Defences of perspectival realism are motivated, in part, by an attempt to find a middle ground between the realist intuition that science seems to tell us a true story about the world, and the Kuhnian intuition that scientific knowledge is historically and culturally situated. The first intuition pulls us towards a traditional, absolutist scientific picture, and the second towards a relativist one. Thus, perspectival realism can be seen as an attempt to secure situated knowledge without entailing epistemic relativism. A very (...) similar motivation is behind feminist standpoint theory, a view which aims to capture the idea that knowledge is socially situated, whilst retaining some kind of absolutism. Elsewhere I argue that the feminist project fails to achieve this balance; its commitment to situated knowledge unavoidably entails epistemic relativism (though of an unproblematic kind), which allows them to achieve all of their feminist goals. In this paper I will explore whether the same arguments apply to perspectival realism. And so I will be asking whether perspectival realism too is committed to an unproblematic kind of relativism, capable of achieving scientific goals; or, whether it succeeds in carving out a third view, between or beyond the relativism/absolutism dichotomy. (shrink)

Many philosophers subscribe to the view that philosophy is a priori and in the business of discovering necessary truths from the armchair. This paper sets out to empirically test this picture. If this were the case, we would expect to see this reflected in philosophical practice. In particular, we would expect philosophers to advance mostly deductive, rather than inductive, arguments. The paper shows that the percentage of philosophy articles advancing deductive arguments is higher than those advancing inductive arguments, which is (...) what we would expect from the vantage point of the armchair philosophy picture. The results also show, however, that the percentages of articles advancing deductive arguments and those advancing inductive arguments are converging over time and that the difference between inductive and deductive ratios is declining over time. This trend suggests that deductive arguments are gradually losing their status as the dominant form of argumentation in philosophy. (shrink)

In a paper presented at a symposium on structuralism at the Johns Hopkins University in 1968, the historian Charles Morazé analyzed the issue of invention largely with reference to mathematics and the theory of Henri Poincare.1 Poincare, along with the physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz, was the first to put forward a theory of scientific discovery as occurring in discrete phases. In 1926, Joseph Wallas generalized this theory to apply to all creativity, positing phrases which closely resemble those of Morazé. While (...) both Poincare and Wallas use a four-phrase model of invention, Morazé reduces his to three phrases: information, cogitation, and intellection. In information, the inventor becomes familiar with the sign systems and knowledge, the "collective contributions of society," relevant to his field of problems. Cogitation assembles these materials and concentrates them until "a certain moment" when "a light breaks through." This "sudden illumination...forces us to insist upon the neurological character" of the inventive moment. Finally, in intellection, the inventor rationally evaluates the utility of his invention and thus, in a sense, steps outside of himself and rejoins society. The distinction which organizes Morazé 's entire account, as well as most of the discussion that followed his presentation, is between the "collective" support and control of the inventor and his own individual, or "neurological," act of synthesis or creation. · 1. See Charles Morazé 's "Literary Invention," in The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, ed. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, pp. 22-55. Loy D. Martin is an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago. He has written The Language of Invention, a study of Robert Browning and the genesis of the dramatic monologue. "A Reply to Carl Pletsch and Richard Schiff" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

Testimonial accounts of mathematical problem choice typically rely on intrinsic constraints. They focus on the worth of the problem and feelings of beauty. These are often developed as both descriptive and normative constraints on problem choice. In this paper, I aim to add an extrinsic constraint of no less importance: the assurance of contact of minds with a desired audience. A number of elements for the relationship between mathematician and his audience make up this contact. This constraint stems from the (...) mathematician’s role as an arguer, as one of the pre-requisites to argumentation is contact of minds. I examine two exceptional cases which fail to be explained by intrinsic constraints on motivation and posit how this contact could influence usual cases. While not the only constraint or drive in problem choice, establishing contact of minds plays an important role worth further examination. (shrink)

This research explored how (a) information regarding consequences and (b) personal information regarding the potential victim influences perceptions of moral intensity and ethical behavioral intent. An experimental vignette research design was used and 314 professional managers participated. The results of the study indicated that personal information impacted ethical behavioral intent through its influence on perceptions of proximity. In contrast, consequential information''s impact depended on the presence of personal information or prior knowledge. Implications for management and future ethical research are discussed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 321-323 [Access article in PDF] Frederick J. Streng Book Award David Loy Interview The 1999 winner of the Frederick J. Streng Book Award is David R. Loy, professor on the Faculty of International Studies at Bunkyo University in Chigasaki, Japan. Professor Loy received the award for his book, Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism, published by Humanities (...) Press (New Jersey) in 1996. The book places Western patterns of thought developed in tandem with Christian ideas into dialogic contact with Buddhism. It is thus a very Buddhist book, but a signal contribution to the practice of Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Buddhist-Christian Studies asked David about his writing of the volume.Buddhist-Christian Studies: Why did you write this book?David Loy: It was the product of an existential crisis, both intellectual and personal. My father, who had always been healthy and full of life, suddenly became ill with pancreatic cancer. Then my Zen teacher Yamada Koun had a bad fall that led to his death a year later. Not long before that my relationship with him and the Sanbo Kyodan had become somewhat problematic. This threatened my 'spiritual ground'. Finally, I was without a job. All this gave me plenty of time not only to sit intensively but also to read widely everything I could find on death and related issues.Did you think that sitting and studying would lead to a book?I didn't know. I could feel something gestating. I realized something was needed in this area. I was (and still am) very impressed by the last two books of Ernest Becker, but despite their brilliance his notion of death-denial is a little off-center from a Buddhist perspective. Fear of death projects our problem into the future, while the groundlessness of our sense-of-self accounts better for our sense-of-lack right here and now.What was the final trigger for doing the book?Another Zen teacher suggested that I try to write a Zen teisho [sermon or talk]. I sat down but after a few lines so many other thoughts began to bubble up that I couldn't write them down fast enough. There was no obvious or immediate logical connection among them, but they kept coming. This went on for about two, almost non-stop, days. After that the thoughts slowed down. I read over the notes I'd written, which led to more ideas, and then I began to perceive their relationship. After five days or so I had a detailed outline for the book, and the real work began. [End Page 321]What kind of response to the book, both positive and negative, have you received?There have not been many reviews, but they have generally been positive. It's not an easy book to evaluate: it brings together many different thinkers and traditions in order to address many different issues. In the process it attempts what is almost a grand synthesis of Buddhism, existentialism, and psychotherapy around the notion of our 'sense of lack', which I argue motivates us all. This involves close readings of Freud, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Nagarjuna, and many others. Unfortunately, the print is small and not easy to read, the cover is ugly, and the price is too high. For all these reasons readers have my sympathies! But there are some readers for whom the book really 'clicks'. I'm pleased that it seems to work on the existential as well as the intellectual level, for such people.After several years of reflection, would you write it any differently today?Yes, probably. The first thing I would do is take out the last chapter "Transcendence East and West," which was an afterthought and doesn't really fit in very well. As published, the chapter takes the concept of 'lack' into a new dimension which needs to be worked out much more carefully than I did in the book. It argues that, in place of the usual East-West dichotomy, it is more insightful to view South Asian Indian- influenced cultures as in some ways... (shrink)

Testimonial accounts of mathematical problem choice typically rely on intrinsic constraints. They focus on the worth of the problem and feelings of beauty. These are often developed as both descriptive and normative constraints on problem choice. In this paper, I aim to add an extrinsic constraint of no less importance: the assurance of contact of minds with a desired audience. A number of elements for the relationship between mathematician and his audience make up this contact. This constraint stems from the (...) mathematician’s role as an arguer, as one of the pre-requisites to argumentation is contact of minds. I examine two exceptional cases which fail to be explained by intrinsic constraints on motivation and posit how this contact could influence usual cases. While not the only constraint or drive in problem choice, establishing contact of minds plays an important role worth further examination. (shrink)

Formal logic has often been seen as uniquely placed to analyze mathematical argumentation. While formal logic is certainly necessary for a complete understanding of mathematical practice, it is not sufficient. Important aspects of mathematical reasoning closely resemble patterns of reasoning in nonmathematical domains. Hence the tools developed to understand informal reasoning, collectively known as argumentation theory, are also applicable to much mathematical argumentation. This chapter investigates some of the details of that application. Consideration is given to the many contrasting meanings (...) of the word “argument”; to some of the specific argumentation-theoretic tools that have been applied to mathematics, notably Toulmin layouts and argumentation schemes; to some of the different ways that argumentation is implicated in mathematical practices; and to the social aspects of mathematical argumentation. (shrink)

Inspiring and empowering, this journey behind the scenes of humanity's greatest creations reveals the surprising way we make something new. What do Thomas Jefferson's ice cream recipe, Coca Cola, and Chanel No. 5 have in common? They all depended on a nineteenth-century African boy who, with a single pinch, solved one of nature's great riddles and gave birth to the multimillion-dollar vanilla industry. Kevin Ashton opens his book with the fascinating story of the young slave who launched a flavor (...) revolution to show that invention and creation come in unexpected shapes and sizes. From the crystallographer's laboratory where the secrets of DNA were first revealed by a long-forgotten woman, to the electromagnetic chamber where the stealth bomber was born on a 25-cent bet, Ashton weaves tales of humanity's greatest creations to unpack the surprising true process of discovery. Drawing on the Amish and the iPhone, Kandinsky and cans of Coke, Lockheed, South Park, and the Wright brothers--who set out to "fly a horse"--he showcases the seemingly unremarkable individuals, gradual steps, multiple failures, and countless ordinary--and usually uncredited--acts that led to our most astounding breakthroughs. Creators, he shows, apply everyday, ordinary thinking that we are all capable of in particular ways, taking thousands of small steps, working in an endless loop of problem and solution. He explores why innovators meet resistance and how they overcome it, why most organizations stifle creative people, and how the most creative organizations work. In a passionate and profound narrative that amazes and inspires, Ashton's book sheds new light on how "new" comes to be. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that public discourse as we know it is less than ideal from an epistemological point of view. In this paper, we develop an underappreciated aspect of the trouble with public discourse: what we call the Listening Problem. The listening problem is the problem that public discourse has in giving appropriate uptake and reception to ideas and concepts from oppressed groups. Drawing on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser, we develop an institutional response to the (...) listening problem: the establishment of what we call Receptive Publics, discursive spaces designed to improve listening skills and to give space for counterhegemonic ideas. (shrink)

This article uses interview data to examine changes over time in the cultural constructions of executive women's family responsibilities. The author delineates two gendered cultural structures: the family devotion schema and the work devotion schema. Respondents are caught in the conflict between each schema's competing vision of a worthwhile life. Older respondents are more likely to accept the devotion schema's definition of an irreconcilable conflict between work and family, prompting many to avoid marriage or childbearing. In contrast, many members of (...) the youngest cohort, who came of age after the early 1970s women's movement, are refashioning the family devotion schema by subcontracting out domestic responsibilities while maintaining demanding careers. Yet, the family devotion schema continues to haunt all cohorts, enduring in its cognitive, normative, and emotional power. Gender, as expressed in cultural models of family, remains a powerful constraint on the hearts and minds of even professionally successful women. (shrink)

Speakers often overspecify by encoding more information than is necessary when referring to an object (e.g., “the blue mug” for the only mug in a group of objects). We investigated the role of a partner's linguistic behavior (whether or not they overspecify) on a speaker's own tendency to overspecify. We used a director–matcher task in which speakers interacted with a partner who either consistently overspecified or minimally specified in the color/size dimension (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), as well as with (...) a partner who switched behaviors midway through interaction (Experiments 4 and 5). We found that speakers aligned with their partner's linguistic behavior to produce overspecific or minimally specific descriptions, and we saw little evidence that the alignment was enhanced by lexical or semantic repetition across prime and target trials. Time‐course analyses showed that alignment increased over the course of the interaction, and speakers appeared to track a change in the partner's linguistic behavior, altering their reference strategy to continue matching that of their partner's. These results demonstrate the persistent influence of a partner's behavior on speakers across the duration of an interaction. (shrink)

In Misconceiving Merit, sociologists Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech uncover the cultural foundations of a paradox. On one hand, academic science, engineering, and math revere meritocracy, a system that recognizes and rewards those with the greatest talent and dedication. At the same time, women and some racial and sexual minorities remain underrepresented and often feel unwelcome and devalued in STEM. How can academic science, which so highly values meritocracy and objectivity, produce these unequal outcomes? Blair-Loy and Cech studied more (...) than five hundred STEM professors at a top research university to reveal how unequal and unfair outcomes can emerge alongside commitments to objectivity and excellence. The authors find that academic STEM harbors dominant cultural beliefs that not only perpetuate the mistreatment of scientists from underrepresented groups but hinder innovation. Underrepresented groups are often seen as less fully embodying merit compared to equally productive white and Asian heterosexual men, and the negative consequences of this misjudgment persist regardless of professors' actual academic productivity. Misconceiving Merit is filled with insights for higher education administrators working toward greater equity as well as for scientists and engineers striving to change entrenched patterns of inequality in STEM. (shrink)

We analyze investors’ perception and long-term effects of board gender diversity on firms’ stock market performance in an international setting. Our results, controlling for the endogenous nature of board compositions, indicate that female board representation neither improves nor reduces firms’ long-term stock performance. Hence, we argue that it is imperative to go beyond the conventional thinking in terms of the business case for gender diversity and broaden the perspective also to incorporate societal and ethical aspects in the strive to board (...) gender equality. Even more so, as our results show that it does not entail reduced shareholder value, which the literature on mandatory gender quotas commonly seems to suggest. (shrink)

There are strong moral reasons to acknowledge that third parties can have the standing to forgive. Third-party refusals to forgive can reinforce the moral agency and value of women and disrupt the gendering of forgiveness. Third-party forgiveness can also be crucial for restorative justice aims, like recognizing the value of wrongdoers. Lastly, many victim-only accounts of forgiveness are problematic and utilize an individualistic conception of the self that reinforces the logic of misogyny. Victim-only accounts of forgiveness can also restrict focus (...) to the victim's suffering, thereby neglecting the importance of healing and the relevance of third-party forgiveness for facilitating healing. (shrink)

We investigate partner effects on spatial perspective taking behavior in listeners, comparing behavior with a human versus a computer partner (Experiments 1 and 2), and with computer partners of different perceived capabilities (Experiment 3). Participants responded to spoken instructions from their partner which could be interpreted egocentrically (from their own perspective) or othercentrically (from their partner's perspective). In contrast to earlier work, we found that participants were more egocentric with a computer than a human partner. Participants were also more egocentric (...) with a computer partner that appeared more modern and capable, compared to one that appeared outdated and limited in ability. Our results show that perspective taking behavior is sensitive to information about one's partner; in particular, listeners consider their partner's potential ability to collaborate, adjusting their egocentric tendencies accordingly. Moreover, we highlight what appears to be a shift in listeners' expectations regarding computers' collaborative capabilities, leading to greater willingness to push the burden of perspective taking onto a computer partner. (shrink)

This article probes the evolutionary origins ofmoral capacities and moral agency. From thisit develops a theory of the guidancesystem of higher mind (GSHM). The GSHM is ageneral model of intelligence whereby moralfunctioning is integrated with cognitive,affective, and conative functioning, resultingin a flow of information between eight brainlevels functioning as an evaluative unitbetween stimulus and response.The foundation of this view of morality and ofcaring behavior is Charles Darwin's theory,largely ignored until recently, of thegrounding of morality in sexual instincts whichlater expand into (...) parental love. Also, PaulMacLean made these same connections in hisdevelopment of the triune brain theory, whichwas founded on observations of both sexual andaffectionate responses from stimulation oflimbic and paleocortical areas (that is, notthe most primitive areas) of monkey brains. This article relates the revolutionary areas ofDarwin and of MacLean together for the firsttime in an way intended to be accessible to arange of social and natural scientists. TheGSHM builds on and expands both of their workto develop a theory of the processing withinour brains of information screened by asequence of systems, social, future, moral,developmental, and managerial ``sensitivities.''Darwin's and MacLean's observations and theGSHM theory developed here argue against theold strict distinction between ``lower''emotional processes and ``higher'' rationalprocesses. In fact, MacLean, Karl Pribram, andothers have found that emotional responses areclosely tied to reason through the functions ofthe prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal function isclosely related to the development of moralsensibility and judgment. In particular, it isthe connections between prefrontal cortex andother brain areas that allow us to makedeliberate choices to be or not to be caring. These same connections allow us to learnculturally sensitive signals for when torelease or inhibit our cooperative oraggressive tendencies (both of which can beelicited by sexual displays in monkeys as wellas humans). These are closely tied to thesocial instinct in animals, and to thesocialization that children receive from theirparents (whom the clinical psychologist AlanSchore has described as providing a ``substituteprefrontal cortex'' for their very youngchildren). Higher levels of the GSHM modelsuch capabilities as thinking beyond thecurrent social situation to ``what could be'' anddialectical synthesis of apparent opposites,which are what allow humans the freedom todesign social realities to fit our moralsensibilities. (shrink)

Este artículo expone la emergencia de expresiones de la espiritualidad no vinculadas a la experiencia religiosa y, en particular, aquella manifestación que pretende situar esta dimensión humana como un fenómeno natural, reconocible y, por ello, transformable desde el método de las ciencias de la Naturaleza. Se presenta un amplio marco que sitúa este fenómeno en el desarrollo de las teorías que establecen un continuo entre biología y cultura. Se ofrecen ejemplos de autores que han presentado propuestas de espiritualidad sin Dios (...) y algunas que responden al llamado «problema realmente difícil», de cómo dar cuenta desde la ciencia natural de este fenómeno de la consciencia. Se cierra señalando límites y remitiendo a la presentación de una propuesta de modelo antropológico con fundamentos clínicos y teóricos, que para dar cuenta del fenómeno de la espiritualidad precisa un marco teórico que supera los límites de la ciencia natural y acude, en este caso, al psicoanálisis. Este mismo modelo muestra también que la espiritualidad elaborada sobre la experiencia religiosa del sujeto es una de las vías de maduración humana. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditional epistemological thinking? Third, do the answers to these questions (...) raise serious problems for feminist epistemologies? We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology – feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism – are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Thus, (some) feminist epistemologies provide a plausible way of understanding how (some) knowledge might be socially constructed. (shrink)

The “received wisdom” in contemporary analytic philosophy is that intuition talk is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating back to the 1960s. In this paper, we set out to test two interpretations of this “received wisdom.” The first is that intuition talk is just talk, without any methodological significance. The second is that intuition talk is methodologically significant; it shows that analytic philosophers appeal to intuition. We present empirical and contextual evidence, systematically mined from the JSTOR corpus and HathiTrust’s Digital Library, (...) which provide some empirical support for the second rather than the first hypothesis. Our data also suggest that appealing to intuition is a much older philosophical methodology than the “received wisdom” alleges. We then discuss the implications of our findings for the contemporary debate over philosophical methodology. (shrink)

In this paper I make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology in three steps. My first step is to explain hinge epistemologies as contemporary epistemologies that take Wittgenstein’s work in On Certainty as their starting point. My second step is to make three criticisms of this literature as it currently stands. My third step is to introduce feminist epistemologies, which argue that social factors like race and gender affect what different people and groups justifiably believe, and argue that developing (...) a feminist hinge epistemology is both plausible and desirable. (shrink)

The Tao Tê Ching is probably the world's second most translated and annotated book , yet it remains among the most enigmatic. Of its eighty-one chapters, no one denies that the most important is the first, and many scholars go further to claim that it is the key to the whole work: if it is understood fully, all the rest may be seen to be implied. Unfortunately, the first chapter also happens to be the most ambiguous. But even so, after (...) so much attention can there be anything left to say? It seems to me that an important point has been missed or at least obscured, and that the popularity of certain translations has made this obscuration more prevalent recently. To correct this, I shall offer below a line-by-line explication of this crucial passage. The following interpretation first demonstrates the parallel structure of the first eight lines as signifying two different ways of experiencing: lines one, three, five and seven refer to the experience of Tao, and lines two, four, six and eight to our more usual way of experiencing the world. I shall suggest that the difference between these ways is the difference between our familiar dualistic experience and a much less common nondualistic way of experiencing in which there is no bifurcation between subject and object. Second, we shall see that the parallel structure unfolds dialectically: each succeeding pair of lines elaborates upon the issues that naturally arise in response to the preceding pair. In the process of showing this, I shall take sides on the two main controversies over this chapter: first, whether it should be interpreted cosmologically or ontologically/epistemologically , and second, whether lines, five and six should be punctuated to translate yü as ‘desire/intention’. My main thesis is that the traditional understanding of yü as ‘desire’ or ‘intention’ is an essential part of the meaning of the chapter. This is by no means an original claim, but why it is so important does not seem to have been noticed before and provides the reason for this paper. Wing-tsit Chan's criticism of such translations, that ‘intention interrupts the thought of the chapter’, 1 is thus a serious misreading of the text. (shrink)

Equilibrium explanations use an equilibrium to represent and explain a system’s dynamic behavior. They provide a system with the property of global stability: a system will converge towards and remain in equilibrium regardless of its initial conditions and dynamic process. Thus, equilibrium explanations are generally treated as non-causal explanations. There are two claims subsumed under that comprehensive thesis. The first claim is that equilibrium explanations do not identify any causes because a system with global stability resists manipulation. The second claim (...) is that even if equilibrium explanations do identify causes by manipulation, those causes are embedded in a system’s deeper, underlying structural relationships, and those causes are irrelevant to explaining a system’s behavior. Only the system’s structural relationships are relevant. But equilibrium explanations are not monolithic. I compare dynamic systems with multiple, competing equilibria to systems with a globally stable equilibrium. Equilibrium explanations of the former use intervention on a system’s initial conditions and dynamic process to manipulate equilibria, which identifies causes. Furthermore, a system’s initial conditions and dynamic process are relevant to explaining why one equilibrium is selected instead of another. I then apply these lessons to systems with a globally stable equilibrium and discuss when their corresponding equilibrium explanations have a proper role in the parent sciences. (shrink)

En los años ochenta emergió la cuestión de la licitud moral de la mejora por relación a la terapia. Para presentar la problemática actual sobre el tema se ofrece el constructo denominado Práctica de Intervención del Cuerpo caracterizado por cinco parámetros: M o la materia de la transformación, CT o la tecnociencia disponible, A o las concepciones vigentes de lo natural y lo artificial, N o las visiones de la naturaleza humana culturalmente compartidas y V o las valoraciones éticas a (...) las que se apela para legitimar la transformación. Se apunta el nivel ontológico como necesario para comprender y debatir las diferencias existentes en criterio moral. El concepto de naturaleza humana como referente normativo está en crisis, pero su ausencia deja un vacío que hace urgente una deliberación para llegar a una instancia normativa común. (shrink)

1 Strategic Sea Power By its very nature as an enabling agent sea power is a strategic force that can make a very positive difference in support of high ...

Do people hold robots responsible for their actions? While Clark and Fischer present a useful framework for interpreting social robots, we argue that they fail to account for people's willingness to assign responsibility to robots in certain contexts, such as when a robot performs actions not predictable by its user or programmer.

Many Western philosophers are poorly informed about the issues involved in nonduality, since this topic is usually associated with various kinds of absolute idealism in the West, or mystical traditions in the East. Increasingly, however, this topic is finding its way into Western philosophical debates. In this "scholarly but leisurely and very readable" (Spectrum Review) analysis of the philosophies of nondualism of (Hindu) Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism, Loy extracts what he calls "a core doctrine" of nonduality of seer and (...) seen from these three worldviews and then applies the doctrine in various ways, including a critique of Derrida's deconstructionism. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the relationship between social epistemology and relativism in the context of feminist epistemology. I do this by focusing on one particular branch of feminist epistemology - a branch known as standpoint theory - and investigating the connection between this view and epistemic relativism. I begin by defining both epistemic relativism and standpoint theory, and by briefly recounting the standard way that the connection between these two views is understood. The literature at the moment focuses on (...) an aspect of standpoint theory called the epistemic advantage thesis, and on an aspect of relativism which has been called equality. I then show that the connection between relativism and standpoint theory actually turns on a different aspect of standpoint theory, known as the standpoint thesis, and on an aspect of relativism which has been called non-neutrality. I argue that shifting our attention to these other aspects reveals that standpoint theory is clearly and unavoidably relativist, but that this isn’t a problem - standpoint theory can capture everything that it set out to, even on a relativist understanding of the view. (shrink)

Interview of Illia Davidenko, Kseniia Myroshnyk, Daria Popil with Anatoly Loy.

The role of audiences in mathematical proof has largely been neglected, in part due to misconceptions like those in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca which bar mathematical proofs from bearing reflections of audience consideration. In this paper, I argue that mathematical proof is typically argumentation and that a mathematician develops a proof with his universal audience in mind. In so doing, he creates a proof which reflects the standards of reasonableness embodied in his universal audience. Given this framework, we can better understand (...) the introduction of proof methods based on the mathematician’s likely universal audience. I examine a case study from Alexander and Briggs’s work on knot invariants to show that we can fruitfully reconstruct mathematical methods in terms of audiences. (shrink)

According to Duncan Pritchard, there are two kinds of radical sceptical problem; the closure-based problem, and the underdetermination-based problem. He argues that distinguishing these two problems leads to a set of desiderata for an anti-sceptical response, and that the way to meet all of these desiderata is by supplementing a form of Wittgensteinian contextualism with disjunctivist views about factivity. I agree that an adequate response should meet most of the initial desiderata Pritchard puts forward, and that some version of Wittgensteinian (...) contextualism shows the most promise as a starting point for this, but I argue, contra Pritchard, that the addition of disjunctivism is unnecessary and potentially counter-productive. If we draw on lessons from Michael Williams's inferential contextualism then it is both possible, and preferable, to meet the most important of Pritchard's desiderata, undercutting both closure-based and underdetermination-based sceptical problems in a unified way, without the need to resort to disjunctivism. (shrink)

Phenologists track the seasonal behavior of plants and animals in response to climatic change. During the second half of the twentieth century, phenologists developed a large-scale project to monitor the flowering time of the common lilac across the United States. By the 1960s, this approach offered a potential plant-based indicator of anthropogenic climate change, a biological signal amidst the emerging narrative of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As a tangible representation of changes in climate—warmer temperatures lead to earlier blooming—phenology (...) proved highly legible to scientists, politicians, and laypeople. Yet, as phenology gained broader repute in the 1960s, both in agricultural stations and as a component program of the International Biological Program, it struggled to align itself epistemically with the regnant disciplinary assumptions of mid-century ecology. Operating in the hinterlands between laboratory and field, biology and meteorology, ecological theory and agronomy practice, phenologists challenged prevailing notions of the model organism and what it meant to study biology in the field. Rebranding the discipline as a component of ecosystem modeling, scientists successfully brought phenology within the purview of mainstream ecology. In so doing, however, they obscured its climate-relevant meteorological character and stymied the development of a biological narrative of climate change. (shrink)

This pioneering book explores in depth the role of neurotransmitters in conscious awareness. The central aim is to identify common neural denominators of conscious awareness, informed by the neurochemistry of natural, drug induced and pathological states of consciousness. Chemicals such as acetylcholine and dopamine, which bridge the synaptic gap between neurones, are the 'neurotransmitters in mind' that form the substance of the volume, which is essential reading for all who believe that unravelling mechanisms of consciousness must include these vital systems (...) of the brain.Up-to-date information is provided on: Psychological domains of attention, motivation, memory, sleep and dreaming that define normal states of consciousness. Effects of chemicals that alter or abolish consciousness, including hallucinogens and anaesthetics. Disorders of the brain such as dementia, schizophrenia and depression considered from the novel perspective of the way these affect consciousness, and how this might relate to disturbances in neurotransmission.(Series B). (shrink)