This paper draws on the dialogs of Gayatri Spivak, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler to reconsider Marx’s contribution to an understanding of political agency and subjectivity. It suggests that through engaging with certain voices of Marx, there emerges a complex and dynamic understanding that allows for a thinking of subjectivity as produced through structural conditions in a way that both enables and limits agency. These insights allow us to imagine the transformative political agency of those subjects marginalized within the current (...) global order to engage in an emancipatory struggle marked by its openness and indeterminacy. (shrink)

Today's young marketers transition from schools and into the workforce with a variety of career options in sales, advertising, and general marketing after graduation. Beyond their discipline-specific knowledge of market research, consumer behavior, and marketing communications, these individuals bring along their own set of personal values and ideologies that may influence how they engage the people, personalities, and priorities of the business organization. As new generations of young professionals enter the publicly scrutinized fields of sales and marketing, they are expected (...) to make morally grounded decisions that may be informed by these values and ideologies. This study frames this state of affairs by examining the inquiry "Who Shall Lead Us?" whereby young marketers evaluate the fitness of a leadership climate in which they would potentially work. Here, individual cultural values and ethical ideologies are posited to influence evaluations of transformational leadership. (shrink)

Today’s young marketers transition from schools and into the workforce with a variety of career options in sales, advertising, and general marketing after graduation. Beyond their discipline-specific knowledge of market research, consumer behavior, and marketing communications, these individuals bring along their own set of personal values and ideologies that may influence how they engage the people, personalities, and priorities of the business organization. As new generations of young professionals enter the publicly scrutinized fields of sales and marketing, they are expected (...) to make morally grounded decisions that may be informed by these values and ideologies. This study frames this state of affairs by examining the inquiry “Who Shall Lead Us?” whereby young marketers evaluate the fitness of a leadership climate in which they would potentially work. Here, individual cultural values and ethical ideologies are posited to influence evaluations of transformational leadership. (shrink)

This paper examines the critical role that organizational leaders play in establishing a values based climate. We discuss seven mechanisms by which leaders convey the importance of ethical values to members, and establish the expectations regarding ethical conduct that become engrained in the organizations climate. We also suggest that leaders at different organizational levels rely on different mechanisms to transmit values and expectations. These mechanisms then influence members practices and expectations, further increase the salience of ethical values and result in (...) the shared perceptions that form the organizations climate. The paper is organized in three parts. Part onebegins with a brief discussion of climates regarding ethics and the critical role of values. Part two provides discussion on the mechanisms by which leaders and members transmit values and create climates related to ethics. Part three provides a discussion of these concepts with implications for theory, research, and practice. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

Sober (1992) has recently evaluated Brandon's (1982, 1990; see also 1985, 1988) use of Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off in the philosophy of biology. He critiques three particular issues, each of which will be considered in this discussion.

This essay opens up the question of what difference the history of science makes. What is the value of the history of science, beyond its role as an academic pursuit that we historians of science know and love? It introduces the set of essays that follow as explorations that grew out of a seminar on this topic and that arise from the authors' particular concerns both that historians of science do not work hard enough to make their work of value (...) and that others do not know of the potential. That seminar, at the Marine Biological Laboratory, was funded for nineteen years by the Dibner Institute and last year by Brent Dibner. It will continue and carry such discussions forward in new ways as the Arizona State University–Marine Biological Laboratory History of Biology Seminar Series. This set of focused essays seeks to invite lively discussion and response. (shrink)

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also (...) be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

Inventions of Teaching: A Genealogy is a powerful examination of current metaphors for and synonyms of teaching. It offers an account of the varied and conflicting influences and conceptual commitments that have contributed to contemporary vocabularies--and that are in some ways maintained by those vocabularies, in spite of inconsistencies and incompatibilities among popular terms. The concern that frames the book is how speakers of English invented (in the original sense of the word, "came upon") our current vocabularies for teaching. Conceptually, (...) this book is unique in the educational literature. As a whole, it presents an overview of the major underlying philosophical and ideological concepts and traditions related to knowledge, learning, and teaching in the Western world, concisely introducing readers to the central historical and contemporary discourses that shape current discussions and beliefs in the field. Because the organization of historical, philosophical, theoretical, and etymological information is around key conceptual divergences in Western thought rather than any sort of chronology, this text is not a linear history, but several histories--or, more precisely, it is a genealogy. Specifically, it is developed around breaks in opinion that gave or are giving rise to diverse interpretations of knowledge, learning, and teaching--highlighting historical moments in which vibrant new figurative understandings of teaching emerged and moments at which they froze into literalness. The book is composed of two sorts of chapters, "branching" and "teaching." Branching chapters include an opening treatment of the break in opinion, separate discussions of each branch, and a summary of the common assumptions and shared histories of the two branches. Teaching chapters offer brief etymological histories and some of the practical implications of the terms for teaching that were coined, co-opted, or redefined within the various traditions. Inventions of Teaching: A Genealogy is an essential text for senior undergraduate and graduate courses in curriculum studies and foundations of teaching and is highly relevant as well for students, faculty, and researchers across the field of education. (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book (...) is a compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, Brent Nongbri shows that the idea of religion as a sphere of life distinct from politics, economics, or (...) science is a recent development in European history—a development that has been projected outward in space and backward in time with the result that religion now appears to be a natural and necessary part of our world. Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Nongbri demonstrates that in antiquity, there was no conceptual arena that could be designated as “religious” as opposed to “secular.” Surveying representative episodes from a two-thousand-year period, while constantly attending to the concrete social, political, and colonial contexts that shaped relevant works of philosophers, legal theorists, missionaries, and others, Nongbri offers a concise and readable account of the emergence of the concept of religion. (shrink)

For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, Brent Nongbri shows that the idea of religion as a sphere of life distinct from politics, economics, or (...) science is a recent development in European history—a development that has been projected outward in space and backward in time with the result that religion now appears to be a natural and necessary part of our world. Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Nongbri demonstrates that in antiquity, there was no conceptual arena that could be designated as “religious” as opposed to “secular.” Surveying representative episodes from a two-thousand-year period, while constantly attending to the concrete social, political, and colonial contexts that shaped relevant works of philosophers, legal theorists, missionaries, and others, Nongbri offers a concise and readable account of the emergence of the concept of religion. (shrink)

Prologue, invitation to thinking about God In the Hebrew Bible? -- Part I, questions about God? -- Why does God in the Bible have a body? -- What do God's body parts in the Bible mean? -- Why is God angry in the Bible? -- Does God in the Bible have gender or sexuality? -- Part II, questions about God in the world? -- What can creation tell us about God? -- Who-or what-is the Satan? -- Why do people suffer (...) according to the Hebrew Bible? -- Epilogue, God in the Bible and beyond. (shrink)

The Descartes Dictionary is an accessible guide to the world of the seventeenth-century philosopher René Descartes. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences, and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Descartes' thought. The introduction provides a biographical sketch, a brief account of Descartes' philosophical works, and a summary of the current state of Cartesian studies, discussing trends in research over the past four decades. The A-Z entries include clear (...) definitions of the key terms used in Descartes' writings and detailed synopses of his works. Also included are entries noting philosophical influences, of both figures that influenced Descartes and those that he in turn influenced. For anyone reading or studying Descartes, rationalism, or modern philosophy more generally, this original resource provides a wealth of useful information, analysis, and criticism. Including clear explanations of often complex terminology, The Descartes Dictionary covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Descartes' philosophy. (shrink)

The state of debates around the topic of `populism' has made clear the difficulties that exist to provide a coherent definition of the concept. There is much to be argued from historical, epistemological, comparative and sociological perspectives that may provide clarity to the uses of the term. As the world meets new scenarios of uncommon styles of doing politics and the themes of ideological polarization and social segregation take hold, the question about the value of `populism' as a theoretical tool (...) needs to be met with an affirmative stance that delineates its principal characteristics. The present text introduces the reader to four new perspectives that serve such a purpose and locates them among the relevant contemporary literature. (shrink)

Using clear language and numerous examples, each chapter of this guide analyses an individual plateau from Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, interpreting the work for students and scholars.

Two studies tested the relationship between three facets of personality—conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience—as well as moral identity, on individuals’ ethical ideology. Study 1 showed that moral personality and the centralityof moral identity to the self were associated with a more principled (versus expedient) ethical ideology in a sample of female speech therapists. Study 2 replicated these findings in a sample of male and female college students, and showed that ideology mediated therelationship between personality, moral identity, and two organizationally (...) relevant outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior and the propensity to morally disengage. Implications for business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

Two studies tested the relationship between three facets of personality—conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience—as well as moral identity, on individuals’ ethical ideology. Study 1 showed that moral personality and the centralityof moral identity to the self were associated with a more principled (versus expedient) ethical ideology in a sample of female speech therapists. Study 2 replicated these findings in a sample of male and female college students, and showed that ideology mediated therelationship between personality, moral identity, and two organizationally (...) relevant outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior and the propensity to morally disengage. Implications for business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Income inequality in the US has now reached levels not seen since the 1920s. Management, as a field of scholarly inquiry, has the potential to contribute in significant ways to our understanding of recent inequality trends. We review and assess recent research, both in the management literature and in other fields. We then delineate a conceptual framework that highlights the mechanisms through which business practice may be linked to income inequality. We then outline four general areas in which management scholars (...) are uniquely positioned to contribute to ongoing research: data and description, organizational dynamics, collective action, and value flows and tradeoffs. To stimulate future research, we highlight a number of relevant research questions and link these questions to existing management research streams that could be leveraged to address them. (shrink)

This article suggests evidence for and reasons why prior acquisition may either facilitate or inhibit acquisition of a new construction. It investigates acquisition of the German passive and future constructions which contain a lexical verb with either the auxiliary sein “to be” or werden “to become”, and are related through these to potential supporting constructions. We predicted that a supported construction should be acquired earlier, faster, and unusually rapidly. An inhibited construction should show an extended depressed usage. We analyzed a (...) dense corpus of a German boy between 2;0 and 5;0. He acquired the sein- before the werden-passive. The former was supported by his prior acquisition of the sein copula, whereas the werden-passive itself supported one werden copula construction. He acquired the werden-future extremely slowly due to the hindrance of a semantically identical construction. These results fit with an emergentist approach in which apparently “sudden” acquisition is still due to gradual learning mechanisms. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce was born in September 1839 and died five months before the guns of August 1914. He is perhaps the most important mind the United States has ever produced. He made significant contributions throughout his life as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, metrologist, engineer, and inventor. He was a psychologist, a philologist, a lexicographer, a historian of science, a lifelong student of medicine, and, above all, a philosopher, whose special fields were logic and semiotics. He is (...) widely credited with being the founder of pragmatism. In terms of his importance as a philosopher and a scientist, he has been compared to Plato and Aristotle. He himself intended "to make a philosophy like that of Aristotle." Peirce was also a tormented and in many ways tragic figure. He suffered throughout his life from various ailments, including a painful facial neuralgia, and had wide swings of mood which frequently left him depressed to the state of inertia, and other times found him explosively violent. Despite his consistent belief that ideas could find meaning only if they "worked" in the world, he himself found it almost impossible to make satisfactory economic and social arrangements for himself. This brilliant scientist, this great philosopher, this astounding polymath was never able, throughout his long life, to find an academic post that would allow him to pursue his major interest, the study of logic, and thus also fulfill his destiny as America's greatest philosopher. Much of his work remained unpublished in his own time, and is only now finding publication in a coherent, chronologically organized edition. Even more astounding is that,despite many monographic studies, there has been no biography until now, almost eighty years after his death. Brent has studied the Peirce papers in detail and enriches his account with numerous quotations from letters by Peirce and by his friends. This is a fascinating account of a p. (shrink)

En este artículo tratamos sobre los aspectos empíricos y conceptuales en la Genética Mendeliana y analizamos los vínculos entre ellos. Primero discutimos las ventajas de una representación gráfica de las teorías empíricas; luego pormenorizamos la estructura conceptual de la genética; en seguida, esquematizamos su protocolo experimental, a continuación destacamos los engarces entre ambas representaciones y, por último, proporcionamos una caracterización holista de la práctica genética, donde el representar y el intervenir se encuentran entremezclados.In this article we deal with the conceptual (...) and empirical features of Mendelian Genetics, and analyze the links between them. First we discuss the advantages of portraying empirical theories as graphical representations. We then give a detailed account of the conceptual structure underlying Mendelian Genetics, followed by a schematization of the experimental protocol involved in this line of research. Links between both representations are highlighted. Finally, we provide a holistic characterization of Mendelian practice, where representing and intervening are intertwined. (shrink)

This special issue on what some regard as a crisis of replicability in cognitive science (i.e. the observation that a worryingly large proportion of experimental results across a number of areas cannot be reliably replicated) is informed by three recent developments. -/- First, philosophers of mind and cognitive science rely increasingly on empirical research, mainly in the psychological sciences, to back up their claims. This trend has been noticeable since the 1960s (see Knobe, 2015). This development has allowed philosophers to (...) draw on a wider range of relevant resources, but it also makes them vulnerable to relying on claims that may not survive further scrutiny. If we have reasons to believe that a large proportion of findings in the psychological sciences cannot be reliably replicated, this would be a problem for philosophers who use such findings in their work. Second, philosophers are increasingly designing and carrying out their own experiments to back up claims, or to test claims earlier made from the armchair, for example, on the perceived permissibility of diverting trolleys or on the nature of free will. This growing field of experimental philosophy has diversified the intellectual field in philosophy, but may also be vulnerable to issues of replicability that philosophers did not face before. -/- Third, the recent evidence of apparently widespread non-replicability in the social sciences (and other fields) has forced philosophers of science to grapple with long standing questions from their field from a new perspective. To what extent does replicability matter for theory construction? How do the notions of replicability and scientific progress interact? How can normative insights from philosophy of science be used in order to improve scientific practice? -/- It is with these three developments in mind—the increasing importance of empirically-informed philosophy, of experimental philosophy, and of philosophy of science around replicability—that this special issue has been conceived. (shrink)

We ordinarily suppose that there is a difference between having and failing to exercise a rational capacity on the one hand, and lacking a rational capacity altogether on the other. This is crucial for our allocations of responsibility. Someone who has but fails to exercise a capacity is responsible for their failure to exercise their capacity, whereas someone who lacks a capacity altogether is not. However, as Gary Watson pointed out in his seminal essay ’Skepticism about Weakness of Will’, the (...) idea of an unexercised capacity is much more difficult to make sense of than it initially appears. The aim of ’Rational Capacities’ is to provide the needed explication of this idea. (shrink)

The underlying structures that are common to the world's languages bear an intriguing connection with early emerging forms of “core knowledge” (Spelke & Kinzler, 2007), which are frequently studied by infant researchers. In particular, grammatical systems often incorporate distinctions (e.g., the mass/count distinction) that reflect those made in core knowledge (e.g., the non-verbal distinction between an object and a substance). Here, I argue that this connection occurs because non-verbal core knowledge systematically biases processes of language evolution. This account potentially explains (...) a wide range of cross-linguistic grammatical phenomena that currently lack an adequate explanation. Second, I suggest that developmental researchers and cognitive scientists interested in (non-verbal) knowledge representation can exploit this connection to language by using observations about cross-linguistic grammatical tendencies to inspire hypotheses about core knowledge. (shrink)

Ethicists are typically willing to grant that thick terms (e.g. ‘courageous’ and ‘murder’) are somehow associated with evaluations. But they tend to disagree about what exactly this relationship is. Does a thick term’s evaluation come by way of its semantic content? Or is the evaluation pragmatically associated with the thick term (e.g. via conversational implicature)? In this paper, I argue that thick terms are semantically associated with evaluations. In particular, I argue that many thick concepts (if not all) conceptually entail (...) evaluative contents. The Semantic View has a number of outspoken critics, but I shall limit discussion to the most recent--Pekka Väyrynen--who believes that objectionable thick concepts present a problem for the Semantic View. After advancing my positive argument in favor of the Semantic View (section II), I argue that Väyrynen’s attack is unsuccessful (section III). One reason ethicists cite for not focusing on thick concepts is that such concepts are supposedly not semantically evaluative whereas traditional thin concepts (e.g. good and wrong) are. But if my view is correct, then this reason must be rejected. (shrink)

The underlying structures that are common to the world's languages bear an intriguing connection with early emerging forms of “core knowledge”, which are frequently studied by infant researchers. In particular, grammatical systems often incorporate distinctions that reflect those made in core knowledge. Here, I argue that this connection occurs because non-verbal core knowledge systematically biases processes of language evolution. This account potentially explains a wide range of cross-linguistic grammatical phenomena that currently lack an adequate explanation. Second, I suggest that developmental (...) researchers and cognitive scientists interested in knowledge representation can exploit this connection to language by using observations about cross-linguistic grammatical tendencies to inspire hypotheses about core knowledge. (shrink)

WE must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science.

What makes a consensus among scientists credible and convincing? This paper introduces the notion of a "hard-won" consensus and uses examples from recent debates over climate change science to show that this heuristic standard for evaluating the quality of a consensus is widely shared. The extent to which a consensus is "hard won" can be understood to depend on the personal qualities of the participating experts; the article demonstrates the continuing utility of the norms of modern science introduced by Robert (...) K. Merton by showing that individuals on both sides of the climate science debate rely intuitively on Mertonian ideas—interpreted in terms of character—to frame their arguments. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new Separabilist account of thick concepts, called the Expansion View (or EV). According to EV, thick concepts are expanded contents of thin terms. An expanded content is, roughly, the semantic content of a predicate along with modifiers. Although EV is a form of Separabilism, it is distinct from the only kind of Separabilism discussed in the literature, and it has many features that Inseparabilists want from an account of thick concepts. EV can also give non-cognitivists a (...) novel escape from the Anti-Disentangling Argument. §I explains the approach of all previous Separabilists, and argues that there’s no reason for Separabilists to take this approach. §II explains EV. §III fends off objections. And §IV explains how non-cognitivist proponents of EV can escape the Anti-Disentangling Argument. (shrink)

Recent work on interpretability in machine learning and AI has focused on the building of simplified models that approximate the true criteria used to make decisions. These models are a useful pedagogical device for teaching trained professionals how to predict what decisions will be made by the complex system, and most importantly how the system might break. However, when considering any such model it’s important to remember Box’s maxim that "All models are wrong but some are useful." We focus on (...) the distinction between these models and explanations in philosophy and sociology. These models can be understood as a "do it yourself kit" for explanations, allowing a practitioner to directly answer "what if questions" or generate contrastive explanations without external assistance. Although a valuable ability, giving these models as explanations appears more difficult than necessary, and other forms of explanation may not have the same trade-offs. We contrast the different schools of thought on what makes an explanation, and suggest that machine learning might benefit from viewing the problem more broadly. (shrink)

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed in 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions present an (...) overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activities such as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to create opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through more traditional approaches. (shrink)

It has long been known that scientists have a tendency to conduct experiments in a way that brings about the expected outcome. Here, we provide the first direct demonstration of this type of experimenter bias in experimental philosophy. Opposed to previously discovered types of experimenter bias mediated by face-to-face interactions between experimenters and participants, here we show that experimenters also have a tendency to create stimuli in a way that brings about expected outcomes. We randomly assigned undergraduate experimenters to receive (...) two different hypotheses about folk intuitions of consciousness, and then asked them to design experiments based on their hypothesis. Specifically, experimenters generated sentences ascribing intentional and phenomenal mental states to groups, which were later rated by online participants for naturalness. We found a significant interaction between experimenter hypothesis and participant ratings indicating a general tendency for experimenters to obtain the result that they expected. These results indicate that experimenter bias is a real problem in experimental philosophy since the methods and design employed here mirror the predominant survey methods of the field as a whole. The bearing of the current results on Knobe and Prinz’s :67–83, 2008) group mind hypothesis is discussed, and new methods for avoiding experimenter bias are proposed. (shrink)

The capacity to collect and analyse data is growing exponentially. Referred to as ‘Big Data’, this scientific, social and technological trend has helped create destabilising amounts of information, which can challenge accepted social and ethical norms. Big Data remains a fuzzy idea, emerging across social, scientific, and business contexts sometimes seemingly related only by the gigantic size of the datasets being considered. As is often the case with the cutting edge of scientific and technological progress, understanding of the ethical implications (...) of Big Data lags behind. In order to bridge such a gap, this article systematically and comprehensively analyses academic literature concerning the ethical implications of Big Data, providing a watershed for future ethical investigations and regulations. Particular attention is paid to biomedical Big Data due to the inherent sensitivity of medical information. By means of a meta-analysis of the literature, a thematic narrative is provided to guide ethicists, data scientists, regulators and other stakeholders through what is already known or hypothesised about the ethical risks of this emerging and innovative phenomenon. Five key areas of concern are identified: informed consent, privacy, ownership, epistemology and objectivity, and ‘Big Data Divides’ created between those who have or lack the necessary resources to analyse increasingly large datasets. Critical gaps in the treatment of these themes are identified with suggestions for future research. Six additional areas of concern are then suggested which, although related have not yet attracted extensive debate in the existing literature. It is argued that they will require much closer scrutiny in the immediate future: the dangers of ignoring group-level ethical harms; the importance of epistemology in assessing the ethics of Big Data; the changing nature of fiduciary relationships that become increasingly data saturated; the need to distinguish between ‘academic’ and ‘commercial’ Big Data practices in terms of potential harm to data subjects; future problems with ownership of intellectual property generated from analysis of aggregated datasets; and the difficulty of providing meaningful access rights to individual data subjects that lack necessary resources. Considered together, these eleven themes provide a thorough critical framework to guide ethical assessment and governance of emerging Big Data practices. (shrink)

On the Use and Abuse of Foucault for Politics provides an accessible interpretation of Foucault's political philosophy, demonstrating how Foucault is relevant for contemporary democratic theory. Brent Pickett lays out an overview of Foucault's politics, including a comprehensive overview of the reasons for various conflicting interpretations, and then explores how well the different "Foucaults" can be used in progressive politics and democratic theory.

We study large cardinal properties associated with Ramseyness in which homogeneous sets are demanded to satisfy various transfinite degrees of indescribability. Sharpe and Welch [25], and independently Bagaria [1], extended the notion of $\Pi ^1_n$ -indescribability where $n<\omega $ to that of $\Pi ^1_\xi $ -indescribability where $\xi \geq \omega $. By iterating Feng’s Ramsey operator [12] on the various $\Pi ^1_\xi $ -indescribability ideals, we obtain new large cardinal hierarchies and corresponding nonlinear increasing hierarchies of normal ideals. We provide (...) a complete account of the containment relationships between the resulting ideals and show that the corresponding large cardinal properties yield a strict linear refinement of Feng’s original Ramsey hierarchy. We isolate Ramsey properties which provide strictly increasing hierarchies between Feng’s $\Pi _\alpha $ -Ramsey and $\Pi _{\alpha +1}$ -Ramsey cardinals for all odd $\alpha <\omega $ and for all $\omega \leq \alpha <\kappa $. We also show that, given any ordinals $\beta _0,\beta _1<\kappa $ the increasing chains of ideals obtained by iterating the Ramsey operator on the $\Pi ^1_{\beta _0}$ -indescribability ideal and the $\Pi ^1_{\beta _1}$ -indescribability ideal respectively, are eventually equal; moreover, we identify the least degree of Ramseyness at which this equality occurs. As an application of our results we show that one can characterize our new large cardinal notions and the corresponding ideals in terms of generic elementary embeddings; as a special case this yields generic embedding characterizations of $\Pi ^1_\xi $ -indescribability and Ramseyness. (shrink)

The weakly compact reflection principle\\) states that \ is a weakly compact cardinal and every weakly compact subset of \ has a weakly compact proper initial segment. The weakly compact reflection principle at \ implies that \ is an \-weakly compact cardinal. In this article we show that the weakly compact reflection principle does not imply that \ is \\)-weakly compact. Moreover, we show that if the weakly compact reflection principle holds at \ then there is a forcing extension preserving (...) this in which \ is the least \-weakly compact cardinal. Along the way we generalize the well-known result which states that if \ is a regular cardinal then in any forcing extension by \-c.c. forcing the nonstationary ideal equals the ideal generated by the ground model nonstationary ideal; our generalization states that if \ is a weakly compact cardinal then after forcing with a ‘typical’ Easton-support iteration of length \ the weakly compact ideal equals the ideal generated by the ground model weakly compact ideal. (shrink)