Eric Nelson has recently argued that John Rawls’ interpretation of the maxim to respect persons as ends in themselves which grants priority to our least-advantaged citizens violates the liberal commitment to neutrality towards each person’s capability to choose her or his conception of the good. This violation is revealed by the sectarian character of Martha Nussbaum’s list of capabilities, her Aristotelian extension of Rawls’ distributive ethics. I argue that Nelson advances an elitist interpretation of the non-violability of persons, in which (...) the capabilities of oneself are set in opposition to those of an other. He thus overlooks for his purposes the anti-sacrificial telos of the Rawlsian principles of justice which articulates the capabilities of oneself as another. Nelson’s elitism may itself be traced to Nussbaum’s rejection of Rawls’ distributive figuration of capability, the Aristotelian heritage of which is developed by Paul Ricoeur and which underwrites civic phronēsis on societal norms of reciprocity. (shrink)

Is synaesthesia cognitively useful? Individuals with time–space synaesthesia experience time units as idiosyncratic spatial forms, and report that these forms aid them in mentally organising their time. In the present study, we hypothesised that time–space synaesthesia would facilitate performance on a time-related cognitive task. Synaesthetes were not specifically recruited for participation; instead, likelihood of time–space synaesthesia was assessed on a continuous scale based on participants’ responses during a semi-structured interview. Participants performed a month-manipulation task, which involved naming every second month (...) or every third month in reverse-chronological order, beginning and ending with a target month. Using hierarchical multiple regression, we found that time–space synaesthesia corresponded with faster performance on both versions of the task. We propose that time–space synaesthesia may expedite the cognitive manipulation of time-based information. Our results also indicate that synaesthesia is far less unusual than widely believed. (shrink)

Moving away from the strong body of critique of pervasive ‘bad data’ practices by both governments and private actors in the globalized digital economy, this book aims to paint an alternative, more optimistic but still pragmatic picture of the datafied future. The authors examine and propose ‘good data’ practices, values and principles from an interdisciplinary, international perspective. From ideas of data sovereignty and justice, to manifestos for change and calls for activism, this collection opens a multifaceted conversation on the kinds (...) of futures we want to see, and presents concrete steps on how we can start realizing good data in practice. (shrink)

Down Girl is a broad, original, and far ranging analysis of what misogyny really is, how it works, its purpose, and how to fight it. The philosopher Kate Manne argues that modern society's failure to recognize women's full humanity and autonomy is not actually the problem. She argues instead that it is women's manifestations of human capacities -- autonomy, agency, political engagement -- is what engenders misogynist hostility.

This article examines the regulation of Latina youth sexualities in the context of sexual and reproductive health care provision. In-depth interviews with health care providers working in two Latino-serving community health centers are analyzed for how they interpret and respond to the sexual and reproductive practices of their low-income Latina teen patients. The author finds that providers emphasize teenage pregnancy as a social problem among this population to the exclusion of other dimensions of youth sexualities and encourage Latina girls’ adherence (...) to a life course trajectory that conforms to middle-class, heteronormative ideals as a solution to this problem. By relying on such understandings, providers construct meanings of sexual citizenship that require participation in bourgeois heteronormativity. These findings suggest that Latino-serving community health centers, their providers, and their teen patients could benefit from questioning the assumptions that inform providers’ appraisals of Latina youth and developing a more inclusive approach to Latina youth sexualities beyond a discourse of pregnancy prevention. Such efforts could allow community health centers to actively participate in disrupting the structural inequalities that shape their young patients’ lives. (shrink)

How transcription factors achieve their in vivo specificities is a fundamental question in biology. For the Homeotic Complex (HOM/Hox) family of homeoproteins, specificity in vivo is likely to be in part determined by subtle differences in the DNA binding properties inherent in these proteins. Some of these differences in DNA binding are due to sequence differences in the N‐terminal arms of HOM/Hox homeodomains. Evidence also exists to suggest that cofactors can modify HOM/Hox function by cooperative DNA binding interactions. The Drosophila (...) homeoprotein extradenticle (exd) is likely to be one such cofactor. In HOM/Hox proteins, both the conserved ‘YPWM’ peptide motif and the homeodomain are important for interacting with exd. Although exd provides part of the answer as to how specificity is achieved, there may be additional cofactors and mechanisms that have yet to be identified. (shrink)

How size is controlled during animal development remains a fascinating problem despite decades of research. Here we review key concepts in size biology and develop our thesis that much can be learned by studying how different organ sizes are differentially scaled by homeotic selector genes. A common theme from initial studies using this approach is that morphogen pathways are modified in numerous ways by selector genes to effect size control. We integrate these results with other pathways known to regulate organ (...) size in developing a comprehensive model for organ size control. ©2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc BioEssays 30:843–853, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Why hasn’t the Marx-inspired Left seized upon catastrophic climate change as the basis for reconceiving historical materialism and the contradictions fueling anticapitalist struggle in the twenty-first century? Defining core participants as energy users and abusers, anchored in the opposition to fossil-fueled profit and growth rather than in traditional class conflicts, the struggle to create a postcapitalist energy commons can become the leading edge of a more broadly conceived global struggle for a sustainable and just postcapitalist society. The new global movement (...) will be enabled by technologies of green energy microproduction, an energy internet for sharing energy on postcapitalist grids, and efforts to create more sustainable community relationships and practices. Catastrophic climate change can become the occasion for reigniting a Marx-inspired sense of transformative agency and solidarity that will enable us to confront transnational capitalism globally and locally in ways that are beyond the imaginative bounds of the current paper. (shrink)

The free energy principle is notoriously difficult to understand. In this paper, we relate the principle to a framework that philosophers of biology are familiar with: Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. We argue that: systems that minimise free energy are systems with a proper function; and Karl Friston’s notion of implicit modelling can be understood in terms of Millikan’s notion of mapping relations. Our analysis reveals some surprising formal similarities between the two frameworks, and suggests interesting lines of future research. We hope (...) this will aid further philosophical evaluation of the free energy principle. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I present Marx's conception of ideology as a counterpart of his critical analysis of society. I take exception to current Marxist notions of ideology, and I attempt to show that they correspond to Marxism's failure to develop an historical, material analysis of contemporary society, and its consequent reliance upon an idealist theory of social change. I am ultimately interested in utilizing Marx's theory of ideological critique as the basis for a return to a materially grounded social criticism. (...) ;The thesis begins with an analysis of Marx's early philosophical investigations, showing his concept of ideology emerge with his recognition of a pattern of philosophical abstractions from social movement. Marx's demonstration that nineteenth century economists reduced political economy to a static theory of social distribution and reproduction is contrasted with his theory of the dynamics of social production. ;Marx's anti-ideological methodology decrees, however, a continuing need to reassess the social organism, digging beneath prominent theoretical abstractions to reveal the processes of historical development immanent in present society. Modern Marxism shirks this responsibility, countering the abstractions of liberal theory with its own tired categories of class struggle and false consciousness, offering a moral critique rather than an alternative conception of capitalism. ;I present Althusser's theory of ideological practices as the basis for a renewed interest in the historically specific structures of present society. It grounds my critique of the ideological assumption, shared by Marxism and liberalism, that economic relations have priority in theories of social transformation. Applying Marx's materialist, historical methodology to the analysis of contemporary social relations, I conclude that a post-Marxist theory, emphasizing noneconomic contradictions as sources of instability and immanent social change, is now warranted. The traditional economic oppositions of class and consciousness have, I maintain, been superseded rather than merely conditioned by noneconomic social antagonisms. (shrink)

William Burnside was one of the three most important algebraists who were involved in the transformation of group theory from its nineteenth-century origins to a deeper twentieth-century subject. Building on work of earlier mathematicians, they were able to develop sophisticated tools for solving difficult problems. His works are of enormous historical importance; they remain also a source of inspiration and information. The works of his contemporaries, such as Klein, Frobenius, Schur, have been published as also have the works of his (...) immediate successors such as Phillip Hall. All of Burnside's papers are reproduced here, organized chronologically and with a detailed bibliography. Walter Feit has contributed a foreword, and a collection of introductory essays are included to provide a commentary on Burnside's work and set it in perspective along with a modern biography that draws on archive material. This is the first reference volume of Burnside's collected papers, enhanced by a series of critical essays on his work, and is important for group theorists and historians and philosophers of mathematics and fills the gap in this area of literature. (shrink)

I examine the ways in which our cultural expectations with respect to death may be transformed by the legalization of assisted suicide. I suggest the inadequacy of the philosophical framework currently taken as the basis for discussing the advantages as well as the dangers of legalizing assisted suicide. I do not believe that individual autonomy is any sort of possibility for dying patients, regardless of the social policies that surround death in a society, insofar as our individual agency in this (...) situation is necessarily intertwined with that of various relevant others. By means of a theory of agency relations, I attempt to show the dynamic ways in which we may all adjust to the option of assisted suicide as a preferred end-of-life option. My theory of agency relations does not deny individual choice; rather it explains the qualitative complexity of individual choice, as well as its dynamic social process of evolving. (shrink)

Ours is a time of dramatic and confusing transformations in everyday life, many of them originating in the social enfranchisement of women that has occurred over the past twenty-five years. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild demonstrates a widespread phenomenon of work-family imbalance in our society, experienced by people in terms of a time bind, and a devaluation of familial relationships. As large numbers of women have moved into the workplace, familial relations of all sorts have been colonized by what Virginia Held critically (...) refers to as the contractual paradigm. Even the mother/child relationship, representing for Held an alternative feminist paradigm of selfhood and agency, has been in large part "outsourced." I believe that an Arendtian conception of speech and action might enable us to assert anew the grounds for familial relations. If we require a new site upon which to address our human plurality and natality, the postpatriarchal family may provide that new site upon which individuals can freely act to recreate the fabric of human relationships. It would seem to be our moral and political responsibility as social philosophers today to speculatively contribute to the difficult yet imperative task of reconfiguring the family. In this paper, I attempt to articulate the basic assumptions from which such a reconfiguration must begin. (shrink)

The evolutionarily conserved genomic organization of the Hox genes has been a puzzle ever since it was discovered that their order along the chromosome is similar to the order of their functional domains along the antero‐posterior axis. Why has this colinearity been maintained throughout evolution? A close look at regulatory sequences from the mouse Hox clusters(1,2) suggests that enhancer sharing between adjacent Hox genes may be one reason. Moreover, characterizing the activity of one of these mouse enhancers in Drosophila(2) illustrates (...) that despite many similarities, not all Hox clusters are built in the same way. (shrink)

After briefly considering Plato’s objections to rhetoric—it disregards the truth, aiming only to persuade, and it manipulates our emotions rather than instructing us—I turn to the historical Gorgias. The ‘Encomium of Helen’ ascribes to logos virtually all-powerful capacities for persuasion, seduction, and even bewitchment. Here Gorgias celebrates the very things Plato rejects. Yet in the ‘Defense of Palamedes’ considerable anxieties about whether logos actually does possess such strength are voiced: the weakness, not the power, of logos comes to occupy center (...) stage. Gorgias’ own views thus are likely more complex than Plato allows. (shrink)

Contrary to Vaesen's argument that humans are unique with respect to nine cognitive capacities essential for tool use, we suggest that although such cognitive processes contribute to variation in tool use, it does not follow that these capacities arenecessaryfor tool use, nor that tool use shaped cognition per se, given the available data in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral biology.

There are three lines of argument in defence of coercive treatment of patients with mental disorders: arguments regarding (1) societal interests to protect others, (2) the patients' own health interests, and (3) patient autonomy. In this paper, we analyse these arguments in relation to an idealized case, where a person with a mental disorder claims not to want medical treatment for religious reasons. We also discuss who should decide what in situations where patients with mental disorders deny treatment on seemingly (...) rational grounds.We conclude that, in principle, coercive treatment cannot be defended for the sake of protecting others. While coercive actions can be acceptable in order to protect close family and others, medical treatment is not justified for such reasons but should be given only in the interest of patients. Coercive treatment may be required in order to promote the patient's health interests, but health interests have to waive if they go against the autonomous interests of the patient. We argue that non-autonomous patients can have reasons, rooted in their deeply-set values, to renounce compulsory institutional treatment, and that such reasons should be respected unless it can be assumed that their new predicaments have caused them to change their views. (shrink)