Minority female youth are significantly affected by the HIV epidemic. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore sexual behavior practices, disclosure of HIV status, attitudes about disclosure, and knowledge of HIV disclosure laws among female youth with HIV. Findings suggest that the majority of YWH studied have been sexually active since their HIV diagnosis, although the nature and extent of sexual activity varied. Rates of nondisclosure to sexual partners varied based on the type of question asked, but at (...) least some of the YWH in this sample reported sexual activity with a partner who was unaware of the participant’s HIV status. YWH appear to be more likely to disclose before, as opposed to after, sexual activity. Although most YWH believe disclosure to sexual partners is important for a variety of reasons, many reasons exist for nondisclosure, including fear of rejection and limited communication skills. The majority of YWH in this sample were aware of the potential legal ramifications of nondisclosure although fear of legal repercussions was not the most important factor related to disclosure. These findings favor the implementation of HIV disclosure interventions over the enactment of HIV criminalization laws as a strategy for reducing HIV transmission. (shrink)

In this article I bring together Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray's engagements with Sigmund Freud's vexed attempt to step beyond the pleasure principle. Derrida's speculations on the name, the house and the practice of Freud find him inadvertently rewriting the conditions of the autobiographical as that which erases as much as inscribes, while Irigaray requires a sexually different modelling of what we call language if the experience of the girl is to be addressed. Yet Irigaray uncannily repeats the teleological gesture (...) of laying claim to a legacy, diagnosed in Freud by Derrida, even as this legacy is newly imagined as that of the feminine to which Freud remained blind. I then interweave these revised stakes of the fort-da game as they are expressed in two experimental films; Lynn Hershman Leeson's feature Conceiving Ada (USA, 1997) and Hussein Chalayan's short Absent Presence (UK/Turkey, 2005). One self-consciously concerns the recovery of ‘lost’ women from history (da!), the other investigates the treatment of the foreigner staged with an all-female cast (in which the instability of foreign objects can secure no fortification for the scientific subject). The films differently engage fantasies concerning genetics, and differently engage the projection of a legacy as teleological ambition. Privileging Derrida's transformation of the pleasure into the postal principle as that which invokes ‘Tele–without telos’, I ask after the transmissibility of this ambition. (shrink)

In Poetics of Deconstruction, Lynn Turner develops an intimate attention to independent films, art, and the psychoanalyses by which they might make sense other than under continued license of the subject that calls himself man. Drawing extensively from Jacques Derrida's philosophy in precise dialogue with feminist thought, animal studies and posthumanism (Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe) this book explores the vulnerability of the living as rooted in non-oppositional differences. From abjection to mourning, to the speculative (...) and the performative, it reposes concepts and buzzwords seemingly at home in feminist theory, visual culture and the humanities more broadly. Stepping away from the carno-phallogocentric legacies of the signifier and the dialectic, Poetics of Deconstruction asks you to welcome nonpower into politics, always sexual but no longer anchored in sacrifice. (shrink)

This collection of essays reveals that across Jacques Derrida's work as a whole, as well as that of Hélène Cixous and Nicholas Royle, deconstruction has always addressed questions about animality.

‘Tympaniser’, Alan Bass tells us, is an ‘archaic verb meaning to ridicule publicly’ or to decry. In the essay fronting Margins of Philosophy called ‘Tympan’ Derrida decries the philosophy that would own its limits, absorbing ‘the margin of its own volume’. While it is Derrida’s late work on the ‘animal question’ that has brought his insistence on the nourishment of the limits between species as limitrophy to wider attention, it is also named as the general condition of the interface of (...) the limits in the much earlier text, ‘Tympan.’ There, in dislocating the tympanum, the margins of philosophy are eaten. Equally, given the rhythmic address of the tympanum, we might say that the margins of philosophy are beaten. Struggling within the strictures of a small town amateur dramatic rehearsal, Selma, the lead protagonist in Dancer in the Dark, makes a plea for more rhythm. But there is no license for tap-dancing in The Sound of Music. This chapter considers Dancer’s persistent play on rhythmic sounds as that which trip Selma’s fantasy song and dance numbers as a ‘tympanising’ of the limits, notably of the limits of the law in both juridical and symbolic senses, as they also work the edges of the film’s two styles. In a provocative analysis of this film, Cary Wolfe suggests that we might understand Selma’s vocal style as a refusal of the phallic imposition of language, and that her virtually suicidal submission to the death sentence construed as a Lacanian ‘feminine’ act, allow for a notion of a ‘posthuman feminine’. ‘Tympan Alley’ redirects Wolfe’s tantalising term ‘posthuman feminine’ through a more consistently Derridean line of thought. It draws on Derrida’s late work on the animal, in which it is polemically clear that deconstruction has never been confined to the signifier nor to the human, and sounds out the implications of his early work on b/eating the limits through Selma’s percussive ear. (shrink)

This review article examines Kelly Oliver’s recent book, Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human. It has two particular points of focus: Oliver's development of Jacques Derrida’s writing on the ‘animal question’ in light of the expansion of critical animal studies more generally, and Oliver’s specific development of the relations between sexual differences and animal differences.

I don’t think Lynne Rudder Baker’s constitution view can account for personal identity problems of a synchronic or diachronic nature. As such, it cannot accommodate the Christian’s claim of eschatological bodily resurrection-a principle reason for which she gives this account. In light of this, I press objections against her constitution view in the following ways: First, I critique an analogy she draws between Aristotle’s “accidental sameness” and constitution. Second, I address three problems for Baker’s constitution view [‘Constitution Problems’ ], each (...) more problematic than the next: CP1: Her definition of constitution lacks explanatory power; CP2: If there is a plausible definition of constitution, constitution implies either too many persons or no human persons at all; CP3: Constitution yields no essential distinction between human and divine persons. If my argument go through, her constitution view has neither an explanation for diachronic personal identity nor personal identity through resurrection. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the growing literature in social epistemology of diagnosing the epistemically problematic features of fake news. I identify two novel problems: the problem of relevant alternatives; and the problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment. The former arises among individual epistemic transactions. By making salient, and thereby relevant, alternatives to knowledge claims, fake news stories threaten knowledge. The problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment arises at the level of entire epistemic communities. I introduce the (...) notion of an epistemic environment, roughly the totality of resources and circumstances relevant to assessing the epistemically interesting statuses, such as knowledge. Fake news degrades our epistemic environment by undermining confidence in epistemic institutions and altering epistemic habits, thereby making the environment less conducive to achieving positive epistemic statuses. This is problematic even if the decrease in confidence and the altering of habits are rational. I end by considering solutions to these problems, stressing the importance of reproaching each other for proliferating fake news. I argue that we should reproach even faultless purveyors of fake news. This is because fake news typically arises in abnormal epistemic contexts, where there is widespread ignorance of, and noncompliance with, correct epistemic norms. (shrink)

A closely argued book about what the negative tradition in Western theology involves.

The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has the potential to eliminate or severely restrict access to legal abortion care in the United States. We a...

David Lewis defends the thesis of the asymmetry of overdetermination: later affairs are seldom overdetermined by earlier affairs, but earlier affairs are usually overdetermined by later affairs. Recently, Carol Cleland has argued that since the distinctive methodologies of historical science and experimental science exploit different aspects of this asymmetry, the methodology of historical science is just as good, epistemically speaking, as that of experimental science. This paper shows, first, that Cleland's epistemological conclusion does not follow from the thesis of the (...) asymmetry of overdetermination, because overdetermination is compatible with epistemic underdetermination. The paper also shows, contra Cleland, that there is at least one interesting sense in which historical science is epistemically inferior to experimental science, after all, because local underdetermination problems are more widespread in historical than in experimental science. (shrink)

J. S. Mill's role in the Indian education controversy is well known, but scarcely well understood. That he drafted, in 1836, a despatch sharply critical of Macaulay's infamous Minute on Indian Education, is general knowledge now. That in drafting the despatch Mill drew upon the ideas of H. H. Wilson, a noted Orientalist and sharp critic of Macaulay and the Anglicists, has been adequately demonstrated. That the despatch was never sent to India, because of the objections of the President of (...) the Board of Trade, John Hobhouse, a Whig with some utilitarian connections, has been common knowledge for several decades. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one logic. Logical normativism is the view that logic is normative. These positions have often been assumed to go hand-in-hand, but we show that one can be a logical pluralist without being a logical normativist. We begin by arguing directly against logical normativism. Then we reformulate one popular version of pluralism—due to Beall and Restall—to avoid a normativist commitment. We give three non-normativist pluralist views, the most promising of which depends (...) not on logic’s normativity but on epistemic goals. (shrink)

An influential way of distinguishing inferential from non-inferential processes appeals to representational states: an agent infers a conclusion from some premises only if she represents those premises as supporting that conclusion. By contrast, when some premises merely cause an agent to believe the conclusion, there is no relevant representational state. While promising, the appeal to representational states invites a regress problem, first famously articulated by Lewis Carroll. This paper develops a novel account of inference that invokes representational states without succumbing (...) to regress. The key move is to reject the tempting idea that the relevant representational states are causally prior to inferences. I argue, instead, that an inference constitutes the relevant representational state. To infer is thus—in the very drawing of the conclusion—to represent the premises as supporting the conclusion, and thereby to commit to that support relation. (shrink)

Since its publication almost 150 years ago, The Idea of a University has had an extraordinary influence on the shaping and goals of higher education. The issues that John Henry Newman raised--the place of religion and moral values in the university setting, the competing claims of liberal and professional education, the character of the academic community, the cultural role of literature, the relation of religion and science--have provoked discussion from Newman's time to our own. This edition of The Idea of (...) a University includes the full text of "University Teaching" and four selections from "University Subjects," together with five essays by leading scholars that explore the background and the present day relevance of Newman's themes. In the essays Martha Garland discusses the character and organization of the early nineteenth-century English universities upon which Newman based much of his vision; Frank M. Turner traces the impact of Newman's influence during the vast expansion of higher education since World War II; George Marsden investigates how the decreasing emphasis on religion has affected higher education; Sara Castro Klaren examines the implications of Newman's views on education and literature for current debates between proponents of a curriculum based on western civilization and one based on multiculturalism; and George Landow considers what the advent of electronic communication will mean to university teaching, research, and community. To aid accessibility, the edition also includes an analytical table of contents, a chronology and biographical sketch of Newman's life, questions for discussion, expanded notes, and a glossary of names, all of which will help make this the standard teaching text for Newman's work. (shrink)

There is a growing call for greater public involvement in establishing science and technology policy, in line with democratic ideals. A variety of public participation procedures exist that aim to consult and involve the public, ranging from the public hearing to the consensus conference. Unfortunately, a general lack of empirical consideration of the quality of these methods arises from confusion as to the appropriate benchmarks for evaluation. Given that the quality of the output of any participation exercise is difficult to (...) determine, the authors suggest the need to consider which aspects of the process are desirable and then to measure the presence or quality of these process aspects. To this end, a number of theoretical evaluation criteria that are essential for effective public participation are specified. These comprise two types: acceptance criteria, which concern features of a method that make it acceptable to the wider public, and process criteria, which concern features of the process that are liable to ensure that it takes place in an effective manner. Future research needs to develop instruments to measure these criteria more precisely and identify the contextual and environmental factors that will mediate the effectiveness of the different participation methods. (shrink)

Imprecise definition of key terms in the “public participation” domain have hindered the conduct of good research and militated against the development and implementation of effective participation practices. In this article, we define key concepts in the domain: public communication, public consultation, and public participation. These concepts are differentiated according to the nature and flow of information between exercise sponsors and participants. According to such an information flow perspective, an exercise’s effectiveness may be ascertained by the efficiency with which full, (...) relevant information is elicited from all appropriate sources, transferred to all appropriate recipients, and combined to give an aggregate/consensual response. Key variables that may theoretically affect effectiveness—and on which engagement mechanisms differ—are identified and used to develop a typology of mechanisms. The resultant typology reveals four communication, six consultation, and four participation mechanism classes. Limitations to the typology are discussed, and future research needs identified. (shrink)

Scholars have proposed a number of courses and programs intended to improve the ethical behavior of scientists in an attempt to maintain the integrity of the scientific enterprise. In the present study, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on 26 previous ethics program evaluation efforts, and the results showed that the overall effectiveness of ethics instruction was modest. The effects of ethics instruction, however, were related to a number of instructional program factors, such as course content and delivery methods, in (...) addition to factors of the evaluation study itself, such as the field of investigator and criterion measure utilized. An examination of the characteristics contributing to the relative effectiveness of instructional programs revealed that more successful programs were conducted as seminars separate from the standard curricula rather than being embedded in existing courses. Furthermore, more successful programs were case based and interactive, and they allowed participants to learn and practice the application of real-world ethical decision-making skills. The implications of these findings for future course development and evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

Dealing with situations where parents’ views about treatment for their child are strongly opposed to doctors’ views is one major area of ethical challenge in paediatric health care. The traditional approach focuses on the child’s best interests, but this is problematic for a number of reasons. The Harm Principle test is regarded by many ethicists as more appropriate than the best interests test. Despite this, use of the best interests test for intervening in parental decisions is still very common in (...) clinical settings and can lead to confusion. In this paper, I propose the Zone of Parental Discretion as a means of putting into practice the key ideas of the Harm Principle, in a clear, step-by-step process. The Zone of Parental Discretion provides a tool for ethical deliberation by clinicians and ethicists about all situations in which parents and doctors disagree about treatment of a child, whether parents are refusing medically recommended treatment, or requesting non-recommended treatment. (shrink)

Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. "A masterpiece of scientific writing. You will cherish "What Is Life?" because it is so rich in poetry and science in the service of profound philosophical questions".--Mitchell Thomashow, "Orion". 9 photos. 11 line illustrations.

Holobionts are multicellular eukaryotes with multiple species of persistent symbionts. They are not individuals in the genetic sense— composed of and regulated by the same genome—but they are anatomical, physiological, developmental, immunological, and evolutionary units, evolved from a shared relationship between different species. We argue that many of the interactions between human and microbiota symbionts and the reproductive process of a new holobiont are best understood as instances of reciprocal scaffolding of developmental processes and mutual construction of developmental, ecological, and (...) evolutionary niches. Our examples show that mother, fetus, and different symbiotic microbial communities induce or constitute conditions for the development and reproduction of one another. These include the direct induction of maternal or fetus physiological changes, the restructuring of ecological relations between communities, and evolutionary selection against undesirable competitors. The mutual scaffolding and niche constructing processes start early—prior to amniotic rupture. We are evolutionarily, physiologically, and developmentally integrated holobiont systems, strung together through mutual reliance and mutual construction. Bringing the processes of niche construction and developmental scaffolding together to interpret holobiont birth conceptually scaffolds two new directions for research: in niche construction, identifying the evolutionary implications of organisms actively constructing multiple overlapping niches and scaffolds, and in Evolutionary Developmental Biology, characterizing evolutionary and ecological processes as developmental causes. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. A key objection to logical pluralism is that it collapses into monism. The core of the Collapse Objection is that only the pluralist’s strongest logic does any genuine normative work; since a logic must do genuine normative work, this means that the pluralist is really a monist, who is committed to her strongest logic being the one true logic. This paper considers a neglected question in the collapse (...) debate: what is it for a logic to do genuine normative work? As well as having wider upshot for the connection between logic and normativity, grappling with this question provides a new response to the Collapse Objection on behalf of the pluralist. I suggest that we should allow logics to generate pro tanto reasons in a way that bears not just on combinations of attitudes but on how an agent’s attitudes are based on one another. This motivates adopting normative principles that allow the pluralist’s weaker logics to earn their normative keep. Rather than being ad hoc, these principles capture a sense in which good reasoning goes beyond the consistency of an agent’s attitudes. Good reasoning is also concerned with how an agent’s attitudes are based on one another. (shrink)

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the significant (...) disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists. (shrink)

This study compares involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories in depressed and never depressed individuals. Twenty depressed and twenty never depressed individuals completed a memory diary; recording their reactions to 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories over 14–30 days. Psychiatric status , psychopathology, rumination and avoidance were assessed. For both groups, involuntary memories more frequently lead to strong reactions than voluntarily memories. For both modes of retrieval, depressed individuals reported more frequent negative reactions than never depressed individuals and rated memories as (...) more central to identity with higher levels of rumination and avoidance. Depressed individuals retrieved both positive and negative memories during involuntary retrieval. These findings support the view that involuntary memory retrieval represents a basic mode of retrieval during healthy and disordered cognition, and that during depression, both involuntary and voluntary memories are central to identity and associated with rumination and avoidance. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Reopening a Discussion The empiricist-derived epistemology that has directed most social and natural scientific inquiry for the last three ...

The concept of public participation is one of growing interest in the UK and elsewhere, with a commensurate growth in mechanisms to enable this. The merits of participation, however, are difficult to ascertain, as there are relatively few cases in which the effectiveness of participation exercises have been studied in a structured manner. This seems to stem largely from uncertainty in the research community as to how to conduct evaluations. In this article, one agenda for conducting evaluation research that might (...) lead to the systematic acquisition of knowledge is presented. This agenda identifies the importance of defining effectiveness and of operationalizing one’s definition. The article includes analysis of the nature of past evaluations, discussion of potential difficulties in the enactment of the proposed agenda, and discussion of some potential solutions. (shrink)

There is currently a great debate about whether the holobiont, i.e. a multicellular host and its residential microorganisms, constitutes a biological individual. We propose that resident microorganisms have a general and important role in the individuality of the host organism, not the holobiont. Drawing upon the Equilibrium Model of Immunity, we argue that microorganisms are scaffolds of immune capacities and processes that determine the constituency and persistence of the host organism. A scaffolding perspective accommodates the contingency and heterogeneity of resident (...) microorganisms while accounting for their necessity and unifying contributions to host individuality. In our symbiotic view of life, holobionts may not be organisms or units of selection, but macroorganisms cannot persist nor function as individuals without their scaffolding microorganisms. (shrink)

This paper examines, on the basis of a longitudinal corpus of 50 early modern authors, how change at the aggregate level of the community interacts with variation and change at the micro-level of the individual language user. In doing so, this study aims to address the methodological gap between collective change and entrenchment, that is, the gap between language as a social phenomenon and the cognitive processes responsible for the continuous reorganization of linguistic knowledge in individual speakers. Taking up the (...) case of the prepositional passive, this study documents a strong community-wide increase in use that is accompanied by increasing schematicity. A comparison of the 50 authors reveals that regularities arising at the macro-level conceal highly complex and variable individual behavior, aspects of which may be explained by studying the larger (social) context in which these individuals operate (e. g., age cohorts, community of practice, biographical insights). Further analysis, focusing on how authors use the prepositional passive in unique and similar ways, elucidates the role of small individual biases in long-term change. Overall, it is demonstrated that language change is an emergent phenomenon that results from the complex interaction between individual speakers, who themselves may change their linguistic behavior to varying degrees. (shrink)

The concept of “public participation” is currently one of great interest to researchers and policy makers. In response to a perceived need for greater public involvement in decision making and policy formation processes on the part of both policymakers and the general public, a variety of novel mechanisms have been developed, such as the consensus conference and citizens jury, to complement traditional mechanisms, such as the public meeting. However, the relative effectiveness of the various mechanisms is unclear, as efforts at (...) evaluation have been sparse. In this article, the authors describe an evaluation of a two-day “deliberative conference” on the topic of radiation dose assessment. The authors detail the evaluation framework that they adopt and describe the instruments that they have developed to determine the attainment of the evaluationcriteria stipulated in that framework. They then describe the participation exercise that they have evaluated. Finally, they apply the instruments to assess the effectiveness of the exercise, and discuss the results and their implications for the conduct of evaluations and the use of this particular participation mechanism. (shrink)

Contemporary interpreters have entered a new debate over Aquinas’s view on the status of human beings or persons between death and resurrection. Everyone agrees that, for Aquinas, separated souls exist in the interim. The disagreement concerns what happens to human beings—Peter, Paul, and so on. According to corruptionists, Aquinas thought human beings cease to exist at death and only begin to exist again at the resurrection. According to survivalists, however, Aquinas thought human beings continue to exist in the interim, constituted (...) by their separated souls alone. In this paper I offer a new argument in favor of corruptionism based upon Aquinas’s repeated discussions of a central though so far neglected topic: the death of Christ. To the question, “Was Christ a human being during the three days of his death?” Aquinas always answered, “No.” Examining his reasons proves that corruptionism, and not survivalism, is the right interpretation of Aquinas. (shrink)

Polemicists and disciplinary puritans commonly make a sharp distinction between the normative, “prescriptive,” philosophical work of bioethicists and the empirical, “descriptive” work of anthropologists and sociologists studying medicine, healthcare, and illness. Though few contemporary medical anthropologists and sociologists of health and illness subscribe to positivism, the legacy of positivist thought persists in some areas of the social sciences. It is still quite common for social scientists to insist that their work does not contain explicit normative analysis, offers no practical recommendations (...) for social reform or policy making, and simply interprets social worlds. (shrink)

There is an important debate underway concerning Aquinas’s view about the status of persons in the interim period between death and resurrection. According to corruptionists, Aquinas believed that the person ceases to exist at death and only begins to exist again at the resurrection. Survivalists, on the other hand, deny this. According to them, the continued existence of the soul in the interim period between death and resurrection is sufficient for the continued existence of the person. One objection raised by (...) survivalists against corruptionism concerns Aquinas’s supposed rejection of the metaphysical possibility of intermittent or “gappy” existence. In this paper I reply to this objection in defense of corruptionism, arguing that Aquinas explicitly endorses the possibility of intermittent existence, that none of the texts cited against corruptionism in fact prove otherwise, and that Aquinas’s silence about the matter in his discussions of the resurrection can be easily explained. (shrink)