Alexander von Humboldt’s depictions of mountain vegetation are among the most iconic nineteenth century illustrations in the biological sciences. Here we analyse the contemporary context and empirical data for all these depictions, namely the _Tableau physique des Andes_ (1803, 1807), the _Geographiae plantarum lineamenta_ (1815), the _Tableau physique des Îles Canaries_ (1817), and the _Esquisse de la Géographie des plantes dans les Andes de Quito_ (1824/1825). We show that the Tableau physique des Andes does not reflect Humboldt and Bonpland’s field (...) data and presents a flawed depiction of plant occurrences and vertical succession of vegetation belts, arising from Humboldt’s misreading of La Condamine’s description (1751). Humboldt's 1815 depiction, by contrast, shows a distribution of high-vegetation belts that is consistent with La Condamine’s description, while the 1824 depiction drops innovations made in 1815 and returns to simply showing numerous species’ names, thus not applying Humboldt’s own earlier zonation framework. Our analysis of contemporary reactions to Humboldt’s TPA includes Francis Hall’s posthumously published 1834 illustration of Andean plant zonation near Quito and Humboldt’s reaction to Hall’s critique. Throughout his work on plant geography, Humboldt disregarded some of his own observations, or confused them. At stake was his reputation as an innovator in the field of plant geography and a discoverer of the sequence of high-elevation vegetation belts on the world’s mountains. (shrink)

This article proposes to reconceptualize the Hungarian photographer, artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy’s (1895–1946) inter-war call for a ‘new vision’ in order to grasp how artists presently experiment with photography and adjacent new technologies to explore the environmental, ecological and elemental dimension of media themselves. For Moholy-Nagy, photography represented a new way of seeing and experiencing the increasingly industrialized and automated world and a means of expanding our sensory perception. Drawing on recent scholarship of elemental media theory, I adapt Moholy-Nagy’s (...) interest in the materiality of photography and the atmospheric and medial dimensions of light itself to an environmentally attuned notion of ‘new visions’. Exemplified with discussion of recent works by Emilija Škarnulytė, Lesia Vasylchenko and Istvan Virag, I show how a number of contemporary artists likewise scrutinize photography’s (understood in an expanded way) material basis and atmospheric qualities to explore new forms of image-making, including CGI and synthetic aperture radar images, fitted to reflect the accelerated automation and ecological precarity that mark the early twenty-first century. (shrink)

Nowadays, it is common that newly built hospitals are designed with single‐room accommodation, unlike in the past, where shared accommodation was the favoured standard. Despite this change in hospital design, very little is known about how single‐room accommodation affects nurses' work environment and nursing care. This study evaluates how the single‐room design affects nurses and nursing care in the single‐room hospital design. Nurses working in the single‐room design predominantly work alone with little opportunity for peer training, interaction and reflection. In (...) addition, the single‐room design affects the nurses' work environment due to changes in sensory stimulation and increased walking distances. Furthermore, a change in the discourse, namely, regarding the single room as the patient's home, makes the nurses react to queries, demands and tasks in a new way. Overall, the new hospital design forces the nurses into a more reactive role and affect their way of providing nursing care. Despite this, the nurses find single‐room accommodation beneficial for the patients and their nursing care. (shrink)

In this chapter, Robb Dunphy is concerned with the nature of G.E. Schulze's scepticism as he presents it in his 1792 work Aenesidemus, and with its relation to the metaphysical projects of Kant, Reinhold, and later German Idealists. After introducing Schulze's text, Dunphy turns to a recent interpretation offered by Jessica Berry, who claims that the extent to which Schulze endorsed a genuinely Pyrrhonian Scepticism has gone unacknowledged, both by his idealist contemporaries and by the majority of the secondary (...) literature on the period. Berry suggests that this unacknowledged Pyrrhonism in Aenesidemus provides the resources for a more radical criticism of the German Idealists' scientific, systematic metaphysical ambitions, to which they remain fundamentally vulnerable. Despite agreeing that an exploration of Schulze's debt to Pyrrhonism represents a valuable addition to our understanding of his scepticism, in the latter parts of the chapter Dunphy suggests that the Berry's attribution of a Pyrrhonian Scepticism to Schulze should to some extent be rejected, and that such a scepticism is perhaps not quite as problematic for the projects of Kant and the German Idealists as she suggests. (shrink)

Hegel opens the first book of his Science of Logic with the statement of a problem: “The beginning of philosophy must be either something mediated or something immediate, and it is easy to show that it can be neither the one nor the other, so either way of beginning finds its rebuttal.” Despite its significant placement, exactly what Hegel means in his expression of this problem and exactly what his solution to it is, remain unclear. -/- In this book, (...) class='Hi'>Robb Dunphy provides a detailed engagement with Hegel’s “problem of beginning”, locating it within Hegel’s account of significant approaches to the topic of beginning in the history of Western philosophy, as well as making an extended case for the influence of Pyrrhonian Scepticism on the beginning of Hegel’s Logic. Dunphy’s discussion of the various putative solutions that Hegel might be thought to put forward contributes to debates concerning Hegel’s views on the methodology of logic, the relation between his Logic and his Phenomenology of Spirit, and differences between his Encyclopaedia presentation of logic and that of his greater Science of Logic. -/- Hegel and the Problem of Beginning also functions as a critical commentary on Hegel’s essay, “With what must the beginning of the science be made?” which should be of interest to both researchers and students working on the opening of Hegel’s Logic. (shrink)

Cofactor squelching is the term used to describe competition between transcription factors (TFs) for a limited amount of cofactors in a cell with the functional consequence that TFs in a given cell interfere with the activity of each other. Since cofactor squelching was proposed based primarily on reporter assays some 30 years ago, it has remained controversial, and the idea that it could be a physiologically relevant mechanism for transcriptional repression has not received much support. However, recent genome‐wide studies have (...) demonstrated that signal‐dependent TFs are very often absent from the enhancers that are acutely repressed by those signals, which is consistent with an indirect mechanism of repression such as squelching. Here we review these recent studies in the light of the classical studies of cofactor squelching, and we discuss how TF cooperativity in so‐called hotspots and super‐enhancers may sensitize these to cofactor squelching. (shrink)

The current German criticism of HUGO centers around the term ‘human dignity’; consenquentialist and autonomy-based arguments are used. The debate culminates in questioning the integrity of bioethics as a scholarly discipline and has created a heterogeneous coalition of disparate political and social groups that oppose any research that would facilitate genetic pre-selection of human characteristics.

In this article I develop an interpretation of the opening passages of Hegel's essay ‘With what must the beginning of science be made?’ I suggest firstly that Hegel is engaging there with a distinctive problem, the overcoming of which he understands to be necessary in order to guarantee the scientific character of the derivation of the fundamental categories of thought which he undertakes in the Science of Logic. I refer to this as ‘the problem of beginning’. I proceed to clarify (...) the nature of the problem, which I understand to be motivated by a concern to avoid arbitrariness, and then to detail the nature of Hegel's proposed solution, which turns on understanding how the concept of ‘pure being’, understood in a specific sense to be both mediated and immediate, avoids the concerns about arbitrariness which accompany attempts to begin merely with something mediated, or merely with something immediate. On this basis, I offer a number of criticisms of alternative approaches to the beginning of Hegel's Logic. (shrink)

In this extended essay, I argue that Frege plagiarized the Stoics --and I mean exactly that-- on a large scale in his work on the philosophy of logic and language as written mainly between 1890 and his death in 1925 (much of which published posthumously) and possibly earlier. I use ‘plagiarize' (or 'plagiarise’) merely as a descriptive term. The essay is not concerned with finger pointing or casting moral judgement. The point is rather to demonstrate carefully by means of detailed (...) evidence that there are numerous (over a hundred) and extensive parallels both in formulation and --more importantly-- in content between the Stoics and Frege, parallels so plentiful that one would be hard pressed to brush them off as coincidence. These parallels include several that appear to occur in no other modern works that were published before Frege’s own and were accessible to him. Additionally, a cluster of corroborating historical data is adduced to support the suggestion, showing how easy it would have to been for Frege to plagiarize the Stoics. This (first) part of the essay is easy to read and vaguely entertaining, or so I hope. -/- (Corrigendum: At school, Frege likely had seven, not ten, years of intensive Latin and four years of intensive ancient Greek courses.). (shrink)

This is an account of Sceptical investigation as it is presented by Sextus Empiricus. I focus attention on the motivation behind the Sceptic’s investigation, the goal of that investigation, and on the development Sextus describes from proto-Sceptical to Sceptical investigator. I suggest that recent accounts of the Sceptic’s investigative practice do not make sufficient sense of the fact that the Sceptic finds a relief from disturbance by way of suspending judgement, nor of the apparent continuity between proto-Sceptical and Sceptical investigation. (...) I offer an alternative account which turns on the suggestion that the Sceptic accepts that justification is the norm of belief. (shrink)

This paper argues firstly that the argument of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is necessary for the justification of the beginning of his logical project, and secondly that Hegel's attempt to secure the beginning of his Science of Logic by relying upon the argument of the Phenomenology fails. I argue firstly that the position taken up at the beginning of Hegel's Logic is constructed in such a fashion that it relies upon the argument of the Phenomenology to justify it. I then (...) offer some support for the view of the relationship between the two texts defended by Maker in order to see how the two might be thought to be compatible. Finally, in the longest part of the paper, I offer a number of reasons for thinking that attempts to render the two compatible in this fashion fail. I therefore conclude that, as it stands, the beginning of Hegel's Logic is not secured against objection in the way that Hegel wants it to be. (shrink)

Review of Ivan Boldyrev and Sebastian Stein (eds). Interpreting Hegel's Phenomenology: Expositions and Critique of Contemporary Readings.

This article discusses two topics, both commonly referred to using the label “the beginning of Hegel's Logic”: (1) Hegel's justification for the claim that a science of logic must begin by considering the concept of “pure being”. (2) Hegel's account of the concepts “being”, “nothing”, and “becoming” in the first chapter of his Logic. Discussing recent work on both of these topics, two primary claims are defended: Regarding (1): the strongest interpretations of Hegel's case for beginning a science of logic (...) with the concept of pure being are those which take him to argue that this concept must be necessarily both “immediate” and “mediated” at the same time. Regarding (2): The widespread tendency to take Hegel's treatment of the concepts of being, nothing, and becoming as an example with which to illustrate his “dialectical method” should be replaced with an interpretation of that chapter which understands it to rather make possible the kind of dialectical transitions which make up the rest of Hegel's Science of Logic. (shrink)

The author gives a brief reconstruction of Mary Hobgood's position, then poses two responses-one, a reflection on justice as restitution, is directly related to the article; the other, reflection on the welfare system itself, constitutes a a musing about how to do social ethics. In closing, the author poses a question to those who are attempting to reflect morally on welfare policy, which includes Mary Hobgood, though the question is not directed to her personally: What kind of public policy is (...) appropriate to substantiate reproductive rights in an ecological age? (shrink)

Bobzien’s reply to a defamatory blogpost on her essay ‘Frege plagiarized the Stoics’ in which she is accused among other things of plagiarism (!), and deliberate deception, and which contains a large number of falsehoods. (This reply is a minor contribution to the discussion of 'Frege plagiarized the Stoics', simply setting the record straight. It contains no important philosophical content whatsoever.).

A commonly raised criticism against celebrity culture is that it celebrates people who become famous without any connection to their skills, talents or achievements. A culture in which people become famous simply for being famous is criticized for being shallow and inauthentic. In this paper we offer a defence of celebrity by arguing against this criticism. We begin by outlining what we call the Talent Argument: celebrity is a negative cultural phenomenon because it creates and sustains fame without any connection (...) to the accomplishments that arise from an expression of talent or skill. By appealing to the metaphysics of talent and skill, we argue against the Talent Argument and propose that being a celebrity requires the skills that are necessary to acquire and maintain one’s status as a celebrity. A celebrity is more likely to be talented and successful in their expression of these skills, and even celebrities who are ‘famous for being famous’ will often display talents and skills that give rise to their fame. This means that those who critique celebrity culture should not do so by appealing to the Talent Argument. We show how our account of celebrity, talent and skill works to reject both the strong version of the Talent Argument, as well as a weaker and more plausible version of the argument we call the Valuable Talents argument. We conclude by noting that our analysis has demonstrated the need to explore more closely the kinds of skills that are necessary to cultivate celebrity status. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of what a celebrity is, and the values that are attached to celebrity culture. (shrink)

Winfield’s explication of Hegel’s theory of mind, especially Hegel’s theory of intelligence, is, he suggests, important for solving three problems that continue to haunt contemporary work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology: 1) A problem concerning the acquisition of language and its place in an account of consciousness, 2) A problem concerning the objectivity of representations, and 3) A problem concerning the grounds of knowing. I think Winfield is correct in identifying all three problems as having their source in (...) Kantian philosophy. I examine these three problems more carefully through a critical lens aimed at recent work by John McDowell and Robert Brandom. Both philosophers claim certain Hegelian influences. I argue that, in crucial ways, both Brandom and McDowell have each inherited the problems Hegel sought to solve and that are so clearly articulated in Winfield’s essay. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This is a short companion piece to my ‘Found in Translation – Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics III.5 1113b7-8 and its Reception’ in which I examine in close textual analysis the philosophical question whether these two lines from the Nicomachean Ethics provide any evidence that Aristotle discussed free choice – as is not infrequently assumed. The result is that they do not, and that the claim that they do tends to be based on a mistranslation of the Greek. (There is some (...) inevitable overlap with Part 1 of the 'Found in Translation' paper.). (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to questions about the nature and method of metaphysics in Classical German Philosophy. Its chapters offer original investigations into the metaphysical projects of many of the major figures in German philosophy between Wolff and Hegel. The period of Classical German Philosophy was an extraordinarily rich one in the history of philosophy, especially for metaphysics. It includes some of the highest achievements of early modern rationalism, Kant's critical revolution, and the various significant works of German Idealism that (...) followed in Kant's wake. The contributions to this volume critically examine certain common themes among metaphysical projects across this period, for example, the demand that metaphysics amount to a science, that it be presented in the form of a system, or that it should proceed by means of demonstration from certain key first principles. This volume also includes material on influential criticisms of metaphysical projects of this kind. Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy is a useful resource for contemporary metaphysicians and historians of philosophy interested in engaging with the history of the methodology and epistemology of metaphysics. (shrink)

This is a draft translation of the fourth letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

This article is concerned with some of the criteria which Hegel believes apply to a scientific treatment of logic. I briefly address criteria which I take Hegel to inherit from German rationalism before focusing on two fairly idiosyncratic criteria: the requirement that a science of logic exhibit a circular structure and that it begin with the concept of pure being. I offer an explanation of these criteria which understands them as motivated by anti-sceptical concerns, before arguing that Hegel’s mature treatment (...) of the latter criterion is problematically ambiguous. (shrink)

In this chapter we analyse the nature and ethical implications of parasocial relationships. While this type of relationship has received significant attention in other interdisciplinary fields such as celebrity studies and fan studies, philosophers have so far had very little to say about them. Parasocial relationships are usually defined as asymmetrical, in which a media-user closely relates to a media-personality as if they were a friend or family member, and where this connection is mostly unreciprocated. We focus on the most (...) typical form of this kind of relationship, between fans and celebrities. We argue that a parasocial relationship between fan and celebrity is a distinct kind of personal relationship, constituted by three basic structural asymmetries: attention, communication, and epistemic. These asymmetries give rise to a more substantial asymmetry concerning the way in which celebrities and fans have ‘directive’ or ‘interpretative’ influence over each other’s identity. This can lead to a failure of recognition respect, and generates ethical responsibilities for both fans and celebrities. We conclude by noting that the structural asymmetries we find in parasocial relationships are present in many other types of relationship, especially those in which one person holds a position of power. As such, it is valuable to pay attention to the way in which asymmetries point to forms of parasociality in these other relationships, and the extent to which they give rise to distinct ethical responsibilities. (shrink)

Review of George di Giovanni's Hegel and the Challenge of Spinoza.

This article comprises a short case exemplifying ethical challenges arising for a participatory researcher working with Afghan women refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. The researcher is an Iranian-German woman, qualified as a midwife, undertaking doctoral research on refugees’ access to reproductive health care. Disclosures about some women’s experience of domestic violence are made, which raise ethical issues for the researcher relating to personal-professional boundaries, roles and responsibilities. Two commentaries are given on this case from participatory researchers based in (...) Germany, UK and Austria. Both commentaries highlight the relevance of the ethics of care for participatory research and for this research in particular, which entails very close relationships between the doctoral researcher and the refugee women with whom she is researching. The first commentary analyses the research process in terms of Tronto’s five phases of care, while the second illustrates the importance of caring institutions in supporting researchers working on sensitive topics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thales of Miletus: The Beginnings of Western Science and PhilosophyKevin RobbPatricia F. O’Grady. Thales of Miletus: The Beginnings of Western Science and Philosophy. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Pp xxii + 310. Paper, $84.95.This book has a consistent thesis: Thales of Miletus was the first Western scientist and philosopher not just for what he began, but for what he himself said (or, as O'Grady believes, wrote). On this view, (...) Thales made significant contributions to metaphysics ("He asked the question: 'What is real?' no less than Plato and Aristotle did," 249), cosmology (on the earth and earthquakes, 87 ff.), astronomy (notably the eclipse, 126 ff.), mathematics (Proclus attributes Euclidean theorems to Thales, 191 ff.), psychology (on psyche) and theology (on "full of the gods," 108 ff.). O'Grady's thesis is that we know enough about Thales' thoughts in these areas (each a treacherous minefield of scholarly dispute, as O'Grady admits) that, after a clarified understanding of "Scientificity and Rationality" (her awkward title for Chapter 11), we can confidently conclude that philosophy and science were well begun by Thales. "I believe I have drawn a clear and detailed picture of a brilliant, veracious, and courageously speculative Greek. I see him as a questioner of almost everything, an investigator of nature...Thales is not the mere shadowy figure of Guthrie's perception. He is a man of substance, a man of distinction and of lasting importance" (251).O'Grady had early noted that W. K. C. Guthrie considered Thales a shadowy figure historically, made all the more so, Guthrie believed, because the legend kept expanding. For example, a sixth-century Thales as the seeker after the material archê, and so the first important physikos, is unknown before fourth-century Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha, and by the time Euclidean theorems are attributed to Thales the tendency to foist imposing discoveries on famous persons was prevalent.This raises the major issue concerning O'Grady's exhaustively researched book. To what extent can the doxographic sources (the "A" sections of Diels's 1903Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker), be used to interpret the Presocratics, especially if the original wording from a thinker perished (any "B" section quotations). It is clear that in the fourth century nothing in writing from Thales survived for the Lyceum to read and catalogue although its scholars clearly sought it; the repeated legetai ("it is said") of Aristotle in Metaphysics Alpha and elsewhere is decisive. It is his standard way of indicating that no written work on the matter survives to be consulted, but stories or oral accounts do.O'Grady's thesis requires that the "A" section material be exploited fully, especially to present Thales as a philosopher (29-70). Many historians will be unwilling to take the entire journey with her. Some (Harold Cherniss) would balk at the first step. The demand for confirming ipsissima verba (or "B" quotations) to reconstruct the thought of any Presocratic with real confidence (as once proposed by G. S. Kirk) threatens to exclude Thales from histories of philosophy, an unsatisfactory result. Even so, Harold Cherniss proposed that drastic solution in 1935 in his magisterial Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratric Philosophy. Presocratic philosophy, he argued, should begin with Anaximander (375).The heart of Cherniss's numbingly exhaustive argument (400 + pages) was that Aristotle's purpose in surveying his predecessors's views was never historical, but dialectical. His intent was to argue for a fourfold causality (on the grounds only four archai had been turned up by all his predecessors, starting with Thales' material cause), and to fit those predecessors's views into a theory of natural causality as he had finally formulated it in his sophisticated, [End Page 107] largely technical vocabulary. Aristotle's "historical" notices on which all later accounts must depend were, thus, never history; the problem and the solution, along with their language, were Aristotle's alone. If Theophrastus paraphrased what he found in Aristotle (McDiarmid), and if the post-Aristotelian doxographic notices were largely dependent on Theophrastus (so already Diels in 1879, in Doxographi Graeci), then any attempt to extract a philosophical Thales from the later doxographic sources (or Aristotle) is methodologically doomed from... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to challenge some widespread assumptions about the role of the modal axiom 4 in a theory of vagueness. In the context of vagueness, axiom 4 usually appears as the principle ‘If it is clear (determinate, definite) that A, then it is clear (determinate, definite) that it is clear (determinate, definite) that A’, or, more formally, CA → CCA. We show how in the debate over axiom 4 two different notions of clarity are in play (...) (Williamson-style "luminosity" or self-revealing clarity and concealeable clarity) and what their respective functions are in accounts of higher-order vagueness. On this basis, we argue first that, contrary to common opinion, higher-order vagueness and S4 are perfectly compatible. This is in response to claims like that by Williamson that, if vagueness is defined with the help of a clarity operator that obeys axiom 4, higher-order vagueness disappears. Second, we argue that, contrary to common opinion, (i) bivalence-preservers (e.g. epistemicists) can without contradiction condone axiom 4 (by adopting what elsewhere we call columnar higher-order vagueness), and (ii) bivalence-discarders (e.g. open-texture theorists, supervaluationists) can without contradiction reject axiom 4. Third, we rebut a number of arguments that have been produced by opponents of axiom 4, in particular those by Williamson. (The paper is pitched towards graduate students with basic knowledge of modal logic.). (shrink)

A revelatory alternative to the standard economic models of human behavior that proposes an exciting new way to understand decision-making "Willful is a breakthrough in economics. Richard Robb's tremendously insightful book shows how much of our behavior is not explained by existing theories of human action and explains in sparkling prose why understanding decisions made seemingly without reason presents a fuller picture of our world."--Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Laureate in Economics Why do we do the things we do? The (...) classical view of economics is that we are rational individuals, making decisions with the intention of maximizing our preferences. Behaviorists, on the other hand, see us as relying on mental shortcuts and conforming to preexisting biases. Richard Robb argues that neither explanation accounts for those things that we do for their own sake, and without understanding these sorts of actions, our picture of decision-making is at best incomplete. Robb explains how these choices made seemingly without reason belong to a realm of behavior he identifies as "for-itself." A provocative combination of philosophy and economics that offers a key to many of our quixotic choices, this groundbreaking volume provides a new way to understand everything from investing to how hard we work to how we manage daily interactions. (shrink)

Hobbes's political theory has traditionally been taken to be an endorsement of state power and a prescription for unconditional obedience to the sovereign's will. In this book, Susanne Sreedhar develops a novel interpretation of Hobbes's theory of political obligation and explores important cases where Hobbes claims that subjects have a right to disobey and resist state power, even when their lives are not directly threatened. Drawing attention to this broader set of rights, her comprehensive analysis of Hobbes's account of (...) political disobedience reveals a unified and coherent theory of resistance that has previously gone unnoticed and undefended. Her book will appeal to all who are interested in the nature and limits of political authority, the right of self-defense, the right of revolution, and the modern origins of these issues. (shrink)

Virtuous Bodies breaks new ground in the field of Buddhist ethics by investigating the diverse roles bodies play in ethical development. Traditionally, Buddhists assumed a close connection between body and morality. Thus Buddhist literature contains descriptions of living beings that stink with sin, are disfigured by vices, or are perfumed and adorned with virtues. Taking an influential early medieval Indian Mahayana Buddhist text-Santideva's Compendium of Training (Siksasamuccaya)-as a case study, Susanne Mrozik demonstrates that Buddhists regarded ethical development as a (...) process of physical and moral transformation. Mrozik chooses The Compendium of Training because it quotes from over one hundred Buddhist scriptures, allowing her to reveal a broader Buddhist interest in the ethical significance of bodies. The text is a training manual for bodhisattvas, especially monastic bodhisattvas. In it, bodies function as markers of, and conditions for, one's own ethical development. Most strikingly, bodies also function as instruments for the ethical development of others. When living beings come into contact with the virtuous bodies of bodhisattvas, they are transformed physically and morally for the better. Virtuous Bodies explores both the centrality of bodies to the bodhisattva ideal and the corporeal specificity of that ideal. Arguing that the bodhisattva ideal is an embodied ethical ideal, Mrozik poses an array of fascinating questions: What does virtue look like? What kinds of physical features constitute virtuous bodies? What kinds of bodies have virtuous effects on others? Drawing on a range of contemporary theorists, this book engages in a feminist hermeneutics of recovery and suspicion in order to explore the ethical resources Buddhism offers to scholars and religious practitioners interested in the embodied nature of ethical ideals. (shrink)

We argue that the extant evidence for Stoic logic provides all the elements required for a variable-free theory of multiple generality, including a number of remarkably modern features that straddle logic and semantics, such as the understanding of one- and two-place predicates as functions, the canonical formulation of universals as quantified conditionals, a straightforward relation between elements of propositional and first-order logic, and the roles of anaphora and rigid order in the regimented sentences that express multiply general propositions. We consider (...) and reinterpret some ancient texts that have been neglected in the context of Stoic universal and existential propositions and offer new explanations of some puzzling features in Stoic logic. Our results confirm that Stoic logic surpasses Aristotle’s with regard to multiple generality, and are a reminder that focusing on multiple generality through the lens of Frege-inspired variable-binding quantifier theory may hamper our understanding and appreciation of pre-Fregean theories of multiple generality. (shrink)

Author Susanne Claxton offers a new ecophenomenological perspective to Heidegger and his engagement with the Greeks, and an alternative to the ruling binary in environmental ethics of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism.

When travelling to a new city, we acquire knowledge about its physical terrain, directions, historical facts and aesthetic features. Engaging in tourism practices, such as guided walking tours, provides experiences of a city that are necessarily mediated and partial. This has led scholars in tourism studies, and more recently in philosophy, to question the epistemological value of city tours, critiquingthem as passive, lacking in autonomous agency, and providing misrepresentative experiences of the city. In response, we argue that the mediated and (...) partial knowledge of a city acquired through city tours is not epistemologically disvaluable. Although city tours involve the transmission of testimonial knowledge, this does not necessarily render tourists as passive and non-autonomous. Instead,tourists have the potential to participate in the generation of their knowledge actively. Moreover, we argue that city tours also provide a tourist with valuable ‘objectual’ knowledge of a city, whichhas the potential to be first-personal and active, and does not necessarily misrepresent the city’s identity. This type of knowledge is valuable both for tourists as credible epistemic agents, and for the city itself, as the knowledge generated by the tour can facilitate an accurate representation of the city and promote social transformation. We conclude by highlighting four further epistemic and ethical implications of our argument. (shrink)

Many apps request access to users’ contacts or photos and many consumers agree to these requests. However, agreeing is ethically questionable as it also gives apps access to others’ data. People thus regularly infringe each other’s information privacy. This behavior is at odds with offline practices and still poorly understood. Introducing a novel application of the theory of neutralization, we explore how people justify the giving away of others’ data and the emerging norms surrounding this behavior. To obtain a deeper (...) understanding of the potentially ambiguous norms surrounding the behavior, we investigate how people justify, i.e., neutralize, the behavior from both offender and victim perspectives. Across four studies, offenders appear more likely to admit to moral wrongdoing than victims assume. This suggests moral disagreement between offenders and victims. The discrepancy appears to be reasonably robust across different samples, apps and whether the other is identified, but diminishes when people learn how easily others’ data could be protected. These insights offer suggestions for businesses, consumers and public policy. (shrink)

Through advances in production and treatment technologies, transparent glass has become an increasingly versatile material and a global hallmark of modern architecture. In the shape of invisible barriers, it defines spaces while simultaneously shaping their lighting, noise, and climate conditions. Despite these unique architectural qualities, little is known regarding the human experience with glass barriers. Is a material that has been described as being simultaneously there and not there from an architectural perspective, actually there and/or not there from perceptual, behavioral, (...) and social points of view? In this article, we review systematic observations and experimental studies that explore the impact of transparent barriers on human cognition and action. In doing so, the importance of empirical and multidisciplinary approaches to inform the use of glass in contemporary architecture is highlighted and key questions for future inquiry are identified. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose that Derrida’s writing on the impossibility of justice has the potential for fruitful dialogue with Ruth Chang’s contemporary account of practical rationality. For Derrida, making a just decision must always come with a moment of undecidability, a “leap” into the unknown with an experience of doubt and anxiety that continues to “haunt” the decision-maker. By contrast, in her work on rationality, Chang proposes that hard decisions are difficult to make because the alternatives are “on a (...) par,” such that there are no rational differences between the alternatives that would contribute to choosing one over the other. Hard decisions are made by expressing one’s own rational agency, generating will-based reasons to commit to or “drift” into one of the alternatives. Derrida writes of anxiety, doubt, and impossibility, yet Chang writes of commitment, agency, and rationality. Despite these differences, there are important comparisons and connections between the two accounts that are worth exploring. I suggest that the moment of the decision which Derrida describes as heterogeneous to knowledge can be understood as a moment of parity in which there is a lack of given reasons, as explained by Chang. Chang’s account of rational agency provides an interpretation of how decision-making is possible despite the undecidability as described by Derrida. This notion of commitment and agency as explained by Chang is not incompatible with Derrida’s insistence that the responsible decision is haunted by anxiety and doubt. Instead, I suggest that Derrida’s writing highlights uncertainty as central to understanding the nature of hard choices and how to navigate the demands of justice. (shrink)

I argue for the view that there are important similarities between knowledge and acting for a normative reason. I interpret acting for a normative reason in terms of Sosa’s notion of an apt performance. Actions that are done for a normative reason are normatively apt actions. They are in accordance with a normative reason because of a competence to act in accordance with normative reasons. I argue that, if Sosa’s account of knowledge as apt belief is correct, this means that (...) acting for a normative reason is in many respects similar to knowledge. In order to strengthen Sosa’s account of knowledge, I propose to supplement it with an appeal to sub-competences. This clarifies how this account can deal with certain Gettier cases, and it helps to understand how exactly acting for a normative reason is similar to apt belief. (shrink)