Instant messaging is a highly diffused form of communication among younger populations, yet little is known about the emotional experience during IM. The present study aimed to investigate the emotional experience during IM by drawing on the Circumplex Model of Affect and measuring heart rate and electrodermal activity as indicators of arousal in addition to self-reported perceived emotional valence. Using an experimental design, we manipulated message latency and message valence. Based on data collected from 65 young adults, we observed arousal (...) as participants’ electrodermal activity levels increased from the time a fictitious peer started typing a response to the receipt of that response, especially in the delayed condition. Electrodermal activity levels also increased in both the positive and the negative message conditions. No changes were observed for heart rate. Participants’ self-report perceived emotional valence revealed that positive messages were evaluated as more pleasant and the peer as more available, while no difference in the self-report was found for message latency. These findings shed light on the emotional experience during IM by adding valuable insights on the physiological processes underlying the anticipation of social reward, but only during delayed IM exchange that can be observed in Human–Computer-Interaction. (shrink)

Based on the first research study to specifically study ethics in adoption practice, this book offers an in-depth exploration of the history of values in ...

Increased international migration of health professionals is weakening healthcare systems in low‐income countries, particularly those in sub‐Saharan Africa. The migration of nurses, physicians and other health professionals from countries in sub‐Saharan Africa poses a major threat to the achievement of health equity in this region. As nurses form the backbone of healthcare systems in many of the affected countries, it is the accelerating migration of nurses that will be most critical over the next few years. In this paper we present (...) a comprehensive analysis of the literature and argue that, from a human rights perspective, there are competing rights in the international migration of health professionals: the right to leave one's country to seek a better life; the right to health of populations in the source and destination countries; labour rights; the right to education; and the right to nondiscrimination and equality. Creative policy approaches are required to balance these rights and to ensure that the individual rights of health professionals do not compromise the societal right to health. (shrink)

A recent article in this journal described practical and conceptual difficulties faced by public health researchers studying scabies outbreaks in British residential care facilities. Their study population was elderly, decisionally incapacitated residents, many of whom lacked a legally appropriate decision-maker for healthcare decisions. The researchers reported difficulties securing Research Ethics Committee approval. As practicing healthcare ethicists working in a large Canadian research hospital, we are familiar with this challenge and welcomed the authors’ invitation to join the discussion of the ‘outstanding (...) ambiguities and further questions’ that their experience uncovered. We propose a Power of Attorney for Research as one substantive solution to help address the problems they identified. Although we acknowledge the familiar shortcomings associated with Advance Directives in the clinical context, we believe that Powers of Attorney for Research Participation, accompanied by Advance Research Directives, may increase the likelihood of gaining deeper understandings of potential participant’s values and priorities and how they might apply to foreseeable research opportunities. (shrink)

Very little has been done to find out what corporations have done to build ethical values into their organizations. In this report on a survey of 1984 Fortune 1000 industrial and service companies the Center for Business Ethics reveals some facts regarding codes of ethics, ethics committees, social audits, ethics training programs, boards of directors, and other areas where corporations might institutionalize ethics. Based on the survey, the Center for Business Ethics is convinced that corporations are beginning to take steps (...) to institutionalize ethics, while recognizing that in most cases more specific mechanisms and strategies need to be implemented to make their ethics efforts truly effective. (shrink)

The conflict between courts and medicine is best shown in the mental health cases requiring judgment of whether a person should be confined, and whether they should be medicated or left free to decide for themselves. In such cases, deprivation of liberty for noncriminal offenders is at question, but if they are released, they may be exposed to injury or injure others. “Clear and convincing” evidence is hard to prove in such cases.The TOPOFF 2 terrorism preparedness exercise was two years (...) in planning, but the courts were involved only seven days before the exercise. Judge Murphy was put in charge of the Circuit Court building and was asked to stop all court proceedings to stop people from going into a building that might have been contaminated. (shrink)

The conflict between courts and medicine is best shown in the mental health cases requiring judgment of whether a person should be confined, and whether they should be medicated or left free to decide for themselves. In such cases, deprivation of liberty for noncriminal offenders is at question, but if they are released, they may be exposed to injury or injure others. “Clear and convincing” evidence is hard to prove in such cases.The TOPOFF 2 terrorism preparedness exercise was two years (...) in planning, but the courts were involved only seven days before the exercise. Judge Murphy was put in charge of the Circuit Court building and was asked to stop all court proceedings to stop people from going into a building that might have been contaminated. (shrink)

Climate anxiety refers to persistent, difficult-to-control apprehensiveness and worry about climate change. Research to better understand the prevalence, indicators, causes, and consequences of climate anxiety is needed, to which emotion researchers can make substantial contributions. First, emotion theory can inform an integrative and functional theory of climate anxiety, mapping interactions between its cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and physiological indicators. Second, appraisal theories can help to understand the reasons why people experience climate anxiety. Third, emotion researchers can contribute to theorizing when climate (...) anxiety motivates climate action, accounting for non-linearity, interactions with other emotions and cognitions, and temporal dynamics. Fourth, emotion researchers can contribute to developing strategies to cope with climate anxiety, for example, by building on emotion regulation theory. (shrink)

Humanistic Management and Transformative Service Research literatures share the common goal of addressing the increasingly growing global challenges faced by humanity. Recently, organizations have been called to further engage in social innovation in service in an attempt to address these challenges. However, the existing service literature does not offer explicit processes regarding how to manage these social innovation efforts at the human interaction level. By drawing on both Humanistic Management and Service literatures, this paper develops a conceptual framework to guide (...) the social innovation in service efforts. More specifically, this paper aims to answer a key question of: how can organizations manage human interactions to help maximize social innovation in service outcomes? This paper identifies four foundational values that should be at the core of the proposed processes needed in order to achieve the desired outcomes of SIS. Subsequently, a typology of service organizations is offered with different combinations of processes at the human interaction level, highlighting the synergistic effect of the three identified processes. The proposed framework in this paper is a first step in bridging two disciplines to highlight their potential and role in addressing the global challenges. (shrink)

From an aging research and life-course perspective, the transition to retirement marks a significant life-event and provides a unique opportunity to study psychological health and coping during a period of substantial change in everyday life. The aim of the present paper is to: (a) outline the rationale of the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study, (b) describe the study sample, and (c) to present some initial results from the two first waves regarding the association between retirement status (...) and psychological health. The HEARTS study is designed to annually study psychological health in the years before and following retirement, and to examine change and stability patterns related to the retirement event. Among a representative Swedish population-based sample of 14 990 individuals aged 60 to 66 years, 5 913 completed the baseline questionnaire in 2015. The majority of the participants (69%) completed a web-based survey, and the rest (31%) completed a paper version. The baseline HEARTS sample represents the general population well in terms of gender and age, but is more highly educated. Cross-sectional findings from the first wave showed that retired individuals demonstrated better psychological health compared to those who were still working. Longitudinal results from the first and second waves showed that individuals who retired between waves showed more positive changes in psychological health compared with those still working or previously retired. (shrink)

The essays in this volume present versions of feminism that are explicitly liberal, or versions of liberalism that are explicitly feminist. By bringing together some of the most respected and well-known scholars in mainstream political philosophy today, Amy R. Baehr challenges the reader to reconsider the dominant view that liberalism and feminism are 'incompatible.'.

On March, 24, 2020, 818 cases of COVID-19 had been reported in New South Wales, Australia, and new cases were increasing at an exponential rate. In anticipation of resource constraints arising in clinical settings as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a working party of ten ethicists was convened at the University of Sydney to draft an ethics framework to support resource allocation decisions. The framework guides decision-makers using a question-and-answer format, in language that avoids philosophical and medical technicality. The (...) working party met five times over the following week and then submitted a draft Framework for consideration by two groups of intensivists and one group of academic ethicists. It was also presented to a panel on a national current affairs programme. The Framework was then revised on the basis of feedback from these sources and made publicly available online on April 3, ten days after the initial meeting. The framework is published here in full to stimulate ongoing discussion about rapid development of user-friendly clinical ethics resources in ongoing and future pandemics. (shrink)

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

Although e-learning has become an important feature to promote learning experience, still little is known about the readiness of adult learners for e-learning in continuing vocational education. By exploring perceived challenges and benefits, it was our aim to identify dimensions that define e-learning readiness. Therefore, we conducted a study design with qualitative and quantitative components. It consisted of both, semi-structured interviews, as well as an online survey regarding biography, personality, learning behavior, and general attitudes toward e-learning. The continuing vocational education (...) course that we were investigating comes from the field of project management. The learner group was heterogeneous regarding their biographical and occupational background. Our results suggest several dimensions of e-learning readiness which are namely: motivation, learning strategies/regulation, attitudes toward learning, and personality-associated aspects as well as digital literacy. These findings are in line with previous research to only some extent, but reveal the necessity to redefine single dimensions of e-learning readiness to develop an inventory that is generalizable for different adult learner groups. Based on these assumptions a new measure for e-learning readiness needs to be proposed in future research as a next step. (shrink)

ICTs, personal data, digital rights, the GDPR, data privacy, online security… these terms, and the concepts behind them, are increasingly common in our lives. Some of us may be familiar with them, but others are less aware of the growing role of ICTs and data in our lives - and the potential risks this creates. These risks are even more pronounced for vulnerable groups in society. People can be vulnerable in different, often overlapping, ways, which place them at a disadvantage (...) to the majority of citizens; Table 3 in this guide presents some of the many forms and causes of vulnerability. As a result, vulnerable people need greater support to navigate the digital world, and to ensure that they are able to exercise their rights. This guide explains where such support can be found, and also answers the following questions: - What are the main ethical and legal issues around ICTs for vulnerable citizens? - Who is vulnerable in Europe? - How do issues around ICTs affect vulnerable people in particular? This guide is a resource for members of vulnerable groups, people who work with vulnerable groups, and citizens more broadly. It is also useful for data controllers1 who collect data about vulnerable citizens. While focused on citizens in Europe, it may be of interest to people in other parts of the world. It forms part of the Citizens’ Information Pack produced by the PANELFIT project, and is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. You are welcome to translate this guide into other languages. Please send us a link to online versions in other languages, so that we can add them to the project website. (shrink)

The aim of this workshop was to ask potential end-users of the citizens’ information pack on legal and ethical issues around ICTs the following questions: What is your knowledge of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and what actions have you taken in response to these regulations? What challenges are you experiencing in ensuring the protection and security of your project data, and compliance with the GDPR, within existing data management processes/systems? What information/tools/resources do you need to overcome these challenges? (...) What are the best formats/channels for receiving, sharing and acting upon this information? What is the most appropriate structure/format for the citizens’ information pack? (shrink)

Organizations differ in the extent to which they emphasize the importance of status, yet most extant research on the role of status at work has utilized a limited view of status as merely a matter of a person’s status rank. In contrast, we examine people’s perceptions of the extent to which having status matters in their work context and explore the behavioral implications of such perceptions. We offer a new construct, perceived status importance, defined as employees’ subjective assessment of the (...) degree to which people within their organization are preoccupied with status. Relying on social comparison theory, we propose that higher perceived status importance triggers envy, which leads to interpersonal deviance. Across three studies, using multiwave survey and experimental designs, we find support for these relationships. We also find support for the mitigating influence of core self-evaluations on the perceived status importance—envy relationship. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

Background: Nurses and midwives have a professional obligation to promote health and prevent disease, and therefore they have an essential role to play in vaccination. Despite this, some nurses and midwives have been found to take an anti-vaccination stance and promulgate misinformation about vaccines, often using Facebook as a platform to do so. Research question: This article reports on one component and dataset from a larger study – ‘the positives, perils and pitfalls of Facebook for nurses’. It explores the specific (...) issue of nurses and midwives who take an anti-vaccination stance, deemed to be unprofessional by crossing professional boundaries and by providing medical information on Facebook that is not within their scope of practice. Participants: Data were collected via an online worldwide survey from nurse and midwife participants, distributed and ‘snowballed’ through relevant nursing and midwifery groups on Facebook. In total, 1644 Registered Nurses and Midwives, and Enrolled Nurses worldwide attempted the online survey. There were 1100 completed surveys and 54 partially completed surveys. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted online using Skype® with 17 participants in Australia. Ethical considerations: Ethical processes and procedures have been adhered to relating to privacy, confidentiality and anonymity of the participants. Findings/results: A mixed-methods approach was used, including descriptive and content analysis of the quantitative survey data and thematic analysis of the qualitative interview data. The main theme ‘blurred boundaries’ was generated, which comprised three sub-themes: ‘follow the science, ‘abuse of power and erosion of trust’ and ‘the moral and ethical responsibility to safeguard public health’. The results offer an important and unique understanding of how nurses and midwives interpret the conduct of fellow health professionals as unprofessional and crossing the professional boundary if they used Facebook to promulgate anti-vaccination messages and/or give medical advice online. Conclusion: There are many positives and negatives for nurses and midwives associated with using Facebook for personal and professional communication, which is in keeping with the results of the larger study from which this article is taken. Professional behaviour is a key theme in the larger research as is the ethical construct of ‘every act has a consequence’; however, in this article, the theme ‘blurred boundaries’ offers an overall understanding of how nurses and midwives interpret the behaviour of their colleagues who espouse anti-vaccination sentiment and/or give medical advice online that is outside their scope of practice and education. (shrink)

We describe the case of an eighty‐four‐year‐old man with disseminated lung cancer who had been receiving palliative care in the hospital and was found by nursing staff unresponsive, with clinically obvious signs of death, including rigor mortis. Because there was no documentation to the contrary, the nurses commenced cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called a code blue, resulting in resuscitative efforts that continued for around twenty minutes. In discussion with the hospital ethicist, senior nurses justified these actions, mainly citing disciplinary and medicolegal (...) concerns. We argue that moral harms arise from CPR performed on a corpse and that legal concerns about failing to perform it are unfounded. We contend that such efforts are an unintended consequence of managerialist policies mandating do‐not‐resuscitate orders and advance care plans and of defensive practices that can value the interests of institutions and practitioners over those of patients. Health management teaching should include managerialism and its pitfalls, while clinician training should prioritize ethical reasoning and legal knowledge over defensive practice. (shrink)

Le volume 21-22 de la revue belge Sextant regroupe 14 contributions en français de chercheuses et chercheurs de divers centres d’études et universités européens. Il s’agit de la publication des actes d’un colloque international organisé en mai 2004 par le Groupe d’Étude pour l’Histoire de l’Immigration et le Groupe interdisciplinaire d’Études sur les Femmes de l’Université libre de Bruxelles. Alors que l’histoire des femmes immigrantes est déjà explorée outre-Atlantique depuis les années 1980...

This paper describes the lifeworld of one individual, Ann, in an attempt to elucidate the existential impact of early stage multiple sclerosis. Drawing on Ann's own reflections captured in a relatively unstructured interview, I construct a narrative around her first year of living with the diagnosis. Then, existential-phenomenological analysis reveals how Ann's life - lived in and through a particular body and lifeworld context - is disrupted. The unity between her body and self can no longer be taken for granted. (...) The existential possibilities inherent in her lived body are diminished and have to be renegotiated. Her sense of identity, project, relations with others and present/future plans are threatened. Ann's illness is encountered in the context of her life activities and relationships. This is the intertwining of body, self and world. To live with multiple sclerosis is to experience a global sense of disorder - a disorder which incorporates a changed relation with one's body, a transformation in the surrounding world, a threat to the self, and a change in one's relation to others. (shrink)

In 1991, Linda Buck and Richard Axel identified the multigene family expressing odor receptors. Their discovery transformed research on olfaction overnight, and Buck and Axel were awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Behind this success lies another, less visible study about the methodological ingenuity of Buck. This hidden tale holds the key to answering a fundamental question in discovery analysis: What makes specific discovery tools fit their tasks? Why do some strategies turn out to be more (...) fruitful than others? The fit of a method with an experimental system often establishes the success of a discovery. However, the underlying reasoning of discovery is hard to codify. These difficulties point toward an element of discovery analysis routinely sidelined as a mere biographical element in the philosophical analysis of science: the individual discoverer’s role. I argue that the individual researcher is not a replaceable epistemic element in discovery analysis. This article draws on contemporary oral history, including interviews with Buck and other actors key to developments in late 1980s olfaction. (shrink)

This article summarizes Linda Martin Alcoff's Rape and Resistance. Alcoff's analysis centers on a political and philosophical defense of the need to recognize the complexity of both the phenomenon of sexual assault and the various political attempts to counter it. Such complexity extends to the process of describing an experience of sexual assault, which Alcoff argues is always shaped by a multitude of political and social discourses. Alcoff's Foucauldian analysis results in an innovative description of the harms of sexual (...) assault, one that focuses on the ways in which experiences of sexual assault prohibit the active involvement of the subject in the development of their sexual subjectivity. Recognizing that gender-based violence is a global phenomenon, Alcoff nevertheless argues that place-specific instances of such violence are contextualized by the larger phenomenon, which is heterogeneous to its core. The article concludes by posing several questions to Alcoff, centered on the themes of the ethics of sexual experimentation, assailants' ascription of hyperagency to targets of sexual assault, and how sexual assault may influence the sexual subjectivity of maleidentified victims, particularly those who were assaulted as children. (shrink)

This essay focuses on how we embody the language we speak: how an audience "reads" the body of a speaker as it both constructs the positionality of that speaking subject and construes that subject's discursive authority. Building on the work of Linda Brodkey and Michelle Fine, I explore what is at stake when university students harass a faculty member by accusing that teacher of not embodying authority in the proper form (body).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, “Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice”W. Ann StokesEstelle Jorgensen has written a most interesting paper contrasting four different concepts of the relationship between theory and practice, and pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Each approach introduces insights that the others have missed, but is not sufficient in itself to explain all the relationships between theory and practice. In (...) response to the concept of "dichotomy," I am also sympathetic to the attempt to distinguish practice and theory because it identifies two important constituents of experience, and it provides a fruitful way of investigating the relationship between the two concepts. However, I believe that a concept of dichotomy may put the two categoriees in too distant a relationship with each other. This distance may prevent us from recognizing the "interconnections and cross-fertilizations" that are often possible between them.The idea of "polarity" opens up the possibility of focusing on the ground [End Page 102] between the two concepts. It also provides a framework for allowing "practice to bubble up into theory," and "theory to bubble up into practice." Given that a theory may bring about a range of different practices and that practices may be based upon a range of differing theories, one needs to be able to move easily between the two worlds. Imagination, intuition, and rational thinking all contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the two concepts. In this situation of polarity one should not expect to find "a theory perfectly translated into a particular practice, or a practice drawing entirely and fully on one particular theory."I am also sympathetic to the view that "theory without practice is mentalism," and that "practice without theory is activism or instrumentalism bare of guiding principles," but like Jorgensen I find the concept of fusion the least helpful of the four concepts. Given the fact that very rarely (if ever) is theory perfectly exemplified in practice, or practice based solely upon one specific theory, the concept of fusion in many instances is too absolute. I am open to the suggestion that moral principles as well as aesthetic ones should guide the practice of music education despite the difficulties that a multiplicity of perspectives opens up. I also agree that democratic ideals can offer us one way of guiding the decisions made in the classroom and can offer a rallying point for persons coming from different ethnic, religious, political, and cultural backgrounds.The dialectical approach opens up a way to negotiate among differences of opinion and beliefs that influence practice. It assumes that there is no one perfect perspective on the relationship between theory and practice. The dialectical approach provides (1)a framework to investigate the theories and practices of which practitioners are aware, (2)opportunities to examine how practitioners adjudicate them, and (3)explanations of how and why they decide to act "in their particular lived situations." In contrast to the ontological approach, I like Jorgensen's epistemological approach to the investigation of theory and practice. It offers another perspective in addition to the influence that ontological theories can have in guiding music education practice.My view of the ideal relationship between theory and practice is one that acknowledges the differences between the two concepts, but allows for a variety of relationships between the two. It is one that recognizes that theory should influence practice and that practice should influence theory in an ongoing and continuous reciprocal exchange. It entails being sensitive to a variety of theories and particular practices, and being skilled at being able to pick which particular theory or theories best explains the practice observed.In addition to the concepts of dichotomy, polarity, fusion, and dialectic, another possible concept of the relationship between theory and practice might be based upon Michael Lewis, Margaret Sullivan, and Linda Michalson's view [End Page 103] of the "cognitive-emotional fugue."1 This perspective has the advantage of being very flexible. The authors describe emotion and cognition as being neither separate nor independent processes. "Rather both are elements of a continuous, inseparable stream of behavior like the parts of a fugue in which the theme is often lost... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, “Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice”W. Ann StokesEstelle Jorgensen has written a most interesting paper contrasting four different concepts of the relationship between theory and practice, and pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Each approach introduces insights that the others have missed, but is not sufficient in itself to explain all the relationships between theory and practice. In (...) response to the concept of "dichotomy," I am also sympathetic to the attempt to distinguish practice and theory because it identifies two important constituents of experience, and it provides a fruitful way of investigating the relationship between the two concepts. However, I believe that a concept of dichotomy may put the two categoriees in too distant a relationship with each other. This distance may prevent us from recognizing the "interconnections and cross-fertilizations" that are often possible between them.The idea of "polarity" opens up the possibility of focusing on the ground [End Page 102] between the two concepts. It also provides a framework for allowing "practice to bubble up into theory," and "theory to bubble up into practice." Given that a theory may bring about a range of different practices and that practices may be based upon a range of differing theories, one needs to be able to move easily between the two worlds. Imagination, intuition, and rational thinking all contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the two concepts. In this situation of polarity one should not expect to find "a theory perfectly translated into a particular practice, or a practice drawing entirely and fully on one particular theory."I am also sympathetic to the view that "theory without practice is mentalism," and that "practice without theory is activism or instrumentalism bare of guiding principles," but like Jorgensen I find the concept of fusion the least helpful of the four concepts. Given the fact that very rarely (if ever) is theory perfectly exemplified in practice, or practice based solely upon one specific theory, the concept of fusion in many instances is too absolute. I am open to the suggestion that moral principles as well as aesthetic ones should guide the practice of music education despite the difficulties that a multiplicity of perspectives opens up. I also agree that democratic ideals can offer us one way of guiding the decisions made in the classroom and can offer a rallying point for persons coming from different ethnic, religious, political, and cultural backgrounds.The dialectical approach opens up a way to negotiate among differences of opinion and beliefs that influence practice. It assumes that there is no one perfect perspective on the relationship between theory and practice. The dialectical approach provides (1)a framework to investigate the theories and practices of which practitioners are aware, (2)opportunities to examine how practitioners adjudicate them, and (3)explanations of how and why they decide to act "in their particular lived situations." In contrast to the ontological approach, I like Jorgensen's epistemological approach to the investigation of theory and practice. It offers another perspective in addition to the influence that ontological theories can have in guiding music education practice.My view of the ideal relationship between theory and practice is one that acknowledges the differences between the two concepts, but allows for a variety of relationships between the two. It is one that recognizes that theory should influence practice and that practice should influence theory in an ongoing and continuous reciprocal exchange. It entails being sensitive to a variety of theories and particular practices, and being skilled at being able to pick which particular theory or theories best explains the practice observed.In addition to the concepts of dichotomy, polarity, fusion, and dialectic, another possible concept of the relationship between theory and practice might be based upon Michael Lewis, Margaret Sullivan, and Linda Michalson's view [End Page 103] of the "cognitive-emotional fugue."1 This perspective has the advantage of being very flexible. The authors describe emotion and cognition as being neither separate nor independent processes. "Rather both are elements of a continuous, inseparable stream of behavior like the parts of a fugue in which the theme is often lost... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond DisciplineOn the Status of Bodily Difference in PhilosophyEmily Anne ParkerMuch deserved attention has recently been directed to the fact that philosophy faculty are surprisingly homogeneous when compared to faculty in other fields, not only in the humanities and social sciences but also in the natural sciences (Alcoff 2011, 7–8). Perhaps it is as a result of this bodily homogeneity that sexual harassment and sexual assault in philosophy (...) departments are routine and that stories about such experiences, when they can be shared, are questioned or ignored. Certainly such experiences deserve attention. But they also deserve philosophical examination. Linda Martín Alcoff points out that a study of the relationship between percentages of (predominantly white, hetero, cisgendered, normatively abled) women in a department and the status of that department in Brian Leiter’s Philosophical Gourmet demonstrates a “reverse correlation, where the higher the percentages of women, the lower the rankings. Departments concerned about their Leiter rankings would be ‘rational,’ then to forego hiring too many women” (Alcoff 2011, 8). Alcoff suggests that instead of simply counting the nonwhite, cisgendered, heterosexual, normatively abled men in the field, we need to consider the connection between the “climate for women and the attitude toward feminist philosophy” and (as her own work elsewhere would suggest) the philosophy of race. Clearly Alcoff is right to suggest that we should not think of sexual harassment as the obstacle to participation of a very small sampling of bodily diversity in the field, but rather as a circular indicator and cause of a larger problem. [End Page 222]But what is the problem?I would like to suggest that the problem, still underdiscussed, is the implicit disciplining of what counts as philosophical. It is this quiet yet ubiquitous questioning that not only keeps philosophy homogeneous, but also prevents most critics of that homogeneity from doing more than reporting limited demographical information about the field. To be sure, when one wants to argue that there is something wrong with the culture of philosophy as a field, it seems necessary to marshal data. And yet it will always be the case that such studies can never answer questions about how a culture develops, what its assumptions, horizons, and cosmologies are. For this one needs (critical race, feminist, ability, queer, trans, economic, ecological) philosophy. And yet, circularly, disciplining what counts as philosophical sets limits to what questions can be explored.Kristie Dotson, Gayle Salamon, and Alexis Shotwell have each in separate contexts pointed out that what counts as “philosophy” should be recognized as the philosophical question that it itself apparently is (Dotson 2011, 2012; Salamon 2009; Shotwell 2010). This conversation about what counts as philosophy is directly related to the status not only of white hetero women in the field, but also the status of anyone who challenges the philosophical centrality of normatively raced-classed-abled-gendered bodies. In a recent paper, Dotson reflects on having been asked repeatedly, “How is this paper philosophy?” (Dotson 2012, 407). This question is extremely common, and as Shotwell points out, having to answer it is “a common experience for people who attempt to do work in philosophy while departing in archive and method from accepted norms” (117). Shotwell further suggests that it’s not just archive and method that make one suspect; it’s also the questions that one is willing to ask about oneself, about community, about world. Read together, Dotson and Shotwell make it clear not only that the question of whether one’s work is or is not philosophical is a common question, but that this is the case precisely because it is taken for granted what philosophy is, perhaps especially by those who ask whether X is or is not philosophy. Otherwise the question of how some project or other is philosophy simply wouldn’t be articulable as a question.For the moment I would like to take a widely common and implicit definition of philosophy seriously: “Philosophy” is whatever directs fundamental questions at itself. Perhaps this means that philosophy is the art of attempting to discern the creative within the wrongly presumed. We could then say that philosophy asks, What do we presuppose? Why, and... (shrink)