A Response to Puka's "The Liberation of Caring: A Different Voice for Gilligan's 'Different Voice' ".

A Response to Puka's “The Liberation of Caring: A Different Voice for Gilligan's ‘Different Voice’”.

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

Sleep has a profound effect on our mood, but insight in the mechanisms underlying this association is still lacking. We tested whether emotion regulation is a mediator in the relationship between fragmented sleep and mood disturbance. The effect of fragmented sleep on the emotion regulation strategies, including cognitive reappraisal, distraction, acceptance and suppression ability, was assessed. We further tested whether the use of these strategies, as well as rumination and self-criticism, mediated the association between fragmented sleep and negative and positive (...) affect. Participants (N = 69) wore an actiwatch and filled in a sleep diary for 12 consecutive nights. They had one control night and one sleep fragmentation night. Emotion regulation ability was assessed with an experimental task. Usage of emotion regulation strategies and negative and positive affect were assessed four times during the day with a survey after the control and sleep fragmentation night. Cognitive reappraisal, distraction, acceptance and suppression ability did not differ between the sleep fragmentation and control condition. However, participants reported higher usage of rumination and distraction after the sleep fragmentation night and rumination significantly mediated the negative association between fragmented sleep and negative affect. (shrink)

Kermani traces the history of mankind from the origins of society and language to the present, and un-mutes the silence that resulted from the moment man began to write his history instead of listening to history's story.

Deference in politics is often necessary. To answer questions like, “Should the government increase the federal minimum wage?” and “Should the state introduce a vaccine mandate?”, we need to know relevant scientific and economic facts, make complex value judgments, and answer questions about incentives and implementation. Lay citizens typically lack the time, resources, and competence to answer these questions on their own. Hence, they must defer to others. But to whom should they defer? A common answer is that they should—or (...) are at least permitted to—defer to co-partisans. This view initially seems attractive on both normative and empirical grounds. Against this, I argue that deference to co-partisans has overlooked moral and epistemic problems. In light of them, I propose several new ways to revise our expectations of citizens in a democracy both individually and institutionally. (shrink)

This article is a co-written reflection on the process of curating and programming Printing Solidarity: Tricontinental Graphics from Cuba (2021–2022). Held at Stony Brook University's Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, the exhibition featured over sixty posters and printed matter produced mostly in the 1960s–1970s by the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAAL) in Havana. As an experiment in pedagogical curating, the yearlong project spanned the isolation from, return to, and re-envisioning of inperson learning during (...) the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflecting on our inspirations, intentions, and challenges, we argue for the role of art objects in activating material-based, in-person learning on campus and consider the value of academic collaboration, cross-regional research, and experimental pedagogies. The project offered an opportunity to revisit the Cold War-period politics of global solidarity in today's pandemic era while exploring what it would mean to study art today from the question of solidarity rather than division. (shrink)

When we think about agents who change a long-standing belief, we sometimes have conflicting reactions. On the one hand, such agents often epistemically improve. For example, their new belief may be better supported by the evidence or closer to the truth. On the other hand, such agents are often subject to criticism. Examples include politicians who change their minds on whether climate change is occurring or whether vaccines cause autism. What explains this criticism, and is it ever justified? To answer (...) these questions, I introduce the notion of epistemic atonement. By epistemic atonement, I mean the process of making up for one’s previous epistemic failures, including believing badly. Central to my account is the idea that epistemic atonement requires restoring trust and indicating trustworthiness. I flesh out my proposal by drawing on philosophical and empirical literature on apologies, demonstrating that epistemic blame and atonement parallels the moral domain in various under-appreciated respects. (shrink)

Scientific authorship serves to identify and acknowledge individuals who “contribute significantly” to published research. However, specific authorship norms and practices often differ within and across disciplines, labs, and cultures. As a consequence, authorship disagreements are commonplace in team research. This study aims to better understand the prevalence of authorship disagreements, those factors that may lead to disagreements, as well as the extent and nature of resulting misbehavior. Methods include an international online survey of researchers who had published from 2011 to (...) 2015. Of the 6673 who completed the main questions pertaining to authorship disagreement and misbehavior, nearly half reported disagreements regarding authorship naming; and discipline, rank, and gender had significant effects on disagreement rates. Paradoxically, researchers in multidisciplinary teams that typically reflect a range of norms and values, were less likely to have faced disagreements regarding authorship. Respondents reported having witnessed a wide range of misbehavior including: instances of hostility, undermining of a colleague’s work during meetings/talks, cutting corners on research, sabotaging a colleague’s research, or producing fraudulent work to be more competitive. These findings suggest that authorship disputes may contribute to an unhealthy competitive dynamic that can undermine researchers’ wellbeing, team cohesion, and scientific integrity. (shrink)

Wolff advocates the mathematical method, which consists in chains of syllogisms that proceed from axioms and definitions to theorems, for achieving scientific certainty in branches of philosophy like ontology and physics. By contrast, in ‘The Discipline of Pure Reason in its Dogmatic Use’ Kant significantly limits the efficacy of this method in philosophy. In this paper I investigate an under-examined result of the Discipline: Kant’s claim that his system of philosophy does not contain “dogmata”. By identifying “dogmata” in Wolff’s system (...) of physics, I argue that, for Kant, they are propositions that uncritically deploy ideas of reason. I conclude that the Discipline extends criticisms raised in the Transcendental Dialectic to any erroneous use of the mathematical method in philosophy. (shrink)

In this ethnography of Full Contact, a San Francisco Bay Area boxing gym, I use Bourdieu’s theory of practice to illustrate how ‘rules of the game’ shape people’s perceptions, interactions and positions (capital). First, I show how the unwritten, unspoken rules of boxing as a field (its doxa) impact readings of bodies and bodily capital, readings that then have an impact on micro-level interactions and hierarchies at Full Contact. Second, I show the micro-level consequences of hysteresis – delays in the (...) realignment of habitus and field that result from change at the field level – on social interactions and hierarchies. Gender is at the core of my analysis, for it is both a fundamental part of my and others’ habitus, and a symbolic trait of significance in the hypermasculine doxa of boxing as a field. (shrink)

Experimental work has shown that spatial experiences influence spatiotemporal metaphor use. In these studies, participants are asked a question that yields different responses depending on the metaphor participants use. It has been claimed that English speakers are equally likely to respond with either variant in the absence of priming. Related studies testing non-spatial experiences demonstrate varied results with a wide range of primes. Here, the effects of eye movement and stimuli presentation modality on comprehension of this question are investigated in (...) different formats. In addition, the results of prior reported controls are re-analyzed in a meta-analysis to verify reliable ambiguity of the test question. Results suggest that English speakers have a baseline preference for the Moving Ego metaphor variant, with a stronger preference in verbal rather than written presentation. The findings have implications both for interpretation of prior studies' results and future study designs. (shrink)

Célestin Freinet a été arrêté le 20 mars 1940 comme militant communiste, sur ordre du Préfet des Alpes-Maritimes, et interné dans divers camps du sud de la France jusqu'au mois d'octobre 1941. C'est à " former en l'enfant l'homme de demain ", un enfant plus instruit, plus responsable, plus heureux, que s'est attaché cet infatigable promoteur d'une pédagogie nouvelle coopérative. On retrouvera dans ces lettres l'essentiel de la réflexion éducative contenant en germe ses deux ouvrages majeurs, " l'éducation du travail (...) " et " Essai de psychologie sensible ", écrits lorsque Freinet est assigné à résidence en 1941. Mais le témoignage de cet esprit pénétrant et engagé est également remarquable pour sa valeur historique : son regard éclaire sous un jour encore assez peu connu, la misère morale et matérielle des internés, leurs souffrances et leur détresse, leur puissance à résister aussi. Ce volume épistolaire intéressera à la fois tous les curieux de l'œuvre de Freinet, tous ceux que l'éducation nouvelle et la rénovation de l'enseignement préoccupent, et ceux que ne laisse pas indifférents cette période dramatique de notre Histoire racontée au jour le jour, et à laquelle Elise Freinet apporte un écho attentif et émouvant. (shrink)

Fitness apps on mobile devices are gaining popularity, as more people are engaging in self-tracking activities to record their status of fitness and exercise routines. These technologies also evolved from simply recording steps and offering exercise suggestions to an integrated lifestyle guide for physical wellbeing, thus exemplify a new era of "quantified self" in the context of health as individual responsibility. There is a considerable amount of literature in science, technology and society (STS) studies looking at this phenomenon from different (...) perspectives, linking it with the sociology of self-surveillance and neoliberal regimes of health. However, the human-technology interface, through which the micro- (behavioral) and macro- (social) aspects converge, still calls for extensive examination. This paper approaches this topic from the postphenomenological perspective, in combination with empirical studies of design analysis and interviews of fitness apps, to reveal the human-technology link between the design elements and people's perception through the direct experiences and interpretations of technology. It argues that the intentionality of self-tracking fitness app designs mediates the human-technology relations by "guiding" people into a quantified knowledge regime. It shapes the perceptions of fitness and health with representations of meanings about a "good life" of individual success and management. This paper also gives a critique of current individual, performance-oriented fitness app designs and offers the possibility of seeking alternatives through the multistable nature of human-technology relations—how altering interpretation and meaning of the design with a cultural or social context could change the form of technological embodiment. (shrink)

Grete Hermann was a pupil of mathematical physicist Emmy Noether, follower and co-worker of neo-Kantian philosopher Leonard Nelson, and an important intellectual figure in post-war German social democracy. She is best known for her work on the philosophy of modern physics in the 1930s, some of which emerged from intense discussions with Heisenberg and Weizsäcker in Leipzig. Hermann’s aim was to counter the threat to the Kantian notion of causality coming from quantum mechanics. She also discussed in depth the question (...) of ‘hidden variables’ and provided an extensive analysis of Bohr’s notion of complementarity. This volume includes translations of Hermann’s two most important essays on this topic: one hitherto unpublished and one translated here into English for the first time. It also brings together recent scholarly contributions by historians and philosophers of science, physicists, and philosophers and educators following in Hermann’s steps. Hermann's work places her in the first rank among philosophers who wrote about modern physics in the first half of the last century. Those interested in the many fields to which she contributed will find here a comprehensive discussion of her philosophy of physics that places it in the context of her wider work. (shrink)

This essay bridges together social network and institutional perspectives to examine how women on boards, by breaking up directors’ homophilous networks, contribute to board effectiveness. It proposes that through real and symbolic representations, women enhance perceptions of the board’s instrumental, relational, and moral legitimacy, leading to increased perceptions of the board’s trustworthiness which in turn fosters shareholders’ trust in the firm. Envisioning the gender diversification of boards as an event of institutional change, this article considers the critical role of shareholder (...) activists and legislative support from the SEC in the deinstitutionalization of old boys’ networks and the reinstitutionalization of gender diverse boards. This work is substantiated with evidence obtained through 34 semi-structured interviews, archival and documentary evidence. (shrink)

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick were named as the authors of the publication “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids; a Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” in the journal Nature. While historians have debated the relevance and importance of various discoveries in molecular science, there is little dispute as to the major significance of the discovery of the double-helix structure of deoxyribose nucleic acid. But what of Rosalind Franklin? There is little mention in science manuals of the contribution of the (...) biophysicist Rosalind Franklin to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson has admitted that he used Franklin’s... (shrink)

Prior analyses of Grete Hermann’s 1935 essay on the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics have taken her central aim to be the recovery of an appropriately Kantian notion of causality from this new indeterministic physics. I argue that if one instead reads this essay as primarily an investigation into the meaning and implications of the relative nature of quantum mechanics—not only for physics, but also for fields as different as ethics—certain dimensions of her work appear with greater clarity. Among these (...) are her particular Kantian interpretation of Bohr’s complementarity and correspondence principles, her unique understanding of the quantum-classical divide, the failure of Kant’s a priori categories of space, time and causality to apply literally—even for obtaining classical natural knowledge, and the splitting of truth. (shrink)

The meaning of enlightenment -- Enlightenment in a European setting -- Religious enlightenment and enlightenment in Russia -- Enlightenment in Russian Orthodoxy -- Christian enlightenment and enlightenment learning -- Spiritual and sensual wisdom -- Enlightenment and the oneness of God's creation -- Divine providence and human history -- The spiritual feat of everyday life: celebration of tsarevich Dimitrii -- Absolute monarchy as Christian rulership -- Enlightenment and historical consciousness -- Free will and the human person -- Free will as moral (...) choice -- Free will and religious toleration -- From toleration to equality -- Toward a definition of the Russian enlightenment -- From state building to government by moral means -- Unity and reconciliation in the Russian enlightenment -- Limits to (the) enlightenment in Russia. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant Yearbook Jahrgang: 8 Heft: 1 Seiten: 17-38.

In the late nineteenth century, British anthropometrists attempted to normalize the practice of measuring bodies as they sought to collate data about the health and racial makeup of their fellow citizens. As the country’s leading anthropometrists, Francis Galton and Charles Roberts worked to overcome suspicion about their motives and tried to establish the value of recording physical dimensions from their subjects’ perspective. For Galton, the father of the eugenics movement, the attainment of objective self-knowledge figured alongside the ranking of one’s (...) physique and faculties against established norms. The competitive tests at Galton’s anthropometric laboratory were meant to help subjects identify their strengths and weaknesses, ultimately revealing their level of eugenic fitness. Roberts, on the other hand, saw the particular value of anthropometric data in informing economic and social policy, but capitalized on parents’ interest in their children’s growth rates to encourage regular monitoring of their physical development. While both Galton and Roberts hoped that individuals would ultimately furnish experts with their anthropometric data to analyze, they both understood that the public would need to have explained the practical purposes of such studies and to familiarize themselves with their methods. This article argues that while anthropometry did not become a fully domestic practice in this period, it became a more visible one, paving the way for individuals to take an interest in metrical evaluations of their bodies in the coming years. (shrink)

Background There has been significant discussion about the need to manage conflict of interest (COI) in medical journals. This has lead many journals to implement policies to manage COI for authors and reviewers; however, surprisingly little attention has been focused on the COI of journal editors. Objective The goal of this exploratory study was to determine whether the policies were accessible to the public and to researchers, and to discuss the potential impact on public transparency. Design The authors conducted an (...) internet search of editor COI policy instruments that have been developed, implemented and communicated by the top 10 peer-reviewed medical journals (2010 ISI Web of Knowledge Impact Factor), and assessed their general accessibility by gauging the level of difficulty in navigating the journal's website (number of clicks to find the policy instruments). Results Only four of the 10 medical journals (40%) in this study have accessible COI policy directives that include editors (JIM, PLoS Medicine, AIM, CMAJ). One journal (NEJM) had an editorial on the subject, and another (The Lancet) mentioned editor COI in their general guidelines. These documents are not readily accessible; starting from the journal's main website at least four clicks are needed to access these documents. Conclusion These results suggest that there is a general lack of accessible editor COI policy instruments among leading medical journals, something that may consequently have a negative impact on the trust accorded to these journals. (shrink)

This paper examines two moments in the globalization of human genetics, focusing on the American University of Beirut as a site of interaction between American, European and Middle Eastern scientific actors and research subjects. In the interwar period, the establishment of clinical laboratories at AUB's medical school enabled the development of an informal large-scale programme to study human heredity through anthropometry and sero-anthropology. AUB's Middle Eastern students were trained in these techniques, and research results were disseminated locally in Arabic as (...) well as in international scientific journals. In the post-war period, new technologies transformed human genetics into an internationally coordinated science with specialized laboratories. However, an attempt to establish such a lab at AUB during the 1960s ended in failure: the Anthropological Blood Grouping Laboratory functioned for only four years before closing. The American and British personalities who promoted the ABGL in Lebanon aimed to collect blood samples from across the region without committing to long-term relationships with local scientists and research subjects. As an ‘outpost’ for Western scientists, the ABGL embodied the neo-colonial structure of post-war human population genetics, both in its unfulfilled aspirations to serve metropolitan research agendas and in its marginalization of Middle Eastern scientists. (shrink)

Loïc Wacquant’s article ‘Homines in Extremis’ outlines five propositions about habitus that support a broader and richer use of Bourdieu’s famous concept. His article was a response to a new edited volume by Sanchez and Spencer under the title Fighting Scholars. In this article, I support Wacquant’s argument, but suggest that he undersells habitus as a topic of and tool for inquiry. I point to previous conversations about habitus and suggest that we may learn more about social phenomena by engaging (...) the relational aspects of habitus and the social aspects of the incorporation of habitus. (shrink)

The location of verbally reported feelings in a three-dimensional affective space is determined by the results of appraisal processes that elicit the respective states. One group of participants rated their evaluation of 59 pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) on a profile of nine appraisal criteria. Another group rated their affective reactions to the same pictures on the classic dimensions of affective meaning (valence, arousal, potency). The ratings on the affect dimensions correlate differentially with specific appraisal ratings. These (...) results can be interpreted as showing that the reactions to the IAPS pictures are predictably produced through appraisal of picture content. The relevance of the findings for emotion induction paradigms and for emotion theory in general is discussed. (shrink)

Despite its increasing popularity across management disciplines, stakeholder theory holds an important shortcoming in terms of its guidance for understanding the heterogeneity of stakeholder interests, claims, and behavior toward firms. Specifically, scholars note the inadequacy of generic categories of stakeholders in providing a realistic portrait of the groups and individuals that interact with the firm, opening the theory to much criticism for a ‘simplistic’ and ‘meaningless’ stakeholder concept. In face of this challenge, recent research is pointing to social identity as (...) a mechanism to refine our understanding of stakeholders as names-and-faces, however we argue that despite the advancements offered by the social identity approach, it too presents limitations in its ability to guide managers in prioritizing stakeholder claims. Building on these nascent efforts to offer much needed nuance to a theory of stakeholder identification and prioritization, this paper draws from new advances in the management literature and offers status as an attribute that helps explain and predict how managers accord attention to their various constituents. We set forth five propositions connecting stakeholder status to the attention stakeholders receive from managers. We argue that status is a superior attribute of stakeholder identification and prioritization because it accounts for groups and individuals’ uniqueness within broad categories of stakeholders in a dynamic way, reconciles the dual nature of stakeholders as holding simultaneously a social and an economic identity in their claim toward the firm, and provides a plausible explanation of, and intuitive guidance to, how managers accord attention to their firm’s stakeholders. Implications and future directions for research complete this article. (shrink)

In Aenesidemus, G.E. Schulze adopts the skeptical voice of Aenesidemus and engages in critical dialogue with Hermias, a Kantian, in the hopes of laying bare what he views as the fundamental issues of K.L. Reinhold’s version of critical philosophy. While some attacks reveal a deep misunderstanding of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie on Schulze’s part, others hit their mark. In the Aenesidemus Review (1794), J.G. Fichte at times agrees with criticisms raised by Aenesidemus and at times defends Reinhold against them. On Fichte’s view, (...) Schulze succeeds in proving that the first principle of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie, the principle of consciousness (Satz des Bewußtseins), is neither self-evident nor self-determining. Therefore, it cannot be the first principle of philosophy. However, Schulze fails to dissuade Fichte from viewing Reinhold’s principle of consciousness as the pithiest expression of human consciousness of the time. For these reasons, Fichte holds that Reinhold’s principle of consciousness must be deduced from an even higher principle. The goal of this paper is to assess whether Fichte puts forth his own candidate for the first principle of philosophy in his Aenesidemus Review. (shrink)

Quinze ans après la parution de son livre centré sur Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Ann Crabb nous propose les résultats d’une nouvelle enquête consacrée à une épistolière florentine : Margherita Datini (1360-1423), épouse du célèbre marchand de Prato. Ce travail de recherche a déjà donné lieu à plusieurs publications, qui nourrissent le livre. Ici encore, une correspondance exceptionnelle est à la fois à l’origine et au cœur du livre. 285 lettres de Margherita Datini (dont 22 autographes) nous...

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, population geneticists sought computational solutions to integrate greater numbers of genetic traits into their debates about the ancestral relationships of human groups. At the same time, geneticists’ longstanding assumptions about Jewish communities, especially Ashkenazim, were challenged by a series of social, political, and intellectual developments. In Israel, the entrenched cultural and political dominance of Ashkenazi Jews faced major social upheaval. Meanwhile, to counteract lingering anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States, Arthur Koestler’s The (...) Thirteenth Tribe and Raphael Patai and Jennifer Patai Wing’s The Myth of the Jewish Race argued that Jewish identity was not connected to biological ancestry from the ancient Israelites. Drawing on scientific publications and archived correspondence, this article reconstructs a transnational social history showing how geneticists responded to these shifting claims about Ashkenazi identity and ancestry. Many argued that these claims could be tested using new statistical models, which provided allegedly more “objective” estimates of ancestral gene frequencies and histories of population admixture. However, they simultaneously engaged in heated debates over the relative superiority of competing statistical approaches. These debates reveal how the transnational reverberations of Israeli ethnic politics and Euro-American anti-Semitism affected the development of new calculations for genetic admixture, permanently shifting the assumptions of population genetic research on Jewish populations as well as other human groups. (shrink)

The phenomenon of ‘sharenting’, whereby a parent shares news and images of their child on social media, is of growing popularity in contemporary society. There is emerging research into children’s attitudes regarding sharenting and their associated concerns regarding privacy; however, this research most often involves young people who are approaching adulthood and are competent to participate. As a result, children who experience illness or disability are largely absent from current research, and as such, the moral permissibility of a parent sharing (...) their child’s illness journey on a public social media platform is largely unexplored. In this essay, I explore this issue by using the United NationsConvention on the Rights of the Childand Joel Feinberg’s principle of the child’s right to an open future as the basis of my argument: that children with illness and disability have the same rights as healthy children to privacy, identity and an open future and that publication of their illness on a social media platform violates these rights. I conclude that parents, as surrogate decision makers for their children, have the same responsibilities in protecting their child’s privacy as they do in making medical decisions on behalf of their children. As children of the social media generation approach adulthood, it is important to consider the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves and the ethical consequences of sharenting for children with illness and disability. (shrink)

In health sciences, technical contributions may be undervalued and excluded in the author byline. In this paper, I demonstrate how authorship is a historical construct which perpetuates systemic injustices including technical undervaluation. I make use of Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual work to demonstrate how the power dynamics at play in academia make it very challenging to change the habitual state or “habitus”. To counter this, I argue that we must reconceive technical contributions to not be a priori less important based on (...) its nature when assigning roles and opportunities leading to authorship. I make this argument based on two premises. First, science has evolved due to major information and biotechnological innovation; this requires ‘technicians’ to acquire and exercise a commensurate high degree of both technical and intellectual expertise which in turn increases the value of their contribution. I will illustrate this by providing a brief historical view of work statisticians, computer programmers/data scientists and laboratory technicians. Second, excluding or undervaluing this type of work is contrary to norms of responsibility, fairness and trustworthiness of the individual researchers and of teams in science. Although such norms are continuously tested because of power dynamics, their importance is central to ethical authorship practice and research integrity. While it may be argued that detailed disclosure of contributions (known as contributorship) increases accountability by clearly identifying who did what in the publication, I contend that this may unintentionally legitimize undervaluation of technical roles and may decrease integrity of science. Finally, this paper offers recommendations to promote ethical inclusion of technical contributors. (shrink)

Womanist religious thought centers the experiences of black women but addresses the holistic liberation of communities from multiple and hybridized religious, spiritual, and cultural identities, offering valuable insight for examining the moral aims of the common good and identifying challenges to the good of particular communities. This paper offers a womanist analysis of prevailing conceptions of the common good and accounts of architecture and urban planning’s relation to the common good and civic virtue within the work of Christian theologians. It (...) explores the architectural implications of the common good from a womanist lens and articulates a liberatory vision of the common good and its relation to architectural design and construction. Womanist critiques and insights suggest that the spirituality and participation of common people are vital for shaping architecture for the common good, especially as it addresses whose interests are to be served and how common ground is pursued. (shrink)

This essay assesses the possibilities for poetic-liturgical compositions, such as requiems, to promote Christian public engagement when legal frameworks are perceived to be inadequate for securing justice. This essay addresses the perception that legal statutes and procedures failed to honor the personhood of two particular African American males and discusses how aesthetic responses have been used to counter the devaluing of their lives. One such response, Marilyn Nelson's poem Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem, questions the law's failure to protect an (...) eighteenth-century enslaved man. Another requiem memorializes Michael Brown after the teen's killing by a police officer in 2014. This essay discusses these particular aesthetic responses and then evaluates the possibilities for the requiem as a Christian practice of civic engagement by appropriating Charles Mathewes's articulation of hopeful citizenship. In cases when the law is perceived to be complicit in devaluing African American personhood, liturgy can be a meaningful Christian response. (shrink)

Moral theories often take the guidance of individual conduct as their central task, and seek to provide grounds for confidence in deliberation. Yet they are inevitably also drawn into justifying our reactions to and interventions in one another's actions. This dissertation takes critical encounters to mark a central aspect of moral life. Yet standard deontological and consequentialist theories fall short of providing conceptual tools adequate for reflection on this aspect, and virtue theory is surprisingly undeveloped here. I develop a naturalistic (...) account of the capacities and virtues of critical engagement, and suggest some consequences in ethics and metaethics. ;Critical processes are often inarticulate, being experientially and historically prior to moral theory. For example, certain "thick" judgments , conceive a provocation immediately in terms of specific evaluative response-strategies whose fittingness is implicitly honored, but left opaque. Processes of critical response also function inarticulately on a much larger scale, sparking long-term projects, convictions, and identities of solidarity and resistance. A proper-function account of critical agency illuminates our intuitive attachments to critical response patterns, while suggesting some senses in which they can fail. ;Meanwhile, articulated moral judgments have a problematic role in critical engagement. They can be understood as signs with descriptive content, but such content cannot be interpreted without attention to how the thought or claim is historically poised to be put to use or "taken up" in subsequent attitudes and activity. I highlight the fragility of the historical, social, and psychological contexts in which moral verdicts engage effectively with their audiences. ;I argue against identifying the critical moral domain by way of its connection to any fixed set of reactive attitudes, such as resentment and guilt . Moral complexity and critical virtue emerge as critical agency acquires certain new formal dimensions. Subtleties of critical virtue include a capacity for engaged ambivalence, interest in the genealogy of our attitudes and norms, and an ability to apprehend and reconstruct strands of critical moral agency where we might otherwise have been tempted to diagnose brute moral error. (shrink)

Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to challenge moral philosophers’ complacency about blame and praise. The cause for concern is actually greater than she indicates, both because there are multiple kinds of negative effect on hearer motivation, and because these are not, as she hopes, reliably counteracted (...) by implicit features of praise and blame. The communicative ideal that she articulates does point us in the right direction, but it requires further elaboration. Once it is spelled out, we find that realizing this ideal, in light of the empirical research, requires rethinking the role of verdict-like judgments within moral feedback. (shrink)

My dissertation defends the importance of epistemic norms on what I call ‘inquiring further.’ Inquiring further is a familiar practice we engage in when we redeliberate, gather more evidence, or double-check our beliefs. Nonetheless, many philosophers have argued that norms governing further inquiry are at most practical or moral norms. Against this, I argue that norms on inquiring further are central to our understanding of responsible epistemic agency. I do this by appealing to both the roles of epistemic evaluations and (...) our practices of holding agents epistemically accountable. My dissertation thereby expands and deepens our understanding of epistemic evaluations and normativity. Each chapter of my dissertation focuses on a different practice of inquiring further. The first, “A Puzzle About Fickleness,” motivates a puzzle about changes of mind resulting from redeliberation. The puzzle is to explain the asymmetry between one-off changes of mind, which often seem permissible, and multiple changes of mind—or fickleness—which often seem problematic. After motivating an epistemic solution to the puzzle, I propose and defend the Ratifiable Reasoning Account. On this solution, as agents redeliberate, they gain two types of evidence. First, they gain inductive evidence that they will not stably settle their belief. Second, this inductive evidence affords higher-order evidence that they are unreliable at assessing the matter at hand. The fact that fickle agents gain this higher-order evidence explains why fickleness can be epistemically—not just practically—irrational. The second chapter turns to our practices of evidence-gathering. In “Epistemic Norms on Evidence-Gathering,” I and my co-author, Carolina Flores, argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Though this view is intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has; justified or rational beliefs are those based on appropriate responses to that evidence. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry. The third chapter, “Why Double-Check?”, explores the relationship between double-checking and knowledge. I argue that agents can simultaneously know that p and rationally double-check that p. Call this view the Synchronic Compatibility Thesis. Although intuitive, this thesis faces two challenges. First, some have argued that agents who double-check ought to suspend judgment while inquiring; they thus lose knowledge while double-checking, if only temporarily. Second, some have argued that if it is rational to double-check that p, then one does not know that p. This claim is motivated by strong conceptions of belief or pragmatic encroachment. I argue that these competing views fail to accommodate the many reasons why agents might double-check, ranging from seeking certainty to making one’s beliefs more resilient. Moreover, the alternative views rely on overly strong assumptions about what inquiry, knowledge, or belief requires. By exploring fickleness, evidence-gathering, and double-checking—three phenomena that traditional epistemology has neglected—this dissertation enriches epistemology by making it more relevant to real-world agents. (shrink)

Kant describes intellectual intuition as a kind of non-sensible intuition that creates its objects and provides knowledge of them as noumena. Although he precludes intellectual intuition from the human mind, Reinhold attributes it to the human mind. Pioneering research has already shown that Reinhold deviates from Kant in this way to explain the possibility of a priori self-cognition. It has also already shown that Fichte follows Reinhold by deviating from Kant in the same way. Yet, other aspects of Reinhold’s doctrine (...) of intellectual intuition remain largely overlooked. Among the few Reinhold scholars who study it, the extant view is that intellectual intuition does not yield cognition of an absolute knower, and that only Fichte makes this assertion. However, this view ignores Reinhold’s claim that I must attribute all my representations to an absolute knower to explain the unity of experience. In this paper, I argue that we must take this claim seriously, and I show that, for Reinhold, my cognition of myself as an absolute knower in intellectual intuition enables me to attribute all my representations to myself as such a knower, and he does so prior to Fichte. (shrink)

Within contemporary scientific and science-adjacent communities, it is generally accepted that quantum physics is our best theory. For this reason, it is understandable—and laudable—that scholars interested in questions at the intersection of science and theology wish to meaningfully engage with this physics. Recent work in foundations of physics has, however, importantly altered the landscape of quantum theory; in this article, my goal is to introduce these advances, then make an argument within this new landscape that I hope will be useful (...) for certain theological inquiries. Specifically, I shall argue from grounds of the physics itself that one may, with clear philosophical conscience, access the majority of quantum theory's tools, models, and explanations while maintaining an interpretation-neutral yet realist stance toward this physics. (shrink)

Michel Foucault’s “Standing Vigil for the Day to Come” was a review of Roger Laporte’s novel, La Veille, published by Gallimard earlier that year. Although Laporte’s work never received the wide readership it deserved, Foucault held it in high esteem, praising it in his assessment as one of the “most original” and “most difficult” of his time and, subsequently, urging Derrida to read it. This article is most appropriately situated in the series of literary reviews Foucault composed between 1961 and (...) 1966, in which his marked attempts to understand the relationship between language and thought drew him to the works of Roussel, Klossowski, Hölderlin, Mallarmé, and, of course, Laporte. Foucault finds Laporte’s treatment of the subject-matter particularly satisfying because it provides a non-reductive account of thought and its relationship to language; thought is neither identical with nor distinct from language. Foucault sees Laporte as relying on an important Nietzschean insight that thought is both too funda- mental and too archaic to be reduced to philosophy or to require a Cartesian ego. In this way La Veille is naturally of interest to Foucault because it deals with the relationship of a writer to an anonymous other; it is this other — not the writer — that makes writing possible. With the role of the subject de-emphasized, Foucault finds in Laporte a starting point for talking about language in contemporary literature and thought in post- Cartesian philosophy. (shrink)

Advocates of scientic realism typically respond to the challenge of the pessimistic meta-induction by turning to the history of science. The episode most frequently discussed is the shift from Fresnel's wave theory of light to Maxwell's electromagnetism. This particular history is taken to represent one of the hardest problems for the realist, for while it exhibits continuity on the empirical level, it simultaneously represents a dramatic shift in ontology. Thus, various authors have proposed methods for defeating the pessimistic meta-induction based (...) solely on consideration of the Fresnel-Maxwell case. In this paper, I present another case study from physics--Fermi's 1934 theory of beta-decay and the ensuing search for a universal description of weak interactions. I argue that the degree of success of two recent proposals for scientic realism--that of John Worrall (1989, 1994, 2007) and Juha Saatsi (2005)--changes importantly in light of this new case study. (shrink)

La contribution part du constat qu’il existe actuellement peu d’exigences de transparence en ce qui concerne les algorithmes de justice prédictive qui seraient mis à la disposition des juges judiciaires et administratifs pour adopter des décisions de justice, en dépit des propositions formulées en ce sens. Elle recherche pourquoi de telles exigences devraient être imposées et comment elles pourraient être concrétisées. Elle expose dans un premier temps les raisons pour lesquelles de telles exigences seraient souhaitables, en rappelant les nombreux risques (...) inhérents aux algorithmes ( a fortiori dans l’optique de les mettre à disposition des juges dans un but de justice prédictive) et en démontrant que ces risques pourraient être contrebalancés par l’application d’exigences de transparence. Elle esquisse dans un second temps une proposition de concrétisation de ces exigences, en commençant par approfondir leurs fondements juridiques potentiels. Elle s’inspire des exigences de transparence administrative applicables aux administrations qui fondent des décisions individuelles sur des algorithmes pour proposer une modélisation d’exigences de transparence applicables aux magistrats pour ce qui concerne le degré d’utilisation d’algorithmes dans l’adoption de décisions de justice, dans le respect des prérogatives des magistrats et des garanties dont ils bénéficient. (shrink)

Une relecture des lettres Sur l’esprit et la lettre en philosophie de 1795 permet de réévaluer le rôle de la pulsion esthétique comme agent d’historicisation du Moi. La méthode philosophique de la lettre, axée sur la réception passive d’un objet, s’oppose à celle de l’esprit qui s’intéresse à la relation pulsionnelle du sujet à son objet. Cette distinction s’articule sur la structure anthropologique de la pulsion fichtéenne qui différencie les pulsions théorique, pratique et esthétique. La pulsion esthétique joue une fonction (...) primordiale dans le passage d’une activité idéelle du Moi à sa réalisation matérielle. Cette démonstration explique le rôle particulier de la création dans le système du jeune Fichte comme l’acte qui permet l’éveil de ces pulsions chez le récepteur ouvrant ainsi la voie à la formation de son esprit. (shrink)

Punishment is a grave intrusion into individual liberty, yet in most liberal criminal justice systems, including England and Wales, those punished are rarely directly engaged in determining their sentence. Consequently, the offender’s agency in respect of sentence—i.e. the offender’s capacity to play an active part in the sentencing process—is limited. Drawing on existing theories of punishment, the article argues that there may be justifications and scope for allowing offenders to exercise agency in a state-centred sentencing process, even though this scope (...) is inevitably limited. It aims to develop a conceptual account of an ‘agentic’ sentencing system, arguing this should be based on the paradigm of a dialogue between the judge and offender. To preserve the state’s fundamental role in sentencing, constraints should be placed on the exercise of agency. The proposed model embodies a conception of sentencing as a decision-making process to be done _with_ offenders, rather than _to_ offenders. Nonetheless, while some objections can be rebutted, others demonstrate the gap between the theoretical ideal of respecting the offender’s agency at sentencing and how an agentic sentencing system might function in practice. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Ehrenfest's influential 1925 paper, 'Energy fluctuations in the radiation field or crystal lattice through superposition of quantized normal modes'.