Studying via the Internet using information tools is a common activity for students in higher education. With students accessing their subject material via the Internet, studies have shown that students have difficulty understanding the complete purpose of an assessment which leads to poor information search practices. The selection of relevant information for particular learning assessments is the topic of this paper as it describes a case study that focuses on the information tool use of a small group of participants and (...) is a continuation of similar research studies. The study and discussed research findings point to the benefit of students use of a visualisation tool to provide relevant learning cues and to transition to improved engagement with online assessment. (shrink)

Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way that is similar to the manipulative technique known as gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, I identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: the introduction of counternarratives, the discrediting of critics, and the denial of more or less plain facts. These strategies tend to isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented and unable to distinguish between reliable and (...) unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, post-truth politics aims to undermine epistemic autonomy by eroding someone’s self-trust, in order to consolidate power. Shifting the focus to the effects on the victim allows for new insights into the specific harms of post-truth politics. Applying the concept of gaslighting to this domain may also help people recognize a pernicious dynamic that was invisible to them before, giving them an important tool to resist it. (shrink)

A recent study dealing with Western European countries suggests a connection between vaccine skepticism and support for populist parties (Kennedy 2019). Of all countries in the study, Italy scored highest on both counts, with 44% of the electorate voting for populists in 2014 and 14% of the population not deeming vaccinations important. The study concludes that both phenomena have a common root in the distrust of elite and experts. While that seems plausible, this paper establishes that there is much more (...) to be said about the relation between populism and the anti-vaccination movement. Using the case study of the Italian anti-vaxxers, I spell out how populists have reinforced an echo chamber in an effort to mobilize it. I argue that besides the common root cause, in this instance there is also indication of a causal relation between populism and anti-vaccination. Moreover, I show that populism and echo chambers in general are conceptually linked through their dichotomous division of society and rejection of legitimate opposition. (shrink)

Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Can we do better than existing author citation metrics? Abstract and Counting citations in texts rather than reference lists to improve the accuracy of assessing scientific contribution Abstract.

My presentation deals with developments and transformations of the concept of the transcendental within Anglo-American analytical philosophy. According to Kant – the “founding father” of transcendental philosophy – the methodical domain of the transcendental is to denote and to expose the a priori epistemic structureof human mind and cognition (perception, experience, knowledge), as well as to provide a priori foundations for normative ethics. Analytical philosophy has adopted the term of the transcendental, mostly within sceptical argumentations or for sceptical refutations. What (...) is the methodological function of the transcendental in these debates, in the context of philosophical scepticism? My contribution tries to show that the notion of the transcendental becomes concave in analytical contexts. It might be appropriate to refute scepticism, but in these analytical contexts it’s not possible to deduct epistemic structures (e.g. categories,epistemic schemes) of experience and knowledge or to bridge the gap to foundations in ethics – one of the core goals in Kantian transcendental philosophy. What is the importance in transcendental analysis and reflection or is this term obsolete all together nowadays? My paper tries to discuss and mediate between various positions and ideas. (shrink)

Classroom teaching has two aims: learning philosophy, that is, the great philosophers, and doing philosophy. This article provides an overview of thirty exercises that can be used for doing philosophy, grouped into three approaches. The first approach, doing philosophy as connective truth finding or communicative action, is related to such philosophers as Dewey and Arendt, and is illustrated by the Socratic method. The second, doing philosophy as test-based truth finding, is related to such philosophers as Popper, and is illustrated by (...) Community of Philosophical Inquiry. The third, doing philosophy as juridical debate, judging truth-value and making judgment, is related to such philosophers as Foucault, and is illustrated by philosophical debate. The analysis shows that although the classical methods applied by the great philosophers appear to be missing from classroom exercises, they do, in fact, remain at the heart of the matter. (shrink)

Migrant farmworkers dominate the horticultural workforce in many parts of the Minority (developed) World. The ‘manual’ work that they do—picking and packing fruits and vegetables, and pruning vines and trees—is widely designated unskilled. In policy, media, academic, activist and everyday discourses, hired farm work is framed as something anybody can do. We interrogate this notion with empirical evidence from the Sunraysia horticultural region of Australia. The region’s grape and almond farms depend heavily on migrant workers. By-and-large, the farmers and farmworkers (...) we spoke to pushed back against the unskilled tag. They asserted that farmworkers acquire knowledge and skills over time and that experienced farmworkers are valuable—their value being brought into sharp relief against accounts of inexperienced farmworkers’ errors. Our interviewees provided rich insights into farmworkers’ engagements with crops and the intricacies of picking and pruning well. Far from being bereft of knowledge and skills, they recognised that experienced farmworkers bring benefits. They improve productivity, product quality and ultimately profits. This is especially so when open communication channels exist across the farm hierarchy, when experienced farmworkers’ insights are taken seriously by their employers. Our research is informed by organisational studies literature and scholarship on craft/making. Like factory floor workers and artisans, experienced farmworkers bring accumulated knowledge and skills to their work, gained through repeat performance. They reflect on and adjust their activities in dialogue with their materials and the environment. Experienced farmworkers demonstrate care, dexterity and judgement. They are not unskilled, and they are more than labouring bodies. (shrink)

Das Kollektiv kann nicht anders als auf seine ambige Ontologie hinzuweisen bzw. diese zu wiederholen und immer wieder zu Tage zu fördern. Es muss sich formen, sich als Kollektiv verstehen und darstellen. Zugleich muss es sich abgrenzen; es formiert sich durch ein Zusammenkommen von ‚Individuen‘, die sich von anderen Zusammenhängen entfernen und ‚das Kollektiv‘ bilden. Sowohl treten die Individuen aus einem Kontext heraus als auch muss sich das Kollektiv von anderen explizit oder implizit sich artikulierenden Zusammenkünften unterscheiden. Das Kollektiv bildet (...) sich sowohl in Relation zu als auch in Abgrenzung von anderen Zusammenkünften bzw. Individuen. Die Ambiguität des Kollektivs ist keine nachträgliche Qualität, sondern ein inhärentes Charakteristikum, das entsprechend sein Da- und Sosein, seine Form und Handlungen unausweichlich prägt. (shrink)

The claim that we live in a post-truth era has led to a significant body of work across different disciplines exploring the phenomenon. Many have sought to investigate the role of fake news in bringing about the post-truth era. While this work is important, the narrow focus on this issue runs the risk of giving the impression that it is mainly new forms of media that are to blame for the post-truth phenomenon. In this paper, we call attention to the (...) ways in which journalistic practices in traditional forms of media also play an important role in contributing to a post-truth environment. We will do so by focusing on one particular practice common in news journalism. False balance involves presenting two sides of a debate as more equal than is justified by the evidence. We will argue that although false balance does not constitute fake news, it does contribute to an environment in which truth is devalued. By obscuring what counts as evidence and who qualifies as an authority, false balance legitimizes post-truth attitudes. We finish by outlining the virtues that journalists should develop in order to guard against false balance. While fake news is made more likely when journalists possess the vices of dishonesty, prejudice or corruption, we argue that focusing too much on guarding against these vices may actually make false balance more likely. In order to be responsible gatekeepers and to avoid false balance, journalists must also develop the virtues of wisdom, vigilance, courage, care and justice. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Sartre's biography of Jean Genet, Saint Genet Actor and Martyr, can serve as an instrument of liberation for pariahs living today. Like Sartre, I define the word "pariah" to mean people who have suffered trauma in their lives and who are internally and socially oppressed as a consequence. Saint Genet's power to free us arises paradoxically out of the conservative aspects for which it has been criticized in the last few years. I am referring (...) especially to reproaches that Sartre makes things up about Genet's childhood just to suit his theories. In this paper, I also broaden the use of the term "pariah" to include some people who have only recently begun receiving respectful recognition such as survivors of domestic violence and child abuse, as well as female sufferers of depression. My views are inspired by research done in Sartre and Genet studies and also, by information provided so generously by fellow-pariahs and supporters in the medical field. (shrink)

As the global communication network matures, the systems and procedures for regulating the growing network and its use are being challenged. The general proliferation of services or the specific demand for electronic transactions require guidance and control which the market alone cannot supply. Meanwhile, traditional regulatory regimes remain far from global or coherent. This article distinguishes between coordination and regulation to clarify areas where government intervention is unnecessary and where indispensable. It explores the current patchwork of regulatory approaches, reviews different (...) regulatory areas and strategies, identifies trends, and highlights problem areas particular to electronic commerce and third party protection. (shrink)

Der Beitrag diskutiert das Verhältnis zwischen Experiment und Ästhetik, indem er von zwei zeitgenössischen künstlerischen Erfahrungen ausgeht: Der Ausstellung SOMA von Carsten Höller, die im Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin im Winter 2010/11 gezeigt wurde, und einem Clip der Performance Dark Matter von Kate McIntosh. Beide Werke stellen das Experiment im Kontext der Künste zur Debatte und führen gleichzeitig zur Vervielfältigung seiner Bedeutung. SOMA stellt ›Spiele des Sehens‹ vor, die den ästhetischen Charakter eines Experimentes und die ›miseen-scène‹ verschiedener Situationen der Beobachtung (...) prüfen. Dark Matter spielt auf wissenschaftliche Ordnungen der Präsentation an und zieht die Aufmerksamkeit des Zuschauers auf die Dramaturgie des Experiments, das Raum für neue Methoden der Mobilisierung oder Korrelierung macht. The paper discusses the relation of experiment and aesthetics starting from two recent artistic experiences: the exhibition SOMA by Carsten Höller, shown at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in winter 2010/11, and an extracted clip of the performance Dark Matter by Kate McIntosh. Both works put up for discussion the experiment in the context of the arts and at the same time, lead to the multiplication of its meaning. SOMA provides ›games of seeing‹ testing the aesthetic character of an experiment’s architecture and the ›mise-en-scène‹ of different situations of observation. Dark Matter plays upon scientific orders of presentation dragging the spectator’s attention to the dramaturgy of the experiment, which makes space for a new methods of mobilization or correlation. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Artykuł przybliża umiejscowienie etyki w programach edukacji szkolnej w Holandii oraz cele i praktyki jej nauczania. Omawia wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w szkołach holenderskich, mających na celu sprawdzenie jakie metody dydaktyczne najlepiej służą rozwijaniu wiedzy i kompetencji uczniów. Jaki model interakcji w pracy uczniów z nauczycielem jest najkorzystniejszy? W badaniu wykorzystane zostały formy nauczania oparte na technice scaffolding (rusztowania). Opiera się ona na wspólnym rozwijaniu problemów i dyskusji filozoficznej, poprzez porządkowanie pytań, szukanie alternatywnych odpowiedzi oraz zróżnicowanych przykładów. Obserwacje z badań potwierdzają (...) dobrą skuteczność tej metody, zwłaszcza gdy proces rozumowania jest jasno uporządkowany, konstrukcja pytań źle sformułowanych jest korygowana i pojawiają się metakoncepcje. Porównawcza analiza wybranych lekcji pozwala stwierdzić, że wybór formy nauczania decydująco wpływa na poziom zaangażowania uczniów i w konsekwencji na rozwój ich kompetencji; istotny jest też aktywny udział nauczyciela jako koordynatora dyskusji, uruchamiającego dialog i nadającego mu czytelną logicznie strukturę. Z tego względu istotne jest, by nauczyciele prowadzący zajęcia mieli odpowiednie kompetencje filozoficzne i metodyczne. (shrink)

Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way that is similar to the manipulative technique known as gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, I identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: the introduction of counternarratives, the discrediting of critics, and the denial of more or less plain facts. These strategies tend to isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented and unable to distinguish between reliable and (...) unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, post-truth politics aims to undermine epistemic autonomy by eroding someone's self-trust, in order to consolidate power. Shifting the focus to the effects on the victim allows for new insights into the specific harms of post-truth politics. Applying the concept of gaslighting to this domain may also help people recognize a pernicious dynamic that was invisible to them before, giving them an important tool to resist it. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is broadly exploratory: we want to better understand online affective manipulation and what, if anything, is morally problematic about it. To do so, we begin by pulling apart various forms of online affective manipulation. We then proceed to discuss why online affective manipulation is properly categorized as manipulative, as well as what is wrong with (online) manipulation more generally. Building on this, we next argue that, at its most extreme, online affective manipulation constitutes a novel (...) form of affective injustice that we call affective powerlessness. To demonstrate this, we introduce the notions of affective injustice and affective powerlessness and show how several forms of online affective manipulation leave users in this state. The upshot is that this chapter gives us a better grip on the nature of online affective manipulation, as well some tools to help us understand when and why it is morally problematic. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Sandra Harding here develops further the themes first addressed in her widely influential book, The Science Question in Feminism, and conducts a compelling analysis of feminist theories on the philosophical problem of how we know what we ...

Worries about scientific objectivity seem never-ending. Social critics and philosophers of science have argued that invocations of objectivity are often little more than attempts to boost the status of a claim, while calls for value neutrality may be used to suppress otherwise valid dissenting positions. Objectivity is used sometimes to advance democratic agendas, at other times to block them; sometimes for increasing the growth of knowledge, at others to resist it. Sandra Harding is not ready to throw out objectivity quite (...) yet. For all of its problems, she contends that objectivity is too powerful a concept simply to abandon. In Objectivity and Diversity, Harding calls for a science that is both more epistemically adequate and socially just, a science that would ask: How are the lives of the most economically and politically vulnerable groups affected by a particular piece of research? Do they have a say in whether and how the research is done? Should empirically reliable systems of indigenous knowledge count as "real science"? Ultimately, Harding argues for a shift from the ideal of a neutral, disinterested science to one that prizes fairness and responsibility. (shrink)

This essay is a critical review of Sandra Harding's The Science Question in Feminism. Her text constitutes a monumental effort to capture an overview of recent feminist critique of science and to develop a feminist dialectical and materialist conception of the history of masculinist science. In this analysis of Harding's work, the organizing categories as well as the main assumptions of the text are reconstructed for closer examination within the context of modern feminist critique of science and feminist theory in (...) general. Although a postive review of Harding's text is presented, questions are raised concerning the adequacy of socialist feminist assumptions for such a project, the limitations of Harding's theorization of gender, and the appropriateness of "postmodernism" as a final category of residence. (shrink)

Wars and crises worldwide force millions of people to flee and seek refuge, often outside their countries of origin. What moral responsibilities do states have towards refugees? In this Ethical Annotation, Dr Jos Philips and his co-authors zoom in on the responsibilities of EU countries. They consider arguments in favour of and against admitting refugees and argue that EU countries must do at least at much as they can do at little cost, and perhaps even more.

In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, several feminist theorists began developing alternatives to the traditional methods of scientific research. The result was a new theory, now recognized as Standpoint Theory, which caused heated debate and radically altered the way research is conducted. The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader is the first anthology to collect the most important essays on the subject as well as more recent works that bring the topic up-to-date. Leading feminist scholar and one of the founders of Standpoint (...) Theory, Sandra Harding brings together the a prestigious list of scholars--Dorothy Smith, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and Hilary Rose--to not only showcase the most influential essays on the topic but to also highlight subsequent developments of these approaches from a wide variety of disciplines and intellectual and political positions. The Reader will be essential reading for feminist scholars. (shrink)

This book provides a very accessible general introduction to the Jungian concept of ego development and Jung's theory of personality structure--the collective unconscious, anima, animus, shadow, archetypes.

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular analysis (...) technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

In _Sciences from Below_, the esteemed feminist science studies scholar Sandra Harding synthesizes modernity studies with progressive tendencies in science and technology studies to suggest how scientific and technological pursuits might be more productively linked to social justice projects around the world. Harding illuminates the idea of multiple modernities as well as the major contributions of post-Kuhnian Western, feminist, and postcolonial science studies. She explains how these schools of thought can help those seeking to implement progressive social projects refine their (...) thinking to overcome limiting ideas about what modernity and modernization are, the objectivity of scientific knowledge, patriarchy, and Eurocentricity. She also reveals how ideas about gender and colonialism frame the conventional contrast between modernity and tradition. As she has done before, Harding points the way forward in _Sciences from Below_. Describing the work of the post-Kuhnian science studies scholars Bruno Latour, Ulrich Beck, and the team of Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowtony, and Peter Scott, Harding reveals how, from different perspectives, they provide useful resources for rethinking the modernity versus tradition binary and its effects on the production of scientific knowledge. Yet, for the most part, they do not take feminist or postcolonial critiques into account. As Harding demonstrates, feminist science studies and postcolonial science studies have vital contributions to make; they bring to light not only the male supremacist investments in the Western conception of modernity and the historical and epistemological bases of Western science but also the empirical knowledge traditions of the global South. _Sciences from Below_ is a clear and compelling argument that modernity studies and post-Kuhnian, feminist, and postcolonial sciences studies each have something important, and necessary, to offer to those formulating socially progressive scientific research and policy. (shrink)

For twenty years, the renowned philosopher of science Sandra Harding has argued that science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist critique must inform one another. In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader, Harding puts those fields in critical conversation, assembling the anthology that she has long wanted for classroom use. In classic and recent essays, international scholars from a range of disciplines think through a broad array of science and technology philosophies and practices. The contributors reevaluate conventional accounts (...) of the West’s scientific and technological projects in the past and present, rethink the strengths and limitations of non-Western societies’ knowledge traditions, and assess the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. The collection concludes with forward-looking essays, which explore strategies for cultivating new visions of a multicultural, democratic world of sciences and for turning those visions into realities. Feminist science and technology concerns run throughout the reader and are the focus of several essays. Harding provides helpful background for each essay in her introductions to the reader’s four sections. Contributors Helen Appleton Karen Bäckstrand Lucille H. Brockway Stephen B. Brush Judith Carney Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment Arturo Escobar Maria E. Fernandez Ward H. Goodenough Susantha Goonatilake Sandra Harding Steven J. Harris Betsy Hartmann Cori Hayden Catherine L. M. Hill John M. Hobson Peter Mühlhäusler Catherine A. Odora Hoppers Consuelo Quiroz Jenny Reardon Ella Reitsma Ziauddin Sardar Daniel Sarewitz Londa Schiebinger Catherine V. Scott Colin Scott Mary Terrall D. Michael Warren. (shrink)

In a recent letter, Dillion et. al (2023) make various suggestions regarding the idea of artificially intelligent systems, such as large language models, replacing human subjects in empirical moral psychology. We argue that human subjects are in various ways indispensable.

According to a view assumed by many scientists and philosophers of science and standardly found in science textbooks, it is controlled ex perience which provides the basis for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable theories in science: acceptable theories are those which can pass empirical tests. It has often been thought that a certain sort of test is particularly significant: 'crucial experiments' provide supporting empiri cal evidence for one theory while providing conclusive evidence against another. However, in 1906 Pierre Duhem argued (...) that the falsification of a theory is necessarily ambiguous and therefore that there are no crucial experiments; one can never be sure that it is a given theory rather than auxiliary or background hypotheses which experiment has falsified. w. V. Quine has concurred in this judgment, arguing that "our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not indi vidually but only as a corporate body". Some philosophers have thought that the Duhem-Quine thesis gra tuitously raises perplexities. Others see it as doubly significant; these philosophers think that it provides a base for criticism of the foundational view of knowledge which has dominated much of western thought since Descartes, and they think that it opens the door to a new and fruitful way to conceive of scientific progress in particular and of the nature and growth of knowledge in general. (shrink)

Where the old objectivity question asked, Objectivity or relativism: which side are you on?, the new one refuses this choice, seeking instead to bypass widely recognized problems with the conceptual framework that restricts the choices to these two. It asks, How can the notion of objectivity be updated and made useful for contemporary knowledge-seeking projects? One response to this question is the strong objectivity program that draws on feminist standpoint epistemology to provide a kind of logic of discovery for maximizing (...) our ability to block might makes right in the sciences. It does so by delinking the neutrality ideal from standards for maximizing objectivity, since neutrality is now widely recognized as not only not necessary, not only not helpful, but, worst of all, an obstacle to maximizing objectivity when knowledge-distorting interests and values have constituted a research project. Strong objectivity provides a method for correcting this kind of situation. However, standpoint approaches have their own limitations which are quite different from the misreadings of them upon which most critics have tended to focus. Unfortunately, historically limited epistemologies and philosophies of science are all we get to choose from at this moment in history. (shrink)

Appearing in the feminist social science literature from its beginnings are a series of questions about methodology. In this collection, Sandra Harding interrogates some of the classic essays from the last fifteen years in order to explore the basic and troubling questions about science and social experience, gender, and politics.

This collection of essays, first published two decades ago, presents central feminist critiques and analyses of natural and social sciences and their philosophies. Unfortunately, in spite of the brilliant body of research and scholarship in these fields in subsequent decades, the insights of these essays remain as timely now as they were then: philosophy and the sciences still presume kinds of social innocence to which they are not entitled. The essays focus on Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Marx; on (...) the 'adversary method' model of philosophic reasoning; on principles of individuation on philosophical ontology and philosophy of language; on individualistic assumptions in psychology; functionalism in sociological and biological theory; evolutionary theory; the methodology of political science; and conceptions of objective inquiry in the sciences. In taking insights of both Liberal and Marxian women's movements into the purportedly most abstract and value-free areas of Western thought, these essays chart sexist and androcentric assumptions, claims and practices in the cognitive, technical cores of Western sciences and their philosophies. They begin to identify the distinctive aspects of women's experiences and locations in male-supremacist social structures which can provide resources needed for the creation of post-androcentric thinking in research, scholarship, and public policy. Such uses of feminist insights remain controversial today, and even among some feminists. These authors were all junior researchers and scholars two decades ago; today many are among the most distinguished senior scholars in their fields. Their work here provides a splendid opportunity for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy and the social sciences to explore some of the most intriguing and controversial challenges to disciplinary projects and to public policy today. (shrink)

This article sits at a point of intersection between the philosophy of physics and the metaphysics of modality. There are clear similarities between Everettian quantum mechanics and various modal metaphysical theories, but there have hitherto been few attempts at exploring how the two topics relate. In this article, I build on a series of recent papers by Wilson ([2011], [2012], [2013]), who argues that Everettian quantum mechanics’ connections with traditional modal metaphysics are vital in defending it against objections. I show (...) that Wilson’s preferred version of Everettian quantum mechanics has two problems. First, it is unable to account for the contingency of various intuitively contingent modal claims. Second, it fails to yield intuitive truth values on modal claims about the number of branches in a given Everettian multiverse. Since modal claims about branch number are instrumental in decision-theoretic solutions to Everettian quantum mechanics’ problem(s) with probability, this second problem has wider dialectical implications. I suggest amendments to the underlying metaphysics that overcome these problems. The result is a more robust version of Everettian quantum mechanics. (shrink)

"The classic and recent essays gathered here will challenge scholars in the natural sciences, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and women’s studies to examine the role of racism in the construction and application of the sciences. Harding... has also created a useful text for diverse classroom settings." —Library Journal "A rich lode of readily accessible thought on the nature and practice of science in society. Highly recommended." —Choice "This is an excellent collection of essays that should prove useful in a wide range (...) of STS courses." —Science, Technology, and Society "... important and provocative... "—The Women’s Review of Books "The timeliness and utility of this large interdisciplinary reader on the relation of Western science to other cultures and to world history can hardly be overemphasized. It provides a tremendous resource for teaching and for research... "—Ethics "Excellent." —The Reader’s Review "Sandra Harding is an intellectually fearless scholar. She has assembled a bold, impressive collection of essays to make a volume of illuminating power. This brilliantly edited book is essential reading for all who seek understanding of the multicultural debates of our age. Never has a book been more timely." —Darlene Clark Hine These authors dispute science’s legitimation of culturally approved definitions of race difference—including craniology and the measurement of IQ, the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and the dependence of Third World research on First World agendas. (shrink)