Under the umbrella terms, ‘agnotology’, ’strategic ignorance’, and ‘willful ignorance’, scholars have identified and unpacked the mechanisms and strategies involved in producing and maintaining ignorance. These analyses tend to have in common that strategic ignorance is about avoiding, hiding, or rendering existing knowledge unreliable. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s sociological concept of communication, we supplement these accounts with an analysis of how ignorance can be produced and maintained by means of communicative selection. Taking the emergence of the zoonotic disease LA-MRSA in (...) Denmark as our empirical case, we explore the management of ignorance under conditions of non-knowing. Our analysis demonstrates how ignorance may be not only maintained but also multiplied without hiding knowledge, keeping secrets, or creating doubts. The analysis thus sheds new light on the dynamics through which ignorance is produced, while knowledge is on full display and acknowledged. The analysis furthermore shows how strategic interests are coupled to ignorance by means of communicative selection. (shrink)

The three essays collected in this book offer a succinct introduction to Agamben's recent work through an investigation of Foucault's notion of the apparatus, a meditation on the intimate link of philosophy to friendship, and a reflection on contemporariness, or the singular relation one may have to one's own time. "Apparatus" is at once a most ubiquitous and nebulous concept in Foucault's later thought. In a text bearing the same name Deleuze managed to contribute its mystification, but Agamben's leading essay (...) illuminates the notion: "I will call an apparatus," he writes, "literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings." Seen from this perspective, Agamben's work, like Foucault's, may be described as the identification and investigation of apparatuses, together with incessant attempts to find new ways to dismantle them. Though philosophy contains the notion of _philos_, or friend, in its very name, philosophers tend to be very skeptical about friendship. In his second essay, Agamben tries to dispel this skepticism by showing that at the heart of friendship and philosophy, but also at the core of politics, lies the same experience: the shared sensation of being. Guided by the question, "What does it mean to be contemporary?" Agamben begins the third essay with a reading of Nietzsche's philosophy and Mandelstam's poetry, proceeding from these to an exploration of such diverse fields as fashion, neurophysiology, messianism and astrophysics. (shrink)

In many ways set theory lies at the heart of modern mathematics, and it does powerful work both philosophical and mathematical – as a foundation for the subject. However, certain philosophical problems raise serious doubts about our acceptance of the axioms of set theory. In a detailed and original reassessment of these axioms, Sharon Berry uses a potentialist approach to develop a unified determinate conception of set-theoretic truth that vindicates many of our intuitive expectations regarding set theory. Berry further (...) defends her approach against a number of possible objections, and she shows how a notion of logical possibility that is useful in formulating Potentialist set theory connects in important ways with philosophy of language, metametaphysics and philosophy of science. Her book will appeal to readers with interests in the philosophy of set theory, modal logic, and the role of mathematics in the sciences. (shrink)

Encompassing a wide range of subjects, the ten masterful essays gathered here may at first appear unrelated to one another. In truth, Giorgio Agamben's latest book is a mosaic of his most pressing concerns. Take a step backward after reading it from cover to cover, and a world of secret affinities between the chapters slowly comes into focus. Take another step back, and it becomes another indispensable piece of the finely nuanced philosophy that Agamben has been patiently constructing over four (...) decades of sustained research. If nudity is unconcealment, or the absence of all veils, then _Nudities_ is a series of apertures onto truth. A guiding thread of this collection—weaving together the prophet's work of redemption, the glorious bodies of the resurrected, the celebration of the Sabbath, and the specters that stroll the streets of Venice—is inoperativity, or the cessation of work. The term should not be understood as laziness or inertia, but rather as the paradigm of human action in the politics to come. Itself the result of inoperativity, _Nudities_ shuttles between philosophy and poetry, philological erudition and unexpected digression, metaphysical treatise and critique of modern life. And whether the subject at hand is personal identity or the biometric apparatus, the slanderer or the land surveyor, Kafka or Kleist, every page bears the singular imprint of one of the most astute philosophers of our time. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben's work develops a new philosophy of life. On its horizon lies the conviction that our form of life can become the guiding and unifying power of the politics to come. Informed by this promise, _The Power of Life_ weaves decisive moments and neglected aspects of Agamben's writings over the past four decades together with the thought of those who influenced him most. In addition, the book positions his work in relation to key figures from the history of philosophy. (...) This approach enables Kishik to offer a vision that ventures beyond Agamben's warning against the power _over_ life in order to articulate the power _of_ life and thus to rethink the biopolitical situation. Following Agamben's prediction that the concept of life will stand at the center of the coming philosophy, Kishik points to some of the most promising directions that this philosophy can take. (shrink)

Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.- Quine (1969)We think that some facts - for example, the fact that someone is suffering, or the fact that all previously encountered tigers were carnivorous – supply us with normative reasons for action and belief. The former fact, we think, is a reason to help the suffering person; the latter fact is a reason to believe that the next tiger we see will (...) also be carnivorous. But how is the reason-giving status of such facts best understood? In particular, is it best understood as ultimately “conferred” upon these facts by our own evaluative attitudes, or do at least some facts possess normative reason-giving status in a way that is robustly independent of our attitudes? This is the modern, secular version of Plato's “Euthyphro question” - couched here in the philosophically useful, though not essential, language of normative reasons. (shrink)

Dialectic of endarkenment -- Feather-light rubble -- Present while absent -- How to imagine a form of life.

Unlike most texts in critical thinking, _Reason in the Balance_ focuses broadly on the practice of critical inquiry, the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment. Although analysis and critique of individual arguments have an important role to play, this text goes beyond that dimension to emphasize the various aspects that go into the practice of inquiry, including identifying issues and relevant contexts, understanding competing cases, and making a comparative judgment._ Distinctive Features of (...) the Text:_ Emphasis on applying critical thinking to complex issues with competing arguments Inclusion of chapters on inquiry in specific contexts Attention to the dialogical aspects of inquiry, including sample dialogues Emphasis on the spirit of inquiry _The Second Edition Features:_ Updated examples and items of current interest New dialogues on vaccination, prostitution, and climate change New material on biases in reasoning, including emotional, psychological, social, and cognitive _The _Reason in the Balance_ Website includes:_ An Appendix on Logic Exercises Quizzes. (shrink)

Contemporary realist theories of value claim to be compatible with natural science. In this paper, I call this claim into question by arguing that Darwinian considerations pose a dilemma for these theories. The main thrust of my argument is this. Evolutionary forces have played a tremendous role in shaping the content of human evaluative attitudes. The challenge for realist theories of value is to explain the relation between these evolutionary influences on our evaluative attitudes, on the one hand, and the (...) independent evaluative truths that realism posits, on the other. Realism, I argue, can give no satisfactory account of this relation. On the one hand, the realist may claim that there is no relation between evolutionary influences on our evaluative attitudes and independent evaluative truths. But this claim leads to the implausible skeptical result that most of our evaluative judgements are off track due to the distorting pressure of Darwinian forces. The realist’s other option is to claim that there is a relation between evolutionary influences and independent evaluative truths, namely that natural selection favored ancestors who were able to grasp those truths. But this account, I argue, is unacceptable on scientific grounds. Either way, then, realist theories of value prove unable to accommodate the fact that Darwinian forces have deeply influenced the content of human values. After responding to three objections, the third of which leads me to argue against a realist understanding of the disvalue of pain, I conclude by sketching how antirealism is able to sidestep the dilemma I have presented. Antirealist theories of value are able to offer an alternative account of the relation between evolutionary forces and evaluative facts —
an account that allows us to reconcile our understanding of evaluative truth with our understanding of the many non-rational causes that have played a role in shaping our evaluative judgements. (shrink)

This article tracks Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an emergent organizational process that places the employee at its center. Predominantly, research on CSR tends to focus on external pressures and outcomes leading to a neglect of CSR as a dynamic and developing process that relies on the involvement of the employee as a major stakeholder in its co-creation and implementation. Utilizing case study data drawn from a study of a large multinational energy company, we explore how management relies on employees' (...) interaction with CSR as the process of initiation → implementation → maturation develops. Employee involvement grows from a minor element in the CSR initiation stage to a vital contributory factor in CSR's success in the later stages of the process. The article offers new insights into a processual and interactional approach to CSR that accounts for the actions of different actors involved at each stage. Most unusually, it also recognizes the dual impact this has on broader issues concerning the management and involvement of employees through CSR actions, and gaining legitimacy in the eyes of not only external stakeholders but internal too. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Nature of Critical Thinking Critical Thinking: Skills/Abilities and Dispositions Critical Thinking and the Problem of Generalizability The Relationship Between Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking “Critical Thinking” and Other Terms Referring to Thinking Critical Thinking and Education Critiques of Critical Thinking Conclusion.

This chapter accepts for the sake of argument Ronald Dworkin’s point that the only viable form of normative skepticism is internal, and develops an internal skeptical argument directed specifically at normative realism. There is a striking and puzzling coincidence between normative judgments that are true, and normative judgments that causal forces led us to believe—a practical/theoretical puzzle to which the constructivist view has a solution. Normative realists have no solution, but are driven to conclude that we are probably hopeless at (...) recognizing the independent normative truths they posit. Since this is an unacceptable conclusion, we must conclude that normative realism is false. Drawing on evolutionary considerations, it is explained why this internal skeptical argument does not carry over to our knowledge of objects in our manifest surroundings, and why the challenge does not depend on any assumption that the epistemology of the normative domain must be a causal one. (shrink)

Robert Nozick's experience machine thought experiment is often considered a decisive refutation of hedonism. I argue that the conclusions we draw from Nozick's thought experiment ought to be informed by considerations concerning the operation of our intuitions about value. First, I argue that, in order to show that practical hedonistic reasons are not causing our negative reaction to the experience machine, we must not merely stipulate their irrelevance (since our intuitions are not always responsive to stipulation) but fill in the (...) concrete details that would make them irrelevant. If we do this, we may see our feelings about the experience machine becoming less negative. Second, I argue that, even if our feelings about the experience machine do not perfectly track hedonistic reasons, there are various reasons to doubt the reliability of our anti-hedonistic intuitions. And finally, I argue that, since in the actual world seeing certain things besides pleasure as ends in themselves may best serve hedonistic ends, hedonism may justify our taking these other things to be intrinsically valuable, thus again making the existence of our seemingly anti-hedonistic intuitions far from straightforward evidence for the falsity of hedonism. (shrink)

In Science as Social Knowledge, Helen Longino offers a contextual analysis of evidential relevance. She claims that this "contextual empiricism" reconciles the objectivity of science with the claim that science is socially constructed. I argue that while her account does offer key insights into the role that values play in science, her claim that science is nonetheless objective is problematic.

The recognition and incorporation of evidence-based neuroscientific concepts into creative arts therapeutic knowledge and practice seem valuable and advantageous for the purpose of integration and professional development. Moreover, exhilarating insights from the field of neuroscience coincide with the nature, conceptualization, goals, and methods of Creative Arts Therapies, enabling comprehensive understandings of the clinical landscape, from a translational perspective. This paper contextualizes and discusses dynamic brain functions that have been suggested to lie at the heart of intra- and inter-personal processes. Touching (...) upon fundamental aspects of the self and self-other interaction, the state-of-the-art neuroscientific-informed views will shed light on mechanisms of the embodied, predictive and relational brain. The conceptual analysis introduces and interweaves the following contemporary perspectives of brain function: firstly, the grounding of mental activity in the lived, bodily experience will be delineated; secondly, the enactive account of internal models, or generative predictive representations, shaped by experience, will be defined and extensively deliberated; and thirdly, the interpersonal simulation and synchronization mechanisms that support empathy and mentalization will be thoroughly considered. Throughout the paper, the cross-talks between the brain and the body, within the brain through functionally connected neural networks and in the context of agent-environment dynamics, will be addressed. These communicative patterns will be elaborated on to unfold psychophysiological linkage, as well as psychopathological shifts, concluding with the neuroplastic change associated with the formulation of CATs. The manuscript suggests an integrative view of the brain-body-mind in contexts relevant to the therapeutic potential of the expressive creative arts and the main avenues by which neuroscience may ground, enlighten and enrich the clinical psychotherapeutic practice. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss a trivialization worry for Hartry Field’s official formulation of the access problem for mathematical realists, which was pointed out by Øystein Linnebo. I argue that various attempted reformulations of the Benacerraf problem fail to block trivialization, but that access worriers can better defend themselves by sticking closer to Hartry Field’s initial informal characterization of the access problem in terms of general epistemic norms of coincidence avoidance.

Most agree that when it comes to so-called 'first-order' normative ethics and political philosophy, constructivist views are a powerful family of positions. When it comes to metaethics, however, there is serious disagreement about what, if anything, constructivism has to contribute. In this paper I argue that constructivist views in ethics include not just a family of substantive normative positions, but also a distinct and highly attractive metaethical view. I argue that the widely accepted 'proceduralist characterization' of constructivism in ethics is (...) inadequate, and I propose what I call the 'practical standpoint characterization' in its place. I then offer a general taxonomy of constructivist positions in ethics. Since constructivism's standing as a family of substantive normative positions is relatively uncontested, I devote the remainder of the paper to addressing skeptics' worries about the distinctiveness of constructivism understood as a metaethical view. I compare and contrast constructivism with three other standard metaethical positions with which it is often confused or mistakenly thought to be compatible: realism; naturalist reductions in terms of an ideal response; and expressivism. In discussing the contrast with expressivism, I explain the sense in which, according to the constructivist, the distinction between substantive normative ethics and metaethics breaks down. I conclude by distinguishing between two importantly different debates about the mind-dependence of value. I argue that a failure to make this distinction is part of what explains why the possibility of constructivism as a metaethical view is often overlooked. (shrink)

New biotechnologies have propelled the question of what it means to be human - or posthuman - to the forefront of societal and scientific consideration. This volume provides an accessible, critical overview of the main approaches in the debate on posthumanism, and argues that they do not adequately address the question of what it means to be human in an age of biotechnology. Not because they belong to rival political camps, but because they are grounded in a humanist ontology that (...) presupposes a radical separation between human subjects and technological objects. The volume offers a comprehensive mapping of posthumanist discourse divided into four broad approaches-two humanist-based approaches: dystopic and liberal posthumanism, and two non-humanist approaches: radical and methodological posthumanism. The author compares and contrasts these models via an exploration of key issues, from human enhancement, to eugenics, to new configurations of biopower, questioning what role technology plays in defining the boundaries of the human, the subject and nature for each. Building on the contributions and limitations of radical and methodological posthumanism, the author develops a novel perspective, mediated posthumanism, that brings together insights in the philosophy of technology, the sociology of biomedicine, and Michel Foucault's work on ethical subject constitution. In this framework, technology is neither a neutral tool nor a force that alienates humanity from itself, but something that is always already part of the experience of being human, and subjectivity is viewed as an emergent property that is constantly being shaped and transformed by its engagements with biotechnologies. Mediated posthumanism becomes a tool for identifying novel ethical modes of human experience that are richer and more multifaceted than current posthumanist perspectives allow for. The book will be essential reading for students and scholars working on ethics and technology, philosophy of technology, poststructuralism, technology and the body, and medical ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I will attempt to develop and defend a common form of intuitive resistance to the companions in guilt argument. I will argue that one can reasonably believe there are promising solutions to the access problem for mathematical realism that don’t translate to moral realism. In particular, I will suggest that the structuralist project of accounting for mathematical knowledge in terms of some form of logical knowledge offers significant hope of success while no analogous approach offers such hope (...) for moral realism. (shrink)

The lottery paradox has been discussed widely. The standard solution to the lottery paradox is that a ticket holder is justified in believing each ticket will lose but the ticket holder is also justified in believing not all of the tickets will lose. If the standard solution is true, then we get the paradoxical result that it is possible for a person to have a justified set of beliefs that she knows is inconsistent. In this paper, I argue that the (...) best solution to the paradox is that a ticket holder is not justified in believing any of the tickets are losers. My solution avoids the paradoxical result of the standard solution. The solution I defend has been hastily rejected by other philosophers because it appears to lead to skepticism. I defend my solution from the threat of skepticism and give two arguments in favor of my conclusion that the ticket holder in the original lottery case is not justified in believing that his ticket will lose. (shrink)

After surveying the strengths and weaknesses of several well-known approaches to wisdom, I argue for a new theory of wisdom that focuses on being epistemically, practically, and morally rational. My theory of wisdom, The Deep Rationality Theory of Wisdom, claims that a wise person is a person who is rational and who is deeply committed to increasing his or her level of rationality. This theory is a departure from theories of wisdom that demand practical and/or theoretical knowledge. The Deep Rationality (...) Theory salvages all that is attractive, and avoids all that is problematic, about theories of wisdom that require wise people to be knowledgeable. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss a trivialization worry for Hartry Field’s official formulation of the access problem for mathematical realists, which was pointed out by Øystein Linnebo (and has recently been made much of by Justin Clarke-Doane). I argue that various attempted reformulations of the Benacerraf problem fail to block trivialization, but that access worriers can better defend themselves by sticking closer to Hartry Field’s initial informal characterization of the access problem in terms of (something like) general epistemic norms of (...) coincidence avoidance. (shrink)

This paper investigates the mechanisms a program may use to learn conceptual structures that represent natural language meaning. A computer program named Moran is described that infers conceptual structures from pictorial input data. Moran is presented with “snapshots” of an environment and an English sentence describing the action that takes place between the snapshots. The learning task is to associate each root verb with a conceptual structure that represents the types of objects that participate in the action and the changes (...) the objects undergo during the action. Four learning mechanisms are shown to be adequate to accomplish this learning task. The learning mechanisms are described along with the conditions under which each is invoked and the effect each has on existing memory structures. The conceptual structure Moran inferred for one root verb is shown. (shrink)

Studies of acculturation generally assume a similar process for men and women. Historically, the spectrum of young adults' activities was broader for women than for men, including domestic work in the home and labor force participation or school attendance. Using cross-sectional data from the 1910 Census Public Use Sample, this article applies a gendered critique of assimilation theory to explore ethnic differences in daughters' activities. Generational changes in daughters' pursuits reflect middle-class norms of women's domesticity. The findings highlight gender roles (...) transmission within the family and the fluidity of daughters' activities in response to distinctive ethnic preferences. Families engaged in household strategies regarding the allocation of members' activities to negotiate valued cultural goals, whether retaining daughters in the home or enabling daughters to attend school. The results do not support a simple assimilation model but, rather, point to considerable variation across ethnic groups in the activities pursued by coresident daughters. (shrink)

This article addresses the conceptual challenges of articulating the ethical–political limits of ‘higher education as we know it’, and the practical challenges of exploring alternative formations of higher education that are unimaginable from within the dominant imaginary of the higher education field. This article responds to the contemporary conjuncture in which possible futures have been significantly narrowed, and yet these possibilities also appear increasingly unsustainable and unethical. It invites scholars of higher education to rethink the epistemological and ontological frames within (...) which most imaginaries and institutions of higher education are embedded. If we fail to denaturalize these frames, then efforts to pluralize possible higher education futures will risk reproducing existing conceptual limitations and enduring colonial harms. (shrink)

In this book Sharon Krause argues that moral and political deliberation must incorporate passions, even as she insists on the value of impartiality.

In the most radical rereading of the opening chapters of Genesis since the Zohar, David Kishik reveals the post-secular and post-human implications of an ancient text that is part of our cultural DNA.

This paper is a defense of moral evidentialism, the view that we have a moral obligation to form the doxastic attitude that is best supported by our evidence. I will argue that two popular arguments against moral evidentialism are weak. I will also argue that our commitments to the moral evaluation of actions require us to take doxastic obligations seriously.

This is a paper about the way language meshes with life. It focuses on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, and compares it with Leo Tolstoy and Saint Augustine’s confessions. My aim is to better understand in this way what it means to have meaning in language, as well as meaning in life.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments have turned their attention to digital contact tracing. In many countries, public debate has focused on the risks this technology poses to privacy, with advocates and experts sounding alarm bells about surveillance and mission creep reminiscent of the post 9/11 era. Yet, when Apple and Google launched their contact tracing API in April 2020, some of the world’s leading privacy experts applauded this initiative for its privacy-preserving technical specifications. In an interesting twist, the tech (...) giants came to be portrayed as greater champions of privacy than some democratic governments. This article proposes to view the Apple/Google API in terms of a broader phenomenon whereby tech corporations are encroaching into ever new spheres of social life. From this perspective, the advantage these actors have accrued in the sphere of the production of digital goods provides them with access to the spheres of health and medicine, and more worrisome, to the sphere of politics. These sphere transgressions raise numerous risks that are not captured by the focus on privacy harms. Namely, a crowding out of essential spherical expertise, new dependencies on corporate actors for the delivery of essential, public goods, the shaping of public policy by non-representative, private actors and ultimately, the accumulation of decision-making power across multiple spheres. While privacy is certainly an important value, its centrality in the debate on digital contact tracing may blind us to these broader societal harms and unwittingly pave the way for ever more sphere transgressions. (shrink)