The geohistorical disjunctures between Hong Kong—colonial territory, global city, and special administrative region—and China challenge understandings of the relationship. Hong Kong officially maintains certain core values that differ from those of the People’s Republic of China, while unofficial Chinese Communist Party united-front activity in Hong Kong has arguably narrowed the range of the sayable, in Jacques Rancière’s terms, in the public sphere. How does this admixture of core values, at turns antithetical and contested, appear in the space and time of (...) Hong Kong? Interventions in the ideational dynamic between the city and the state—through images, utterances, performances, and alternative artworks—produce space for the appearance of subjects defined by the people. Not a postcolonial culture of disappearance but an ontology of politics where spaces of disagreement make apprehensible that which is politically unsayable. During the decade before the Umbrella Movement, in a fervent aesthetics of politics at the crossroads of hurtling urban transformation and accelerating illiberal governance, alternative art in Hong Kong populated social-movement activity with claims on public space and the possibilities of the people in the sightlines of a democratic future. (shrink)

This paper presents a historical view of the rise of mathematical universalism in modern times. It argues that 20th century mathematical revolution laid the foundations for a new universalism which extended to physics, economics, informatics, and recently biology. It describes the role played by the organization of mathematical work for closer co-operation among scientists on an international scale throughout the century, and stresses the importance of mathematics in the education process.

The main questions in philosophical research on attention concern its nature and impact. Regarding its nature, one might ask what sort of thing attention is; regarding its impact, one might ask what sort of thing attention does. While these questions have been asked by philosophers for thousands of years, they have had a resurgence in recent years due to advancements in the cognitive and neural sciences. This chapter will cover some historical context as prelude to a discussion of the contemporary (...) debates, ending with issues that are as of yet still on the horizon. Topics covered include the divide between voluntary/involuntary, endogenous/exogenous, and top-down/bottom-up attention; the Posner cueing task; Treisman and the binding problem; Mack and Rock on inattentional blindness; Grassia, Campbell, and Dickie on attention, perception, and knowledge; the debate between Block, Dehaene, and others on consciousness and attention; Wu on attention and action; and future directions for attention research in predictive processing models, neuroethics, technology, and addiction. (shrink)

In the first edition of Radical Ecology --the now classic examination major philosophical, ethical, scientific, and economic roots of environmental problems--Carolyn Merchant responded to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevailed in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In this provocative and readable study, Merchant examined the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet. Now in this second edition, Merchant continues to emphasize how laws, regulations and scientific (...) research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. Merchant argues that in order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific, and spiritual approaches that will fundamentally transform human relationships with nature. She analyzes the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists for a new economy, society, science, and religion, and examines their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public. This new edition features a new Introduction from the author, a thorough updating of chapters, and two entirely new chapters on recent global movements and globalization and the environment. It is a timely update that will give students everything they need to know on the most recent philosophical positions and social movements that characterize the radical ecology spectrum. (shrink)

In this paper is presented and discussed the notion of true finite by opposition to the notion of theoretical finite. Examples from mathematics and physics are given. Fermat’s infinite descent principle is challenged.

The process of adopting a child is “not for the faint of heart.” This is what we were told the first time we, as a couple, began this process. Part of the challenge lies in fulfilling the licensing requirements for adoption, which, beyond the usual home study, can include mandatory participation in parenting classes. The question naturally arises for many people who are subjected to these requirements whether they are morally justified. We tackle this question in this paper. In our (...) view, while strong reasons exist in favour of licensing adoptive parents, these reasons support the licensing not only of adoptive parents, but of all or some subset of so-called “natural” parents as well. We therefore conclude that the status quo with respect to parental licensing, according to which only adoptive parents need to be licensed, is morally unjustified. (shrink)

John Earman and John Norton have argued that substantivalism leads to a radical form of indeterminism within local spacetime theories. I compare their argument to more traditional arguments typical in the Relationist/Substantivalist dispute and show that they all fail for the same reason. All these arguments ascribe to the substantivalist a particular way of talking about possibility. I argue that the substantivalist is not committed to the modal claims required for the arguments to have any force, and show that this (...) naturally leads to an alteration in the way determinism is characterized for local spacetime theories. (shrink)

Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western culture from Columbus' voyages to today's tropical island retreats. Few narratives are so powerful - and, as Carolyn Merchant shows, so misguided and destructive - as the dream of recapturing a lost paradise. A sweeping account of these quixotic endeavors by one of America's leading environmentalists, Reinventing Eden traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations in shopping malls, theme parks (...) and gated communities. With eloquence and insight, Merchant shows how the drive to conquer nature and to explore and settle the globe, springs from this utopian pastoral impulse throughout Western history. Time and again, human manipulation of the environment is our downfall: Eden is achieved by fencing off pristine beauty in national parks and wildlife preserves, while leaving the majority of the earth in ruins. Challenging both narratives, Merchant argues that the green veneer of city-park conservation has become a cover for the corruption of the earth and the neglect of its environment. Reinventing Eden is a bold new way to think about the earth that includes green political parties, sustainable development and a partnership between humans and earth that is nothing short of an ecological revolution. (shrink)

A collection of 17 meditative essays and 52 weekly reflections, this book is for readers who are concerned about the daunting future humankind has created and who seek inspiration, wisdom, and spiritual purpose in the face of the collapse of industrial civilization.

It is my intention in this brief study to extend the argument that Nestle begins with her seminal article,' Butch-Femme Relationships: Sexual Cour age in the 1950s', and that Henking and Comstock continue by including it in the critical anthology of writings on'being queer' and 'being religious', Querying Religion. I want to do this by making 'an overt claim' that the butch-femme community of the 1950s created its own spirituality—in the content of a corporeal theology between couples and individually, and (...) that these couples/individuals were also part of this larger 'bar community' that created a space for the community to refine this theology in terms of self-defining community. I want to argue that this self-defined community served to function for its members in many of the same ways any religious community functions that is held together by a common faith and/ or theology....I praise those hands, with scars she's proud of, on gender fuck forearms. They steady my pulse, settle down, settle down, curve on my cheek in the dark like a prayer....Her hands say yield and make it sound safe. They enter me like something holy. It takes time to interpret the tongue of her hands, the whispering of 'come here', or the bunch and knot of 'back off', as they churn cement, hoist bricks, sludge mortar into cracks, knife off the excess, until she's built Jericho and I have no trumpet......I am in the sweet, inquisitive poultice of her hands, proudly helpless, wanted, given. She makes loaves and fishes of me.2. (shrink)

Home-based service jobs have developed considerably across Western societies. In fact, chances are high that a working-class woman in France today will, at some point in her life, be a house cleaner, home-based child care provider, or home aide for the elderly. Going against political, scholarly, and everyday discourses that, saturated with the double prejudices of gender and class, treat all these home service occupations, which require little prior training, the same, this article illuminates the variability of the forms of (...) subordination experienced by women practicing these occupations in France. Comparing these jobs with the ensemble of low-skill jobs and with each other exposes what is specific to the particular form of subordination each job type entails, in terms of the extent of job supervision and the nature of the home where it is practiced, the presence or absence of relations with coworkers and/or a “public,” and the nature of this “public.” It mobilizes nationwide statistical data in a new way to shift attention to these numerous ordinary work situations, which are much less studied than those of the domestic workers of the wealthiest cities of the Western world. (shrink)

Fundamental terms in the field of ecology are ambiguous, with multiple meanings associated with them. While this could lead to confusion, discord, or even tests that violate core assumptions of a given theory or model, this ambiguity could also be a feature that allows for new knowledge creation through the interconnected nature of concepts. We approached this debate from a quantitative perspective, and investigated the cost of ambiguity related to definitions of ecological units in ecology related to the general term (...) “community.” We did a meta-analysis of tests associated with two bodies of literature, Hubbell’s unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography and Diamond’s assembly rules, that rely on a specific ecological unit that assumes that species are existing within a local area and that they have overlapping resource needs. We predicted that if ambiguous terminology is widespread, then researchers will have tested them with many different ecological units, that in addition some of these ecological units will violate the core assumptions of the theory, and finally that the overall level of support for a theory will be stronger if appropriate ecological units were used. We found that indeed multiple different ecological units were used in the literature to test both theories, with 65 percent appropriate ecological units for neutral theory tests, and only 6 percent for assembly rule tests. Finally, there was some evidence that the support for a theory depended on whether appropriate ecological units were used for neutral tests, but there was not enough data for the assembly rule tests. These results thus show that ambiguous terminology in ecology is having measurable effects on research and is not of solely philosophical concern. We advocate that authors be explicit in their writing and outline core assumptions of theories, that researchers apply these consistently in their tests, and that readers be attentive to what is written and cognizant of their potential biases. (shrink)

The hole argument contends that a substantivalist has to view General Relativity as an indeterministic theory. A recent form of substantivalist reply to the hole argument has urged the substantivalist to identify qualitatively isomorphic possible worlds. Gordon Belot has argued that this form of substantivalism is unable to capture other genuine violations of determinism. This paper argues that Belot's alleged examples of indeterminism should not be seen as a violation of a form of determinism that physicists are interested in. What (...) is undetermined in these examples, and in the hole argument, is a haecceitistic feature of the world. It is argued that these features are not among those we should expect the physical state of the world to determine. This vindicates the substantivalist reply to the hole argument, but also illustrates that philosophers of physics cannot ignore metaphysics when characterizing determinism for a physical theory. (shrink)

Much recent research has sought to uncover the neural basis of moral judgment. However, it has remained unclear whether "moral judgments" are sufficiently homogenous to be studied scientifically as a unified category. We tested this assumption by using fMRI to examine the neural correlates of moral judgments within three moral areas: (physical) harm, dishonesty, and (sexual) disgust. We found that the judgment ofmoral wrongness was subserved by distinct neural systems for each of the different moral areas and that these differences (...) were much more robust than differences in wrongness judgments within a moral area. Dishonest, disgusting, and harmful moral transgression recruited networks of brain regions associated with mentalizing, affective processing, and action understanding, respectively. Dorsal medial pFC was the only region activated by all scenarios judged to be morally wrong in comparison with neutral scenarios. However, this region was also activated by dishonest and harmful scenarios judged not to be morally wrong, suggestive of a domain-general role that is neither peculiar to nor predictive of moral decisions. These results suggest that moral judgment is not a wholly unified faculty in the human brain, but rather, instantiated in dissociable neural systems that are engaged differentially depending on the type of transgression being judged. (shrink)

In this adventurous contribution to the project of combining philosophy and biology to understand the mind, Carolyn Price investigates what it means to say that mental states--like thoughts, wishes, and perceptual experiences--are about things in the natural world. Her insight into this deep philosophical problem offers a novel teleological account of intentional content, grounded in and shaped by a carefully constructed theory of functions. Along the way she defends her view from recent objections to teleological theories and indicates how (...) it might be applied to notable problems in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Attention is essential to the life of the mind, a central topic in cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology. Traditional debates in philosophy stand to benefit from greater understanding of the phenomenon, whether on the nature of the self, the foundation of knowledge, the natural basis of consciousness, or the origins of action and responsibility. This book is at the crossroads of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, offering a new theoretical stance on the concept of attention and how it intersects (...) with other functions of the mind, such as perception, consciousness, and action. It presents attention as directed by a subject, essential for perception, but not consciousness or action. By taking seriously the existence of a subject it stands against current trends in philosophy and cognitive science. This book offers an account of the subject and its role in attention that will both help motivate a subject-centered account and avoid some of the common criticisms regarding its existence. It engages with work by many philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, including Block, Campbell, Dickie, Husserl, James, Koch, Mack and Rock, Merleau-Ponty, Treisman, and Wu. (shrink)

A collection of essays, comments and replies on some of the contentious issues in feminist theory. Specific conversations centre on topics of debate such as feminist standpoint theory; gender as an analytic category; problems with sexual difference; and privacy and representations of the personal. Each exchange covers issues central to feminist scholarship and includes discussions from a cross-section of disciplines: political/social theory, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies and critical theory.

New techniques for the genetic modification of organisms are creating new strategies for addressing persistent public health challenges. For example, the company Oxitec has conducted field trials internationally—and has attempted to conduct field trials in the United States—of a genetically modified mosquito that can be used to control dengue, Zika, and some other mosquito-borne diseases. In 2016, a report commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine discussed the potential benefits and risks of another strategy, using gene drives. (...) Driving a desired genotype through a population of wild animals or insects could lead to irreversible genetic modification of an entire species. The NASEM report recommends community, stakeholder, and public engagement about potential uses of the technology, and it argues that the engagement should occur as research advances, well before gene drives are deployed. Yet what “engagement” means in practice is unclear. This article seeks clarity on this problem by offering a justification for community engagement and drawing out implications of this argument for the implementation and desired outcomes of community engagement. Community engagement is essential when it comes to research that would release genetically modified insects or animals into the environment. By contrast, obtaining informed consent from people who live near such a proposed field trial is neither necessary nor sufficient. Drawing on the epistemic and moral arguments for deliberative democracy, I propose two discrete mechanisms of community engagement: community advisory boards and deliberative forums, neither of which has been systematically incorporated into research governance. The proposed mechanisms would engender respect for persons who live near field trials, even when the results of deliberation override some individuals’ preferences. Community engagement foregrounds the community in our thinking about humans’ relationship to nature, and it implies that deciding to release genetically modified insects or animals into the wild ought to be a collective decision, not one made by product developers, policy-makers, private companies, research funders, or scientists alone. (shrink)

This fully illustrated introductory text looks at the key theories and thinkers within art from a philosophical viewpoint. Focusing on the role gender plays, the book covers the most pertinent topics within feminist aesthetics.

Aim The aim is to understand current research into the impact of undergraduate nursing education on the development of professional values. Background Values are evident in the professional standards for nurses and the guidelines and healthcare policies of many countries. These professional values guide decisions and behaviour and are recognised as an essential component in the professions ability to provide safe and professional care. This literature review presents the current research on the impact of education on professional values in undergraduate (...) nurse education. Design An integrative review of the findings was conducted to provide insight into the current research on the professional value development in undergraduate nurses. Data sources CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus. Review methods A literature search was undertaken within defined date parameters 2010–2021 using a systematic approach. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis guide PRISMA was used to guide and illustrate the process. Papers were assessed for quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Results Two distinct areas of inquiry were identified. (a) Changes in professional values as an outcome of undergraduate nursing education or (b) changes in professional values as an outcome of specifically designed educational content. These areas were further explored to better understand the influences of undergraduate education on students’ professional values. Conclusion There is a lack of evidence in the literature to support the premise that professional values develop in line with academic year progression; however, there is strong evidence to support the inclusion of explicit learning in undergraduate education that engages students in education specifically designed to explore and develop professional values. (shrink)

Kant's argument from incongruent counterparts for substantival space is examined; it is concluded that the argument has no force against a relationist. The argument does suggest that a relationist cannot give an account of enantiomorphism, incongruent counterparts and orientability. The prospects for a relationist account of these notions are assessed, and it is found that they are good provided the relationist is some kind of modal relationist. An illustration and interpretation of these modal commitments is given.

This article explores the implications of adopting decolonial love as a theoretical and practical model for healing the wounds of coloniality by contrasting its revolutionary potential to the damaging effects of its opposite, colonial love. The latter, based in an imperialist, dualist logic, dangerously fetishizes the beloved object and participates in the oppression and subjugation of difference. Decolonial feminist theorist Chela Sandoval's concept of decolonial love, by contrast, originates “from below” and operates between those rendered other by hegemonic forces. In (...) its acceptance of fluid identities and a redefined but shared humanity, decolonial love promotes loving as an active, intersubjective process, and in so doing articulates an anti-hegemonic, anti-imperialist affect and attitude that can guide the actions that work to dismantle oppressive regimes. Literature that makes central the lived experiences of female subaltern figures works to theorize new ways of being and offers feminist philosophy a different way to understand intersubjective relation that challenges hegemonic thinking. To this end I offer a close reading of Gabriel García Márquez's underexplored Of Love and Other Demons, a novel in which the subversive power of decolonial love challenges Christian, imperialist love to foreground black lived experience and knowledge over and against the Eurocentric. (shrink)

Human beings as objects, and we are objects inter alia, offer information, even knowledge. And yet, in a society marked by pervasive identity prejudice, even objects do not offer neutral facts. Here, I argue that the harms imposed on those who suffer testimonial injustices cannot be sufficiently understood through the ethical lens of objectification. Such persons are not simply objectified, not simply treated as mere sources of information rather than as informants. Even as objects (not mere objects), they are often (...) unable to testify on their own behalf or testify to true facts of the matter. Rather than follow Miranda Fricker’s argument that testimonial injustices are acts of objectification, I argue that they are better understood as acts of what Ann Cahill calls derivatization. A re-examination of Fricker’s account of the wrong of testimonial injustice as derivatizing rather than objectifying clarifies the wrong of epistemic injustice, reinforces the mutuality of testimonial exchanges where both the speaker and listener are actively engaged and obligated to participate well to succeed, and opens up a discussion of how even when being treated as a source of information, informants can be mistreated. (shrink)

Though there are many factors that contribute to the perceived legitimacy of business ethics education, this research focuses on one factor that is given great attention both formally and informally in many business schools: student satisfaction with the course. To understand the nature of student satisfaction, the authors draw from multiple theories with central claims relating expectations with satisfaction. The authors then compare student expectations of business ethics courses with instructor objectives and discover that business ethics courses are not necessarily (...) designed to meet student expectations. The authors speculate that this general mismatch between student expectations and instructor objectives has material consequences. As one example, the authors analyze student evaluations from three business schools and identify a “business ethics course effect”: a negative association between business ethics courses and student evaluations. The authors discuss the implications for business ethics education of a situation where pedagogical objectives and market prescriptions point in different directions. (shrink)

Feminist approaches to art are extremely influential and widely studied across a variety of disciplines, including art theory, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. Gender and Aesthetics is an introduction to the major theories and thinkers within art and aesthetics from a philosophical perspective, carefully introducing and examining the role that gender plays in forming ideas about art. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time. Organized thematically, the book introduces in clear language the most (...) important topics within feminist aesthetics: * Who is an artist and why are there so few women painters? * Art, pleasure and beauty * Music, literature and painting * The role of gender in taste and food * What is art and who is an artist? * Disgust and the sublime Each chapter discusses important topics and thinkers within art and examines the role gender plays in our understanding of them. These topics include creativity, genius and the appreciation of art, and thinkers from Plato, Kant, and Hume to Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Also included in the book are illustrations from Gauguin and Hogarth to Cindy Sherman and Nancy Spero to clarify and help introduce often difficult concepts. Each chapter concludes with a summary and further reading and there is an extensive annotated bibliography. Carolyn Korsmeyer's style is refreshing and accessible, making the book suitable for students of philosophy, gender studies, visual studies and art theory, as well as anyone interested in the impact of gender on theories of art. (shrink)

A summary of the philosophical literature on trust.

In this paper, I interrogate an ethical obligation to participate in genomics research on the basis of solidarity. I explore two different ways in which solidarity is used to motivate participation in genomics research: as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it cultivates solidarity and as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it expresses solidarity. I critique those appeals and draw lessons from them for how we ought to understand solidarity. The working definition of solidarity that (...) I defend is that solidarity involves recognizing another creature, person, or persons as, like ourselves, vulnerable to injustice and entails acting in ways that contribute to creating, reforming, and participating in institutions that are aimed at enhancing their flourishing. I argue that participating in genomics research is not an expression of solidarity. Participation in research may be praiseworthy, a “good thing to do,” but actually cultivating and expressing solidarity requires much more of us. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of adopting decolonial love as a theoretical and practical model for healing the wounds of coloniality by contrasting its revolutionary potential to the damaging effects of its opposite, colonial love. The latter, based in an imperialist, dualist logic, dangerously fetishizes the beloved object and participates in the oppression and subjugation of difference. Decolonial feminist theorist Chela Sandoval's concept of decolonial love, by contrast, originates “from below” and operates between those rendered other by hegemonic forces. In (...) its acceptance of fluid identities and a redefined but shared humanity, decolonial love promotes loving as an active, intersubjective process, and in so doing articulates an anti‐hegemonic, anti‐imperialist affect and attitude that can guide the actions that work to dismantle oppressive regimes. Literature that makes central the lived experiences of female subaltern figures works to theorize new ways of being and offers feminist philosophy a different way to understand intersubjective relation that challenges hegemonic thinking. To this end I offer a close reading of Gabriel García Márquez's underexplored Of Love and Other Demons, a novel in which the subversive power of decolonial love challenges Christian, imperialist love to foreground black lived experience and knowledge over and against the Eurocentric. (shrink)

Should moods be regarded as intentional states, and, if so, what kind of intentional content do they have? I focus on irritability and apprehension, which I examine from the perspective of a teleosemantic theory of content. Eric Lormand has argued that moods are non-intentional states, distinct from emotions; Robert Solomon and Peter Goldie argue that moods are generalised emotions and that they have intentional content of a correspondingly general kind. I present a third model, on which moods are regarded, not (...) as generalised emotions, but as states of vigilance; and I argue that, on this model, moods should be regarded as intentional states of a kind quite distinct from emotions. An advantage of this account is that it allows us to distinguish between a mood of apprehension and an episode of objectless fear. (shrink)

I illustrate a challenge to a view that is a response to the Hole Argument. The view, sophisticated substantivalism, has been claimed to be the received view. While sophisticated substantivalism has many defenders, there is a fundamental tension in the view that has not received the attention it deserves. Anyone who defends or endorses sophisticated substantivalism, should acknowledge this challenge, and should either show why it is not serious or explain how to respond to it.