This letter responds to the letter “The Open Donor View and Procreative Beneficence,” by Daniel Groll, in the same, May‐June 2024, issue of the Hastings Center Report.

This book features mathematical and formal philosophers’ efforts to understand philosophical questions using mathematical techniques. It offers a collection of works from leading researchers in the area, who discuss some of the most fascinating ways formal methods are now being applied. It covers topics such as: the uses of probable and statistical reasoning, rational choice theory, reasoning in the environmental sciences, reasoning about laws and changes of rules, and reasoning about collective decision procedures as well as about action. Utilizing mathematical (...) techniques has been very fruitful in the traditional domains of formal philosophy – logic, philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics – while formal philosophy is simultaneously branching out into other areas in philosophy and the social sciences. These areas particularly include ethics, political science, and the methodology of the natural and social sciences. Reasoning about legal rules, collective decision-making procedures, and rational choices are of interest to all those engaged in legal theory, political science and economics. Statistical reasoning is also of interest to political scientists and economists. (shrink)

In this paper we look at two classic methods of deriving consequences from inconsistent premises: Rescher-Manor and Schotch-Jennings. The overall goal of the project is to confine the method of drawing consequences from inconsistent sets to those that do not require reference to any information outside of very general facts about the set of premises. Methods in belief revision often require imposing assumptions on premises, e.g., which are the important premises, how the premises relate in non-logical ways. Such assumptions enable (...) one to select a reasonable collection of formulas from all the formulas of the language. Basic versions of the classic methods only use logical relations between the premises. We compare and criticize each of the classic views with an eye to combining the views to get the most out of inconsistent premises. We do this in a way that will respect the theoretical grounding of each view while meeting our other restrictions. (shrink)

The purpose of this brief note is to prove a limitative theorem for a generalization of the deduction theorem. I discuss the relationship between the deduction theorem and rules of inference. Often when the deduction theorem is claimed to fail, particularly in the case of normal modal logics, it is the result of a confusion over what the deduction theorem is trying to show. The classic deduction theorem is trying to show that all so-called ‘derivable rules’ can be encoded into (...) the object language using the material conditional. The deduction theorem can be generalized in the sense that one can attempt to encode all types of rules into the object language. When a rule is encoded in this way I say that it is reflected in the object language. What I show, however, is that certain logics which reflect a certain kind of rule must be trivial. Therefore, my generalization of the deduction theorem does fail where the classic deduction theorem didn’t. (shrink)

Good decision-making requires reliable information. In medicine, relevant information comes from clinical trials and other forms of scientific research. In business, one source is in corporate annual financial statements. As for-profit, publicly traded companies whose business is discovering, manufacturing, and marketing drugs, pharmaceutical companies sit at the nexus of these two fields. Determining the safety and efficacy of a pharmaceutical product and determining the profitability of a complex enterprise are similarly difficult tasks: each is fraught with deeply ambiguous information that (...) requires sophisticated judgment to interpret reasonably. (shrink)

Background Human brain organoids are a valuable research tool for studying brain development, physiology, and pathology. Yet, a host of potential ethical concerns are inherent in their creation. There is a growing group of bioethicists who acknowledge the moral imperative to develop brain organoid technologies and call for caution in this research. Although a relatively new technology, brain organoids and their uses are already being discussed in media literature. Media literature informs the public and policymakers but has the potential for (...) utopian or dystopian distortions. Thus, it is important to understand how this technology is portrayed to the public. Methods To investigate how brain organoids are displayed to the public, we conducted a systematic review of media literature indexed in the Nexis Uni database from 2013–2019. News and media source articles passing exclusion criteria (_n_ = 93) were scored to evaluate tone and relevant themes. Themes were validated with a pilot sample before being applied to the dataset. Thematic analysis assessed article tone, reported potential for the technology, and the scientific, social, and ethical contexts surrounding brain organoids research. Results Brain organoid publications became more frequent from 2013 to 2019. We observed increases in positively and negatively toned articles, suggesting growing polarization. While many sources discuss realistic applications of brain organoids, others suggest treatment and cures beyond the scope of the current technology. This could work to overhype the technology and disillusion patients and families by offering false hope. In the ethical narrative we observe a preoccupation with issues such as development of artificial consciousness and “humanization” of organoid-animal chimeras. Issues of regulation, ownership, and accuracy of the organoid models are rarely discussed. Conclusions Given the power that media have to inform or misinform the public, it is important this literature provides an accurate and balanced reflection of the therapeutic potential and associated ethical issues regarding brain organoid research. Our study suggests increasing polarization, coupled with misplaced and unfounded ethical concern. Given the inhibitory effects of public fear or disillusion on research funding, it is important media literature provides an accurate reflection of brain organoids. (shrink)

The problem of the manipulation of data that arises when there is both opportunity and incentive to mislead is better accepted and studied — though by no means solved — in financial accounting than in medicine. This article analyzes pharmaceutical company manipulation of medical research as part of a broader problem of corporate manipulation of data in the creation of accounting profits. The article explores how our understanding of accounting fraud and misinformation helps us understand the risk of similar information (...) manipulation in the medical sciences. This understanding provides a framework for considering how best to improve the quality of medical research and analysis in light of the current system of medical information production. I offer three possible responses: (1) use of the Dodd-Frank whistleblower provisions to encourage reporting of medical research fraud; (2) a two-step academic journal review process for clinical trials; and (3) publicly subsidized trial-failure insurance. These would improve the release of negative information about drugs, thereby increasing the reliability of positive information. (shrink)

The modern Jew, living in a world of shattered beliefs and competing ideologies, is often confronted with questions of faith. Sacred Fragments is for those who still care enough to continue the struggle. In forthright, nontechnical language the author addresses the most difficult theological questions of our time and shows that there are still viable Jewish answers for even the greatest skeptics.

In this paper Gillman Payette looks at various structural properties of the underlying logic X, and ascertains if these properties will hold of the forcing relation based on X. The structural properties are those that do not deal with particular connectives directly. These properties include the structural rules of inference, compactness, and compositionality among others. The presentation of the logic X is carried out in the style of algebraic logic; thus, a description of the resulting ‘forcing algebras’ is given. (...) The paper concludes with a discussion of first-order classical forcing as a particular instance of these properties. (shrink)

Many models of motivation suggest that goals can be arranged in a hierarchy, ranging from higher-level goals that represent desired end-states to lower-level means that operate in the service of those goals. We present a hierarchical model that distinguishes between three levels—goals, strategies, and tactics—and between approach/avoidance and regulatory focus motivations at different levels. We focus our discussion on how this hierarchical framework sheds light on the different ways that success and failure are defined within the promotion and prevention systems (...) outlined in regulatory focus theory. Specifically, we review research that demonstrates that differences in what “counts” as success versus failure in these systems have important implications for motivational strength, emotional responses, and risky behavior. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of van Hees and Braham’s conception of causal responsibility in terms of NESS-conditions in formal models of collective action; NESS means ‘Necessary Element of a Sufficient Set’. In particular, the paper looks at their dictatorship result which arises from imposing uniformresponsibility on game forms which are augmented with a probabilistic component. Analogs for uniform NESS-responsibility are formulated within Belnap et al.’s stit models of agency—for both the instantaneous and past-looking versions. (...) In the case of instantaneous stit theory, NESS-responsibility has dstit as a special case, and the probabilistic component is unnecessary for deriving a full dictatorship result. For pastlooking agency, NESS-responsibility has astit as a special case, but uniformity, while not dictatorial, is shown to have a counterintuitive necessary condition: busy choosers. (shrink)

In Darwinian Heresies, which was originally published in 2004, prominent historians and philosophers of science trace the history of evolutionary thought, and challenge many of the assumptions that have built up over the years. Covering a wide range of issues starting in the eighteenth century, Darwinian Heresies brings us through the time of Charles Darwin and the Origin, and then through the twentieth century to the present. It is suggested that Darwin's true roots lie in Germany, not his native England, (...) that Russian evolutionism is more significant than many are prepared to allow, and that the true influence on twentieth-century evolution biology was not Charles Darwin at all, but his often-despised contemporary, Herbert Spencer. The collection was intended to interest, to excite, to infuriate, and to stimulate further work. (shrink)

Using hitherto unconsidered source materials from late antiquity to the early modern period, this volume charts new views about the role of penance in shaping western attitudes and practices for resolving social, political, and spiritual tensions, as penitents and confessors negotiated rituals and expectations for penitential expression.

The paper describes how Robert E. Lucas, Jr.’s monetary economies are based on his methodology of using a single general equilibrium dynamic optimization model with microeconomic foundations that c...

Skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis are relatively prevalent health concerns in children, adolescents and young adults. Experiences of these dermatology diagnoses in adolescence have hitherto not been the focus of research, perhaps owing to assumptions that these diagnoses are not particularly impactful or intricate processes, events or labels. We draw on a thematic secondary analysis of in-depth interviews with 42 adolescents and young people living in the United Kingdom and, influenced by the sociologies of diagnosis and time, highlight (...) the psychological, emotional, social and temporal complexities involved in their diagnosis experiences. Firstly, we describe how participants remembered, re- and co-constructed their diagnosis experiences during the interview. Secondly, we explore the pace and rhythm of diagnosis, including mis-diagnoses, highlighting the jarring potential for adolescents on being diagnosed, even for conditions typically deemed minor. Thirdly, we consider the ways in which these diagnoses have the capacity to reformulate notions of past, present and future, including projecting into imagined futures and reinterpreting past bodily sensations. Finally, we examine how memories about and the meaning of diagnosis are revisited, revised and potentially replaced as a child or adolescent grows older, and increases their management of their condition and encounters with healthcare professionals. In unsettling an assumption that diagnosis experiences for adolescents of common skin conditions is unproblematic or straightforward, our qualitative analysis critically engages with and contribute to tenets of health research that are of interest to quantitative and qualitative researchers, clinicians and patients. (shrink)

_A groundbreaking study of the development of form in eighteenth-century aesthetics_ In this original work, Abigail Zitin proposes a new history of the development of form as a concept in and for aesthetics. Her account substitutes women and artisans for the proverbial man of taste, asserting them as central figures in the rise of aesthetics as a field of philosophical inquiry in eighteenth-century Europe. She shows how the idea of formal abstraction so central to conceptions of beauty in this (...) period emerges from the way practitioners think about craft and skill across the domestic, industrial, and so-called high arts. Zitin elegantly maps the complex connections among aesthetics, form, and formalism, drawing out the understated presence of practice in the writings of major eighteenth-century thinkers including Locke, Addison, Burke, and Kant. This new take on an old story ultimately challenges readers to reconsider form and why it matters. (shrink)

This paper explores the wartime creation of veterinary expertise in cattle breeding, and its contribution to the transition between two very different types of agriculture. During the interwar period, falling prices and steep competition from imports caused farmers to adopt a ‘low input, low output’ approach. To cut costs, they usually butchered, marketed or doctored diseased cows in preference to seeking veterinary aid. World War II forced a greater dependence on domestic food production, and inspired wide-ranging state-directed attempts to increase (...) agricultural output. However, the weak connection between veterinary services and livestock productivity meant that the drive for greater milk yields did not automatically translate into a demand for improved veterinary health care. Rather veterinary expertise had to be actively created and made relevant to the new context. Leaders of the profession secured this goal through establishing a government-backed ‘scheme for the control of certain diseases of dairy cows’. Drawing on pre-existing but rarely applied reproductive technologies, the scheme provided the opportunities and education necessary for more extensive veterinary interventions in cattle breeding. I show how its operation transformed understandings of fertility, raised veterinarians to the status of experts, won them the patronage of farmers and the state, and facilitated the shift to a productivity-oriented agriculture. (shrink)

Early research suggested that migration changed gender roles by offering women new wages and exposing them to norms of gender equity. Increasingly, however, scholars have drawn attention to the role of structural factors, such as poverty and undocumented status, in mediating the relationship between migration and gender. This article takes such insights a step further by showing that migrant communities’ reactions to structural marginality—and their efforts to build alternatives in their home villages—may also draw women into new gender roles. I (...) demonstrate this mechanism through the case of San Miguel, a Mixtec sending community in Southern Mexico where, in the context of U.S. migration, once-excluded women came to predominate in civic affairs. In response to harsh conditions in the United States, migrants from San Miguel returned to their village. To make this economically feasible, they sought state development resources. Men, who often stayed in the United States as breadwinners, relied on sympathetic women back in the sending community to advocate on their behalf. Meanwhile, women’s own rejection of migrant life gave them new interest in sustaining their village. For both, incorporating women into politics offered a strategy to secure needed resources and avoid assimilating into an undocumented underclass. (shrink)

Establishing healthy dietary habits in childhood is crucial in preventing long-term repercussions, as a lack of dietary variety in childhood leads to enduring impacts on both physical and cognitive health. Poor conceptual knowledge about food has recently been shown to be a driving factor of food rejection. The majority of studies that have investigated the development of food knowledge along with food rejection have mainly focused on one subtype of conceptual knowledge about food, namely taxonomic categories. However, taxonomic categorization is (...) not the only way to understand the food domain. We also heavily rely on other conceptual structures, namely thematic associations, in which objects are grouped because they share spatial-temporal properties or exhibit a complementary relationship. We rely on such thematic associations between food items, which may not fall into the same taxon, to determine the acceptability of food combinations. However, the development of children's ability to master these relations has not been systematically investigated, nor alongside the phenomenon of food rejection. The present research aims to fill this gap by investigating the development of conceptual food knowledge and the putative relationship between children's food rejection and both thematic and taxonomic food knowledge. A proportional analogy task, with a choice between taxonomic and thematic food associates, was conducted on children between 3 and 7-years-old. The children were systematically presented with either a thematic or taxonomic food base pair and then asked to extend the example type of relation to select the respective thematic or taxonomic match to the target. Our results revealed, for the first time, that increased levels of food rejection were significantly predictive of poorer food identification and decreased thematic understanding. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs to foster dietary variety in young children, should not only aim to improve taxonomic understanding of food, but also thematic relations. (shrink)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dana Scott introduced a kind of generalization (or perhaps simplification would be a better description) of the notion of inference, familiar from Gentzen, in which one may consider multiple conclusions rather than single formulas. Scott used this idea to good effect in a number of projects including the axiomatization of many-valued logics (of various kinds) and a reconsideration of the motivation of C.I. Lewis. Since he left the subject it has been vigorously prosecuted (...) by a number of authors under the heading of abstract entailment relations where it has found an important role in both algebra and theoretical computer science. In this essay we go back to the beginnings, as presented by Scott, in order to make some comments about Scott’s cut rule, and show how much of Scott’s main result may be applied to the case of single-conclusion logic. (shrink)

Introduction: Middle-Earth, The lord of the rings, and international relations -- Order, justice, and Middle-Earth -- Thinking about international relations and Middle-Earth -- Middle-Earth and three great debates in international relations -- Middle-Earth, levels of analysis, and war -- Middle-Earth and feminist theory -- Middle-Earth and feminist analysis of conflict -- Middle-Earth as a source of inspiration and enrichment -- Conclusion: international relations and our many worlds.

In this paper we take inspiration from a couple of authors on how to think about normative (in)consistency, and then show how to conceive of normative inconsistency in an xstit framework. One view on normative inconsistency is from von Wright, and the other from Hamblin. These two accounts share a conception of normative inconsistency, but their formal frameworks are very different. We propose a way to get the best of both views on normative inconsistency by using an xstit framework, mixed (...) with a version of Anderson’s reduction of deontic logic to alethic modal logic. We consider variations on those ideas and relate it to a work of Ruth Barcan Marcus. (shrink)

In the history of biology, knowledge about human differences often has been produced through an interaction with politics and values assumed to be external to science. Two recent books—Jonathan Marks’ Is Science Racist? and Maurizio Meloni’s Political Biology—shed new light on this interplay. While Marks looks into the field of anthropology, Meloni offers a historiographical view on the soft-hard heredity debate. Based on these new contributions, this essay addresses a number of current ways in which society and science conceptualize human (...) differences through categories like race, gender, and class. Especially, this refers to the separation of what is taken as natural and purportedly fixed, from what is cultural and changeable. (shrink)

Responding to the polemic critiques of Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film, Django Unchained, this essay uses Lacanian and Žižekian discussions of the gaze in order to understand what the film communicates about the racist ideology of American slavery. Tarantino’s film is at once more nuanced than most Hollywood films about the period and also more clearly problematic. Unlike other recent films about slavery in the United States, such as the recent Lincoln, in Django Unchained, every character other than a German bounty (...) hunter, Dr. King Schultz, is interpellated in the racist ideology that supports the institution of slavery; and the characters of the film, black and white alike, go to great lengths to preserve the ideology that rests on the subjugation of all black Americans. Tarantino’s rendition of this interpellation is made still more enjoyable as his main characters, Schultz, and the slave-turned-bounty-hunter, Django, embody two manifestations of the gaze, the screen and the stain or spot. However, because the Lacanian letter insists on arriving at the end of the film, the conclusion to Django Unchained also appears to suggest that the film’s villain, though physically defeated, was correct in his pronouncement that 9,999 out of 10,000 black people are biologically servile. (shrink)

While cadaver dissection remains an unmatched learning tool for structural anatomy, recent shifts in medical culture and pedagogy indicate that developing humanistic practices and fostering empathic responses are crucial components of early medical education. The Donor Letter Project was designed to accompany a traditional dissection curriculum, and the pilot, described here, tested its quality and efficacy. In 2017, family members of recently deceased donors to the Colorado State Anatomical Board were invited to submit letters about their loved ones, and forty-seven (...) first-year medical students at the University of Colorado School of Medicine volunteered to read the letters after their human anatomy course. The students then completed a survey about their experience. Because student and donor family responses to the DLP were overwhelmingly positive, the DLP will be repeated with incoming medical school classes, and an addendum to the State Anatomical Board donation application will invite donors to submit letters along with their enrollment materials that may be read by students at the time of donation. (shrink)

Arendt claims that evil is banal and its perpetrators merely shallow. Deliberate evil she takes to be extremely rare. However, nonrare examples of deliberate evil, whose aim is to spoil one's story, abound in everyday life. Arendt also makes forgiveness personal, not requiring repentance. This prompts a consideration of certain personal relations among philosophers. Heidegger's relation to Husserl shows a betrayal of teacher by student. His seductive and philosophic power over Arendt, a betrayal of student by teacher, should not be (...) dismissed in terms of reductive Freudian notions. Faced with a real feminine predicament, Arendt made the wrong choices: in her exoneration of Heidegger, her report on the Eichmann trial, and her exculpatory doctrine of evil. (shrink)

As the gap between the world’s rich and poor grows wider and the limitations of institutional solutions such as foreign aid continue to be exposed, students of development are shifting their focus toward individualistic business-based solutions that seek to draw members of marginalized communities into the global marketplace. This focus on the individual, however, raises three interconnected issues: it privileges a view of the human person as individualistic versus relational, it proposes isolated solutions that are not scalable, and it can (...) leave would-be change agents feeling hopeless. Drawing on insights from sociology, political philosophy, and Catholic social thought, the current paper presents an alternative path to educating for an inclusive economy by arguing that our greatest structural challenges require us not to abandon institutional solutions but rather to develop better institutions rooted in a fuller notion of the human person. Specifically, by cultivating a mindset of relationality through immersion experiences and mindfulness practices, we propose that business education can empower students to develop hope-filled solidarity with the marginalized, understand their role in the global economic system, and as future business leaders, build virtuous institutions for the common good. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the way that mental illness stigma impacts epistemic credibility in people who have mental illness. While any kind of stigma has the potential to discredit a person’s epistemic agency, in the case of mental illness the basis for discrediting is in some cases and to some extent justifiable, for impairments in rationality, control, and reality perception can indeed be obstacles to participating appropriately in epistemic activities such as normal conversation and public discourse. People with mental (...) illness are still potentially subject to epistemic injustices, however, especially when we rely on stereotypes and fail to make complicated and nuanced judgments which are more accurate. In this paper, I explain some of the ways that people with mental illness may be subject to epistemic injustices, and I propose some suggestions for how epistemic injustice can be avoided. (shrink)

Phenomenologically speaking, we perceive the present, recall the past, and anticipate the future. We offer an account of the temporal content of the perceptual present that distinguishes it from the recalled past and the anticipated future. We distinguish two views: the Token Reflexive Account and the Minimal Account. We offer reasons to reject the Token Reflexive Account, and defend the Minimal Account, according to which the temporal content of the perceptual present is exhausted by its direct reference to the interval (...) of time over which it occurs. (shrink)

People who have mental health diagnoses are often subject to sanist microaggressions in which pejorative terms to describe mental illness are used to represent that which is discreditable. Such microaggressions reflect and perpetrate stigma against severe mental illness, often held unconsciously as implicit bias. In this article, I examine the sanist attitudes that underlie sanist microaggressions, analyzing some of the cognitive biases that support mental illness stigma. Then I consider what responsibility we have with respect to microaggressions. I argue that (...) all people share in a collective responsibility to engage in acts of epistemic resistance that challenge sanist attitudes so that it is easier for bystanders who witness microaggressions, and targets of microaggressions in particular, to identify microaggressions and to point out biased behavior. The act of pointing out bias is best understood as an act of epistemic resistance that is more effective and meaningful in the context of other acts of epistemic resistance. Ultimately, whether to point out bias is an individual decision that one must make after weighing the risks involved; engaging in a range of acts of epistemic resistance, on the other hand, is a moral responsibility everyone shares. (shrink)

My argument is that faced with such reversal of stereotypical female roles, the culture relies on both the institution of the law and the custom of storytelling to reassure itself about boundary confusions—between guilt and innocence, man and woman, seductress and seducer, fact and fiction. The Thaw trial, however, shows that the law itself could not resolve any of those ambiguities, a predicament which, I will argue, Twain entertains and creates in his own fictional courtroom but flees from in his (...) response to the actual trial.My argument thus depends upon establishing particular dialogue between these two cases of seduction, for neither Twain’s nor the journalistic accounts alone tell the story that the two together do. Both cases speak in common to two aspects of fictionality. One is a mode of social differentiation, the sexual and legal categories essential to both cases, but whose actual application was, for different reasons in each, momentarily suspended. It was impossible to decide, for example, whether Evelyn Thaw or Alice or Twain himself, for that matter, should be classified as victim or victimizer, as playing the active or passive role in their respective narratives. The temporary suspension of these categories, I will argue, does not invalidate them or brand them as “fictive,” but rather reveals them as culturally constructed and culturally applied, in Twain’s words “fictions of law and custom” . In both cases, the response to this moment when cultural categories cannot be definitively applied is a process of storytelling—a second aspect of fictionality—that attempts to construct coherent narratives about those suspended “fictions of law and custom.” Although Twain’s “Alice” case opens in 1877, not until it connects with the Thaw trial in 1907 does the full story, as I have just briefly outlined it, emerge. It is precisely that double story that this esay will tell: the story of how Twain’s personal compulsions met up with his culture’s in the act of reporting, representing, interpreting, and finally making its own events mean. Susan Gillman is assistant professor of literature and American studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This essay is part of a forthcoming book, Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain’s America. (shrink)

The idea of cultural heritage has become widespread in many countries, justifying government regulation and providing the background to disputes over valuable works of art and architecture. In this book, Derek Gillman uses several well-known cases from Asia, Europe, and the United States to review the competing claims that works of art belong either to a particular people and place, or, from a cosmopolitan perspective, to all of humankind. He looks at the ways in which the idea of heritage (...) has been constructed. He focuses first on Britain and the writings of Edmund Burke and then on China and its medieval debate about the nature of 'our culture'. Drawing on a range of sources, including the work of Ronald Dworkin, Will Kymlicka, and Joseph Raz, Gillman relates debates about heritage to those in contemporary political philosophy and offers a liberal approach to moral claims and government regulation. (shrink)

Conversions: A Philosophic Memoir belongs to the tradition of Augustine and Rousseau: the "confession" of a life that is a quest for truth. It is in large part the story of two major episodes from Abigail Rosenthal's early adulthood, bought putting personal identity dramatically at risk. As a young Fulbright scholar in Paris, Rosenthal met and entered reluctantly into a love affair with a young Greek communist philosopher who believed (along with many Parisian intellectuals of that era) that force (...) and deception were justified by a utopian vision of world history. In the inevitable collision of values—between Jew and Greek, liberal and revolutionary, theist and atheist, woman and man in unequal truggle—they separated. Suffering in the aftermath, she at last turned for help to a young African American woman graduate student whom she met in London. This woman's Gnostic Christian rejection of personal and cultural history eventually left Rosenthal without defense against her new mentor's remarkable use of charisma, ridicule, and moralistic reproach to usurp the author's life story. These stratagems of mind control reached a climactic phase in Portugal, where the two went—Rosenthal to paint the other woman to write—in what would turn out to be the terrifying reverse of a summer idyll. With the U.S. State Department, the Portuguese Policía Internacional devised an extraordinary rescue. This arresting narrative, which deals with relations between blacks and whites, Christians and Jews, and men and women, delivers its own philosophic theory of the individual in history. Author note: Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York and the author of A Good Look at Evil (Temple). (shrink)

. This paper examines the underpinnings of the preservationist approach to characterizing inference relations. Starting with a critique of the ‘truth-preservation’ semantic paradigm, we discuss the merits of characterizing an inference relation in terms of preserving consistency. Finally we turn our attention to the generalization of consistency introduced in the early work of Jennings and Schotch, namely the concept of level.

The scientific model of mental disorder, which is the foundation of American psychiatry, is easily imperialistic when it is applied globally. This unwarranted extension of power is especially problematic for women, since psychiatry is easily used to deny women discursive and agential power and to ignore social and political contexts for women’s suffering. By analyzing the epistemic function of narratives, I argue that the hegemonic power of the scientific narrative is unjustified and often harmful, and that a more accurate and (...) more justly applied understanding of disorder requires accounting for alternative cultural narratives as well. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to revisit, synthesize, and critique John R. Searle’s thinking over time concerning social ontology and what it means for something to be a social construction. Primarily, I undertake this task by elucidating and problematizing aspects of John R. Searle’s _The Construction of Social Reality_ (herein, _CSR_) (1995), though attention is paid to his later and corollary works. Certainly, there are many other philosophers who attend to analyzing the very meaning of social ontology or (...) social constructionism considered as a program and many other philosophers who concern themselves with what it means to say that something is socially constructed. I focus largely on _CSR_ because it remains both immensely influential and because it represents one of the earliest attempts by an analytic philosopher to provide an analysis of the very meaning of what it means to say that “X is a social construction” or what “social ontology/social constructionism” entails. Although much of what follows constitutes a revisitation of the crucial elements of _CSR_, what is novel about my analysis is that I synthesize and organize the main aspects of Searle’s thinking through time in a single article. I also draw attention to others’ concerns and amendments to his positions and offer my own novel objections and possible improvements to his corpus. This is no small feat: Many details, as well as others’ appraisals, amendments, and so forth must be overlooked for this endeavor to be possible at all. This being so, I do my best to point readers in directions to follow for further exploration or arguments against Searle’s views as I proceed. (shrink)