The social impacts of computer technology are often glorified in public discourse, but there is growing concern about its actual effects on society. In this article, we ask: how does “consent” as an analytical framework make visible the social dynamics and power relations in the capture, extraction, and labor of data science knowledge production? We hypothesize that a form of boundary violation in data science workplaces—gender harassment—may correlate with the ways humans’ lived experiences are extracted to produce Big Data. The (...) concept of consent offers a useful way to draw comparisons between gender relations in data science and the means by which machines are trained to learn and reason. Inspired by how Big Tech leaders describe unsupervised machine learning, and the co-optation of “revolutionary” rhetoric they use to do so, we introduce a concept we call “techniques of invisibility.” Techniques of invisibility are the ways in which an extreme imbalance between exposure and opacity, demarcated along fault lines of power, are fabricated and maintained, closing down the possibility for bidirectional transparency in the production and applications of algorithms. Further, techniques of invisibility, which we group into two categories—epistemic injustice and the Brotherhood—include acts of subjection by powerful actors in data science designed to quell resistance to exploitative relations. These techniques may be useful in making further connections between epistemic violence, sexism, and surveillance, sussing out persistent boundary violations in data science to render the social in data science visible, and open to scrutiny and debate. (shrink)

Many theorists claim that the reactive emotions, even in their private form, are communicative entities. But as widely endorsed as this claim is, it has not been redeemed: the literature lacks a clear and compelling account of the sense in which reactive attitudes qua private mental states are essentially communicative. In this paper, I fill this gap. I propose that it is apt to characterize privately held reactive attitudes as communicative in nature because they, like many paradigmatic forms of communication, (...) have representational content and the function of evoking uptake of this content in a recipient. (shrink)

Coleen Zoller - Interpreting Plato's Dialogues - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 486-487 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Coleen Zoller Susquehanna University J. Angelo Corlett. Interpreting Plato's Dialogues. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005. Pp. xii + 137. Cloth, $28.00. In Interpreting Plato's Dialogues, J. Angelo Corlett succeeds at offering a concise summary of various competing answers to the question of how Plato's dialogues ought to be interpreted. (...) The significance of the question is rooted in the fact that one's assumptions about Plato's mode of expression inevitably influence how one interprets the dialogues. Meanwhile, the question is bewildering because, as Corlett quotes Woodruff, "reading.. (shrink)

If I do you a good turn, you may respond with gratitude and express that gratitude by saying “Thank you.” Similarly, if I insult you, you may react with resentment which you express by shouting, “Screw you!” or something of the sort. Broadly put, when confronted with another’s morally significant conduct, we are inclined to respond with a reactive attitude and to express that reactive attitude in speech. A number of familiar speech acts have a call-and-response structure. Questions, demands and (...) hails are all call-types, and each seeks a defining response. Questions seek answers, demands seek compliance, and a hail, for example, “Hi Coleen” seeks a “Hi” in return. Many theorists claim that expressions of the reactive attitudes also have this structure. Yet, this insight raises a number of questions. There are, after all, many familiar call-types, not only questions, demands and hails, but also requests, invitations, recommendations and entreaties. Given this, it is natural to wonder whether the expressed reactive attitudes are a sui generis call-type or whether they can be properly assimilated to one of the better-known forms. Further, we might wonder about the response component. It is utterly familiar that the response suited to a demand is compliance, and that the response sought by a question is an answer, but what response do the expressed reactive attitudes seek? The answer to this question is not similarly ready to hand. In this paper, I provide a recognition-based theory of the call-and-response structure of the expressed reactive attitudes. On my account, both the positive and negative expressed reactive attitudes are modes of recognition that seek for their target to give expression to her recognition of having been appropriately recognized. In the negative case, the target does this by feeling and expressing guilt or remorse, and in the positive case, by feeling and expressing self-approbation. (shrink)

Many important theorists – e.g., Gary Watson and Stephen Darwall – characterize blame as a communicative entity and argue that this entails that morally responsible agency requires not just rational but moral competence. In this paper, I defend this argument from communication against three objections found in the literature. The first two reject the argument’s characterization of the reactive attitudes. The third urges that the argument is committed to a false claim.

This volume engages with post-humanist and transhumanist approaches to present an original exploration of the question of how humankind will fare in the face of artificial intelligence. With emerging technologies now widely assumed to be calling into question assumptions about human beings and their place within the world, and computational innovations of machine learning leading some to claim we are coming ever closer to the long-sought artificial general intelligence, it defends humanity with the argument that technological 'advances' introduced artificially into (...) some humans do not annul their fundamental human qualities. Against the challenge presented by the possibility that advanced artificial intelligence will be fully capable of original thinking, creative self-development and moral judgement and therefore have claims to legal rights, the authors advance a form of 'essentialism' that justifies providing a 'decent minimum life' for all persons. As such, while the future of the human is in question, the authors show how dispensing with either the category itself or the underlying reality is a less plausible solution than is often assumed. (shrink)

The idea that demands are a key constituent of any analysis of the negative reactive attitudes is rarely challenged, enjoying a freedom from scrutiny uncommon in philosophy. In this paper I press on this orthodox view, arguing that there are broadly speaking, three ways in which the term ‘demand’ is used in discussions of the negative reactive attitudes and that each is problematic.

Theorists have spent considerable time discussing the concept of responsibility. Their discussions, however, have generally focused on the question of who counts as responsible, and for what. But as Gary Watson has noted, “Responsibility is a triadic relationship: an individual (or group) is responsible to others for something” (Watson Agency and answerability: selected essays, 2004 , p. 7). Thus, theorizing about responsibility ought to involve theorizing not just about the actor and her conduct, but also about those the actor is (...) responsible to—and specifically about how these people hold the actor responsible for her conduct. In this paper, I give a topology of the terrain of holding others responsible. Over the course of the paper I disambiguate two very broad senses of holding responsible—regarding another as a responsible agent and holding another responsible for a particular piece of conduct. Next, I argue that the latter sense of holding responsible is a genus with two species—what I will call “holding responsible as deep moral appraisal” and “holding responsible as accountability.” Appreciating these distinctions, I argue, sheds considerable light on a number of questions concerning the scope and nature of our practices of holding others responsible. Finally, illuminating these distinct senses of holding responsible and highlighting their features reveals an awkwardness in the most carefully explicated and influential account of holding responsible, namely R. Jay Wallace’s account in Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. (shrink)

Desert-realists maintain that those who do wrong without an excuse deserve blame. Desert-skeptics deny this, holding that though we may be responsible for our actions in some sense, we lack the kind of responsibility needed to deserve blame. In two recent papers, Randolph Clarke advances an innovative defense of desert-realism. He argues for deserved-guilt, the thesis that the guilty deserve to feel guilt. In his 2013 paper, Clarke suggests two strategies for defending deserved-guilt: the fitting-guilt strategy and the good-guilt strategy. (...) In his 2016 paper, Clarke issues a challenge to the desert-skeptic: he calls on them to provide a non-desert based account of guilt’s fittingness. In the first two thirds of the paper, I respond to Clarke’s challenge to the desert-skeptic, showing that guilt felt by the guilty is alethic-fitting, reason-fitting, and value-fitting. None of these notions of fittingness, I argue, are desert based. In the last third of the paper, I show how the work done in previous sections affords us the tools to finely diagnose the failures of both the fitting-guilt and the good-guilt strategies. Here, I draw on one of Clarke’s own insights—namely, that desert is intimately connected to the value of justice. I propose that showing that guilt is fitting, or again non-instrumentally good, fails to show that it is deserved because to show that it is deserved one must show that guilt is fitting or good in a sense that implicates justice. (shrink)

Sport sponsorship is a growth area which is under‐researched yet which displays opportunities and threats for both sponsor and sport, as well as having important ethical implications. If sponsorship funding is to be attracted, sports need to supply evidence of the opportunities for sponsors; yet “sport also needs to ensure that the negative aspects of sponsorship are reduced and the positive encouraged.” Marylyn Carrigan has a background in banking and export marketing and is currently Lecturer in Marketing and International (...) Marketing at the Business School, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England, where she also researches the areas of Corporate Philanthropy and Sport and Leisure Marketing. Her husband worked in industry before graduating in Sports Studies and Business, and currently works as a Youth Worker for the City of Birmingham Department of Leisure and Community Services with research interests in Sport and the 50+ leisure market. (shrink)

Despite a growing population of older people, traditional prejudices against age continue to flourish in society. The media in particular are often guilty of ageism, persistently focusing upon the ‘youth market’, and advertisers are particular offenders. By ignoring older people, or using them as caricatures, the advertising industry not only violates its ethical responsibilities to this group within the community, but also overlooks the commercial opportunity presented by the new generation of older consumers. The article presents research into UK print (...) media which shows that older people tend not to be featured in advertisements in mainstream publications, but are prominent in advertisements in publications for the over‐fifties. The issues this raises in terms of the duty of advertisers to respect the rights of older people are discussed, along with the commercial imperative to provide more appropriate images of older people in UK advertising. (shrink)

Emotions are typically dual-faced: they involve both an evaluative and a practical aspect. What is more, an emotion's evaluative and practical aspects tend to exhibit a kind of fit. For example, Sakshi's fear of the bear involves apprehending the bear as a threat to something she cares about, i.e., her wellbeing. And it motivates her to act on behalf of this care: it motivates her to act in ways that protect her wellbeing. Both dimensions of Sakshi's fear are about her (...) wellbeing. Typically, characterizations of gratitude speak to both its evaluative and practical dimensions. Gratitude is described as a way of apprehending the significance of one's benefactor's kindness, and it is said to involve a disposition to thank one's benefactor and to return the kindness. In this article I show that this characterization is incomplete insofar as it leaves us without the resources needed to discern the link between gratitude's two dimensions. I argue that discerning the fit requires an account of gratitude's focus and goal. I urge that the beneficiary's communal relationship with her benefactor is gratitude's focus and that promoting this relationship is gratitude's goal. Both dimensions of a beneficiary's gratitude are about her communal relationship with her benefactor. (shrink)

Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it has been the prevailing view that in prioritizing the soul, Plato ignores or even abhors the body; however, in Plato and the Body Coleen P. Zoller argues that Plato does value the body and the role it plays in philosophical life, focusing on Plato’s use of Socrates as an exemplar. Zoller reveals a more refined conception of the ascetic (...) lifestyle epitomized by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic. Her interpretation illuminates why those who want to be wise and good have reason to be curious about and love the natural world and the bodies in it, and has implications for how we understand Plato’s metaphysical and political commitments. This book shows the relevance of this broader understanding of Plato for work on a variety of relevant contemporary issues, including sexual morality, poverty, wealth inequality, and peace. “Zoller gives us a new way of going forward in Plato studies. Her reading of the Platonic conception of embodiment frees it from the negative associations of the past. Plato and the Body will radically shift the scholarly conversation. The book is truly an exhilarating read.” — Anne-Marie Schultz, author of Plato’s Socrates as Narrator: A Philosophical Muse. (shrink)

Despite a growing population of older people, traditional prejudices against age continue to flourish in society. The media in particular are often guilty of ageism, persistently focusing upon the ‘youth market’, and advertisers are particular offenders. By ignoring older people, or using them as caricatures, the advertising industry not only violates its ethical responsibilities to this group within the community, but also overlooks the commercial opportunity presented by the new generation of older consumers. The article presents research into UK print (...) media which shows that older people tend not to be featured in advertisements in mainstream publications, but are prominent in advertisements in publications for the over‐fifties. The issues this raises in terms of the duty of advertisers to respect the rights of older people are discussed, along with the commercial imperative to provide more appropriate images of older people in UK advertising. (shrink)

Sport sponsorship is a growth area which is under‐researched yet which displays opportunities and threats for both sponsor and sport, as well as having important ethical implications. If sponsorship funding is to be attracted, sports need to supply evidence of the opportunities for sponsors; yet “sport also needs to ensure that the negative aspects of sponsorship are reduced and the positive encouraged.” Marylyn Carrigan has a background in banking and export marketing and is currently Lecturer in Marketing and International (...) Marketing at the Business School, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England, where she also researches the areas of Corporate Philanthropy and Sport and Leisure Marketing. Her husband worked in industry before graduating in Sports Studies and Business, and currently works as a Youth Worker for the City of Birmingham Department of Leisure and Community Services with research interests in Sport and the 50+ leisure market. (shrink)

This paper builds on existing research investigating CSR and ethical consumption within luxury contexts, and makes several contributions to the literature. First, it addresses existing knowledge gaps by exploring the ways in which consumers perform ethical luxury purchases of fine jewellery through interpretive research. Second, the paper is the first to examine such issues of consumer ethics by extending the application of theories of practice to a luxury product context, and by building on Magaudda’s :15–36, 2011) circuit of practice framework. (...) This is significant in that, to date, consumer research using practice theories has focused mainly on routine and habitual practices. Our findings and discussion provide an analysis of intentional and less intentional ethical consumer performances within the interconnected nexus of activities of consumers’ fine jewellery consumption practice, where meanings, understandings and intelligibility of social phenomena are worked through the various activities that shape such a practice. Finally, the paper concludes with significant managerial and policy-related implications, as our extended circuit of practice analysis conveys that if ethics and sustainability dimensions are to be embedded in fine jewellery consumption practice, they must first be made an intrinsic part of the nexus of the social and material environment of trading and consumption places. (shrink)

Most moral theorists agree that it is one thing to believe that someone has slighted you and another to resent her for the insult; one thing to believe that someone did you a favor and another to feel gratitude toward her for her kindness. While all of these ways of responding to another's conduct are forms of moral appraisal, the reactive attitudes are said to 'go beyond' beliefs in some way. We think this claim is adequately explained only when we (...) take seriously the fact that reactive attitudes are emotions. In this paper, we appeal to insights of the emotions literature to highlight one key way in which reactive attitudes go beyond beliefs: beliefs about a person and her morally significant conduct merely ascribe to the person the property of having performed a morally significant action, while reactive attitudes are ways of experiencing that person as having performed a morally significant action. We then suggest that appreciating this is a crucial first step toward understanding why reactive emotions play roles in our practices around responsibility that beliefs do not. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns Plato's theory of education and the problem of how one can actually acquire knowledge of the Forms. Plato's theory of education aims to make one a good person, which requires knowledge of the Form of the Good. Yet, how exactly one would acquire such knowledge has remained a mystery. Various models of learning are presented by Plato: elenctic refutation ; hypothesis; recollection; the mathematical, dialectical, and political studies of the Republic's curriculum; and diairesis to name just those (...) that are explicit. I have argued here that as rich as these learning strategies are we need to augment our examination of Socratic pedagogy with a full exegesis of Platonic epistemology. ;In order finally to appreciate how they, Socratic education and Platonic epistemology, are meaningfully inseparable, I have explored the following questions: what kind of teacher Socrates is and the way in which he struggles against the sophistic methods of teaching; why Plato has Socrates include ten years of mathematical study in the ideal philosophical curriculum and how we can take the Republic's paradoxical curriculum seriously; how the philosopher utilizes the mathematical training in coming to know a Platonic Form; what role opposites play in Plato's metaphysical imagination; and what kind of person would one be if one actually knew the Form of the Good. I have shown that if one were to partake of a Socratic education, to pursue the requisite mathematical training, and to arrive finally at knowledge of the Platonic Forms, then one would be the sort of person that Socrates has in mind when he articulates the principles of Socratic intellectualism. ;What has been novel about this approach is its demonstration of how, despite the fact that Socratic learning and Platonic epistemology have separately been the object of perennial scholarly attention, the two taken genuinely together have been in need of fresh critical engagement. This inquiry reveals the metaphysical constraints on knowledge and in so doing reconciles Plato's theory of knowledge with Socrates' style of educating potential philosophers. (shrink)

This paper shows that Thomas Aquinas has a compatibilist position on the freedom of the will, where compatibilism is understood as the doctrine that determinism does not preclude freedom. Thomas’s position concerning free will is compatibilist regarding both the divine and human wills. Thomas pioneers the idea that human freedom is an image of divine freedom. It is on account of the notion that god is the exemplar toward which human beings proceed that it is much easier to understand why, (...) if the freedom of god’s will is compatible with the determinism of omnibenevolence, it is acceptable that the freedom of the human will is compatible with the determinism that ensues from what Thomas calls the “natural necessity” of the human will. The evidence for his compatibilist stance on divine freedom emerges from Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) I.74–91, whereas the strongest evidence for Thomas’s compatibilist position about human freedom derives from the Summa Theologiae (ST) and Quaestiones Disputatae De Malo (QDM) 6. This paper establishes a compatibilist reading of Thomas’s account of the freedom of the divine will and shows that Thomas’s theory of human freedom is modeled upon his treatment of divine freedom. Finally, I argue that the position maintained in QDM 6 does not abandon the theory presented in ST but instead is a clarification of it. Thus, Thomas presents a theory of freedom that is uniformly compatibilist. (shrink)

This paper shows that Thomas Aquinas has a compatibilist position on the freedom of the will, where compatibilism is understood as the doctrine that determinism does not preclude freedom. Thomas’s position concerning free will is compatibilist regarding both the divine and human wills. Thomas pioneers the idea that human freedom is an image of divine freedom. It is on account of the notion that god is the exemplar toward which human beings proceed that it is much easier to understand why, (...) if the freedom of god’s will is compatible with the determinism of omnibenevolence, it is acceptable that the freedom of the human will is compatible with the determinism that ensues from what Thomas calls the “natural necessity” of the human will. The evidence for his compatibilist stance on divine freedom emerges from Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) I.74–91, whereas the strongest evidence for Thomas’s compatibilist position about human freedom derives from the Summa Theologiae (ST) and Quaestiones Disputatae De Malo (QDM) 6. This paper establishes a compatibilist reading of Thomas’s account of the freedom of the divine will and shows that Thomas’s theory of human freedom is modeled upon his treatment of divine freedom. Finally, I argue that the position maintained in QDM 6 does not abandon the theory presented in ST but instead is a clarification of it. Thus, Thomas presents a theory of freedom that is uniformly compatibilist. (shrink)

This paper offers an innovative interpretation of Socrates' disavowal of being a teacher as well as a new way of understanding Plato's depiction of sophistry. The author identifies two different types of sophists, forthrightly frivolous sophists and slyly flattering sophists, in order to compare the pedagogical methods and political motives of each of these two types of sophists with those of Plato's Socrates. In the course of this comparison it is made clear that Socrates endeavours to be not a teacher (...) but a 'cowherder', to use Plato's agricultural hunger imagery. He rejects the conventional pedagogy that endeavours to 'feed' information to students. Instead he fosters learning by putting students in a position to think ideas through for themselves, just as a cowherder puts the herd out to graze in the pasture. This pedagogy alone has the potential to produce citizens who assume responsibility for their own education. (shrink)

This paper offers an innovative interpretation of Socrates’ disavowal of being a teacher as well as a new way of understanding Plato’s depiction of sophistry. The author identifies two different types of sophists, forthrightly frivolous sophists and slyly flattering sophists, in order to compare the pedagogical methods and political motives of each of these two types of sophists with those of Plato’s Socrates. In the course of this comparison it is made clear that Socrates endeavours to be not a teacher (...) but a ‘cowherder’, to use Plato’s agricultural hunger imagery. He rejects the conventional pedagogy that endeavours to ‘feed’ information to students. Instead he fosters learning by putting students in a position to think ideas through for themselves, just as a cowherder puts the herd out to graze in the pasture. This pedagogy alone has the potential to produce citizens who assume responsibility for their own education. (shrink)

Although other scholars have pointed out why reading Kant as a compatibilist is superior to interpreting him as a libertarian incompatibilist, the infancy of his unique compatibilism has not been amply addressed. Here I marshal evidence from Kant’s pre-critical works (specifically the Nova Dilucidatio, the Inaugural Dissertation, and “An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism”) to demonstrate that what the pre-critical Kant calls ‘freedom’ is consistent with what Kant will later call ‘autonomy.’ Once a pre-critical version of autonomy is acknowledged, (...) one will see that both the positive and negative formulations of freedom that pervade the critical philosophy are latent in the pre-critical period. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Jude Nwafor Eze, Coleen Vogel, Philip Audu Ibrahim Flood is known to cause devastating livelihood impacts, suffering and economic damages. To reduce the impact of floods, it is very important to identify and understand the socio-economic factors that determine people’s ability to cope with stress or change. Consequently, the study assesses the social vulnerability of the households to floods in Niger State, in order to provide the empirical evidence necessary for flood adaptation (...) policies and strategies in the state. The data for the research were obtained from the household survey and Dartmouth Flood Observatory. The data obtained were analysed using descriptive and statistical analysis. The results show that flood events in the study area were caused by heavy rainfall, compounded by the opening of the Shiroro dam gate to release the excess flood in the reservoir. Moreover, results of Student “t” test and One-Way Analysis of Variance on socio-economic characteristics show that households’ major economic activities, educational status, household size, income distribution, and membership of cooperative society were significant at p 10, do not belong to cooperative society and earn less that N21000 per month have higher mean frequency, thus, the predominant households were, therefore, farmers, illiterate, have large family size, poor, and have no access to loan. Thus, the socio-economic characteristics of the households in the study area contribute to their vulnerability to floods by reducing their coping capacity. Based on the results of the assessment, it is recommended that measures are taken to mainstream flood adaptation into the development process. (shrink)

The theoretical work on individualization undertaken by Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens has possessed an enduring influence within sociology. The New Individualism is a recent formulation of this older body of work. In this review essay I critically assess the book from the perspective of the recent work of Margaret Archer. I argue that while much of it is plagued by methodological and empirical inadequacies there are questioned posed by it, as well as by the individualization literature more (...) widely, which are worthy of recovery. I suggest that critical realism in general, as well as Archer’s work in particular, are uniquely placed to perform this act of recovery. (shrink)

Matter and Form explores the relationship between natural science and political philosophy from the classical to contemporary eras, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophic understanding of the structure and process of the natural world and its impact on the history of political philosophy. It illuminates the importance of philosophic reflection on material nature to moral and political theorizing, mediating between the sciences and humanities and making a contribution to ending the isolation between them.

Just as socially irresponsible organizational behavior leaves a punitive legacy on society, socially responsible organizations can foster curative change. This article examines whether small organizations can foster societal change toward more sustainable modes of living. We contend that consumption is deeply intertwined with social relations and norms, thus making individual behavioral change toward sustainability a matter of facilitating change in individual behavior, as well as in social norms and relations between organizations and consumers. We argue that it is in this (...) facilitation process that small firms can play a major role, by adopting upstream and downstream approaches to diffuse behavioral change. By synthesizing four key strands of literature -small businesses and corporate social responsibility, ethical consumption, community social marketing, and the diffusion of innovation — and using the exemplar case of Modbury, the iconic "plastic bag-free" town, we demonstrate how responsible small firms can influence communities, and the individuals therein, to encourage environmentally sustainable practice to diffuse and support change in society. (shrink)

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her (...) argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive “relational goods” in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the “relational turn” within realist social theory. (shrink)

This edited collection of papers seeks to celebrate the scope and accomplishment of Margaret Archer’s work, distilling her theoretical and empirical contributions into four sections, capturing the essence and trajectory of her work over almost four decades. Long fascinated with the problem of structure and agency, Archer’s work has constituted a decades long engagement with this perennial issue of social thought. Through an initial empirical study and two expansive trilogies, Archer has developed an explanatory framework that comes to grips with (...) the complexity of social processes at different levels of analysis over time. _The Morphogenetic Approach_ and, later, her work on the _Internal Conversation_, together, provide a detailed account of the interrelated processes by which structure, agency and culture come to take the forms they do. However in spite of the deep interconnections which unify her body of work, it is rarely treated as a coherent whole. Though its range and depth has been widely acknowledged, it nonetheless has an unclear place within the cannon of sociological theory. The proposed collection seeks to address this relative neglect through collating a selection of papers, spanning Archer’s career, which collectively elucidate both the development of her thought and the value which can be found in it as a systematic whole. It seeks to illustrate the empirical origins of her later ideas in her early work on the sociology of education, as well as foregrounding the diverse range of influences which have conditioned her intellectual trajectory: the systems theory of Walter Buckley, the functionalist Marxism of David Lockwood, the critical realist philosophy of Roy Bhaskar and, more recently, her engagement with American pragmatism and the Italian school of relational sociology. (shrink)

One theme of this special issue is an incitement to reconsider the relationship between pragmatism and critical realism. While their advocates sometimes come into conflict, there are also clearly b...

In the Panathenaic Games, there was a torch race for teams of ephebes that started from the altars of Eros and Prometheus at Plato’s Academy and finished on the Acropolis at the altar of Athena, goddess of wisdom. It was competitive, yes, but it was also sacred, aimed at a noble goal. To win, you needed to cooperate with your teammates and keep the delicate flame alive as you ran up the hill. Likewise, Plato’s philosophy combines competition and cooperation in (...) pursuit of the goal of wisdom. On one level, agonism in Plato is explicit: he taught in a gymnasium and featured gymnastic training in his educational theory. On another level, it is mimetic: Socratic dialogue resembles intellectual wrestling. On a third level, it is metaphorical: the athlete’s struggle illustrates the struggle to be morally good. And at its highest level, it is divine: the human soul is a chariot that races toward heaven. This volume explores agonism in Plato on all of these levels, inviting the reader—as Plato does—to engage in the megas agōn of life. Once in the contest, as Plato’s Socrates says, we’re allowed no excuses. (shrink)

Introduction Future HIV vaccine efficacy trials with adolescents will need to ensure that participants comprehend study concepts in order to confer true informed assent. A Hepatitis B vaccine trial with adolescents offers valuable opportunity to test youth understanding of vaccine trial requirements in general. Methods Youth reviewed a simplified assent form with study investigators and then completed a comprehension questionnaire. Once enrolled, all youth were tested for HIV and confirmed to be HIV-negative. Results 123 youth completed the questionnaire (mean age=15 (...) years; 63% male; 70% Hispanic). Overall, only 69 (56%) youth answered all six questions correctly. Conclusions Youth enrolled in a Hepatitis B vaccine trial demonstrated variable comprehension of the study design and various methodological concepts, such as treatment group masking. (shrink)

According to a widespread understanding among historians of philosophy, there is within the dialogues of Plato an underlying metaphysical dualism, one that devalues the body and the natural world, promoting, ultimately, an unattractive and repressive asceticism. An obvious support for this “standard” reading is provided by the Phaedo, wherein the soul is depicted as a prisoner in a cage ; but, as many readers would eagerly point out, most of Plato’s dialogues offer robust metaphors, images, or arguments that continuously suggest (...) that acolytes should denounce the body in favor of the soul.Indeed, it is against this background that Zoller’s book should be commended as an impressive endeavor to show just how... (shrink)

Various theorists have endorsed the “communication argument”: communicative capacities are necessary for morally responsible agency because blame aims at a distinctive kind of moral communication. I contend that existing versions of the argument, including those defended by Gary Watson and Coleen Macnamara, face a pluralist challenge: they do not seem to sit well with the plausible view that blame has multiple aims. I then examine three possible rejoinders to the challenge, suggesting that a context-specific, function-based approach constitutes the most (...) promising modification of the communication argument. (shrink)

In “Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities” , Coleen Macnamara argues that the reactive attitudes—a class of moral emotions that includes indignation, resentment, and gratitude—are essentially communicative entities. She argues that this conclusion follows from the premises that the reactive attitudes are messages, which have the proper function of eliciting uptake from others. In response, I argue that while the expressions of these emotions may fit this description, the emotions themselves do not. The reactive attitudes neither are messages nor have (...) the proper function of eliciting uptake from others, and thus Macnamara is mistaken to conclude that the reactive attitudes are essentially communicative entities. (shrink)

This article aims to argue in favour of two different kinds of responsibility: moral and organizational. I present the notion of moral responsibility and, specifically, moral accountability, which stands at the centre of the later discussion. I address Coleen Macnamara’s view of accountability, a model of enforcement involved in setting demands and sanctions. Then I account for some cases of morally impaired persons’ failure to respond adequately to moral demands, in contrast to their capacity to respond effectively to organizational (...) demands. I take the latter findings to show that there are two distinct kinds of accountability, moral and organizational. While moral accountability is connected to the arousal of emotions, I claim that organizational accountability is related to inner-organizational reactive procedures associated with employment benefits or sanctions. However, this can be distant from emotions. (shrink)