I. RATNAKIRTI. HIS PHILOSOPHICAL CONGENERS AND ADVERSARIES Ratnakirti flourished early in the 11th century A.D. at the University of Vi kramasila, a member of the Yogacara-Vijnanavada school oflate Buddhist philosophy. Thakur characterizes Ratnakirti's writing as "more concise and logical though not so poetical" 1 as that of his guru, Jfianasrimitra, two of 2 whose dicta are focal points of the present work. From a translogical or absolute point of view, Ratnakirti endorses a form of 3 solipsistic idealism. The Sarhtdndntaradu$alJa, his (...) proof of solipsism written from the standpoint ofthe highest truth, concludes that an exter nal nonmental continuum is impossible. In ultimate reality the cognizing sub ject, its act of awareness, and the cognized object coalesce - all are fabrications superposed on what is really an indivisible evanescent now. 4 As Ratnakirti's predecessors have put it: There is neither an 'I' nor a 'he' nor a 'you' nor even an 'it'; neither the thing, nor the not-thing; neither a law nor a system; neither the terms nor the relations. But there are only the cognitive events of colourless sensations which have forms but no names. They are caught for a moment in a stream and then rush to naught. Even the stream is a fiction. That sensum of the moment, the purest particular, that advaya, the indivisible unit of cognition, that is the sole reality, the rest are all fictions, stirred up by time-honoured 5 convention of language which is itself a grand fiction. (shrink)

Introduces fundamental epistemological and metaphysical issues and concepts. Deals comprehensively with Eastern as well as Western philosophy.

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This thesis investigates the nature of Dr. Johnson's arguments in four main areas: religion, morality, literature and politics. The investigation proceeds by analysing the forms of the arguments and the coherence of their logic, establishing the premises of the arguments, and indicating which of a number of sanctions govern these premises. The sanctions looked at are reason, revelation, experience, testimony, authority and universality, with an attempt to establish whether (...) or not there is a hierarchy of these sanctions and, if so, which Johnson regards as the most important in each area. The thesis is organised in four parts which correspond to the subject areas. Each part has two sections: the first analyses the sanction applied to that subject, and the second takes from Johnson's writings examples of specific issues, showing how the sanctions are applied to them. ;Part I deals with Johnson's arguments on religion. The sanctions considered in this part are reason, revelation, testimony, authority, universality and experience. Attention is drawn to the antecedents of Johnson's arguments in order to indicate the background to Johnson's arguments. The specific issues looked at are the immateriality and immortality of the soul, ghosts and second sight, and the problem of evil. ;Part II deals with Johnson's moral arguments. Here the sanctions are reason, revelation, universality and experience. Again, the antecedents are identified, notably Samuel Clarke, Richard Cumberland, Mandeville and Shaftesbury. The specific issues highlighted are the duties of charity, retirement and idleness. ;In Part III Johnson's literary arguments come under scrutiny, and here the sanctions dealt with are rather different. Revelation is not involved here . Its place is taken by morality, which, having been examined in the preceding part, itself becomes a sanction, and is considered along with reason, experience, authority and universality. These sanctions are then applied to biography and pastorals. ;The final part deals with Johnson's political arguments based on the sanctions of authority, universality, reason and experience, and shows how these are applied to the American problem. (shrink)

Introduces fundamental epistemological and metaphysical issues and concepts. Deals comprehensively with Eastern as well as Western philosophy.

I analyze the case of pregnant athletes, and argue that sexism surrounds pregnant athlete’s participation in sport. I claim that we stigmatize the pregnant body in action. Participating in sport wh...

Background The involvement of pregnant women in vaccine clinical trials presents unique challenges for the informed consent process. We explored the expectations and experiences of the pregnant women, spouses/partners, health workers and stakeholders of the consent process during a Group B Streptococcus maternal vaccine trial. Methods We interviewed 56 participants including pregnant women taking part in the trial, women not in the trial, health workers handling the trial procedures, spouses, and community stakeholders. We conducted 13 in-depth interviews and focus group (...) discussions with 23 women in the trial, in-depth interviews with 5 spouses, and 5 women not in the trial, key informant interviews with 5 health workers and 5 other stakeholders were undertaken. Results Decision-making by a pregnant woman to join a trial was done in consultation with spouse, parents, siblings, or trusted health workers. Written study information was appreciated by all but they suggested the use of audio and visual presentation to enhance understanding. Women stressed the need to ensure that their male partners received study information before their pregnant partners joined a clinical trial. Confidentiality in research was emphasised differently by individual participants; while some emphasised it for self, others were keen to protect their family members from being exposed, for allowing them to be involved in research. However, others wanted their community participation to be acknowledged. Conclusion We found that pregnant women make decisions to join a clinical trial after consulting with close family. Our findings suggest the need for an information strategy which informs not only the pregnant woman, but also her family about the research she is invited to engage in. (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue 1, Page 97-125, Spring 2022.

En s’appuyant sur leurs pratiques de recherche-création en art équestre et en acrobatie aérienne, les deux auteurs proposent une réflexion croisée sur le cirque. De l’entraînement à la représentation publique, cet article, d’une part, s’intéresse à la notion de répertoire technique qui provoque parfois souffrance et lassitude pour celui qui les pratique, et, d’autre part, observe dans quelle mesure la démonstration de ce répertoire tend à normer les gestes et les attitudes des corps humains ou animaux en scène. Au-delà du (...) cirque, c’est en convoquant des notions transdisciplinaires que certains processus de création engendrent des formes qui les extirpent de toute classification et laissent entrevoir un renouvellement des esthétiques et des modes de pensée du corps en scène. (shrink)

A lively debate in the literature on moral progress concerns the role of practical reasoning: Does it enable or subvert moral progress? Rationalists believe that moral reasoning enables moral progress, because it helps enhance objectivity in thinking, overcome unruly sentiments, and open our minds to new possibilities. By contrast, skeptics argue that moral reasoning subverts moral progress. Citing growing empirical research on bias, they show that objectivity is an illusion and that moral reasoning merely rationalizes pre-existing biased moral norms. In (...) this article, I argue that both the rationalists and the skeptics fail to understand fully the role of practical reasoning by focusing exclusively on moral reasoning to the neglect of social reasoning. In the first half of the article, I argue against the skeptics by vindicating moral reasoning. I identify a Democratic Model of moral reasoning which is reliable and effective in overcoming bias. In the second part of the article, I argue against the rationalists. Drawing on a paradigmatic case of moral progress, i.e., the British abolition of the slave trade, I illustrate that moral reasoning, even when sound, is insufficient to motivate progressive action. The explanation for this puzzling phenomenon is not that the moral norm against cruelty is inert, as skeptics might suggest. Rather, it is that the moral norm against cruelty was overridden by the social norm of slavery which was tied to the British joint commitments to freedom and national honour. The debate between rationalists and skeptics centers around the moral rationality of human action, failing to recognize that human action is in fact primarily about social rationality. I defend a joint commitment account of social rationality, and offer a novel Communitarian Model of social reasoning which follows the logic of social rationality to revise social norms. I defend the reliability and efficacy of the Communitarian Model of social reasoning by applying it to the abolitionist social movement to show how Britons gave fellow Britons social reasons grounded in their joint commitments to freedom and national honour to end slavery. (shrink)

The ecological approach to object pretend play, developed from the ecological perspective, suggests an action- and affordance based perspective to account for pretend object play. Theoretical, as well as empirical reasons, support the view that children in pretense incorporate objects into their play in a resourceful and functionally appropriate way based on the perception of affordances. Therefore, in pretense children are not distorting reality but rather, they are perceiving and acting upon action possibilities. In this paper, we argue for the (...) viability of an ecological theoretical framework to pretend object play which has been traditionally understood as a representational and metarepresentational ability. We discuss the origins and basic assumptions of the ecological approach to pretense. We layout details by presenting a qualitative analysis of a pretend play episode and discuss the results of an experimental study inspired by the ecological assumptions. We discuss pretend object play in the context of ecological work on tool use. We address the relationship between the enactive and the ecological approaches to pretend play, pointing out similarities as well as differences. We conclude that ecological and enactive approaches have shown that it is possible to challenge accepted interpretations and seek explanatory frameworks that could move the field in new directions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 55-59 [Access article in PDF] Response to Bennett Reimer, "Once More with Feeling: Reconciling Discrepant Accounts of Musical Affect" Charlene Morton University of British Columbia, Canada In A Philosophy of Music Education, Bennett Reimer reminds us that "the starting point is always an examination of values linked to the question, 'Why and for what purpose should we educate?'"1 But because, as (...) he puts it, the nature of pluralism in multicultural societies makes consensus about the purpose of education impossible, he suggests looking for the answer within the subject itself. For this reason, he returns to the debate about the relationship between inherent and delineative meaning in music. One of his objectives is to caution music educators against constructing "artificial" lessons that define musical feeling as exclusively manifest in either inherent or delineative meaning. I believe that this caution is warranted: contrived or superficial lessons can be miseducative and disappointing. I am less inclined to go the step further to investigate Reimer's position that "it is the complex middle-where both dimensions of music's power help shape and reshape musical reception-that poses the provocative dilemmas" because, although I acknowledge that sound stimulates psycho-physiological reactions, I am more sympathetic with Tia DeNora's observation that we need to think more [End Page 55] about "an interactionist conception of musical affect that moves beyond conundrums concerning whether music's affect is 'immanent' or 'attributed.'"2DeNora explains an interactionist conception of musical affect as an "appropriation of aesthetic materials" by consumers to construct meaning and identity in the context of their everyday lives.3 Her observation and research affirms John Shepherd's claim that music has not simply musical and extra-musical meaning but also ideological significance, "form[ing] an integral part of the social process."4 All to say that I am not going to involve myself in a conundrum revolving around inherent and delineated meaning, appreciated best by musicologists and psychologists. Instead, I want to return to "the starting point" Reimer identifies above, to a discussion about the purpose of public schooling.Beginning with the premise that people appropriate music to construct their realities and, subsequently, music has socio-political significance in how it is produced, presented, and received, I argue that, in addition to the more familiar raisons d'etre of developing subject-specific outcomes such as musicianship, musical intelligence, and, of course, musical enjoyment, music education should be better and explicitly fashioned as a path toward the broad goals of public education. Thus, the thesis of this response advocates a philosophical understanding of what music education can offer that is less about "involving all students in the very same matters to which [many of us] are devoted"-that is, musicianship, musical intelligence, and related philosophical and pedagogical conundrums-and more about realizing the purpose of education through the musical lives of students. To explore this line of thought, I will first review familiar and exceptional mission statements about the purpose of education. I will then revisit Reimer's second story which will serve as an autobiographical episode illustrating what might be educative about an interactionist understanding of musical affect. My conclusion will emphasize that although music, like "each subject studied in schools affords the student a distinctive window or frame through which the world can be viewed,"5 music educators, like all educators, should attend to teaching outside the subject itself if public schooling is to succeed in its distinctive and important mission. The Purpose of Education When anyone asked him where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world."6As a starting point for her study of cosmopolitan citizenship and its importance in educational reform in the United States, Martha Nussbaum cites the words of Diogenes. Her concerns about the force and consequences of American [End Page 56] nationalism and ethnocentrism motivate her argument "for making world citizenship, rather than democratic/national citizenship, as education's central focus." She is clear that her position does not... (shrink)

The Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcasts Mixed Martial Arts fights in over 149 countries to nearly a billion households worldwide. In 2013, the UFC signed the first ever female fighter Ronda ‘Rowdy’ Rousey. In this essay, I argue that women’s participation in the UFC challenges traditional stereotypes of female physical passivity and Iris Marion Young’s claims about feminine spatiality. However, at the same time, UFC culture emphasizes traditional sexist views of femininity and submissiveness. In order to analyze how gender is constructed (...) in the UFC, theories on women’s lived body experiences through participation in MMA are explored. Brian Pronger’s homosocial and homophobia framework is also applied to the phallocentric discourse that is part of the UFC. (shrink)

The year 2014 marked the 50th Anniversary of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. I argue that SISI is problematic for the continued struggle of women in sport given the nature and the extent of sexual objectification. The SISI has evolved over the years from a bathing suit fashion spread to a contemporary multimedia colossal. For example, to help celebrate the 50th anniversary, SISI teamed up with Mattel and featured Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Barbie in the February 2014 issue, and a special collector’s (...) item Barbie doll was produced and sold exclusively at Target. Sport is a celebration of human variety, yet Sports Illustrated rarely includes female athletes on their covers, and instead pushes a product that celebrates heterosexuality and sexual objectification of females. (shrink)

We critically analyze four images of female Paralympians posing nude in ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue from the years 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014. Past literature shows that media portrayals of female Paralympians emphasize esthetically pleasing bodies, able-bodied images and asexualization. Weaving’s continuum of sexual objectification was applied to assess the varying degrees of sexual objectification showcased within each image. From a feminist perspective, discourses of heteronormativity and ableism were applied to outline the concerns with female Paralympic representation in The (...) Body Issue. We argue that by normalizing disability and sexual objectification, woman athletes are trivialized. (shrink)

RONQUILLO C, BOSCHMA G, WONG ST and QUINEY L. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 262–275Beyond greener pastures: exploring contexts surrounding Filipino nurse migration in Canada through oral historyThe history of immigrant Filipino nurses in Canada has received little attention, yet Canada is a major receiving country of a growing number of Filipino migrants and incorporates Filipino immigrant nurses into its healthcare workforce at a steady rate. This study aims to look beyond the traditional economic and policy analysis perspectives of global migration (...) and beyond the push and pull factors commonly discussed in the migration literature. Through oral history, this study explores biographical histories of nine Filipino immigrant nurses currently working in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Narratives reveal the instrumental role of the deeply embedded culture of migration in the Philippines in influencing Filipino nurses to migrate. Additionally, the stories illustrate the weight of cultural pressures and societal constructs these nurses faced that first colored their decision to pursue a career in nursing and ultimately to pursue emigration. Oral history is a powerful tool for examining migration history and sheds light on nuances of experience that might otherwise be neglected. This study explores the complex connections between various factors motivating Filipino nurse migration, the decision-making process, and other pre-migration experiences. (shrink)

In this essay a selection of images of women Olympians who have opted to pose nude in calendars, in Playboy magazine and in mainstream men's magazines is critically analysed. It is argued that when women athletes pose nude, their talent and incredible skill are trivialised because they are sexually objectified. Based on Nussbaum's theory of objectification, a continuum is developed to analyse the said images. The analysis highlights theories of sexualisation, heteronormative culture, and homophobia which are entangled within the apparent (...) justifications for posing nude. These are rejected in favour of the objectification critique. (shrink)

Aspiration by Agnes Callard locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. The book also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.