In this paper, we outline and defend a view on which in olfactory experience we can, and often do, smell ordinary things of various kinds—for instance, cookies, coffee, and cake burnings—and the olfactory properties they have. A challenge to this view are cases of smelling in the absence of the source of a smell, such as when a fishy smell lingers after the fish is gone. Such cases, many philosophers argue, show that what we perceive in olfactory experience are odour (...) objects, and not ordinary things. On behalf of our opponent, we articulate a screening-off argument based on cases of lingering smells for the thesis that we do not smell ordinary things. We then develop an alternative account of these cases that is consistent with our view. In doing so, we call into question two claims that are typically built into the notion of an odour object. (shrink)

In the last decades, Hegel’s mature political philosophy has come to be associated with some form of social or welfare liberalism. Challenging this line of interpretation, this study aims to show that his work harbours a more ambitious philosophical programme, grounded in a different vision of the modern state. However, this programme is only partly spelled out in the Philosophy of Right. While the conceptual logic that guides Hegel’s dialectical progression points beyond the modern liberal standpoint, some of his concrete (...) political choices are more conservative, and some are even opposed to the change of perspective I claim to be at stake in his work. In response to this tension, I undertake a systematic reconstruction of his social and political views, divided into two main parts. First, I highlight the critical dimension I take to be explicitly present in the Philosophy of Right but neglected or misrepresented in the secondary literature. I argue that the different stages of Hegel’s progression are not merely added to one another, but qualitatively transformed, and hence that his account of the state should not be read as a mere complement to the stage of civil society, but as a direct challenge to its underlying logic. Second, I draw the political and economic conclusions implicit in this line of approach. Shifting the focus from Hegel’s interpreters to Hegel himself, I show that the conscious pursuit of the common good he regards as essential to a rational state is not compatible with a capitalist production system nor with the constitutional monarchy he proposes. A true dialectical synthesis of the particular interests of individuals and the general interests of society entails nothing less than a comprehensive democratization of the economic and the political spheres. And the need for this transformation holds the key to Hegel’s enduring political relevance. (shrink)

We explore the effectiveness of virtual influencers in promoting self-improvement products. Four studies demonstrate that compared with human influencers, virtual influencers can increase consumers’ self-improvement product preferences because of the realistic threats depicted by virtual influences. Moreover, this effect weakens or disappears when consumers and influencers are in a cooperative relationship, or when consumers are self-affirmed. By innovatively exploring virtual influencers’ impact on consumers’ perceptions of realistic threats, we enrich the antecedents of self-improvement product preferences, and provide implications for research (...) and marketing practices. (shrink)

The study of perception has often taken the perspective of vision and, to date, less attention has been dedicated to the other senses, including hearing. Research in auditory perception itself has been predominantly occupied with sounds, overlooking further aspects of the auditory perceptual experiences that we ordinarily undergo. Carrying out an inquiry in auditory perception, I present an account of the material objects of auditory perceptual experience. Examining the objects of auditory perceptual experience via the notion of force, a power (...) essential to material bodies, we come to appreciate that we are ordinarily auditorily presented with material bodies. A set of auditory perceptual experiences, such as that of the crunching of a carrot, evidently present us with material bodies in presenting us with bodies in interaction, exerting and being governed by force. This will further provide an opportunity to uncover biases in our understanding of what constitutes objects of material nature and how we consider these to be present in perceptual experience. The first part of this thesis looks into the sources of these biases, beginning with a sceptical challenge set out by Hume and considering a set of responses to this. Hume is sceptical of the idea that what we perceive continues to exist unperceived which we may derive from experience of material bodies. As I will observe in chapter two, philosophers have often assigned a central role to spatial aspects of material bodies in the resolution of this issue. Given so, in chapter three, I identify the source of a challenge as to whether the auditory presents us with material bodies in the thesis that auditory perceptual experience does not present us with spatially extended bodies. In the second part, I develop my positive account. In chapter four, posing a challenge to indirect accounts of auditory perception, according to which we hear material bodies indirectly via auditory perceptual experience of sounds, I begin to put forward the claim that there is a set of cases of auditory perceptual experience in which we do appear to be presented with material bodies. In chapter five, I move on to assess our conception of the material taking a short historical excursus in the understanding of the power of bodies to exert and be governed by force. In chapter six, I turn to consider what it means to be perceptually sensitive to this condition of materiality and in what sense such power can be considered to be present in auditory perceptual experience. In chapter seven, I finally point to a further direction of inquiry into mind-independence that the account developed in this thesis opens. (shrink)

Why do we strike intrinsically inoffensive objects when they intrude upon our lives? Why, for example, do we kick the car when it breaks down, or slap the chair that pinches our finger against the table, or strike the open door that collides with our head? In this essay, I ask whether this phenomenon, which I call the performance of “pure object revenge”, might arise from an impulse to execute vindicatory, and in that sense vengeful, justice upon the offending object. (...) My new explanation for the phenomenon is that we strike the offending object because it has no life but has briefly acted as if it were alive. It therefore reminds us in the brief moment of its offence that our bodies are also inanimate dust and will return to dust and in the meantime are only briefly animated. In short, my argument is that we strike the object because it is a memento mori. To test and support this, I offer a reading of the “closet scene” at the centre of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to illustrate the performative impulse to banish inanimate objects at the threshold of the living and the dead. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses questions of sexual inclusion and epistemic justice, focusing on the claims and interests of intellectually disabled people. Specifically, it asks whether intellectually disabled people have a right to meaning in their sexual lives and whether the right to sexual inclusion is distinct from the right to sex. The project argues that some intellectually disabled people, through no fault of their own, are broadly sexually excluded. Broad sexual exclusion involves more than just non-access to sex; it denies individuals (...) access to (solo and interpersonal) sexually meaningful experiences and excludes them from the sexual life of their society. But what do we really owe to each other as sexual beings? How ought society recognise and provide sexual access, knowledge, and opportunities to intellectually disabled individuals? Grappling with these complex questions, this dissertation draws on script theory and the theory of hermeneutical injustice to diagnose problems in the appropriate social recognition of the sexual agency of intellectually disabled people. Specifically, this dissertation offers a new understanding of ‘sexual scripts’ as diagnostic tools for recognising and resolving certain forms of sexual injustice. It is argued that sexual scripts shape expectations around identity group members’ sexual lives. These scripts can be such that some individuals are not recognised as properly belonging within sexual scenes. Instead, their sexuality and sexual expression are understood as passive or deviant. In response, their sexual lives may become highly regulated and vital sexual epistemic resources may be withheld or corrupted. In addition to perpetuating broad sexual exclusion, this can amount to a sexual hermeneutical or a sex-educational injustice. The revision of desexualising sexual scripts is an integral part of thinking through reforms to education and social policy. So too, revising desexualising scripts can better enable intellectually disabled people to understand their sexual experiences and to pursue meaningful intimate relationships. While individuals can independently challenge and replace unjust scripts, revising scripts can best be achieved through structural changes that promote empathy and social inclusion. Three promising paths for securing broad sexual inclusion are offered, namely sexual and educational integration and ‘liberationist relationships and sexuality education’. (shrink)

How can events in part of the Stoic cosmos be contingent, when all events are necessary? Why does Chrysippus hold that the impossible may flow from the possible, or that while it is possible Dion die, ‘this person be dead’ is impossible. This article constructs a naïve model of Stoic modality in which truth evaluations are grounded in spatial location and motion. This is shown to provide a best fit for the Stoic doctrine, generating the six events which Chrysippus groups (...) into the four Stoic modal categories, and explaining why the Stoics espoused doctrines attacked as contradictory by their opponents. (shrink)

This thesis examines if traditional accounts of shared intention can explain how it works when there's doubt about partner intentions to contribute. Can I plan an activity with you and rely on you in ways required to share intentions when I cannot take for granted that you’re predisposed to cooperate? This question, which reflects some everyday instances of social interaction, raises issues about whether and how shared intention can be possible when there is uncertainty about partner motivations and intentions. I (...) address two potential objections to the idea. First, that the lack of common knowledge precludes sharing intentions. I propose a role for common knowledge in settling matters in shared intention and argue that despite its absence it’s still possible that this function is fulfilled. Second, that this overly weakens a belief requirement on shared intention. I draw on research on individual agency to argue that uncertainty about joint action success needn’t undermine shared intention. Neither challenge therefore precludes shared intention under motivational uncertainty. I address a new concern that under this uncertainty a joint settling condition is not met. I use two authors’ accounts of shared intention to highlight the importance of this requirement, and show that, despite very different methodological approaches, both rely on similar background assumptions to explain how the requirement is met. However, I argue that the presence of attractive alternatives means there’s no prima facie reason why these assumptions hold, presenting a theoretical problem. To solve it, I propose using the notion of mutual, social commitment—a popular tool to reduce motivational uncertainty between agents in joint activity—to ground reliance on others and explain how agents jointly settle matters in these contexts. This would, though, impact how we conceptualise the general connection between intentions and commitments. Despite this potential, I argue that social commitments lack credibility in traditional accounts of shared intention, a particularly acute problem in situations with motivational uncertainty. Finally, I outline a view of interpersonal commitment which responds to certain of the issues faced by traditional theories of commitment. I present a framework for a minimal psychological sense of commitment which arises in joint activities and explain how it allows individuals to settle matters in shared activity when there is uncertainty about intentions. I provide empirical support for the theory and address two concerns it faces. I conclude by showing how the sense of commitment can be a basis for solving the problem of how agents can jointly settle matters under conditions of substantial motivational uncertainty. (shrink)

The question of how to improve the effectiveness of charitable solicitation has long been a subject of investigation for charity organizations. Through six studies, including four incentive-compatible studies and a field study, the present research demonstrates an easy, actionable, and widely applicable semantic-framing strategy that can be utilized to promote charitable giving. Semantically framing charitable giving as a gift (rather than a donation) increases not only donors’ intention to contribute but also their actual contribution amount (Studies 1–3). Both mediation (Study (...) 4) and moderation (Study 5) approaches provide convergent evidence that the effect of framing charitable giving as a gift rather than a donation on contribution is driven by donors’ perceived social distance from beneficiaries. The authors further find that this framing effect is weakened when soliciting contributions from donors who see social distance as desirable (e.g., those with a high need for status; Study 6). The current work contributes to the literature streams on charitable giving, social exchange, and semantic framing and provides strong managerial implications for charity organizations. (shrink)

In this essay, I situate Irigaray’s philosophy of sexuate difference between the Heideggerian response to the collapse of the project of Western modernity and that of decolonial theorist Oscar Guardiola-Riviera. First, I return to Heidegger’s theorisation of ‘planetary technicity’ as the ontology of modernity, arguing, with Heidegger, that in order to respond to this problem we must return to the question of Being. From here, I link Heidegger’s theory of technicity with the work of decolonial theory on the ‘coloniality of (...) Being’, suggesting that one reason for Heidegger’s pessimism is that he did not think technicity from beyond a Eurocentric perspective. The recent ‘ontological turn’ in decolonial anthropology that seeks to study Indigenous thought as ontology, however, shows that there are resources for thinking beyond the onto-logic of technicity. Yet, here, I return to Irigaray’s critique of Heidegger for his forgetting of sexuate difference in his analysis of technology to say that a move to a decolonial ontology beyond planetary technicity can only take place if we go through an ontology of sexual difference: because, as Irigaray shows, the onto-logic of technicity that underwrites coloniality and modernity begins in an ontological annihilation of life, sexuate difference, and the maternal debt, the only way to recover this is by thinking the question of sexuate difference. Finally, I conclude by examining the case of the Kogi peoples of Colombia who have warned Westerners that the destruction of the planet can only be stopped if we learn to recompense our common Mother. This case, I suggest, shows how and why the turn to non-Western ontologies as a way out of the death project of modern technicity must reckon with the work of Irigaray. (shrink)

This paper will carry out a theoretical and empirical inquiry into the ways in which the ‘discourse of thirdness’ is constituted within the field of intercultural studies. It will firstly critically review the autochthonous conceptualisations of the Third Space and other metaphors of ‘thirdness’ in language education. It will then use corpus analysis techniques to analyse a collection of research papers from the preeminent journals in the field, in which the terms ‘Third Space’, ‘third place’ and ‘third culture’ occur. The (...) paper will conclude by relating the empirical findings back to the autochthonous writings. (shrink)

This paper investigates the implications for cultural policy of the logic of the instrumental view of culture taken to its conclusion. Policy developments that establish sets of justifications and rationales that have nothing to do with the cultural content of the policy concerned, but which arise from a deliberate realignment of policy frameworks, establish a form of hyperinstrumentalism. With hyperinstrumentalism the focus on outcomes and the ends of policy means that cultural policy is only as important as the ends to (...) which it is directed. As such, hyperinstrumentalisation demonstrates the consequences for the sector of conditions where claims about the value of culture are irrelevant to political actors. The paper questions whether sense can be made of this shift as a coherent and strategic political choice, rather than as a simple assault on culture. The case of Northern Ireland’s Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure is used to illustrate this. The authors question whether hyperinstrumentalism undermines the justification for an autonomous domain of cultural policy. (shrink)

This paper considers the application of video-based research to address methodological challenges for organizational scholars concerned with the sociomaterial foundations to work practice. In particular the claim that ‘all practices are always sociomaterial’ raises a ‘problem of relevance’ – that is on what grounds can we select material to include in the analytic account when there is a vast array of material in each setting? Furthermore, how can we grasp the sociality of material objects that are often taken for granted (...) and that drift in and out of view? We address these methodological questions drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and by making use of video recordings of everyday work and organizing. We demonstrate the approach with data from two service settings and explore the analysis both of single cases and collections. To conclude, the paper considers the distinctive contributions that these video-based studies have for our understanding of sociomateriality and organizational practice more generally. (shrink)

This work present the salient features of existential psychoanalysis across a chronological selection of Sartre's works. It looks at the background in psychology and phenomenology which informed Sartre's concept and presents key aspects of the theory itself, in comparison with Freudian psychoanalysis. A study of Sartre's three existential biographies, on Baudelaire, Genet and Flaubert, shows how the theory and its progressive-regressive method are applied to concrete cases, while also tracing the evolution of Sartre's approach up to his late writings on (...) the topic. The final assessment concerns the possibility of using Sartre's theory as a basis for existential psychotherapy. Sartre's account is shown to provide a consistent framework for analysing individuals in existential terms and through which to understand subjectivity. (shrink)

The writings of Philip Rieff present a challenge to the social sciences along three fronts: the nature of theorizing, the meaning of 'culture', and the sources of social order. Here I outline the main themes of his life's work, including the 'sacred sociology' that he announced in his later writings. I suggest that the broad cultural diagnosis that he had developed by the 1960s remains pertinent today, but that his more detailed substantive statements - particularly about art, science, politics and (...) sexuality - are of mixed quality; the reason for this is that, while Rieff developed a very clear view of the meaning and purpose of theorizing, his methods of cultural analysis were less well thought through, and his work haunted by a series of ambivalences that he never resolved, notably between the demands of the critical and the affirmative intellect, and between credal and psychological Jewishness. (shrink)

The aim of the present work is to face Heidegger’s claim that philosophy has ended. Facing this claim for us has not taken the form of creating a new method or positing a new question but that of a search for anomalies in what Heidegger decrees as finished, which is philosophy as metaphysics. In his historical confrontation with the history of thought Heidegger seems to have left out, dismissed or forgotten those authors who do not fit into his definition of (...) metaphysics. We have chosen Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza, metaphysical thinkers who have undertaken a philosophical practice that does not intend to demolish subjectivity but actually begins without any need for it. The birth of the subject as grounding reality finds its affirmation with Descartes and inaugurates modernity that, according to Heidegger, exhausts philosophy and leads it into the arms of modern science and technology. Bruno and Spinoza respectively precede and follow the birth of modernity and of modern science, which they look at with an eye that is not that of the modern subject. Following their different approaches to philosophy, we shall also explore their relation to Renaissance Humanism, dismissed by Heidegger as a historical reiteration of the Roman world, perceived as a perversion of the Greek origin of thought. We shall show how hasty such a dismissal is. Our goal is to show not merely that Heidegger is wrong but that if Western thinking contains the seeds of its own end, it also contains the ones of a different understanding of the Western world and its achievements. The three authors will engage on the grounds of ontology, gnosiology and ethics and yet we have defined the whole enterprise of this work as an ethics overall. An ethics of thinking is a practice of thought that wishes to envisage the possibility for Western man of inhabiting his own world by understanding himself not as an isolated subject and master of nature but as the place where the unity and multiplicity of nature come to be thought at the same time. (shrink)

Renowned neurologist and author Dr Oliver Sacks is a visiting professor at the University of Warwick as part of the Institute of Advanced Study. Dr Sacks was born in London. He earned his medical degree at the University of Oxford (Queen’s College) and the Middlesex Hospital (now UCL), followed by residencies and fellowships at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). As well as authoring best-selling books such as Awakenings and The Man Who (...) Mistook His Wife for a Hat, he is clinical professor of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Warwick is part of a consortium led by New York University which is building an applied science research institute, the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Dr Sacks recently completed a five-year residency at Columbia University in New York, where he was professor of neurology and psychiatry. He also held the title of Columbia University Artist, in recognition of his contributions to the arts as well as to medicine. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Association of British Neurologists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU for more than 25 years. In 2008, he was appointed CBE. (shrink)

The aim of the thesis is to defend the hypothesis that an anti- Aristotelian interpretation of the genesis of the process of knowing provides an interesting and fruitful means to understand the human never-ending search for knowledge and to answer doubts concerning the reliability of human knowledge of external reality. Such statement requires an explanation.

I examine some recent claims put forward by L. A. Paul, Barry Dainton and Simon Prosser, to the effect that perceptual experiences of movement and change involve an (apparent) experience of ‘passage’, in the sense at issue in debates about the metaphysics of time. Paul, Dainton and Prosser all argue that this supposed feature of perceptual experience – call it a phenomenology of passage – is illusory, thereby defending the view that there is no such a thing as passage, conceived (...) of as a feature of mind-independent reality. I suggest that in fact there is no such phenomenology of passage in the first place. There is, however, a specific structural aspect of the phenomenology of perceptual experiences of movement and change that can explain how one might mistakenly come to the belief that such experiences do involve a phenomenology of passage. (shrink)