Hayek argued that the central question of economics is the coordination problem: How does the spontaneous interaction of many purposeful individuals, each having dispersed bits of subjective knowledge, generate an order in which the actors' subjective data are coordinated in a way that enables them to dovetail their plans and activities successfully? In attempting to solve this problem, Hayek outlined an approach to economic theorizing that takes seriously the limited, subjective nature of human knowledge. Despite purporting to have appropriated Hayek's (...) thought by acknowledging the information-transmitting role of prices, mainstream economists have missed Hayek's point. The predominant tool of formal economics—equilibrium analysis—begins by assuming the data held by actors to have been pre-reconciled, and so evades the problem to be solved. Even the more advanced tools for modeling knowledge in economic analysis, such as the economics of information, assume away either the subjectivism of knowledge and expectations (rendering the coordination of beliefs and plans a trivial matter) or the frictions and “imperfections” of reality (rendering the coordination problem indeterminate). (shrink)

Popper's paradox of ideal evidence has long been viewed as a telling criticism of Keynes's logical theory of probability and its associated concept of the weight of argument. This paper shows that a simple addition to Keynes's definitions of irrelevance enables his theory to elude the paradox with ease. The modified definition draws on ideas already present in Keynes's Treatise on Probability (1973). As a consequence, relevant evidence and the weight of argument may increase, even when new evidence leaves the (...) probability unaltered. (shrink)

In this article, Aislinn O'Donnell offers a set of reflections on the relation between therapy and education. In the first section, she examines criticisms of therapeutic education, mobilizing the example of prison education to highlight the difficulties that arise from imposing prescriptive modes of subjectification and socialization in pedagogy. In the second section, she addresses the relation between therapy and education by focusing on just one element of the experience of education: those moments at which a subject has the (...) potential of becoming significant in the life of a student. An important dimension of the educator's authority involves noticing such moments, fostering the conditions that make them more likely, and engaging in the creative process and practice of deciding how best pedagogically to respond to these moments. In the third section, O'Donnell develops this idea by detailing a philosophical approach and practice that understands “effectiveness” in education as bound to practice, creative responsiveness, and the judgment of the educator in concrete, singular pedagogical situations, rather than construed in terms of generic models of “best practice.”. (shrink)

This chapter begins with conversations in a prison on Samuel Beckett and pedagogy, conversations that emerged from the authors classes in philosophy. There are two interwoven strands in the chapter. One questions the emphasis on competition and achievement in contemporary education and its implications for the author's relationship to failure. The second, strongly influenced by Beckett, explores ways of reimagining the relationship to failure in such a way that allows them to reflect on what matters in life. Rather than seeking (...) to eliminate failure, it is more interesting to think about how the concept of failure could be reimagined if, as Beckett suggests, failure is not accompanied by disappointment but became simply what we do, rather than being something we are. (shrink)

In 1886, Nietzsche wrote: ‘I am still waiting for a philosophical doctor in the extraordinary sense of the term’: a doctor who pursues not truth, but an exceptional kind of health. Nietzsche's will to health, his theory of drive organisation, and his insistence that the philosopher put himself at risk, all work together in his overall project, which consists of taking up the very role of the highly revalued physician for whom he is waiting. Deleuze and Guattari engage this same (...) task of a revalued doctoring in the Capitalisme et Schizophrénie books, attacking the disease of oedipality and providing instructions for the deorganisation of the organism as self-cure. Offering tips on this radical treatment, they employ the figure of the hypochondriac to show how it can fail. Both Nietzsche and Deleuze and Guattari perform a revaluation of health as a condition of chronic critique, a condition that wraps itself around illness to keep itself critical. (shrink)

(2000). Of loaded dice and heated arguments: Putting the Hansen?Michaels global warming debate in context. Social Epistemology: Vol. 14, No. 2-3, pp. 109-127.

The project of this paper is to deliver a semantics for a broad subset of bare plural generics about racial kinds, a class which I will dub 'Type C generics.' Examples include 'Blacks are criminal' and 'Muslims are terrorists.' Type C generics have two interesting features. First, they link racial kinds with ​ socially perspectival predicates ​ (SPPs). SPPs lead interpreters to treat the relationship between kinds and predicates in generic constructions as nomic or non-accidental. Moreover, in computing their content, (...) interpreters must make implicit reference to socially privileged​ ​ perspectives which are treated as authoritative about whether a given object fits into the extension of the predicate. Such deference grants these authorities influence over both the conventional meaning of these terms and over the nature of the ​ objects ​ in the social ontology that these terms purport to describe, much the way a baseball umpire is authoritative over the meaning and metaphysics of 'strike'/​ strike ​. Second, terms like 'criminal' and 'terrorist' receive default ​ racialized ​ interpretations in which these terms conventionally token racial or ethnic identities. I show that neither of these features can be explained by Sarah-Jane Leslie's influential 'weak semantics' for generics, and show how my own 'socially perspectival semantics' fares better on both counts. Finally, I give an analysis of 'Blacks are criminal' which explores the semantic mechanisms that underlie default racialized interpretations. (shrink)

Over the last decade, there has been a considerable expansion of mindfulness programmes into a number of different domains of contemporary life, such as corporations, schools, hospitals and even the military. Understanding the reasons for this phenomenon involves, I argue, reflecting upon the nature of contemporary capitalism and mapping the complexity of navigating new digital technologies that make multiple and accelerated solicitations upon attention and our affective lives. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of mindfulness practice, this article argues that it is (...) equally important to attend to the ethical framework that gives orientation to these practices and the outer conditions that shape lived daily experience, such as school or work environments. I suggest that the well-meaning efforts to secularise mindfulness, provide scientific evidence for its effectiveness, and introduce it to wider publics may have served to impoverish the rich contribution that practices of mindfulness, situated within a broader ethical framework, can make to human lives, and arguably contribute to the educational endeavour. For example, the emphasis on transforming inner conditions of students’ lives can lead to the neglect of outer conditions, such as structural inequality, or unhealthy and exploitative work practices. This can result in practices that privilege individual wellbeing over compassion and concern for the happiness of others, providing a buffer against loving attention to the world and others. Instead, I ask how mindfulness in educational settings could come to be viewed in a different light if we reflect upon the ways in which school environments and curricula can promote mindfulness, awareness, sensitive inquiry, and contemplative practices through the day, rather than offering it as a discrete intervention focused on the self and wellbeing. (shrink)

The article addresses the implications of Prevent and Channel for epistemic justice. The first section outlines the background of Prevent. It draws upon Moira Gatens and Genevieve Lloyd’s concept of the collective imaginary, alongside Lorraine Code’s concept of epistemologies of mastery, in order to outline some of the images and imaginaries that inform and orient contemporary counter-terrorist preventative initiatives, in particular those affecting education. Of interest here is the way in which vulnerability is conceptualised in Prevent and Channel, in particular (...) the way in which those deemed ‘at risk of radicalisation’ are constituted as vulnerable and requiring intervention. The imaginary underpinning such preventative initiatives is, I argue, a therapeutic/epidemiological one. If attention is paid to the language associated with these interventions, one finds reference to terms such as contagion, immunity, resilience, grooming, virus, susceptibility, therapy, autonomy, vulnerability and risk—a constellation of images/concepts resonant with therapeutic and epidemiological theories and practices. I outline some of the implications of this therapeutic/epidemiological imaginary for epistemic injustice. If people, in this case, students, teachers and parents, feel that their voice will not be given credence, this leads to testimonial injustice. If one group is constituted as a suspect community, this risks hermeneutical injustice for that group—a situation facing Muslims at present. Given the requirements for educators and educational institutions to enact this particular iteration of preventative counter-terrorist legislation, the way in which vulnerability is understood and operationalised has direct bearing upon education and the educational experience of all stakeholders, in particular in relation to the conditions for epistemic justice. (shrink)

Since the turn of the millennium, theologians and secular scholars of religion have increasingly begun exploring the relationship between transhumanism and religion. However, analyses of anti-transhumanist apocalypticisms are still rare, and those that exist are situated mainly among broader explorations of religious and secular bioconservatism. This article addresses this lack of specificity by drawing analyses of transhumanism and religion into dialogue with explorations of contemporary demonology through a close study of the beliefs of the evangelical conspiracist Thomas Horn and the (...) anti-transhumanist milieu around him. Exploring the milieu's multifaceted demonology of the secular world in light of genealogies of religion and secularity, the article situates Horn's demonology as one attempt to negotiate these genealogies, using what Sean McCloud terms a “‘supernatural’ hermeneutics of suspicion” that sees spiritual forces as the structural base of reality. It argues that, while fringe, milieus like Horn's illuminate broader cultural tensions and genealogical relations surrounding the place of religion in a secular world. (shrink)

In this introduction I closely read Marquand’s arguments in “On Scientific Method in the Study of Art” both in relation to their sources and in relation to Marquand’s own subsequent scholarship. My thesis is that Charles Sanders Peirce’s writing is the most conspicuous and important inspiration for the essay; however I also contend that Marquand’s handwritten corrections to the surviving manuscript of the text reveal a struggle with Peirce’s ideas that can – especially in light of Marquand’s later writing – (...) be read to expose an ambivalent or potentially even critical attitude toward central aspects of Peirce’s thought. I conclude by noting that Marquand’s intellectual relationship with Peirce speaks to both the past, present, and future of art historical scholarship. (shrink)

Contemporary educational policies have recently prioritised the development of generic, core, and transferable skills. This essay reflects on this tendency in the context of the ‘algorithmic condition’ and those discourses that tend toward an image of education that privileges dematerialised skills, practices, and knowledge. It argues that this turn towards dematerialisation is resonant with shifts in a number of diff erent domains, including work, and explores some of the implications of this shift. Instead I suggest an approach to education that (...) understands it as turning towards the world, loving the world, and creating a common world. In order to understanding thinking and knowing as material practices, the concept of ‘material thinking’ is developed that refuses binaries of theory and practice, but that instead understands thinking, particularly in educational contexts, as material and a practice of thinking with something, and a turning towards the world. I draw upon the work of Susan Oyama, Elizabeth Grosz, Tim Ingold and Isabelle Stengers, and explore the example of Barbara McClintock’s research as a cytogeneticist researching maize. Here I am particularly interested in the importance of deep engagement with a subject matter in terms of developing the skilfulness that is associated with what I am calling ‘material thinking’. This allows us to think about education in a way that pays attention to the plurality of practices of material thinking that engage with the natural history of humankind, and the story of the world. (shrink)

The eukaryotic helicase is an 11-subunit machine containing an Mcm2-7 motor ring that encircles DNA, Cdc45 and the GINS tetramer, referred to as CMG. CMG is “built” on DNA at origins in two steps. First, two Mcm2-7 rings are assembled around duplex DNA at origins in G1 phase, forming the Mcm2-7 “double hexamer.” In a second step, in S phase Cdc45 and GINS are assembled onto each Mcm2-7 ring, hence producing two CMGs that ultimately form two replication forks that travel (...) in opposite directions. Here, we review recent findings about CMG structure and function. The CMG unwinds the parental duplex and is also the organizing center of the replisome: it binds DNA polymerases and other factors. EM studies reveal a 20-subunit core replisome with the leading Pol ϵ and lagging Pol α-primase on opposite faces of CMG, forming a fundamentally asymmetric architecture. Structural studies of CMG at a replication fork reveal unexpected details of how CMG engages the DNA fork. The structures of CMG and the Mcm2-7 double hexamer on DNA suggest a completely unanticipated process for formation of bidirectional replication forks at origins. Here, we review the structure and function of CMG, the 11 subunit helicase for eukaryotic DNA replication. Two CMGs are assembled at origins starting from two Mcm2-7 hexamers oriented N-to-N. The orientation of CMG at a forked DNA implies that the two CMGs at an origin pass one another. (shrink)

Failure is seen as a problem in education. From failing schools, to failing students to rankings of universities, literacy or numeracy, the perception that one has failed to compete or to compare favourably with others has led to a series of policy initiatives internationally designed to ensure ‘success for all’. But when success is measured in comparison with others or against benchmarks or standards, then it is impossible to see how all could be successful given the parameters laid down. What (...) are the implications of a culture that values success and achievement? How difficult is it to become the kind of individual who is flourishing, autonomous and becomes ‘all she can be’, in particular under the precarious conditions of contemporary capitalism? Samuel Beckett was sceptical of the quest for progress, production and prestige. His philosophy invites another way of thinking about failure, not as something one is, but rather as something one does: the pain and fear of inadequacy that can mark educational relations and experiences is alleviated by a more renunciative, gentle philosophy of education. There are two interwoven strands in this article. One questions the emphasis on competition and achievement in contemporary education and explores its implications for our relationship to failure. The second, strongly influenced by Beckett, explores ways of reimagining our relationship to failure in such a way that allows us to reflect on what matters in life. (shrink)

This paper has two objectives, neither previously attempted in the published literature—first, to outline J. M. Keynes's theory of knowledge in some detail, and, secondly, to justify the contention that his epistemology is a variety of rationalism, and not, as many have asserted, a form of empiricism. Keynes's attitude to empirical data is also analysed as well as his views on prediction and theory choice. 1This paper is partly based on ideas initially advanced in O'Donnell [1982], a revised and (...) expanded version of which is to be published as O'Donnell [1989]. I should like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comment, and King's College, Cambridge for permission to quote from the Keynes Papers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article the Irish harp tradition is re-configured as a space consisting of visual and sonic dimensions. The visual dimension of the Irish harp space incorporates the employment of the instrument in contemporary iconography; the sonic dimension includes the employment of the instrument as a metaphor in contemporary literature and songs. By employing Bloch’s concept of surplus and tracing the path of the Irish harp from its earliest employment in Christian iconography, its prominence as an icon of colonial (...) and Ascendancy rule, and finally its utilisation as an utopian tool to inspire members of the Volunteer and United Irish movements in the late eighteenth century, I identify how the accumulation of centuries of utopian surplus resulted in the creation of an utopian icon that had the capacity to inspire a generation of Irish men and women to critique the prevailing social and political order in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Reconnaissant que la foi en Dieu Créateur est un mystère qui transcende notre pouvoir de compréhension humaine et de mise en concepts, l'auteur met en oeuvre divers modèles théologiques pour jeter quelque lumière sur la richesse de cette croyance. En ce qui concerne le modèle ontologique, il a recours à la théologie de Karl Rahner pour explorer le sens de l'être-créature. De par sa constitution ontologique l'être humain est à la fois différent et dépendant de Dieu en tout acte. Le (...) modèle «fiduciaire» favorisé par les Réformateurs, insiste sur le fait que la foi en Dieu Créateur est réellement un acte de confiance en l'attention que Dieu nous porte. Le modèle eschatologique, proposé par des penseurs tels Moltmann et Pannenberg, met l'accent sur Dieu comme notre futur absolu et l'objet de nos plus profonds désirs. L'article examine également certains modèles écologiques courants ainsi que l'«ecoféminisme» qui soulignent le besoin d'une intendance de la création plutôt que d'une domination. Un modèle de domination conduit à la violation de la terre comme à l'exploitation de la femme. L'article se préoccupe principalement de montrer que la foi en Dieu Créateur dans le Nouveau Testament est toujours liée au Christ comme Nouvelle Création. L'intention divine en créant était de conduire les créatures à partager la filiation du Christ. Les créatures deviennent imago Dei en vivant la relation filiale du Christ vis-à-vis du Père. Ignace de. (shrink)

Key to Rahner's understanding of Easter is his linking faith in the resurrection with anthropology. The human person is transcendence, always moving beyond self to the ever-greater God. The subject therefore seeks a definitive realization of freedom, and this realization must be bodily, since the human person is spirit-in-matter. Rahner makes an original point about the credibility of the resurrection, in that our human hope, under the influence of grace, enables us to open ourselves to the truth of Christ's resurrection. (...) Another original point of Rahner's theology is that he can accept either the theory of an intermediate state between death and final resurrection, or a resurrection which is simultaneous with death. According to Rahner, the virtue of hope functions as the link between faith and love, enabling the subject to project himself into God's future. (shrink)

L'article commence une analyse de la vertu théologique de l'espérance par une phénoménologie de l'espérance. En plus d'un regard donné aux considérations philosophiques sur l'espérance chez des auteurs tels Gabriel Marcel et Ernst Bloch, il étudie les oeuvres dramatiques de Marcel ainsi qu'un certain nombre d'auteurs utopistes tels Thomas More, Henry David Thoreau et Charles Péguy. Des métaphores de la situation humaine, tels l'emprisonnement et l'exil, sont examinées ainsi que la lumière que les auteurs concernés trouvent dans des expériences d'obscurité. (...) La crise de l'histoire est aussi examinée particulièrement dans les écrits de l'auteur italien, Sergio Quinzio: comment pouvons-nous continuer à espérer deux mille ans après la mort du Christ tandis que l'histoire de la souffrance humaine continue, apparemment sans solution ? Après avoir posé la question de l'espérance, la réponse chrétienne est examinée surtout à travers les oeuvres de Jürgen Moltmann qui base sa théologie sur le Dieu qui vient à nous comme futur, le Dieu qui renouvelle toutes choses, le Dieu créateur qui fait être a partir de rien et ressuscite les morts. Tandis que l'optimisme se base sur les resources humaines et la croyance que les choses iront inévitablement mieux, l'espérance s'enracine en ce que Dieu peut faire dans une situation de souffrance, de mort et de destruction. Une telle espérance ne nous conduit cependant pas à fuir le monde. Au contraire, notre espé. (shrink)

The existential, experiential, ethical, pathic and pre-pathic dimensions of education are essential for the creative composition of subjectivities in institutional spaces, yet educational research and policy tend increasingly to privilege technical discourses and prescriptive approaches both when evaluating ‘what is effective in education’ and when determining educational policy. This essay explores those aspects of the educational experience and educational institutions that are often felt and sensed pre-cognitively by students, parents and teachers, but are seldom given further elaboration or articulation in (...) educational research. We will reflect on what is meant by the experience of education and experience in education, including the struggles to make sense of or understand something, the surprises that strike pre-reflectively, and the ways in which such moments are noticed, pursued, and explored rather than reflexively ‘evaluated’. We then explore the idea of experimentation in institutions, in particular in relation to the range of concepts that Jean Oury introduces in order to move our attention and awareness to questions of experience, existence, atmosphere, and the pathic—the way in which we undergo, sense and participate in the world prior to cognition and the desire for mastery and control of our encounters. Finally, we address the question of the ethics of institutions. (shrink)

It is difficult to respond creatively to humiliation, affliction, degradation, or shame, just as it is difficult to respond creatively to the experience of undergoing or inflicting violence. In this article Aislinn O'Donnell argues that if we are to think about how to address gun violence — including mass shootings — in schools, then we need to talk about violence inside and outside schools. Honest, and even difficult, conversations about violence and vulnerability can take place in schools, and there (...) are ways of working with curricula and student voice that can allow for this. If pedagogy is to play a role in reorienting responses to violence and vulnerability, discussion of equivocal and ambivalent responses to corporeal vulnerability, and of histories and genealogies of violence, must be invited. We need to acknowledge that we do not have, and we may well never have, a world without violence. Drawing upon the experience of teaching philosophy in nontraditional learning environments, including prison, O'Donnell argues for an approach to pedagogy and curricula that invites difficult conversations about the complexity of violence. (shrink)

DIVUses a discussion of contemporary films and literary works to present an understanding of paranoia as a defining element in postmodern late-capitalist structure./div.

This is a long critical discussion of Frank Wilderson's Afropessimism, focusing primarily on Wilderson's claim that Blackness is equivalent to Slaveness. The article draws out some strengths of the book, but argues that the book's central arguments often rest on shaky methodological, metaphysical, epistemic, and political grounds. Along the way, we consider some complications endemic to the project of evaluating a text so clearly geared towards Black audiences from the perspective of a non-Black reader.

The authors interrogate genital examinations as events in which both client and practitioner are `produced' as relational subjects in quite specific ways. This article explores the way one female sex health worker talks about her work as a form of cultural exchange, noting what she requires of her clients and seeks to give of herself. Of particular importance is the way the practitioner produces the client as a social subject amenable to intimate examination, while resisting some traditional means for doing (...) so. The authors use a Foucauldian conceptual framework to signal their departure from feminist analyses which explain such practices in terms of a patriarchal medical system. (shrink)