Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 46-48.

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us confidence (...) in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Autism is often taken to be a specific kind of mind. The dominant neuro‐cognitivist approach explains this via static processing traits framed in terms of hyper‐systemising and hypo‐empathising. By contrast, Wittgenstein‐inspired commentators argue that the coherence of autism arises relationally, from intersubjective disruption that hinders access to a shared world of linguistic meaning. This paper argues that both camps are unduly reductionistic and conflict with emerging evidence, due in part to unjustifiably assuming a deficit‐based framing of autism. It then develops (...) a new Wittgensteinian account—autism as a different form of life—which avoids these issues. Rather than autistic systemising being the basis of autistic cognition, it is taken to be a reaction to pre‐epistemic and semantic anxieties that come with developing as a minority within a different form of life. This re‐framing can provide a coherent account of the autistic mind, and has significant conceptual, practical, and ethical implications. (shrink)

Typically, although it’s notoriously hard to define, autism has been represented as a biologically-based mental disorder that can be usefully investigated by biomedical science. In recent years, ho...

How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence is a collection of 19 essays that take a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring key instances of exemplary practice, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. -/- Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse (...) range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. -/- Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material "things" as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer practitioners within archaeology and well beyond. (shrink)

The contemporary form of critical psychiatry and psychology focused on here follows Thomas Szasz in arguing that many of the concepts and practices of psychiatry are unscientific, value-laden, and epistemically violent. These claims are based on what I call the ‘comparativist’ critique, referred to as such since the argument relies on comparing psychiatry to what is taken to be a comparatively objective and useful somatic medicine. Here I adopt a Sedgwickian constructivist approach to illness and disability more generally to argue (...) that the theoretical commitments of the comparativist critique are not just untenable, they are also epistemically harmful in much the same way criticals identify in psychiatry. This is because they commit to an unrealistic understanding of bodily health that reifies the ‘normal’ body in ways that are harmful for those who fall outside bodily, neurological, gendered, sexed, and racialized norms. Far from being a merely theoretical problem, I show how maintaining these commitments routinely contributes to the at least partial, and unintentional, marginalization of neurodivergent, disabled, and LGBTQI identity, agency, and history in critical psychiatry discourse and practice. I conclude that, although some of its critique of mainstream psychiatry is pertinent, the problems with Szaszianism’s core theoretical commitments are likely to be incompatible with critical psychiatry’s liberatory aims in the long run. (shrink)

In each of their respective commentaries Dr. Steingard (2023) and Dr. Jones (2023) largely agree with the core argument I outline in ‘A Critique of Critical Psychiatry.’ In that critique, I sought to show how and why Szaszian critical psychiatry or psychology will always be incompatible with collective liberation. I am heartened by their agreement, not least because both Steingard and Jones have been prominent critics of psychiatry themselves. I am also grateful that they each raise important questions that draw (...) attention to the limits of my analysis. While my full article focused on critique, their suggestions help point toward more positive orientations for future theory and practice. I will consider their... Read More. (shrink)

Autism is typically framed as stemming from empathy deficits as well as more general cognitive and sensory issues. In turn it is further associated with other purported harms: ranging from psychological suffering to diminished moral agency. Given such associations, in the philosophical literature, autism is widely taken to hinder the possibility of both thriving and attaining personhood. Indeed, this purported stifling of thriving personhood can be taken as the core harm associated with autism as such. In direct contrast to this (...) dominant view, the key aim of this thesis is to raise reasonable doubt as to the validity of this exclusion, by establishing that there is no decisive reason to accept the notion that autism is inherently harmful. This builds on arguments made by autistic self-advocates who argue in favour of de-medicalising and instead politicising autistic disablement and distress. However, the originality of this thesis lies in three key factors. First: it focuses more specifically on the purported impossibility of thriving autistic personhood, since I take this more fundamental matter to underlie all the other issues relating to these wider debates. Second: I use a negativist methodology. That is, instead of, say, arguing that autistic individuals can be useful to society or have positive attributes, my aim is to raise reasonable doubt regarding the core assumption underlying the dominant framing of autism as a pathology: namely, that autism and thriving personhood are inherently at odds. Third, I draw on methodologies developed by feminist philosophers and critical theorists in order to further our understanding of autism and the ethical issues surrounding it with more nuance than I have found in the existing literature. In sum: after a critical analysis of the concept of autism, and then further analysis of the relationship between autism and the harms it is associated with, I conclude that we have no decisive reason to think that being autistic, in and of itself, is at odds with either thriving or personhood. This chimes with the notion that autism is best framed as a difference, disabled by society rather than medical pathology, raises important problems for both ethical and psychiatric theory, and has significant implications for autism policy and practice. (shrink)

Archaeological Theory: The Basics is an accessible introduction to an indispensable part of what archaeologists do. The book guides the reader to an understanding of what theory is, how it works, and the range of theories used in archaeology. The growth of theory and the adoption of theories drawn from both the natural and social sciences have broadened our ability to produce trustworthy knowledge about the past. This book helps readers to see the value of archaeological theory and beyond what (...) is sometimes thought to be just the use of indigestible jargon. Key theories and concepts are introduced to the reader. Among the main questions discussed are the following: What is theory and why do we need it? What major areas of theory are, and have been, used and debated in archaeology? What do they tell us about themes including human society, evolution, culture, identity and agency? How might archaeological theory change in the future? This book is written mainly for readers new to archaeology and will help them to understand archaeological theory. It assumes no prior knowledge of archaeological theory and presents it in a selective and clear way, with case studies showing how theory is used in practice. (shrink)

Wilderness and wildness are not related isomorphically. Wildness is the broader category; all instances of wilderness express wildness while all instances of wildness do not express wilderness. There is more than a logical distinction between wildness and wilderness, and what begins as an analytic distinction ends as an ontological one. A more rhetorical representation of this confusion is captured by the notion of synecdoche, where, in this case, wilderness the narrower term is used for wildness the more expansive term. Although (...) this might seem obvious at first glance, I contend that the two concepts are often misused taken as synonyms thus equivocally, setting back the cause of conceptual clarity in environmental philosophy in general, and environmental restoration in particular. One notable outcome has been the unfortunate dichotomy between preservation and conservation resulting in policy choices that needlessly deny integrated alternatives by illicit exclusion. This paper will clarify this confusion by demonstrating instances where the two concepts have been systematically abused—conflated—and show how Henry David Thoreau saw them as importantly separable. Finally, a clearer understanding of the distinctions between the two concepts provides the basis for a viable program of restoration based on an ethics of place. (shrink)

Wilderness and wildness are not related isomorphically. Wildness is the broader category; all instances of wilderness express wildness while all instances of wildness do not express wilderness. There is more than a logical distinction between wildness and wilderness, and what begins as an analytic distinction ends as an ontological one. A more rhetorical representation of this confusion is captured by the notion of synecdoche, where, in this case, wilderness the narrower term is used for wildness the more expansive term. Although (...) this might seem obvious at first glance, I contend that the two concepts are often misused taken as synonyms thus equivocally, setting back the cause of conceptual clarity in environmental philosophy in general, and environmental restoration in particular. One notable outcome has been the unfortunate dichotomy between preservation and conservation resulting in policy choices that needlessly deny integrated alternatives by illicit exclusion. This paper will clarify this confusion by demonstrating instances where the two concepts have been systematically abused—conflated—and show how Henry David Thoreau saw them as importantly separable. Finally, a clearer understanding of the distinctions between the two concepts provides the basis for a viable program of restoration based on an ethics of place. (shrink)

Timely effective regulation of genetic advances presents a challenge for justice systems. We used a 51-item battery to examine views on major genetics-related issues of those at the forefront of regulating this area – Supreme Court judges (N = 73). We also compared their views with those of other justice stakeholders (N = 210) from the same country (Romania). Judges showed greater endorsement and less variability in views on the use of genetic data and technologies than the other groups. The (...) agreement among the judges was strikingly strong for some controversial issues, including gene editing; patenting of genetic findings; and the State using genetic information for crime prevention. Judges and other lawyers recognized the need for amending the relevant laws. Without appropriate regulation, genetic science has a risk of propelling inequality rather than fulfilling its promise to improve people’s lives. (shrink)