This paper is based on case-study research in four English secondary schools. It explores the pressure placed on English and mathematics departments because of their results being reported in annual performance tables. It examines how English and maths departments enact policies of achievement, the additional power and extra resources the pressure to achieve brings and the possibility of resistance.

This paper is based on case-study research in four English secondary schools. It explores the pressure placed on English and mathematics departments because of their results being reported in annual performance tables. It examines how English and maths departments enact policies of achievement, the additional power and extra resources the pressure to achieve brings and the possibility of resistance.

Some claim that Composition as Identity (CI) entails Mereological Essentialism (ME). If this is right, then we have an effective modus tollens against CI: ME is clearly false, so CI is, too. Rather than deny the conditional, I will argue that a CI theorist should embrace ME. I endorse a theory of modal parts such that ordinary objects are spatially, temporally, and modally extended. Accepting modal parts is certainly beneficial to CI theorists, but it also provides elegant solutions to the (...) traditional puzzles of constitution, making it a competitive move in its own right. (shrink)

This is my second entry in Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations. It examines three meta-ontological deflationary approaches - frameworks, verbal disputes, and metalinguistic negotiation - and applies them to ontological debates in philosophy of mind. An intriguing consequence of this application is that it reveals a deep, systematic problem for mental deflationism – specifically, a problem of cognitive collapse. This is surprising. Cognitive collapse problems are usually reserved for serious ontological views such as eliminative materialism and mental fictionalism, not deflationism. This (...) paper investigates why deflationism about the mental is particularly problematic and provides an explanation as to why mental fictionalism is in principle better equipped to address collapsing problems than deflationism is. (shrink)

To be successful, policy must anticipate a broad range of constituents. Yet, all too often, technology policy is written with primarily mainstream populations in mind. In this article, drawing on Value Sensitive Design and discount evaluation methods, we introduce a new method—Diverse Voices—for strengthening pre-publication technology policy documents from the perspective of underrepresented groups. Cost effective and high impact, the Diverse Voices method intervenes by soliciting input from “experiential” expert panels. We first describe the method. Then we report on two (...) case studies demonstrating its use: one with a white paper on augmented reality technology with expert panels on people with disabilities, people who were formerly or currently incarcerated, and women; and the other with a strategy document on automated driving vehicle technologies with expert panels on youth, non-car drivers, and extremely low-income people. In both case studies, panels identified significant shortcomings in the pre-publication documents which, if addressed, would mitigate some of the disparate impact of the proposed policy recommendations on these particular stakeholder groups. Our discussion includes reflection on the method, evidence for its success, its limitations, and future directions. (shrink)

The untranslatable and intriguing notion of ethos (mores, goodness, character, etc.) contrasts in Ancient rhetoric with pathos and logos, the other two pisteis or means of persuasion. Rhetorical ethos is characterized by ambivalence; is it essentially extra- or intra-discursive? an effect of the soul or an effective simulacrum? stable or circumstantial? As a discursive image, an artefact of speech, ethos remains problematic in its legitimacy. As shown in this volume, Montaigne's readings of Ancient theories of ethos resonate in the Essais. (...) The rhetorical effectiveness of Plutarch and Socrates versus Brutus and Seneca, for instance, is assessed in terms of ethos and a revealing style. Montaigne weighs rhetorical and ethical theories as he judges the writings of others, stages diverse types or characters, and develops in his book his own notion of ethos, paradoxical and dynamic, changing as is our soul. A variety of ethe narrated or enacted are also examined: Stoic figures and philosophers, generals, courtiers and honnetes hommes, Indians, tragic heroes and heroines, among others. This collection of essays, beyond Montaigne studies, contributes to intellectual history, and to rhetorical, ethical, and political inquiry, for the early modern period and beyond. Montaigne's quest for more human and humane modes of expression and action can be better understood in light of the notion of ethos, which raises issues of representation, subjectivity, social interaction, moral philosophy, politics, pragmatics, anthropology and identity. The contributors to this volume offer fresh new voices in the art of conversation about the Essais as they explore the many ramifications of Montaigne's ethos and the manifold ethe he brings forth. (shrink)

J.M. Coetzee has unquestionably achieved the status of ‘international author’ within dominant conceptions of world literature: his works circulate widely in both English and translation and have been legitimated by the principal arbitrators of the global cultural industry. He has, however, recently positioned himself as ‘an international author, but in a different sense’; that is, as a writer whose internationalism is achieved through his location in ‘the South’. This article considers how Coetzee’s narratives thematize being ‘international’ in this ‘different sense’. (...) It focuses on the pivotal works of Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life (2002) and the opening chapters of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (2003) while tracking an orientation southward across his oeuvre in allusions to Joseph Conrad, Jorge Luis Borges and, in particular, Pablo Neruda as well as in Coetzee’s repeated turn to littoral settings. These settings open to what the article describes as the ‘blue southern hemisphere’, implicating narrative world-making in the geophysical properties and ‘troubled histories’ that constitute the South and recasting the act of writing from ‘the far edges’ into a planetary perspective that contends with the uncanny nature of settler societies in the southern temperate zone. (shrink)

While many aspects of human life are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, values related to selfhood and community are among the most challenging to preserve. In what follows, I focus on the importance of values and valuing in climate change adaptation. To do so, I will first discuss two alternate approaches to valuing, both of which fail to recognise the loss of valued objects and practices that both of which help to generate a sense of self and deserve (...) to be respected and mourned. Ultimately, I argue that an approach to valuing that is responsive to change and open to loss will enable humans to be more resilient in the face of anthropogenic climate change, in order that we may move forward and construct selves that fit the context in which we live. (shrink)

Many of us think that ordinary objects – such as tables and chairs – exist. We also think that ordinary objects have parts: my chair has a seat and some legs as parts, for example. But once we are committed to the (seemingly innocuous) thesis that ordinary objects are composed of parts, we then open ourselves up to a whole host of philosophical problems, most of which center on what exactly this composition relation is. Composition as Identity (CI) is the (...) view that the composition relation is the identity relation. While such a view has some advantages, there are many arguments against it. In this essay, I discuss several versions of the most common objection against CI, and show how the CI theorist can maintain that these arguments – contrary their initial intuitive appeal – are nonetheless unsound. (shrink)

Many of us think that ordinary objects – such as tables and chairs – exist. We also think that ordinary objects have parts: my chair has a seat and some legs as parts, for example. But once we are committed to the thesis that ordinary objects are composed of parts, we then open ourselves up to a whole host of philosophical problems, most of which center on what exactly the composition relation is. Composition as Identity is the view that the (...) composition relation is the identity relation. While such a view has some advantages, there are many arguments against it. In this essay, I will briefly canvass three different varieties of Composition as Identity, and suggest why one of them should be preferred over the others. Then I will outline several versions of the most common objection against CI. I will suggest how a CI theorist can respond to these charges by maintaining that some of the arguments are invalid. (shrink)

Many of us think that ordinary objects – such as tables and chairs – exist. We also think that ordinary objects have parts: my chair has a seat and some legs as parts, for example. But once we are committed to the (seemingly innocuous) thesis that ordinary objects are composed of parts, we then open ourselves up to a whole host of philosophical problems, most of which center on what exactly the composition relation is. Composition as Identity (CI) is the (...) view that the composition relation is the identity relation. While such a view has some advantages, there are many arguments against it. In this essay, I will briefly canvass three different varieties of Composition as Identity, and suggest why one of them should be preferred over the others. Then I will outline several versions of the most common objection against CI. I will suggest how a CI theorist can respond to these charges by maintaining that some of the arguments are invalid. (In part 2, I show how a CI theorist can maintain that the remaining arguments, while valid, are unsound). (shrink)

The right to be forgotten is a proposed legal response to the potential harms caused by easy digital access to information from one's past, including those to moral autonomy. While the future of these proposed laws is unclear, they attempt to respond to the new problem of increased ease of access to old personal information. These laws may flounder in the face of other rights and interests, but the social values related to moral autonomy they seek to preserve should be (...) promoted in the form of widespread ethical information practices: information stewardship. Code, norms, markets, and laws are analyzed as possible mechanisms for fostering information stewardship. All these mechanisms can support a new user role, one of librarian - curator of digital culture, protector of networked knowledge, and information steward. (shrink)

Wallace, Meg Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for 'freedom of religion and belief'. Don't get me wrong, it is an essential part of a democratic society that people can adopt and practice a religious or other life-stance belief of their choice. My concern is that, as it stands, Article 18 fosters the privileging of religious beliefs, hindering the equal right of others to exercise the same right. We can see the tyranny of forcing religion on (...) people by extremists in other countries, but even in liberal democracies, government involvement in religion is ubiquitous. (shrink)

There is uneasy tension between our ordinary talk about beliefs and desires and the ontological facts supported by neuroscience. Arguments for eliminative materialism are persuasive, yet error theory about folk psychological discourse seems unacceptable. One solution is to accept mental fictionalism: the view that we are (or should be) fictionalists about mentality. My aim in this paper is to explore mental fictionalism as a viable theoretical option, and to show that it has advantages over other fictionalist views in the literature, (...) as well as advantages over other theories of mind. However, mental fictionalism faces objections that do not plague other fictionalist accounts, nor other theories of the mind. These objections may provide some explanation as to why mental fictionalism has not (until recently) gained much traction in the literature. I end with some suggestions on how the mental fictionalist can address these objections, hopefully paving the way for further development of mental fictionalism as a live philosophical position in philosophy of mind. (shrink)

An emerging body of research comparing body image disturbance and eating problems among African American and white women suggests that there are major ethnic differences in these areas. African American women appear to be more satisfied with their weight and appearance than are white women, and they are less likely to engage in unhealthy weight control practices, yet they are more likely to have high rates of obesity. Drawing on both Black and white feminist literature on eating problems, this article (...) advances three arguments that may account for these differences: Black women may develop a strong positive self-valuation and an alternative beauty aesthetic to resist societal stigmatization, Black women may be less likely to acquire eating disorders due to differences in the cultural construction of femininity in Black communities, and positive body image among Black women may sometimes reflect a defensive need to deny health problems such as compulsive overeating and obesity. (shrink)

Despite the substantial research into the peculiar political and legal status of climate migrants, there is comparatively little exploration of the particular forms of loss such migrants might face or how efforts might mitigate such loss. This paper aims to begin filling that void by characterizing such loss, using the framework of the UNFCC’s Warsaw Mechanism, as agential harm. Using existing models for thinking about the preservation of values and links with the past, I aim to use this idea of (...) a threat to agency to discuss how migration could occur to better preserve the agential control of displaced populations. (shrink)

Efficient markets are alienating if they inhibit us from recognizably caring about one another in our productive activities. I argue that efficient market behaviour is both exclusionary and fetishistic. As exclusionary, the efficient marketeer cannot manifest care alongside their market behaviour. As fetishistic, the efficient marketeer cannot manifest care in their market behaviour. The conjunction entails that efficient market behavior inhibits care. It doesn’t follow that efficient market behavior is vicious: individuals might justifiably commit to efficiency because doing so serves (...) the common good. But efficient market systems nevertheless have significant opportunity costs. The discussion yields a range of desiderata for non-alienated economic organization. (shrink)

Some mereologists boast that their view of parts and wholes is ontologically innocent.[Lewis 1991: 72-87] They claim that a fusion is nothing over and above its parts; once you’ve committed to the parts, you get the fusion for free. In other words, fusions are not a further ontological commitment beyond the commitment to the parts. There are various proposals to explain how it is that fusions can come about so cheap. Perhaps the most straightforward of these explanations, and the one (...) I will be concerned with in this paper, is to accept the Strong Composition Thesis:2, 3.. (shrink)

Mental fictionalism maintains that: (1) folk psychology is a false theory, but (2) we should nonetheless keep using it, because it is useful, convenient, or otherwise beneficial to do so. We should (or do) treat folk psychology as a useful fiction—false, but valuable. Yet some argue that mental fictionalism is incoherent: if a mental fictionalist rejects folk psychology then she cannot appeal to fictions in an effort to keep folk psychological discourse around, because fictions presuppose the legitimacy of folk psychology. (...) Call this the Argument from Cognitive Collapse. In this paper, I defend several different mental fictionalist views against cognitive collapse. (shrink)

A lump theorist claims that ordinary objects are spread out across possible worlds, much like many of us think that tables are spread out across space. We are not wholly located in any one particular world, the lump theorist claims, just as we are not wholly spatially located where one’s hand is. We are modally spread out, a trans-world mereological sum of world-bound parts. We are lump sums of modal parts. And so are all other ordinary objects. In this paper, (...) I explore lump theory and investigate five arguments against it. These arguments may be the primary reasons why lump theory has not been widely accepted––or extensively explored––until now. I maintain that these arguments can be answered, and moreover, that accepting lump theory has distinct advantages, making it a competitive view in its own right. (shrink)

It has been argued by some that the argument from vagueness is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the theory of temporal parts. I will neither support nor dispute this claim here. Rather, I will present a version of the argument from vagueness, which – if successful – commits one to the existence of modal parts. I argue that a commitment to the soundness of the argument from vagueness for temporal parts compels one to commit to the soundness (...) of the argument from vagueness for modal parts. I say compels, but not entails; an objection to one of the arguments highlights analogous ways to reject the other, making it difficult to endorse one and reject the other. This would be a significant conclusion, if true, since there are far fewer who currently commit themselves to modal parts than the many who currently commit themselves to temporal parts. (shrink)

Some philosophers assume that our ordinary parts-whole concepts are intuitive and univocal. Moreover, some assume that mereology—the formal theory of parts-whole relations—adequately captures these intuitive and univocal notions. Lewis, for example, maintains that mereology is “perfectly understood, unproblematic, and certain.” Following his lead, many assume that expressions such as ‘is part of’ are univocal, topic-neutral, and that compositional monism is true. This paper explores the rejection of –. I argue that our ordinary parts-whole expressions are polysemous; they have multiple distinct, (...) but related, interpretations or meanings. I canvass several criteria by which to test for polysemy, and apply these criteria to some of our parts-whole terminology. I also examine some philosophical examples involving abstracta and abstract parts, which give us additional reasons to think that our parts-whole expressions are polysemous and topic-specific. Yet if so, then compositional pluralism is true. (shrink)

Literature is recognised as having significantly influenced the development of modern psychoanalytic thought. In recent years psychoanalysis has drawn increasingly on the literary and artistic traditions of western culture and moved away from its original medical–scientific context. Originally published in 1991 _The Chamber of Maiden Thought _ is an original and revealing exploration of the seminal role of literature in forming the modern psychoanalytic model of the mind. The crux of the 'post-Kleinian' psychoanalytic view of personality development lies in the (...) internal relations between the self and the mind's 'objects'. Meg Harris Williams and Margot Waddell show that these relations have their origins in the drama of identifications which we can see played out metaphorically and figuratively in literature, which presents the self-creative process in aesthetic terms. They argue that psychoanalysis is a true child of literature rather than merely the interpreter or explainer of literature, illustrating this with some examples from clinical experience, but drawing above all on close scrutiny of the dynamic mental processes presented in the work of Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, Emily Bronte and George Eliot. _The Chamber of Maiden Thought_ will encourage psychoanalytic workers to respond to the influence of literature in exploring symbolic mental processes. By bringing psychoanalysis into creative conjunction with the arts, it enables practitioners to tap a cultural potential whose insights into the human mind are of immense value. (shrink)

Literature is recognised as having significantly influenced the development of modern psychoanalytic thought. In recent years psychoanalysis has drawn increasingly on the literary and artistic traditions of western culture and moved away from its original medical–scientific context. Originally published in 1991 _The Chamber of Maiden Thought _ is an original and revealing exploration of the seminal role of literature in forming the modern psychoanalytic model of the mind. The crux of the 'post-Kleinian' psychoanalytic view of personality development lies in the (...) internal relations between the self and the mind's 'objects'. Meg Harris Williams and Margot Waddell show that these relations have their origins in the drama of identifications which we can see played out metaphorically and figuratively in literature, which presents the self-creative process in aesthetic terms. They argue that psychoanalysis is a true child of literature rather than merely the interpreter or explainer of literature, illustrating this with some examples from clinical experience, but drawing above all on close scrutiny of the dynamic mental processes presented in the work of Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, Emily Bronte and George Eliot. _The Chamber of Maiden Thought_ will encourage psychoanalytic workers to respond to the influence of literature in exploring symbolic mental processes. By bringing psychoanalysis into creative conjunction with the arts, it enables practitioners to tap a cultural potential whose insights into the human mind are of immense value. (shrink)

The integration of nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ (SEI) at the research and development stage is one of the defining features of nanotechnology governance in the United States. Mandated by law, integration extends the field of nanotechnology to include a role for the “social”, the “public” and the social sciences and humanities in research and development (R&D) practices and agendas. Drawing from interviews with scientists, engineers and policymakers who took part in an oral history of the “Future of Nanotechnology” symposium (...) at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, this article examines how nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ are brought to life by these practitioners. From our analysis, three modes of enactment emerge: enacting SEI as obligations and problems-to-be-solved, enacting SEI by ‘not doing it’ in the laboratory, and enacting SEI as part of scientific practice. Together they paint a complex picture where SEI are variously defined, made visible or invisible, included and excluded, with participants showing their skill at both boundary-work (Gieryn Am Sociol Rev 48:781–795, 1983, 1999) and at integration. We conclude by reflecting on what this may mean for the design and implementation of SEI integration policies, suggesting that we need to transform SEI from obligations into ‘matters of care’ (Puig de la Bellacasa Soc Stud Sci 41(1):85–106, 2011) that tend to existing relationalities between science and society and implicate practitioners themselves. (shrink)

ResumoEste artigo aborda o nascimento do movimento de prostitutas no Brasil partindo de uma análise da Pastoral da Mulher Marginalizada, uma iniciativa da Igreja Católica que realizou um trabalho assistencialista e de conscientização política com mulheres prostitutas no Brasil a partir da década de 1970. Minha pesquisa examina as tensões entre as participantes e os agentes da Pastoral que deram origem a um movimento autônomo de profissionais do sexo em meados da década de 1980. Eu argumento que a Rede Brasileira (...) de Prostitutas (RBP) foi influenciada não só pelo clima político da democratização, mas também pelo discurso de autoestima e do valor intrínseco do indivíduo pregado pela Pastoral. Finalmente, eu considero o Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Prostitutas, realizado em 1987, destacando como a RBP acabou rejeitando o tropo da prostituta-como-vítima e as crenças abolicionistas do ramo progressista da Igreja.Palavras-chave: Prostituição. Igreja Católica. Movimentos sociais. Abertura política. AbstractThis article examines the birth of the Brazilian sex-worker movement by foregrounding an analysis of the Pastoral da Mulher Marginalizada, a ministry of the Catholic Church that conducted outreach and political consciousness-raising among prostitutes in Brazil starting in the 1970s. My research explores the tensions between ministry participants and agents that eventually led to the founding of an autonomous movement of sex workers in the mid-1980s. I argue that the Rede Brasileira de Prostitutas (RBP) was influenced not only by the political climate of Brazil’s democratization process, but also by the discourse of self-esteem and the intrinsic value of the individual espoused by the Pastoral. Finally, I consider the Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Prostitutas, held in 1987, highlighting how the RBP came to the trope of the prostitute-as-victim and the abolitionist beliefs of the progressive branch of the Catholic Church.Keywords: Prostitution. Catholic Church. Social Movements. Political opening. (shrink)

‘Why Queer Diaspora?’ intervenes at the intersection of queer theory and diaspora studies to ask how the conditions of geographical mobility produce new experiences and understandings of sexuality and gender identity. More particularly, this essay argues against a prevalent critical slippage between queer and diaspora, through which the queer is read as a mobile category that, like diaspora, disrupts the stability of fixed identity categories and thus represents a liberatory position within the material and geographical displacements of globalization. Instead, I (...) posit that the work of ‘queering’ diaspora must be to examine the new articulations of normative and queer as they emerge in the transformations of the late twentieth century. To this end, the essay looks to two contemporary documentaries, Remote Sensing (Ursula Biemann, 2001) and Mariposas en el Andamio/butterflies on the Scaffold (Margaret Gilpin and Luis Felipe Bernaza, 1996), as models of alternative articulations of the queer and the diasporic. Ultimately, I argue, it is a focus on the labour through which the seemingly natural categories of gender and sexuality are produced, that a queer diasporic criticism might offer. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis : an art or a science? -- Aesthetic concepts of Bion and Meltzer -- The domain of the aesthetic object -- Sleeping beauty -- Moving beauty -- Psychoanalysis as an art form.

Despite the numerous instances of PED use in professional sports, there continues to be a strong negative moral response to those athletes who dope. My goal is to offer a diagnosis of this response. I will argue that we do not experience such disdain because these athletes have broken some constitutive rule of sport, but because they have lied about who they are. In violating the constraints of their own public narratives, they make both themselves and their choices unintelligible. This (...) worry becomes especially profound as we care greatly about who our athletes are. Using cases from both athletics and US politics, I argue that certain kinds of lies so violate our understanding of who a person is that we can no longer recognize them as the person we took them to be. Fundamentally, I believe that PED users have lied about something central to their public narratives. I develop this view through an examination of narrative identity, primarily focusing on J. David Velleman’s work on agency and self-constitution. I do not claim that the athlete using steroids is nonidentical to who she would be in the absence of steroid use, but that through use of PEDs, she has misled us about an important component of her pubic narrative and this is difficult for us to reconcile. Ultimately, this has implications for sport as well as other other aspects of human social life. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the work of David Abram, who makes a case for phenomenology as the only philosophical tradition amenable to restoring balanced human-nature relationships. While phenomenology provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding the environmental ethics of oral cultures, this paper considers the tradition of American pragmatism to be more applicable to theenvironmental task at hand: devising an environmental ethic of reform for modern, capitalist, Western culture. The application of phenomenology and pragmatism to environmental ethics is compared (...) according to four main philosophical questions: the essential uncertainty of life, the existence of a human/nature divide, the necessary conditions for claiming truth, and the relative role of metaphysics or imagination and that of science in relating to the world. (shrink)

Two terms, student privacy and Massive Open Online Courses, have received a significant amount of attention recently. Both represent interesting sites of change in entrenched structures, one educational and one legal. MOOCs represent something college courses have never been able to provide: universal access. Universities not wanting to miss the MOOC wave have started to build MOOC courses and integrate them into the university system in various ways. However, the design and scale of university MOOCs create tension for privacy laws (...) intended to regulate information practices exercised by educational institutions. Are MOOCs part of the educational institutions these laws and policies aim to regulate? Are MOOC users students whose data are protected by aforementioned laws and policies? Many university researchers and faculty members are asked to participate as designers and instructors in MOOCs but may not know how to approach the issues proposed. While recent scholarship has addressed the disruptive nature of MOOCs, student privacy generally, and data privacy in the K-12 system, we provide an in-depth description and analysis of the MOOC phenomenon and the privacy laws and policies that guide and regulate educational institutions today. We offer privacy case studies of three major MOOC providers active in the market today to reveal inconsistencies among MOOC platform and the level and type of legal uncertainty surrounding them. Finally, we provide a list of organizational questions to pose internally to navigate the uncertainty presented to university MOOC teams. (shrink)