George Yancy gathers white scholarship that dwells on the experience of whiteness as a problem without sidestepping the question’s implications for Black people or people of color. This unprecedented reversion of the “Black problem” narrative challenges contemporary rhetoric of a color-evasive world in a critically engaging and persuasive study.

In this collection, white women philosophers engage boldly in critical acts of exploring ways of naming and disrupting whiteness in terms of how it has defined the conceptual field of philosophy. Focuses on the whiteness of the epistemic and value-laden norms within philosophy itself, the text dares to identify the proverbial elephant in the room known as white supremacy and how that supremacy functions as the measure of reason, knowledge, and philosophical intelligibility.

Some have it that wholes are, somehow, identical to their parts. This doctrine is as alluring as it is puzzling. But in this paper, I show that the doctrine is inconsistent with two widely accepted theses. Something has to go.

Here's an interesting question: what are we? David Barnett has claimed that reflection on consciousness suggests an answer: we are simple. Barnett argues that the mereological simplicity of conscious beings best explains the Datum: that no pair of persons can itself be conscious. In this paper, I offer two alternative explanations of the Datum. If either is correct, Barnett's argument fails. First, there aren't any such things as pairs of persons. Second, consciousness is maximal; no conscious thing is a proper (...) part of another conscious thing. I conclude by showing how both moves comport with materialist theories of what we are and then apply them to another anti-materialist argument. (shrink)

Many say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are (...) themselves substantive. (shrink)

Making room for agency in a physical world is no easy task. Can it be done at all? In this article, I consider and reject an argument in the negative.

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an arpeggio on the piano, or parallel-park, reflecting on your actions leads to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis--that's what is widely believed. But is it true? After exploring some of the contemporary and historical manifestations of the idea, Barbara Gail Montero (...) develops a theory of expertise which emphasizes the role of the conscious mind in expert action. She aims to dispel various myths about experts who proceed without any understanding of what guides their action, and she analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control and explicit monitoring of one's movements impedes well practiced skills. Montero explores a wide range of real-life examples of optimal performance, in sports, the performing arts, healthcare, the military, and other fields, and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to offer a refreshing and persuasive view of expertise, according to which expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective. (shrink)

This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion (...) of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures to make motion intelligible. With Aristotle we finally see the first outline of the fundamental framework with which we conceptualise motion today. (shrink)

My project is to explain why the question ‘How does it feel to be a white problem?’ cannot be answered in the fluttering grammar of white talk. The whiteness of white talk lies not only in its having emerged from white mouths, but also in its evasiveness—in its attempt to suppress fear and anxiety, and its consequential [if unintended] reinscription and legitimation of racist oppression. I White talk is designed, indeed scripted, for the purposes of evading, rejecting, and remaining ignorant (...) about the injustices that flow from whiteness and its attendant privileges. I want to suggest a new point of entry—a way to flip the script, so to speak. -/- I begin with some observations about the basic advantages and disadvantages of using white talk as a route into the white problem. My account develops an expanded version of Alice MacIntyre’s definition of white talk that is attentive to the racialized bodily scripts that accompany white talk. I argue that white talk persists because it has an enduring and powerful moral, ontological, and epistemic pay off for white folks. I explore each payoff with an eye towards clarifying how white talk functions to maintain the illusion that we are invulnerable beings. Next, I pause to reply to the popular objection that this particular critique of white talk silences white people in conversations on race. If we cannot address the question ‘how does it feel to be a white problem’ in the fluttering grammar of white talk, then how shall we begin? In closing, I suggest that we might reduce fluttering by replacing white talk with a discourse of vulnerability, where vulnerability is defined not as weakness, but as a condition for potential. I offer some brief guidelines for how we might start this conversation. (shrink)

It is no accident that white privilege designed to be both be invisible and weightless to white people. Alison Bailey’s “On White Privilege and Anesthesia: Why Does Peggy McIntosh’s Knapsack Feel Weightless?” extends a weighty invitation white readers to complete the unpacking task McIntosh (1988) began when she compared white privilege to an “invisible and weightless knapsack.” McIntosh focuses primarily making white privilege visible to white people. Bailey’s project continues the conversation by extending a ‘weighty invitation’ to white (...) readers to explore why the metaphorical knapsack, despite the weight of its contents, feels weightless. Here’s the short answer. The knapsack only feels weightless because white people have become anesthetized us to our own brokenness. We are more comfortable considering what white privilege does for us than what it does to us. People of color feel the weight of whiteness every day. The weighty invitation invites white readers to become sensitive to our own insensitivity. To do this Bailey (1) explores white resistance to unpacking the weight; (2) people of color’s testimonies to the daily impact of the weight on their bodies; and (3) how the anesthesia of white privilege distorts our humanity. The article concludes with a McIntosh style list of that the anesthesia of privilege distorts white people’s humanity. (shrink)

This accessibly written book offers an approach to cultural engagement that is attentive to the hunger for meaning, beauty, and justice and governed by the gospel virtues of faith, love, and hope.

Recent years have seen educationalists turning to Emmanuel Levinas when considering the relationship between ethics and education. While it is true that Levinas never speaks of ethics in relation to the practice of classroom education, nonetheless, for Levinas, ethics is a teaching, and learning can only take place in the presence of the Other. This book considers how, within the constraints of the Irish primary school education system, teachers can develop a Levinasian approach to teaching, that affords both them and (...) the children they teach multiple opportunities throughout the school day to take up their ethical responsibility for each other as Other. Beginning from a Levinasian understanding of learning and teaching as constituting primordially relational and ethical events, and weaving the philosophies of Levinas, and the educationalists he inspires, into the approaches of philosophy with children, restorative practice, and PAX, this book suggests a unique approach to ethics in Irish primary school classrooms. The focus of this thesis, then, is on both the philosophical underpinnings that anchor teaching as a Levinasian, and a consideration of what practical approaches could be employed by the Levinasian teacher. (shrink)

In a highly original rereading of the writings and seminars of Jacques Lacan, together with works of Freud and others, Cassin shows how psychoanalysis, like the sophists, challenges the very foundations of scientific rationality. In taking seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation, the analyst, like the sophist, allows performance, signifier, and inconsistency to reshape truth.

Many translations have been made from the original Sanskrit of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They have become well loved, well used, and well applied by many in all parts of the world and of all religious beliefs. The Sutras have a power and a timelessness about them which demonstrate the accuracy with which they pinpoint the basic truths of human evolution from subservience to personality clamours to the serene freedom of the soul. Most human problems today originate in selfish (...) desire; the prostitution of the feeling nature to self-centred physical appetites. This is also brought out clearly in the teaching of the Lord Buddha, the treading of the Noble Eight-Fold path providing the only way out of the maze: Right Values; Right Speech; Right Mode of Living; Right Thinking; Right Expression; Right Conduct; Right Effort; Right Rapture or True Happiness. These are attributes of the soul. Patanjali explores exhaustively the means, the techniques and the mental posture which create the connecting thread between the form-centred personality and these stages towards spiritual achievement and soul fusion. The four parts of the book develop: 1. The Problem of Union (51 sutras). 2. sutras). 4. Illumination (34 sutras). Many different training techniques have been available over the centuries, depending on the condition of human consciousness and the phase of spiritual growth to be accomplished. Each Yoga has had its place, fulfilled its function, and become an absorbed part of human experience. In this book the factor of mind in meeting present-day needs is again given prominence as the agent of the soul, and the key to personality release. These Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are based on Raja Yoga, the kingly science of the soul: Through the science of Raja Yoga the mind will be known as the instrument of the soul and the means whereby the brain of the aspirant becomes illuminated and knowledge gained of those matters which concern the realm of the soul. The soul is concerned with the working out of planetary purpose and plan; so again we find that mental training, and the self-achievement of the individual, lead to cooperation and service on a scale far more comprehensive and of far greater evolutionary significance than merely the individual effects on the life of the disciple. venture on the path of union with the soul. When through the removal of hindrances and the purification of the sheaths, the totality of knowledge becomes available, naught further remains for the man to do. (shrink)

The concise edition of _The Broadview Introduction to Philosophy_ offers 44 historical and contemporary readings on core topics in Western philosophy, including philosophy of religion, theories of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, social-political philosophy, and issues of life, death, and happiness. Unlike other introductory anthologies, the Broadview offers considerable apparatus to assist the student reader in understanding the texts without simply summarizing them. Each selection includes an introduction discussing the context and structure of the primary reading, as well as thorough annotations designed (...) to clarify unfamiliar terms, references, and argument forms. Canonical texts from the history of philosophy are presented alongside contemporary scholarship; women authors are included throughout. (shrink)

This title was first published in 2000. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Karl Popper, this book provides the first comprehensive examination of the educational implications of his philosophy. Critically exploring key elements of Popper's work, his theory of knowledge, psychology of learning and politics, Richard Bailey also extrapolates an approach to teaching and learning in schools and the wider community.

In this paper, I attempt to explain one of the most controversial views attributed to the Stoic Chrysippus: that the impossible can follow from the possible. My solution finds in Chrysippus a distinction later made by the medieval logician John Buridan: that between being possible (there being a state of affairs that may occur) and being possibly-true (there being some proposition whose truth-conditions are that state of affairs). Buridan and Chrysippus have radically opposing views on the nature of propositions. What (...) their conceptions share is the conclusion that at least some propositions must be contingent beings. They argue for this while maintaining a rigorous commitment to the view that propositions are strictly bivalent. In 2. I explain the Chrysippean passage in terms of a distinction Buridan makes explicitly. In 3. I show how the distinction follows implicitly from the Stoic theory of quantification. In 4. I compare the modality with other aspects of Stoic logic. In 5. I discuss how the distinction behaves in the future tense. (shrink)

I address the problem of how to locate "traitorous" subjects, or those who belong to dominant groups yet resist the usual assumptions and practices of those groups. I argue that Sandra Harding's description of traitors as insiders, who "become marginal" is misleading. Crafting a distinction between "privilege-cognizant" and "privilege-evasive" white scripts, I offer an alternative account of race traitors as privilege-cognizant whites who refuse to animate expected whitely scripts, and who are unfaithful to worldviews whites are expected to hold.

Andrew Bailey’s highly-regarded introductory anthology has been revised and updated in this new concise edition. Mindful of the intrinsic difficulty of the material, the editors provide comprehensive introductions both to each topic and to each individual selection. By presenting a detailed discussion of the historical and intellectual background to each piece, the editors enable readers to approach the material without unnecessary barriers to understanding. Helpful explanatory footnotes are provided throughout, and new sections on philosophical puzzles and paradoxes and philosophical (...) terminology have been added. (shrink)

Andrew Bailey's highly-regarded introductory anthology has been revised and updated in this new concise edition. First Philosophy : Knowing and Being brings together over thirty classic and contemporary readings in epistemology and metaphysics. Mindful of the intrinsic difficulty of the material, the editors provide comprehensive introductions both to each topic and to each individual selection. By presenting a detailed discussion of the historical and intellectual background to each piece, the editors enable readers to approach the material without unnecessary barriers (...) to understanding. A brief introduction to arguments is included, as are appendices on terminology and philosophical puzzles and paradoxes. (shrink)

This volume of _The Broadview Introduction to Philosophy_ offers a thoughtful selection of readings in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. Substantial selections from important historical texts are provided, as are a number of contemporary readings on each topic. Unlike other introductory anthologies, the Broadview offers considerable apparatus to assist the student reader in understanding the texts without simply summarizing them. Each selection includes an introduction discussing the context and structure of the primary reading, as well as thorough annotations (...) designed to clarify unfamiliar terms, references, and argument forms. (shrink)

Supplementing the best-selling textbook, Analyzing Ethics Questions from Behavior Analysts, this book analyzes over 50 original and up-to-date ethics cases recently faced by behavior analysts. The workbook provides "solutions" to each question written by the most expert professionals in the field using the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® Ethics Code. Covering all ten sections of the code and designed to allow the reader to see the original question, respond given their knowledge of the Code, and then compare their answers with the (...) authors' answers at the back of the book, Jon S. Bailey and Mary R. Burch provide the necessary guided practice for both students and clinicians to improve ethical competency in behavior analysis. (shrink)

Humans are an exceptionally cooperative species, but there is substantial variation in the extent of cooperation across societies. Understanding the sources of this variability may provide insights about the forces that sustain cooperation. We examined the ontogeny of prosocial behavior by studying 326 children 3–14 y of age and 120 adults from six societies (age distributions varied across societies). These six societies span a wide range of extant human variation in culture, geography, and subsistence strategies, including foragers, herders, horticulturalists, and (...) urban dwellers across the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. When delivering benefits to others was personally costly, rates of prosocial behavior dropped across all six societies as children approached middle childhood and then rates of prosociality diverged as children tracked toward the behavior of adults in their own societies. When prosocial acts did not require personal sacrifice, prosocial responses increased steadily as children matured with little variation in behavior across societies. Our results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of acquired cultural norms in shaping costly forms of cooperation and creating cross-cultural diversity. (shrink)

Philosophers have long distinguished between appearance and reality, and the opposition between a supposedly deceptive surface and a more profound truth is deeply rooted in Western culture. At a time of obsession with self-representation, when politics is enmeshed with spectacle and social and economic forces are intensely aestheticized, philosophy remains moored in traditional dichotomies: being versus appearing, interiority versus exteriority, authenticity versus alienation. Might there be more to appearance than meets the eye? In this strikingly original book, Barbara Carnevali (...) offers a philosophical examination of the roles that appearances play in social life. While Western metaphysics and morals have predominantly disdained appearances and expelled them from their domain, Carnevali invites us to look at society, ancient to contemporary, as an aesthetic phenomenon. The ways in which we appear in public and the impressions we make in terms of images, sounds, smells, and sensations are discerned by other people's senses and assessed according to their taste; this helps shape our ways of being and the world around us. Carnevali shows that an understanding of appearances is necessary to grasp the dynamics of interaction, recognition, and power in which we live-and to avoid being dominated by them. Anchored in philosophy and traversing sociology, art history, literature, and popular culture, Social Appearances develops new theoretical and conceptual tools for today's most urgent critical tasks. (shrink)

This volume explores the cross-linguistic diversity, and possibly inconsistency, of the span of linguistic means that signal reported speech and thought. The integration of broad linguistic (viewpoint in conversation and narrative) and cognitive (theory of mind and understanding the inner life and thought of others) strategies for handling mixed points of view will be considered.

_First Philosophy_ brings together fifty-four classic and contemporary readings on seven central philosophical topics. Mindful of the intrinsic difficulty of the material, the editors provide comprehensive introductions both to each topic and to each individual selection. By presenting a detailed discussion of the historical and intellectual background to each piece, the editors enable readers to approach the material without unnecessary barriers to understanding. A brief introduction to arguments is included, as are appendices on terminology and philosophical puzzles and paradoxes.

This practical textbook will enable students training to become registered behavior technicians (RBTs) to fully understand and follow the new RBT Ethics Code administered by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). Starting with an overview of the role of ethics and core ethical principles, subsequent chapters provide concrete guidance for each of the three sections of the RBT Ethics Code: responsible conduct, responsibility to clients, and competence and service delivery. The authors then show correct and incorrect applications of each code (...) item and provide practical examples and solutions for applying each section to everyday practice. Also included are test questions where RBTs can test themselves on their newfound knowledge along with a glossary, the complete RBT Code of Ethics, and suggested readings. This book is intended to serve as a primary text for the training of Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs) as well as a reference and study guide for these RBTs as well as their trainers. (shrink)

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life first defines the problem of life phenomenologically, (...) then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought. (shrink)

The ancient history of flamenco is pure hypothesis, partly owing to the “ Dark Ages “ which shrouded the folk expression of a large portion of Andalusia from soon after the victory of the Catholic Kings at Granada in 1492 until the emancipation laws of Charles III in 1783. Although flamenco as such is a product of the nineteenth century, the hypothesis may be taken right back to pre-Iberian days when there was a flourishing civilization in the south of Spain, (...) with its capital, Tartessos, more or less where Seville—or Cadiz—is now, perhaps the first Empire in the West. The Iberians inhabited the north and the east but the towns along the Andalusian coast were founded by Phoenicians from Tyre (Cadiz) and Phocaeans from Asia Minor (Málaga). During the Celtic invasions the south was held by Carthage until Andalusia finally became Roman as a result of the Punic wars. (shrink)

Trois dates ponctuent le présent volume, composé d'un ensemble d'inédits, d'un dossier, d'études et de lectures critiques, et donnent ainsi à Bergson sa place dans le XXe siècle philosophique. 1902, il y a cent ans exactement : c'est la date du cours inédit au Collège de France dont on lira ici les premières leçons et qui prépare L'introduction à la métaphysique publiée l'année suivante. Dans ce cours intégralement sténographié pour Péguy, on entend Bergson exposer comment le réel se donne et (...) se retire immédiatement à nous, se donne dans un contact absolu, sympathie ou intuition, se retire pour les besoins de l'action et par la force des signes, et doit être reconquis par la métaphysique, dès lors introduite avec sa différence dans le jeu philosophique du siècle. L dossier présenté ici porte ensuite sur Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, publiées trente ans plus tard, en 1932. Il témoigne d'un impressionnant renouveau d'intérêt pour cet ouvrage trop vite et trop exclusivement situé dans l'itinéraire spirituel de son auteur, les querelles religieuses de son époque, les enjeux immédiats des années 1930. Tous ces enjeux sont aussi présents ici, à travers un inédit de Bergson et des articles de chercheurs français et étrangers, mais à travers aussi des perspectives anthropologiques, sociologiques, philosophiques, entièrement nouvelles. 1960 enfin : telle est la date du cours inédit de Victor Goldschsnidt, plus connu comme lecteur de Platon, des stoïciens ou de Rousseau, que nous présentons ici, qui porte sur le premier chapitre de Matière et mémoire et la notion de "champ transcendantal", et qui introduit aussi au dossier sur le livre que ce cours a inspiré en 1964 au philosophe brésilien Bento Prado Jr, récemment traduit. Cet ensemble conduit à réévaluer entièrement la place de Bergson dans le moment philosophique des années 1960 : elle est centrale, aussi bien en elle-même qu'à travers Merleau-Ponty ou Deleuze. Aujourd'hui enfin, à travers les études générales également rassemblées, et l'ensemble de ce volume qui en appelle d'autres, nous pouvons réaccéder à Bergson à la fois pour lui-même, dans le débat avec les moments principaux du siècle, et pour aller plus loin. (shrink)

The present booklet contains ten short philosophical writings, which are not so much intended for a narrow circle of people, by education of philosophers, but by a wider readership. Specifically, they are for the homeless, the (long-term) unemployed, the elderly, people with mental health problems, people with special needs and so on, as well as for the general public in general. So they are for people who are not close to philosophy, especially for those who need the help of others (...) the most. The red thread of the collection is an attempt to answer the question of why philosophy for them. The records collected here were created in the period 2015-2019 and were also published in newspapers or magazines.--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In this volume, authors Alan Bailey and Dan O'Brien examine the full import of David Hume's arguments and the context of the society in which his work came to fruition. They analyze the nuanced nature of Hume's philosophical discourse and provide an informed look into his position on the possible content and rational justification of religious belief. The authors first detail the pressures and forms of repression that confronted any 18th century thinker wishing to challenge publicly the truth of (...) Christian theism. From there, they offer an overview of Hume's writings on religion, paying particular attention to the inter-relationships between the various works. They show that Hume's writings on religion are best seen as an artfully constructed web of irreligious argument that seeks to push forward a radical outlook, one that only emerges when the attention shifts from the individual sections of the web to its overall structure and context. Even though there is no explicit denial in any of Hume's published writings or private correspondence of the existence of God, the implications of his arguments often seem to point strongly towards atheism. David Hume was one of the leading British critics of Christianity and all forms of religion at a time when public utterances or published writings denying the truth of Christianity were liable to legal prosecution. His philosophical and historical writings offer a sustained and remarkably open critique of religion that is unmatched by any previous author writing in English. Yet, despite Hume's widespread reputation amongst his contemporaries for extreme irreligion, the subtle and measured manner in which he presents his position means that it remains far from clear how radical his views actually were. (shrink)

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of decentralized clinical trials, trials conducted in whole or in part at locations other than traditional clinical trial sites, significantly increased. While these trials have the potential advantage of access, participant centricity, convenience, lower costs, and efficiency, they also raise a number of important ethical and practical concerns. Here we focus on a number of those concerns, including participant safety, privacy and confidentiality, remote consent, digital access and proficiency, and trial oversight. (...) Awareness of these ethical complexities will help foster the development of processes and cooperative solutions to promote safe, ethical trials going forward, optimized to decrease burden and increase access for all participants. (shrink)

Is the neurophysiology of pain all there is to pain? How do words and mental pictures come to represent things in the world? Do computers think, and if so, are their thought processes significantly similar to our thought processes? Or is there something distinctive about human thought thatprecludes replication in a computer? These are some of the puzzles that motivate the philosophical discipline called "philosophy of mind," a central area of philosophy.This Very Short Introduction introduces the philosophy of mind, and (...) looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism. Barbara Montero also discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with definingconsciousness in animals, aliens and machines. Considering these and other such thorny issues such as physicalism and intentionality, she demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate disciplines outside of philosophy, including psychology, neuroscience, economics,evolutionary biology, and linguistics. As she observes, most everyone, at some time or another, has ruminated over the relation between mind and matter.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)