Individuals shift their language to converge with interlocutors. Recent work has suggested that convergence can target not only observed but also expected linguistic behavior, cued by social information. However, it remains uncertain how expectations and observed behavior interact, particularly when they contradict each other. We investigated this using a cooperative map task experiment, in which pairs of participants communicated online by typing messages to each other in a miniature “alien” language that exhibited variation between alien species. The overall task comprised (...) three phases, in each of which participants were told that they would be paired with a different partner. One member of the pair was given explicit linguistic expectations in each phase, while the software controlled whether or not observed behavior from their partner would be consistent or inconsistent with these expectations. The other participant was given no such expectations, allowing us to control for the role of expectation. Participants converged to both observed and expected linguistic behavior, and convergence was boosted when observation and expectation were aligned. When expected and observed behavior were misaligned, participants updated their expectations, though convergence levels did not drop. Furthermore, participants generalized what they learned about one partner to apparent novel partners of the same alien species. We also discuss individual variation in convergence patterns and the lack of a relationship between linguistic convergence and success at the map task. Findings are consistent with observations outside the laboratory that language users converge toward expected linguistic behavior. They also have broader implications for understanding linguistic accommodation and the influence of social information on linguistic processing and production. (shrink)

We argue that work on norms provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to bias, oppression, and injustice. We briefly map out the geography of that debate before presenting Charlotte Witt’s view, showing how her position, and the normative ascriptivism at its heart, seamlessly connects individuals to the social reality they inhabit. We then describe recent empirical work on the psychology of norms and locate the notions of informal institutions and soft structures with (...) respect to it. Finally, we argue that the empirical resources enrich Witt’s ascriptivism, and that the resulting picture shows theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp. (shrink)

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the _Dictionary_ takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The _Dictionary_ will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

The central question addressed is: How should scientific research be conducted so as to ensure that nature is respected and the well being of everyone everywhere enhanced? After pointing to the importance of methodological pluralism for an acceptable answer and to obstacles posed by characterizing scientific methodology too narrowly, which are reinforced by the ‘commercial-scientific ethos’, two additional questions are considered: How might research, conducted in this way, have impact on—and depend on—strengthening democratic values and practices? And: What is thereby (...) implied for the responsibilities of scientists today? (shrink)

the standard reading of plato's Republic is that justice is predicated of the ideal city and of the philosophers, and that all other constitutions, both psychic and political, that are mentioned in the course of the dialogue are in some way or another defective and unjust. A non-standard reading appears to be gaining traction, however. Unorthodox Plato commentators such as Silverman, Jonas, Nakazawa, Braun, and Rowe argue that the ideal city—lovingly named 'Kallipolis'—is not just, that it is merely an improvement (...) upon, but not a complete cure for, the Luxurious City that is described immediately before it.1 If we want to gaze upon a just city, these unorthodox commentators propose, look no farther than the City of... (shrink)

v. 1. Exterminative medicine in Nazi Germany and contemporary America -- v. 2. The language of exterminative medicine in Nazi Germany and contemporary America.

Lacan was not an ahistorical post-structuralist. Starting from this controversial premiss, Teresa Brennan tells the story of a social psychosis. She begins by recovering Lacan's neglected theory of history which argued that we are in the grip of a psychotic's era which began in the seventeenth century and climaxes in the present. By extending and elaborating Lacan's theory, Brennan develops a general theory of modernity. Contrary to postmodern assumptions, she argues, we need general historical explanation. An understanding of (...) historical dynamics is essential if we are to make the connections between the outstanding facts of modernity - ethnocentrism, the relationship between the sexes and ecological catastrophe. (shrink)

Rousseau’s account of the “legislator” or “lawgiver” is commonly regarded as one of the most far-fetched, ominous, and baffling parts of his teaching in the Social Contract. In brief, Rousseau’s lawgiver seems to be a proto-totalitarian figure whose self-appointed mission is to found a political community by “denaturing” people at a single stroke and who may be a mere figment of Rousseau’s overheated imagination. Accordingly, this part of the Social Contract threatens to make a mockery of Rousseau’s claim to be (...) “taking men as they are and laws they can be,” as well as his claim that the combination of “ freedom and equality” is “the greatest good” in the civil state. Following and extending Rousseau’s own method of teaching by examples, however, this essay argues that Benjamin Franklin’s influence over the American republic—especially through his posthumous Autobiography—offers a prosaic example of the apparently fantastical phenomenon sketched by Rousseau. In fact, I argue that Franklin’s case corresponds more fully to Rousseau’s description than do any of Rousseau’s own examples (such as Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa) and that Franklin showed in practice what Rousseau suggested in theory: that a lawgiver can succeed without relying on coercion and without undercutting the equality that underlies a just society. Franklin’s denaturing influence, I suggest, has been crucial for the durability of republicanism in the United States, given the country’s size and diversity. (shrink)

How does trust operate under conditions of oppression? Little attention has been paid to how distrust may be both necessary and costly to its bearer. Distrust is clearly warranted under certain conditions, but do those conditions contribute to a reduction in one's overall well-being? More importantly, is there something about distrust itself (rather than the conditions that warrant it) that contributes to this reduction in well-being? In this essay, I explore these questions in depth. I explain what the costs of (...) distrust are and how they impede our well-being. I argue that the weakened development of trust through oppression has some important downstream consequences: namely, it requires the cultivation of skepticism as a virtue of distrust, which I argue should be included as one of Lisa Tessman's burdened virtues—those that are required for survival but that do not necessarily lead to the agent's flourishing. (shrink)

Attacks on ?closest continuer? and ?best candidate? theories of identity have something correct in them while still failing to discredit the theories they oppose. What follows from Noonan's and Wiggins's objections to such theories is that they need to be so formulated as not to deny the necessity of identity. The best metaphysics for best?candidate theories to adopt is one in which everyday objects are taken to transcend, in a certain sense, their life histories in given worlds. This metaphysics also (...) has the potential for solving problems about contingent identity, transworld identity, and the issue of haecceitism or individual essence. To develop the metaphysics, it is only necessary to follow through the analogy between worlds and times suggested by writers like Plantinga and Schlesinger. (shrink)

This article surveys recent feminist contributions to moral philosophy with an emphasis on those works which engage with debates within mainstream ethics. The article begins by examining a tension said to arise from the two criteria a theory must meet if it is to count as feminist moral theory: the women's experience requirement and the feminist conclusion requirement. Subsequent sections deal with feminist relational theories of rights, feminist work on responsibility and feminist contractarian approaches to ethics. A final section looks (...) at the application of some feminist moral theories to the problem of abortion. (shrink)

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (...) and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (...) and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

IVF as lottery or investment: contesting metaphors in discourses of infertilityThis paper reports an aspect of a poststructural feminist study in which I explored the discursive formations within which women for whom in vitro fertilisation (IVF) was unsuccessful constitute themselves. In my exploration I draw on data from interviews with women who discontinued infertility treatment, print media material and infertility self‐help books. Specifically, I highlight a metaphor of lottery in discourses of infertility, arguing that it is hegemonic and showing how (...) when women are situated as gamblers, the metaphor is instrumental in polarising them into ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ in relation to the subjectivity of motherhood. I further deconstruct these subjectivities, showing how ‘winners’ are valorised and ‘losers’ are pathologised. But importantly, I show how infertile women who are not mothers resisted locating themselves as ‘losers’ in a metaphor of lottery and instead situated themselves in a contesting metaphor of investment as diligent ‘workers’ and as active agents in choosing the best employment of their bodily and monetary resources. This paper therefore amplifies the marginalised perspective of infertile women who are not mothers. (shrink)

In this landmark collection of original essays, outstanding feminist critics in Britain, France, and the United States present new perspectives on feminism and psychoanalysis, opening out deadlocked debates. The discussion ranges widely, with contributions from feminists identified with different, often opposed views on psychoanalytic criticism. The contributors reassess the history of Lacanian psychoanalysis and feminism, and explore the significance of its institutional context. They write against the received views on 'French feminism' and essentialism. A remarkable restatement of current positions within (...) psychoanalysis and feminism, the volume as a whole will change the terms of existing debates, and make its arguments and concerns more generally accessible. (shrink)

Maxwell J. Mehlman, Transhumanist dreams and dystopian nightmares: The promise and peril of genetic engineering, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012, reviewed by Sheryl de Lacey.

_Exhausting Modernity_ is a bold new work on the exhaustion of our resources, both natural and human. Drawing on the insights of Marx and Freud, it provides a compelling analysis of the exhaustion pervading modern capitalism: environmental collapse, rising poverty levels and increasing global economic disparity. This is essential reading for political and social theorists, philosophers, economists, and all those interested in the environment.

A situated agent is one which operates within an environment. In most cases, the environment in which the agent exists will be more complex than the agent itself. This means that an agent, human or artificial, which wishes to carry out non-trivial operations in its environment must use techniques which allow an unbounded world to be represented within a cognitively bounded agent. We present a brief description of some important theories within the fields of epistemology and metaphysics. We then discuss (...) ways in which philosophical problems of scepticism are related to the problems faced by knowledge representation. We suggest that some of the methods that philosophers have developed to address the problems of epistemology may be relevant to the problems of representing knowledge within artificial agents. (shrink)

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the _Dictionary_ takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The _Dictionary_ will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the Dictionary takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The Dictionary will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

Greek Philosophers of the Hellenistic Age examines an important but frequently neglected group of philosophers writing after Aristotle between the third and first centuries B.C. The work of a distinguished intellectual historian, this book is based on an erudite reading of a vast number of primary sources: the Greek and Latin writings of the philosophers, and the fragments, paraphrases, and testimonies from their lost works. Kristeller explores the thought of Epicurus; Zenon and Cleanthes, the founder of the Stoic school and (...) his successor; Pyrrhon and Arcesilaus, the founder of Skepticism and the philosopher who introduced it into the Platonic Academy; and Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school and its most important representative. Other figures include Carneades and Philo of Larissa, the second and third representatives of Skepticism in the Platonic Academy, respectively; Panaetius, the first leader of Middle Stoicism; and Antiochus of Ascalon, the head of the Academy, who led it back from Skepticism and prepared Middle Platonism, which paved the way for Neoplatonism. Originally presented as a series of lectures before the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, Greek Philosophers of the Hellenistic Age assesses a group of philosophers who exerted an enormous influence upon pagan and Christian writers of late antiquity - including Cicero and St. Augustine - and on many medieval and early modern philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists who study poetry and aesthetics often write with great craftmanship. In her recent book, The Poem as Icon, Margaret Freeman doe...

Sovereign is he who provides the exception.…The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.In spring 2020, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, world leaders imposed severe restrictions on citizens’ civil, political, and economic liberties. These restrictions went beyond less controversial and less demanding social distancing measures seen in past epidemics. Many states (...) and countries imposed universal lockdowns. Lockdowns, as we define them here, require people to stay home; in some countries and places, citizens must have ad hoc licenses to... (shrink)

ABSTRACT The notion of consensus plays an important epistemological role in modern welfare economics, in that unanimous consent is a (unique) conceptual test for those changes that are ‘Pareto-desirable’ (that is, make someone better off and no-one else worse). In this paper, we seek to show that unanimous consent does not logically imply Pareto-desirability—that a rational individual may fail to veto policy changes that make him/her worse off. The central element in the proof of this proposition is the observation that (...) in social agreements involving a significant number of participants, any one individual's veto is decisive if it is the only veto. If the individual does not expect to be decisive, he will rationally exercise his vote ‘expressively’, and without sole regard to its consequences. When all individuals so act, a sort of prisoners' dilemma interaction may emerge, even under explicit consensus. (shrink)