (...) various logics are constitutive for thought within particular practices, but none are constitutive for thought as such. (shrink)

This paper presents a new view of logical pluralism. This pluralism takes into account how the logical connectives shift, depending on the context in which they occur. Using the Question-Under-Discussion Framework as formulated by Craige Roberts, I identify the contextual factor that is responsible for this shift. I then provide an account of the meanings of the logical connectives which can accommodate this factor. Finally, I suggest that this new pluralism has a certain Carnapian flavour. Questions about the meanings of (...) the connectives or the best logic outside of a specified context are not legitimate questions. (shrink)

In _The Eastern Christian Tradition in Modern Russian Thought and Beyond_, Teresa Obolevitch elucidates the main philosophical and theological ideas of the Eastern Christian tradition of neo-patristic synthesis and considers them in comparative philosophical context.

Frederique Janssen-Lauret’s Susan Stebbing is a contribution to the Cambridge Elements Series on women in the history of philosophy. These books are typically short works on a particular philosophe...

Aristotle’s theory of physical objects, hylomorphism, has resurfaced in contemporary metaphysics. In its current version, hylomorphism is proposed as a general theory of mereology, its purview extending beyond material objects to chemical composites, events, and non-physical mathematical, linguistic, and musical objects. While I agree that hylomorphism works well in all of the newly proposed applications, it fails as a theory of properties and their parts. I show that this is the case and then theorize about why this is so.

Vision and the gaze are key issues in the analysis of racism, sexism and ethnocentrism. In recent radical theory, generally, and French theory in particular, vision has been seen as a means of control. But this view is often unnuanced. It bypasses questions such as: Why is it that contemporary theories have been so critical of vision, and generous towards listening (in psychoanalysis) and language (in philosophy)? This collection of original essays brings together historical studies and contemporary theoretical perspectives on (...) vision. The historical papers focus in turn on Ancient Greece, medieval theology, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. These historical studies are themselves thoroughly informed by poststructuralist theory. They provide a rigorous background for several new, exciting articles on vision and its bearings for feminism, race, sexual orientation, film and art. This collection is the first of its kind in juxtaposing historical and contemporary. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap’s logical pluralism is often held to be one in which corresponding connectives in different logics have different meanings. This paper presents an alternative view of Carnap’s position, in which connectives can and do share their meaning in some contexts. This re-interpretation depends crucially on extending Carnap’s linguistic framework system to include meta-linguistic frameworks, those frameworks which we use to talk about linguistic frameworks. I provide an example that shows how this is possible, and give some textual evidence that (...) Carnap would agree with this interpretation. Additionally, I show how this interpretation puts the Carnapian position much more in line with the position given in Shapiro than had been thought before. (shrink)