Back in October 2015 I had the opportunity to chair the book launch for all three works discussed in this review essay. At the event, Shirley Anne Tate said, “Black feminist theory is the theory”. The comment referred to how it is not ‘just’ that Black feminist theory is typically marginalised within institutional contexts and academic scholarship, ‘even’ within critical, feminist and poststructural work, but also to highlight the capacity of Black feminist scholarship to unpick and destabilise the known and (...) knowable in ways that are profoundly ontological, and which offer potential routes to meaningful social change through the hard task of working across difference. The three books reviewed here by Shirley Anne Tate, Suryia Nayak and Shona Hunter are theoretically rich and complex in breadth, scope and range, drawing on extensive Black feminist scholarship, as well as critical race, critical feminist, psychosocial, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, decolonial and poststructural approaches. Each book is embedded in everyday practices and social processes, offering multi-layered movement across different spatial-social and affective scales in ways that allow ‘big’ insights to emerge from the locatedness and particularity of human experience. They are reviewed in turn and some concluding comments identify important commonalities across the texts. (shrink)

With this work J. B. Schneewind has provided the most comprehensive history of modern moral philosophy available in English. Beginning with the moral theology of the Reformation and ending with Kant, Schneewind’s book offers a panorama of moral philosophy that includes the early modern natural lawyers and their metaphysical critics, the British sentimentalists and their rationalist opponents, and a whole series of eighteenth-century attempts to develop a secular moral philosophy grounded in autonomous human reason and will. Despite its broader multinational (...) scope and its focus on ethics rather than epistemology, Schneewind’s book seems destined to replace Beck’s Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors, as culminating and summating the work of the next generation of scholars working within the historiographical canons of American Kantianism. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of mind has tended to make the believer disappear. In response, Matt Boyle and Pamela Hieronymi have argued that believing is an act or activity, not a mental state. I argue that this response fails to fully critique contemporary accounts of believing. Such accounts assume that states of believing are particulars; with semantic properties; that we attend to in reflection and act on in inference; and with a rich causal life of their own. Together, these assumptions leave no (...) room for the believer in an account of believing. But these assumptions are not entailed by the idea that believing is a mental state. Careful reflection on other kinds of states helps us see how to put the believer back in the heart of our account of believing. (shrink)

Summary Justifications of the humanities often employ a mythos that exceeds their historical dispositions and reach. This applies to justifications that appeal to an ?idea? of the humanities grounded in the cultivation of reason for its own sake. But the same problem affects more recent accounts that seek to shatter this idea by admitting an ?event? capable of dissolving and refounding the humanities in ?being?. In offering a sketch of the emergence of the modern humanities from early modern humanism, the (...) paper argues that these twin philosophical justifications fail to capture both the array of intellectual arts that have informed the humanities disciplines and the variety of uses to which these arts have been put. Nonetheless, the two philosophical constructions have had a concrete impact on the disposition of the modern humanities, seen in the respective structuralist and poststructuralist reconfigurations of the disciplines that began to take place under the banner of ?theory? during the 1960s. In discussing the effects of theory on the humanities in Australia, the paper focuses on the unforeseeable consequences of attempts to provide arts-based disciplines with a foundation either in cognitive structures or in an ?event? that shatters them. (shrink)

Although the volume of the surviving papers of Robert Boyle is substantial (over 20,000 leaves), a considerable amount of the written material left by Boyle at his death in 1691 has not survived in the Boyle archive. This paper gauges the scale and identity of these losses using the surviving inventories made by the Rev. Henry Miles in the 1740s when he was collecting and sorting Boyle's literary remains in conjunction with Thomas Birch's preparation of his 1744 Life and Works (...) of Boyle. These detailed lists (edited as appendices to this paper), together with other sources, indicate losses due to a variety of reasons, some deliberate, others accidental. The losses involved the disposal of both items judged (in the eighteenth century) to be peripheral to Boyle's archive and, ironically, those in the most finished state from Boyle's hand, which were perhaps abortively destined for the Birch edition. These losses have significantly altered the character of the Boyle Papers, and thus the view of Boyle that is derived from them. (shrink)

In treating human nature as a ‘moral entity’, imposed by God for reasons into which man could have no direct insight, Samuel Pufendorf reconfigured the architecture of natural law thought in a fundamental way. For this meant that rather than deducing norms from a nature in which they had been embedded by God and could be discerned by self-reflective reason, man had to derive them by observing the requirements of the exigent condition in which he happened to find himself; and (...) it further meant that such observation would be gathered via erudite citation of humanist authorities, rather than from philosophical reflection or introspection. As a result of this reconstruction, Pufendorfian natural law was opened to the normative structure of historically existing juridical-constitutional orders, for which it supplied both a propaedeutic and an abstract rationale. At the same time, however, theological and philosophical forms of natural law, based on normative moral anthropologies, continued unabated, this giving rise to a partitioning of the field into an introspective philosophy of law, and an observational legal humanism. (shrink)

Despite his significance in early modern Germany, where he was well-known as a political and moral philosopher, jurist, lay-theologian, social and educational reformer, Christian Thomasius (1655-1728) is little known in the world of Anglophone scholarship. 1 Unlike those of his mentor, Samuel Pufendorf, none of Thomasius's works was translated into English, when, at the end of the seventeenth century, English thinkers were searching for a final settlement to the religious question. None has been translated since. Moreover, while Thomasius has been (...) subject to increasing scholarly attention in Germany since the 1970s, where he has been treated largely as a representative of the "early Enlightenment," there is very little secondary literature on him in English. 2 Things are however beginning to change in this regard, with recent research already giving rise to important new Anglophone books and essays. 3 Knud Haakonssen's article on [End Page 595] Thomasius for the new Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy might well be a straw in the wind. (shrink)

This study throws new light on the composition of Boyle's Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv'd Notion of Nature ; it also draws more general conclusions about Boyle's methods as an author and his links with his context. Its basis is a careful study of the extant manuscript drafts for the work, and their relationship with the published editions. Section 2 describes Boyle's characteristic method of composition from the late 1650s onwards, involving the dictation of discrete sections of text to (...) amanuenses; it also assesses the effect this had on the structure and presentation of Boyle's writings. Section 3 considers the published text section by section and indicates which parts were written when; it also surveys unpublished draft material relating to the work. Section 4 places the work in context, considering the intellectual threats that Boyle sought to confront in it, both when he initially composed it in the 1660s and when he rewrote it c. 1680. It thus anchors him more precisely than hitherto in the intellectual debates of his day. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Arnauld defends a traditional Roman Catholic position on miracles, though he might have been expected to do otherwise. This oddity is explained by the fact that Arnauld, as spokesman for Port-Royal, was called upon to defend one of the most startling and best-documented miracles in history.

With this work J. B. Schneewind has provided the most comprehensive history of modern moral philosophy available in English. Beginning with the moral theology of the Reformation and ending with Kant, Schneewind’s book offers a panorama of moral philosophy that includes the early modern natural lawyers and their metaphysical critics, the British sentimentalists and their rationalist opponents, and a whole series of eighteenth-century attempts to develop a secular moral philosophy grounded in autonomous human reason and will. Despite its broader multinational (...) scope and its focus on ethics rather than epistemology, Schneewind’s book seems destined to replace Beck’s Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors, as culminating and summating the work of the next generation of scholars working within the historiographical canons of American Kantianism. (shrink)

The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the lost religion of Taoist Christianity. Martin Palmer. Piatkus, London 2001. xvi, 270 pp. £17.99. ISBN 0 7499 2250 8.

In this paper; having somewhat arbitrarily adopted a general line of interpretation of Wittgenstein on forms of life in which the word ’life' is taken in a biological sense, I try to work out ways of being more specific than that, which (a) are philosophically interesting, (b) are consistent with Wittgenstein's uses of the expression form of life' and with other remarks of his that seem closely connected, and (c) that take seriously both his disavowal of THESES in philosophy and (...) his (related) belief that the job of philosophy is not to devise better theories, but to show how the problem itself arises from a particular kind of misunderstanding of language. A number of ways in which the idea of a form of life could play that sort of part are explored, for example the question how we know from which direction a sound comes, which we might initially have supposed to be answerable by reference to a calculation of the time difference in the arrival of a sound wave at one ear and then the other is rejected in favour of a supposition that the waves affect the nervous system and thereby causes us to look in the correct direction. This is an important difference. A neurologist might spend half a lifetime tracking down the nerves that calculate the direction, ana fail because no such calculation is done. Misdirected questions about identifying and locating pains, and about mastery are investigated, and finally Wittgenstein is depicted as holding that the nervous system, together with membership in a community provides all the assurance we need of the general correctness of calculations. (shrink)

This volume responds to calls in visual and material cultural studies to move beyond the visual and to explore the multi-sensory impact of the image, across a wide range of cultural and historical contexts. What does it mean to do art history after the material and sensory turns? What is an image, if it is not purely visual phenomenon, and how does it prompt non-visual sensory experiences? The multi-sensoriality of the image was a less challenging concept before the occularcentric modern (...) age, and so this volume brings together a global array of scholars from multiple disciplines to explore these questions in pre-modern or non-western contexts, ranging from Minoan palace frescoes, to Roman statues, early church sermons, tombs of Byzantine saints, museum displays of Islamic artefacts of scent, medieval depictions of the voice, and Stuart court masques. Each chapter presents a means of appreciating images beyond the visual, demonstrating the new information and understanding that can consequently be gleaned from their material. As a collection, these chapters offer the student and scholar of art history and visual culture an array of exciting new approaches that can be applied to appreciate the multi-sensoriality of images in any context, as well as prompts for reflection on future directions in the study of images and its application. The Multi-Sensory Image thus illustrates that it is not only possible to explore the non-visual impact of images, but imperative. (shrink)

BackgroundThe rise of Big Data-driven health research challenges the assumed contribution of medical research to the public good, raising questions about whether the status of such research as a common good should be taken for granted, and how public trust can be preserved. Scandals arising out of sharing data during medical research have pointed out that going beyond the requirements of law may be necessary for sustaining trust in data-intensive health research. We propose building upon the use of a social (...) licence for achieving such ethical governance.Main textWe performed a narrative review of the social licence as presented in the biomedical literature. We used a systematic search and selection process, followed by a critical conceptual analysis. The systematic search resulted in nine publications. Our conceptual analysis aims to clarify how societal permission can be granted to health research projects which rely upon the reuse and/or linkage of health data. These activities may be morally demanding. For these types of activities, a moral legitimation, beyond the limits of law, may need to be sought in order to preserve trust. Our analysis indicates that a social licence encourages us to recognise a broad range of stakeholder interests and perspectives in data-intensive health research. This is especially true for patients contributing data. Incorporating such a practice paves the way towards an ethical governance, based upon trust. Public engagement that involves patients from the start is called for to strengthen this social licence.ConclusionsThere are several merits to using the concept of social licence as a guideline for ethical governance. Firstly, it fits the novel scale of data-related risks; secondly, it focuses attention on trustworthiness; and finally, it offers co-creation as a way forward. Greater trust can be achieved in the governance of data-intensive health research by highlighting strategic dialogue with both patients contributing the data, and the public in general. This should ultimately contribute to a more ethical practice of governance. (shrink)

Can we deploy creative practices to critically address the fatal interlocking of global surveillance technologies, neo-colonial expansionism, environmental degradation and the lethal threat of drone warfare? Throughout the following conversation, Shona Illingworth and Anthony Downey examine these and other questions in relation to the recent publication of Topologies of Air (Sternberg Press and The Power Plant, 2022). Edited by Downey, the book includes discussion and documentation of two major bodies of work by Illingworth, including Topologies of Air (2021) and (...) Lesions in the Landscape (2015), alongside an extended series of essays that analyse the psychological and environmental impact of military, industrial and corporate transformations of airspace and outer space. Employing interdisciplinary research and collaborative processes, Illingworth’s practice, as detailed in the discussion below, uses creative methodologies to visualize and interrogate this proliferating exploitation of airspace. The conversation between Illingworth and Downey also outlines the work of the Airspace Tribunal, an ongoing series of public hearings that brings together diverse disciplines, methodologies, knowledge and lived experiences to propose a new human right that will counter the colonization of the sky and, in time, protect individuals, communities and ecologies from ever-increasing threats from above. (shrink)

IntroductionInternational sharing of health data opens the door to the study of the so-called ‘Big Data’, which holds great promise for improving patient-centred care. Failure of recent data sharing initiatives indicates an urgent need to invest in societal trust in researchers and institutions. Key to an informed understanding of such a ‘social license’ is identifying the views patients and the public may hold with regard to data sharing for health research.MethodsWe performed a narrative review of the empirical evidence addressing patients’ (...) and public views and attitudes towards the use of health data for research purposes. The literature databases PubMed, Embase, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched in April 2019 to identify relevant publications. Patients’ and public attitudes were extracted from selected references and thematically categorised.ResultsTwenty-seven papers were included for review, including both qualitative and quantitative studies and systematic reviews. Results suggest widespread—though conditional—support among patients and the public for data sharing for health research. Despite the fact that participants recognise actual or potential benefits of data research, they expressed concerns about breaches of confidentiality and potential abuses of the data. Studies showed agreement on the following conditions: value, privacy, risk minimisation, data security, transparency, control, information, trust, responsibility and accountability.ConclusionsOur results indicate that a social license for data-intensive health research cannot simply be presumed. To strengthen the social license, identified conditions ought to be operationalised in a governance framework that incorporates the diverse patient and public values, needs and interests. (shrink)

Pragmatic trials aim to directly inform health care decision-making through the collection of so-called ‘real world data’ from observations of comparative treatment effects in clinical practice. In order to ensure the applicability and feasibility of a pragmatic trial, design features may be necessary that deviate from standard research ethics requirements. Examples are traditional requirements to seek written informed consent and to perform extensive data and safety monitoring. Proposals for deviations from standard research ethics practice have resulted in controversy about their (...) ethical acceptability. One of the justifications for altered procedures is the allegedly high social value of pragmatic trials. In order to properly operationalize the concept in the ethical assessment of pragmatic trial designs, specification is warranted. We identified three determinants from common claims about a pragmatic trial's social value: the extent to which the research question has real world relevance, the trial design's ability to generate a real world answer and the probability of direct uptake of the results by decision-makers in practice. Subsequently, we discuss how these determinants should be applied to the practice of pragmatic trials, and to what extent they might be applicable to explanatory trials. (shrink)

Large-scale linkage of international clinical datasets could lead to unique insights into disease aetiology and facilitate treatment evaluation and drug development. Hereto, multi-stakeholder consortia are currently designing several disease-specific translational research platforms to enable international health data sharing. Despite the recent adoption of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the procedures for how to govern responsible data sharing in such projects are not at all spelled out yet. In search of a first, basic outline of an ethical governance framework, we (...) set out to explore relevant ethical principles and norms. We performed a systematic review of literature and ethical guidelines for principles and norms pertaining to data sharing for international health research. We observed an abundance of principles and norms with considerable convergence at the aggregate level of four overarching themes: societal benefits and value; distribution of risks, benefits and burdens; respect for individuals and groups; and public trust and engagement. However, at the level of principles and norms we identified substantial variation in the phrasing and level of detail, the number and content of norms considered necessary to protect a principle, and the contextual approaches in which principles and norms are used. While providing some helpful leads for further work on a coherent governance framework for data sharing, the current collection of principles and norms prompts important questions about how to streamline terminology regarding de-identification and how to harmonise the identified principles and norms into a coherent governance framework that promotes data sharing while securing public trust. (shrink)

Kotek et al. argue on the basis of novel experimental evidence that sentences like ‘Most of the dots are blue’ are ambiguous, i.e. have two distinct truth conditions. Kotek et al. furthermore suggest that when their results are taken together with those of earlier work by Lidz et al., the overall picture that emerges casts doubt on the conclusions that Lidz et al. drew from their earlier results. We disagree with this characterization of the relationship between the two studies. Our (...) main aim in this reply is to clarify the relationship as we see it. In our view, Kotek et al.’s central claims are simply logically independent of those of Lidz et al.: the former concern which truth condition a certain kind of sentence has, while the latter concern the procedures that speakers choose for the purposes of determining whether a particular truth condition is satisfied in various scenes. The appearance of a conflict between the two studies stems from inattention to the distinction between questions about truth conditions and questions about verification procedures. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore Australian public and stakeholders views towards the regulation of the Internet and its content. The federal government called for submissions addressing their proposal, and this paper analyses these submissions for themes and provides clarity as to the Australian public and stakeholders key concerns in regards to the proposed policy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative approach to analyse the public consultations to the Australian Federal Government. These documents are coded (...) and analysed to determine negative and positive viewpoints. Findings – The research has shown, based upon the analysis of the consultation, that there was no public support for any of the measures put forward, that the Australian Federal Government in its response has not recognised this public feedback and instead has only utilised some of the qualitative feedback obtained through the public consultation process to try to justify its case to proceed with its proposals. Research limitations/implications – The study is focussed on Australia. Practical implications – The paper analyses a proposed national approach to filtering the content of the Internet and discussed the public reaction to such an approach. Social implications – The paper looks at how different parts of Australian society view Internet filtering in a positive or negative manner. Originality/value – The only study that directly looks at the viewpoint of the Australian public. (shrink)

Ineffability—that which cannot be explained in words—lies at the heart of the Christian mystical tradition. It has also been part of every discussion of religious experience since the early twentieth century. Despite this centrality, ineffability is a concept that has largely been ignored by philosophers of religion. In this book, Bennett-Hunter builds on the recent work of David E. Cooper, who argues that the meaning of life can only be understood in terms of an ineffable source on which life (...) depends, and engages with the work of continental philosophers, such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Karl Jaspers. This is the first book to explore the concept of ineffability within contemporary philosophy of religion and provides a starting point for further scholarly debate. It will be of interest to scholars of philosophy of religion, theology, existentialism and phenomenology. -/- 'Bennett Hunter’s book is a timely contribution to the growing theological and philosophical literature on mystery and ineffability. Written in a lucid and elegant style, the book makes a convincing case for the ineffability of religious experience and explores its relationship to a sense that our lives are answerable to such experience.' — David E. Cooper. -/- 'Philosophers have long concentrated on linguistic forms in a way that has isolated language from the rest of life, and this isolation has increasingly obscured for them the vast range of things that cannot be spoken. Bennett-Hunter is not the first philosopher to try and map this distracted field, but he is remarkable in the width and sympathy of his approach to the highly various thinkers whom he invokes to illuminate it.' — Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Presently, there is a movement in the UK research governance framework towards what is referred to as proportional ethical review. Proportional ethical review is the notion that the level of ethical review and scrutiny given to a research project ought to reflect the level of ethical risk represented by that project. Relatively innocuous research should receive relatively minimal review and relatively risky research should receive intense scrutiny. Although conceptually attractive, the notion of proportional review depends on the possibility of effectively (...) identifying the risks and ethical issues posed by an application with some process other than a full review by a properly constituted research ethics committee. In this paper, it is argued that this cannot be achieved and that the only appropriate means of identifying risks and ethical issues is consideration by a full committee. This implies that the suggested changes to the National Health Service research ethics system presently being consulted on should be strenuously resisted. (shrink)

Some embodied theories of concepts state that concepts are represented in a sensorimotor manner, typically via simulation in sensorimotor cortices. Fred Adams (2010) has advanced an empirical argument against embodied concepts reasoning as follows. If concepts are embodied, then patients with certain sensorimotor impairments should perform worse on categorization tasks involving those concepts. Adams cites a study with Moebius Syndrome patients that shows typical categorization performance in face-based emotion recognition. Adams concludes that their typical performance shows that embodiment is false. (...) Moebius patients must draw on amodal (non-embodied) emotion concepts. In this paper, I review face-based emotion recognition studies with Moebius patients yielding conflicting results and diagnose these conflicts as a difference in experimental design. When emotion labels are provided, patients have typical performance, but when labels are not provided patients are severely deficient. I then show how an embodied, psychological constructionist view of emotions predicts and explains these performance differences. The upshot is that embodied theories of concepts are vindicated. (shrink)

Issues of balancing data accessibility with ethical considerations and governance of a genomics research biobank, Generation Scotland, are explored within the evolving policy landscape of the past ten years. During this time data sharing and open data access have become increasingly important topics in biomedical research. Decisions around data access are influenced by local arrangements for governance and practices such as linkage to health records, and the global through policies for biobanking and the sharing of data with large-scale biomedical research (...) data resources and consortia. We use a literature review of policy relevant documents which apply to the conduct of biobanks in two areas: support for open access and the protection of data subjects and researchers managing a bioresource. We present examples of decision making within a biobank based upon observations of the Generation Scotland Access Committee. We reflect upon how the drive towards open access raises ethical dilemmas for established biorepositories containing data and samples from human subjects. Despite much discussion in science policy literature about standardisation, the contextual aspects of biobanking are often overlooked. Using our engagement with GS we demonstrate the importance of local arrangements in the creation of a responsive ethical approach to biorepository governance. We argue that governance decisions regarding access to the biobank are intertwined with considerations about maintenance and viability at the local level. We show that in addition to the focus upon ever more universal and standardised practices, the local expertise gained in the management of such repositories must be supported. A commitment to open access in genomics research has found almost universal backing in science and health policy circles, but repositories of data and samples from human subjects may have to operate under managed access, to protect privacy, align with participant consent and ensure that the resource can be managed in a sustainable way. Data access committees need to be reflexive and flexible, to cope with changing technology and opportunities and threats from the wider data sharing environment. To understand these interactions also involves nurturing what is particular about the biobank in its local context. (shrink)

In this paper, I plan to show that the use of a specific population concept—Millstein’s Causal Interactionist Population Concept (CIPC)—has interesting and counter-intuitive ramifications for discussions of the reality of biological race in human beings. These peculiar ramifications apply to human beings writ large and to individuals. While this in and of itself may not be problematic, I plan to show that the ramifications that follow from applying Millstein’s CIPC to human beings complicates specific biological racial realist accounts—naïve or otherwise. (...) I conclude with the notion that even if biological races do exist—by fulfilling all of the criteria needed for Millstein’s population concept (which, given particular worries raised by Gannett (Synthese 177:363–385, 2010), and Winther and Kaplan (Theoria 60:54–80, 2013) may not)—the lower-bound limit for the scope of biological racial realism is at the level of populations, and as such they cannot say anything about whether or not individual organisms themselves have races. (shrink)

Was Hume here claiming or implying that propositions about what men ought to do are radically different from purely factual propositions, and that they cannot ever be entailed by any purely factual propositions? No, despite Mr Hare, Professor Nowell-Smith, Professor Ayer, Miss Murdoch, Professor Flew, Mr Basson, and The Observer's Brief Guide to philosophy.

This work makes available to readers without specialized training in mathematics complete proofs of the fundamental metatheorems of standard (i.e., basically ...

This paper looks at the issue of consent from children and whether the test of Gillick competency, applied in medical and healthcare practice, ought to extend to participation in research. It is argued that the relatively broad usage of the test of Gillick competency in the medical context should not be considered applicable for use in research. The question of who would and could determine Gillick competency in research raises further concerns relating to the training of the researcher to make (...) such a decision as well as to the obvious issue of the researcher’s personal interest in the project and possibility of benefiting from the outcome. These could affect the judgment of Gillick competency if the researcher is charged with making this decision. The above notwithstanding, there are two exceptional research situations in which Gillick competency might be legitimately applied: when the research is likely to generate significant advantages for the participants while exposing them to relatively minor risks, and when it is likely to generate great societal benefit, pose minimal risks for the participants and yet raise parental objection. In both cases, to ensure that autonomy is genuinely respected and to protect against personal interest, Gillick competency should be assessed by an individual who has no interest or involvement in the research. (shrink)

A natural view is that linguistic understanding is a source of justification or evidence: that beliefs about the meaning of a text or speech act are prima facie justified when based on states of understanding. Neglect of this view is largely due to the widely held assumption that understanding a text or speech act consists in knowledge or belief. It is argued that this assumption rests, in part, on confusing occurrent states of understanding and dispositions to understand. It is then (...) argued that occurrent states of understanding are not states of belief of knowledge since a subject may fail to believe that a text or speech act means what she understands it to mean if she doubts the reliability or truth- fulness of that understanding. States of understanding, it is maintained, belong in the same epistemic category as states of perception and memory. (shrink)

A report on Cornel West's Edinburgh Gifford Lectures 2024: "A Jazz-soaked Philosophy for our Catastrophic Times: From Socrates to Coltrane".

A natural view is that linguistic understanding is a source of justification or evidence: that beliefs about the meaning of a text or speech act are prima facie justified when based on states of understanding. Neglect of this view is largely due to the widely held assumption that understanding a text or speech act consists in knowledge or belief. It is argued that this assumption rests, in part, on confusing occurrent states of understanding and dispositions to understand. It is then (...) argued that occurrent states of understanding are not states of belief of knowledge since a subject may fail to believe that a text or speech act means what she understands it to mean if she doubts the reliability or truthfulness of that understanding. States of understanding, it is maintained, belong in the same epistemic category as states of perception and memory. (shrink)

Purpose The aim of the paper is to assess the hacktivist group called the Syrian Electronic Army and determine what their motivations in terms of ethical and poetical motivations. Design/methodology/approach This paper looks at chronological examples of Syrian Electronic Army activities and assess them using a developed hacktivist criteria to try and gain a greater understanding of the motivations of the Syrian Electronic Army. The paper uses a netnography research approach. Findings This paper determines that the Syrian Electronic Army is (...) motivated to protect the Syrian Government. This protection is highlighted by the new media and social media organisations that the Syrian Electronic Army attacks online. Research limitations/implications This paper focuses only on one group the Syrian Electronic Army. Practical implications A greater understanding of the Syrian Electronic Army. Social implications A greater understanding of the development of hacktivism. Originality/value A unique study into the motivation of the Syrian Electronic Army. (shrink)