"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, (...) existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

A collection of essays representing diverse approaches to feminist ethical analysis of social policy. Subjects include the Family and Medical Leave Act, combat exclusion and the role of women in the military, unwed fathers' rights, mail-order brides, pornography, breast implants, and sex-selective abortion. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary (...) disputes, and environmental crises. Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

Social sciences in Latin America experienced, during the 1960s, a great number of debates concerning the very foundations of different academic fields. In the case of Argentina, research programs such as Proyecto Marginalidad constituted fundamental elements of those controversies, which were characteristic of disciplinary developments within the social sciences, particularly sociology. Mainly influenced by the critical context that had been deepened by Project Camelot, Argentinian social scientists engaged in debates about the theories that should be chosen in (...) order to account for ‘national reality’, the origins of funding for scientific research, or the applied dimension of science. In this sense, the practices of philanthropic organizations like the Ford Foundation stimulated considerably the ideological passions of that period; those practices also contributed to fragmentation in various academic groups. In this way, the problem of American imperialism, and its consequent economic and cultural dependencies, were present in the controversies of academic fields whose historic evolutions cannot be fully understood without considering their strong links with national and international politics. (shrink)

In this collection of closely interrelated essays, Robert Young emphasizes the scope of the nineteenth-century debate on 'man's place in nature' at the same time as he engages with the approaches of scholars who write about it. He is critical of the separation of the writing of history from writing about history, historiography, and of the separation of history from politics and ideology, then or now. Dr Young challenges fellow historians for reimposing the very disciplinary boundaries that the (...) nineteenth-century debate showed were in the service of ideological forces in that culture. Rather, he proposes that the full weight of the contending forces should be made apparent and debated openly so that neither nineteenth-century nor contemporary issues about the role of science in culture should be treated in a narrow perspective. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. Lectureships are awarded to outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values and transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions. Volume 30 features lectures given in 2010 at Princeton University; Yale University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Utah; Stanford University; Clare Hall, Cambridge University; Harvard University; and (...) Brasenose College, Oxford University. CONTRIBUTORS: Bruce Ackerman, “The Decline and Fall of the American Republic” Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale and the author of fifteen books that have had a broad influence in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy. John Adams, “Doctor Atomic and His Gadgets” John Adams is a musician, composer, writer, and conductor whose work stands out for its depth of expression, its sonic brilliance, and the profoundly humanist nature of its themes. Isabel Allende, “In the Hearts of Women” Isabel Allende is a social activist and feminist whose novels and memoirs have established her as one of the most res-pected writers of our time. Abdullahi An-Nacim, “Transcending Imperialism: Human Values and Global Citizenship” Abdullahi Ahmed An-Nacim is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law School and an internationally recognized scholar of Islam and human rights in cross-­cultural perspectives. Mark Danner, “Torture and the Forever War” Mark Danner is a writer, journalist, and professor who has written for more than two decades on foreign affairs and international conflict. Sir Christopher Frayling, “Art and Religion in the Modern West: Some Perspectives” Sir Christopher Frayling is a historian, critic, and an award-winning broadcaster on British network radio and television. He has written seventeen books on the arts and popular culture. Jonathan Lear, “Becoming Human Does Not Come That Easily” Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and the Depart-ment of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His research and writings focus on philosophical conceptions of the human psyche. Ahmed Rashid, “Afghanistan” and “Pakistan” Ahmed Rashid is a reporter from Pakistan whose unique knowledge of this complex region allows him a panoramic vision and nuanced perspective that no Western writer can emulate. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. ?Social context? refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking (...) about social contexts is introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

The only complete study of Buber as a political thinker. Shed new light upon Buber's I Thou, while also attempting to understand Buber's Zionist thought and activity in a new and fresh manner.

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. “Social context” refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking (...) about social contexts is introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dracula and Carmilla:Monsters and the MindBenson Saler and Charles A. ZieglerFollowing the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897, vampire narratives proliferated in Britain and the United States.1 While many twentieth century short stories, novels, plays, and films in both countries depart from Dracula in various ways, it is our impression that that workand its close derivatives retain pride of place in the popular imagination. Yet Dracula was but (...) one of several well-known vampire stories published in English during the nineteenth century, and scholars deem certain of the other tales to be of literary merit.In noting that, we raise this question: What is it about the plot and the characterization of vampires in Dracula that make it the most famous example of vampires in English fiction? Why, in particular, has it been more influential than Le Fanu's Carmilla which preceded it in time and is of equal or perhaps greater literary distinction?2 We address that question, and by doing so we hope to gain some insight into the attraction and persistence of vampire tales across time and cultures.We begin by sketching our approach to conceptualizing the category "vampire." Nina Auerbach, a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that "There is no such creature as 'The Vampire'; there are only vampires."3 That declaration is in keeping with her demonstration that in nineteenth and twentieth century British and American vampire novels, short stories, plays, and films, vampires vary greatly in behavior, in apparent motivation, and in cultural significance. Different social orders and different culturally supported sensibilities [End Page 218] and sensitivities, she persuasively argues, find expression in different sorts of vampires.We deem Auerbach's literary nominalism preferable to an essentialism that would govern vampiric class inclusion by insisting on some conjunction of necessary features or conditions. At the same time, however, we think that there is a better way of allowing for differences in conceptualizing vampires and in understanding their multi-faceted significance in British and American imaginings of the last two centuries. That way combines the recognition of family resemblances with insights derived from prototype theory in the cognitive sciences.A family resemblance approach can be quite liberal in what it includes as instantiations of the category "vampire." It can encompass not only such familiar (albeit different) figures as Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula, and Lestat, but also others, including so-called "psychic vampires," who flourish not by sucking blood but by draining vitality, will, and even experience from their victims. Some may ask, does this not create a category that is so promiscuous in what it includes as to render the category analytically useless? No, we reply, once you couple family resemblance with insights from prototype theory.Prototype theory, narrowly described, attempts to account for "prototype effects." These "effects" are differences in the judgments that people render about how well different instances of a category exemplify the category. Thus, for instance, some people may judge apples and oranges to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "fruit" than olives. Similarly, some may judge robins and sparrows to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "bird" than penguins. Judgments can be explicitly given, or they can be inferred from the order of examples that people give or from their responses to lists of examples furnished by others. Prototype theorists call the adjudged clearest or "best" examples of categories "prototypes" or "the most prototypical exemplars."4 This approach celebrates centrality and periphery rather than essence and boundary in conceptualizing categories.5 It allows that some instantiations of a category may be deemed more central to the category than others. Thus in the case of vampires, Dracula is more central to the category than, say, the shape-shifting space alien who extracts salt from victims in an episode of Star Trek, First Generation. Auerbach recognizes that centrality when she refers to "Dracula's dominance in our century" (p. 111). We contend, moreover, that while Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire Carmilla is more prototypical—that is, an adjudged better exemplar of the category—than vampiric space aliens [End Page 219] and legions of psychic vampires, she is less... (shrink)

Political polarization is one of the most discussed challenges facing contemporary democracies and is often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. While inspiring a large literature in political science, polarization’s epistemic problems also have significance for normative democratic theory, and this study develops a new approach aimed at understanding them. In contrast to prominent accounts from political psychology—group polarization theory and cultural cognition theory—which argue that polarization leads individuals to form unreliable political beliefs, this study (...) focuses on system-level diversity. It argues that polarization’s epistemic harms are best located in its tendency to reduce the diversity of perspectives utilized in a democratic system and in how this weakens the system’s ability to identify and address problems of public concern. Understanding such harms is also argued to require a greater consideration of the political dynamics of polarization and issues of elite discourse, alongside political psychology. (shrink)

Changing the Wor(l)d draws on feminist publishing, postmodern theory and feminist autobiography to powerfully critique both liberal feminism and scholarship on the women's movement, arguing that both ignore feminism's unique contributions to social analysis and politics. These contributions recognize the power of discourse, the diversity of women's experiences, and the importance of changing the world through changing consciousness. Young critiques social movement theory and five key studies of the women's movement, arguing that gender oppression can be understood (...) only in relation to race, sexuality, class and ethnicity; and that feminist activism has always gone beyond the realm of public policy to emphasize improving women's circumstances through transforming discourse and consciousness. Young examines feminist discursive politics, critiques social science methodology, and proposes an alternative approach to understanding the women's movement. This approach explores feminist publishing and feminist autobiographical writing as examples of discursive activism with broadly subversive potential. (shrink)

The essay offers a close reading of the inaugural address _Termite Craze_ by the entomologist Karl Escherich, the first German university president to be appointed by the Nazis. Faced with a divided audience and under pressure to politically align the university, Escherich, a former member of the NSDAP, discusses how and to what extent the new regime can recreate the egalitarian perfection and sacrificial predisposition of a termite colony. The paper pays particular attention to the ways in which Escherich tries (...) to appease the various factions in his audience (faculty, students and the Nazi party); in doing so, it also discusses how Escherich depicts his address in the altered versions of his later memoirs. (shrink)

When Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins was published in 1990, reviewers called it "remarkable", "rich and valuable", and proclaimed, "with the publication of this book, Black feminism has moved to a new level". Now, in Fighting Words, Collins expands and extends the discussion of the "outsider within" presented in her earlier work, investigating how effectively Black feminist thought confronts the injustices African American women currently face. Collins takes on a broad range of issues -- poverty, mothering, white (...) supremacy and Afrocentrism, the resegregation of American society by race and class, the ideas of Sojourner Truth and how they can serve as a springboard for more liberating social theory. Contrasting social theories that support unjust power relations of race, class, gender, and nation with those that challenge inequalities, Collins investigates why some ideas are granted the status of "theory" while others remain "thought". "It is not that elites produce theory while everyone else produces mere thought", she writes. "Rather, elites possess the power to legitimate the knowledge that they define as theory as being universal, normative, and ideal". Collins argues that because African American women and other historically oppressed groups seek economic and social justice, their social theories may emphasize themes and work from assumptions that are different from those of mainstream American society, generating new angles of vision on injustice. Collins also puts such oppositional social theory to the test: while the words of these theories may challenge injustice, do the ideas make a difference in the lives of the people they claim to represent? Throughout,Collins provides an essential understanding of how "outsiders" resist mainstream perspectives, and what the mainstream can learn from such "outsiders". Historically situated yet transcending the specific, Fighting Words provides a new interpretive framework for both thinking through and overcoming social injustice. (shrink)

ArgumentDuring the first half of the nineteenth century, the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle was both workplace and home to functionalist Georges Cuvier and morphologist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, whose doctrinal differences became enmeshed with political dialogues regarding social reform. Surprisingly, the public not only viewed the arrangement of the collections in terms of the social platforms they were understood to be supporting, but critiqued the Muséum's buildings as expressions of their anatomical dispute. The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 pushed (...) these critiques forward, suggesting to some observers that true reform of the natural sciences would begin by reforming the Muséum's architectural program, thereby placing the goals of Comparative Anatomy in correct relationship to human progress. (shrink)

ArgumentNeuroscience research has created multiple versions of the human brain. The “social brain” is one version and it is the subject of this paper. Most image-based research in the field of social neuroscience is task-driven: the brain is asked to respond to a cognitive (perceptual) stimulus. The tasks are derived from theories, operational models, and back-stories now circulating in social neuroscience. The social brain comes with a distinctive back-story, an evolutionary history organized around three, interconnected themes: (...) mind-reading, empathy, and the emergence of self-consciousness. This paper focuses on how empathy has been incorporated into the social brain and redefined via parallel research streams, employing a shared, imaging technology. The concluding section describes how these developments can be understood as signaling the emergence of a new version of human nature and the unconscious. My argument is not that empathy in the social brain is a myth, but rather that it is served by a myth consonant with the canons of science. (shrink)

How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally-sound and equitable agricultural development. Yet there are few examples of curricula that support the co-development of knowledge with farmers. While transdisciplinary and participatory techniques are considered key components of agroecology, how to do so is rarely specified and few materials are available, especially those relevant to smallholder farmers with limited formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The few training materials that exist provide appropriate methods, such as (...) compost making, but do not explain relationships and synergies between nutrition, social inequalities, climate change and agroecology. Some food sovereignty and agroecology courses aim at popular political education for those with more formal education. Here we describe the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for smallholders in southern Africa with limited formal education. The curriculum is highly participatory; we use concepts in popular education, transformative and experiential-based learning, and theatre. It is also integrative; we link agroecology with climate change, human and soil nutrition, gender, and related components of social equity. Developed in partnership with Malawian farmers, community development experts and academics from five countries, the curriculum was piloted with 520 smallholder farming households in Malawi and Tanzania, and evaluated using qualitative techniques. Clashes of language, cultural norms, and terminology were as great of a challenge as agreeing on and conveying technical information, to weave into a coherent whole. However, farmers who participated in the curriculum training demonstrated high interest, comprehension of material and interest in immediate application to their lives. (shrink)

This essay reexamines the famous 1831 prison tours of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont. It reads the three texts that emerged from their collective research practice as a trilogy, one conventionally read in different disciplinary homes. I argue that in marginalizing the trilogy’s important critique of slavery and punishment, scholars have overemphasized the centrality of free institutions and ignored the unfree institutions that also anchor American political life. The article urges scholars in political theory and (...) political science to attend to this formative moment in mass incarceration and carceral democracy. (shrink)

This volume is the first comprehensive and in-depth discussion written in English of the Confucian tradition in the context of the intellectual history of Korea. It deals with the historical, social, political, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Korean Confucianism, arguably the most influential intellectual tradition, ethical and religious practice, and political-ideological system in Korea. This volume analyzes the unique aspects of the Korean development of the Confucian tradition by examining the role of Confucianism as the ruling ideology (...) of the Choson Dynasty. It investigates Confucianism’s social and cultural construction, and intellectual foundation in highlighting the Korean achievement of the Neo-Confucian discussion on "human nature and its principle" in light of the Chinese Neo-Confucian development. The volume also surveys the most influential Korean Confucian scholars discussing their philosophical significance in relation to one of the most fundamental Neo-Confucian discourses, namely the li and qi debates, to elucidate how metaphysical theories shaped the socio-political factions of the Choson Dynasty. Furthermore, issues concerning the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism and other native traditional belief systems are also included in this volume. The volume explores the Confucian confrontation with modernity, encounter with the "Western Learning" including Western science and Catholicism, and the Confucian struggle with modernity in dealing with issues such as democracy, human rights, and gender in modern Korea. Individual contributors of this volume are either well established senior scholars or promising young scholars in the field. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art as a Political Act:Expression of Cultural Identity, Self-Identity, and Gender by Suk Nam Yun and Yong Soon MinHwa Young Choi Caruso (bio)IntroductionA number of artists of color, including Asian American women, are creating art from the basis of their lived experiences. Within minority groups searching for their cultural identity, establishing self-identity is an important process. For various psychological and sociological reasons, artists seem inspired to (...) seek deeper meaning and a broader participation in cultural work.1 Asian American women artists, in particular, are currently making art as a means of exploring self-identity, cultural identity, and gender issues. Korean/Korean American minority women artists are creating art as a reaction to their cultural upbringing, which questions issues of identity, gender, ethnicity, politics, cultural, and socioeconomic status. These contemporary artists are breaking away from traditional cultural expectations and overcoming social barriers as artists, women, and Koreans/Korean Americans. With the growing public awareness of women's consciousness and sense of self as women in Korea and as an ethnic minority in America, these artists are redefining their identity. Despite the traditional patriarchal Confucian hierarchy; lack of social, institutional, and political support; and stereotypic gender, cultural, and socioeconomic status expectations for women, a few have stepped out of their traditional roles as women and have become successful artists in Korea and America.The artworks of these artists are worthy of investigation because they appear to be a culturally, socially, and politically motivated artistic expression of the complex multifaceted Korean/Korean American life experiences as women and as Korean immigrant members of a cultural (ethnic) minority in American society. Therefore, two main research questions can be posed: [End Page 71]• Given that art can be constructed out of layers of different experiences and influences, to what extent do the dimensions of cultural identity, self-identity, and gender interweave and contribute to the function of art as a political act for Korean/Korean American women artists?• How do Korean/Korean American cultural, social, and female experiences influence the artistic expression of Korean/Korean American women artists?In order to answer these questions, I selected case study methodology2 and adapted elements of interpretive biography,3 and narrative approaches as developed by Wallace and Gruber.4 According to Denzin,5 interpretive biography involves the collection and analysis of personal experiences, life documents, stories, accounts, and narratives that describe turning-point moments in individuals' lives. Denzin argues that personal experiences and personal stories are derived from a larger cultural, ideological, and historical context. The intent of the biographical project is to problematize the social, economic, cultural, structural, and historical forces that shape, distort, and otherwise alter lived experiences.By using narrative case study methods, I explore elements of self-identity formation, cultural identity, gender issues, personal thoughts, artistic expression, meaning of artworks, professional achievement, and life circumstances. I examine each participant's life in the Korean and American historical, cultural, social, and political environments. I interpret participants' outer lives (what they do) and inner lives (feelings, thoughts, inner self) to capture their deep, profound life experiences. I examine salient themes of their art expression and how the role of art and artistic activity is a part of political, cultural, social, and feminist activism. I further investigate their professional activities in order to identify the multiple roles that contribute to personal and professional identity formation.For the purpose of this study, I selected the contemporary Korean woman artist Suk Nam Yun and the contemporary Korean American woman artist Yong Soon Min as primary participants. These two women artists, despite many social and cultural barriers, chose to become artists; feminists; and social, cultural, and political activists; in addition to fulfilling traditional Korean family and domestic roles. Yun and Min are regarded as the leading contemporary Korean/Korean American women artists whose artworks deal with issues of cultural, social, feminist, political, and hybrid identity and art as political activism.Lippard acknowledges that visual images play an increasingly important role in society.6 Art that connects everyday experience with social critique and creative expression becomes a vital means of reflecting upon the nature of society and social existence.7 Artworks can function as... (shrink)

My dissertation comprises three inter-related chapters, all of which explore the nature of work law and critically analyze the prevailing emphasis on matters of contract. The Escape Plans of Mill and Jefferson: I discuss these thinkers’ unsuccessful “escape plans” to minimize wage work. Mill advocated cooperative, worker-owned firms, while Jefferson favored farming the vast American frontier. I explore whether, if realized, either proposal would have satisfied the demands of justice. I argue that such proposals are normatively deficient because they (...) lead us mistakenly to assume that so long as the law provides alternatives to wage labor, it can justly leave work relationships in an unregulated, Dickensian state. In reply, I contend that we have no just alternative to engaging in the messy and difficult task of regulating the workplace. Revising the Roles of Master and Servant: I critically examine the claim that work law is best understood as part of contract law, arguing that this view is neither descriptively nor normatively instructive. Rather than understanding work law as a set of restraints on freedom of contract, we should see it as creating and defining special relationships, much like the codified definitions of marriages and corporations. I trace the development of work relationships through the common law of “master and servant” and more recent statutory modifications. I argue that the history and present form of work law are not consistent with the contract-centered view of work law as “interfering” with an otherwise free labor market. Competing Ideologies and the End of the Lochner Era: I examine Howard Gillman’s critique of the view that early-20th Century Supreme Court Justices sought to advance policy preferences rather than interpret the law. Gillman reconstructs the legal basis for their decisions, thus undermining the claim that they merely pursued laissez faire policies. However, Gillman then claims that the Justices who overruled liberty-of-contract in West Coast Hotel had no principled basis for their decisions. In response, I argue that West Coast Hotel was not only based on a plausible interpretation of constitutional law, but also the best outcome with respect to justice. (shrink)

Korean Confucianism is a unique phenomenon in which Korea received Confucianism from China: it faithfully followed Chinese Neo-Confucianism especially the Cheng-Zhu school as the orthodox line of the Confucian tradition. However, Korean Neo-Confucianism emerged with a highly sophisticated level of intellectual and scholarly discourse in interpreting some fundamental Confucian ideas that moved the debate beyond the discussion in the circle of Chinese Neo-Confucianism. This book has been planned for some years by the scholars and experts in the field of Korean (...) Confucianism. The contributors to this book have tried to present Korean Confucianism as a multifaceted, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious phenomenon especially during the Joseon when Confucianism was accepted as the official ruling ideology for 500 years. Furthermore, the influence of Confucianism goes beyond the Joseon dynasty in terms of shaping the moral and ethical norms, the value systems, indeed the way of life of the Korean people. This book is an attempt to present various aspects of Korean Confucianism: the historical perspective, thematic analysis of its intellectual and philosophical development, socio-political dimensions of Korean Confucianism, religious interactions of Confucianism with other religious traditions including Buddhism and shamanism. The book not only includes the well-known Korean Neo-Confucian controversies of the Four-Seven debate and the Horak debate during the Joseon period: it also includes the Korean Neo-Confucian way of responding to Catholicism and Western science and the little known Yangming school in Korea. (shrink)

Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon--the legacy of P.T. Barnum's 'humbug' culminating with the currency of Donald J. Trump's 'fake news'. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, with race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to (...) George Washington, and 'What Is It?', an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans like Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. This brilliant and timely work asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of 'truthiness' where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art."--Dust jacket flap. (shrink)

This paper aims to deal with the change of sexual discourse through the rise of a feminist movement in Korea from a constructivist point of view. First, the paper discusses the Confucianism of the Chosun dynasty as an historical background of the issue of sexuality (since Confucianism still has a far-reaching grip and effect on many aspects of everyday life in Korea). Second, it deals with chastity ideology and the double standard of sexuality between men and women as ongoing Confucian (...) sexual discourses. Third, it focuses on three themes: (1) the change from sex for procreation to sex for pleasure, (2) the change from genitally-oriented sexuality to intimacy- or relationship-oriented sexuality, and (3) the change from a woman as a sexual object to a sexual subject as part of the changes of sexual discourses. Fourth, it tries to show clashes and/or alliances between the Confucian and feminist discourses on sexuality, which make up the process of the social construction of sexuality. This shows that sexuality is a socio-historical construction in Korea as elsewhere. (shrink)

How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally-sound and equitable agricultural development. Yet there are few examples of curricula that support the co-development of knowledge with farmers. While transdisciplinary and participatory techniques are considered key components of agroecology, how to do so is rarely specified and few materials are available, especially those relevant to smallholder farmers with limited formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The few training materials that exist provide appropriate methods, such as (...) compost making, but do not explain relationships and synergies between nutrition, social inequalities, climate change and agroecology. Some food sovereignty and agroecology courses aim at popular political education for those with more formal education. Here we describe the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for smallholders in southern Africa with limited formal education. The curriculum is highly participatory; we use concepts in popular education, transformative and experiential-based learning, and theatre. It is also integrative; we link agroecology with climate change, human and soil nutrition, gender, and related components of social equity. Developed in partnership with Malawian farmers, community development experts and academics from five countries, the curriculum was piloted with 520 smallholder farming households in Malawi and Tanzania, and evaluated using qualitative techniques. Clashes of language, cultural norms, and terminology were as great of a challenge as agreeing on and conveying technical information, to weave into a coherent whole. However, farmers who participated in the curriculum training demonstrated high interest, comprehension of material and interest in immediate application to their lives. (shrink)

The nutrition transition concept developed by Popkin has gained wide currency within the nutritional sciences literature as a way of understanding population wide changes to diet and energy balance and their related health outcomes in society. It offers a useful template of different nutritional patterns societies progress through, but it has not provided a comprehensive understanding of the why and how of dietary change. Building on insights from the literature on food regimes in the social sciences, this paper argues (...) the concept of dietary regimes can augment the nutrition transition model and can serve as a bridge between social and health sciences around nutrition and dietary change. The political economy analysis of the dietary regime approach provides insights into the historical degradation of food and the diffusion of nutrient-poor products throughout food environments today. It also engages analysis of the key actors shaping food environments and diets in the industrial era. The dietary regime approach can provide fruitful directions with respect to concrete policy options to address the major issue of population wide weight gain that the nutrition transition model has sought to confront in recent iterations. (shrink)

In recent years, religious studies has undergone an ethnographic turn. More and more, scholars attend to the social location and significance of religious practice. This approach foregrounds the self-understandings of religious communities and practitioners and raises the question of the relation between ethnography and philosophical analysis. For instance, Saba Mahmood, in The Politics of Piety, draws from ethnographic study so as to critique philosophy’s universalizing claims regarding subjectivity, enabling a recognition of the diverse forms feminist subjectivity and political (...) agency may take within religious traditions and practice.2 Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized likewise shifts the terrain of .. (shrink)

The origins of the social sciences were in ideologies associated with moral philosophy and social reform movements. The turn to science was initially to secure the cognitive authority to speak truth to power about matters of social policy. This heritage was particularly salient in the controversy about behaviouralism in American political science. The debate between what was becoming mainstream political science and a growing number of individuals in the subfield of (...) class='Hi'>political theory was actually less about whether the discipline could emulate the methods of natural science than about an underlying conflict between competing visions of democracy. This was to some extent the residue of a dispute, which began in the 1920s, between pluralism as the basis of a theory of democracy and a more communitarian image, but it was also a reflection of more recent work in political philosophy as well as ideological differences in the American political context. (shrink)

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

Is the basis of criminality an act that causes harm, or an act undertaken with the belief that one will cause harm? The present study takes a cognitive neuroscience approach to investigating how information about an agent’s beliefs and an action’s conse- quences contribute to moral judgment. We build on prior devel- opmental evidence showing that these factors contribute differ- entially to the young child’s moral judgments coupled with neurobiological evidence suggesting a role for the right tem- poroparietal junction (...) (RTPJ) in belief attribution. Participants read vignettes in a 2 2 design: protagonists produced either a negative or neutral outcome based on the belief that they were causing the negative outcome (‘‘negative’’ belief) or the neutral outcome (‘‘neutral’’ belief). The RTPJ showed significant activation above baseline for all four conditions but was modulated by an interaction between belief and outcome. Specifically, the RTPJ response was highest for cases of attempted harm, where protag- onists were condemned for actions that they believed would cause harm to others, even though the harm did not occur. The results not only suggest a general role for belief attribution during moral judgment, but also add detail to our understanding of the inter- action between these processes at both the neural and behavioral levels. (shrink)

What can we learn about the nature of technology by studying practices of maintenance and repair? This volume addresses this question by bringing together scholarship from philosophers of technology working at the forefront of this emerging and exciting topic. -/- The chapters in this volume explore how attending to maintenance and repair can challenge and complement existing ways of thinking about technology focused on use and design and introduce new philosophical perspectives on the relationship between technology, time and human practice. (...) They examine the significance of maintenance and repair practices at different scales in relation to a diverse range of philosophical traditions and a wide variety of technologies, from urban infrastructure such as bridges and buildings to data technologies such as servers and software systems. Together, the contributions highlight common themes in the philosophical study of maintenance, including the role of skill, the significance of social values and the potential of these practices to transform the technologies to which they are applied. By reflecting on the different ways in which we keep technologies going, from the devices we use in our homes to the large technical systems which surround us, this volume reveals the philosophical significance of practices of maintenance, not only as a source of new insights but also as a resource for enriching our understanding of a variety of existing topics in philosophy. -/- Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of technology, philosophy of engineering and science & technology studies. (shrink)

With a few exceptions all the essays in this issue of Daedalus are biographies of world intellectual and political leaders. Erik Erikson's "psycho-historical" examination of Gandhi is followed by sketches of Nkrumah, Ataturk, de Gaulle, Bismarck, Andrew Johnson, Newton, James Mill, and William James. There are three exceptions to the biographical motif: 1) an essay on charisma which, although it does not go much beyond Weber, does offer a concise anatomy of the various dimensions of this slippery category which (...) is an underlying theme throughout many of the biographies; 2) a short essay proposing that obstacles to change in underdeveloped countries are connected with obstacles to the perception of change; and 3) an essay which examines the relation of the American intellectual-academic community to government during the first half of this century. Dankwart Rustow's introductory essay consists of "scattered remarks" on various methodologies for the exploration of the anatomy of leadership. His organizing themes are leadership as communication, leadership as learning process, and leadership as sense of timing.--S. O. H. (shrink)

In the last two centuries, our world would have been a safer place if philosophers such as Rousseau, Marx, and Nietzsche had not given intellectual encouragement to the radical ideologies of Jacobins, Stalinists, and fascists. Maybe the world would have been better off, from the standpoint of sound practice, if philosophers had engaged in only modest, decent theory, as did John Stuart Mill. Yet, as Ronald Beiner contends, the point of theory is not to think safe thoughts; the point is (...) to open intellectual horizons. In Philosophy in a Time of Lost Spirit, Beiner reflects on the dualism of theory and practice. The purpose of the theorist is not to offer sensible guidance on the conduct of social life but to test the boundaries of our vision of social order. Whereas the liberal citizen should embody the practical virtues of prudence and moderation, the theorist should be radical, probing, and immoderate. Looking back at the liberal-communitarian debate of the 1980s, Beiner recognizes that the antidote to our spiritless times lies neither in the embrace of community over individualism nor of individualism over community: both individual and community need to be submitted to radical questioning. It is by exposing ourselves to the challenge of fearless thinking encountered at the philosophical extremities that we are most likely to understand our own world at a deeper level. In this collection of essays and reviews, Ronald Beiner helps us to think critically about the thought-worlds of our foremost contemporary thinkers, including Hannah Arendt, Allan Bloom, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, J¦rgen Habermas, Will Kymlicka, Christopher Lasch, Richard Rorty, Judith Shklar, Leo Strauss, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer. (shrink)

With a few exceptions all the essays in this issue of Daedalus are biographies of world intellectual and political leaders. Erik Erikson's "psycho-historical" examination of Gandhi is followed by sketches of Nkrumah, Ataturk, de Gaulle, Bismarck, Andrew Johnson, Newton, James Mill, and William James. There are three exceptions to the biographical motif: 1) an essay on charisma which, although it does not go much beyond Weber, does offer a concise anatomy of the various dimensions of this slippery category which (...) is an underlying theme throughout many of the biographies; 2) a short essay proposing that obstacles to change in underdeveloped countries are connected with obstacles to the perception of change; and 3) an essay which examines the relation of the American intellectual-academic community to government during the first half of this century. Dankwart Rustow's introductory essay consists of "scattered remarks" on various methodologies for the exploration of the anatomy of leadership. His organizing themes are leadership as communication, leadership as learning process, and leadership as sense of timing.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the (...) works of Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, David Riesman and Hannah Arendt were engaged in an animated discussion about the meaning and character of totalitarianism. Their disagreement reflected, in part, different experiences and dissonant intellectual backgrounds. Arendt abhorred the social sciences, finding them pretentious and obfuscating. Riesman, in contrast, abandoned a career in law to take up the sociological vocation, which he combined with his own heterodox brand of humanistic psychology. This article delineates the stakes of the Arendt Riesman (...) debate by examining Arendt’s critique of social science and Riesman’s defence of a sociological interpretation of totalitarianism. In addition, the article argues that Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism misdescribed the nature of Nazi and Bolshevik societies in ways that damaged her political account more generally. Riesman intuited that weakness and, as the following article shows, modern historical research has confirmed it. (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this (...) situation, fully launching a new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

In most societies, greetings are the expression of emotions such as friendliness or rejection, and form the basis of social and moral order. The symbolic dimension of greetings is frequently entwined in the cultural and metaphysical reality of a community. In African societies this ethical and religious dimension carries its own peculiarities. It is interesting to see how much of the content-meaning of greetings depends on cultural traditions. This paper presents an analysis of greetings in the Yoruba culture in (...) Nigeria. (shrink)

Long recognized as one of the main branches of political science, political theory has in recent years burgeoned in many different directions. Close textual analysis of historical texts sits alongside more analytical work on the nature and normative grounds of political values. Continental and post-modern influences jostle with ones from economics, history, sociology, and the law. Feminist concerns with embodiment make us look at old problems in new ways, and challenges of new technologies open whole new (...) vistas for political theory. This Handbook provides comprehensive and critical coverage of the lively and contested field of political theory, and will help set the agenda for the field for years to come. Forty-five chapters by distinguished political theorists look at the state of the field, where it has been in the recent past, and where it is likely to go in future. They examine political theory's edges as well as its core, the globalizing context of the field, and the challenges presented by social, economic, and technological changes."This is a unique and impressive set of analyses about scholarship in political theory. It is comprehensive, as we would expect. Beyond that, it is remarkably creative in the way that Dryzek, Honig and Phillips have organized categories, and it includes much overdue reference to scholarship on non-Western and postcolonial thought."-Iris Marion Young, Late Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago"This extraordinary series offers 'state of the art' assessments that instruct, engage, and provoke. Both synoptic and directive, the fine essays across these superbly edited volumes reflect the ambitions and diversity of political science. No one who is immersed in the discipline's controversies and possibilities should miss the intellectual stimulation and critical appraisal these works so powerfully provide."-Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia UniversityJohn S. Dryzek is Professor of Social and Political Theory at Australian National University.Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University.Anne Phillips is Professor of Gender Theory at the London School of Economics.Introduction, John S Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne PhilipsI. CONTEMPORARY CURRENTS1. Justice After Rawls, Richard Arneson2. Power After Foucault, Wendy Brown3. Critical Theory Beyond Habermas, William E Scheuerman4. Feminist Theory and the Canon of Political Thought, Linda Zerilli5. After the Linguistic Turn: Poststructuralist and Liberal Pragmatist Political Theory, Paul Patton6. The Pluralist Imagination, David SchlosbergII. THE LEGACY OF THE PAST7. Theory in History: Problems of Context and Narrative, J G A Pocock8. The Political Theory of Classical Greece, Jill Frank9. Republican Visions, Eric Nelson10. Modernity and its Critics, Jane Bennett11. The History of Political Thought, as Disciplinary Genre, James FarrIII. POLITICAL THEORY IN THE WORLD12. The Challenge of European Union, Richarad Bellamy13. East Asia and the West: The Impact of Confucianism on Anglo-American Political Thought, Daniel A Bell14. In the Beginning all the World was America: American Exceptionalism in New Contexts, Ronald J Schmidt Jr15. Changing Interpretations of Modern and Contemporary Islamic Political Theory, Roxanne L EubenIV. STATE AND PEOPLE16. Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law, Shannon Stimson17. Emergency Powers, John Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino18. The People, Margaret Canovan19. Civil Society and State, Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein20. Democracy and the State, Mark E Warren21. Democracy and Citize. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, with the development of Western scientific imperialism, Asia, South America, and Africa became sites for Western scientific exploration. Many paleontological specimens, including dinosaur bones, were discovered in China by foreign scientists and explorers and exported to museums in France, Sweden, and the United States. After the establishment of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing in 1927, anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals attempted to prevent foreigners from exporting specimens unearthed on Chinese territory. In the summer of 1928, the fossils (...) discovered in the Gobi Desert by the Central Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History were detained in China. A series of negotiations ensued between Chinese and American diplomats and scientists over the issues of the ownership of fossils and the format of international scientific collaborations. By studying the interests and stakes for players in the different social worlds involved in the dispute, this essay explores the relations among science, diplomacy, and the politics of deep time. (shrink)

Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science argues that Eurocentric blindness is a scientific failing, not a moral one. In a way true of no other political system, Japan's greatness has the potential to enliven and reform almost all the main branches of Western Political Science. David Williams criticizes Western social science, Anglo-American Philosophy and French Theory and explains why mainstream economists, historians of political thought and postculturalists have ignored Japan's (...) modern achievements. Williams demonstrates why the renewal of social science and the nurturing of a "a philosophy of the Pacific Century" requires a sustained act of intellectual demolition. (shrink)