This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 (...) illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself—its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity. (shrink)

Extending her earlier work on a theory of human rights in her 1993 Operative Rights, Singer (emerita, American philosophy presumably, City U. of New York) critiques philosophies from Rousseau to Kymlicka in clarifying her views--influenced by Dewey and Mead (George Herbert, not Margaret)--and applying them to such issues as multiculturalism, minority rights, and conflict resolution. The analysis pivots on her concept of "a normative community" rather than natural rights. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

“My first long haul flight that didn’t fill up and an empty row for me. I have been blessed by the algorithm ”. The phrase ‘blessed by the algorithm’ expresses the feeling of having been fortunate in what appears on your feed on various social media platforms, or in the success or virality of your content as a creator, or in what gig economy jobs you are offered. However, we can also place it within wider public discourse employing theistic conceptions (...) of AI. Building on anthropological fieldwork into the ‘entanglements of AI and Religion’, this article will explore how ‘blessed by the algorithm’ tweets are indicative of the impact of theistic AI narratives: modes of thinking about AI in an implicitly religious way. This thinking also represents continuities that push back against the secularisation thesis and other grand narratives of disenchantment that claim secularity occurs because of technological and intellectual progress. This article will also explore new religious movements, where theistic conceptions of AI entangle technological aspirations with religious ones. (shrink)

Function theorists routinely speculate that a viable function theory will be equally applicable to biological traits and artifacts. However, artifact function has received only the most cursory scrutiny in its own right. Closer scrutiny reveals that only a pluralist theory comprising two distinct notions of function--proper function and system function--will serve as an adequate general theory. The first section describes these two notions of function. The second section shows why both notions are necessary, by showing that attempts to do away (...) with one of them fail. This demonstration draws on examples from the artifactual realm to motivate major points of the argument. The third section is an outline of artifact function. It confirms the conclusions of the second section, and also begins the task of describing some of the special features of artifact function needing accommodation within the general theory. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein's Art of Investigation_ is one of the first to focus on and provide an original and detailed analysis of Wittgenstein's grammatical investigations. Beth Sarkey offers us new insight into the historical context and influences on method which will help students understand the intricacies and depth of his work.

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam during a period of unprecedented scientific, artistic, and intellectual discovery. Upon its release, Spinoza’s Ethics was banned; today it is the quintessential example of philosophical method. Although acknowledged as difficult, the book is widely taught in philosophy, literature, history, and politics. This introduction is designed to be read side by side with Spinoza's work. As a guide to the style, vocabulary, and arguments of the Ethics, it offers a range of interpretive possibilities to prepare (...) students to become conversant with Spinoza's philosophical method and his challenge to conventional thinking. (shrink)

This book is a study of Wittgenstein's descriptive, improvisational, and performative art of philosophical investigation. In addition to clarifying the nature of Wittgenstein's grammatical investigations, this study highlights several neglected aspects of his work: its humour and playfulness, its collaborative nature, and its emphasis on the imagination. These aspects often become distorted under the pressure of theory and argumentation, resulting in interpretations that equate grammatical investigation with confession, therapy, or a common sense view of the world. After presenting Wittgenstein's art (...) of investigation in part one, this study challenges these dominant and influential interpretations in part two. The volume examines Wittgenstein's mottos, forewords, and dedications. It looks at the art of his philosophical and grammatical investigations, linking it to drama and improvisation. The book discusses the complexity and subtlety of Wittgenstein's response to Augustine in the opening of the Investigations, and Wittgenstein's response to Moore's defence of common sense in On Certainty. The book also examines three kinds of therapeutic readings: those that compare Wittgenstein's philosophy to psychoanalysis, those that compare his philosophy to therapy generally, and those that describe philosophy itself as an illness or as the cause of illness. (shrink)

This book provides a new interpretation of Kants critical work that shows Kants deep connection to Spinoza, and reveals new directions for thinking about Kant in relation to contemporary European philosophy.

In the deviance literature, sexual assaults at work have not been given the sustained attention that harm to property or violation of production guidelines has received. This omission suggests that sexual harassment is considered normative and that when women fail to accommodate this reality, it is the survivor rather than the perpetrator who is considered deviant. This article reports on 64 cases of attempted or completed rape in a sample of heterosexual and lesbian women workers in a wide range of (...) occupations. Two atypical responses, quitting the job or filing a complaint as a result of a workplace sexual assault, highlight the process by which informal deviance defining occurs in everyday interactions at work. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein's Art of Investigation_ is one of the first to focus on and provide an original and detailed analysis of Wittgenstein's grammatical investigations. Beth Sarkey offers us new insight into the historical context and influences on method which will help students understand the intricacies and depth of his work.

Inherent in providing healthcare for youth lie tensions among best interests, decision-making capacity, rights, and legal authority. Transgender youth experience barriers to needed gender-affirming care, often rooted in ethical and legal issues, such as healthcare provider concerns regarding youth capacity and rights to consent to hormone therapy. Even when decision-making capacity is present, youth may lack the legal authority to give consent. The aims of this paper are therefore to provide an empirical analysis of minor trans youth capacity to consent (...) to hormone therapy and to address the normative question of whether there is ethical justification for granting trans youth the authority to consent to this care. Through qualitative content analysis of interviews with trans youth, parents, and healthcare providers, we found that trans youth demonstrated the understandings and abilities characteristic of the capacity to consent to hormone therapy and that they did consent to hormone therapy with positive outcomes. Employing deontological and consequentialist reasoning and drawing on a foundation of empirical evidence, human rights, and best interests we conclude that granting trans youth with decisional capacity both the right and the legal authority to consent to hormone therapy via the informed consent model of care is ethically justified. (shrink)

Ethical perception involves seeing what is ethically salient about the particular details of the world. This kind of seeing is like informed judgment. It can be shaped by what we know and what we come to learn about, and by the development of moral virtue. I argue here that we can learn to see food justice, and I describe some ways to do so using three narrative case studies. The mechanism for acquiring this kind of vision is a “food justice (...) narrative” that is particular and concrete. These kinds of stories are counter narratives to a popular and dominant “script” about food that disguises the identity of people who eat, and obscures how constraints on free choice are created by particular lived circumstances. Food justice narratives specify the social and political location of individual people who are trying to nourish themselves. Once this contextual surround is included we are in a position to ask why this person, in this set of circumstances, is impeded in their access to nutritious food. This is not a question we are likely to consider if we leave out the identity of food consumers. Food justice narratives are forward looking as well because they bring into clearer focus what actions and kinds of social activism are appropriate responses to constraints on free choice. (shrink)

There is increasing interest in artifacts among philosophers. The leading edge is the metaphysics of artifacts and artifact kinds. However, an important question has been neglected. What is the ontological status of the category ‘artifact’ itself? Dan Sperber (2007) argues against its theoretical integrity for the purposes of naturalistic social sciences. In Section 2, I lay out Sperber’s argument, which is based on the observed continuum between natural objects and artifacts. I also review the implicit support for this continuum argument (...) in the philosophical literature on artifacts. In Section 3, I diagnose the fatal weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. They fail to take into account recent thinking about classification in philosophy of science, which has been forced to accommodate continua in biology. In Section 4, I focus specifically on the species problem in philosophy of biology, and on pluralism about species concepts as a response to it. I then identify an analogous artifact problem, and argue that pluralism about artifact concepts is an appropriate and defensible response here as well. Finally, in Section 5, I show that just as species pluralism leads to skepticism about the species category, so artifact pluralism leads to skepticism about the artifact category. I thus arrive at Sperber’s conclusion by an alternate route that does not run afoul of the weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. (shrink)

Tool use rivals language as an important domain of cognitive phenomena, and so as a source of insight into the nature of cognition in general. But the favoured current definition of tool use is inadequate because it does not carve the phenomena of interest at the joints. Heidegger's notion of equipment provides a more adequate theoretical framework. But Heidegger's account leads directly to a non-individualist view of the nature of cognition. Thus non-individualism is supported by concrete considerations about the nature (...) of tools and tool use. (shrink)

Some advocates of higher-order theories of consciousness believe that the correct theory of consciousness together with empirical facts about animal intelligence make it highly unlikely that animals are capable of having phenomenally conscious experiences. I will argue that even if the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness is correct, there is good evidence (taken from experiments in mind reading and metacognition, as well as considerations from neurophysiology and evolutionary biology) that at least some nonhuman animals can form the higher-order thoughts (...) and thus will count as phenomenally conscious on HOT theory. (shrink)

Increased productivity may have negative impacts on farm animal welfare in modern animal production systems. Efficiency gains in production are primarily thought to be due to the intensification of production, and this has been associated with an increased incidence of production diseases, which can negatively impact upon FAW. While there is a considerable body of research into consumer attitudes towards FAW, the extent to which this relates specifically to a reduction in production diseases in intensive systems, and whether the increased (...) incidence of diseases represents a barrier to consumer acceptance of their increased use, requires further investigation. Therefore a systematic review of public attitudes towards FAW was conducted, with a specific focus on production diseases in intensive systems. Four databases were searched to identify relevant studies. A screening process, using a set of pre-determined inclusion criteria, identified 80 studies, with the strength of evidence and uncertainty assessed for each. A thematic analysis led to the identification of 6 overarching themes constructed from 15 subthemes. The results demonstrate that the public are concerned about FAW in modern production systems. Concern varied in relation to age, gender, education and familiarity with farming. Naturalness and humane treatment were central to what was considered good welfare. An evidence gap was highlighted in relation to attitudes towards specific production diseases, with no studies specifically addressing this. However, the prophylactic use of antibiotics was identified as a concern. A number of dissonance strategies were adopted by consumers to enable guilt free meat consumption. (shrink)

To address growing concerns about academic integrity, college students (n?=?758) at honor system and non-honor system institutions were presented with eight scenarios to determine the influence of an honor system on their perceptions of and responses to academic dishonesty. Main effects for honor code status emerged. Students from traditional honor system schools considered the behaviors to be more dishonest, and were more likely to respond that they would report the incident when compared to students attending modified and non-honor system institutions. (...) Findings suggest traditional honor systems, with specific rules and regulations in place, are more effective at cultivating academic integrity among students; modified honor systems may not be as effective as previous research suggests. (shrink)

Drawing on observations from on‐ and offline fieldwork among transhumanists and artificial superintelligence/singularity‐focused groups, this article will explore an anthropology of anxiety around the hoped for, or feared, posthuman future. It will lay out some of the varieties of existential hope and existential despair found in these discussions about predicted events such as the “end of the world” and place them within an anthropological theoretical framework. Two examples will be considered. First, the optimism observed at a transhumanist event will be (...) examined to emphasize the positive affective aspects of certain apocalypse scenarios, especially those with an implicit eschatological direction. Second, an online location where examples of existential despair can be noted will be explored further to demonstrate the kinds of negative responses to certain superintelligence/singularity ideas. These examples of existential hope and despair will demonstrate the intrinsic role of anxiety in ideas about a future artificial intelligence apocalypse. (shrink)

What is the potential significance of community in a prolonged dieta (10-day restricted diet with regular ritual consumption of ayahuasca and other medicinal plants) in a remote jungle location in the Amazon basin of Peru? Pre-dieta experiences including how participants join the community, cleansing routines prior to departure to Peru, sharing with the shaman one's personal intentions and health history, and prior experience with medicinal and entheogenic plants are introduced. Dieta rituals such as tambo housing, meals, hygiene and maintenance, music, (...) ceremony preparations, ceremonial and everyday dieta etiquette, and post-ceremony ritual and day of rest are considered. Bonding with the local support community and those who harvested and crafted the medicinal plant mixtures are evaluated in the context of both dieta and traditional indigenous goals of creating a spiritual practice community of love and trust that embraces people, plants, and all of earth and beyond. (shrink)

Vermaas and Houkes advance four desiderata for theories of artifact function, and classify such theories into non-intentionalist reproduction theories on the one hand and intentionalist non-reproduction theories on the other. They argue that non-intentionalist reproduction theories fail to satisfy their fourth desideratum. They maintain that only an intentionalist non-reproduction theory can satisfy all the desiderata, and they offer a version that they believe does satisfy all of them. I reply that intentionalist non-reproduction theories, including their version, fail to satisfy their (...) first desideratum. Thus neither type of function theory satisfies all the desiderata. This suggests that the list of desiderata may well be inconsistent, and that ultimately we may have to decide whether to give up the first desideratum or the fourth one. I recommend giving up the fourth one on the grounds that this choice preserves the phenomenologically salient social aspects of artifact function. Vermaas and Houkes attempt to satisfy their desiderata Why this attempt fails What is to be done? (shrink)

The year is 1901. Two minor celebrities from opposite corners of the globe share an evening meal in Chicago. Both are politically left-leaning, both are evolutionists of a sort, both are concerned with the plight of the poor in the face of the escalation of the Industrial Revolution. The Russian man has been giving a series of lectures to the people of Chicago; he is staying at the American woman's settlement house-Hull House. They are Jane Addams, Chicago's activist social worker (...) and Petr Kropotkin, Russian nobleman by birth, anarchist in politics, and naturalist by inclination. Each awaits publication of their first full-length book concerning politics and moral development: Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) on .. (shrink)

According to accounts of the Passion, Christ cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry, I argue, manifests that Christ lacks a belief that God is with him. Given the standard view of faith—belief that p is required for faith that p—it would follow that Christ lost his faith that God is with him just before he died. In this paper, I challenge the standard view by looking at the cognitive requirement of (...) faith. Although faith that p requires some positive cognitive orientation toward p, that orientation need not be belief. I show that reliance is an alternative stance that fulfills the cognitive requirement of faith. Reliance aims at providing sensible guidance for action that is in accord with one’s values/ends. Thinking of the cognitive component of Christ’s faith in terms of reliance makes sense of the doubt manifested in his cry. (shrink)

Corporate Philanthropy is multi-dimensional, differs between sectors and involves both individual and organisational decision-making to achieve business and social goals. However, the CP literature characteristically focuses on strategic decisions made by business leaders and ignores the role of employees, especially those in lower status and lower paid positions. To redress this imbalance, we conducted a qualitative study of employees’ involvement in CP processes in ten workplaces in the South East of England to identify whether and how they are involved in (...) CP decision-making and to capture their perspective on the nature of CP and the benefits generated by such activities. We specifically chose to study workplaces where employees are involved in the actual execution of the CP strategy, prioritising companies with a visible presence on the high street. The results illustrate the benefits of involving employees in CP decision-making, which we argue derives in part from the ‘liminal-like states’ that typify CP activities organised by shop floor staff, involving the temporary overturning of hierarchies, humanising of workplaces and opportunities for lower level staff to prioritise their personal philanthropic preferences and signal their charitable identity to colleagues and customers. Whilst the data also suggest that CP decision-making remains predominantly top-down and driven by profit-oriented goals, we conclude that employees should be involved in choosing charitable causes as well as in designing and implementing workplace fundraising, in order to maximise the advantages of CP for the company and for wider society. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to say that with the advent of technologies like synthetic biology the line between artifacts and living organisms, policed by metaphysicians since antiquity, is beginning to blur. But that line began to blur 10,000 years ago when plants and animals were first domesticated; and has been thoroughly blurred at least since agriculture became the dominant human subsistence pattern many millennia ago. Synthetic biology is ultimately only a late and unexceptional offshoot of this prehistoric development. From this (...) perspective, then, synthetic biology is a red herring, distracting us from more thorough philosophical consideration of the most truly revolutionary human practice—agriculture. In the first section of this paper I will make this case with regard to ontology, arguing that synthetic biology crosses no ontological lines that were not crossed already in the Neolithic. In the second section I will construct a parallel case with regard to cognition, arguing that synthetic biology as biological engineering represents no cognitive advance over what was required for domestication and the new agricultural subsistence pattern it grounds. In the final section I will make the case with regard to human existence, arguing that synthetic biology, even if wildly successful, is not in a position to cause significant existential change in what it is to be human over and above the massive existential change caused by the transition to agriculture. I conclude that a longer historical perspective casts new light on some important issues in philosophy of technology and environmental philosophy. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é analisar e avaliar um conjunto de textos aqui denominados textos-moldura presentes nas obras de Bakhtin e do Círculo traduzidas no Brasil desde 1979, com vistas a traçar um panorama nacional crítico do contexto de recepção da obra bakhtiniana e evidenciar algumas de suas especificidades, indiciadas nos diálogos que empreendem com os aspectos sociais, históricos e culturais. Pretende-se, ainda, contribuir para o aprofundamento dos estudos dialógicos e sua incontestável dimensão interdisciplinar. Além da perspectiva dialógica, as (...) reflexões apoiam-se, também, em teorias da tradução, caso específico da que discute a “relação entre um texto de partida e um contexto de chegada”, ou ainda “um modo de ler um texto em dado contexto”. Parte de uma pesquisa maior, os resultados aqui apresentados dizem respeito unicamente a uma das obras do Círculo: Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na Ciência da linguagem e suas duas traduções brasileiras. ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze and evaluate a number of texts called frame-texts found in the works of Bakhtin and the Circle, which have been translated in Brazil since 1979. Our objective is to offer a critical overview of the context of the reception of their work nationwide and highlight some of its specific features, apprehended in the dialogues established with social, historical and cultural aspects. We also intend to contribute to deepening the dialogical studies and its undeniable interdisciplinary dimension. In addition to the dialogic perspective, these reflections rely on theories of translation, especially those that discuss the “relationship between a text and its context of reception” or “a certain way of reading a text in a given context.” This discussion is part of a larger research study, and the results presented herein are related to one of the works of the Circle, namely, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language and its two translations into Brazilian Portuguese. (shrink)

Fringe benefits have been neglected as a source of job-induced gender inequality. Among full-time, private sector workers in the United States in 1979, women's health insurance coverage rate was 12 percentage points lower than men's. This article considers three models to explain such gender differences in the receipt of fringe benefits: the direct discrimination model, the occupational segregation model, and the industrial segregation model. Using data from the May 1979 Current Population Survey Supplement, we found the magnitude of the gender (...) gap in health insurance coverage in the United States to be related to industrial differences. We argue that industrial segregation of women workers may be more important than occupational segregation in determining gender differences in work rewards. (shrink)

Both biological traits and artifacts have proper functions. But accounts of proper function are typically based on the biological case. So adapting these accounts to the artifact case requires finding cultural analogues of biological concepts. This can go wrong in two ways. The biological concepts may not pick out either biological or cultural proper functions correctly; or they may have no cultural analogues. I argue that things have gone wrong in the first way with regard to selection and in the (...) second way with regard to fitness. Finally, I argue that the only way forward is to examine the phenomena of reproduction and use in material culture. -/- . (shrink)

High‐capacity sequencing technologies have dramatically reduced both the cost and time required to generate complete human genome sequences. Besides expanding our knowledge about existing diversity, the nature of these technologies makes it possible to extend knowledge in yet another dimension: time. Recently, the complete genome sequence of a 4,000‐year‐old human from the Saqqaq culture of Greenland was determined to 20‐fold coverage. These data make it possible to investigate the population affinities of this enigmatic culture and, by identifying several phenotypic traits (...) of this individual, provide a limited glimpse into how these people may have looked. While undoubtedly a milestone in ancient DNA research, the cost to generate an ancient genome, even from such an exceptionally preserved specimen, remains out of reach for most. Nonetheless, recently developed DNA capture methods, already applied to Neanderthal and fossil human mitochondrial DNA, may soon make large‐scale genome‐wide analysis of ancient human diversity a reality, providing a fresh look at human population history. (shrink)

A paradigm case of demanding involves making utterances designed to influence addressees to accede.1 It would be incoherent to say, "I demand that you do x, but I am not saying that you ought to do x," or "I demand that you do x, although I am fully aware that you cannot do x." The extraordinary nature of demanding may be gleaned from anomalous utterances such as "employees may demand time off by notifying scheduling managers at least one month in (...) advance" and "faculty members may demand an extension of the tenure clock in writing to the provost." Demanding is less anomalous in protest rhetoric and in fact an important strategy for marginalized groups who are "criticized for not handling conflicts and controversies... (shrink)

For graduate students to succeed as professionals, they must develop a set of general “survival skills”. These include writing research articles, making oral presentations, obtaining employment and funding, supervising, and teaching. Traditionally, graduate programs have offered little training in many of these skills. Our educational model provides individuals with formal instruction in each area, including their ethical dimensions. Infusion of research ethics throughout a professional skills curriculum helps to emphasize that responsible conduct is integral to succeeding as a researcher. It (...) also leads to the consideration of ethical dimensions of professional life not covered in traditional ethics courses. (shrink)

In his article “It's a Wonderful Life,” Ronald Hall connects Wittgenstein's last words with Frank Capra's 1946 film. His analysis focuses on the concept of wonder, but he misses one of the most important aspects of both the film and Wittgenstein's last words: the significance of friendship. This is philosophically (and biographically) important because it raises questions about aspect-seeing, friendship and everyday life. Wittgenstein's final words provide a striking example of the philosophical complexity of his life and work.

In “Performance Philosophy — Staging a New Field,” Laura Cull approaches performance as a source of philosophical insight and philosophy as a species of performance. This calls for a radical transformation of philosophy and its practices. What form might this take? Wittgenstein’s later philosophy provides one example. The language games presented in the opening remarks of the Philosophical Investigations are meant to be played out. They involve improvisation based on general scenes, stock characters, and linguistic play. When enacted, they are (...) slapstick. As such, they offer a method of philosophical investigation in which clarity and insight are inherent in the performance itself. Wittgenstein’s language games were directly influenced by the subversive practices of Austrian commedia dell’arte and slapstick. By their very nature, they challenge the pretensions of philosophical explanation and theory. Unlike attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre, enacting language games is a form of philosophical performance. Andrew Lugg notes that recent attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre problematize the opening remarks of the Investigations. However, enacting language games as a form of philosophical performance makes what is hidden, in all of its simplicity and familiarity, obvious, striking, and engaging. (shrink)

Beth Lord explores Spinoza’s rejection of natural moral equality and its relevance for modern democracy.