Certain social context features (e.g., maternal presence) are known to increase young children's exploration, a key process by which they learn. Yet limited research investigates the role of social context, especially peer presence, in exploration across development. We investigate whether the effect of peer presence on exploration is mediated by age or cultural‐specific experiences. We test its impact on exploration across development (2–11 years) and across cultures (United States and the Tsimane', indigenous farmer‐foragers in Bolivia). Specifically, peer presence does not (...) boost exploration among young U.S. children and becomes more inhibitory among school‐age children. In contrast, peer presence facilitates exploration and provides an additional boost for older Tsimane' children, who differ from U.S. children in their cultural‐specific learning experiences (e.g., formal education), among other differences. We discuss potential cultural factors and mechanisms by which peer presence may boost exploratory behavior. (shrink)

The work of scientists and doctors in advancing genetic research and its applications has been accompanied by plenty of discussion in the popular press—from Good Housekeeping and Forbes to Ms. and the Congressional Record—about such ...

Epistemic injustice is a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject by undermining her capacity to engage in epistemic practices such as giving knowledge to others or making sense of one’s experiences. It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than the healthy. This paper claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of contributory (...) factors for epistemic injustice in psychiatric patients are outlined: global and specific. Some suggestions are made to counteract the effects of these contributory factors, for instance we suggest that physicians should participate in groups where the subjective experience of patients is explored, and learn to become more aware of their own unconscious prejudices towards psychiatric patients. (shrink)

An essay review of Havi Carel, 'Phenomenology of Illness' (OUP 2015).

We propose that certain forms of chronic illness can be transformative experiences, in the sense described by L.A. Paul.

In our rapidly changing environment, both profit and non-profit organizations confront an increasing demand for technological, economic, and social innovation. In response to this demand, organizations are taking on the role of “change agents” by transforming existing practices into innovative action. Libraries, as centers that accumulate and disperse knowledge, can support these organizations in their “change agent” roles. This paper delineates the way public libraries can help organizations meet the increasing need for external information associated with innovation. Policy issues concerned (...) with efficient information transfer to user organizationss are specified, and two concrete examples of information transfer systems are described. In order to best utilize existing knowledge,personal-professional assistance in selecting potentially innovative,impersonal written materials is recommended. (shrink)

Institutions play an indispensable role in our political and epistemic lives. This Chapter explores sympathetically the claim that political institutions can be bearers of epistemic vices. I start by describing one form of collectivism - the claim that the vices of institutions do not reduce to the vices of their members. I then describe the phenomenon of epistemic corruption and the various processes that can corrupt the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. The discussion focuses on some recent work by Miranda (...) Fricker and select examples from recent British political experience. The Chapter ends with suggestions for further work on the corruption and repair of the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. (shrink)

One way to think about the philosophical significance of hatred is to consider doctrines that are characterised by feelings of hatred. A good candidate is misanthropy, which is often conceived as an attitude of hatred directed at humankind at large. I start by sketching a working account of misanthropy as a critical verdict or judgment on the contemporary condition of humankind as it has become. The criticism is directed at the array of vices and failings that are ubiquitous and entrenched (...) within the wider structures of human life, rather than those of individual persons. In one of its forms, misanthropy manifests itself in feelings of hatred for those entrenched failings and the patterns of awful behaviour which they motivate and sustain - for instance, the figure that Kant called the "enemy of mankind", or the radical eco-misanthropes who populated much American radical environmentalism of the 1980s, with their calls to 'tear down' the 'whole human world'. I then argue that such hateful 'enemies of mankind' represent only one among a set of modes of misanthropy. These have more peaceable affective and practical profiles that offer us forms of misanthropy without hatred. If so, we can think philosophically about hate in relation to misanthropy and about the potential scope of hatred. Thinking about the entrenched vices and failings constitutive of our life as it has become offers a way of intelligibly hating something as large as 'humanity'. But there are other responses to those vices and failings than hatred. I end by speculating that although hateful misanthropy tends to dominate discussions of misanthropy, historically it is the least common. That, itself, might tell us something about the sustainability of hatred. (shrink)

The Artificial Kingdom is the first book to provide a cultural history of kitsch, an immensely popular aesthetic phenomenon that has always been disdained as "bad taste," or a cheap imitation of art. Proposing instead that kitsch is the product of a larger sensibility of loss, Celeste Olalquiaga shows how it enables the momentary re-creation of experiences that exist only as memories or fantasies. Simultaneously exposing and celebrating this process, Olalquiaga gives us a bold, trenchant analysis of what and (...) how we see when we look at kitsch. Tracing its beginnings to the nineteenth century--when industrialization transformed nature into an artificial kingdom of miniature scale--Olalquiaga describes the at once exhilarated and melancholic atmosphere where kitsch came to life. In an arresting mix of theory and anecdote, she examines objects from both the past and the present, probing the fluid boundaries between reality and fantasy, and finding in kitsch a phenomenon as relevant to our own time as it was to the era that made it a massive experience. (shrink)

Posidonius was one of the most important philosophers and intellectuals writing in the Greco-Roman world of the first half of the first century B.C. This book is a commentary on the surviving testimonia and fragments of his work collected in volume 1. Its purpose is to explicate and understand the evidence of these fragments, which must form the basis for any estimate of Posidonius' contribution to the learning of his time in the history of ideas. Since Posidonius was reported by (...) at least sixty different writers, an attempt has been made to disentangle what Posidonius said, as distinct from the interpretations and distortions of his reporters. Posidonius wrote at length not only on philosophy, but also on the sciences, and a large History, and Professor Kidd has assessed Posidonius' work against the background of the philosophical, scientific and historical writings of his predecessors, contemporaries amd followers; for this many other related passages are cited and examined. (shrink)

In the face of documented difficulties in the public understanding of genetics, new metaphors have been suggested. The language of information coding and processing has become deeply entrenched in the public representation of genetics, and some critics have found fault in the blueprint metaphor, a variant of the dominant theme. They have offered the language of the recipe as a preferable metaphor. The metaphors of the blueprint and the recipe are compared in respect to their deterministic implications and other associations. (...) The likelihood of the recipe metaphor framing cognition in more useful ways is called into question. (shrink)

Abstract:Lucian's Fatherland Encomium is thought to have been delivered at Samosata, Lucian's hometown. Although he never mentions "Samosata" in this speech, he repeatedly toys with the "name of the fatherland" as the speech's theme. But what is the name of his native city? The Greeks called it "Samosata" but this is clearly a transliteration. I consider the Aramaic, Persian, and Armenian versions of the name, and notice that the Aramaic "Shemshat" has a number of resonances in Lucian's speech, not least (...) the set theme of the speech itself "the name of (shem) the fatherland.". (shrink)

The main goal of this paper will be to analyze the relationship between the phenomenon of conceptual relativity and the speaking-sensitive semantics. My paper will be divided into three parts. In the first part I will present Putnam's the phenomenon of conceptual relativity, in the second part I will exhibit the main ideas that characterize the speaking-sensitive semantics defended by Putnam and, finally, in the last part I will connect Putnam's semantics with the doctrine of conceptual relativity.

The main aim of this brief paper is to present in which sense both Putnam's internal realism and his natural realism are realist. In order to do that I will take into consideration the notion of "reality" that Putnam uses in his defense of his internalist perspective as well in his present natural realism. Although there exist significant differences between Putnam's two different realist stances, the notion of "reality" present in each of them remains the same. In this paper I (...) will clarify what Putnam understands by that notion. (shrink)

Writing about loneliness has been a struggle in the midst of the pandemic. Characterized by loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and fear, the COVID-19 pandemic is an exceptionally challenging time. At various points while navigating this loneliness project amid a particularly lonely time, we lamented the seeming futility of it all. A main goal of developing a Feminist Loneliness Studies in this introduction is to understand the ways that systems of oppression – white supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-queer bias, misogyny, neoliberal capitalism, and (...) so on – create our lonely world. To date, there remains no comprehensive feminist analysis of the structural conditions that both produce and intensify experiences of loneliness. We aim to remedy this gap. That is, we seek to address what a Feminist Loneliness Studies can contribute to understanding the complexities of this complicated emotion. For example, what is the unique loneliness of the feminist killjoy who calls out, or calls in, existing forms of queerphobia, racism, and sexism? What does it mean to be a politicized person and how does that result in both alienation and isolation? What might the relationship be between white supremacy and loneliness? How is loneliness both individual and systemic, and what is the relationship between the two? What distinctive forms of loneliness are created by ableism, sanism, neoliberalism, capitalism, globalization, and the gig economy? Ought loneliness be avoided at all costs? What are the ethics of loneliness? In our introduction to this special issue, we unpack and theorize the potential perils and generative possibilities offered up by this profound emotion. Establishing a Feminist Loneliness Studies provides us with the space we need to begin addressing and comprehending loneliness. (shrink)

In the last third of the twentieth century, humanists and social scientists argued that attention to genetics would heighten already‐existing genetic determinism, which in turn would intensify negative social outcomes, especially sexism, racism, ableism, and harshness to criminals. They assumed that laypeople are at risk of becoming genetic essentialists. I will call this the “laypeople are genetic essentialists model.” This model has not accurately predicted psychosocial impacts of findings from genetics research. I will be arguing that the failure of the (...) model can be traced to its inability to recognize the complexity of laypeople’s attitudes; its incorrect theory of how beliefs, attitudes, and discourse function; and its blindness to how academics’ own interests can override the available evidence. More specifically, I suggest that the substantial data about laypeople’s deployment of genetics supports what I will call the “laypeople are strategic essentialists model” better than the “laypeople are genetic essentialists model.” The strategic essentialists model holds that people tend to store multiple categories, including multiple causal forces, that they deploy “strategically” to serve context‐dependent goals. It will be difficult for academics to reorient ourselves to model laypeople as sophisticated strategic essentialists rather than as naïve genetic essentialists. Perhaps a little shift, however, will be of value. (shrink)

This chapter describes some of the varieties of philosophical humanism and different conceptions of, and attitudes towards, the natural sciences. I focus on three kinds of humanism evident in 20th century European philosophy – humanism as essentialism, humanism as rational subjectivity, and existential humanism. Some are strongly allied to the sciences, others are antipathetic to them, while others offer subtler positions. By emphasising this diversity, I want to oppose claims about the inevitability of an 'alliance' of science to humanism, and (...) that claim that to be a humanist is something we must approve or applaud. At best, those 'alliances' and that praiseworthiness will only be true of certain varieties of humanism. (shrink)

Wittgenstein criticised prevailing attitudes toward the sciences. The target of his criticisms was ‘scientism’: what he described as ‘the overestimation of science’. This collection is the first study of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism - a theme in his work that is clearly central to his thought yet strikingly neglected by the existing literature. The book explores the philosophical basis of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism; how this anti-scientism helps us understand Wittgenstein’s philosophical aims; and how this underlies his later conception of philosophy and the kind (...) of philosophy he attacked. An outstanding team of international contributors articulate and critically assess Wittgenstein’s views on scientism and anti-scientism, making Wittgenstein and Scientism essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein’s work, on topics as varied as the philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophical practice, the nature of religious belief, and the place of science in modern culture. (shrink)

An essay review of Léna Soler, Emiliano Trizio, and Andrew Pickering (eds.), Science As It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press).

‘The co-production of meaning’ is a popular, widely-used, but under-defined concept. To better understand the co-production of meaning, we shall attempt to develop an account of co-production through phenomenological psychopathology. Through Hans Georg Gadamer’s remarks on ‘the hermeneutic problem of psychiatry’, we distinguish kinds of contingent and intrinsic obstacles to 'co-production'. In calling attention to these obstacles, we problematise the concept of ‘co-production’ in public mental health, revealing it to be more complex than originally thought. We conclude that new developments (...) in phenomenological psychopathology can be used to overcome some of the limitations of ‘co-production’. (shrink)

I suspect many philosophers feel the deep reason the topic of scientism matters is that it wrongly questions or impugns the integrity and significance of the discipline of philosophy. Such metaphilosophical concerns may not always be at the forefront during debates about scientism. Sometimes, though, we should engage much broader metaphilosophical issues.

This article explores the prospects for a eudaimonist moral theory that is both feminist and Aristotelian. Making the moral philosophy developed by Aristotle compatible with a feminist moral perspective presents a number of philosophical challenges. Lisa Tessman offers one of the most sustained feminist engagements with Aristotelian eudaimonism. However, in arguing for the account of flourishing that her eudaimonist theory invokes, Tessman avoids taking a stand either for or against the role Aristotle assigned to human nature. She draws her account (...) of flourishing instead from the beliefs about flourishing implicit in the feminist and black freedom movements. I examine the implicit conception of flourishing in the writings of two prominent leaders of the black freedom movement—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X—and argue that Tessman's attempt to avoid the “sticky issue” of human nature is not successful. Tessman's defense of the burdened virtues depends on a particular reading of human nature as does a eudaimonist account of the virtues more generally. (shrink)

We develop a broader, more fine-grained taxonomy of forms of ‘transformative experience’ inspired by the work of L.A. Paul. Our vulnerability to such experiences arises, we argue, due to the vulnerability, dependence, and affliction intrinsic to the human condition. We use this trio to distinguish a variety of positively, negatively, and ambivalently valenced forms of epistemically and/or personally transformative experiences. Moreover, we argue that many transformative experiences can arise gradually and cumulatively, unfolding over the course of longer periods of time.

RESUMEN Este trabajo se propone analizar los aportes de Judith Butler a las actuales lecturas norteamericanas sobre la introducción del deseo en la Fenomenología del espíritu de Hegel. Para ello, en primer lugar, situamos la aparición del deseo en la obra mencionada; en segundo lugar reconstruimos los principales lineamientos de las interpretaciones estadounidenses en boga; en tercer lugar nos ocupamos del análisis que Butler realiza sobre esta cuestión en Sujetos del deseo. Reflexiones hegelianas en la Francia del siglo XX. Por (...) último, en la conclusión, sistematizamos las contribuciones de Butler, destacando fundamentalmente tres: la significación particular que le otorga al deseo en su momento de emergencia; el modo de abordaje de esta problemática que se detiene en el estudio del tercer capítulo de la Fenomenología del espíritu; y la perspectiva retórica desde la que explica el deseo. ABSTRACT This paper aims to analyze Judith Butler's contributions to the recent interpretations of the introduction of desire in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, proposed by American scholars. In order to achieve this goal, we situate the appearance of desire in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Then, we reconstruct the main recent American readings. Finally, we examine Butler's interpretation. In the conclusion of this paper, we systematize the most important features of Butler's reading: the meaning of desire in the context of its moment of emergency; the way in which Butler studies this issue, which consist in a thorough reading of chapter III ofHegel's Phenomenology of Spirit; and Butler's rhetorical perspective of desire. (shrink)

The cinema has long reigned as the kinetic medium of the twentieth century. Early in itsdevelopment it secured its privilege over the more traditional arts through itsunprecedented control and manipulation of time. In The Great Train Robbery and Life of an American Fireman crowds had theirfirst experiences of film crosscutting between two different spaces and moments in time.1They saw a shot of a raging house fire, and then suddenly a shot of a sleeping firemanin the station. Between these two spaces (...) is a simple cut, and yet here is the preciselocation of a vast frontier: the pleasure of waiting for something forever on the verge ofarrival. This expectation of the event, the catastrophe, and the culmination, is the fuel formodern cinema. The Hollywood tradition has been a developing story of technology’sattempts to exploit this passion, pushing the barriers of how much suspense can beintroduced and resolved within the space of a screen and a segment of time, and in the past thirty years the action film has become one of the most exciting genres, spinning offnumerous subgenres and transforming the industry. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper offers an account of institutional testimonial justice and describes one way that it breaks down, which we call institutional opacity. An institution is opaque when it becomes resistant to epistemic evaluation and understanding by its agents and users. When one cannot understand the inner workings of an institution, it becomes difficult to know how to comport oneself testimonially. We offer an account of an institutional ethos to explain what it means for an institution to be testimonially just; (...) we then describe how an ethos of institutional testimonial justice can break down when the institution becomes opaque. An opaque institution is especially problematic for individuals and groups already rendered epistemically vulnerable during their interactions with that institution, which we call epistemically vulnerabilised individuals. We articulate the features of an encounter between an epistemically vulnerabilised individual and an opaque institution. We end by tracing ameliorative strategies that could help repair a deteriorated institutional ethos of testimonial justice. (shrink)

While executive functions and self-regulated learning strategy use have been found to be related in several populations, this relationship has not been studied in adult online distance education. This is surprising as self-regulation, and thus using such strategies, is very important here. In this setting, we studied the relation between basic executive functions and reported SRL-strategy use within a correlational design with 889 adult online distance students. In this study, we performed regression analyses and took age and processing speed into (...) consideration, as processing speed and EFs decrease with age, whereas self-regulation is reported to increase with age. Cognitively measured working memory was not related to reported SRL-strategy use in adult ODE students. Thus, even though the SRL-components within the strategies seem to elicit working memory, reported SRL-strategy use is not related to the functioning of this basic EF. This means that if SRL-strategy use needs to be increased in adult ODE students, training of working memory might not be an effective manner for achieving that goal. Better shifting and processing speed were related to less reported SRL-strategy use, which might suggest that SRL-strategies might be used to compensate for lower shifting and lower processing speed. With increasing age, the number of contacts with peers or teachers decreases. This latter finding might be of relevance during the pandemic since contacts with others is importance during lockdown. (shrink)

This chapter offers a character-based criticism of ‘the culture of speed’ condemned by the Canadian literary scholars, Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber in their influential polemic, The Slow Professor. Central to their criticisms of speed and praise of slowness are, I argue, substantive concerns about their effects on moral and intellectual character. I argue that a full reckoning of the wrongs of academic cultures of speed must include appreciation of the ways they promote a host of accelerative vices and failings (...) while also impeding exercise of a range of the virtues vital to enactment of our core academic commitments to teaching, scholarship, and collegiality. (shrink)

People respond to metaphors as much with regard to the emotions that they generate as to their referential, comparative contents. Interviews with non-geneticists about preferred metaphors for gene-environment interaction that illustrate this tendency are reported. These interviews also reveal the dynamic tendency of such emotional responses. A second set of interviews shows that lay people may preferentially use a metaphor of "virus" or "disease" for talking about genes, as opposed to the coding metaphors transmitted through the mass media and reportedly (...) preferred by geneticists. An explanation based on the differently situated emotions of these groups is proposed. It is proposed that the prominence of emotions in responding to genetics indicates the importance of incorporating analyses of emotions instead of simple principles into policy formulation about genetics. (shrink)