We surveyed 1005 postdoctoral fellows by questionnaire about ethical matters related to biomedical research and publishing; 33% responded. About 18% of respondents said they had taken a course in research ethics, and about 31% said they had had a course that devoted some time to research ethics. A substantial majority stated willingness to grant other investigators, except competitors, access to their data before publication and to share research materials. Respondents’ opinions about contributions justifying authorship of research papers were mainly consistent (...) but at variance with those of many biomedical journal editors. More than half said they had observed what they considered unethical research practices. To increase the chances of getting a grant funded, 27% said they were willing to select or omit data to improve their results; to make publication of their work more likely or to benefit their career, 15% would select or omit data and 32% would list an undeserving author. Of respondents who thought they had been unfairly denied authorship on a paper, or been listed with or asked to list an undeserving author, 75% said they would be willing to list an undeserving author (P<0.001). Having taken a course dealing with research ethics had no effect on stated willingness to select or omit data or to fabricate data in the future, but was positively associated with willingness to grant undeserved authorship (P<0.04). Although these results do not controvert research demonstrating the effectiveness of ethics courses during professional education, they indicate that the research environment is a powerful component of a trainee’s experience and ethical development. (shrink)

In this study, we investigate whether firms recognised as superior sustainability performers respond differently to climate change regulatory, physical and other risks/opportunities and examine whether such differences predict sustainability performance in subsequent years. Further, we seek to gain insights from climate change programs and strategies of both superior and inferior sustainability performers. Adopting mixed methods, we use a merged sample from the Top500 world’s largest firms and the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations. Our quantitative analyses show that greater awareness of (...) physical and other climate change opportunities is what sets superior performers apart, and that superior future sustainability performance is related to a firm’s stated awareness of these two types of opportunities. Qualitative content analysis of narrative disclosures confirm that superior performers provide more detailed description of climate change strategies that go beyond managing climate change risks. Our study contributes to the limited amount of research highlighting the value of proactively seeking opportunities rather than merely focussing on risk management. (shrink)

The Healer's Art curriculum is one of the best-known educational strategies to support medical student professional identity formation. HART has been widely used as an elective curriculum. We evaluated students’ experience with HART when the curriculum was required. All one hundred eleven members of the class of 2019 University of New Mexico School of Medicine students were required to enroll in HART. We surveyed the students before and after the course to assess its self-reported impact on key elements of professional (...) identity formation such as empathy towards patients and peers, commitment to service, and burnout. A majority of students reported positive effects of the course on their empathy towards other students. This finding was significantly associated with self-reported willingness to have elected the course had it not been required. One-half of respondents reported positive effects on their empathy towards future patients. At least one-quarter to one-third of respondents reported positive influences on commitment to service, conceptions about being a physician, and self-perceived burnout. Students report benefits on their professional identity formation after participating in a required course on humanism. Empathy-building among peers is one valuable outcome of such curricula. (shrink)

Seeing Evangeline: Where others pass by, seeing nothing but dead leaves or scattered branches, Sandi Greene discovers rare images of beauty, images that awaken memories of people and stories, images that leap forward to revelations of what might be and has been. In this rare collection of photographic images, the artist shares with us her moments of awakening, her revelations.

Levinas' ethical metaphysics opens up a nexus of relationships, in the midst of which God becomes accessible as the counterpart of the justice I render to others. Although Levinas refuses a theorising theology which does violence to God, we attempt in this article nonetheless to glimpse the possibility of a divine threesome which can be articulated in the language of ethical metaphysics. We seek to trace a Trinity, not in Levinas, but with Levinas. We seek to ‘leash God with (...) Levinas.’Thus, we argue the liturgical nature of God. God is utterly ‘for‐the‐other.’ The Father, as utterly self‐diffusive, is ‘for‐the‐Son’, and the Son, as utterly responsive, is ‘for‐the‐Father.’ The divine nature is the ethical reality of ‘for‐the‐other.’ Secondly, this one nature has three distinct hypostases, which need to be understood ethically. The relationship between Father and Son is not the same as the relationship between the Son and the Father. The Father and the Son are the same in that they are essentially ‘for‐the‐other,’ bound by a bond or a Spirit of responsibility. Yet, the Son's relation to the Father is responsive, whereas the Father's relation to the Son is initiative or originary. Thus, there is both an identity yet a non‐identification of Father and Son. Again, since responsibility is the ethical hypostasis of ‘the‐other‐person‐in me,’ we might say that the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father , in a non‐identical way, and that it is precisely this perichoresis of the one in the Other which constitutes the hypostasis of each. (shrink)

Early modern theorists linked the idea of sovereign power to a conception of absolute power developed during the medieval period. Ockham had reframed the already extant distinction between God's absolute and ordained powers in order to argue that God was free of moral constraint in ordaining natural law for human beings. Thus, the natural law could command the opposite of what God had ordained if He wished to make it so. Bodin extended Ockham's argument to earthly sovereigns, who do not (...) (he argued) have to obey civil law. However, Bodin undermined his absolutism by maintaining that civil law has to be consistent with natural and divine law. Hobbes more consistently argued that while mortal sovereigns are accountable to God, the power of sovereigns to command is not subject to moral constraints. Underlying Ockham's view of God's sovereignty, and Bodin's and Hobbes's view of earthly sovereigns, is a notion of the will's unconstrained power. But this notion is self-referentially incoherent. This incoherence, in turn, infects the very notion of sovereignty. (shrink)

No more jobs, no more taxes, no more checkbook, no more bills, no more credit cards, no more credit, no more money, no more mortgages, no more rent, no more savings, no more junk mail, no more junk, no more mail, no more phones, no more faxes, no more busy signals, no more computers, no more cars, no more drivers' licenses, no more traffic lights, no more airports, no more flying, no more tickets, no more packing, no more luggage, no (...) more supermarkets, no more health clubs...While her "current" spends the summer researching public housing in Stockholm, a moderately wealthy, object-oppressed, and terminally hip New York female of a certain age seeks adventure in the sedate dyke bars of lower Manhattan. Finding none, she answers a personal ad. She is ordered to put on a blindfold before the first meeting with the woman she knows only as "Sir." Not knowing what someone looks like turns out to be freeing, as do the escalating constraints that alienate her not just from her former life, but from her very conception of who she is. Part Georges Bataille, part Fran Leibowitz, this is the Story of O told with a self-referentially perverse sense of humor. Leash extends the logic of S&M to its inexorable and startling conclusion, darkly and hilariously revealing the masochistic impulse as the urge to disappear from the chores, obligations, and emotional vacuity of daily life. First published in 2002. (shrink)

New perspectives on the role of collective responsibility in modern politics States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, held liable for debts and reparations, bound by treaties, and punished with sanctions. But what does it mean to hold a state responsible as opposed to a government, a nation, or an individual leader? Under what circumstances should we assign responsibility to states rather than individuals? Leviathan on a Leash demystifies the phenomenon of state responsibility and explains why (...) it is a challenging yet indispensable part of modern politics. Taking Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state as his starting point, Sean Fleming presents a theory of state responsibility that sheds new light on sovereign debt, historical reparations, treaty obligations, and economic sanctions. Along the way, he overturns longstanding interpretations of Hobbes' political thought, explores how new technologies will alter the practice of state responsibility as we know it, and develops new accounts of political authority, representation, and legitimacy. He argues that Hobbes' idea of the state offers a far richer and more realistic conception of state responsibility than the theories prevalent today, and demonstrates that Hobbes' Leviathan is much more than an anthropomorphic "artificial man." Leviathan on a Leash is essential reading for political theorists, scholars of international relations, international lawyers, and philosophers. This groundbreaking book recovers a forgotten understanding of state personality in Hobbes' thought and shows how to apply it to the world of imperfect states in which we live. (shrink)

Human personality influences the way people interact with dogs. This study investigated the associations between the personality of animal shelter volunteers and behavior during on-leash walks with shelter dogs. Video recording and a canine leash tension meter were used to monitor the on-leash walking. Personality was measured in five dimensions with the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Neurotic volunteers pulled the leash harder and tended to interact with dogs using more body language; dogs being walked by neurotic volunteers (...) in turn displayed more lip-licking and body shaking and were more likely to be rated as well-behaved. Extroverted volunteers were associated with stronger maximal leash tension at both the human and dog ends of the leash, and they praised the dog more, often in a high pitched voice. These volunteers eliciting more tail-wagging and body shaking by the dog. Extroverted volunteers were also more tolerant of different dog behaviors. Volunteers with personalities characterized by “openness to experiences” were less likely to verbally attract the attention of dogs, praise dogs and talk to them in a high-pitched voice; however, dogs walked by these volunteers were more likely to pull on the leash, and engaged in more lip-licking but less sniffing. “Agreeable” volunteers liked to verbally attract the attention of the dogs and more commonly initiated hand gestures and physical contact, causing the dogs to pull less frequently; dogs in these dyads displayed more gazing and lip-licking behaviors. Conscientious volunteers were less likely to pull the leash and tended to have more physical contact with the dogs but did not favor verbal communication and did not use a high pitched voice. (shrink)

We use screams to explore ideas presented in the target article. Evolving first in animals as a response to predation, screams reveal more complex social use in nonhuman primates and, in humans, uniquely, are associated with a much greater variety of emotional contexts including fear, anger, surprise, and happiness. This expansion, and the potential for manipulation, promotes listener social vigilance.

Late antique political Platonism was not unoriginal in its thought. The paper takes as an example the Justinianic dialogue On Political Science (ca. 550), which creatively engages with Plato’s political works. It shows that the dialogue tries – and manages, as I argue – to combine two apparently inconsistent Platonic models: what I call the “divine” model, in which a philosopher-king endowed with divine knowledge rules unhindered by civic laws; and the “human” model, characterized by the rule of law. The (...) divine model comes mostly from Plato’s Republic and Statesman; the human one, from the Laws. On Political Science demonstrates that its (anonymous) author was acquainted with these three Platonic texts, in addition to other texts. That is philologically noteworthy, but also philosophically interesting: the dialogue manages to integrate the two models into a common framework. It puts forward an original political model, in which a philosopher-king, although endowed with divine knowledge, still has to be bound by civic laws because of his human frailty. The article concludes by discussing the polemical import the dialogue could have had in its Justinianic context. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Origins of the Meme Meme Do Memes Exist? Trouble with Analogies and Units What is a Meme? A New Replicator or Culture on a Leash? Do Memes have Memotypes? Old Genes, New Memes Religions, Cults, and Viral Information Human Evolution Consciousness, Creativity, and the Nature of Self Conclusion Postscript: Counterpoint References.

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The (...) relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture. (shrink)

An oversized reliance on big data-driven algorithmic decision-making systems, coupled with a lack of critical inquiry regarding such systems, combine to create the paradoxical “black box” at work. The “black box” simultaneously demands a higher level of transparency from the worker in regard to data collection, while shrouding the decision-making in secrecy, making employer decisions even more opaque to the worker. To access employment, the worker is commanded to divulge highly personal information, and when hired, must submit further still to (...) algorithmic processes of evaluations which will make authoritative claims as to the workers’ productivity. Furthermore, in and out of the workplace, the worker is governed by an invisible data-created leash deploying wearable technology to collect intimate worker data. At all stages, the worker is confronted with a lack of transparency, accountability, or explanation as to the inner workings or even the logic of the “black box” at work. This data revolution of the workplace is alarming for several reasons: the “black box at work” not only serves to conceal disparities in hiring, but could also allow for a level of “data-laundering” that beggars any notion of equal opportunity in employment and there exists, the danger of a “mission creep” attitude to data collection that allows for pervasive surveillance, contributing to the erosion of both the personhood and autonomy of workers. Thus, the “black box at work” not only enables worker domination in the workplace, it deprives the worker of Rawlsian justice. (shrink)

This paper is about what we call Deontically-flavored Nominal Constructions (DNCs) in English, such as "No ice cream" or "Dogs on leash only". DNCs are often perceived as commands and have been argued to be a type of non-canonical imperative, much like root infinitives in German or Russian. We argue instead that DNCs at their core are declaratives that cite a rule but can be used performatively in the right context. We propose that DNCs contain an elided deontic modal, (...) i.e., allowed, whose presence explains their distributional restrictions and interpretational properties. Among other things, we speculate on the licensing conditions of DNCs (the presence of 'only' or the negative determiner 'no'), suggesting that these are tied to the properties of discourses in which rules can be used naturally. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kant's DogDavid E. Johnson (bio)In a certain way, it is always too late to pose the question of time.—Jacques Derrida, Margins of PhilosophyIt is well known that Kant was notorious in Königsberg for his strict adherence to routine; he was so regular, Ernst Cassirer reports, that the citizens of Königsberg were able to set their clocks by his movements.1 The most public articulation of this regularity was his daily (...) walk through the city. It is doubtful Kant took a dog along on his constitutional; nevertheless, at the moment in the Critique of Pure Reason that he determines the possibility of the conceptualization of sense perception, which Heidegger considered the very heart of Kant's critical project and which ultimately turns on the regulation of the synthesis of time,2 Kant trots out man's best friend. Although he needs this dog in order to demonstrate the trick of temporal synthesis that makes any sensible conceptuality possible, it is also clear that he needs to keep this dog on a tight leash; he cannot afford to let it run off or go astray. On one reading, then, the Critique of Pure Reason institutes a sort of philosophical leash law. Indeed, Kant holds the dog so tightly that it is always already a dead dog—philosophical roadkill.In literature there is perhaps no more memorable instance of the problem of conceptuality than Jorge Luis Borges's "Funes el memorioso." Within that text, the key moment is the unforgettable example of Ireneo Funes's particular observation of the manifold that others reduce to a dog: "Not only was it difficult for him to see that the generic symbol 'dog' took in all the dissimilar individuals of all shapes and sizes, it irritated him that the 'dog' of three-fourteen in the afternoon, seen in profile, should be indicated by the same noun as the dog at three-fifteen, seen frontally" [Collected Fictions [End Page 19] 136].3 For Funes the inability to synthesize the manifold of experience under a general concept also contaminates the possibility of self-recognition: "His own face in the mirror, his own hands, surprised him every time he saw them" [Collected Fictions 136].4 His surprise at his face and hands as much as his frustration at the generic concept "dog" must be read within the context of Funes's rejection of Locke's suggestion of a rigorously particular language: "In the seventeenth century, Locke postulated (and condemned) an impossible language in which each individual thing—every stone, every bird, every branch—would have its own name; Funes once contemplated a similar language, but discarded the idea as too general, too ambiguous" [Collected Fictions 136].5 In Funes's account, the untenability of Locke's language does not lie in the impossibility of a language grounded upon absolute singularity; he does not argue, for example, that even the most radical empiricism must ultimately depend upon the possibility of ideality. Rather, he argues that insofar as it does not account for the temporal difference of the same from itself, such a language is always already too general.6 In short, "every individual thing, every rock, every bird, every branch," in Funes's eyes, are each and every one more than one. The dog at 3:14 seen in profile is not the same dog when seen at 3:15 in full frontal view. For Funes, the possibility of identity conceived as self-identity and, accordingly, as self-possession over time, is suspended. My face and hands are always different from themselves; they always surprise me; thus they are not mine. In Signs of Borges Sylvia Molloy remarks that Funes's attempt to construct a rigorously particular language can only be "sustained by Funes' attention" and that the words of such a language "finally make sense only to him. Indeed, all that holds them together... is Funes himself" [118, emphasis added]. On Molloy's account, the singularity of Funes's language, grounded as it is only in Funes himself, explains "the narrator's inability to reproduce" it [118]. Yet, Molloy fails to read the maximal effect of Funes's radical empiricism: namely, the... (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a significant moral difference between force applied against (imminent) attackers on the one hand and force applied against “threatening” people who are not (imminent) attackers on the other. Given that there is such a difference, one should not blur the lines by using the term “self-defense” (understood as including other-defense) for both uses of force. Rather, only the former is appropriately called self-defense, while for the latter, following German legal terminology, the term “justifying defensive (...) emergency” will be used here. The two justifications are not governed by the same criteria and thus lead to different results. The paper will proceed by providing first, in section (1), a brief sketch of the contours of the self-defense justification, putting particular emphasis on the necessity criterion. On the account presented here, the necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is particularly harsh on the aggressor (and thus not to be interpreted as literally requiring the employment of “the mildest means”) and its applicability is only triggered by an (imminent) attack, not by other kinds of threats. Section (2) will then further explain the differences between self-defense and justifying defensive emergency. A particularly important difference is that people who are subjected to justified self-defense cannot permissibly defend themselves, while people who are subjected to (extremely harmful or even lethal) justified defensive emergency measures can. Thus, in this latter case we have a “moral equality” (of sorts) of the involved parties: they can permissibly use force against each other. Section (3) will list and defend some conditions that a successful argument against the imminence requirement of the self-defense justification has to satisfy. In the light of these conditions, sections (4) to (7) will discuss a number of objections that have been adduced against the imminence requirement as well as proposals that have been made in support of alternative accounts. It will be argued that all these objections and proposals fail. Section (8) will provide a number of thought experiments in support of the claim that the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is only triggered by imminence while force against non-imminent threats can be justified with the help of the justifying emergency exemption, as well as for the claim that the justifying emergency exemption puts the person using preventive force against non-imminent threats on a shorter leash and makes him liable to counter-measures. Section (9) will explain the rationale for tying the applicability of the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification to imminent attacks. Section (10) will discuss some special cases and show why they do not undermine the normative validity of this tie. (shrink)

We applaud Heintz & Scott-Phillips's guiding metaphor of “unleashing leashed expression,” and we value the unified explanation for the emergence of not only language, but also other forms of unleashed expression, such as multimodal communication. We are more critical of the authors' discussion of the selection pressures acting towards unleashed expression, which are proposed to hinge on partner choice ecology.

We are living in an age of crisis—or an age in which everything is labeled a crisis. Financial, debt, and refugee “crises” have erupted. The word has also been applied to the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Brexit, the 2016 U.S. election, and many other international events. Yet the term has contradictory political and strategic meanings for those challenging power structures and those seeking to preserve them. For critics of the status quo, can the rhetoric of crisis be used to (...) foment urgency around issues like climate change and financialization, or does framing a situation as a “crisis” play into the hands of the existing political order, which then seeks to tighten the leash by creating a state of emergency? Critical Theory at a Crossroads presents conversations with prominent theorists about the crises that have marked the past years, the protest movements that have risen up in response, and the use of the term in political discourse. Tariq Ali, Rosi Braidotti, Wendy Brown, Maurizio Lazzarato, Angela McRobbie, Jean-Luc Nancy, Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancière, Saskia Sassen, and Joseph Vogl offer their views on contemporary challenges and how we might address them, candidly discussing the alternatives that new social movements have offered, alongside an exchange between Zygmunt Bauman and Roberto Esposito on theories of community. Sparring over crucial developments in these past years of catastrophe and the calamity of everyday life under capitalism, they shed light on how crises and the discourse of crisis can both obscure and reveal fundamental aspects of modern societies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 363 Ashley Glassburn Falzetti What Makes an Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholar? Preparing for the Unknown in a Skill-centered Curriculum I first read the 1998 special issue of Feminist Studies “Disciplining Feminism? The Future of Women’s Studies” in a monthly reading group of scholars from across the globe working on PhDs in women’s, gender, feminist, and/or queer studies (WGFQS).1 We (...) began meeting informally in the halls of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) annual conference, discussing how our training compared and what sort of support was out there for scholars dissertating in WGFQS.2 What surprised us most while we re/read these articles was that the concerns about the field had not changed much in the twelve years that had passed since their original publication. Now that twenty years have passed, the concerns remain even though some of the controversies are settled. Despite claims about the impossibility of the women’s studies PhD, doctoral programs have flourished. In their introduction to the 1998 special issue, Nancy Hewitt and 1. I use WGFQS PhDs to refer to people who have earned a PhD from an interdisciplinary WGFQS doctoral program. The majority of WGFQS doctoral programs were founded on the ideals of interdisciplinarity. Some doctoral programs retained a joint-degree model that honors the multi-disciplinary origins of the field by requiring a major in a disciplinary field, such as English, history, psychology, or law. 2. The most active participants of this group included Sonja Thomas (who coordinated the discussions), Jennifer Musto, Stephanie Clare, Evangeline Heiliger, and Laura Foster. 364 Ashley Glassburn Falzetti Susan S. Lanser focus on the relationship between disciplinary formations and the possibility of formal preparation to conduct interdisciplinary research.3 As graduate programs were expanding, the role of methods in curriculum centered concerns over the efficacy of interdisciplinary training. Now that a critical mass of PhDs is trained in interdisciplinary WGFQS, a new understanding of the role of methods is emerging. Interdisciplinary feminist questions require scholars to employ new research skills regularly throughout their careers, thus preparing junior scholars to ask and answer questions well is more efficient than studying a range of methods. The Problem of Methods Throughout the early literature on WGFQS, there is slippage between discussing interdisciplinary methods and feminist methodology.4 Methods refer to the techniques researchers use to gather data, what Sally Kitch and Mary Margaret Fonow define in their study of WGFQS dissertations as “a technique for gathering evidence.”5 Feminist methodologies involve the ethical, political, and epistemological concerns that mark research as a distinctively feminist approach to inquiry. Slipping between discussions of feminist methodologies (on the dynamics of power, representation, and knowledge production) and disciplinary methods (how researchers gather data) has contributed to the sticky association of feminist interdisciplinarity as a “problem of methods.” Vivian May, one of the earliest WGFQS PhDs and former NWSA president, argues that the continued attachment to such disciplinary parameters “defused that potential” of interdisciplinarity as a means of transforming feminist modes of knowledge production.6 Arguments that feminist interdisciplinarity could be a more just or a more contextually objective 3. Nancy Hewitt and Susan S. Lanser, “Preface,” Feminist Studies 24, no. 2, special issue, “Disciplining Feminism? The Future of Women’s Studies” (Summer 1998): 236. 4. In addition to the 1998 special issue of Feminist Studies, see NWSA Journal 12, no. 2 (Summer 2000) and response essays across feminist studies journals between 2000 and 2003. 5. Sally L. Kitch and Mary Margaret Fonow, “Analyzing Women’s Studies Dissertations: Methodologies, Epistemologies, and Field Formation,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 1 (Autumn 2012): 99–126. 6. Vivian May, “Disciplinary Desires and Undisciplined Daughters,” NWSA Journal 14, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 144. Ashley Glassburn Falzetti 365 approach to inquiry fueled the desire to build WGFQS PhD programs; however, the concern that interdisciplinarity is always already undisciplined led many departments to rely on disciplinary methods training when designing curriculum. The focus on methods as a means to interdisciplinarity assumes that traditional disciplines are best suited to intellectual inquiry or at least that WGFQS scholars need a disciplinary rationale for... (shrink)

It would be improper for a President to play safe. After two years of curbing my tongue and not making all sorts of observations that have sprung to my mind, in order to let you have an opportunity of having your say, I am now off the leash. And whereas mostly in academic life it is appropriate to adopt a prudential strategy, and not say anything that might be wrong, I owe it to you on this occasion to play (...) a maximax strategy, to speak out and say what I really think, being willing to run the risk of being wrong in order not to forgo the chance of actually being right in an area of the philosophy of science which must, I think for ever, be largely a matter of metaphysical speculation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guided Rapid Unconscious Reconfiguration in Poetry and ArtRoger SeamonThe idea that literary works are designed to give pleasure does not get much exercise these days. So I would like to take it out for a walk. We’ll see where it takes us, how much ground it covers, and what friends it makes along the way. Perhaps if we take it off the leash of theory, it will roam (...) far enough afield.... By this time you are bored with my metaphor, and thus have made a judgment about the use of a trope that is often said to be at the heart of poetry. 1 What I want to do is give an account of the principle that led to that judgment, for it is the same principle, I shall argue, that governs judgments about the aesthetic dimension of literary works.I first encountered the idea in F. W. Bateson’s English Poetry: An Introduction, where he labels it the “The Principle of the Semantic Gap.” Poetry, Bateson says, does not consist of the transference of feeling from poet to reader (the Romantic and expressive view which he opposes), but of “the successful collocation of contrasted or conflicting ‘meanings,’” 2 and he traces the theory back to Coleridge’s idea that poetry consists in the “balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities” (Biographia Literaria, chap. xiv). Contrasted meanings defeat normal expectations, so the reader is forced to bridge (apparent) gaps in order to make sense of the words, and it is that collaboration between author and reader that constitutes poetic activity. The theory is, though Bateson does not present it as such, a reworking of the ancient notion that in a successful work of art we perceive unity in variety. This essay is an effort to extend and defend that theory in its modern form, particularly as it relates to literary works.The modern theory came into being because of a change in the [End Page 412] object of aesthetic analysis from the work and what it imitated to the psychology of the audience:Up to the eighteenth century the theory of art in the Western world was dominated by ancient philosophy. It was most of all Plato’s metaphysics which, in a number of variations and even distortions, attributed to the artist the capacity of perceiving the divine ideals of beauty beyond the world of the senses and embodying them in his creations. The rejection of this mystical view of art in the course of the eighteenth century... was bound to make theorists turn to psychology. 3It is within this psychological tradition that the modern version of unity and variety has been developed.Re-castings of the ancient formula for aesthetic value have been done by (at least) five recent theorists. Given that one can probably trace the twentieth-century revival back to Gestalt psychology, it is not surprising that the earliest of the four is Rudolph Arnheim. In an essay on “Order and Complexity in Landscape Design” he defines order as “the degree and kind of lawfulness governing the relations among the parts of an entity,” and complexity as “the multiplicity of the relationships among the parts of an entity.” 4 Arnheim then psychologizes (rather than “cosmologizes”) these concepts by grounding them in the propensity to be perceptually satisfied by a balance between the two: “Complexity without order produces confusion; order without complexity produces boredom” (p. 124). Similarly, in The Act of Reading Wolfgang Iser says:The reader’s enjoyment begins when he himself becomes productive, i.e., when the text allows him to bring his own faculties into play. There are, of course, limits to the reader’s willingness to participate, and these will be exceeded if the text makes things too clear or, on the other hand, too obscure: boredom and overstrain represent the two poles of tolerance, and in either case the reader is likely to opt out of the game. 5In the same vein, Francis Sparshott asserts in The Theory of the Arts that “Beauty occupies the ground between cliché and chaos,” with variety protecting against the former, unity protecting against the latter, 6 and in The Sense of... (shrink)

This article defends the philosophy of the Renaissance against a critique by Ortega y Gasset. Renaissance philosophy, it is argued, was a rebirth of the Hellenistic and Roman conviction that theory should not be pursued for its own sake; rather, it should be kept on a short leash controlled by practical ends. This Renaissance view is a precursor to the contemporary anti-theory of thinkers like Aranguren, Toulmin, and Williams.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) rejecting the possibility of being impartial or irresponsible regarding our environment and the events taking place where we live, questions the meaning of being in his basic work, Being and Nothingness (Phenomenological Ontology Essay) (1943), and ignores a predetermined idea of self in the process of existence of the human being. According to Sartre, the effort to understand the relationship between one's existence and other existences, and the process of building this existence will only be possible with (...) a humanist atheist existentialist line. This study primarily addresses the demand for reconstruction of all existing values by examining the view of the philosophy of existence to the moral field. Later, our intention is to use Sartre's views on aesthetic theory in What is Literature? (1947) and Essays on Aesthetics (1963) to reveal his studies. According to Sartre, the art that guides humanity, that drives it, that determines its ontological existence, cannot act like a stray, leash-free dog. It can be connected, demand freedom, and engage with society. This announcement is aimed at freedom for all branches of art. This call for freedom cannot be considered independent of responsibility. To Sartre, we are responsible for this artistic act as a demand for freedom, and the artist is the one who will serve this responsibility. Thus, Sartre demonstrates the possibility and applicability of the Ontology Essay by giving concrete examples in his aesthetic study. Finally, this study seeks to show whether it can serve the Phenomenological Ontological Essay along with the link between the two texts marked. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein imagines a variety of eccentric social practices—like a tribe trained “to give no expression of feeling of any kind”. But he also speaks of “the common behavior of mankind” that is rooted in “natural/primitive reactions”. This emphasis on the uniformities of human behavior raises questions about the plausibility of some of his imagined language games. Indeed, it suggests the claim of evolutionary psychologists that there are biologically based human universals that shape social practices. But in contrast to E.O. (...) Wilson's belief that “genes hold culture on a leash”, Wittgenstein sees culture as a mediator—rather than a conduit—of “natural reactions”. This suggests that social science can incorporate the claims of evolutionary psychology without scanting the centrality of culture in action and allows that nature can be overwhelmed by culture. (shrink)

This contribution aims to examine whether the notion of a »brutalization« or »un- leashing« of language is accessible to linguistic operationalization. Public com- plaints about a brutalization of language refer primarily to political communica- tion, especially the language use of right-wing populists. Examples are used to illustrate that the term »language brutalization« relates primarily to the breaking of linguistic taboos from the far right fringe of the political spectrum. These are deliberately committed attempts to extend the limits of what can (...) be said. At the same time, however, it is claimed that controversial topics remain taboo, making public controversy seemingly impossible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 450-451 [Access article in PDF] Simon May. Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on 'Morality.' New York: Oxford University, The Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 212. Cloth, $45.00. When Friedrich Nietzsche reviewed his career during his final year of intellectual activity, he wrote in Ecce Homo (1888) that his "campaign against morality" began with the publication of Daybreak (1880) eight years (...) earlier. With this autobiographical remark in mind, Simon May appropriately develops his study of Nietzsche's ethics, Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on "Morality," by attending to Nietzsche's writings of the 1880's, using the relatively late On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) as his textual keystone.For the sake of his English-speaking readers' convenience, May reiterates Walter Kaufmann's familiar translations of Nietzsche's works in all of his book's citations, and keeps a relatively tight leash on his references to Nietzsche's pre-1880 works and unpublished notebooks. Historical guideposts to authors within Nietzsche's surrounding cultural context are also limited, and the book unfolds around May's reflections on Nietzsche's publications, supplemented by contemporary references to the works of Bernard Williams in matters concerning ethics, and by references to a substantial number of English-speaking Nietzsche scholars in matters concerning Nietzsche's valuation of truth. Such are the book's methodological contours, which are defensible, but which will probably disappoint those who have philosophical sensibilities that are more philologically and historically pronounced.May divides his book in half, the first segment of which reviews a series of familiar Nietzschean thematics, Nietzsche's conception of values, his distinction between master and slave moralities, his analysis of guilt and bad conscience, his conception of life enhancement, and his conception of the ascetic ideal, all with the prospect of suggesting that Nietzsche's ethical ideal is best encapsulated by the phrase, "become what one is." This ideal, as May understands it, is to develop oneself maximally in a life-enhancing way, given the parameters of one's natural capacities. Although one would expect May to associate this prescription with Nietzsche's conception of the "superhuman" (Übermensch), he thought-provokingly sets the ideal of "becoming what one is" directly against Nietzsche's Übermensch, arguing that the latter is, in fact, "unattainable and undesirable." According to May, Nietzsche's discussion of the superhuman type is distractingly unrealistic, chiefly because a perfectly sovereign individual, unlike us, would be an infallible "man-god" (117) and would have nothing left to overcome.The second half of May's study concentrates on Nietzsche's crucial revaluation of the value of truth. May argues that although Nietzsche rejects an unconditional value for truth and its associated ascetic ideal, it is nonetheless consistent to "passionately" value truth and remain a Nietzschean life-enhancer. May respects Nietzsche's perspectivism, but his interpretation clearly runs against the grain of the more extremely relativistic, "anti-truth," readings of Nietzsche.May's short volume contains plenty of food for disagreement. To cite one notable example, May maintains that "with Nietzsche there is not even an attempt to produce a systematic safety net against cruelty... and, to this extent, his philosophy licenses the atrocities of a Hitler" (132). May's fundamental reason is that since unfettered cruelty is consistent with what he understands to be Nietzsche's radically individualist [End Page 450] principle of life-enhancement, the Nietzschean conception of life-enhancement is ethically deficient. Some of Nietzsche's remarks do provoke May's criticism, but common knowledge also tells us that unfettered cruelty often backfires into either physical or spiritual self-destruction. So a wise Nietzschean would not "license" brutality. Neither, however, would such a Nietzschean seek to erect an absolute barrier against unfettered brutality, but would more discriminatingly consider what wisdom dictates in each circumstance, given the interests of life.May's study intends to exclude from the philosophically best interpretation of Nietzsche, what are recognized by most people as ethically undesirable qualities. His study also renders Nietzsche's key ideas workable, accessible, and palatable... (shrink)

In gender mythology woman is nature, the embodiment of life, destruction, and death. Semantically encoded in good and evil, the one conceptual stability woman represents is ambivalence. As a walled garden in which nature works its demonic sorcery, she turns a gob of refuse into a spreading web of sentient being, floating on the snaky umbilical by which she leashes every man. But as an ontological entity, woman is the real First Mover. The pregnant woman is devilishly complete. She needs (...) nothing and no one.2 Confronted with the terrible sense of woman's power, man is forced to wrestle with her nature to gain his identity, never to fall back into her. Man is the essential, the norm, the absolute One without reciprocity. Woman is “the Other, posed by the One to define itself, the inessential who never goes back to being the essential and the absolute Other without reciprocity. (shrink)