Roddy, Mary Review(s) of: A mission too far ...: Pacific commitment and the Marist missions 1835-1841, by Jan Snijders SM, (Adelaide: ATF Theology, 2012), pp. 426, $42.95 (soft cover), $15.95 (PDF).

Roddy, Mary Review of: Letters from the marist missionaries in Oceania 1836-1854, by ed. Charles Girard, Adelaide: ATF, 2015, pp. 753, hardback, $105.00; paperback, $79.95; pdf, $50.00.

We all know that speech can be harmful. But how? Mary Kate McGowan argues that speech constitutes harm when it enacts a norm that prescribes that harm. She investigates such harms as oppression, subordination, and discrimination in such forms of speech as sexist remarks, racist hate speech, pornography, verbal triggers, and micro-aggressions.

Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species. In _Beast and Man_ Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, _Beast (...) and Man_ has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live. (shrink)

Renowned philosopher Mary Midgley explores the remarkable gap that has opened up between our own understanding of our sense of our self and today's scientific orthodoxy that claims the self to be nothing more than an elaborate illusion. Bringing her formidable acuity and analytic skills to bear, she exposes some very odd claims and muddled thinking on the part of cognitive scientists and psychologists when it comes to talk about the self. Well-known philosophical problems in causality, subjectivity, empiricism, free (...) will and determinsim are shown to have been glossed over by scientists claiming that the self is no more than a jumble of brain-cells. Midgley argues powerfully and persuasively that the rich variety of our imaginative life cannot be contained in the narrow bounds of a highly puritanical materialism that equates brain and self. The denial of the self has been sustained by the belief that physical science requires it, but there is not just one such pattern of thought but many others which all help to explain the different kinds of problems that arise in our life, argues Midgley. Physics' amazing contemporary successes spring from attacking problems that arise within physics, not from outside. It is no more sensible to give a physical answer to a moral problem than it is to give political answers to physical ones. 'Are you an Illusion?' is an impassioned defence of the importance of our own experiences - the subjective sources of thought - which are every bit as necessary for the world as the objective ones such as brain cells. (shrink)

The Supreme Court seems poised to overrule Roe v. Wade and hold that there is no constitutional right to choose abortion. The reversal of Roe seems to run counter to public opinion in the United St...

Preservationism is a dominant account of the justification of beliefs formed on the basis of memory. According to preservationism, a memory belief is justified only if that belief was justified when it was initially held. However, we now know that much of what we remember is not explicitly stored, but instead reconstructed when we attempt to recall it. Since reconstructive memory beliefs may not have been continuously held by the agent, or never held before at all, a purely preservationist account (...) of memory does not allow for justified reconstructed memory beliefs. In this essay, I show how a process reliabilist account can maintain preservationism about reproductive memory beliefs while accommodating the justification of reconstructive memory beliefs. I argue that reconstructive memory is an inferential process, and that therefore the beliefs it produces are justified in the same way that other inferential beliefs are justified. Accordingly, my process reliabilist account combines a preservationist account of reproductive memory with an inferential account of reconstructive memory. I end by defending this view against objections. (shrink)

To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frightening venture. Here Mary Midgley does so, with her customary brilliance and clarity. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness is an inevitable part of human nature. This is not however a blanket acceptance of evil. Out of this dark journey she returns with an offering to us: an understanding of human nature that enhances our very humanity.

Crude materialism, reduction of mind to body, extreme individualism. All products of a 17th century scientific inheritance which looks at the parts of our existence at the expense of the whole. Cutting through myths of scientific omnipotence, Mary Midgley explores how this inheritance has so powerfully shaped the way we are, and the problems it has brought with it. She argues that poetry and the arts can help reconcile these problems, and counteract generations of 'one-eyed specialists', unable and unwilling (...) to look beyond their own scientific or literary sphere. Dawkins, Atkins, Bacon and Descartes all come under fire as Midgely sears through contemporary debate, from Gaia to memes, and organic food to greenhouse gases. After years of unquestioned imperialism, science is finally forced to take a step back and acknowledge the arts. (shrink)

In this book, Mary Midgely turns a spotlight on the fashionable view that we no longer need or use moral judgements. She shows how the question of whether or not we can make moral judgements must inevitably affect our attitudes to the law and its institutions, but also to events that occur in our daily lives.

Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives? In her last published work, Mary Midgley addresses provocative questions, interrogating the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and (...) the life of the mind. This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value. (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This is the first critically evaluative study of Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of science to be written in English. Bachelard's professional reputation was based on his philosophy of science, though that aspect of his thought has tended to be neglected by his English-speaking readers. Dr Tiles concentrates here on Bachelard's critique of scientific knowledge. Bachelard emphasised discontinuities in the history of science; in particular he stressed the ways of thinking about and investigating the world to be found in modern science. This, (...) as the author shows, is paralleled by those debates among English-speaking philosophers about the rationality of science and the 'incommensurability' of different theories. To these problems Bachelard might be taken as offering an original solution: rather than see discontinuities as a threat to the objectivity of science, see them as products of the rational advancement of scientific knowledge. Dr Tiles sets out Bachelard's views and critically assesses them, reflecting also on the wider question of how one might assess potentially incommensurable positions in the philosophy of science as well as in science itself. (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

Published in 1785, Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words, its aim is to identify and corroborate the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative. He argues that human beings are ends in themselves, never to be used by anyone merely as a means, and that universal and unconditional obligations must be understood as (...) an expression of the human capacity for autonomy and self-governance. As such, they are laws of freedom. This volume contains Mary Gregor's acclaimed translation of the text into English, revised by Jens Timmermann, and an accessible, updated introduction by Christine Korsgaard. (shrink)

In _The Ethical Primate_, Mary Midgley, 'one of the sharpest critical pens in the West' according to the _Times Literary Supplement_, addresses the fundamental question of human freedom. Scientists and philosophers have found it difficult to understand how each human-being can be a living part of the natural world and still be free. Midgley explores their responses to this seeming paradox and argues that our evolutionary origin explains both why and how human freedom and morality have come about.

To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frightening venture. Here Mary Midgley does so, with her customary brilliance and clarity. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness is an inevitable part of human nature. This is not however a blanket acceptance of evil. Out of this dark journey she returns with an offering to us: an understanding of human nature that enhances our very humanity.

How can we critique political theory when all we have to use are its own conceptual tools? As Hannah Arendt observed, it can only be done through leaps, inversions, and the turning of concepts upside-down. But this twisting operation must be done in order to turn those who philosophize back to the hard work of real life change. In Turning Operations, renowned theorist Mary G. Dietz challenges specific contemporary modes of theorizing politics-from feminist theory to Habermasian discourse- -while appropriating (...) some of political theory's own approaches and some of its most striking figures, including Aristotle, Nietzsche, Weber, Beauvoir, and Arendt in order to foment some leaps, inversions, reversals and turns on politics along the way. Dietz confronts a number of current debates, arguing that most are filled with artificial division and empty terms. She argues that we must abandon commonly supported dichotomies-masculine versus feminine, speech versus action, liberty versus community -to create abetter discourse, and a better world. Turning Operations is an essential new contribution to democratic and feminist political thought. (shrink)

Published in 1982, Carol Gilligan's _In a Different Voice_ proposed a new model of moral reasoning based on care, arguing that it better described the moral life of women. ____An Ethic of Care__ is the first volume to bring together key contributions to the extensive debate engaging Gilligan's work. It provides the highlights of the often impassioned discussion of the ethic of care, drawing on the literature of the wide range of disciplines that have entered into the debate. _Contributors:_ Annette (...) Baier, Diana Baumrind, Lawrence A. Blum, Mary Brabeck, John Broughton, Owen Flanagan, Marilyn Friedman, Carol Gilligan, Catherine G. Greeno, Catherine Jackson, Linda K. Kerber, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Zella Luria, Eleanor E. Maccoby, Linda Nicholson, Bill Puka, Carol B. Stack, Joan C. Tronto, Lawrence Walker, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. (shrink)

After we die, our persona may live on in the minds of the people we know well. Two essential elements of this process are mourning and acts of commemoration. These behaviors extend well beyond grief and must be cultivated deliberately by the survivors of the deceased individual. Those who are left behind have many ways of maintaining connections with their deceased, such as burials in places where the living are likely to return and visit. In this way, culturally defined places (...) often serve as metaphors of social association and shared experience. Humans are the only kind of animal that buries their dead, and this gesture is preserved in Paleolithic sites as early as 120,000 years ago. Though not the only method of honoring the dead in human cultures, the emergence of burial traditions in the Middle Paleolithic implies that both Neandertals and early anatomically modern humans had already begun to conceive of the individual as unique and irreplaceable. Claims of primitive mortuary behavior in earlier periods than the Middle Paleolithic fall short in that they lack any signs of positive social-spatial associations between the deceased and survivors. The archaeological evidence for burial behavior in the Middle Paleolithic provides the first clear translation of mourning into a stereotypical action. These burials therefore may represent the first ritualized bridge between the living and the deceased in human evolutionary history. (shrink)

"Charming, interesting, thought-provoking and a great read." Rosalind Hursthouse The daughter of a pacifist rector who answered "No!" when his congregation asked him "Is everything in the bible true?", perhaps Mary Midgley was destined to become a philosopher. Yet few would have thought this inquisitive, untidy, nature-loving child would become "one of the sharpest critical pens in the west." This is her remarkable story. Probably the only philosopher to have been in Vienna on the eve of its invasion by (...) Nazi Germany in 1938 and dance in Trafalgar Square on VE day seven year later, she studied philosophy at Oxford in the same year as Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot, all of whom became close friends. Midgley tells us in vivid and humorous fashion how they cut a swathe through the arid landscape of 1950s British philosophy, writing and arguing - often with each other - about the grand themes of character, beauty and the meaning of rudeness while the spectral figure of Ludwig Wittgenstein hovered in the background. She also charts the highs and lows of philosophy and academia in Britain. On joining the Reading philosophy department on £400 a year in 1949, she doubled its staff complement. But her many years at Newcastle University - where Mike Brearley, who later captained England at cricket, also used to teach - were rewarded with the closure of the philosophy department in the 1980s. The mother of three children, her journey is also one of a woman who in the 1950s and 1960s was fighting to combine a professional career with raising a family. In startling contrast to many of the academic stars of her generation, we learn that Midgley nearly became a novelist and started writing philosophy only when in her fifties, suggesting that Minerva's owl really does fly at dusk. Plainly told like her philosophy, this is an elegiac and moving account of friendships found and lost, bitter philosophical battles and of a profound love of teaching all too rarely acknowledged today. (shrink)

We know we have thoughts, but are we aware that we have styles of thought? This book, written by one of the most gifted and celebrated social thinkers of our time, is a contribution to understanding the rules of the different styles of thinking. Author Mary Douglas takes us through a range of thought styles from the vulgar to the refined. Throughout this fascinating journey, Thought Styles shows us how the different styles work and how outsiders can learn the (...) styles of insiders. The discussion ranges from the style of folklore to the styles of therapy, shopping, religion, and animal rights. The result is a book full of insight. Readers will find themselves thinking in new ways about the mechanics of communication in everyday life. Professionals and researchers in sociology, communication, and anthropology will especially appreciate this auspicious new book. (shrink)

This chapter is Mary Whiton Calkins’ articulation and defense of the personalistic conception of reality.

In the wake of Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission, more companies are spending heavily on political speech, but the moral implications of doing so are not clear. Few business ethicists have directly addressed the moral legitimacy of corporate political speech and the conditions under which it may be morally permissible. My goal here is to outline the moral hazards associated with engaging in corporate political speech. I argue that whether one takes a narrow Friedman-style shareholder primacy view of (...) managerial duty, a broader stakeholder view, or an even more wide-ranging political corporate social responsibility view of the moral duties of business, various moral hazards must be taken into account in determining the moral legitimacy of corporate political speech. I discuss a number of moral hazards endemic to corporate political speech and suggest ways in which business practitioners might avoid those moral hazards. (shrink)

We hypothesize that effective collaboration is facilitated when individuals and environmental components form a synergy where they work together and regulate one another to produce stable patterns of behavior, or regularity, as well as adaptively reorganize to form new behaviors, or irregularity. We tested this hypothesis in a study with 32 triads who collaboratively solved a challenging visual computer programming task for 20 min following an introductory warm‐up phase. Multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis was used to examine fine‐grained (i.e., every 10 (...) s) collective patterns of regularity across team members' speech rate, body movement, and team interaction with the shared user interface. We found that teams exhibited significant patterns of regularity as compared to shuffled baselines, but there were no systematic trends in regularity across time. We also found that periods of regularity were associated with a reduction in overall behavior. Notably, the production of irregular behavior predicted expert‐coded metrics of collaborative activity, such as teams' ability to construct shared knowledge and effectively negotiate and coordinate execution of solutions, net of overall behavioral production and behavioral self‐similarity. Our findings support the theory that groups can interact to form interpersonal synergies and indicate that information about system‐level dynamics is a viable way to understand and predict effective collaborative processes. (shrink)

In this much-anticipated work, distinguished authors Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer present an accessible introduction to the philosophy of the thirteenth century Franciscan John Duns Scotus.

Neuropalliative care developed to address the needs of patients living with life‐limiting neurologic disease. One critical consideration is that disease‐related changes to cognition, communication, and function challenge illness experiences and care practices. We conducted an ethnography to understand neuropalliative care as a phenomenon; how it was experienced, provided, conceptualized. Personhood served as our conceptual framework; with its long philosophical history and important place in nursing theory, we examined the extent to which it captured neuropalliative experiences and concerns. Personhood contextualized complex (...) losses, aligning the impact of functional and relational changes. Cognition, communication, and functional alterations stretched conceptions of personhood, insinuating it can be relational, fluid, adaptive. Although normative conceptions of personhood guided research and decision‐making, ethical considerations suggested personhood could be transformed, remade. We consider the implications of our findings through three themes. First, we examine how literature on illness experience fails to integrate the realities of people living with and dying from neurologic disease; we counter this by interrogating the concept of experience. Second, we turn to Ricoeur's work on recognition to illuminate relational conceptions of personhood to inform care practices. Finally, we reflect on how personhood can bridge the gap left by functional changes, enhance relational engagement, and promote dignity at the end of life. (shrink)