This article discusses the importance of social interaction for the development of the representations for symbolic communication. We suggest that there is no need to distinguish between different representational systems emerging at different stages of development. Instead, we propose that representations are rich right from the beginning of a child’s life, and that they are driven mainly by acting and interacting in the physical and social world. The more variety in a child’s interactional experience, the more enriched and abstracted the (...) representations become. We review literature providing evidence for the ways in which infants’ development toward symbolic communication benefits from repeated social action and consider some implications for computational approaches. (shrink)

In a longitudinal naturalistic study, we observed German mothers interacting with their infants when they were 3 and 6 months old. Pursuing the idea that infants’ attention is socialized in everyday interactions, we explored whether eye contact is reinforced selectively by behavioral modification in the input provided to infants. Applying a microanalytical approach focusing on the sequential organization of interaction, we explored how the mother draws the infant’s attention to herself and how she tries to maintain attention when the infant (...) is looking at her. Results showed that eye contact is reinforced by specific infant-directed practices: interrogatives and conversational openings, multimodal stimulation, repetition, and imitation. In addition, these practices are contingent on the infant’s own behavior. By comparing the two data points (3 and 6 months), we showed how the education of attention evolves hand-in-hand with the developing capacities of the infant. Keywords: multimodal input; eye contact; interactional adaptation; ecology of attention; social learning. (shrink)

In a longitudinal naturalistic study, we observed German mothers interacting with their infants when they were 3 and 6 months old. Pursuing the idea that infants’ attention is socialized in everyday interactions, we explored whether eye contact is reinforced selectively by behavioral modification in the input provided to infants. Applying a microanalytical approach focusing on the sequential organization of interaction, we explored how the mother draws the infant’s attention to herself and how she tries to maintain attention when the infant (...) is looking at her. Results showed that eye contact is reinforced by specific infant-directed practices: interrogatives and conversational openings, multimodal stimulation, repetition, and imitation. In addition, these practices are contingent on the infant’s own behavior. By comparing the two data points, we showed how the education of attention evolves hand-in-hand with the developing capacities of the infant. Keywords: multimodal input; eye contact; interactional adaptation; ecology of attention; social learning. (shrink)

Yarkoni's analysis clearly articulates a number of concerns limiting the generalizability and explanatory power of psychological findings, many of which are compounded in infancy research. ManyBabies addresses these concerns via a radically collaborative, large-scale and open approach to research that is grounded in theory-building, committed to diversification, and focused on understanding sources of variation.

In this classic work of feminist political thought, Iris Marion Young challenges the prevailing reduction of social justice to distributive justice.

The idea of perfection.--On God and Good.--The sovereignty of good over other concepts.

Iris Murdoch was one of the great philosophers and novelists of the twentieth century and The Sovereignty of Good is her most important and enduring philosophical work. She argues that philosophy has focused, mistakenly, on what it is right to do rather than good to be and that only by restoring the notion of ‘vision’ to moral thinking can this distortion be corrected. This brilliant work shows why Iris Murdoch remains essential reading: a vivid and uncompromising style, a (...) commitment to forceful argument, and a courage to go against the grain. With a foreword by Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch was one of the great philosophers and novelists of the twentieth century and The Sovereignty of Good is her most important and enduring philosophical work. She argues that philosophy has focused, mistakenly, on what it is right to do rather than good to be and that only by restoring the notion of ‘vision’ to moral thinking can this distortion be corrected. This brilliant work shows why Iris Murdoch remains essential reading: a vivid and uncompromising style, a (...) commitment to forceful argument, and a courage to go against the grain. With a foreword by Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

The novelist blends philosophy and metaphysics to examine the nature and origin of Plato's hostile views toward art and its role in life.

The acclaimed author of The Good Apprentice draws on the entire history of philosophy--and particularly on Plato and Kant--to formulate her own model of morality and demonstrate how thoroughly it is bound up with our daily lives. "An utterly absorbing book".--The Wall Street Journal.

Personalised learning systems—systems that predict learning needs to tailor education to the unique learning needs of individual students—are gaining rapid popularity. Praise for educational technology is often focused on how technology will benefit school systems, but there is a lack of understanding of how it will affect the student and the learning process. By uncovering what the meaning of ‘personal’ is in educational philosophy and as embodied in the technology, we illustrate that these two understandings are different regarding the autonomy (...) of the student. Personalised learning technology, therefore, bears the risk of failing to achieve its educational ideal of what personalisation should be. We also illustrate how personalised learning technology effects student autonomy by requiring the intensive tracking of the learning process, exposing them to privacy and data protection risks. We do not claim that education does not need technology, but we want to illustrate the importance of values as drivers of innovation. (shrink)

This latest work from one of the world's leading political philosophers will appeal to audiences from a variety of fields, including philosophy, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and communications studies.

In her long-awaited Responsibility for Justice, Young discusses our responsibilities to address "structural" injustices in which we among many are implicated, often by virtue of participating in a market, such as buying goods produced in sweatshops, or participating in booming housing markets that leave many homeless.

In der Wissenschaft der Logik legt Hegel in logisch verschlusselter Form eine avancierte Theorie der Freiheit vor. Ausgehend von der Frage, wie sich metaphysischer Gehalt und logische Form zueinander verhalten, entfaltet die vorliegende Untersuchung Hegels spekulative Theorie der Freiheit. Doch was verbirgt sich hinter dieser Theorie? Eine Logik oder eine Metaphysik? Wie wird das Verhaltnis von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit in ihr bestimmt? Harnischmachers Antwort untersucht die Dialektik von Logik und Metaphysik - einer spekulativen Metaphysik, die ihre Kritik durch die Logik (...) in sich aufgenommen hat.'This book is amazingly intricate and provides quite a sample of deeply speculative arguments. It not only recommends itself as a commentary to Hegel's Science of Logic. It also recommends itself as one of its most powerful and consequential recent interpretations.' Riccardo Pozzo, The Review of Metaphysics. (shrink)

Myth, Utopia, and Political Action Starting from the premise that some form of "reality transcendence", i.e. the ability to imagine a different reality and reach out for the (un)thinkable, is necessary for political action, the aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts of myth and utopia elaborated by Georges Sorel and Karl Mannheim and to examine their possible contributions to a theory of political action and social change. By comparing the role the authors assign to rationality and irrationality (...) in human affairs, methodological and conceptual differences between Sorel's and Mannheim's approaches to the political are illustrated. It turns out that due to its immunity to critique Sorel's concept of the social myth is highly problematic. Mannheim's concept of utopia, on the other hand, culminates in a technocratic understanding of the political. Though both approaches emphasise the collective dimension of political action, they ultimately exhibit elitist understandings of the political. (shrink)

A collection of the author's most influential essays and short works includes her critique of existentialism, her two dialogues on art and religion, key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, the concept of love, and more.

Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy has long influenced contemporary ethics, yet it has not, in general, received the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. "Existentialists and Mystics" and "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals" provide new access to most of Murdoch's philosophical writings and make possible a deeper appreciation of her contribution to current thought. After assessing the recent critical reception of Murdoch's thought, this review places her moral philosophy in the context of contemporary trends in ethics by (...) tracing her influence on the work of Charles Taylor, highlights the distinctive features of her moral philosophy, and suggests future directions for Murdochian ethics. (shrink)

The proposition that digital innovations can put people in charge of their health has been accompanied by prolific talk of empowerment. In this paper we consider ethical challenges and opportunities of trying to achieve justice and empowerment using digital health initiatives. The language of empowerment can misleadingly suggest that by using technology, people can control their health and take responsibility for health outcomes to a greater degree than is realistic or fair. Also, digital health empowerment often primarily reaches people who (...) already have high technological and health literacy, leaving others behind. We critically investigate whether the concept of health empowerment could be re-engineered to mean something different, namely the process of improving the health literacy and access of those who least possess it, in line with recent proposals for conceptual engineering in the service of justice. We settle on the weaker conclusion that underlying ethical values including justice should be used to interpret the existing concept of empowerment. To conclude, we take a high-level view of various strategies for achieving the ethical value associated with digital health empowerment. (shrink)

The essay theorizes the responsibilities moral agents may be said to have in relation to global structural social processes that have unjust consequences. How ought moral agents, whether individual or institutional, conceptualize their responsibilities in relation to global injustice? I propose a model of responsibility from social connection as an interpretation of obligations of justice arising from structural social processes. I use the example of justice in transnational processes of production, distribution and marketing of clothing to illustrate operations of structural (...) social processes that extend widely across regions of the world. The social connection model of responsibility says that all agents who contribute by their actions to the structural processes that produce injustice have responsibilities to work to remedy these injustices. I distinguish this model from a more standard model of responsibility, which I call a liability model. I specify five features of the social connection model of responsibility that distinguish it from the liability model: it does not isolate perpetrators; it judges background conditions of action; it is more forward looking than backward looking; its responsibility is essentially shared; and it can be discharged only through collective action. The final section of the essay begins to articulate parameters of reasoning that agents can use for thinking about their own action in relation to structural injustice. a Footnotesa Thanks to David Alexander, Daniel Drezner, David Owen, and Ellen Frankel Paul for comments on an earlier version of this essay. Thanks to David Newstone for research assistance. (shrink)

Feminist social theory and female body experience are the twin themes of Iris Marion Young's twelve outstanding essays written over the past decade and brought together here. Her contributions to social theory raise critical questions about women and citizenship, the relations of capitalism and women's oppression, and the differences between a feminist theory that emphasizes women's difference and one that assumes a gender-neutral humanity. Loosely following a phenomenological method of description, Young's essays on female embodiment discuss female movement, pregnancy, (...) clothing, and the breasted body. In an introduction that situates her work in the context of shifts in feminist theory and politics over the past decade, Young emphasizes the rootedness of her theorizing in a dedicated and seasoned political activism. (shrink)

Written over a span of more than two decades, the essays by Iris Marion Young collected in this volume describe diverse aspects of women's lived body experience in modern Western societies. Drawing on the ideas of several twentieth century continental philosophers--including Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty--Young constructs rigorous analytic categories for interpreting embodied subjectivity. The essays combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust constraints on their freedom and opportunity (...) that continue to burden many women. The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of "gender" for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residences as well as essays that analyze aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory--such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman's life story. Young describes the phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing. While academically rigorous, the essays are also written with engaging style, incorporating vivid imagery and autobiographical narrative. On Female Body Experience raises issues and takes positions that speak to scholars and students in philosophy, sociology, geography, medicine, nursing, and education. (shrink)

The place of play in the education of young children has been the focus of much interest in the past. But the findings from this research project demonstrate that there remains a significant amount of confusion about the role that play has in young children's education. In particular we found that there is a clear distinction between the rhetoric and reality of play in the reception class. Further, there was evidence of real anguish for some early years workers who were (...) failing to offer the play activities that they knew should be provided. These findings are particularly interesting at present, since the debate on the role of play has once again emerged as fundamental in the attempt to define a curriculum appropriate to the needs of the 3-6 year olds who, from the year 2000, will be required to work within the highly contentious Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum. (shrink)