In this article, we consider similarities and differences in emotion research on older adults and individuals with bipolar disorder (BD). Recent research and theory within both areas has focused on the importance of positive emotion, but the case of older adults is generally considered a case of “adaptive” positivity whereas BD is usually considered maladaptive positivity. We explore the paradox of the same phenomenon being labeled as adaptive in one group and yet maladaptive in another, with attention to commonalities and (...) distinctions between these two groups. We identify only limited areas of overlap, and suggest a refinement of models of positive emotionality in the two populations. (shrink)

This special edition ofJLMEcenters on a novel proposal for a national PrEP access program with the potential to break through a failed status quo.

This paper argues that existing food security and food sovereignty approaches are inadequate to fully understand contradictory human development, nutrition, and productivity trends in Nepalese small-scale agriculture. In an attempt to bridge this gap, we developed a new food wellbeing approach that combines insights from food security, food sovereignty, and social wellbeing perspectives. We used the approach to frame 65 semi-structured interviews in a cluster of villages in Kaski district in the mid-hills of Nepal on various aspects of food security, (...) agriculture, off-farm livelihood opportunities, and women’s wellbeing. Our results indicate that context-specific subjective and social relational factors highlighted by the food wellbeing approach are key to understanding a paradox of increased food security, yet decreasing sustainability of small-scale agriculture. Increased levels of male out-migration and opportunities for local off-farm work have increased local capacity to purchase food. The positive consequences for food security are indicated by evidence that households with non-farm income sources had better food sufficiency, absorption capacity, nutritional quality, and stability of food supply. These off-farm employment opportunities have also led to the greater involvement of low caste groups and women in small-scale agriculture. This has been empowering for both groups and led to an increase in wellbeing, particularly for those women who have become de facto heads of household. Yet, small landholdings, persistent patterns of unequal and absentee land ownership, sharecropping, women’s overwork, and the aspirations of low caste farmers and women away from agriculture are simultaneously driving the erosion of local small-scale agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability. (shrink)

Nietzsche is a popular source of inspiration for transhumanist writers. Some, such as Sorgner and More, argue that Nietzsche ought to be considered a precursor of the movement. Transhumanism is a philosophy committed to the desirability of using technology to transform human beings, through significant alteration of their brains and bodies, into a new posthuman species. One of the defining characteristics of transhumanism is the desire for personal immortality. I argue that this feature of transhumanism is wholly incompatible with Nietzsche’s (...) philosophy, and a close examination of this disagreement brings out the degree to which transhumanists and Nietzsche differ in their values and philosophical commitments. Nietzsche does not think that personal immortality is desirable or metaphysically possible. I show that his views have more in common with philosophers like Bernard Williams and Derek Parfit than they do with transhumanism. (shrink)

It’s intuitive to think that an intentional action requires that the agent knows that she’s doing so. In light of some apparent counterexamples, Setiya suggests that this intuitive insight is better captured in terms of credence: performing an intentional action requires the agent to have a higher credence that she’s doing so than she would have otherwise. I argue that there is no such thing as an agent’s credence for what she’s doing. After distinguishing this thesis from an idea some (...) defend under the slogan “deliberation crowds out prediction”, I explore the thesis’s broader epistemological implications for the belief-credence relation. (shrink)

This book introduces and applies Foucault's most important concepts and procedures, and does so specifically for a psychology readership. Drawing on the recently published Collège de France lectures Abnormal (2003) and Psychiatric Power (2006), Foucauldian Analytics and Psychology is as useful to those concerned with Foucault's engagement with the "psy-disciplines" as it is to those interested in the practical application of Foucault's critical research methods.

Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? In this book Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific (...) realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike. (shrink)

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors (...) We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

In the first monograph on Lyotard and education, Derek R. Ford approaches Lyotard's thought as pedagogical in itself. The result is a novel, soft, and accessible study of Lyotard organized around two inhuman educations: that of "the system" and that of "the human." The former enforces an interminable process of development, dialogue and exchange, while the latter finds its force in the mute, secret, opaque, and inarticulable. Threading together a range of Lyotard's work through four pedagogical processes-reading, writing, voicing, (...) and listening-the author insists on the distinct educational logics that can uphold or interrupt different ways of being-together in the world, touching on a range of topics from literacy and aesthetics to time and political-economy. While Inhuman Educations can serve as an introduction to Lyotard's philosophy, it also constitutes a singular, provocative, and fresh take on his thought. (shrink)

This paper attempts to specify the conditions under which a psychological explanation can undermine or debunk a set of beliefs. The focus will be on moral and religious beliefs, where a growing debate has emerged about the epistemic implications of cognitive science. Recent proposals by Joshua Greene and Paul Bloom will be taken as paradigmatic attempts to undermine beliefs with psychology. I will argue that a belief p may be undermined whenever: (i) p is evidentially based on an intuition which (...) (ii) can be explained by a psychological mechanism that is (iii) unreliable for the task of believing p; and (iv) any other evidence for belief p is based on rationalization. I will also consider and defend two equally valid arguments for establishing unreliability: the redundancy argument and the argument from irrelevant factors. With this more specific understanding of debunking arguments, it is possible to develop new replies to some objections to psychological debunking arguments from both ethics and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Is there one univocal or generic notion of ground? Monists answer yes, while pluralists answer no. Pluralists argue that monism cannot meet plausible constraints on an adequate theory of ground. My aim in this paper is to articulate a monist theory of ground that can satisfy the pluralist constraints in a way that leaves the pluralists with no reasons not to endorse the monist picture of ground. I do this by adopting a tripartite conception of ground and then showing that (...) it has the resources to vindicate monism while satisfying the pluralist constraints on a theory of ground. (shrink)

By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology. Semantics is the study of meaning. But what exactly is "meaning"? (...) What is the exact target of semantic theory? Much of the early work in natural language semantics was accompanied by extensive reflection on the aims of semantic theory, and the form a theory must take to meet those aims. But this meta-theoretical reflection has not kept pace with recent theoretical innovations. This volume re-addresses these questions concerning the foundations of natural language semantics in light of the current state-of-the-art in semantic theorising. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Negotiating Maternal IdentityAdrienne Rich’s Legacy for Inquiry into the Political-Philosophical Dimensions of Pregnancy and ChildbirthCandace JohnsonGiving birth has been described as the crossing of an imaginary threshold, which separates an independent maternal self from some sort of dual or subordinate existence. The metaphor of a border has also been employed to demonstrate this transformation, which may be liberating, oppressive, or some complex combination thereof (Weir 2006; Martinez 2004). What (...) happens, in psychic and sociopolitical terms, in the journey across this border? Can a woman, as an independent, autonomous being, preserve her identity, her selfhood as a mother? Is the transition to motherhood an expression of culture or nature? The answers to these questions are infinitely complex, yet are at the core of philosophical, political, and personal explorations of the maternal. Central to these explorations are academic critiques and personal responses to the biomedical mediation of the transition to motherhood. For some women, medical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth is inherently oppressive, whereas for other women such intervention is a marker of privilege. In a groundbreaking volume published in 1998, Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert argue that women respond to different biomedical interventions in pragmatic ways, which reflect their lived experiences. They claim that “it is more appropriate to understand women’s responses in medical settings as reflecting their daily experiences as part of a domestic group, a community, or a society” (19). [End Page 65]I would like to advance this analysis by suggesting that women respond to biomedical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth in ways that reflect not simply their practical needs and realities, but important details about inequality and identity. Women’s relative degrees of power and agency in society are expressed through their preferences for care during pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, and in connection with the (structural) dynamics of inequality, these preferences reflect the complexities of shifting, negotiated, maternal identities. In order to consider the ways in which women negotiate maternal identity through their preferences concerning care during pregnancy and childbirth, I will examine the contributions of Adrienne Rich, which effectively serve as the foundation for this and countless other areas of women’s and gender studies. In Of Woman Born, Rich dedicates two full chapters to childbirth, and explains in these chapters that the institution of childbirth has come to dominate and eclipse women’s experiences. Moreover, the patriarchal circumscription of childbirth is reinforced by the isolation of childbirth (and motherhood) from other life events. Rich demonstrates these problems through the metaphor of “giving birth to oneself ” (29), which has (at least) two distinct meanings: self actualization and self replacement.My investigation into these meanings will include an examination of Rich’s philosophical treatment of pregnancy and childbirth and an assessment of the sociopolitical implications of both conceptions of “giving birth to oneself.” I will then subject these conceptions to empirical testing, as Rich insists. Such empirical testing is crucial because the social and political dimensions of the institutions of childbirth and motherhood are complex and differ from one context to the next. Rich explains that[t]o hold power over others means that the powerful is permitted a kind of short-cut through the complexity of human personality. He does not have to enter intuitively into the souls of the powerless, or to hear what they are saying in their many languages, including the language of silence. Colonialism exists by virtue of this short-cut—how else could so few live among so many and understand so little?(65)This essay will avoid a similar shortcut often taken by theorists, which builds philosophical arguments without empirical support. The empirical cases to be considered in the context of philosophical debate include Canada, Honduras, and Cuba, and details of each case will be drawn from extensive interview data from a larger empirical study.1 In the Canadian context, resistance to the constraining effects of motherhood as institution is reduced to resistance to medical regulation of pregnancy and childbirth. The benefit indicated by this resistance is that women have found ways to expand their range of options and reinterpret the birthing event, thereby integrating it into other realms [End Page 66... (shrink)

The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

According to constitutive reductionism of Derek Parfit, a subject/person is not a separate existing being but his existence consists in the existence of a brain and body, performance of actions, thinking and occurrence of other physical and mental events. The identity of the subject in time comes down only to “Relation R” - mental consistency and/or connectedness – elicited by appropriate reasons. In the following article, I will try, relying on Frank Johnson's Knowledge Argument, to argue in favour (...) of the following conclusions: a person/subject is a “fact”irreducible to body and physical relations with the environment and a subject is something/”fact” non-reducible to mental occurrences. (shrink)

This chapter defends a view of semantics on which developing a semantic theory closely resembles developing a scale of measurement. The view helps explain how semantics has made so much progress despite deep disagreements about the target of semantic theorizing (e.g., between those who maintain that semantics is characterizing something psychological, and those who maintain that it is characterizing something social), how appeals to set-theoretic abstracta make sense despite Benacerraf-style worries and despite the fact that set-theoretic entities fit badly with (...) standard (e.g., causal) metasemantic views, and why the threat of radical context sensitivity does not undermine the semantic project. (shrink)

According to Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is the result of the rapid growth and unusual size of human brains. Bickerton argues that each of the properties distinguishing human intelligence and consciousness from that of other animals can be shown to derive straightforwardly from properties of (...) language. In essence, language arose as a representational system, not a means of communication or a skill, and not a product of culture but an evolutionary adaptation. The author stresses the necessity of viewing intelligence in evolutionary terms, seeing it not as problem solving but as a way of maintaining homeostasis - the preservation of those conditions most favorable to an organism, the optimal achievable conditions for survival and well-being. The term protolanguage is used to describe the stringing together of symbols that prehuman hominids employed. "It did not allow them to turn today's imagination into tomorrow's fact. But it is just this power to transform imagination into fact that distinguishes human behavior from that of our ancestral species, and indeed from that of all other species. It is exactly what enables us to change our behavior, or invent vast ranges of new behavior, practically overnight, with no concomitant genetic changes." Language and Human Behavior should be of interest to anyone in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences and to all those concerned with the role of language in human behavior. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has argued that all reasonable forms of inconsistency of attitude consist of having the same attitude type towards a pair of inconsistent contents (A-type inconsistency). We suggest that he is mistaken in this, offering a number of intuitive examples of pairs of distinct attitudes types with consistent contents which are intuitively inconsistent (B-type inconsistency). We further argue that, despite the virtues of Schroeder's elegant A-type expressivist semantics, B-type inconsistency is in many ways the more natural choice in developing (...) an expressivist account of moral discourse. We close by showing how to adapt ordinary formality-based accounts of logicality to define a B-type account of logical inconsistency and distinguish it from both semantic and pragmatic inconsistency. In sum, we provide a roadmap of how to develop a successful B-type expressivism. (shrink)

There are two main views about the nature of personal identity. I shall briehy describe these views, say without argument which I believe to be true, and then discuss the implications of this view for one of the main conceptions of rationality. This conception I shall call "C1assical Prudence." I shall argue that, on what I believe to be the true view about personal identity, Classical Prudence is indefensible.

There are many different oughts. There is a moral ought, a prudential ought, an epistemic ought, the legal ought, the ought of etiquette, and so on. These oughts can prescribe incompatible actions. What I morally ought to do may be different from what I self-interestedly ought to do. Philosophers have claimed that these conflicts are resolved by an authoritative ought, or by facts about what one ought to do simpliciter or all-things-considered. However, the only coherent notion of an ought simpliciter (...) has preposterous first-order normative commitments. It is more reasonable to reject the ought simpliciter in favor of the form of normative pluralism advocated in (Tiffany 2007). (shrink)

Introduction -- Creation and the other -- Originality and invention -- Inventive language and the literary event -- Singularity -- Reading and responding -- Performance -- Form, meaning, context -- Responsibility and ethics -- An everyday impossibility.

"There is a growing unease among geographers with the notion of geography as spatial analysis but, as yet, no book has appeared which is able to assimilate and develop the profound methodological developments and changes in philosophy which have occurred since the sixties. Ideology, Science and Human Geography re-examines the nature of geography after the positivist revolution and provides a critique of the discipline from the perspective of the social sciences in general. For Gregory, the new geography's commitment to the (...) paradigms of natural science was simply a reaffirmation of the Victorian tradition of geography. The ideological consequences of this are discussed in relation to recent changes in the social sciences to argue that a scientific geography must provide explanations which are at once structural, reflexive and committed. In questioning many of the assumptions of quantitative methodology the book seeks, above all, to reinstate man into the study of geography." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

The re-emergence of virtue ethics (henceforth VE) as both an academic theory and as an approach to applied ethics has contributed to the re-invigoration of ethical debate. It has encouraged reflective consideration of the nature of professionals' commitments to various values that constitute their personal and professional character, both collectively and individually. This paper argues that whilst there may be some value in the re-orientation of applied ethics towards questions of character, it has its limitations, including a tendency to be (...) reduced rather too easily to self-serving ends that ultimately favour dominant social groups. It should therefore be treated with caution by social professionals. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that most or all perceptual experiences are infused with imaginative contributions. While the idea is not new, it has few supporters. I begin by developing a framework for the underlying debate. Central to that framework is the claim that a perceptual experience is infused with imagination if and only if there are self-generated contributions to that experience that have ampliative effect on its phenomenal and directed elements. Self-generated ingredients to experience are produced by the subject as (...) opposed to being received from the world. Some form of stored content is an obvious starting point. Ampliative effects are aspects of perceptual experience that outstrip the content the senses get from the world. This conceptual framework is applied to three case studies: object-sameness and object-kind recognition (section 2), memory colour (section 3), and perceptual constancy and amodal completion (section 4). If the three cases and my overall analysis are accepted (a substantive if), then we have a forceful inductive argument for perception being infused with imagination. (shrink)

Traversing the fields of pedagogy, philosophy, and political theory, this book develops a marxist theory of education that will be useful for academics and activists alike. The second edition includes two additional chapters as well as a new preface and revisions throughout.

You might think a simple “No” would suffice as an answer. But there are features of Kant’s ethics that appear to be strikingly similar to virtue oriented views, so striking that some Kantians themselves have argued that Kant’s ethics in fact shares these features with virtue ethics. In what follows, I will argue against this view, though along the way I will acknowledge the features of Kant’s view that make it appear more like a kind of virtue ethics than it (...) really is. My plan is to first set out the distinctive features of what is nowadays called “virtue ethics”, those features that make it a genuine alternative to other normative theories. I then consider the features Kant’s view might share in common with virtue ethics and the case for saying that it is, therefore, fundamentally the same sort of theory. I follow these two sections with an argument against this position. I want to warn you at the outset, however, that my argument itself will be quite unsurprising, since it is an argument that has been central to the way in which most philosophers have understood Kant’s ethics. Any novelty I can claim here is in my account of what makes virtue ethics a genuine alternative to other normative theories, and my defense of this argument against those, in particular Barbara Herman, who have apparently found the argument unpersuasive. (shrink)

Thomas Reid (1710–96) is increasingly being seen as a highly significant philosopher and a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. This new edition of Reid's classic philosophical text in the philosophy of mind at long last gives scholars a complete, critically edited text of the Inquiry. The critical text is based on the fourth life-time edition (1785). A selection of related documents showing the development of Reid's thought, textual notes, bibliographical details of previous editions and a full introduction by the (...) editor makes this an important contribution to the study of this increasingly respected philosopher. -/- Key Features - Complete, critically edited text of the Inquiry accompanied by a judicious selection of manuscript evidence relating to its composition - Comprehensive Introduction providing an historical and philosophical account of the formation of the Inquiry - Detailed textual notes which include bibliographical details and allusions, translations, references to secondary literature and selected passages from Reid's manuscripts. (shrink)

The question "What is mental illness?" raises many issues in many contexts, personal, social, legal, and scientific. This chapter reviews mental health problems as they appear to the person with the problems, and to family and friends-before the person attends the clinic and is given a diagnosis-a time in which whether there really is a problem, as opposed to life's normal troubles and variations, is undecided, as also the nature of the problem, if such it be, and the related matter (...) what kind of expert advice should be sought. Once at the clinic, a diagnosis may be given-using criteria well-worked-out in the diagnostic manuals. The chapter discusses the conceptualizations of mental disorder in the diagnostic manuals, their rationale, and what can and cannot be reasonably expected of them. There are more position statements than definitions, and while they signal many dilemmas, they do not resolve them. Attempts to do so in the surrounding literature on the concept of mental illness are reviewed in the chapter, with conclusions favoring the features emphasized in the diagnostic manuals: distress and impairment. Finally the chapter considers how far the science may help draw boundaries around mental illness. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent, global threat to public health. The development and implementation of effective measures to address AMR is vitally important but presents important ethical questions. This is a policy area requiring further sustained attention to ensure that policies proposed in National Action Plans on AMR are ethically acceptable and preferable to alternatives that might be fairer or more effective, for instance. By ethically analysing case studies of coercive actions to address AMR across countries, we can better (...) inform policy in a context-specific manner. In this article, I consider an example of coercive antimicrobial stewardship policy in Canada, namely restrictions on livestock farmers' access to certain antibiotics for animal use without a vet's prescription. I introduce and analyse two ethical arguments that might plausibly justify coercive action in this case: the harm principle and a duty of collective easy rescue. In addition, I consider the factors that might generally limit the application of those ethical concepts, such as challenges in establishing causation or evidencing the scale of the harm to be averted. I also consider specifics of the Canadian context in contrast to the UK and Botswana as example settings, to demonstrate how context-specific factors might mean a coercive policy that is ethically justified in one country is not so in another. (shrink)

This book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the evolution of consciousness. It traces its origins back to early man's primordial emotions - those elicited from basic needs such as hunger and thirst.

For Malraux, modernity in art is not only about modern art; it is also about the birth of what he aptly terms “the first universal world of art.” This event was a consequence of the process of metamorphosis which is central to Malraux’s account of the relationship between art and time. The article explains this event, noting also that modern aesthetics has not provided an explanation.

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

"Derek Bok's "Our Underachieving Colleges" is readable, balanced, often wry, and wise. This book should be required reading for every curriculum committee and academic dean.

This paper develops and critiques the two-dimensionalist account of mental content developed by David Chalmers. I first explain Chalmers's account and show that it resists some popular criticisms. I then argue that the main interest of two-dimensionalism lies in its accounts of cognitive significance and of the connection between conceivability and possibility. These accounts hinge on the claim that some thoughts have a primary intension that is necessarily true. In this respect, they are Carnapian, and subject to broadly Quinean attack. (...) The remainder of the paper advances such an attack. I argue that there are possible thinkers who are willing to revise their beliefs in response to expert testimony, and that such thinkers will have no thoughts with necessary primary intensions. I even suggest that many actual humans may well be such thinkers. I go on to argue that these possible thinkers show that the two-dimensionalist accounts fail. (shrink)