The purpose of this paper is to set out the contours for a pedagogy of dissent, i.e., a pedagogical approach to religion that recognizes the role of dissent in bridging the conventional antagonism between religious and LGBTQ concerns for education. Seán Henry begins it with the view that a pedagogy conducive to this kind of work can be engaged with if the relation between education and religion is framed in radically conservative terms. From here, Henry inquires into (...) the pedagogical commitments necessary for dissent as a mode of bridge-building to occur. These commitments are (1) an orientation toward remembrance, understood less in terms of a commonality of religious identity and more in terms of a “structural condition of the present”; and (2) an embodied attention to the proximity of the other. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the nature of the pedagogical content that could be helpful in enacting these commitments. Henry suggests that pedagogies of dissent require theological content that (1) reworks past traditions, without justifying or downplaying their shortcomings; and (2) is explicit in its rejection of heteronormativity through a sensitivity to the lived experiences of LGBTQ people. (shrink)

Evolutionary changes in traits that affect both ecological divergence and mating signals could lead to reproductive isolation and the formation of new species. Insect cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are potential examples of such dual traits. They form a waxy layer on the cuticle of the insect to maintain water balance and prevent desiccation, while also acting as signaling molecules in mate recognition and chemical communication. Because the synthesis of these hydrocarbons in insect oenocytes occurs through a common biochemical pathway, natural or (...) sexual selection on one role may affect the other. In this review, we explore how ecological divergence in insect CHCs can lead to divergence in mating signals and reproductive isolation. We suggest that the evolution of insect CHCs may be ripe models for understanding ecological speciation. (shrink)

The relationship between sexuality education and religion is often framed antagonistically, especially when it comes to tensions between the teaching of sexuality education and the priorities of some religious communities. In this paper, we argue that this antagonism can be structured as much by the prevalent forms of engagement that display it (dialogue and debate), as it is by the antagonism between contrasting ethical systems. While we acknowledge the importance of debate and dialogue in the public sphere, we contend that (...) appeals to these discursive forms in schools and classrooms can limit possibilities for rethinking engagements across sexuality education and religion. This is because of the tendency within certain manifestations of dialogue (for example, dialogical models connected to liberal political projects) to err on the side of predictability, rationality and abstraction. To address some of these limits, we draw on the recent turn to conversation in educational thinking. We think through the significance of conversation in offering a mode of engagement for students, teachers and school communities that is conditioned by the dispossession of the self and is attuned to the unpredictable, affective and contextual landscapes of shared encounters. We conclude with some thoughts on the practical implications of conversation for rethinking the role of the sexuality education teacher, practices of parental consultation and processes of policy enactment in schools. (shrink)

This paper explores comedy as a queer pedagogical form that subverts problematic representational tropes of queerness pervading mainstream depictions of queer experience. Articulating ‘form’ less as a fixed arrangement of characters, images, objects, and ideas, and more as a kind of formation that positions these in dynamic relation to the wider context in which comedies are encountered, we mobilise the idea of queer pedagogical forms to capture how comedy can foster new modes of thinking about and embodying queerness for, and (...) with, audiences. Drawing on specific examples from Schitt’s Creek and Derry Girls, we document the potential of specific comedic modalities (e.g. irony, sarcasm, irreverence, and slapstick) to foster alternative representations of queerness, in which normative tropes are poked fun at, problematised, and reimagined. Through these examples, we demonstrate how comedies can enable us to ‘laugh ourselves out of the closets’ we live by, feel, navigate, and embody. (shrink)

REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry (...) Stapp. (shrink)

Joshua Glasgow’s (2020) is a beautiful, philosophically rich book. Here I raise five main questions and criticisms. The first argues that holistic gratitude is too demanding: someone who can muster only fragmented gratitude is not failing to do and feel what is required; thus holistic gratitude is morally optional. The second suggests ways in which the metaphors Glasgow uses to express the idea of radiant value are problematic. The third notes that radiant value seems a sort of inverted cousin of (...) the doctrine of organic unities but points to an important analogy between them that problematizes the notion of radiant value. The fourth discusses Glasgow’s giving up on holistic gratitude in s penultimate chapter and briefly explores the strong affinities holistic gratitude to certain features of Roman Stoicism. The fifth draws on a passage from Henry James’ and the classical Chinese notion of harmony to gesture toward a conception of holistic gratitude that might, after all, provide solace for passing away. (shrink)

Claire Katz & Lara Trout, Emmanuel Levinas. Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers ; Thomas Bedorf, Andreas Cremonini, Verfehlte Begegnung. Levinas und Sartre als philosophische Zeitgenossen ; Samuel Moyn, Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics ; Pascal Delhom & Alfred Hirsch, Im Angesicht der Anderen. Levinas’ Philosophie des Politischen ; Sharon Todd, Learning from the other: Levinas, psychoanalysis and ethical possibilities in education ; Michel Henry, Le bonheur de Spinoza, suivi de: Etude sur le spinozisme de (...) Michel Henry, par Jean-Michel Longneaux ; Jean-François Lavigne, Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie. Des Recherches logiques aux Ideen: la genèse de l’idéalisme transcendantal phénoménologique ; Denis Seron, Objet et signification ; Dan Zahavi, Sara Heinämaa and Hans Ruin, Metaphysics, Facticity, Interpretation. Phenomenology in The Nordic Countries ; Dimitri Ginev, Entre anthropologie et herméneutique ; Magdalena Mărculescu-Cojocea, Critica metafizicii la Kant şi Heidegger. Problema subiectivităţii: raţiunea între autonomie şi deconstrucţie. (shrink)

A partir de la duplicidad del aparecer, principio básico de la fenomenología radical elaborada por Michel Henry en continuidad y ruptura con el proyecto husserliano, se pueden plantear ciertas notas para una antropología filosófica. Esta fenomenología propone la vida como fenómeno originario y, al definirla como autoafección, postula la necesidad de reconocer en ella, por principio, la presencia de una ipseidad, de modo que no hay vida sin viviente ni viviente sin vida. Determinar cuáles sean las notas que definen (...) la condición de dicho viviente sería la tarea de la antropología fenomenológica correspondiente. En atención a la enunciada duplicidad, dicho viviente —que es el hombre— ha de ser comprendido como pasividad radical respecto de la vida y como actividad constituyente respecto del mundo. (shrink)

Of all the developments in twentieth century physics, none has given rise to more heated debates than the changes in our understanding of science precipitated by the quantum revolution''. In this revolution, Niels Bohr's dramatically non-classical theory of the atom proved to be the springboard from which the new atomic physics drew it's momentum. Furthermore, Bohr's contribution was crucial not only because his interpretation of quantum mechanics became the most widely accepted view but also because in his role as educator (...) and spokesman for atomic physics Bohr was very much the patron spirit of the entire quantum revolution. The conceptual framework which he proposed to provide a new viewpoint for understanding the quantum theoretical description of atomic systems became for most of this century the dominant outlook of countless productive experimental and theoretical physicists. He called this new framework complementarity''. (shrink)

This book explains, in simple but accurate terms, how orthodox quantum mechanics works. The author, a distinguished theoretical physicist, shows how this theory, realistically interpreted, assigns an important role to our conscious free choices. Stapp claims that mainstream biology and neuroscience, despite nearly a century of quantum physics, still stick essentially to failed classical precepts in which mental intentions have no effect upon our bodily actions. He shows how quantum mechanics provides a rational basis for a better understanding of this (...) connection, even allowing an explanation of certain phenomena currently held to be "paranormal". These ideas have major implications for our understanding of ourselves and our mental processes, and thus also for the meaningfulness of our lives. (shrink)

This paper examines popular‘conventionalist’explanations of why philosophers need not back up their claims about how‘we’use our words with empirical studies of actual usage. It argues that such explanations are incompatible with a number of currently popular and plausible assumptions about language's ‘social’character. Alternate explanations of the philosopher's purported entitlement to make a priori claims about‘our’usage are then suggested. While these alternate explanations would, unlike the conventionalist ones, be compatible with the more social picture of language, they are each shown to (...) face serious problems of their own. (shrink)

Henry E. Allison presents an analytical and historical commentary on Kant`s transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason. He argues that, rather than providing a new solution to an old problem, it addresses a new problem, and he traces the line of thought that led Kant to the recognition of the significance of this problem in his 'pre-critical' period. In addition to the developmental nature of the account of Kant`s views presented (...) here, two distinctive features of Allison's reading of the deduction are a defense of Kant`s oft criticized claim that the conformity of appearances to the categories must be unconditionally rather than merely conditionally necessary and an insistence that the argument cannot be separated from Kant`s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Henry Allison is one of the foremost interpreters of the philosophy of Kant. This new volume collects all his recent essays on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. All the essays postdate Allison's two major books on Kant, and together they constitute an attempt to respond to critics and to clarify, develop and apply some of the central theses of those books. Two are published here for the first time. Special features of the collection are: a detailed defence of the (...) author's interpretation of transcendental idealism; a consideration of the Transcendental Deduction and some other recent interpretations thereof; further elaborations of the tensions between various aspects of Kant's conception of freedom and of the complex role of this conception within Kant's moral philosophy. (shrink)

Henry E. Allison presents a comprehensive commentary on Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Allison pays special attention to the structure of the work and its historical and intellectual context. He argues that, despite its relative brevity, the Groundwork is the single most important work in modern moral philosophy.

There has been much discussion recently of what has been labeled the “Brown-Boghossian-McKinsey”, “Brown-McKinsey” or sometimes just “McKinsey” arguments for the incompatibility of externalism and self-knowledge. However, while the three author's arguments have been treated as interchangeable, they are not identical. In particular, Brown’s and Boghossian’s arguments have a fairly serious flaw that cannot so easily be attributed to McKinsey. In what follows, I’ll (1) present a version of the ‘received’ “Brown-Boghossian-McKinsey” argument, (2) outline what I take to be the (...) most serious objection to it, (3) explain why this sort of objection does not seem, or do not seem immediately, to tell against McKinsey’s argument, and (4) suggest a number of alternative responses that might apply to McKinsey as well. (shrink)

Big data refers to extremely large data generated at high volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. The nurse scientist is uniquely positioned to leverage big data to suggest novel hypotheses on patient care and the healthcare system. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introductory guide to understanding the use and capability of big data for nurse scientists. Herein, we discuss the practical, ethical, social, and educational implications of using big data in nursing research. Some practical challenges with the (...) use of big data include data accessibility, data quality, missing data, variable data standards, fragmentation of health data, and software considerations. Opposing ethical positions arise with the use of big data, and arguments for and against the use of big data are underpinned by concerns about confidentiality, anonymity, and autonomy. The use of big data has health equity dimensions and addressing equity in data is an ethical imperative. There is a need to incorporate competencies needed to leverage big data for nursing research into advanced nursing educational curricula. Nursing science has a great opportunity to evolve and embrace the potential of big data. Nurse scientists should not be spectators but collaborators and drivers of policy change to better leverage and harness the potential of big data. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick,, philosopher, classicist, lecturer and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and supporter of women's university education, is well known for his Method of Ethics, a significant and influential book on moral theory. First published in 1883, this work considers the role the state plays in economic life, and whether economics should be considered an Art or a Science. Sidgwick applies his utilitarian views to economics, defending John Stuart Mill's 1848 treatise of the same name. The book calls for (...) a return to traditional political economy by eliminating 'needless polemics'. Sidgwick also outlines the need to bridge the gap between his analytical or deductive method and the inductive method employed by Mill's critics, the new generation of economic philosophers including John Elliot Cairnes and William Stanley Jevons. The second edition, reissued here, was published in 1887. (shrink)

How are causes and laws related? Some attempt to analyze causal relations in terms of laws, others view causal explanation as quite distinct from explanation using laws. My analysis of the relations between causes and laws focuses on cases such as the simple pendulum law where asymmetries in causal relations between quantities are not reflected in the functional dependencies in the law equations. The asymmetry puzzle has elicited a variety of accounts which reflect quite different views on the relation between (...) causes and laws and their roles in scientific explanation. Finding none of the usual accounts satisfying, I offer an explication based on some distinctions in the analysis of the relevant causes that are not commonly heeded. I criticize the very notion of causal law and examine some implications of my account forceteris paribusproblems which arise in attempts to give realist interpretations of scientific theories. (shrink)

This brief essay honor the recently deceased American author Cormac McCarthy by interpreting a short scene from one of his screenplays as a modern instance of genuinely tragic understanding. This interpretation is compared on the one hand with a related yet comedic version of tragic knowledge, and on the other hand with the play "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles. The essay argues that fostering the presentiment of such tragic understanding might be a an effective way of motivating people to act (...) to avert climate change. (shrink)

Dewey's voluminous writings, spanning decades and reflecting the contrasting national moods of different historical periods, abound with tensions, not to say contradictions. In highlighting and working with a conflict within Dewey's commitments, then, I do not mean to be catching him out or correcting a mistake. The tension on which I focus is one with which he struggled for most of his philosophical career and one that he never satisfactorily resolved, yet it is also one that goes to the heart (...) of what it is to be a pragmatist. It involves the role of final ends in a philosophy that places practical reasoning at the heart of all knowledge. I will argue that while Dewey had powerful philosophical prejudices that prevented him from adequately dealing with this problem himself, a solution is nonetheless forthcoming that maintains, and perhaps even deepens, the main themes of his pragmatism. Setting out this solution will lead me, in the end, to a novel formulation of the pragmatist theory of truth. (shrink)

Aristotle states inMetaphysicsZ13 (1038b9-11) that nothing said universally τῶν ϰαϑόλου λεγομένων is substance (οὐαία), rather the substance of each thing is particular to it (οὐαία ἐϰάστου ὴ ίδιος ἐϰάστῳ). The natural interpretation of this statement is that being said universally is a sufficient condition for not being substance. But this claim is very perplexing since it is the key premiss in the following apparently inconsistent set:(1)Form is substance.(2)Form is universal.(3)Nothing universal or said universally is substance, rather the substance of something (...) is particular ἴδιος to it. (shrink)

The \-substitution method is a technique for giving consistency proofs for theories of arithmetic. We use this technique to give a proof of the consistency of the impredicative theory \ using a variant of the cut-elimination formalism introduced by Mints.

Public reason liberals claim that legitimate rules must be justifiable to diverse perspectives. This Public Justification Principle threatens that failing to justify rules to reprehensible agents makes those rules illegitimate. Although public reason liberals have replies to this objection, they cannot avoid the challenge of powerful deceivers. Powerful deceivers trick people who are purportedly owed public justification into considering otherwise good rules to be unjustified. Avoiding this challenge requires discounting some failures of justification, according to what caused people’s beliefs. I (...) offer a conception of public justification that accommodates these externalist considerations while positioning Public Reason Liberalism to provide insight into real cases of deception. (shrink)

The Public Justification Principle requires that coercive institutions be justified to all who live under them. I argue that this principle often cannot be satisfied without persons depending on the pure informative testimony of others, even under realistically idealized situations. Two main results follow. First, the sense of justification relevant to this principle has a strongly externalist component. Second, normative expectations of trust are essential to public justification. On the view I propose, whether the Public Justification Principle is satisfied depends (...) on the features of the network of testifiers in which persons are embedded. I consider several such networks to show which features are plausibly relevant. The importance of testimony for public justification ultimately suggests that we should moderate our expectations about the kind of conciliation we can achieve with the social order in which we live. (shrink)

Quine introduced a famous distinction between the ‘notional’ sense and the ‘relational’ sense of certain attitude verbs. The distinction is both intuitive and sound but is often conflated with another distinction Quine draws between ‘dyadic’ and ‘triadic’ (or higher degree) attitudes. I argue that this conflation is largely responsible for the mistaken view that Quine’s account of attitudes is undermined by the problem of the ‘exportation’ of singular terms within attitude contexts. Quine’s system is also supposed to suffer from the (...) problem of ‘suspended judgement with continued belief’. I argue that this criticism fails to take account of a crucial presupposition of Quine’s about the connection between thought and language. The aim of the paper is to defend the spirit of Quine’s account of attitudes by offering solutions to these two problems. (shrink)

This article identifies a novel challenge to standard understandings of responsibility practices, animated by experimental studies of biases and heuristics. It goes on to argue that this challenge illustrates a general methodological challenge for theorizing about responsibility. That is, it is difficult for a theory to give us both guidance in real world contexts and an account of the metaphysical and normative foundations of responsibility without treating wide swaths of ordinary practice as defective. The general upshot is that theories must (...) either hew more closely to actual practice than they appear to, or they must provide some normative foundation for responsibility that does not go through actual practice. (shrink)

"Henry Rosemont raises hard questions, commonly overlooked, and does so with sensitivity, compassion, and broad understanding. The questions focus on modern China, but extend far beyond, to general problems of development, the moral foundations of civilization, and the nature of a just society. It is a challenging and thoughtful enquiry." --Noam Chomsky.

Prominent defenders of the Enlightenment, like Jürgen Habermas, are beginning to recognize that the characterization of human beings in entirely rational and secular terms leaves out something important. Religion, they admit, plays an important role in human existence. But the return to a traditional monotheistic religion seems sociologically difficult after the death of God. We argue that Homeric polytheism retains a phenomenologically rich account of the sacred, and a similarly rich understanding of human existence in its midst. By opening ourselves (...) up to the moods of wonder and gratitude at the root of Homer's sense of the sacred, we can re-appropriate a polytheistic understanding of the sacred that allows us to recover and revive the intensity and meaningfulness that Homer's polytheists enjoyed. (shrink)

We develop the theory of layered posets and use the notion of layering to prove a new iteration theorem is κ-cc, as long as direct limits are used sufficiently often. This iteration theorem simplifies and generalizes the various chain condition arguments for universal Kunen iterations in the literature on saturated ideals, especially in situations where finite support iterations are not possible. We also provide two applications:1 For any n≥1, a wide variety of <ωn−1-closed, ωn+1-cc posets of size ωn+1 can consistently (...) be absorbed by quotients of saturated ideals on ωn.2 For any n∈ω, the tree property at ωn+3 is consistent with Chang’s conjecture ↠. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1918, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West has been the object of academic controversy and opprobrium. In their efforts to dispose of it, scholars have resorted to a variety of tactics: bitter invective, icy scorn, urbane mockery, or simply pretending that the book is not there. Yet generations of readers have refused to be warned off, finding in Spengler a prophetic voice and a source of profound intellectual excitement. H. Stuart Hughes's Oswald Spengler offers a (...) judicious and objective reading of Spengler's works that admirably fills the gap between hypercritical invective and naive enthusiasm. This pioneering volume makes clear why Spengler's pessimistic reading of the fate of European civilization continues to resonate with contemporary anxieties. Despite the author's self-imposed intellectual and social isolation, Spengler's work was as Hughes demonstrates, a part of the enormous effort of intellectual reevaluation that has characterized the early twentieth century. Viewing Spengler in the broadest possible perspective, the author places his thought in its cultural relationship to that of such predecessors as Giambattista Vico, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Nikolai Danilevsky and contemporaries including Benedetto Croce, Henri Bergson, and Vilfredo Pareto. A chapter of Hughes's book is devoted to Spengler's influence on later cyclical thinkers such as Arnold Toynbee and Pitirim Sorokin. Another chapter clarifies the essentially antagonistic relationship between his thought and Nazi ideology. Throughout, Hughes is carefully attuned to the complex and often bewildering shifts of Spengler's ideas and manner, providing a unified picture of the sober historian; the lofty seer; the cool, detached observer; and the impassioned participant. In his introduction to this new edition, Hughes comments on the timeliness of Spengler's message with respect to technology and environmental issues and draws some unexpected and fascinating parallels between Spengler's thought and that of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Oswald Spengler offers an illuminating view of the achievements and limitations of one of the most influential and representative figures of the twentieth century. It will be of concern to intellectual historians, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists. (shrink)

Short biographies of twenty world famous philosophers.

We prove a variety of theorems about stationary set reflection and concepts related to internal approachability. We prove that an implication of Fuchino–Usuba relating stationary reflection to a version of Strong Chang’s Conjecture cannot be reversed; strengthen and simplify some results of Krueger about forcing axioms and approachability; and prove that some other related results of Krueger are sharp. We also adapt some ideas of Woodin to simplify and unify many arguments in the literature involving preservation of forcing axioms.

Given an ideal $I$ , let $\mathbb{P}_{I}$ denote the forcing with $I$ -positive sets. We consider models of forcing axioms $MA(\Gamma)$ which also have a normal ideal $I$ with completeness $\omega_{2}$ such that $\mathbb{P}_{I}\in \Gamma$ . Using a bit more than a superhuge cardinal, we produce a model of PFA (proper forcing axiom) which has many ideals on $\omega_{2}$ whose associated forcings are proper; a similar phenomenon is also observed in the standard model of $MA^{+\omega_{1}}(\sigma\mbox{-closed})$ obtained from a supercompact cardinal. (...) Our model of PFA also exhibits weaker versions of ideal properties, which were shown by Foreman and Magidor to be inconsistent with PFA. Along the way, we also show (1) the diagonal reflection principle for internally club sets ( $\mathit{DRP}(IC_{\omega_{1}})$ ) introduced by the author in earlier work is equivalent to a natural weakening of “there is an ideal $I$ such that $\mathbb{P}_{I}$ is proper”; and (2) for many natural classes $\Gamma$ of posets, $MA^{+\omega_{1}}(\Gamma)$ is equivalent to an apparently stronger version which we call $MA^{+\operatorname{Diag}}(\Gamma)$. (shrink)