A recent online article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, which received wide media coverage, raised the possibility that children are being ‘subjected to torture’ due to the ‘fervent or fundamentalist views’ of their parents. However, the quality of argument in that article was inadequate to sustain such a radical thesis. There was no engagement with the perspectives of different religious traditions about end-of-life care. Instead the authors invoked practices such as male infant circumcision which are wholly irrelevant to the (...) end-of-life theme. There were serious failings in relation to core principles of social and epidemiological research practice: the study based its conclusion on a sample of only six cases and failed to consider even the more obvious confounding features. Rather than demonizing the religious beliefs of parents there should be recognition of the need for mutual respect, dialogue based on an ‘expert–expert relationship’ and collaboration based on ‘shared understanding’. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

After decades of single issue movements and identity politics on the U.S. left, the series of large demonstrations beginning in 1999 in Seattle have led many to wonder if activist politics can now come together around a common theme of global justice. This book pursues the prospects for progressive political movements in the 21st century with case studies of ten representative movements, including the anti-globalization forces, environmental interest groups, and new takes on the peace movement.

Offers a thorough, multidisciplinary picture of the informational challenges of our media ecosystem, as well as collaborative strategies for addressing them.

INTRODUCTION Linguists who work within the tradition of transformational generative grammar tend to regard semantics as an intractable, perhaps ultimately ...

This book puts forward a radical, unorthodox thesis with respect to the Anthropocene, the philosophy of Deleuze/Guattari and education. This book analyses the Anthropocene for its unconscious drives and develops a parallel mode of education and social change.

Colour has often been supposed to be a subjective property, a property to be analysed orretly in terms of the phenomenological aspects of human expereince. In contrast with subjectivism, an objectivist analysis of color takes color to be a property objects possess in themselves, independently of the character of human perceptual expereince. David Hilbert defends a form of objectivism that identifies color with a physical property of surfaces - their spectral reflectance. This analysis of color is shown to provide (...) a more adequate account of the features of human color vision than its subjectivist rivals. The author's account of colro also recognises that the human perceptual system provides a limited and idiosyncratic picture of the world. These limitations are shown to be consistent with a realist account of colour and to provide the necessary tools for giving an analysis of common sense knowledge of color phenomena. (shrink)

"Understanding Phenomenology" provides a guide to one of the most important schools of thought in modern philosophy. The book traces phenomenology's historical development, beginning with its founder, Edmund Husserl and his "pure" or "transcendental" phenomenology, and continuing with the later, "existential" phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book also assesses later, critical responses to phenomenology - from Derrida to Dennett - as well as the continued significance of phenomenology for philosophy today. Written for anyone coming to (...) phenomenology for the first time, the book guides the reader through the often bewildering array of technical concepts and jargon associated with phenomenology and provides clear explanations and helpful examples to encourage and enhance engagement with the primary texts. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Heidegger explicitly defers any consideration of ourselves (Dasein) as embodied. I try to account for Heidegger's reluctance to talk about 'the body' in connection with his explication of Dasein, by arguing that doing so would be at odds with the kind of investigation his 'phenomenology of everydayness' is meant to be. That Heidegger omits discussion of the body in Being and Time might lead one to think of the human body in terms of the other categories (...) Heidegger deploys: readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand (Being and Time) and biological organisms (Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics). I argue that any such identification ought to be resisted, as these categories serve only to deprive our bodies of their specifically human dimension. Indeed, by surveying the failure of these categories as proper to the human body, we gain further insight into Heidegger's initial deferral: only given the existential analytic can one begin to offer a proper account of ourselves in bodily terms. (shrink)

A number of ways of taxonomizing human learning have been proposed. We examine the evidence for one such proposal, namely, that there exist independent explicit and implicit learning systems. This combines two further distinctions, (1) between learning that takes place with versus without concurrent awareness, and (2) between learning that involves the encoding of instances (or fragments) versus the induction of abstract rules or hypotheses. Implicit learning is assumed to involve unconscious rule learning. We examine the evidence for implicit learning (...) derived from subliminal learning, conditioning, artificial grammar learning, instrumental learning, and reaction times in sequence learning. We conclude that unconscious learning has not been satisfactorily established in any of these areas. The assumption that learning in some of these tasks (e.g., artificial grammar learning) is predominantly based on rule abstraction is questionable. When subjects cannot report the rules that govern stimulus selection, this is often because their knowledge consists of instances or fragments of the training stimuli rather than rules. In contrast to the distinction between conscious and unconscious learning, the distinction between instance and rule learning is a sound and meaningful way of taxonomizing human learning. We discuss various computational models of these two forms of learning. (shrink)

A number of ways of taxonomizing human learning have been proposed. We examine the evidence for one such proposal, namely, that there exist independent explicit and implicit learning systems. This combines two further distinctions, between learning that takes place with versus without concurrent awareness, and between learning that involves the encoding of instances versus the induction of abstract rules or hypotheses. Implicit learning is assumed to involve unconscious rule learning. We examine the evidence for implicit learning derived from subliminal learning, (...) conditioning, artificial grammar learning, instrumental learning, and reaction times in sequence learning. We conclude that unconscious learning has not been satisfactorily established in any of these areas. The assumption that learning in some of these tasks is predominantly based on rule abstraction is questionable. When subjects cannot report the “implicitly learned” rules that govern stimulus selection, this is often because their knowledge consists of instances or fragments of the training stimuli rather than rules. In contrast to the distinction between conscious and unconscious learning, the distinction between instance and rule learning is a sound and meaningful way of taxonomizing human learning. We discuss various computational models of these two forms of learning. (shrink)

Interpretations of Heidegger's Being and Time have tended to founder on the question of whether he is in the end a realist or an idealist, in part because of Heidegger's own rather enigmatic remarks on the subject. Many have thus depicted him as being in some way ambivalent, and so as holding on to an unstable combination of the two opposing positions. Recently, William Blattner has explained the apparent ambivalence by appealing to Kant's transcendental/empirical distinction. Although an ingenious reading of (...) Being and Time, there are a number of difficulties involved in cashing out its central claims. I argue that it fails, moreover, to capture Heidegger's avowed animus toward both realism and idealism. After criticizing Blattner's reading, I recount several features of Heidegger's ?existential analytic? of Dasein in Division I of Being and Time and connect them with his (slightly later) notion of world?entry. This latter notion provides a way of explaining how Heidegger retains a realistic conception of natural entities, while offering an overall view that cannot be identified with either realism or idealism. (shrink)

I might summarize this section by saying that the English tenses, according to this analysis, form quite a motley group. PAST, PRES and FUT serve to relate reference time to speech time, while WOULD and USED-TO behave like Priorian operators, shifting the point of evaluation away from the reference time. HAVE also shifts the point of evaluation away from the reference time, but in a more complicated way. And FUT, in contrast to PRES and PAST, is a substitution operator, putting (...) the reference time of its clause in the plate of the speech time of subordinate clauses. (shrink)

Objectives—To evaluate a departmental computer system.Design—a. Direct comparison of the time taken to use a manual system with the time taken to use a computer system for lung function evaluation, loan of equipment and production of correspondence. b. Analysis of the accuracy of data capture before and after the introduction of the computer system. c. Analysis of the comparative running costs of the manual and computer systems.Setting—Within a department of respiratory medicine serving a hospital of 1323 beds.Main Outcome Measures—a. Time (...) taken to perform functions with the assistance of computerised methods, in comparison to the manual method used alone. b. Accuracy of data capture. c. Relative running costs.Results—a. The computer system was significantly faster than the manual system for lung function evaluation, loan of equipment, and checking for overdue equipment. The production of correspondence was slightly slower with the computer. b. All outpatient episodes, but only 43 of 65 of inpatient episodes, were captured. Lung function and managerial report data were accurate using both manual and computerised methods. The manual system for equipment loans was inefficient, and use of the computer resulted in the recovery of 221 nebulisers. c. Development costs for 1988–1990 were high. Only £1200 to £1845 per year was recovered directly from staff time saved by the computer but larger savings resulted from changes in work practice. After 10 years the projected deficit is £10 000 per annum in running costs.Conclusions—In comparison with the manual methods, the computer system has shown significant advantages which provide accurate information, with significant favourable effects on working practices. In evaluating computer systems used in clinical practice it is essential to ensure that the projected work practice benefits are achieved without unacceptable costs in staff time, inaccurate data and high financial outlay. (shrink)

Johns Revelation wrestles with the question of how Jesus' followers were to live under the imperial domination of Rome. While some see John as establishing an alternative imperial system, attention to the irony with which the story is told reveals a more compelling critique of power.

Naturalism in twentieth century philosophy is founded on the rejection of ‘first philosophy’, as can be seen in Quine’s rejection of what he calls ‘cosmic exile’. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology falls within the scope of what naturalism rejects, but I argue that the opposition between phenomenology and naturalism is less straightforward than it appears. This is so not because transcendental phenomenology does not involve a problematic form of exile, but because naturalism, in its recoil from transcendental philosophy, creates a new form (...) of exile, what I call in the paper ‘exile from within’. These different forms of exile are the result of shared epistemological aspirations, which, if set aside, leave open the possibility of phenomenology without exile. In the conclusion of the paper, I appeal to Merleau-Ponty as an example of what phenomenology without epistemology might look like. (shrink)

This philosophy of education paper describes a schizophrenic situation. A new airport is being planned in the locale of a university which is a Centre of Excellence of Education for Sustainable Development, and the university is a major partner. The airport involves an investment in jobs, resources, and will encourage further economic development. The planners have named the inter-connected developments around the airport as the ‘Aerotropolis’, including new university facilities. One could argue that the airport is a classic example of (...) the ‘Capitalocene’, where capital rushes into a new project, and environmental costs are ignored. This paper will execute a schizoanalytic critique of the process, from the perspective of a university education researcher caught up in the rushing flows of capital. Schizoanalysis has been chosen as the educational methodology to analyse this situation, because the researcher is part of what is happening, and is turned inside out by the designation in their region of the new airport. This paper is positioned in education between capital and the environment – it will describe from an insider’s perspective what it is like to be possessed, evacuated, sold out, and exploited by capital. (shrink)

Using Deleuzian theory for educational research and practice has become an increasingly popular activity. However, there are many theoretical complexities to the straightforward application of Deleuze to the educational context. For example, the ‘new materialism’ that Deleuze refers to in the 1960s takes its inspiration from Spinoza, and is an emancipatory project. Contrariwise, the ‘new materialism’ of the present moment is frequently applied to educational research and practice specifically as a way out of anthropocentric limits and enclosure. This paper explores (...) the combined forces of humanism and naturalism which are at work in Deleuze’s ‘new materialism’, as type of ‘more-than-human’ emancipation method derived from Bergson and Nietzsche; it is a mode of overcoming human limits, which fully takes into account the connections to and with the non-human world and the ecological consequences of human action. This paper will draw out the specific consequences for educational research and practice in schools of the ‘vitalist-nihilism’ we may derive from Bergson and Nietzsche to analyse matter flows as they enter, mingle with, and exit schools. (shrink)

There are serious reasons for accepting each of these propositions individually but there are apparently insurmountable difficulties with accepting all three of them simultaneously if we assume that color is a single property. 1) and 2) together seem to imply that there is some property which all organisms with color vision can see and 3) seems to imply that there can be no such property. If these implications really are valid then one or more of these propositions will have to (...) be rejected in spite of whatever reasons can be given for their apparent acceptability. Before going on to discuss possible resolutions of this apparent contradiction it is worth pointing out there our three propositions are not all of a kind. Proposition 1) is a metaphysical thesis about the ontological status of color and proposition 3) is an empirical thesis about what properties organisms with color vision are capable of detecting. If you accept 1) then 2) will appear to verge on the trivial, but if 1) is denied then the status of 2) will appear more problematic. In what follows I will have more to say about why we either should or should not accept all three of these propositions. (shrink)

The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available — if the colors are primitive sui generis properties — this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking in light (...) of the generally anti-reductionist mood of recent philosophy of mind. The parallels between the mind—body problem and the case of color are substantial enough that the difference in trajectory is surprising. While dualism and non-reductive physicalism are staples, realist primitivism is by and large a recent addition to the color literature. And it remains a minority position, although one that is perhaps gaining support. In this paper, we investigate whether it should be accepted, and conclude it should not be. (shrink)

Were Russell alive and still with us, one could apologize to him for the degree of travesty and oversimplification which the present task has involved. But his inspiration is no longer a living one and it is still a live question in the philosophy of logic whether or not it makes sense to apologize to the shades of the departed. Perhaps the author in such a predicament can take some comfort from the possibility that what he has written may interest (...) some reader in that sort of question. (shrink)

These days it seems like everyone knows that we should do something about climate change, but there also seems to be a lot of inertia to take action. Until relatively recently, a common view was that governments would provide the solutions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report “SR15”, released in 2018, established that individuals should also contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the mitigation requirements to limit warming to 1.5 C. Publicly, there are (...) plenty of good intentions from both individuals and governments, but there’s not a lot of action on either side. So, what’s going on? (shrink)

Within the current global political context in Western democracies, one might argue that engaging in public discourse about matters of shared concern is not an inviting opportunity for citizens. Generally speaking, participation in public discourse is not something we seek out unless, perhaps, from behind the privacy of our electronic devices. What this might indicate, following an Arendtian insight, is that we currently have no sense of a shared world together. In other words, we have become alienated from that which (...) binds us together: a common world. The primacy of a horiztonal, political relation wherein we speak to one another and not at or against each other is in urgent need of articulation and, for this, we... (shrink)

In their recent paper ‘Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong’ Savulescu and Cameron attempt to argue the case for subjecting the ‘elderly’ to limits not imposed on other generations. We argue that selective lockdown of the elderly is unnecessary and cruel, as well as discriminatory, and that this group may suffer more than others in similar circumstances. Further, it constitutes an unjustifiable deprivation of liberty.

The decision tree of life is colossal. While physicists and metaphysicians explore the possibility that the multiverse grows larger at every decision, it is the ethicist’s lot to consider the paths chosen. That is to say, ethics is generally concerned with the build-up to a decision point. But what happens afterwards? And how do our choices influence our future decision-making?

David R. Raynor - On Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations : A Philosophical Companion - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 365-366 Samuel Fleischacker. On Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvii + 329. Cloth, $39.50. Adam Smith's fame now rests primarily upon his Wealth of Nations of 1776, which did not receive much attention until Prime Minister Pitt praised it in Parliament (...) in 1791. Before then Smith's reputation was almost entirely based upon his Theory of Moral Sentiments of 1759. Fleischacker begins this "philosophical companion" to WN with the observation that "Adam Smith was a philosopher before he was a social scientist, yet it remains unclear to this day what.. (shrink)