ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

Although Responsible Conduct of Research training is common in the sciences, the effectiveness of RCR training is open to question. Three key factors appear to be particularly important in ensuring the effectiveness of ethics education programs: educational efforts should be tied to day-to-day practices in the field, educational efforts should provide strategies for working through the ethical problems people are likely to encounter in day-to-day practice, and educational efforts should be embedded in a broader program of on-going career development efforts. (...) This article discusses a complex qualitative approach to RCR training development, based on a sensemaking model, which strives to address the afore-mentioned training concerns. Ethnographic observations and prior RCR training served the purpose of collecting information specific to a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research center with the goal of identifying metacognitive reasoning strategies that would facilitate ethical decision-making. The extensive qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of nine metacognitive reasoning strategies on which future RCR training will be developed. The implications of the findings for RCR training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Although Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training is common in the sciences, the effectiveness of RCR training is open to question. Three key factors appear to be particularly important in ensuring the effectiveness of ethics education programs: (1) educational efforts should be tied to day-to-day practices in the field, (2) educational efforts should provide strategies for working through the ethical problems people are likely to encounter in day-to-day practice, and (3) educational efforts should be embedded in a broader program of (...) on-going career development efforts. This article discusses a complex qualitative approach to RCR training development, based on a sensemaking model, which strives to address the afore-mentioned training concerns. Ethnographic observations and prior RCR training served the purpose of collecting information specific to a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research center with the goal of identifying metacognitive reasoning strategies that would facilitate ethical decision-making. The extensive qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of nine metacognitive reasoning strategies on which future RCR training will be developed. The implications of the findings for RCR training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Integrity is a critical determinant of the effectiveness of research organizations in terms of producing high quality research and educating the new generation of scientists. A number of responsible conduct of research (RCR) training programs have been developed to address this growing organizational concern. However, in spite of a significant body of research in ethics training, it is still unknown which approach has the highest potential to enhance researchers’ integrity. One of the approaches showing some promise in improving researchers’ integrity (...) has focused on the development of ethical decision-making skills. The current effort proposes a novel curriculum that focuses on broad metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day social and professional practices that have ethical implications for the physical sciences and engineering. This sensemaking training has been implemented in a professional sample of scientists conducting research in electrical engineering, atmospheric and computer sciences at a large multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, and multi-university research center. A pre-post design was used to assess training effectiveness using scenario-based ethical decision-making measures. The training resulted in enhanced ethical decision-making of researchers in relation to four ethical conduct areas, namely data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. In addition, sensemaking training led to researchers’ preference for decisions involving the application of the broad metacognitive reasoning strategies. Individual trainee and training characteristics were used to explain the study findings. Broad implications of the findings for ethics training development, implementation, and evaluation in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

A common view is that, whether taught in philosophy departments or elsewhere, practical ethics should include some introduction to philosophical ethics. But even an entire course cannot afford much time for this and expect to do justice to ethical concerns in the practical area . The concern is that ethical theories would need to be “watered down,” or over-simplified. So, we should not expect that this will be in good keeping with either the theories or the practical concerns.In addressing this (...) problem, we turn to philosopher Thomas Reid . He insisted that, because morality is for everyone, one needn’t be a philosopher to understand its requirements. Although it can be useful to organize our moral thinking around a few basic principles, a system of morality is more like a system of botany or mineralogy than geometry. Noting this can guide us in constructing effective courses in practical ethics. (shrink)

Examples of greed and environmental beneficence will be discussed in this chapter. The first example involves the crash of Wallstreet in 2008. Subprime mortgages instruments, complex derivatives and overleveraging in investment banks were major provocateurs in bringing down the economy. Volkswagen’s deceptive practices in measuring diesel fuel efficiency follows. The final example of greed is Boeing and the shoddy decision-making processes on the Boeing 737 MAX that led to the catastrophic crashes resulting in 346 deaths. Good news examples comprise the (...) second focus of this chapter. Some corporations have also demonstrated practices of good will, particularly toward the environment. We focus specifically on Interface Carpets, Unilever and 3M. (shrink)

This is an edition of one of the crucial texts of Renaissance scepticism, Quod nihil scitur, by the Portuguese scholar Franciso Sanches. The treatise, first published in 1581, is a refutation of Aaristotelian dialectics and scientific theory in the search for a true scientific method. This volume provides a critical edition of the original text, an English translation, a substantial introduction, and comprehensive annotation.

BackgroundReflexive pitch perturbation experiments are commonly used to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying vocal motor control. In these experiments, the fundamental frequency–the acoustic correlate of pitch–of a speech signal is shifted unexpectedly and played back to the speaker via headphones in near real-time. In response to the shift, speakers increase or decrease their fundamental frequency in the direction opposing the shift so that their perceived pitch is closer to what they intended. The goal of the current work is to develop (...) a quantitative model of responses to reflexive perturbations that can be interpreted in terms of the physiological mechanisms underlying the response and that captures both group-mean data and individual subject responses.MethodsA model framework was established that allowed the specification of several models based on Proportional-Integral-Derivative and State-Space/Directions Into Velocities of Articulators (DIVA) model classes. The performance of 19 models was compared in fitting experimental data from two published studies. The models were evaluated in terms of their ability to capture both population-level responses and individual differences in sensorimotor control processes.ResultsA three-parameter DIVA model performed best when fitting group-mean data from both studies; this model is equivalent to a single-rate state-space model and a first-order low pass filter model. The same model also provided stable estimates of parameters across samples from individual subject data and performed among the best models to differentiate between subjects. The three parameters correspond to gains in the auditory feedback controller’s response to a perceived error, the delay of this response, and the gain of the somatosensory feedback controller’s “resistance” to this correction. Excellent fits were also obtained from a four-parameter model with an additional auditory velocity error term; this model was better able to capture multi-component reflexive responses seen in some individual subjects.ConclusionOur results demonstrate the stereotyped nature of an individual’s responses to pitch perturbations. Further, we identified a model that captures population responses to pitch perturbations and characterizes individual differences in a stable manner with parameters that relate to underlying motor control capabilities. Future work will evaluate the model in characterizing responses from individuals with communication disorders. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it.Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, (...) and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate. (shrink)

The Black Lives Matter movement marks a critical moment in the ebb and flow of racial progress. But as Camisha Russell points out, this moment might not last long. Prior high-water marks in...

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vacabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury (...) trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inatriculate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate. About the Author: Elaine Scarry is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. (shrink)

Recent works about ecumenical systems, where connectives from classical and intuitionistic logics can co-exist in peace, warmed the discussion on proof systems for combining logics. This discussion has been extended to alethic modalities using Simpson’s meta-logical characterization: necessity is independent of the viewer, while possibility can be either intuitionistic or classical. In this work, we propose a pure, label free calculus for ecumenical modalities, nEK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {nEK}$$\end{document}, where exactly one logical operator figures (...) in introduction rules and every basic object of the calculus can be read as a formula in the language of the ecumenical modal logic EK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {EK}$$\end{document}. We prove that nEK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {nEK}$$\end{document} is sound and complete w.r.t. the ecumenical birelational semantics and discuss fragments and extensions. (shrink)

What is, or what should be, the function of sport in a globalized, commercialized world? Why does sport matter in the 21st century? In Ethics and Governance in Sport: the future of sport imagined, an ensemble of leading international experts from across the fields of sport management and ethics calls for a new model of sport that goes beyond the traditional view that sport automatically encourages positive physical, psychological, social, moral and political values. Acknowledging that sport is beset by poor (...) practice, corruption, and harmful behaviors, it explores current issues in sport ethics, governance and development, considering how good governance and the positive potentials of sport can be implemented in a globalized sporting landscape. Ethics and Governance in Sport suggests a future model of sport governance based on well substantiated projections, and argues that identifying the root causes of harmful behavior, those things that are characteristic of sport, and engaging sport managers, policy makers and leaders of sport organizations, is essential if sport is to thrive. The book's interdisciplinary examination of sport, encompassing philosophy, sociology, economics, management and sport development, and its forward-looking approach makes it important reading for advanced students, researchers and policy makers with an interest in the place and development of modern sport. Its clear messages invite self-reflection and discussion, especially within sports organizations. (shrink)

This collection examines how greed should be understood and appraised. Roundly condemned by virtually all religions, greed receives mixed appraisals in the domains of business and economics. The volume examines these mixed appraisals and how they fare in light of their implications for greed in our everyday world. Greed in children is uniformly criticized by parents, other adults, and even children’s peers. However, in adulthood, greed is commended by some as essential to profit-seeking in business and for offering the greatest (...) promise in promoting economic prosperity for everyone. Those who advocate a more permissive position on greed in the adult world typically concede that some constraints on greed are needed. However, the supporting literature offers little analysis of what greed is. It offers little clarification of what sorts of constraints on greed are needed. Nor is careful attention given to difficulties children might have in making a transition without moral loss from regarding greed as inappropriate to its later qualified acceptance. Through a secular approach, this book attempts to make significant inroads in remedying these shortcomings. (shrink)

Medical-legal partnerships connect legal advocates to healthcare providers and settings. Maintaining effectiveness of medical-legal partnerships and consistently identifying opportunities for innovation and adaptation takes intentionality and effort. In this paper, we discuss ways in which our use of data and quality improvement methods have facilitated advocacy at both patient (client) and population levels as we collectively pursue better, more equitable outcomes.

Retail banking is facing many challenges, not least the loss of its customers’ trust and loyalty. The economic crisis is forcing banks to examine their relationships with stakeholders and to offer greater reassurance that their brand promises will be delivered. More than ever, banks need to stand for something positive and valued by stakeholders. One way to achieve this is through paying more attention to brand values. Our article explores how values are adopted by employees within a bank. When employees (...) ‘live’ their brand’s values, their behaviour during customer interactions reflects this, encouraging the strengthening of customer relationships. Specifically, we test the relationship between leadership style, employee commitment, and the adoption of values. Data was collected from a survey of 438 branch employees in a leading Irish retail bank. The study found that a structured and directive leadership style was effective at encouraging the adoption of the bank’s values. Moreover, when employees are committed to the organisation, this has a significant impact on their adoption of values. Thus, this study supports the literature which suggests that leadership and commitment are prerequisites for values adoption. (shrink)

Retail banking is facing many challenges, not least the loss of its customers’ trust and loyalty. The economic crisis is forcing banks to examine their relationships with stakeholders and to offer greater reassurance that their brand promises will be delivered. More than ever, banks need to stand for something positive and valued by stakeholders. One way to achieve this is through paying more attention to brand values. Our article explores how values are adopted by employees within a bank. When employees (...) ‘live’ their brand’s values, their behaviour during customer interactions reflects this, encouraging the strengthening of customer relationships. Specifically, we test the relationship between leadership style, employee commitment, and the adoption of values. Data was collected from a survey of 438 branch employees in a leading Irish retail bank. The study found that a structured and directive leadership style was effective at encouraging the adoption of the bank’s values. Moreover, when employees are committed to the organisation, this has a significant impact on their adoption of values. Thus, this study supports the literature which suggests that leadership and commitment are prerequisites for values adoption. (shrink)

This text provides a long-overdue pedagogical commentary on Cicero's "Pro L. Muerna Oratio".

Just Business provides the first comprehensive, reasoned framework for resolving questions of business ethics and corporate governance. Innovative, accessible, and global in scope, its powerful Ethical Decision Model can be used to manage the ethical problems of business as they arise in all their complexity and variety. Just Business combines business realism with philosophical rigor, and demonstrates that it is not necessary to emasculate or to adulterate business for business to be ethical. The book benefits from Elaine Sternberg's extensive (...) experience as an academic philosopher, an international investment banker, and head of successful businesses. She is now Principal of a London-headquartered consultancy firm, and Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. (shrink)

BackgroundThe amount of research utilizing health information has increased dramatically over the last ten years. Many institutions have extensive biobank holdings collected over a number of years for clinical and teaching purposes, but are uncertain as to the proper circumstances in which to permit research uses of these samples. Research Ethics Boards (REBs) in Canada and elsewhere in the world are grappling with these issues, but lack clear guidance regarding their role in the creation of and access to registries and (...) biobanks.MethodsChairs of 34 REBS and/or REB Administrators affiliated with Faculties of Medicine in Canadian universities were interviewed. Interviews consisted of structured questions dealing with diabetes-related scenarios, with open-ended responses and probing for rationales. The two scenarios involved the development of a diabetes registry using clinical encounter data across several physicians' practices, and the addition of biological samples to the registry to create a biobank.ResultsThere was a wide range of responses given for the questions raised in the scenarios, indicating a lack of clarity about the role of REBs in registries and biobanks. With respect to the creation of a registry, a minority of sites felt that consent was not required for the information to be entered into the registry. Whether patient consent was required for information to be entered into the registry and the duration for which the consent would be operative differed across sites. With respect to the creation of a biobank linked to the registry, a majority of sites viewed biobank information as qualitatively different from other types of personal health information. All respondents agreed that patient consent was needed for blood samples to be placed in the biobank but the duration of consent again varied.ConclusionParticipants were more attuned to issues surrounding biobanks as compared to registries and demonstrated a higher level of concern regarding biobanks. As registries and biobanks expand, there is a need for critical analysis of suitable roles for REBs and subsequent guidance on these topics. The authors conclude by recommending REB participation in the creation of registries and biobanks and the eventual drafting of comprehensive legislation. (shrink)

We rely on doctors, accountants, engineers, and other professionals to be committed to the basic values of their professions and to exercise their ex­pertise in competent, reliable ways, even when no one is watching them do their work. That is, we expect them to have professional integrity. Children obviously do not yet have professional integrity, even if someday they will become professionals. Nevertheless, the moral development of children who will become professionals plays an important role in the eventual emergence of (...) their professional integrity. We will discuss both what this integrity involves and how the basic moral development of children contributes to its emergence in professional life. (shrink)

We rely on doctors, accountants, engineers, and other professionals to be committed to the basic values of their professions and to exercise their ex­pertise in competent, reliable ways, even when no one is watching them do their work. That is, we expect them to have professional integrity. Children obviously do not yet have professional integrity, even if someday they will become professionals. Nevertheless, the moral development of children who will become professionals plays an important role in the eventual emergence of (...) their professional integrity. We will discuss both what this integrity involves and how the basic moral development of children contributes to its emergence in professional life. (shrink)

At the outset of a critical examination of everyday greed, two basic challenges must be faced. First, there is a need for a clear and determinant enough understanding of greed to enable one to make a reliable assessment of its alleged strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly so when presented with claims by some that, suitably constrained, greed can be good. Does this mean that, at least to some extent, greed can be good as such? Or does it mean that, (...) even if greed at its best has fundamentally undesirable qualities, it can still sometimes serve as an acceptable means to good ends?Second, at the personal level, greed can enter our lives in ways that are morally troubling, if not corrupting. All of us have had some first-hand acquaintance with greed, either through being lured by its charms or through being harmed by the greed of others. Beginning in childhood, we are chided by others when it seems to them that we are being greedy. However, as adults we are sometimes chided for allegedly not seeing that in some contexts greed actually can be good. We may think that the greed of some is responsible for the impoverishment of others. However, some argue that, suitably constrained, greed is an essential feature of any economic system that holds out hope that even the least well off can prosper. Still, little is said about what constraints on greed might be needed, or about how they might best be obtained. Further, largely absent from this conversation is a substantive analysis of what greed is.This absence has not prevented the emergence of sweeping appraisals of greed. However, such appraisals need to be supported by more clarity about what greed is. A major aim of this chapter is to advance this end, not by offering the last word on how we should understand greed, but by presenting a solid basis from which we might gain greater clarity. (shrink)

Although much attention has been given to Jacques Lacan in his rereading of Freud and to French women analysts in their deconstruction of traditional psychoanalysis, little has been available in the US on contemporary male French analysts and their treatment of women. She Speaks/He Listens illustrates the range of thought among some well-known French male psychoanalysts today--from Lacanians to anti-Lacanians to eclectics--with regard to women and sexual difference. Through the interview format, with its possibilities for surprise and spontaneity, the book (...) makes available the thought of Alain Didier-Weill, Bela Grunberger, Patrick Guyomard, Serge Lebovici, Rene Major, Gerard Pommier and Francois Roustang, as well as the internationally famed analyst Otto Kernberg, who gives a fascinating account of the French influences on his work. Other themes addressed include the place of Freud and Lacan in current theory and the relation of feminism to contemporary French male psychoanalysts. (shrink)

Until very recently, feminist criticism has not had a theoretical basis; it has been an empirical orphan in the theoretical storm. In 1975, I was persuaded that no theoretical manifesto could adequately account for the varied methodologies and ideologies which called themselves feminist reading or writing.1 By the next year, Annette Kolodny had added her observation that feminist literary criticism appeared "more like a set of interchangeable strategies than any coherent school or shared goal orientation."2 Since then, the expressed goals (...) have not been notably unified. Black critics protest the "massive silence" of feminist criticism about black and Third-World women writers and call for a black feminist aesthetic that would deal with both racial and sexual politics. Marxist feminists wish to focus on class along with gender as a crucial determinant of literary production. Literary historians want to uncover a lost tradition. Critics trained in deconstructionist methodologies with to "synthesize a literary criticism that is both textual and feminist." Freudian and Lacanian critics want to theorize about women's relationship to language and signification.· 1. See my "Literary Criticism," Signs 1 : 435-60.· 2. Annette Kolodny, "Literary Criticism," Signs 2 : 420.Elaine Showalter is professor of English at Rutgers University. The author of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, she is currently completing The English Malady, a study of madness, literature, and society in England. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this project is to account for why we often denigrate intersex and trans bodies as disruptive and threatening. Within a binary understanding of sex and gender, we might call these bodies unruly. They deviate from what is normal but also challenge the very conceptions of normality. Appropriating Simone de Beauvoir's concept of ambiguity as the “paradox of man,” I argue that intersex and trans bodies unsettle us because they reflect the freedom of the body and our (...) associated responsibility in choosing how we live the body. We denigrate these individuals from within a spirit of seriousness, claiming that sex and gender are absolute to abdicate any responsibility for them. That is, we denounce unruly bodies in an attempt to flee from the freedom and responsibility of our own bodies. (shrink)

This article reads Cherokee academic/author Thomas King’s “The One About Coyote Going West” and Okanagan writer Jeannette Armstrong’s “This is a Story” to question whether these Aboriginal creation tales subvert the referential race codes and the kinds of hierarchical exclusion that take place in Caucasian discourses about Homo sapiens. To do so, it draws links between Slavoj Zizek’s post identity theories, and post-colonial and Indigenous literary and nationalist epistemologies, to challenge the implications of how the Coyote narratives transformation the hegemony, (...) or “the big Other.”. (shrink)

"--Robert Fagles, translator of Homer's "Iliad" "I finished "Dreaming by the Book" feeling that fundamental aspects of the nature of consciousness had been peeled open and exposed to view."--Stephen M. Kosslyn, author of "Image and Brain".

Most scholars have focused on The Second Sex and Simone de Beauvoir’s fiction, concentrating on gender issues but ignoring her broader emancipatory vision. Though Beauvoir’s political thinking is not as closely studied as her feminist works, it underpinned her activism and helped her navigate the dilemmas raised by revolutionary thought in the postwar period. In Emancipatory Thinking Elaine Stavro brings together Beauvoir’s philosophy and her political interventions to produce complex ideas on emancipation. Drawing from a range of work, including (...) novels, essays, autobiographical writings, and philosophic texts, Stavro explains that for Beauvoir freedom is a movement that requires both personal and collective transformation. Freedom is not guaranteed by world historical systems, material structures, wilful action, or discursive practices, but requires engaged subjects who are able to take creative risks as well as synchronize with existing forces to work towards collective change. Beauvoir, Stavro asserts, resisted the trend of anti-humanism that has dominated French thinking since the 1960s and also managed to avoid the pitfalls of voluntarism and individualism. In fact, Stavro argues, Beauvoir appreciated the impact of material, socio-economic, institutional forces, without forgoing the capacity to initiate. Applying Beauvoir’s existential insights and understanding of embodied and situated subjectivity to recent debates within gender, literary, sociological, cultural, and political studies, Emancipatory Thinking provides a lens to explore the current political and theoretical landscape. (shrink)

Drawing on Mary Russo’s theorization of ‘female grotesques’, this article analyses Take a Peek! – a circus, fairground-styled ‘freak’ show by British performance artist, Bobby Baker. While making a display of or a spectacle out of herself can be argued for all of Baker’s work, Take a Peek!, the third show in her ‘Daily Life’ series, is especially concerned with ‘woman’ on display. The article argues that in Take a Peek! Baker turns herself into a ‘spectacular’ demonstration of ‘failed’ femininity (...) in a way that constitutes a site/sight of feminist critical ‘work’. The analysis proceeds by detailing the various ways in which Baker realizes her performance through strategies that serve to grotesque the feminine and figure an archaic maternal, the sorceress and the hysteric. In conclusion, Baker’s invitation to laugh at the grotesquing of her own body is proposed as a means of empowering those who look, to look differently at the ideas and ‘ideals’ that shape the feminine in contemporary cultural and social systems, and to expose the symbolic feminine for what it truly is – a freak show. (shrink)

Recent semantic approaches to scientific structuralism, aiming to make precise the concept of shared structure between models, formally frame a model as a type of set-structure. This framework is then used to provide a semantic account of (a) the structure of a scientific theory, (b) the applicability of a mathematical theory to a physical theory, and (c) the structural realist’s appeal to the structural continuity between successive physical theories. In this paper, I challenge the idea that, to be so used, (...) the concept of a model and so the concept of shared structure between models must be formally framed within a single unified framework, set-theoretic or other. I first investigate the Bourbaki-inspired assumption that structures are types of set-structured systems and next consider the extent to which this problematic assumption underpins both Suppes’ and recent semantic views of the structure of a scientific theory. I then use this investigation to show that, when it comes to using the concept of shared structure, there is no need to agree with French that “without a formal framework for explicating this concept of ‘structure-similarity’ it remains vague, just as Giere’s concept of similarity between models does ...” (French, 2000, Synthese, 125, pp. 103–120, p. 114). Neither concept is vague; either can be made precise by appealing to the concept of a morphism, but it is the context (and not any set-theoretic type) that determines the appropriate kind of morphism. I make use of French’s (1999, From physics to philosophy (pp. 187–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) own example from the development of quantum theory to show that, for both Weyl and Wigner’s programmes, it was the context of considering the ‘relevant symmetries’ that determined that the appropriate kind of morphism was the one that preserved the shared Lie-group structure of both the theoretical and phenomenological models. (shrink)

While philosophy and psychoanalysis privilege language and conceptual distinctions and mistrust the image, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva recognizes the power of art and the imagination to unblock important sources of meaning. She also appreciates the process through which creative acts counteract and transform feelings of violence and depression. Reviewing Kristeva's corpus, Elaine P. Miller considers the intellectual's "aesthetic idea" and "thought specular" in their capacity to reshape depressive thought on both the individual and cultural level. She revisits (...) Kristeva's reading of Walter Benjamin with reference to melancholic art and the imagination's allegorical structure; her analysis of Byzantine iconoclasm in relation to Freud's psychoanalytic theory of negation and Hegel's dialectical negativity; her understanding of Proust as an exemplary practitioner of sublimation; her rereading of Kant and Arendt in terms of art as an intentional lingering with foreignness; and her argument that forgiveness is both a philosophical and psychoanalytic method of transcending a "stuck" existence. Focusing on specific artworks that illustrate Kristeva's ideas, from ancient Greek tragedy to early photography, contemporary installation art, and film, Miller positions creative acts as a form of "spiritual inoculation" against the violence of our society and its discouragement of thought and reflection. (shrink)

Kristeva's Teresa My Love concerns the life and thought of a 16th century Spanish mystic, written in the form of a novel. Yet the theme of another kind of foreigner, equally exotic but this time threatening, pops up unexpectedly and disappears several times during the course of the novel. At the very beginning of the story, the 21st century narrator, psychoanalyst Sylvia Leclerque, encounters a young woman in a headscarf, whom Kristeva describes as an IT engineer, who speaks out, explaining (...) that "she and her God were one and that the veil was the immovable sign of this 'union,' which she wished to publicize in order to definitively 'fix it' in herself and in the eyes of others." In this paper I ask what difference Kristeva discerns between these two women, a distinction that apparently makes Teresa's immanence simultaneously a transcendence, but transforms a Muslim woman in a headscarf immediately into an imagined suicide bomber. Despite the problematic aspects of this comparison, we can learn something from them about Kristeva's ideas on mysticism and on art. Both mysticism and art are products of the death drive, but whereas the suicide bomber and the animal directly and purely pursue death Teresa and Adel remain on its outer edge and merely play with mortality. (shrink)