A growing number of studies have found that large brains may help animals survive by avoiding predation. These studies provide an alternative explanation for existing correlative evidence for one of the dominant hypotheses regarding the evolution of brain size in animals, the social brain hypothesis (SBH). The SBH proposes that social complexity is a major evolutionary driver of large brains. However, if predation both directly selects for large brains and higher levels of sociality, correlations between sociality and brain size may (...) be spurious. We argue that tests of the SBH should take direct effects of predation into account, either by explicitly including them in comparative analyses or by pin‐pointing the brain‐behavior‐fitness pathway through which the SBH operates. Existing data and theory on social behavior can then be used to identify precise candidate mechanisms and formulate new testable predictions. (shrink)

This volume focuses on cosmological and cosmogonical concepts in hermetic writings and studies their syncretistic origins, subject matter and impact from an interdisciplinary perspective. In doing so, it incorporates articles from various fields of research and academic disciplines.

This paper discusses George Boole’s two distinct approaches to the explanatory relationship between logical and psychological theory. It is argued that, whereas in his first book he attributes a substantive role to psychology in the foundation of logical theory, in his second work he abandons that position in favour of a linguistically conceived foundation. The early Boole espoused a type of psychologism and later came to adopt a type of anti-psychologism. To appreciate this invites a far-reaching reassessment of his philosophy (...) of logic. (shrink)

This article investigates the structure of racialized conflict experience. Embarking from a conflict event in Ta-Nehisi Coates's autobiography Between the World and Me and contrasting the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz with insights from Black phenomenology, I argue that Coates's experience discloses conflictual, but intertwined, modes of being-in-the-world. Further, it presents an instantiation of a particular kind of conflict, i.e., corporeal conflict. Corporeal conflict applies whenever the body is politicized, i.e., when it becomes the marker for traits representative (...) of a rival political group. Understood this way, racialized conflict is always political. I conclude the article with some remarks on the shortcomings of two dominant conflict theories in political philosophy and the potential for an alternative, phenomenological approach that enables new ways of engaging the other in conflict. The analysis is preceded by a meditation on the role of the White researcher in critical philosophy of race. (shrink)

Using the World Values Survey (WVS) as a background the paper discusses a tension between the general evaluative outlook of Swedish teacher students and the educational values established by The Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE). According to the results from WVS, which maps evaluative differences between approximately 80 countries in the world, Sweden stands out as a country that rejects traditional values and embraces so called secular self-expression values. However, the values established by SNAE include both traditional values, such (...) as “sharing a common cultural heritage”, and secular self-expression values, such as “individual freedom and integrity”. Against this background we conducted a survey of 179 Swedish teacher students in order to investigate the relation between their evaluative outlook and the values they are supposed to convey to their pupils as established by SNAE. The result of the survey indicates that these students do not differ in any significant respect from the Swedish population in general as regards secular vs traditional evaluations. The fact that the traditional values emphasized by SNAE seem to be scarcely represented among the teacher students, makes questionable whether they will be present in their future teaching. On the assumptions that there are important educational values among the traditional as well as the secular self-expression ones, and that values are reproduced within an educational system, we argue that there is reason to take the imbalance in the evaluative outlook of the students seriously. (shrink)

Researchers within the educational field usually acknowledge the idea that teaching is an essentially moral activity. Yet, they seem to have different opinions on how teachers are supposed to complete that task in their everyday pedagogical practice. Jonathan Haidt has conducted a series of international studies, during recent years, revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations that evoke strong emotional reactions. Based on the results he has presented a theory, the New Syntheses, in which he claims (...) to explain the difference between the dominating moral pedagogical models and develop new approaches to teaching ethics. The present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education teachers for which we have borrowed two of Jonathan Haidts examples. We discuss the New Synthesis in relation to the results of the surveys and the ethical dimension of the teaching profession. We argue that these results indicate a need for teacher students and teachers to consciously reflect on their values and methods for approaching ethics in education. (shrink)

Teachers frequently face ethical problems in their everyday practice – ranging from pedagogical choices affecting their pupils to pressing conflicts that need to be solved – and they are expected to respond to such problems in a professional manner. Given the centrality of the ethical dimension to the teaching profession, an important question is how teachers tend to approach such problems. While some studies have been carried out regarding how teachers in particular approach ethical problems, there are interesting studies revealing (...) how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations involving ethical aspects that evoke strong emotional reactions. Aiming to fill parts of this gap, the present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education (RE) teachers for which we have borrowed two examples from such general studies (carried out by Jonathan Haidt among others). These examples were chosen on the basis that one of them clearly represent a social taboo in a Swedish context while the other one does not. Letting the teacher students and RE teachers respond to both examples give us an indication of whether there is any significant difference in their approach to an example evoking a strong emotional reaction as opposed to a more neutral one. It is clear from our survey that there is such a difference: the respondents generally make rationally motivated judgments when confronted with the neutral example, while most of them seem to rely on gut feeling in the more provoking case. If these results can be taken as an indication of how teacher students and teachers tend to respond to real life situations, a provoking or emotionally laden context is likely to enhance the risk of making ethical choices which are not based on rational reasoning. We argue that these results emphasize the importance for teacher students as well as already practicing teachers to study, and cultivate the ability for, moral reasoning. (shrink)

Cosmopolitans share the moral assumption that we have obligations and responsibilities to other people, near or distant. Today, those obligations and responsibilities are often connected with communication, but what is considered important for cosmopolitan communication differs between different thinkers. Given the centrality of communication in recent cosmopolitan theory and debate the purpose of this article is to examine assumptions about communication that are often taken for granted, and particularly the commonly held assumption that linguistic communication depends on shared or common (...) languages. It is primarily Donald Davidson's philosophy of language that provides the framework for my examination. I argue that there are several reasons for reconstructing our understanding of the nature of language and communication, and that shared languages play a much more limited role in communication than many communication theorists, cosmopolitans and educators have imagined. (shrink)

We address what it means to “engage in a relationship” and suggest Social Breathing as a model of immersing ourselves in the metaphorical social air around us, which is necessary for shared intention and joint action. We emphasize how emergent properties of social systems arise, such as the shared culture of groups, which cannot be reduced to the individuals involved. We argue that the processes involved in Social Breathing are: automatic, implicit, temporal, in the form of mutual bi-directional interwoven exchanges (...) between social partners and embodied in the coordination of the brains and behaviors of social partners. We summarize cross-disciplinary evidence suggesting that these processes involve a multi-person whole-brain-body network which is critical for the development of both we-ness and relational skills. We propose that Social Breathing depends on each individual’s ability to sustain multimodal interwovenness, thus providing a theoretical link between social neuroscience and relational/multi-person psychology. We discuss how the model could guide research on autism, relationships, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

This essay discusses the normative significance of the spatial dimension of conflict events. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with political actors – politicians, officials, and activists – and on Heidegger’s account of spatiality in Being and Time, I will argue that the experience of conflict space is co-constituted by the respective conflict participants, as well as the location where the conflict unfolds. Location and conflict parties’ (self-)understandings ‘open up’ a space that enables and constrains ways of seeing and acting. Yet, (...) a purely transcendental phenomenology will remain oblivious to the quasi-transcendental, societal structures of power that shape a person’s conflict experience. To illuminate these facets of the phenomenon, phenomenology has to join forces with critical theory. Introducing Garland-Thomson’s feminist distinction of fit/misfit, I will illustrate how power shapes conflict space in manifold ways. The essay thereby fills a gap in the philosophical literature that rarely analyses political conflict as a phenomenon sui generis. (shrink)

The paper outlines why and how political institutions, especially constitutional ones, matter for what decisions are made in the political process and thereby for how the economy functions. The main part contains a survey of empirical studies in this area. Among the things covered: the effects of political and economic freedom, not least property rights, on economic growth; how stricter budgetprocess rules affect tendencies for deficits; the role of electoral systems for shaping policies and affecting fiscal deficits; and the effects (...) of separation of powers – e.g., federalism and referenda – on government size.Ce papier retrace dans les grandes lignes pourquoi et comment les institutions politiques, notamment celles de nature constitutionnelle, importent pour les décisions prises au niveau politique et en conséquence sur la manière dont fonctionne l’économie. La majeure partie du papier consiste en un examen des études empiriques dans ce domaine. Parmi les choses analysées : les effets de la liberté politique et économique, en particulier les droits de propriété, sur la croissance économique ; comment des règles plus strictes lors de l’élaboration du budget influent sur la tendance au déficit ; le rôle des systèmes électoraux dans l’élaboration des politiques et dans la taille des déficits ; et les effets de la séparation des pouvoirs – par exemple fédéralisme et referenda – sur la taille du gouvernement. (shrink)

This article explores how our understanding of ambivalence would shift if we saw it as an inherent and essential part of the ordinary work of education. Following Bauman's sociology of the stranger and Derrida's deconstructions of hospitality, the article unfolds in three parts. In the first part we discuss the preconditions of modern education which since the Enlightenment has been guided by the postulate that there is and ought to be a rational order in the social world. In the second (...) part we consider the intolerance of strangers the modern will-to-order has caused. Since the stranger appears as a liminal category that falls between the boundaries of already established social categories, she can only be viewed as an antithesis of a well-ordered society. In the third part we ask how educational spaces hospitable to strangers can be opened up, and argue that we would do better not to construe living with ambivalence as a problem, but as a quest for humanity and justice. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that prosthetic limbs are the subjects of some of the same rights as traditional body parts. This is a strong argument in favour of respecting the rights of users of prosthetics. I argue that all of the reasons to consider paradigm prosthetics the subjects of body-like rights apply to the relationship between some emotional support animals and their handlers. ESAs are integrated into the functioning of their handlers in ways that parallel the ways that paradigm prosthetics (...) are integrated into the functioning of their users. ESAs are also phenomenologically integrated into their handler’s lives in ways that parallel the phenomenological integration that prosthetic users experience. These parallels provide a strong reason to take the rights of ESA handlers much more seriously than we do now. I will highlight that the current treatment of ESA handlers presumes that they have no rights to ESAs at all. Even if ESAs are the subject of very minimal body-like rights, ESA handlers are having their rights violated. There are of course disanalogies between ESAs and paradigm prosthetics. Most notably, ESAs are alive and separate from their handlers. However, none of these disanalogies are relevant to the question of body-like rights. The differences between ESAs and paradigm prosthetics are in terms of what treatment is owed to them, not in terms of what rights their handlers and users should have. ESAs are not prosthetics, but they deserve some of the rights prosthetics do. (shrink)

This first book in English by Serge-Christophe Kolm provides an overview of his far-reaching vision of distributive justice. Kolm derives justice from considerations of rationality.

This volume offers a meta-philosophical reflection on feminist philosophies of science. It emphasizes and discusses both the connections and differences between "traditional" philosophies of science and feminist philosophies of science. The collection systematically analyses feminist contributions to the various philosophies of specific sciences. Each chapter is devoted to a specific area of philosophy of science: general philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of climate sciences, philosophy of cognitive sciences and neurosciences, philosophy of economics, philosophy of history and archaeology, philosophy (...) of logic and mathematics, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of social sciences. Since some of these areas have so far rarely been addressed by feminist philosophers, this new collection provides new angels and stimulates the debate on pivotal issues that are part and parcel of both "traditional" philosophies of science and feminist philosophies of science. Using a range of different methodologies and styles, the essays all show great clarity in both arguments and contents. (shrink)

We introduce the Relational Responding Task (RRT) as a tool for capturing beliefs at the implicit level. Flemish participants were asked to respond as if they believed that Flemish people are more intelligent than immigrants (e.g., respond “true” to the statement “Flemish people are wiser than immigrants”) or to respond as if they believed that immigrants are more intelligent than Flemish people (e.g., respond “true” to the statement “Flemish people are dumber than immigrants”). The difference in performance between these two (...) tasks correlated with ratings of the extent to which participants explicitly endorsed the belief that Flemish people are more intelligent than immigrants and with questionnaire measures of subtle and blatant racism. The current study provides a first step towards validating RRT effects as a viable measure of implicit beliefs. (shrink)

In the past, Wonder Woman and Superman were depicted as good friends, but as of 2016, in New 52 Wonder Woman comic books, the Amazon princess and the man of steel are in a romantic relationship. The implication seems to be that romantically compatible people cannot be just friends. Thankfully, philosophy can help to debunk this notion and shed some light on the nature of friendship and romance as well. In consuming works of popular culture, people learn what is expected (...) of them in their interpersonal lives: cross‐gender relationships must be romantic, and friendship cannot be as important as romance. The loss of Wonder Woman and Superman as an example of a stable non‐romantic cross‐gender friendship therefore represents not just a change in the treatment of the characters, but a loss of support for the idea that such friendships are possible. (shrink)

There are documented differences in the efficacy of medical treatment for pain for men and women. Women are less likely to have their pain controlled and receive less treatment than men. We are investigating one possible explanation for this gender pain gap: that there is a difference in how women and men report their pain to physicians, and so there is a difference in how physicians understand their pain. This paper describes an exploratory study into gendered attitudes towards reporting uncontrolled (...) pain to a physician. This exploratory study provided subjects with a vignette describing a situation in which their pain is not being treated adequately and asked them questions about their attitudes towards self-advocacy and the strategies they would likely use to express themselves. We found that women scored higher than men on measures of patient likelihood to self-advocate. Women also reported intending to use more varied self-advocacy strategies than men. This suggests it is unlikely that patient’s communication styles are to blame for the gender pain gap. (shrink)

Pieranna Garavaso and Nicla Vassallo investigate Gottlob Frege's largely unexplored notion of thinking to provide insight into the roles of language in expressing thoughts and in fostering the development of human knowledge. The analysis will benefit studies of epistemology, logic, philosophy of mind, psychology, and philosophy of language.

Reciprocity is the basis of social relations. It permits a peaceful and free society in which people and rights are respected. The essence of families and communities, it also enables the working of markets and organisations, while correcting their main failures. Reciprocity is also a basis of politics, and it justifies social policies. Although the importance of reciprocity has been widely recognised in other social sciences, it has, until recently, been somewhat ignored in economic analysis. Over the past three decades, (...) economic theorist and moral philosopher Serge-Christophe Kolm has been at the forefront of research into the economics of the deepest aspects of societies. In Reciprocity, he provides a unique in-depth analysis of the motives, conducts, and effects of reciprocal relationships. In doing this, he explains crucial functionings of society and its economy, and the ways in which they can be improved. This book should be read by economists, sociologists, philosophers, and anyone concerned with understanding the economy of social relationships and its far-reaching consequences. (shrink)

The recent development within moral psychology has contributed to change the understanding of how people in general make moral judgements. The results suggest that moral judgements typically involve two cognitive processes, rapid emotional responses and slow acts of rational thinking, where the significance of the latter traditionally has been overemphasized. It is possible to argue that the division in moral psychology has a counterpart in an ethics of care which distinguishes between intuitive acts of natural care and deliberate choices of (...) ethical care. The purpose of this paper is thus to discuss if and how the recent development within moral psychology can be used to understand an ethics of care as a moral pedagogical model. We will argue that the findings in moral psychology can contribute to the interpretation and application of an ethics of care which can benefit the understanding of both theories in an educational context. (shrink)

The contextualistic account for the semantic behaviour of the term “know” - a position labelled as “epistemic contextualism” - combined with the widely accepted idea that “know” is a factive verb seems to lead to a very unpleasant conclusion: epistemic contextualism is inconsistent. In section 1 we first examine some aspects of the epistemological meaning of the contextualist semantics of “know”, then in section 2 we sketch the problem which leads to the supposed inconsistency of epistemic contextualism and in section (...) 3 we analyse some solutions that have been proposed to solve the problem which are, in our view, unsatisfactory. In section 4 we present our attempt of solution. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe a semiotic programme that proposes an alternative conceptual framework to understand the moral positionalities that people have in socio-material space. The study amalgamates moral character and signs and signification through a discussion of moral choice and value acts in an existential semiotic framework, as laid out by Eero Tarasti. The programme was triggered by a lived experience in a non-place, yielding the concept of semiotic space awareness – i.e., the value acts that work as signs (...) of moral character in people’s socio-material space. It is the moral positioning of a subject in the socio-material and semiotic space in relation to other subjects. People’s positionalities primarily take place in the socio-material space, and the dimensions we discuss focus on how value acts are produced and interpreted in space and place. Our aim is to take the approach used in, e.g., proxemics to a universal metalevel in terms of its key, undivided semiotic ingredients irrespective of cultural variation. We then extrapolate by discussing how these value acts trigger potential tensions and conflicts that can be approached using semiotics as a foundation for analysis. More specifically, the moral character that people portray in their value acts is theorized and applied as an explanatory tool to understand the semiosis and its repercussions in Dasein. We also introduce affordance as an additional dimension in the interplay and modalizations between moral character and moral choice to understand value acts and semiotic space awareness in subjects’ Dasein and Umwelt. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

Erik Schokkaert's note presents a very good summary of the theory of macrojustice and a very good list of the directions of research it points to. This is quite fitting since a research programme defines a paradigm, and he sees this proposal as a paradigm shift. This is also very appropriate since his own qualifications are the best for advancing fast in these research topics. I have only a very small number of qualifications to add to his presentation, but I (...) prefer to begin with emphasizing the most important issues. Two aspects can be seen as the most important: the de facto axiomatic derivation of the solution ELIE and its application on the one hand, and the present state of scholarly studies of the optimum or just distribution of income on the other hand. Let us enter by the second door (as opposed to what is done in the book Macrojustice). This will lead us to conclude with a more synthetic and broader view of the basic logic of the paradigms of justice and of the surprising recent history of their interpretations. (shrink)

The emergence of Covid‐19 in the United States has revealed a critical weakness in the health care system in the United States. The majority of people in the nation receive health care via employment‐based health insurance from providers in a competitive market. However, neither employment‐based health care nor a competitive health care market can adequately provide treatment during a global pandemic. Employment‐based health care will fail to provide care for a large number of people in any destabilizing economic event, including (...) a pandemic. Competitive for‐profit health care systems distribute limited goods based on markets rather than health care needs. If a global pandemic results in unusually high demand for specific medical supplies, then these will be distributed suboptimally. The combined risk of suboptimal distribution of needed goods and a significant drop in health care access in a global pandemic indicates that the U.S. health care system has serious vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. (shrink)

Romance novels are primarily aimed at, written about, and written for women. They have been accused of being fantasies which feature sexually objectified heroines who are passive recipients of overwhelming masculine sexual energy. After shoring up these critiques of romance novels with A.W. Eaton’s account of how art can objectify its subjects, we examine a challenge to romance novels: does the sexual content in romance novels objectify its heroines? There is strong reason to think so. However, we argue that careful (...) attention to the ways art can objectify its subject reveals that romance novels are structured to make it impossible for their heroines to be objectified. In many cases, individual signs of objectification are raised as possible outcomes and dismissed as part of the plot of a romance novel. Satisfying sex in a romance novel does not appear until it is impossible for the romantic heroine to be objectified. Understood in this way, romance novels serve as a model for one way that objectification could be avoided. The fantasy of a romance novel is not objectifying sex. It is sex free of objectification. (shrink)