Under resource dependence theory, firms should benefit from diverse boards of directors. Ethical arguments also highlight that boards should be as diverse as the stakeholders and communities that they serve. In an attempt to increase diversity and women’s presence on boards of directors, legislative efforts have enacted gender quotas. We examine how such efforts are perceived by U.S. market participants. We expect that when a firm operating under a quota law meets only the minimum requirement, investors will view the female (...) directors through the lens of token status theory and invest fewer resources in that firm than they will in a firm that exceeds the quota minimum or has the same composition but is not under a quota law. Through an experiment with 207 MTurk participants, we manipulated whether a firm was or was not under a quota law and whether the number of female board members was just at or exceeded the law’s minimum compliance. We find evidence that under a quota system, U.S. market participants tend to view female directors as tokens when the firm is just at the quota minimum, and these perceptions both affect their view of the firm’s prospects and negatively influence investment decisions. Importantly, however, we find that these negative effects can be offset and that resource dependence theory holds if the firm _exceeds_ the quota, signaling that the hiring of female directors is not simply compliance-dependent and subsequently leading U.S. market participants to invest more resources in the firm. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 373-380 [Access article in PDF] Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology:Dichotomy or Interaction? Caroline Brett Keywords: mysticism, psychosis, values, phenomenology, spiritual emergence. THE PURPOSE OF Marzanski and Bratton's paper is to challenge Jackson and Fulford's (1997) treatment of the area of spiritual experience and psychosis, specifically the perspective of discriminating pathological from spiritual experiences on the basis of action enhancement in contrast to (...) action failure. In my opinion, they are partially successful in this aim, and in their analysis they further the discussion of this complex and controversial area in an interesting and potentially fruitful way. What the paper does not offer, or attempt to suggest, is an alternative way of making a distinction, and in the following discussion I intend to explain why I think that, on the one hand, the status of specific experiences is of practical importance, and on the other hand any distinction should not be conceptualized as mutually exclusive. I also hope to clarify those issues which I perceive as being raised by both Jackson and Fulford's and Marzanski and Bratton's papers. The Critique Marzanski and Bratton's first, and in my opinion strongest, point is to argue that "values and actions alone cannot always discriminate between religious experience and psychopathology." They demonstrate convincingly that the fact that an individual positively evaluates a certain anomalous experience and shows enhanced function as a result of it, does not in itself mean that the experience should be viewed as "spiritual." Their second and third points relate to the way spirituality ought to be regarded, suggesting that Jackson and Fulford are in error to identify spirituality with experience, and moreover that any judgment of genuine spiritual content or value requires reference to an individual's personal history, and also some spiritual tradition or authority. I believe that the former point, although certainly relevant to the issue, is in danger of broadening the debate too far from the consideration of particular anomalous experiences: namely, those that are phemenologically similar or identical to psychotic symptomatology. Marzanski and Bratton also mount an objection to the psychologization of spiritual experience by Jackson and Fulford, although I am not convinced that they represent these authors' opinions fairly. Whose Values? Action or Ethics? The first point, the refutation of the thesis that a spiritual experience can be distinguished from [End Page 373] psychopathology on the basis of a positive evaluation and preservation of functionality, succeeds in that it is shown both that (1) experiences accepted as spiritual within major religious traditions may actually be distressing and/or disabling; and (2) anomalous experiences that are both positively evaluated by the experient and action enhancing nevertheless may not have genuine spiritual characteristics. The argument proceeds through the use of counterexamples, and it is indeed a problem for the Jackson and Fulford account that suffering and periods of social withdrawal or distress do appear to be historically, anthropologically, and theologically associated with the spiritual journey. Bratton and Marzanski use, among other examples, the "dark night of the soul" of mystics, raising the very interesting point that a person may have experiences that, at least at the time of experiencing, are profoundly disturbing or even disabling, socially or functionally, and yet those same experiences may in some way set the scene for a profound transformation or spiritual renewal. To my mind this concept can be seen reflected in the "terrible" forms of the Wisdom Goddess in Advaita Vedanta (as expressed in my own paper), and can be related to the concept of "breaking down to break through" espoused by transpersonal psychologists such as Grof and Grof (1992).Therefore, on closer examination, it appears that Jackson and Fulford's notion of preserved functionality may play some role after all, even if it does require supplementation: if the breaking through aspect of the process is necessary to distinguish from simply breaking down, then action enhancement may remain a criterion determining the spiritual value of an experience. However, it will need to be observed in the longer term, and as such can only play a role... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 353-358 [Access article in PDF] The Application of Nondual Epistemology to Anomalous Experience in Psychosis Caroline Brett THE COMMENTARIES PROVIDED by Marzanski and Bratton, and McGhee have drawn my attention to several ways in which my analysis could benefit from clarification or supplementation, and the range of the specific phenomena to which it can be applied. Since writing this paper nearly 3 (...) years ago, my own views of the area have developed, and in some aspects, shifted; nevertheless, within this response I shall comment on the specific aspects of the original paper that I feel may have been misunderstood or overlooked by the commentators, and those aspects that benefit from the broader perspective they provided.To clarify the direction of the original paper: I would describe it as an attempt to make a deeper examination of processes involved in some kinds of anomalous experience than is provided by the "cognitive problem-solving model"; in other words, to supplement rather than challenge or undermine this perspective. Moreover, the focus is intended to be more on identifying the point at which the experience, or the response to the experience (more on the relation between these two below) becomes pathological, than on cleanly distinguishing a psychotic state from a mystical one. However, because I do use these terms contrastively throughout the paper, I concede that these aims become blurred and may in fact be indistinguishable.Third, the paper concerns only a relatively narrow arena of both mystical and psychotic phenomenology, selected for the purpose of a tight conceptual analysis and comparability, and possibly suffers a lack of generalizability or scope of application as a result. Most notably, I leave aside the paranoid or persecutory interpretative framework often seen as paradigmatic of the psychotic state (although a brief mention of how emotionally relevant themes may arise out of anomalous cognition is included), focussing instead on the more "Schneiderian" aspects of psychotic phenomenology, in which there is a self-observed alteration of normal experience. 1 It may be an important point of contrast that I do not specifically focus on "hallucinations, voices, and visions" as described by McGhee and, to an extent, Jackson and Fulford. It may also be worth [End Page 353] flagging up the fact that I do not focus on "delusional beliefs" at all, instead choosing to focus on the "delusional mood," which notably does not involve crystallized delusions as such. As a result, the main aim is not to compare two descriptively defined states of mind, as seems to be suggested by McGhee in his commentary, but rather to see to what extent a certain form of experience can be understood within a particular epistemological structure, and the implications of this.Further to this issue, Marzanski and Bratton raise an objection to a view in which a common core of mystical experience is posited; one which could be identified interculturally and independently of "the language and tradition in which the self is formed." They make an important point that the perspective gained by applying the epistemology of Zen Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta may have no authority in helping to understand the locus of pathology in anomalous experiences that have occurred in an individual who is not established in these cultures or traditions or for a person who does not accept these epistemologies in the first place. The issue of the existence of some core mystical experiences that are translated into religious experiences in different cultures is a matter of comparative religion and theology, and outside the scope of this paper (although my own opinion is that such a core exists). In the absence of any argument to support this opinion, it must be conceded that this may severely limit the applicability of my analysis, especially if irreconcilable differences are thought to exist between the epistemologies of, for example, theistic and monistic philosophies. However, I would suggest that whatever wisdom can be gleaned from the various spiritual doctrines in existence around the world with regard to unusual and/or distressing states of mind should be absorbed where... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 387-394 [Access article in PDF] Psychosis Good and Bad:Values-Based Practice and the Distinction Between Pathological and Nonpathological Forms of Psychotic Experience Mike C. Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford IN TWO PAPERS in this issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton (2002) and Caroline Brett (2002) develop important critiques, from the perspectives respectively of Christian theology and (...) Eastern philosophy, of our 1997 analysis of the distinction between pathological and nonpathological forms of psychotic experience (Jackson and Fulford 1997).In this response, we briefly summarize the main points from our 1997 analysis; we consider, separately, the important although very different challenges to that analysis from the perspectives of our two critics; and we briefly indicate the main lines of recent developments in policy, practice, and research in mental health as they relate to this important area of human experience. The Jackson and Fulford (1997) Analysis In our 1997 paper, we presented three case studies from a larger series (Jackson 1991, 1997, 2001) selected with the express aim of bringing into focus the conceptual difficulties that arise at the borderline between psychotic illness and what we called benign spiritual experience. On the basis of these case studies we argued thatspiritual experiences, which are essentially benign, can involve explicitly psychotic phenomenology; traditional psychiatric diagnostic methods, which focus on the form and content of beliefs and experiences, are not capable of distinguishing between pathological and nonpathological forms of such psychotic experiences; [End Page 387]evaluation of such experiences (and claims about "illness" and health more generally) necessarily involves value judgments as well as judgments about matters of fact (specifically, the "facts" of traditional descriptive psychopathology); and more specifically, the distinction between pathological and nonpathological phenomena concerns the way in which they are embedded in the structure of the values and beliefs by which the actions of the subjects concerned are defined: "In the case of pathological psychotic phenomena," we argued, "there is a radical failure of action.... In the case of spiritual psychotic phenomena, action is radically enhanced" (Jackson and Fulford 1997, 55).We then proposed a cognitive problem-solving model of psychotic experiences. This model suggests that such experiences can be a normal and adaptive psychological response to existential crises, such as loss of meaning or purpose in life, coming to terms with death or bereavement, and so on (Batson and Ventis 1982; Jackson, 1991, 1997, 2001). The model is consistent with a subsequent position paper published by the British Psychological Society arguing the case for a psychological formulation of psychotic experiences and cognitive-behavioural methods in their management (2000).In the case of nonpathological psychotic experience, the psychotic elements of the experience promote a paradigm shift in the individual's underlying assumptions, which effectively resolves their impasse and allows them to move forward. This is normally a self-limiting process, in that when the individual is able to utilize their insight, it acts to resolve the stress which triggered it. In pathological psychosis, this process fails for various possible reasons, which were not explored in any depth in that paper (but see Jackson 2001 for a more detailed discussion). The Challenge From Marzanski and Bratton Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton reexamine the questions raised by our cases from a Christian theological perspective (Marzanski and Bratton 2002). They suggest a theologically based definition of spiritual experience according to which the criteria for "genuine" experience concerns its context within the development of the individual's religious faith. In Bratton and Marzanski's account, these criteria are based on a Christian value system.They present three cases of their own, which, in contrast to the three cases in our 1997 paper, vividly illustrate how phenomena that may be valued negatively from a medical perspective (i.e., as defined by us in terms of their consequences for action), may, at one and the same time, be valued positively from a religious perspective (i.e., in terms of their consequences for the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 383-385 [Access article in PDF] Minding Your Language:A Response to Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton THE PAPER BY Jackson and Fulford (1997), to which ours is a preliminary response, has opened up an important and much-needed conversation on the borderlands of theology, philosophy, and psychiatry. We are deeply grateful for lapidary and attentive responses to our (...) paper from Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes, in which each have affirmed the value of this conversation, but also indicated the issues that need to be thought through in greater depth. Sykes makes the point, quite rightly in our view, that the language of both theology and psychiatry are needed to illuminate the gray area between spirituality and mental disorder. Part of the difficulty, perhaps, has been the tendencies of theologians and psychiatrists alike either to speak past each other's shoulders or to refuse to engage in conversation at all (Watts 2002).Both commentators have accurately represented the core arguments of our thesis: that genuine spirituality may involve ego disablement and that positively evaluated psychotic, action-enhancing experiences are not, by definition, spiritual. They also both agree that religious traditions may offer resources that help discrimination at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry, beyond the reach of descriptive psychopathology. However, Brett has helpfully drawn attention to a number of possible weak spots that deserve further reflection:the distinction between breaking downand breaking throughand the possible continuing value of using the criterion of preserved or enhanced functionality; our failure to appreciate the precision with which Jackson and Fulford use the language of psychosis; and the uncertain clinical value of a schema that only allows an assessment of the contribution of an experience to spiritual reorientation after the event.Although it is not appropriate in the form of a final response to engage with these issues in depth, we thought that a few brief observations might be in order. Breaking Down and Breaking Through Brett's distinction between breaking down and breaking through is helpful but may disintegrate where the breaking down itself is considered to be constitutive of spiritual experience. The Pauline insight "for when I am weak; then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] 1989) finds vivid expression, for example, in the life of the Abbe Marie-Joseph Huvelin (Williams 1994). This Parisian curate, with chronic [End Page 383] and debilitating ill health and an almost unrelieved sense of personal worthlessness that bordered on despair, managed to transmit hope to an astonishing range of people who came to him for spiritual direction. There was no obvious, schematic breaking through the rigors of ego disablement to sunlit uplands of ethical conviction or renewed sense of vocation. It is by no means clear that he would have wished his predicament on anyone else, let alone himself, notwithstanding the fruitfulness of his ministry. The breaking down was arguably part of his life-long vocation and it perhaps stretches the meaning of action enhancement a little too far to use it encompass the often paradoxical nature of sanctity. The Language of Psychosis An important feature of good conversation is mindfulness in the way language is used and guardedness against misrepresenting the position of one's conversation partner. The expression of our discomfort with the application of the language of psychosis to spiritual experience was perhaps designed primarily to signpost our concern with certain reductive and assimilating tendencies in modern psychiatry. Perhaps psychotic may be used with precision and designed to draw attention to the complexities of discriminating at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry. Words, nonetheless, have resonance—philosophically and culturally—that radiate well beyond the boundaries of precise usage. The same could be said of Brett's use of anomalous, which might refer to a range of phenomena that most people would regard as abnormal: hallucinations, synesthaesia, out-and of-body, past-life, and near-death experiences. It is legitimate, we contend, to draw attention to these resonances even if they stray... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 349-351 [Access article in PDF] Mystical States or Mystical Life?Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu Perspectives Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton THIS IS AN ORIGINAL and conceptually precise paper. It is a significant attempt to bring religion and psychiatry into conversation. With particular reference to three Oriental epistemologies—Tibetan and Zen Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism—Caroline Brett seeks to offer a means of differentiating mystical states (...) from psychotic ones. She is critical of reductionism in modern psychiatry that seeks either to elide religious experience into psychopathology, or seeks too sharp a distinction between them. Brett claims, by implication, to offer a more fundamental level of discrimination between religious experience and psychopathology than the "cognitive problem-solving model" that Jackson and Fulford propose (1997a).In both mystical and psychotic states, the author argues, there are radical alterations in the structure of experience. Psychotic states, however, result from failures to complete, or, at least, to negotiate smoothly, the transition from a commitment to an epistemology based on illusory reality to one structured according to ultimate reality—a reality that is brought into focus through an alignment of transcendent vision and mundane cognition. Although this epistemological "stuck-ness" can manifest itself in action as destructive behavior, for example, psychological isolation or social and occupational dysfunction, the basis of the distinction between mystical and psychotic states lies in real differences in the states themselves.In our view, there is a tendency in much psychiatric and theological literature to homogenize mystical states and to treat experiences that (arguably) occur on a number of different levels as if they were on the same level. It is still widely thought that a mystical consciousness can somehow be abstracted from the religious traditions out of which this consciousness emerges. It is assumed that we can talk about experience in abstraction from the shared consciousness produced by schooling in a specific historical religion (Shannon 1985, 493). Thus, the altered mystical state of a Zen Master or Saint Teresa of Avila in ecstasy are regarded as identical states of consciousness. Yet it is far from clear that mystical states can be talked about without explicit reference to the language and tradition in which the self is formed, or, in terms that would have different meanings in Abrahamic and Oriental religious traditions, un-selfed. [End Page 349]There is a related tendency to regard religious doctrines as attempts to interpret mystical experience, as second-order reflections on the language of experience, as if religious doctrines were local religious dialects into which core experiences could be translated. We suggest, rather, that there is an iterative relationship between a mystical experience and the religious framework out of which it emerges. Religious doctrines are better seen as sets of instructions designed to guide the movement of prayer, and the movement of prayer, in turn, exemplifies the religious doctrine that shapes it.So could mystical states within the framework of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism better be understood as exemplification's of the worldviews of those particular religious traditions? For example, the relinquishing of ego structures, the dissolution of subject/object boundaries, the yielding of the contrastive identity between experience and the world, and progress toward undifferentiated union of the self with the cosmic self, seem to exemplify the monist cosmology associated with some of those traditions. By the same token, the psychotic state could be interpreted as an exemplification of an existential stance that has for some reason defected from the movement toward transcendental cognition. The point is that the "real differences" Brett identifies in the two states cannot be understood apart from the religious epistemology and doctrines, which those states, positively or negatively, exemplify. "So far 'from mystical states' being a sort of paradigm of certainty, they have authority only within a frame of reference which is believed in on quite other grounds and are therefore properly to be tested according to their consistency with this" (Williams 1991, 149)The force of Brett's paper, like Jackson and Fulford, is to identify the boundaries... (shrink)

Belief-credence dualism is the view that we have both beliefs and credences and neither attitude is reducible to the other. Pragmatic encroachment is the view that practical stakes can affect the epistemic rationality of states like knowledge or justified belief. In this paper, I argue that dualism offers a unique explanation of pragmatic encroachment cases. First, I explain pragmatic encroachment and what motivates it. Then, I explain dualism and outline a particular argument for dualism. Finally, I show how dualism can (...) explain the intuitions that underlie pragmatic encroachment. My basic proposal is that in high-stakes cases, it is not that one cannot rationally believe that p; instead, one ought not to rely on one's belief that p. One should rather rely on one's credence in p. I conclude that we need not commit ourselves to pragmatic encroachment in order to explain the intuitiveness of the cases that motivate it. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that there are evidential situations that rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. In this paper, I argue for Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism (IaBP): that there are evidential situations in which a single agent can rationally adopt more than one belief-attitude toward a proposition. I give two positive arguments for IaBP; the first involves epistemic supererogation and the second involves doubt. Then, I should how these arguments give intrapersonal permissivists a distinct response to the toggling (...) objection. I conclude that IaBP is a view that philosophers should take seriously. (shrink)

Michael A PetersBeijing Normal UniversityChatGPT is an AI chatbot released by OpenAI on November 30, 2022 and a ‘stable release’ on February 13, 2023. It belongs to OpenAI’s GPT-3 family (generativ...

ABSTRACT To what extent is honesty or truthfulness morally obligatory in trade and advertising practices? It is argued here what while we have a general right, in business as elsewhere, not to be lied to, we have no general right, either in our business or other pursuits, not to be deliberately deceived. Certain restrictions on deceptive practices in trade and advertising, even unintentionally deceptive practices, are, even so, morally defensible: viz. where the practice would mislead reasonable people to a material (...) degree or where it would mislead especially vulnerable people who are predictably unreasonable. It is suggested that a code of practice for trade and advertising which exaggerates the degree of truthfulness which is morally obligatory may actually be corrupting in effect. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 120-125.

The question why we are ‘bound’ by moral requirements is as old as it is fundamental. Its interest is both practical and theoretical. Its practical interest comes out in this way: nothing is easier—at least on occasion—than to disregard the restraints imposed by morality. In submitting to them we must often forgo what we would otherwise desire. A man may have sacrificed much in the interests of ‘behaving well’. He may wish therefore to know whether his sacrifice has been foolish. (...) It is only reasonable to ask why we are ‘bound’, if indeed we are. Scepticism on this point is not merely playful. We want to know the reason for accepting moral restraints. I say ‘at least in outline’ because just as it may be reasonable to act on your doctor's advice although you do not understand his reasons in detail, so it may be reasonable to accept advice on some moral matter although you do not understand its justification in detail. (shrink)

Academic freedom is often regarded as an absolute value of higher education institutions. Traditionally, its value is related to such topics as tenure, and the need for academic work to be free from undue political influence and other pressures that can challenge time-consuming research processes. However, when an analysis of student freedom begins with arguments about free research and free speech, undergirded as they generally are by liberal political philosophy, other considerations, related to broader views of freedom, can slip through (...) the cracks. In this essay, I want to take a step back from typical discussions of academic freedom, to take a broader perspective, before considering how freedom relates to student experience. The first part of this essay explores diverse elaborations and defences of freedom: How it is upheld in the liberal philosophy of Kant, the critical pedagogy of Freire, existentialism, and the capabilities approach to development. Exploring the often contrasting insights and implications of these views, I then connect relevant theoretical understandings derived from them to an exploration of the experience of freedom and of students. This essay thus considers how student freedom, and student academic freedom, are more precarious concepts than typically assumed. (shrink)

This paper develops the foundations of the descriptive set theory of countable Borel equivalence relations on Polish spaces with particular emphasis on the study of hyperfinite, amenable, treeable and universal equivalence relations.

Contemporary reasoning about health is infused with the work products of experts, and expert reasoning about health itself is an active site for invention and design. Building on Toulmin’s largely undeveloped ideas on field-dependence, we argue that expert fields can develop new inference rules that, together with the backing they require, become accepted ways of drawing and defending conclusions. The new inference rules themselves function as warrants, and we introduce the term “warranting device” to refer to an assembly of the (...) rule plus whatever material, procedural, and institutional resources are required to assure its dependability. We present a case study on the Cochrane Review, a new method for synthesizing evidence across large numbers of scientific studies. After reviewing the evolution and current structure of the device, we discuss the distinctive kinds of critical questions that may be raised around Cochrane Reviews, both within the expert field and beyond. Although Toulmin’s theory of field-dependence is often criticized for its relativism, we find that, as a matter of practical fact, field-specific warrants do not enjoy immunity from external critique. On the contrary, they can be opened to evaluation and critique from any interested perspective. (shrink)

Some may say the rise of parochial, sectarian populism has indicated a failure of civic education. On the other hand, it might be said to demonstrate the increasing power of some alternative forms of education. This paper hopes to shed light on how ordinary people learn in ways and through means that are at odds with the experiences of scholars and elites. To do so it explores the intersections of education, technology, and social mobility, to highlight how people learn social (...) class, and learn in classed ways outside schools. In contrast to the dream of information liberty, this article considers how online media is marked by private control of information, often retracing and broadening gaps between social classes. The article provides a theoretical understanding of the relationship between technology and education and the linkages of class and media consumption. It then integrates these topics by exploring how online learning through segmented social media operates to reproduce class and facilitate and mobilize sectarianism. This paper concludes with a recommendation for more focus on the study of class by philosophers interested in education for democracy and social justice. (shrink)

Redness is the property that makes things look red in normal circumstances. That seems obvious enough. But then colour is whatever property does that job: a certain reflectance profile as it might be. Redness is the property something is represented to have when it looks red. That seems obvious enough. But looking red does not represent that which looks red as having a certain reflectance profile. What should we say about this antinomy and how does our answer impact on the (...) contest between realism and subjectivism about colour? I address the issues through the lens of a representationalist position on colour experience. (shrink)

We argue that it is a mistake to approach goodman's new riddle of induction by demarcating projectible from non-Projectible predicates and hypotheses, And put forward an alternative way of looking at the whole question.

Epistemic consequentialism is the view that epistemic goodness is more fundamental than epistemic rightness. This paper examines the relationship between epistemic consequentialism and theistic belief. I argue that, in an epistemic consequentialist framework, there is an epistemic reason to believe in God. Imagine having an unlimited amount of time to ask an omniscient being anything you wanted. The potential epistemic benefits would be enormous. Considerations like these point to an epistemic version of Pascal’s wager. I compare and contrast the epistemic (...) wager with the traditional wager, and argue that the epistemic wager has several notable advantages. (shrink)

Philosophical defenses of cognitive/evolutionary psychological accounts of racialism claim that classification based on phenotypical features of humans was common historically and is evidence for a species-typical, cognitive mechanism for essentializing. They conclude that social constructionist accounts of racialism must be supplemented by cognitive/evolutionary psychology. This article argues that phenotypical classifications were uncommon historically until such classifications were socially constructed. Moreover, some philosophers equivocate between two different meanings of “racial thinking.” The article concludes that social constructionist accounts are far more robust (...) than psychological accounts for the origins of racialism. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the pragmatist elements of Thomas Reid's approach to the justification of first principles by reference to Charles S. Peirce. Peirce argues that first principles are justified by their surviving a process of ‘self-criticism’, in which we come to appreciate that we cannot bring ourselves to doubt these principles, in addition to the foundational role they play in inquiries. The evidence Reid allows first principles bears resemblance to surviving the process of self-criticism. I then argue that this evidence (...) allows Reid and Peirce a way out of the dilemma between dogmatism and skepticism regarding the justification of such principles, insofar as they are epistemically, and not solely practically, justified. (shrink)

Liz JacksonEducation University of Hong KongNel Noddings is known around the world for her contributions to philosophy and philosophy of education. Her work on caring and relational ethics broke ne...

We use words to mark out patterns in nature. This is why a word like 'nutritious' is so useful. One way of thinking about conceptual analysis is as the business of capturing the structure in the patterns so picked out, for it is not credible that the patterns are one and all sui generis. This paper spells out this way of thinking about conceptual analysis. Along the way we discuss: the role of intuitions about possible cases with some reference to (...) the experimental philosophy debate, why analyses are often hard to find, and whether conceptual analysis so conceived presupposes a controversial version of the description theory of reference. (shrink)

Philosophical defenses of cognitive/evolutionary psychological accounts of racialism claim that classification based on phenotypical features of humans was common historically and is evidence for a species-typical, cognitive mechanism for essentializing. They conclude that social constructionist accounts of racialism must be supplemented by cognitive/evolutionary psychology. This article argues that phenotypical classifications were uncommon historically until such classifications were socially constructed. Moreover, some philosophers equivocate between two different meanings of “racial thinking.” The article concludes that social constructionist accounts are far more robust (...) than psychological accounts for the origins of racialism. (shrink)

Introduction: Western Marxism in Educational Philosophy and Theory -- Ideology and Schooling -- Marxism and Education: Will the Doctrine Bear the Weight? -- Education and Cultural Disadvantage -- Illich and Anarchism -- Knowledge and Ideology in the Marxist Philosophy of Education -- Liberal Education and Social Change -- The Continuing Conflicts Between Capitalism and Democracy: Ramifications for Schooling -- Luce Irigaray: Women becoming subjects for a divine economy -- The Nature and Limits of Critical Theory in Education -- Class Dismissed? (...) Historical materialism and the politics of 'difference' -- A Brief Commentary on the Hegelian-Marxist Origins of Gramsci's 'Philosophy of Praxis' -- Hope, political imagination, and agency in Marxism and beyond: Explicating the transformative worldview and ethico-ontoepistemology -- Knowledge socialism: the rise of peer production - collegiality, collaboration, and collective intelligence. (shrink)

SummaryThis essay explains why and how nineteenth-century chemists sought to stabilize the melting and boiling points of organic substances as reliable characteristics of identity and purity and how, by the end of the century, they established these values as ‘Constants of Nature’. Melting and boiling points as characteristic values emerge from this study as products of laboratory standardization, developed by chemists in their struggle to classify, understand and control organic nature. A major argument here concerns the role played by the (...) introduction of organic synthesis in driving these changes. Synthetic organic chemistry vastly increased the number of known organic substances, precipitating the chemical identity crisis of my title. Successful natural product synthesis, moreover, depended on chemists’ ability to demonstrate the absolute identity of synthetic product and natural target – something late nineteenth-century chemists eventually achieved by making reliable, replicable melting and boiling point measurements. In the period before the establishment of national standards laboratories, chemists and scientific glassblowers worked together to standardize melting and boiling points as physical constants, such collaborations highlighting the essential importance of chemical glassware and glassblowing skill in the development of nineteenth-century organic chemistry. (shrink)

In the absence of any institution for imposing legal liability on global business, the idea of instituting a cosmopolitan court for international corporate offenses is advocated. The proposal is then critically examined and defended in light of a number of key objections. Having both civil and criminal jurisdiction, such a tribunal could benefit domestic and international legal systems, multinational corporations, and victims of transnational and international corporate misdeeds. By laying down minimal global standards of corporate liability, resolving conflicts between the (...) regulatory activities of national legal systems, and affording redress for aggrieved parties in countries with inadequate legal infrastructures, the tribunal would promote the objectives of compensatory, distributive, procedural and retributive justice at the global level. Moreover, the court would assist corporations by translating compliance with minimum ethical standards to the bottom line. Ethical corporations will gain competitive advantage relative to unscrupulous firms, since the latter'ss activities will be sanctioned. The international community need not leave obedience to basic norms up to the voluntary good-will and discretion of multinational firms. (shrink)

Sustainability has been gaining recognition as an innovative pathway for general learning from early childhood to higher education. This article advances acura personalis, or care for the entire person, approach for integrating sustainability into the domain of business management education. Such an approach centers on fostering higher-order dispositions including creativity, critical moral awareness, existential authenticity, excellence, relatedness, and overall well-being and thus constitutes a broader, deep ecological alternative to received scientistic and quantitatively controlled programs.

I discuss whether Michael Tye, in Ten Problems of Consciousness. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1966, holds that phenomenal properties are neurological properties, but that what gives them their phenomenal property names are their highly complex interconnections with other neurological properties and, most especially, subjects' surroundings. Or, alternatively, whether he holds that they are higher-level, wide functional properties in the sense of being properties of having properties that fill some specified wide or distal roles.

ABSTRACT Stanley Cavell rarely gets to the point, and his winding sentences and frequent asides are a favorite target for detractors. This essay follows a different path, however, proposing that we listen carefully to Cavell's voice as an author and consider the philosophical significance of these twists and turns in his writings. After exploring the intellectual basis for Cavellian indirectness, the essay examines an exemplary passage from Must We Mean What We Say? linking it to the political unrest of the (...) 1960s. It shows how Cavell used the indirectness of his writing to mount a necessarily subtle social critique of American society on the issue of race. (shrink)

Student-centered learning has been conceived as a Western export to the East and the developing world in the last few decades. Philosophers of education often associate student-centered learning with frameworks related to meeting the needs of individual pupils: from Deweyan experiential learning, to the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ and other social justice orientations. Yet student-centered learning has also become, in the era of neoliberal education, a jingoistic advertisement for practices and ideologies which can be seen to lead to a global (...) devaluation of the educational profession, and the bolstering of the view of the student as a customer. In this article, I want to disentangle these views and explore some limitations of either model of student-centered learning. To add context, I consider education in the United Arab Emirates today, which provides an extreme example of the risks involved with prioritizing student’s self-identified needs and interests above all else, as in an idealized or exaggerated student-centered concept. I conclude with brief comments on amending the philosophical concept of student-centered learning to be useful in diverse contexts today. (shrink)