It is uncontroversial that something goes wrong with the blaming practices of hypocrites. However, it is more difficult to pinpoint exactly what is objectionable about their blaming practices. I contend that, just as epistemologists have recently done with blame, we can constructively treat hypocrisy as admitting of an epistemic species. This paper has two objectives: first, to identify the epistemic fault in epistemically hypocritical blame, and second, to explain why epistemically hypocritical blamers lose their standing to epistemically blame. I tackle (...) the first problem by appealing to an epistemic norm of consistency. I address the second by arguing that the epistemically hypocritical blamer commits to an opting-out of the set of shared epistemic standards that importantly underlies our standing to epistemically blame. I argue further that being epistemically hypocritical undermines a blamer’s standing even to judge epistemically blameworthy. (shrink)

This thesis concerns our standing to epistemically blame. We have reason to think three claims hold true: we only have the standing to epistemically blame when it’s our epistemic business, other people’s epistemic errors are rarely our epistemic business, and we often have the standing to epistemically blame. These jointly inconsistent claims generate the puzzle which motivates this thesis. I begin in Chapter II by offering a novel account of epistemic blame. Chapters III and IV represent my argument against the (...) second of the above claims. I argue for two standing conditions on epistemic blame in order to demonstrate that others’ epistemic errors are often our epistemic business. Finally, in Chapter V, I examine a distinctly epistemic conception of hypocrisy to clarify one way in which we can lose the standing to epistemically blame. In sum, this thesis is meant to explain and defend our entitlement to epistemically blame. (shrink)

Jennifer Hornsby has defended the Reasons-Knowledge Thesis : the claim that \-ing because p requires knowing that p, where the ‘because’ at issue is a rationalising ‘because’. She defends by appeal to the thought that it provides the best explanation of why the subject in a certain sort of Gettier case fails to be in a position to \ because p. Dustin Locke and, separately, Nick Hughes, present some modified barn-façade cases which seem to constitute counterexamples to and undermine Hornsby’s (...) way of motivating it by rendering their alternative Reasons-Explanation Thesis a better explanation of Hornsby’s datum. This paper defends and Hornsby’s argument for it against those objections. First, I point out that their supposedly intuitive verdict about the relevant barn-façade cases is not as intuitive as they think. Second, I point out that even if we share the intuition: we have strong reason to doubt the verdict anyway. And finally, I point out that since is independently implausible, the two problems can be tackled anyway. (shrink)

Nihilism is the logic of nothing as something, which claims that Nothing Is. Its unmaking of things, and its forming of formless things, strain the fundamental terms of existence: what it is to be, to know, to be known. But nihilism, the antithesis of God, is also like theology. Where nihilism creates nothingness, condenses it to substance, God also makes nothingness creative. Negotiating the borders of spirit and substance, theology can ask the questions of nihilism that other disciplines do not (...) ask: Where is it? What is it made of? Why is it so destructive? How can it be made holy, or overcome? Genealogy of Nihilism rereads Western history in the light of nihilistic logic, which pervades two millennia of Western thought and is coming to fruition in our present age in a virulently dangerous manner. From Parmenides to Alain Badiou, via Plotinus, Avicenna, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze and Derrida, a genealogy of nothingness can be witnessed in development, with devastating consequences for the way we live. Conor Cunningham's elaborate and sophisticated theology, spanning the disciplines of philosophy, science and popular culture, permits us to see not simply how modernity has formulated its philosophies of nothing, but how these philosophies might be transfigures by the crucial difference theology makes, and so be reconcilable with life and the living - with the very gift which being is. (shrink)

Current debates in food aesthetics are moving away from a focus on whether food is art, and worries about the subjectivity and objectivity of taste, and towards questions about food's aesthetic properties, the cultural and social significance of food, our modes of aesthetic engagement with food, and issues involving cultural appropriation and the authenticity of dishes.

A standard view in philosophy is that knowledge entails justification. Yet recent research suggests otherwise. We argue that this admirable and striking research suffers from an important limitation: participants were asked about knowledge but not justification. Thus it is possible that people attributed knowledge partly because they thought the belief was justified. Perhaps though, if given the opportunity, people would deny justification while still attributing knowledge. It is also possible that earlier findings were due to perspective taking. This paper reports (...) further research that directly addresses these questions. Our findings support the hypothesis that knowledge entails justification on the ordinary view. (shrink)

An important function of the self is to identify external objects that are potentially personally relevant. We suggest that such objects may be identified through mere ownership. Extant research suggests that encoding information in a self-relevant context enhances memory , thus an experiment was designed to test the impact of ownership on memory performance. Participants either moved or observed the movement of picture cards into two baskets; one of which belonged to self and one which belonged to another participant. A (...) subsequent recognition test revealed that there was a significant memory advantage for objects that were owned by self. Acting on items had no impact on memory. Results are discussed with reference to the importance of self-object associations in cognition. (shrink)

Although self‐testing apps, a form of mobile health (mHealth) apps, are often marketed as empowering, it is not obvious how exactly they can empower their users—and in which sense of the word. In this article, I discuss two conceptualisations of empowerment as polar opposites—one in health promotion/mHealth and one in feminist theory—and demonstrate how both their applications to individually used self‐testing apps run into problems. The first, prevalent in health promotion and mHealth, focuses on internal states and understands empowerment as (...) an individual process. However, this version of empowerment has been accused of paternalism and responsibilisation. The second, feminist version considers structural conditions and foregrounds collective, political change, whose realisation is not obviously attainable for an individually used app. By pointing out the flaws of the positions that focus on either internal states or external conditions, and by engaging with theory from critical phenomenology, I argue that the interplay between them is where empowerment can take place. I propose to formulate empowerment in phenomenological terms as a shift in being‐in‐the‐world and discuss how this conceptualisation of empowerment would avoid the criticism of previous empowerment narratives while being realisable by self‐testing apps. (shrink)

Propositional logic -- Predicate logic -- Proof strategies and diagrams -- Mathematical induction -- Set theory -- Functions -- Relations -- Core concepts in abstract algebra -- Core concepts in real analysis.

The article “Revive and Refuse: Capacity, Autonomy, and Refusal of Care After Opioid Overdose,” Marshall et al. (2024) highlights the critical issue of care after an opioid overdose. “Revive and Re...

Ethnic competition theory provides a powerful explanation for ethnic conflict, by demonstrating how variation in ethnic mobilization relates to intergroup struggles over scarce resources. However, the tendency to capture such relationships at the aggregate level, through macro-level proxies of intergroup competition, offers little insight into the processes through which ethnic grievances mobilize into contentious action. This article integrates insights from the social movements literature to address how competitive contexts crystallize into broader conflicts. Drawing on data from the civil rights-era Ku (...) Klux Klan—perhaps the quintessential case of contentious ethnic organization in the United States—the analysis focuses on the ways in which meso-level arrangements mediate the relationship between overarching competitive contexts and ethnic conflict. Results of a paired comparative analysis of KKK mobilization in Greensboro and Charlotte demonstrate that social and spatial relations within each city shaped the contours of perceived competition and subsequent ethnic organization in ways that were not always predictable through observation of conventional proxies of competition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In memory of Professor Louise Marcil, from the University of Montreal, who died prematurely in April 1995, this special issue of Dialogue is dedicated to Equality. In addition to presenting the various contributions, the Introduction traces the main strands of Louise Marcil’s work on equality. The impressive corpus of her writings on the subject is characterized throughout by sensitivity to the historical and conceptual complexity of egalitarian theories and policies and by a depth of scholarship, the richness of which (...) defies classification into traditional philosophical schools. Moreover, far from being merely abstract scholarship, this work was clearly intended to strengthen actual egalitarian social projects, to which Louise Marcil was passionately committed. The contributions to this special issue of Dialogue have been selected in large part to reflect the diversity and scholarly standards of Louise Marcil’s approach to equality as well as its engaged spirit. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for an historical understanding of the relationship between ideology and utopia/utopianism that positions the latter as a specifically modern compensation for the loss of the cosmologically grounded, unitary ideology supplied by the late medieval Christian Church. This claim relies upon but revises Fredric Jameson’s early theorization of the collaboration between ideology and utopia/utopianism, which emphasizes that utopian elements allow ideology to offer subjects a ‘compensatory exchange’ for their complicity. Developing my central argument requires considering the (...) current viability of the ‘secularization thesis’, which classically associated modernization with secularization but which has undergone heavy criticism and revision by social scientists over the past half-century. These theoretical discussions, finally, are couched within a critical appraisal of the status of utopianism in contemporary politics. (shrink)

According to a consensus view in philosophy, “deciding” and “intending” are synonymous expressions. Researchers have recently challenged this view with the discovery of a counterexample in which ordinary speakers attribute deciding without intending. The aim of this paper is to investigate the strengths and limits of this discovery. The result of this investigation revealed that the evidence challenging the consensus view is strong. We replicate the initial finding against consensus and extend it by utilizing several new measures, materials, and procedures. (...) Together this evidence strongly suggests that “deciding” is not synonymous with “intending” in ordinary language and that the consensus view should be rejected. (shrink)

Civil war and peace-building -- Curriculum for conflict transformation -- Conflict transformation and northern Uganda -- The search for truth -- Reconciliation -- Inclusive citizenship -- Cambodia, Rwanda, Northern Ireland -- Conclusion.

Ejes de la territorialidad patriarcal -- Fronteras y antifaces del signo mujer -- En el flujo heterogéneo de la liberación.

In _The Cosmic Perils of Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī in Fifteenth-Century Iran_ Alexandra Dunietz explores the life and works of a provincial judge whose life exemplifies the intellectual, spiritual and political tensions of the Timurid, Ak Koyunlu and Safavid spheres.

A professora Pórcia Guimarães Alves teve formação educacional diferenciada e, concluindo o ensino superior, continuou sua formação com cursos e encontros científicos no Brasil e em outros países. Durante as viagens, trocava missivas com seus familiares, que foram mantidas em arquivo pessoal em plástico denominado “Cartas enviadas ao meu pai”. Procurou-se analisar: qual a escrita de si de Pórcia contida nas cartas trocadas com seus familiares entre 1946 e 1958? Listaram-se os objetivos específicos: mapear os familiares mencionados nas cartas; analisar (...) a materialidade do suporte epistolar procurando aspectos subjetivos em seus registros autobiográficos; e identificar temas narrados nessa escrita. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 207-224 [Access article in PDF] Virtual Witnessing and the Role of the Reader in a New Natural Philosophy Richard Cunningham [Figures]How did the self-described new natural philosophies of the early modern period displace other philosophic (moral, ethical, legal), and specifically religious, discourses as the locus of truth in our culture? Natural philosophy's rejection of disputation and of revelation as means of producing truth (...) in favor of the "discovery" of truth was more accurately an introduction of the invention of truth than of its discovery, and this invention demanded the creation of and participation of a certain kind of reader. Rhetorical examination of the early modern magnetic philosopher William Gilbert's most influential work, De Magnete, 1 will help us understand the "paradigm change," to use Thomas Kuhn's oft-misquoted term, 2 from a culture that accepted probabilistic truth in the natural realm to one that expected moral certainty, from a culture that accepted revelation as a legitimate means of access to truth to one that increasingly recognized only the "discovery" of truth through sensual experience disciplined through experiment.One way this paradigm change was effected was through the inclusion of the reader as an active participant in the new natural philosophies. The reader was included in the new natural philosophies by engendering in him desires for particular forms of knowledge and particular ways of attaining that knowledge. Peter Dear notes that "in the seventeenth century old practices changed and new ones appeared. Those changing practices represent shifts in the meaning of experience itself" (12-13), and he then asks the question that might well have been on the tongues of many as the old practices gave way to the new: "how can a universal knowledge-claim about the natural world be justified on the basis of singular items of individual experience?" (13). A crucially important way to justify the universal knowledge-claim on singular items of individual experience [End Page 207] was through the employment of a technique Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have labeled "virtual witnessing" (60-65). Briefly, "virtual witnessing" describes the use of linguistic resources to produce a vicarious experience enabling a reader to confer agreement as though she had actually been present when an experiment was conducted. Virtual witnessing alone, however, cannot explain how the scientific became the dominant truth-producing paradigm in our culture. Virtual witnessing intermingled with a variety of other elements in early modern natural philosophy to encourage readers to participate in the invention of "true" accounts of the world in which we live. In this article I will apply the tools of rhetorical analysis as I use the example of De Magnete to elaborate on how a Foucauldian form of disciplinary impulse combined in the early modern period with the technology of virtual witnessing to create an audience inculcated with desire, interest, and belief in the new natural philosophy, which had to precede and accompany expansion of the scientific into the dominant truth-producing paradigm it has long since become.For the sake of clarity I should expound upon the two key elements of my argument, "discipline," in the Foucauldian sense in which I use the term, and "virtual witnessing." According to Michel Foucault, "discipline" is "a political anatomy of detail... situated on the axis that links the singular and the multiple" (139-49), and I argue that this point, on the "axis that links the singular and the multiple," is exactly the point that enables modern science. William Gilbert's De Magnete can help us understand how knowledge and power--or epistemê and technê, to use another, perhaps more rhetorically inflected, vocabulary--combined in the early modern period to produce the effects that would become those of modern science. Gilbert provides an excellent example of the movement from the production of truth through revelation to the production of truth through discovery and the experimental method. De Magnete persuades its reader by rendering visible a formerly invisible "universal nature," 3 so that truth is no longer warranted by the invisible workings... (shrink)

Empirical studies indicate that business compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act is disappointing, but they struggle to make sense of this phenomenon. This article offers a novel framework to understand how business organizations construct the meaning of compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act. Our analysis builds on the endogeneity of law theory developed by Edelman. Empirically, our study is based on the analysis of the modern slavery statements of 10 FTSE 100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index) companies (...) in the food and tobacco sector, backed by interviews with business, civil society, and public officers. We offer a dynamic model that draws attention to the role of compliance professionals in framing ambiguous rules and devising a variety of organizational responses to modern slavery law. Contrary to extant research that tends to praise organizations for going “beyond compliance”, our study underlines the risks of managerialization of modern slavery law, whereby merely symbolic structures come to be associated with legal compliance, even when they are ineffective at tackling modern slavery. (shrink)

The article argues that there are different ways of justifying suspension of judgement. We suspend judgement not only privatively, that is, because we lack evidence, but also positively, that is, because there is evidence that provides reasons for suspending judgement: suspension is more than the rational fallback position in cases of insufficient evidence. The article applies the distinction to recent discussions about the role of suspension for inquiry, Turri's puzzle about withholding, and formal representations of suspension.

The purpose of this article is to examine three different approaches to autonomy in order to demonstrate how each leads to a different conclusion about the ethicality of advertising. I contend that Noggle's belief-based autonomy theory provides the most complete understanding of autonomy. Read in conjunction with Arendt's theory of cooperative power, Noggle's theory leads to the conclusion that advertising does not violate consumers' autonomy. Although it is possible for advertisers to abuse the power granted them by society these abuses (...) do not constitute a violation of consumers' autonomy. (shrink)

Temporal discounting is the tendency to devalue temporally distant rewards. Past studies have examined the k-value, the indifference point, and the area under the curve as dependent measures on this task. The current study included these three measures and a fourth measure, called the interest rate total score. The interest rate total score was based on scoring only those items in which the delayed choice should be preferred given the expected return based on simple interest rates. In addition, associations with (...) several individual difference measures were examined including intelligence, executive functions (inhibition, working memory, and set-shifting), thinking dispositions (Need for Cognition and Consideration of Future Consequences) and engagement in substance use and gambling behavior. A staircase temporal discounting task was examined in a sample of 99 university students. Replicating previous studies, temporal discounting increased with longer delays to reward and decreased with higher reward magnitudes. A hyperbolic function accounted for variance in temporal discounting better than an exponential function. Reaction time at the indifference point was significantly longer than at the other choice points. The four dependent measures of temporal discounting were all significantly correlated and were also significantly associated with our individual difference measures. That is, the tendency to wait for a larger delayed reward on all of the temporal discounting measures was associated with higher intelligence, higher executive functions and more consideration of future consequences. Associations between our measures of temporal discounting and outcomes related to substance use and gambling behavior were modest in our university sample. (shrink)

This article explores the politics of digital protest and emergent forms of sociality in the #NoDAPL movement using Elizabeth Povinelli’s concept of geontopower. I begin by situating the concept of geontopower in relation to a range of biopolitical, decolonial, and ecocritical theory in order to show its importance in conceptualizing the interconnectedness of decolonial and environmental interests. I use this theoretical framework to analyze several instances of what I call ‘digital decoloniality’ in the #NoDAPL movement, cases where the particular affordances (...) of social media technologies and the efforts of Indigenous activists and non-Indigenous allies disrupted normative assumptions regarding the boundaries of the digital and ‘analog’ worlds and resisted the geontopolitical structuring of life and nonlife. I argue that the #NoDAPL hashtag works to enact the prerogatives of Western science-based environmentalism and Indigenous epistemological tenets in common, performatively generating new possibilities for conceptualizing social struggle and shared history. (shrink)

The problem of Nishida Kitaro's historical philosophy and an introduction to the psychedelic paradigm -- The Zen nexus between Nishida Kitaro and modern psychedelic experience -- Experience and the self: the early phase of Nishida's thought (1911-1931) -- Nishida Kitaro's historical world (1931-1945) -- A psychedelic paradigm of history -- Hallucinating the end of history: reflections on myth, the eschaton and the problem of overcoming modernity.

A central mistake in Rolf Gruner's recent article on understanding in the socia sciences in ferreted out, and consideration of it is used both to analyse Gruner's interpretation of understanding and to sketch a more adequate interpretation. The mistake is in distinguishing meanings and facts. The analysis suggests that Gruner was forced to see understanding both as a special kind of explanation and at the same time as no explanation. The sketch offers a distinction of three senses of ?understanding? ? (...) as identification of a certain kind of subject matter, as explanation of it, and as a subjective feeling consequent upon such explanation. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an account of the wrong that is done to women when everyday people fail to believe allegations of sexual assault made by women. I argue that an everyday person wrongs both the accuser and women causally distant from the accuser when they fail to believe the accuser’s allegation. First, I argue that there are responses that we, as everyday members of society, owe to victims of sexual assault. A condition enabling everyday people to respond in (...) the way owed to victims is that they have an outright belief that the accuser was assaulted. Actively suspending judgement about whether a crime occurred is in tension with the ability to respond to the victim in a way that supports and validates them. When an everyday person fails to have an outright belief in the truth of an allegation, they wrong the accuser because they risk failing to satisfy the conditions enabling them to fulfill their obligation to her. Second, I argue that everyday people wrong women who are causally distant from the accuser because in our social context, women are often treated in particular ways – especially in the sexual domain – because they are women. As a result, when women hear that an everyday person fails to believe a particular allegation, they easily project themselves into the accuser’s position and reasonably worry that if they were to be assaulted, they too would be met with doubt and disbelief by the people in their community. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can account for (...) all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology. (shrink)

I will discuss the relationship between two different accounts of remedial duty ascriptions. According to one account, the beneficiary account, individuals who benefit innocently from injustices ought to bear remedial responsibilities towards the victims of these injustices. According to another account, the causal account, individuals who caused injustices ought to bear remedial duties towards the victim. In this paper, I examine the relation between the principles central to these accounts: the Beneficiary Pays Principle and the well-established principle of Strict Liability (...) in law. I argue that both principles display a strong yet unexplored similarity as they make certain kinds of causal connection sufficient for incurring liability. Because of this similarity, I suggest that insights into the Beneficiary Pays Principle can be gained from exploring its relation with Strict Liability. In particular, I examine two new positive arguments that could be adapted to support of the Beneficiary Pays Principle: the Minimising Injustice Argument and the Normative Connection Argument. However, I’ll show that only one of those arguments, namely the Normative Connection Argument, can truly support the Beneficiary Pays Principle. I conclude that, if you endorse the Normative Connection Argument for Strict Liability, you have at least a strong prima facie reason to endorse the parallel argument for the Beneficiary Pays Principle. (shrink)

I will argue here a) that we have a right to have opportunities to meaningful relationships, b) that such a right is distinct from a right focusing only on protecting access to more basic social interactions, and c) that to the extent that we have rights to both kinds of social interactions, the one focused on more meaningful relationships should have priority because it secures an interest of greater importance for us.

Is there anything wrong with publishing philosophical work which one does not believe (publishing without belief, henceforth referred to as ‘PWB’)? I argue that there is not: the practice isn’t intrinsically wrong, nor is there a compelling consequentialist argument against it. Therefore, the philosophical community should neither proscribe nor sanction it. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I’ll clarify and motivate the problem, using both hypothetical examples and a recent real-world case. Next, I’ll look at arguments that there is something (...) wrong with PWB, and show that none is sound. Then, I’ll give some reasons for thinking a norm against PWB is detrimental to the profession. Do I believe these arguments? If I’m right, it shouldn’t matter. (shrink)

Les approches classiques de l'engagement se sont principalement intéressées à ses déterminants, rapportés à des variables sociodémographiques, des dispositions, des vertus ou des rétributions, comme à autant de motifs déjà constitués en amont et extrinsèques à l'expérience de l'engagement. Or, les intérêts des personnes - et leur puissance d'agir elle-même - peuvent s'analyser comme des produits de l'engagement, pour peu qu'on le saisisse dans sa dimension temporelle, itérative et située. Envisagé comme expérience, il paraît indissociable d'une enquête menée à la (...) fois sur soi et sur le monde, où les personnes interrogent autant leurs propres désirs et possibilités d'agir, que la vie commune qu'elles souhaitent cultiver ou voir advenir. Ce volume rassemble une série de contributions théoriques et empiriques qui explorent des façons d'articuler souci de soi et souci du monde. Elles documentent la façon dont les engagements circulent entre différentes sphères de la vie et entre moments biographiques, en suivant les formes d'expérimentation auxquelles ils donnent lieu. Notre compréhension du rapport au politique s'en trouve enrichie, ressaisie depuis la trame des expériences de la vie commune faites en personne"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans Techniques & Culture en ligne, 48-49 | 2007 Résumé : L'œuvre d'André Leroi-Gourhan est traversée par une anthropologie du rythme. Celle-ci ne part pas d'une socialité constituée, de rythmes dits « sociaux », mais inscrit au contraire l'analyse de la rythmicité dans une approche de l'homme comme être vivant, comme totalité indivise. Elle pose en des termes renouvelés le problème classique du groupement des hommes et des liens entre l'individu et son milieu. Avec la (...) question - Anthropologie. (shrink)

Eighteenth-Century Stoic Poetics: Shaftesbury, Akenside, and the Discipline of the Imagination offers a fresh perspective on the eighteenth-century poetics of Lord Shaftesbury and Mark Akenside. This book traces the two authors' debt to Roman Stoic spiritual exercises and early modern conceptions of the care of the self, which informs their view of the poetic imagination as a bundle of techniques designed to manage impressions, cultivate right images in the mind and rectify judgement. Alexandra Bacalu traces the roots of this (...) articulation in early modern writings on the imagination, as well as in Restoration and Augustan debates on wit, exploring the fruitful tension between ideas of imaginative enthusiasm and imaginative regulation that it provokes. (shrink)

It is frequently claimed that the human mind is organized in a modular fashion, a hypothesis linked historically, though not inevitably, to the claim that many aspects of the human mind are innately specified. A specific instance of this line of thought is the proposal of an innately specified geometric module for human reorientation. From a massive modularity position, the reorientation module would be one of a large number that organized the mind. From the core knowledge position, the reorientation module (...) is one of five innate and encapsulated modules that can later be supplemented by use of human language. In this paper, we marshall five lines of evidence that cast doubt on the geometric module hypothesis, unfolded in a series of reasons: (1) Language does not play a necessary role in the integration of feature and geometric cues, although it can be helpful. (2) A model of reorientation requires flexibility to explain variable phenomena. (3) Experience matters over short and long periods. (4) Features are used for true reorientation. (5) The nature of geometric information is not as yet clearly specified. In the final section, we review recent theoretical approaches to the known reorientation phenomena. (shrink)