Sharply in focus in the United States right now is the disproportionate COVID‐19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Pacific Islanders living in the United States in contrast to White people. These COVID‐19 disparities are but one example of how systemic racism filters into health outcomes for many Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC). With these issues front and center, more attention is being given to the ways that White medical professionals contribute to these (...) disparities, including their socialization to ignore or deny inequities. As such, the present study sought to understand how educating White health‐care pre‐professionals about systemic racism might influence their understanding of and responsibility for disrupting White supremacy. Data were drawn from 49 White‐identified nursing students who participated in a mapping project that uncovered instantiations of systemic racism in the United States. Participant written reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that mapping projects can develop White people's knowledge and understanding of systemic racism. We introduce the construct, transformative dissonant encounters, to describe how this project precipitated shifts in world view necessary for White people to confront systemic racism. Implications for nursing educators, psychological researchers, and antiracist activists are discussed. (shrink)

Scholars of Plato are divided between those who emphasize the literature of the dialogues and those who emphasize the argument of the dialogues, and between those who see a development in the thought of the dialogues and those who do not. In this important book Russell Dancy focuses on the arguments and defends a developmental picture. He explains the Theory of Forms of the Phaedo and Symposium as an outgrowth of the quest for definitions canvassed in the Socratic dialogues, (...) by constructing a Theory of Definition for the Socratic dialogues based on the refutations of definitions in those dialogues, and showing how that theory is mirrored in the Theory of Forms. His discussion, notable for both its clarity and its meticulous scholarship, ranges in detail over a number of Plato's early and middle dialogues, and will be of interest to readers in Plato studies and in ancient philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Anyone with more than casual interest in Aristotle's Categories knows the convention that "predicated of" ["κατηγορεἳται"] marks a general relation of predication while "said of" ["λέγεται"] is reserved for essential predication. By "convention" I simply mean to underscore that the view in question ranks as the conventional or received interpretation. Ackrill, for example, follows the received view in holding that only items within the same category (not arbitrarily, of course) can stand in the being-said-of relation and, thus, that only secondary (...) substances can be said of primary substances. Despite its long received status the convention has never received a fully comprehensive examination and defense. In fact such an account is needed because, while enjoying considerable textual support, certain passages of the Categories appear to clash with the convention. My aim in this paper is, first, to develop and defend the standard interpretation, as I shall call it. Since the standard interpretation has lately been challenged in a closely argued article by Russell Dancy, my defense will proceed partly with an eye to his criticisms. Having met these, I go on to raise some difficulties with the rather unorthodox reading Dancy gives the Categories. The crucial point here turns out to be what Aristotle understands by a paronym. (shrink)

Christine Jean Thomas - Plato's Introduction of Forms - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 485-486 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Christine J. Thomas Dartmouth College R. M. Dancy. Plato's Introduction of Forms. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xii + 348. Cloth, $75.00. Russell Dancy's recent book could easily bear the title, 'A Socratic Theory of Definition'. The first two-thirds of the text extract and examine various (...) tenets of a "theory of definition" operative in a variety of Socratic dialogues. The bulk of the theory is captured in three conditions on adequacy for a definition : the definiens must be substitutable salve veritate for the definiendum; the.. (shrink)

On a remarkably thin base of evidence – largely the spectral analysis of points of light – astronomers possess, or appear to possess, an abundance of knowledge about the structure and history of the universe. We likewise know more than might even have been imagined a few centuries ago about the nature of physical matter, about the mechanisms of life, about the ancient past. Enormous theoretical and methodological ingenuity has been required to obtain such knowledge; it does not invite easy (...) discovery by the untutored. It may seem odd, then, that we have so little scientific knowledge of what lies closest at hand, apparently ripe for easy discovery, and of greatest importance for our quality of life: our own conscious experience – our sensory experiences and pains, for example, our inner speech and imagery, our felt emotion. Scientists know quite a bit about human visual capacities and the brain processes involved in vision, much less about the subjective experience of seeing; a fair bit about the physiology of emotion, almost nothing about its phenomenology. Philosophers began in earnest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to describe and classify our patterns of conscious experience. John Locke, for instance, divided experienced “ideas” into those that arise from sensation and those that arise from reflection, and he began to classify them into. (shrink)

In this article I argue (against the views of Russell Dancy and Gregory Vlastos, but in support of the views of R. E. Allen, Gail Fine, and Francesco Fronterotta) that Euthyphro 5c-d and 6d-e show that Socrates had a metaphysics, early version of the theory of forms. I disagree with Fronterotta only on the separation of the forms in the Euthyphro.

In ‘The Limits of Being in the Philebus’, Russell Dancy argues that the Philebus is incoherent because a central concept - that of the apeiron - functions entirely differently in the discussions of the ‘Heavenly Tradition’ and the ‘Fourfold Division’. I argue that a phenomenological reading of the type developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer, one according to which ‘limit’ and ‘unlimitedness’ describe the way entities appear when approached with certain concepts, shows Dancy’s worry of incoherence to be unfounded. On this (...) reading, in both the Heavenly Tradition and the Fourfold Dividsion for a thing to be apeiron is for it to escape comprehension due to its appearing in terms of an indefinite plurality rather than a defined unity. I argue further that this interpretation allows us to properly understand the methodological character of Plato’s discussion. His account aims to help us distinguish the damaging instances of apeiron from the benign and to show how the former can be avoided. (shrink)

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

William James described the stream of thought as having two components: (1) a nucleus of highly conscious, often perceptual material; and (2) a fringe of dimly felt contextual information that controls the entry of information into the nucleus and guides the progression of internally directed thought. Here I examine the neural and cognitive correlates of this phenomenology. A survey of the cognitive neuroscience literature suggests that the nucleus corresponds to a dynamic global buffer formed by interactions between different regions of (...) the brain, while the fringe corresponds to a set of mechanisms in the frontal and medial temporal lobes that control the contents of this global buffer. A consequence of this account is that there might be conscious imagistic representations that are not part of the nucleus. I argue that phenomenology can be linked to psychology and neuroscience and a meaningful way that illuminates both. (shrink)

In this paper we examine how the use of robots in caring for elders can impact the meaningfulness of elders’ lives. We present a framework for understanding ‘meaningfulness in life’, and then apply that framework in discussing ways in which the use of robots to assist in activities of daily living can preserve, enhance or undermine the meaningfulness of elders’ lives. We conclude with a discussion of if and how having false beliefs about companion robots can affect meaningfulness in the (...) life of the person having those false beliefs. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology is the first collection to consider the full breadth of natural theology from both historical and contemporary perspectives and to bring together leading scholars to offer accessible high-level accounts of the major themes. The volume embodies and develops the recent revival of interest in natural theology as a topic of serious critical engagement. Frequently misunderstood or polemicized, natural theology is an under-studied yet persistent and pervasive presence throughout the history of thought about ultimate reality (...) - from the classical Greek theology of the philosophers to twenty-first century debates in science and religion. Thirty eight new essays trace the transformations of natural theology in different historical and religious contexts, the place of natural theology in different philosophical traditions and diverse scientific disciplines, and the various cultural and aesthetic approaches to natural theology to reveal a rich seam of multi-faceted theological reflection rooted in human nature and the environments within which we find ourselves. (shrink)

This collection of eleven philosophical essays addresses current trends in materialist philosophy dealing with subject-object relations, amounting to a polemical corrective that insists on the organizing role of the subject within materialist thought.

Issues concerning religion in the public sphere are rarely far from the headlines. As a result, scholars have paid increasing attention to religion. These scholars, however, have generally stayed within the confines of their own respective disciplines. To date there has been little contact between lawyers and sociologists. Religion, Law and Society explores whether, how and why law and religion should interact with the sociology of religion. It examines sociological and legal materials concerning religion in order to find out what (...) lawyers and sociologists can learn from each other. A groundbreaking, provocative and thought-provoking book, it is essential reading for lawyers, sociologists and all who are interested in the relationship between religion, law and society in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Episodic memory is usually regarded in a Conceptualist light, in the sense of its being dependent upon the grasp of concepts directly relevant to the act of episodic recollection itself, such as a concept of past times and of the self as an experiencer. Given this view, its development is typically timed as being in the early school‐age years (Perner, 2001;Tulving, 2005). We present a minimalist, Non‐Conceptualist approach in opposition to this view, but one that also exists in clear contrast (...) to the kind of minimalism (‘episodic‐like’) espoused byClayton and Dickinson (1998)with regard to memory in food‐caching birds. While emphasising the nonconceptual elements of episodic memory (in common with the ‘episodic‐like’ approach) we also insist on the essentially phenomenological nature of the memory (as does the Conceptualist approach). We propose the third year of life as a plausible onset period. Our view is rooted in Kantian assumptions about the spatiotemporal content of experience (and thus of re‐experience) and about the synthetic unity of experience—and thus of re‐experience. We answer two objections to this position. (shrink)

Destructive narcissism is recognized increasingly as a serious impairment to good corporate leadership and ethical conduct. The Chief Executive Officer’s letter to shareholders (an important formal corporate communications medium) has potential to provide linguistic traces of destructive narcissism and insight to aspects of corporate leadership and the ambient ethical culture of a company. We demonstrate this potential through selective analyses of the letters of the Chief Executive Officers of Enron, Starbucks, and General Motors.

This article mounts a defense of my and Slavoj Žižek’s co-edited anthology, Subject Lessons: Hegel, Lacan, and the Future of Materialism, against the two main criticisms of it made throughout Graham Harman’s article “The Battle of Objects and Subjects”: (1) that we and our fellow contributors are guilty of gross overgeneralization when we classify thinkers from various schools of thought – among them New Materialism, object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, and actor–network theory – under the broad rubric of the “new materialisms”; (...) and (2) that despite our pretensions to the mantle of materialism, our Lacano-Hegelian position is actually a full-blown idealism. In responding to and attempting to refute these criticisms, I make the case that our Lacano-Hegelian model of dialectical materialism is an “extimate materialism.”. (shrink)

In his novel Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust argues that conventional descriptions of the phenomenology of consciousness are incomplete because they focus too much on the highly-salient sensory information that dominates each moment of awareness and ignore the network of associations that lies in the background. In this paper, I explicate Proust’s theory of conscious experience and show how it leads him directly to a theory of aesthetic perception. Proust’s division of awareness into two components roughly corresponds to William (...) James’ division of the stream of thought into a “nucleus” and “fringe.” Proust argues that the function of art is to evoke the underlying associative network indirectly in the mind of the observer by using carefully chosen sensory surfaces to control the stream of thought. I propose a possible neural basis for this Proustian/Jamesian phenomenology, and argue that the general principles of Proustian aesthetics can be applied to all forms of art. I conclude that a scientific theory of art should follow in a straightforward manner from a scientific theory of consciousness. (shrink)

A critical survey of Quine's arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction.

This paper explores whether DICTION text analysis software reveals distinctive language markers of a verbal tone of hubris in annual letters to shareholders signed by CEOs of major companies. We analyze 193 letters to shareholders, comprising about 368,000 words, focusing initially on 23 letters signed by CEOs who are alleged to be hubristic: Browne, Goodwin, and Murdoch. Their language use is statistically significantly high in terms of the DICTION master variable, REALISM. Based on further analysis, we contend that language high (...) in REALISM is not a distinctive marker of hubris but is likely to be a genre effect that is common in CEO letters to shareholders. We draw attention to the restricted capacity of DICTION to capture subtlety of language in CEO letters to shareholders. (shrink)

Fall prediction using machine learning has become one of the most fruitful and socially relevant applications of computer vision in gerontological research. Since its inception in the early 2000s, this subfield has proliferated into a robust body of research underpinned by various machine learning algorithms (including neural networks, support vector machines, and decision trees) as well as statistical modeling approaches (Markov chains, Gaussian mixture models, and hidden Markov models). Furthermore, some advancements have been translated into commercial and clinical practice, with (...) companies in various stages of development capitalizing on the aging population to develop new commercially available products. Yet despite the marvel of modern machine learning-enabled fall prediction, little research has been conducted to shed light on the security and privacy concerns that such systems pose for older adults. The present study employs an interdisciplinary lens in examining privacy issues associated with machine learning fall prediction and exploring the implications of these models in elderly care and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Ultimately, a justice-informed set of best practices rooted in social geroscience is suggested to help fall prediction researchers and companies continue to advance the field while preserving elderly privacy and autonomy. (shrink)

Families and surrogates sometimes use religious themes to justify their insistence on aggressive end‐of‐life care. Their hope that “God will work a miracle” can halt negotiations with health care professionals and lead to litigation. The possibility of “re‐imagining” religious themes, to broaden their scope and present a wider vision of the Christian tradition, may offer a solution.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:544 BOOK REVIEWS vide critical editions of the contributions by Richard Rufus and·-even more important-Richard Fishacre to the theology of Oxford and the continent Bayerishe Akademie der Wissenschaften Munich, West Germany RICH.ARD SCHENK, O.P. The Logic of Being: Historical Studies. Edited by SIMO KNUUTTIL.A and J.A.AKKO HINTIKK.A. Synthese Historical Library, 28. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985. Pp. xvi + 300 pp. $54.00 (cloth). Unlike many examples of the genre, this (...) collection of articles on the concept of being from Parmenides to Frege should and will be profitably consulted by philosophers of various stripes. Whether read piecemeal or straight through, these investigations carry on an open-ended dialogue in which historians of philosophy, philosophers of logic, and semanticists can participate equally. The editors are to be commended for presenting eleven articles (about an equal number of previously published and new studies) that are generally complementary to one another. What makes the collection so useful and interesting·, however much one disagrees with the thesis, is its concentrated focus on the difficulties of attributing to philosophers from Plato to Kant the Frege-Russell view that verbs for being are multiply ambiguous. It will perhaps be useful 'to begin with the concluding essay,· L. Haaparanta 's study " On Frege's Concept of Being," where the ambiguity thesis is discussed in greatest detail. She presents Frege's well-known articulation of the meanings of the verb ' to be ' as follows : (1) the is of identity (2) the is of predication (3) the is of existence, expressed by means either (i) of the existential quantifier and the symbol for identity or (ii) of the existential quantifier and the symbol for predication (4) the is of class-inclusion or generic implication Two points are worth noting. First, most of the contributors explore the ambiguity with reference to the is of identity, predication, and existence. Sceond, while ithe verb has several different meanings for Frege, most of the other philosophers discussed distinguish, at most, different uses. Many of the arguments against applying Frege's ambiguity thesis to earlier philosophers depend on this distinction between meaning and use; I will assess its cogency in specific contexts as they arise. BOOK REVIEWS 545 In Frege's analysis the crucial distinction is between the first-order copulative is and existence, a second-order concept. Since in Frege's view existence is a property of a first-order concept, it must lack all content. Haaparanta sums up the position well: "We presuppose the existence of objects; we do not say that they exist. For Frege, every predication carries with itself the claim of existence" (277). Influenced by Kant's argument that u existence is not predicate of a thing itself," Frege is willing to regard it as a proper concept, but not a first-order concept. This superordination of existence sounds reminiscent of Aristotle 's focus on predication and identity at the expense of existence (here it is better to speak of subordination, as the studies of Dancy and Hintikka on Aristotle indicate), but Frege's sharp distinction between concepts and objects is much closer to the Kantian position that we cannot know the essence of things in themselves. Thus, existence is a conceptual property though applicable to the instantiation of an object's properties; and identity statements, since they concern objects in themselves, are beyond the ken of reason. Certainly, Frege's thesis is " epistemologically motivated", as Haaparanta observes, but one is tempted to adopt a stronger conclusion: that the shift from an Aristotelian, or even Thomistic, ontology to Kantian epistemology contributes greatly to the emergence of the ambiguity thesis and renders it inapplicable to ancient and medieval metaphysics, even if, as Hintikka argues ("Kant on Existence and Predication"), Kant does not clearly distinguish different meanings of is·. The first four articles present a multi-faceted assault on the contemporary penchant for reading the Frege-Russell ambiguity thesis into the Greek philosophers. C. H. Kahn's ''Retrospect on the Verb ' To Be' and the Concept of Being " is a useful precis of his indispensable work on the Greek verb for being. His particular concern is to further the "campaign against the uncritically ' existential ' interpretation... (shrink)

For well over a century the dominant narrative concerning the major thinkers and themes of early modern British philosophy has been that of “British Empiricism,” where the great triumvirate of Locke, Berkeley and Hume is taken to stand united in opposition to their counterparts in the “Continental Rationalist” tradition. This chapter argues that this way of categorizing the thinkers and issues in question distorts and misrepresents this period and the core philosophical concerns and aims of the philosophers involved. Not only (...) does the schema of “British Empiricism” encourage us to overlook some key thinkers who cannot be easily categorized in these terms, and to group together thinkers with fundamentally different and even opposing aims and objectives, it places heavy emphasis on epistemological concerns as they relate to the philosophy–science relationship at the expense of the theological problems that were of primary interest for the thinkers concerned. This chapter examines the philosophical systems of Clarke, Berkeley and Hume as they relate to the issues of causal reasoning, theological speculations and the limits of philosophy. An examination of these salient themes and key philosophical figures of the early eighteenth century suggests that we need to radically revise and amend the dominant perspective and framework for interpreting these thinkers and the movements that shaped and directed their various philosophical systems. (shrink)

In his commentary, David Galin raises several important issues that deserve to be addressed. In this response, I do three things. First, I briefly discuss the relation between the present work and the metaphoric theories of thought developed by cognitive lin- guists such as Lakoff and Johnson (1998). Second, I address some of the confusions that seem to have arisen about my use of the terms ''substantive thought'' and ''nucleus.'' Third, I briefly discuss some of the directions that Galin suggests (...) for further research. (shrink)

Most current theoretical models of dreaming are built around an assumption that dream reports collected on awakening provide unbiased sampling of previous cognitive activity during sleep. However, such data are retrospective, requiring the recall of previous mental events from sleep on awakening. Thus, it is possible that dreaming occurs throughout sleep and differences in subsequent dream reports are owing to systematic differences in our ability to recall mentation on awakening. For this reason, it cannot be concluded with certainty that sleep (...) cognition is more predominant or in any way different during REM compared to NREM sleep. It is our contention that REM sleep and ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) waves do not necessarily represent stimulation of the cortex in the generation of dreams, but might rather represent enhanced arousal of attention mechanisms during sleep, which results in the subsequent recall of attended mentation on awakening. (shrink)

For all i ≥ 1, Ti+11 is not ∀Σb2-conservative over Ti1.

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 63-65.

Bertrand Russell was renowned for his provocative views on education. Considered an educational innovator, Russell attempted to create the perfect learning institution. Despite the failure of this practical vision, it did not stop him from continuing to strive towards inventing and arguing for a system of education free from repression. In _Education and the Social Order_, Russell dissects the motives behind educational theory and practice, and in doing so lays out original and controversial arguments for the reformation (...) of the education of the individual. (shrink)

The relationship between psychology and Christian theology has been one of the most important topics in the science and religion field. Discussions, however, are too frequently one-sided. This book takes an alternative approach, following the lead of Fraser Watts, the contributions develop various aspects of the mutual enrichment of each discipline by the other. Beyond outdated models of conflict and independence, this book highlights areas of fruitful enhancement at the interface of Christian belief and practice with psychology. Set out in (...) four sections the book's chapters first engage methodological and substantive issues in the interdisciplinarity raised by the dialogue between psychology and theology. Secondly, chapters explore a variety of areas in which psychology enriches theology, looking at both historical and contemporary themes such as psychoanalysis, embodiment and mindfulness. Chapters in the third section explore some of the theological enrichments of psychology, with topics including character strengths, wisdom, and forgiveness. The final section engages aspects of the mutual enrichment in religious life and pastoral care with an applied focus on mental health, meditation, prayer, spiritual direction and spirituality. A refreshing alternative study of the mutual enrichment of psychology and theology with theoretical and practical applications, this book reinforces the need for both disciplines to pursue creative and constructive engagement with each other. Of interest to scholars in psychology, theology, religious studies this book will also be of interest more widely as a case study of successful interdisciplinary work. (shrink)

The place of God in Nietzsche’s thought remains central and controversial. Nietzsche’s proclamation of 'the death of God' is one of the most famous slogans in modern philosophy, seeming to encapsulate the nineteenth-century loss of religious faith in the affirmation that God has "turned out to be our oldest lie" and yet the nature of Nietzsche’s own ‘theology’ is far from clear. This volume engages with Nietzsche’s arguments about God, theology, and religion. The volume extends the discussion to an engagement (...) of Nietzsche with alternative models of God, with ancient Greek religions, and with discussions of diversity in dis/conjunction with religion. The chapters examine Nietzsche’s genealogy of religion and his claims about the place of God and theology in the history of Western thought, as well as his engagements with alternative conceptions of God. The volume also examines the historical and contemporary reception of Nietzsche’s arguments about God by religious and non-religious thinkers, asking to what extent Nietzsche’s philosophy of God speaks to the challenges of today's globalized philosophy and religion. (shrink)

Paul Tillich is one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, and he produced a corpus of work that is considered canon for Western theology. While his influence is broad in and beyond the field of religious studies, his historic or ideological connection to radical theology has been hotly debated for decades. This introduction engages Tillich’s work as a whole but focuses upon what elements of Tillich are specifically employed by radical theologians, but more importantly, makes the case (...) that Tillich is, in fact, not only influential upon radical theology but rather that he should be counted among them as a proto-radical Christian thinker. (shrink)

Two studies examined the possibility that instruction in psychological methodology is committed to a philosophy of science, logical positivism, that is not adequately acknowledged and is empirically problematic. Study 1 suggested that psychology departments had more courses in methodology than corresponding physics departments, and psychology departments were far more likely to offer an introductory course in general methodology. Study 2 suggested that psychology had more introductory general methods textbooks than did physics. Both studies suggested psychology still presents itself as the (...) kind of science that was defined by logical positivism. Study 2 suggested psychology does this only implicitly in its texts and without acknowledging problematic features of that philosophy. Psychology methods texts commonly justified the importance of the scientific method by describing human cognitive fallibilities without cautioning that these same fallibilities could be seen alternatively as showing the problematic nature of the positivistic conception of scientific methodology. In several regards, texts conformed to Fleck's notion of “textbook science” and to Kuhn's description of science texts as “tourist brochures.” It was cautioned that an implicit appeal by psychology to logical positivism contradicts its claim that its methods and data are objective, transparent, and little influenced by philosophy, logic divorced from data, or authority. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In recent years, there have been a number of moral panics in Western societies about the existence of religious courts and tribunals in general and Shariah law in particular. In England and Wales, these concerns came to the fore following the 2008 lecture by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on ‘Civil Law and Religious Law in England’. In that lecture, Williams drew upon the work of the Canadian scholar Ayelet Shachar endorsing her concept of ‘transformative accommodation’. In (...) this article, we return to the work of Shachar in the light of our recent empirical study which examined the divorce jurisdiction of three religious tribunals in detail: a Jewish Beth Din; a matrimonial tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church; and a Muslim Shariah Council. We suggest that the focus upon Shachar’s concept of ‘transformative accommodation’ by Williams and subsequent commentators is unfortunate given that Shachar actually proposes ‘transformative accommodation’ as just one variant of what she refers to as ‘joint governance’ (albeit her preferred variant). We propose that the umbrella concept of ‘joint governance’ and its other variants can be developed in a way that could prove to be more useful than ‘transformative accommodation’. (shrink)