Most previous research on human cognition has focused on problem-solving, and has confined its investigations to the laboratory. As a result, it has been difficult to account for complex mental processes and their place in culture and history. In this startling - indeed, disco in forting - study, Jean Lave moves the analysis of one particular form of cognitive activity, - arithmetic problem-solving - out of the laboratory into the domain of everyday life. In so doing, she shows how mathematics (...) in the 'real world', like all thinking, is shaped by the dynamic encounter between the culturally endowed mind and its total context, a subtle interaction that shapes 1) Both tile human subject and the world within which it acts. The study is focused on mundane daily, activities, such as grocery shopping for 'best buys' in the supermarket, dieting, and so on. Innovative in its method, fascinating in its findings, the research is above all significant in its theoretical contributions. Have offers a cogent critique of conventional cognitive theory, turning for an alternative to recent social theory, and weaving a compelling synthesis from elements of culture theory, theories of practice, and Marxist discourse. The result is a new way of understanding human thought processes, a vision of cognition as the dialectic between persons-acting, and the settings in which their activity is constituted. The book will appeal to anthropologists, for its novel theory of the relation of cognition to culture and context; to cognitive scientists and educational theorists; and to the 'plain folks' who form its subject, and who will recognize themselves in it, a rare accomplishment in the modern social sciences. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to lay out a meta‐ethical position that is inspired by the framework of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. To achieve this goal, this paper is divided into two parts. First, I explore recent attempts to tie Wittgenstein's epistemology in On Certainty to moral epistemology. I argue that there can be a meaningful parallel drawn between the epistemic certainties discussed in On Certainty and what I consider to be moral certainties. These moral certainties are unjustified fundamental moral attitudes (...) that underlie our moral practices. Then, I show how the debate over moral certainty has branched into two directions. One direction presents the concept of moral certainty as a naturalistic concept. On this reading, moral certainties transcend time and place since they are rooted in our natural tendencies to act or not act in certain ways. The other direction presents moral certainty as a distinctly relativistic concept. On this reading, we have our moral certainties because we belong to communities that agree on these certainties. In the second section, I argue that we have both natural, universal certainties and localized, relative certainties. I also argue that our localized certainties are constrained by non‐moral facts about ourselves and about the world. To make this argument, I rely on Wittgenstein's concept of “general facts of nature.” The result of the paper is a meta‐ethical position that can be located in between moral relativism and moral realism. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 1, Page 77-90, January 2022.

In their article “No Luck for Moral Luck”, the authors claim to have dissolved the philosophical puzzle of resultant moral luck through empirical studies that show that people do not judge morally lucky and morally unlucky agents differently. In this paper, I will argue that one can accept the results of their experiment and still uphold the puzzle of resultant moral luck. In order to do so, I will first turn to Machery’s suggestion that implicit biases should be viewed as (...) traits instead of mental states and introduce three levels of moral commitment. I will use the distinctions made in Machery to argue that Kneer and Machery’s experiments test respondents’ second-level moral commitments but that the puzzle of moral luck is actually about third-level moral commitments which are indicative of traits that manifest in practice. I will make this point by returning to Nagel's article and arguing that the original puzzle of resultant moral luck is best described as a puzzle about moral practice rather than moral theory. As a result, Kneer and Machery’s analysis does not show that people do not have a Difference Intuition as they claim, but only that they have a second-level theoretical commitment to the control principle, which is a conclusion that should have been expected given Nagel’s formulation of the problem. (shrink)

Recently there has been a growing literature on the concept of moral certainty. This concept, which is inspired by Wittgenstein’s reflections in On Certainty, is most prominently argued for by Nigel Pleasants. Pleasants contends that there is a meaningful parallel to be drawn between the epistemic certainties discussed by Wittgenstein and moral certainties. These moral certainties are unreflective, non-propositional, and show in the ways that we act. In addition, these certainties cannot be doubted by a reasonable moral agent. In a (...) recently published article, Fairhurst is critical of Pleasants’ account. Fairhurst argues that there are problems with Pleasants’ example of a moral certainty, 'it is wrong to kill innocent non-threatening people'. Fairhurst appeals to euthanasia as an example of when a reasonable person could meaningfully doubt that it is wrong to kill innocent, non-threatening people. If this is a certainty, then a doubt such as this should not be possible. In addition, he argues that Pleasants’ claim that moral certainties are natural is not well substantiated. In this article, I attempt to defend an account of moral certainty against Fairhurst’s criticisms. I divide his criticisms into two parts. His first set of criticisms deal with Pleasants’ example of a moral certainty. I argue that some of his criticisms are inconsistent while others can be addressed by making a small amendment to Pleasants’ account. His second criticism deals with Pleasants’ claim that moral certainties are natural. In order to address this criticism, I appeal to Machery’s Nomological Account of human nature and use it as a basis that allows us to consistently make the claim that there are natural moral certainties. (shrink)

This article is in praise of the labor of reading profound and rich texts, in this case the essay on 'estranged labor' by Karl Marx. Comparing in detail what Marx wrote on estranged labor with current social practices of learning and education leads us to comprehensive ideas about learning - including the social practices of alienated learning. We then emphasize the importance of distribution in the institutionalized production of alienated learning. And we end this article with critical reflections on the (...) importance of alienation for the relationship between teaching and learning in the social practice of scholars. (shrink)

This chapter examines the methodologies, new approaches, and challenges in the use of rabbinic literature to study the history of Judaism in late antiquity. It provides some examples that demonstrate some of the issues concerning the applicability of rabbinic literature to the study of Judaism in late-Roman Palestine. It concludes that rabbinic literature can serve as a historical source, especially when read indirectly and through the lens of well-defined theoretical frameworks, and when perceived as a rabbinic cultural product that reflects (...) delicate, sophisticated and hardly recoverable relationships between text and reality. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to elucidate various practices for the structuring of images on an ultrasound monitor during prenatal ultrasound examinations. This study focuses on the practices that healthcare providers employ to invite pregnant women to differentiate a gray-tone image on the ultrasound monitor from the image’s background. In sequential environments in which pregnant women display difficulty in differentiating an image on the screen in response to the healthcare provider’s invitation, the healthcare provider employs practices that require additional (...) bodily involvement to structure the images on the screen. Furthermore, on certain occasions, the healthcare provider also points to a particular abdominal location with the ultrasound transducer, which is held against the abdomen to produce the very image being differentiated. This study demonstrates that the image on the ultrasound monitor is intrinsically embodied and spatially and modally distributed. In addition, the study suggests an interaction-organizational ground for an aspect of the ‘personification of the fetus’ through obstetric ultrasound. (shrink)

This article focuses on referential practices at a Japanese midwife house, where at prenatal examinations, a midwife palpates a pregnant woman’s abdomen with her hands, without any assistance from an ultrasound scanner. The midwife often refers to spots on the abdomen in palpation with locative demonstrative expressions. I demonstrate that ways in which references to spots on the pregnant woman’s abdomen are accomplished are subtly different, depending on the action sequence in which they are embedded. The description of referential practices (...) in which the touching plays an important role has consequences for the re-conceptualization of human interaction in general, and interaction between medical professionals and their clients in modern medical settings in particular. (shrink)

This paper starts with questioning the traditional approach to the so-called intercultural communication. Most students of intercultural communication, it seems, use the categories characterising a cultural or ethnic identity, such as Western, Indian, European, Aboriginal and the like, as parameters by reference to which some distinctive phenomena observed in conversational materials should be explained. Even though they may apply these categories correctly, they do not take into account the relevancy of these categories in each interaction.The aim of this paper is (...) to demonstrate that being a Japanese is achieved interactively and that interculturality of intercultural communication is constituted in and through the actual course of the interaction. In the analysis of interviews conducted with foreign students in Japan, it can be seen that the interviewer and the interviewee had to keep on coordinating their conduct throughout the development of their interaction in order that they could be a Japanese and a foreigner relevantly. In this way, what, in the studies of intercultural communication, is presupposed to be simply given, that is, the fact of a person being a Japanese or the like, is shown to be analysable and investigable as an interactive phenomenon in its own right. (shrink)

Continues Augé's critical exploration of contemporary modernity with an examination of the role of dreams, myth and fiction in the age of satellite TV and the Internet.

In recent years, social workers have raised a new concern about the appearance of a new category among the working poor. Even employed, there are people so overburdened by the cost of living and so under compensated that they cannot afford a place to sleep. Contrary to popular opinion, according to the website for the Coalition for the Homeless, forty-four percent of the homeless in first world countries actually have jobs. In No Fixed Abode, Marc Augé's pathbreaking ethnofiction--a fictional ethnography--a (...) man named Henri narrates his strange existence in the margins of Paris. By day he walks the streets, lingers in conversation with the local shopkeepers, and sits writing in cafés, but at night he takes shelter in an abandoned house. From here, we see a progressive erosion of Henri's identity, a loss of bearings, and a slow degeneration of his ability to relate to others. But then he meets the artist Dominique, whose willingness to share her life with him raises questions about who he has become and about what a person needs in order to be a part of society. This is a book about how we live in geographical space and how work and patterns of domicile affect our status and our inner being. Despite the apparent simplicity of the fictional premise, Augé's book asks serious questions about the nature of our culture. (shrink)

Using the methodology of conversation analysis to examine interactions in outdoor activities, this study explores how participants specifically see an object or event in the development of an activity. In particular, the distinction between perception and knowledge is oriented to by the participants as a practical issue that informs their alternative action constructions. This distinction matters as a resource for implementing an action in an interaction. The data are in Japanese with English translations.

The aims of this paper are: (1) to criticize the traditional conception of understanding in sociology; (2) to show how doing interpreting is achieved within the activity the participant is currently involved in; (3) to show how an individual's special characteristics, e.g., a "strange foreigner," are constructed and used within the actual trajectory of interaction; and (4) to demonstrate how the participants in the so-called intercultural communication 'do cultural differences' within interaction.

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.