This paper discusses essential elements of the philosophical works of Ludwik Fleck and their potential interpretation for the teaching and learning of science. In the early twentieth century, Fleck made substantial contributions to understanding the sociological character of the nature of science and explaining the embedding of science in society. His works have several parallels to the later and very popular work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn, although Kuhn only indirectly referred to the influence of Fleck (...) on his own theories. Starting from a short review of the life of Ludwik Fleck, his philosophical work and its connections to Kuhn, this paper elaborates upon and illustrates how his theories can be considered for science education in order to provide learners with a better understanding of the nature of scientific endeavor and the bi-directional science-to-society links. (shrink)

Moral philosophy is the study of what morality is and what it requires of us. As Socrates said, it's about "how we ought to live"-and why. It would be helpful if we could begin with a simple, uncontroversial definition of what morality is. Unfortunately, we cannot. There are many rival theories, each expounding a different conception of what it means to live morally, and any definition that goes beyond Socrates's simple formula-tion is bound to offend at least one of them. (...) This should make us cautious, but it need not paralyze us. In this chapter, I will describe the "minimum conception" of morality. (shrink)

This paper examines the notion of tolerance in education. In general, tolerance is perceived as a means to resist hostility, raise awareness of cultural differences, mitigate violence, and maintain liberal and democratic values. In education, there are various initiatives, such as the International Day for Tolerance (UNESCO in Declaration of principles on tolerance, 1995), that aim to build resilience against different forms of hate and cultivate openness and acceptance of the other. Yet the idea of tolerance includes different understandings and (...) interpretations. This paper argues that cultivating an embodied sense of tolerance among students, in particular in divisive communities, requires us to move beyond deliberative interpretations of tolerance and to advance a pragmatic understanding of tolerance through an agonistic lens. This paper starts with a review of several dominant interpretations of tolerance. The heart of the paper focuses on interpreting Dewey’s pragmatism as a theoretical basis for advancing tolerance. The final part of the paper explores how pragmatism through an agonistic lens can support a more flexible and humane approach to dealing with political conflicts. (shrink)

A joke is amusing if and only if it’s fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it’s fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the _fit–value biconditionals_. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock (...) of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the ‘fittingness first’ approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit_–_value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. (shrink)

The vision of integrating artificial intelligence in education is part of an ongoing push for harnessing digital solutions to improve teaching and learning. Drawing from Jasanoff (Future imperfect: Science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity. In S. Jasanoff, & S. H. Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power (pp. 1–33). The University of Chicago Press, 2015. 10.7208/9780226276663) and Hasse (Socratic ignorance in processes of learning with technology. In H. Bound, A. Edwards, & A. Chia (Eds.), (...) Workplace learning for changing social and economic circumstances (pp. 76–90). Routledge, 2023), this paper deliberates on how sociotechnical imaginaries are interrelated to the implications of new technologies, such as AI, in education. Complicating Hasses’s (Socratic ignorance in processes of learning with technology. In H. Bound, A. Edwards, & A. Chia (Eds.), Workplace learning for changing social and economic circumstances (pp. 76–90). Routledge, 2023) call for the development of Socratic ignorance to consider our predispositions about new technologies and open new prospects of thought, this paper revisits postphenomenology (Ihde, Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Indiana University Press, 1990; Ihde, Postphenomenology: Essays in the postmodern context. Northwestern University Press, 1993; Ihde, Postphenomenology and technoscience. The Peking University lectures. State University of New York Press, 2009) and Feenberg’s (Critical theory of technology, Oxford University Press, 1991; Between reason and experience, MIT Press, 2010; Techne: Res Philos Technol 24:27–40, 2020) critical constructivist theories. While embracing the notion of Socratic ignorance, this paper stresses the importance of developing a nuanced understanding of technology that realizes its lack of neutrality and supports the creation of a deeper understanding of how knowledge is produced, deployed, and interpreted in the digital age. Thus, this paper argues that an amalgam of Hasse’s call for advancing Socratic ignorance combined with postphenomenology and critical constructivism can support students in developing a critical understanding of technology and opening new landscapes of imaginaries. (shrink)

Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand Irigaray's original contribution to philosophical and feminist thought.

Children who are introduced to God, through attending church or having loved ones who speak often about God, often have a lot of questions, including this ever-popular one: What is God like? The late Rachel Held Evans loved the Bible and loved showing God's love through the words and pictures found in that ancient text. Through these pictures from the Bible, children see that God is like a shepherd, God is like a star, God is like a gardener, God (...) is like the wind, and more. God is a comforter and support. (shrink)

This book offers a new way of approaching the place of the will in Descartes' mature epistemology and ethics. Departing from the widely accepted view, Noa Naaman-Zauderer suggests that Descartes regards the will, rather than the intellect, as the most significant mark of human rationality, both intellectual and practical. Through a close reading of Cartesian texts from the Meditations onward, she brings to light a deontological and non-consequentialist dimension of Descartes' later thinking, which credits the proper use of free will (...) with a constitutive, evaluative role. She shows that the right use of free will, to which Descartes assigns obligatory force, constitutes for him an end in its own right rather than merely a means for attaining any other end, however valuable. Her important study has significant implications for the unity of Descartes' thinking, and for the issue of responsibility, inviting scholars to reassess Descartes' philosophical legacy. (shrink)

This article draws on the philosophical work on dialogic rationality offered by Charles Taylor as well as qualitative studies of dialogues between politically opposed college students to argue that these conversations succeed as tools of democracy precisely because they fail as interventions. That is, the democratic strength of such dialogue is the way in which it is unreliable as a means of producing particular outcomes. Students whose political views eventually shifted partly in response to dialogue understood this not as a (...) process of changing their commitments, but rather of finding a better expression for the commitments they already held. But the interviews show, too, just how rare it is for such shifts to occur at all, at least for these students in a period of political polarization and mutual distrust. The interviews suggest as well that the appeal to already shared ground is not the whole story of what prompts people to change their minds in these kinds of conversations. Rather the asking of direct but respectful questions was a crucial ingredient. Finally, dialogue did not independently cause the most profound changes in political views. Instead, it was the direction of students' lives that over time shifted their outlook. Their dialogue experience then gained meaning in retrospect, as the beginning of a process of self-questioning that was brought to fruition only later, as a first time that they had heard alternative possibilities for how value commitments can be expressed through politics. (shrink)

Abstract The principal aim of this paper is to give a positive analysis of self-deception. I argue that self-deception is a species ?self-emplotment?. Through narrative self-emplotment one groups the events of one's life thematically in order to understand and monitor oneself. I argue that self-emplotment is an unextraordinary feature of mental life that is a precondition of agency. Self-emplotment, however, proceeds according to certain norms, some of which provide apparent justification for self-deceptive activity. A secondary aim of the paper is (...) to sketch the common characteristics between self-deception and self-knowledge. The framework of self-emplotment from which self-deception can emerge is also the framework that delivers self-knowledge; to the extent that the activity of self-emplotment is partially constitutive of what it means to possess self-knowledge, the self-deceiver may be closer to a state of self-knowledge than the person who fails to engage in significant introspective narrative. (shrink)

Scholars have critiqued mainstream economic approaches to environmental valuation for decades. These critiques have intensified with the increased prominence of environmental valuation in decision-making. This paper has three goals. First, we summarise prominent critiques of monetary valuation, drawing mostly on the work of Clive Spash, who worked extensively on cost–benefit analysis early in his career and then became one of monetary valuation's most thorough and ardent critics. Second, we, as a group of scholars who study relational values, describe how relational (...) values research engages with and addresses many of the critiques of monetary valuation. Third, we offer suggestions for relational values research that continues and deepens its ability to respond to critiques of monetary valuation and contributes to transformative change towards sustainability. (shrink)

The postwar welfare state provides social insurance against economic, health, and related risks in an uncertain world. Because everyone can envision themselves to be among the unfortunate, social insurance fuses self-interest and solidarism in a normative principle Friedman (2020) calls probabilistic justice. But there is a competing principle of status defense, where the aim is to erect boundaries between socioeconomic strata and discourage cross-class mobility. We argue that this principle dominates when inequality is high and uncertainty low. The current moment (...) is one of high inequality and high uncertainty, which results in intense status anxiety, yet does not rule out solidaristic solutions. Our contributions are to diagnose the causes of our current malaise, and to theorize the normative bases for the political choice facing contemporary western democracies. (shrink)

In the Republic, Phaedrus, and Timaeus, Socrates holds that the psyche is complex, or has three distinct and semi-autonomous sources of motivation, which he calls the reasoning, spirited, and appetitive parts. While the rational part determines what is best overall and motivates us to pursue it, the spirited and appetitive parts incline us toward different objectives, such as victory, honor, and esteem, or the satisfaction of our desires for food, drink, and sex. While it is obvious that Socrates primarily characterizes (...) and distinguishes the parts in terms of what each desires and pursues, what is less often brought to the fore is that he also characterizes and distinguishes the parts in terms of how they think. More specifically, he claims that the rational part forms its beliefs on the basis of rational calculation, while the spirited and appetitive parts form their beliefs on the basis of how things appear, without scrutinizing those appearances. Socrates’ dual characterization of the parts of the soul raises a question: why does he characterize each part as having the particular desires and cognitive abilities that he does? In general, how do facts about what a part desires relate to facts about how it thinks? In this paper, I suggest an answer to this question, one that I hope sheds light on the nature of the parts of the soul and so on Plato’s theory of tripartition more generally. I conclude by showing that Socrates’ theory bears a notable resemblance to contemporary dual process theories of judgment, according to which we have two distinct processes for forming judgments, one which is broadly akin to reflection and another to intuition. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that Aristotelian accounts of disease cannot provide us with an adequate descriptive account of our concept of disease. In other words, they fail to classify conditions as either diseases, or non-diseases, in a way that is consistent with commonplace intuitions. This being said, Aristotelian accounts of disease are not worthless. Aristotelian approaches cannot offer a decent descriptive account of our concept of disease, but they do offer resources for improving on the ways in which (...) we think about the harms that afflict human beings. While they cannot offer an account of ‘disease' they can offer an account of ‘harm'—and this it turns out, is ultimately of greater importance. (shrink)

From nearly the author's first experience entering the underwater city of Rapture in BioShock, she is treated to a taste of Andrew Ryan's propaganda. Andrew Ryan regularly says that citizens of Rapture need to avoid all contact with the surface world because it's filled with parasites who seek to destroy Rapture. Even though what Ryan says about the outside world is true, he's lying because he believes it to be false. According to Harry Frankfurt, bullshit is when the speaker doesn't (...) particularly care whether what she says is true or false. The analysis in this chapter suggests that propaganda is more closely connected to bullshitting than lying. The author says that if propaganda is more closely associated with bullshit than lies, then this also means that one should be particularly worried by governments (or individuals with power, such as Andrew Ryan) that engage in lots of propaganda. (shrink)

Priest, poet and broadcaster Rachel Mann believes the world is charged with a divine spark. She explains how in our encounters with what she terms 'the spectres of God', one can become at peace with limitation, precariousness, lack of certainty, and one's fragility and fractures - and at the same time find in divine fragility the hope of the world. Drawing on her own experiences, in three short chapters (on the body, on love, and on time) Mann explores how (...) God invites us, repeatedly, to live in a rich three-dimensional mystery that subverts the depressing flat-earth of modern life. (shrink)

Kant's Critique of Judgment has often been interpreted by scholars as comprising separate treatments of three uneasily connected topics: beauty, biology, and empirical knowledge. Rachel Zuckert's book interprets the Critique as a unified argument concerning all three domains. She argues that on Kant's view, human beings demonstrate a distinctive cognitive ability in appreciating beauty and understanding organic life: an ability to anticipate a whole that we do not completely understand according to preconceived categories. This ability is necessary, moreover, for (...) human beings to gain knowledge of nature in its empirical character as it is, not as we might assume it to be. Her wide-ranging and original study will be valuable for readers in all areas of Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This article introduces a novel theoretical framework for psychopathy that bridges dominant affective and cognitive models. According to the proposed impaired integration (II) framework of psychopathic dysfunction, topographical irregularities and abnormalities in neural connectivity in psychopathy hinder the complex process of information integration. Central to the II theory is the notion that psychopathic individuals are “‘wired up’ differently” (Hare, Williamson, & Harpur, 1988, p. 87). Specific theoretical assumptions include decreased functioning of the Salience and Default Mode Networks, normal functioning in (...) executive control networks, and less coordination and flexible switching between networks. Following a review of dominant models of psychopathy, we introduce our II theory as a parsimonious account of behavioral and brain irregularities in psychopathy. The II theory provides a unified theoretical framework for understanding psychopathic dysfunction and integrates principle tenets of affective and cognitive perspectives. Moreover, it accommodates evidence regarding connectivity abnormalities in psychopathy through its network theoretical perspective. (shrink)

Rachel Loewen Walker's original study of Deleuze's theory of temporality critically expands our understanding of non-linear time through engagement with queer theory and new feminist materialisms. Walker draws on the notion of non-linear time in Deleuze's work to advance a conception of 'the living present' as a critical juncture through which new meanings and activism in the fields of feminism, environment, and queerness may be realised. Using literary texts by Jeanette Winterson, and philosophical texts by Julia Kristeva and Luce (...) Irigaray, Walker reflects on monomythic stories about gender, sexuality, and identity in the context of rapid climate change, and posthumanist politics to tread new ground for Deleuzian studies of time. Speaking to and from feminist, queer, environmental, trans, and crip political movements, Walker uses Deleuze to argue for a 'lived present' which is both mutable and embodied. Such characteristics are presented as essential components in the construction of meaning that is not bound by a static present, past or future. Queer and Deleuzian Temporalities pinpoints the importance of feminist and queer theory to a critical re-evaluation of time. Through a wide-ranging analysis we are able to see how everyone is embedded within rather than outside of time, opening up the possibility for imagining and realising alternate futures both for ourselves and the environment. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Permanent Collection? The Phenomenology of Determining a Changing Object in a Moving Subject Visible Freedom: Nineteenth‐Century German Aesthetic Theories and Legacies Transformation A Lasting Impression.

In this original study, Rachel Coventry expands Heidegger's philosophy of art to include his ontological account of poetry and technology. Following Heidegger's definition of technology as preventing authentic poetic language, alongside his argument that poetry can successfully confront technology, Coventry considers the possibility of great poetry in the digital age.

This chapter begins with the discussion of one of the earliest texts in the Western tradition to explore the relations between philosophy and pedagogy, Plato's Symposium. In this text, love (or more properly, eros) plays the mediating role, turning a love of wisdom into a pedagogical erotics that enables a journey of enlightenment. The author refers to the work of more recent thinkers, including Hannah Arendt, Jean‐François Lyotard and Luce Irigaray. The author's suggestion is that by approaching Symposium through their (...) work, this text can yield insights that are helpful for contemplating the educational process in a more contemporary context. In Symposium, the initial expulsion of the flute‐girl is undercut by Diotima's later inclusion as an apparently privileged female voice. ‘Diotima's speech’ is intriguing for many reasons, not least because it is the only place in Plato's known oeuvre where a woman takes on the part of the philosopher. (shrink)

On Compromise is an argument against contemporary liberal society's tendency to view compromise as an unalloyed good--politically, ethically, and artistically. In a series of clear, convincing essays, Rachel Greenwald Smith discusses the dangers of thinking about compromise as an end, rather than as a means. To illustrate her points, she recounts her stint in a band as a bass player, fighting with her bandmates about 'what the song wants,' and then moves outward to Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl (...) movement, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Poetry magazine, the resurgence of fascism, and other wide-ranging topics. (shrink)

Drawn from the authors' experiences in the UK, Australia and mainland Europe and with contributions from across the globe, this clear and accessible book includes a wide range of examples. The authors show the reader how to: identify ethical issues which may arise with any research project, gain informed consent, provide information in the right way to participants, and present and disseminate findings in line with ethical guidelines.

What words we use, and what meanings they have, is important. We shouldn't use slurs; we should use 'rape' to include spousal rape (for centuries we didn’t); we should have a word which picks out the sexual harassment suffered by people in the workplace and elsewhere (for centuries we didn’t). Sometimes we need to change the word-meaning pairs in circulation, either by getting rid of the pair completely (slurs), changing the meaning (as we did with 'rape'), or adding brand new (...) word-meaning pairs (as with 'sexual harassment'). A problem, though, is how to do this. One might worry that any attempt to change language in this way will lead to widespread miscommunication and confusion. I argue that this is indeed so, but that's a feature, not a bug of attempting to change word-meaning pairs. The miscommunications and confusion such changes cause can lead us, via a process I call transformative communicative disruption, to reflect on our language and its use, and this can be further, rather than hinder, our goal of improving language. (shrink)

Despite the increased prevalence of bioethics research that seeks to use empirical data to answer normative research questions, there is no consensus as to what an appropriate methodology for this would be. This review aims to search the literature, present and critically discuss published Empirical Bioethics methodologies.

There's been a great deal of interest in epistemology regarding what it takes for a hearer to come to know on the basis of a speaker's say-so. That is, there's been much work on the epistemology of testimony. However, what about when hearers don't believe speakers when they should? In other words, what are we to make of when testimony goes wrong? A recent topic of interest in epistemology and feminist philosophy is how we sometimes fail to believe speakers due (...) to inappropriate prejudices – implicit or explicit. This is known as epistemic injustice. In this article, I discuss Miranda Fricker's groundbreaking work on epistemic injustice, as well as more recent developments that both offer critique and expansion on the nature and extent of epistemic injustice. (shrink)