In light of the increasing refusal of some parents to vaccinate children, public health strategies have focused on increasing knowledge and awareness based on a “knowledge-deficit” approach. However, decisions about vaccination are based on more than mere knowledge of risks, costs, and benefits. Individual decision making about vaccinating involves many other factors including those related to emotion, culture, religion, and socio-political context. In this paper, we use a nationally representative internet survey in the U.S. to investigate socio-political characteristics to assess (...) attitudes about vaccination. In particular, we consider how political ideology and trust affect opinions about vaccinations for flu, pertussis, and measles. Our findings demonstrate that ideology has a direct effect on vaccine attitudes. In particular, conservative respondents are less likely to express pro-vaccination beliefs than other individuals. Furthermore, ideology also has an indirect effect on immunization propensity. The ideology variable predicts an indicator capturing trust in government medical experts, which in turn helps to explain individual-level variation with regards to attitudes about vaccine choice. (shrink)

Vaccination complacency occurs when perceived risks of vaccine-preventable diseases are sufficiently low so that vaccination is no longer perceived as a necessary precaution. Disease outbreaks can once again increase perceptions of risk, thereby decrease vaccine complacency, and in turn decrease vaccine hesitancy. It is not well understood, however, how change in perceived risk translates into change in vaccine hesitancy. -/- We advance the concept of vaccine propensity, which relates a change in willingness to vaccinate with a change in perceived risk (...) of infection—holding fixed other considerations such as vaccine confidence and convenience. (shrink)

An estimated 14 million children are parented by gay or lesbian couples. Research indicates that children of same-sex parents are as well adjusted as their peers of opposite-sex parents. However, previous research has yet to examine how these youth negotiate their own process of coming out about their families to others. We sought to identify the patterns, issues and themes that recur in the coming out process of these youth. Recommendations for school personnel are described.

A survey of open questions in the field; definitions of “emergence” and “media” are given, as well as their relationship to big data. Rationale for the volume is given, and c. 100 word descriptions and analyses of each essay in the volume are put forward. The volume is differentiated from other books and approaches, and open problems and questions set forth.

A revisiting and distillation of themes, questions, and results of the book’s chapters, with a description of possible alternative pathways through the volume. Open problems and suggestions for further research are also offered, laying out a vision of the field as a whole, and calling for future research, especially into topics relating to qualitative vs. quantitative uses of big data, the concept of “media”, issues in the history of philosophy and digital humanities, normative questions concerning social justice, race, gender, and (...) disability, religion, human transformation, virtual and non-virtual reality, collective and individual experience, self-consciousness, personal identity, human enhancement through digital means, privacy, speech-act theory, documentality, history, and the intersection of research into psychological and social cognition. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

In this interview with Isabelle Moeller questions surrounding the responsible use and development of biometric apps are explored. The use of biometrics - originally to digitally represent and authenticate an identifiable characteristic of a product or a person - have become so wide spread that they are capable of facilitating ever greater continuous surveillance of the what, how, when and where of life. The more biometrical data of a user is collected, the more the integrity of the underlying e-identity is (...) open to fraud and being invisibly compromised. Ethical reflection is long overdue but a prerequisite of minimizing risk to the autonomy of the human person as well as to the integrity of his digital persona. (shrink)

A survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937–1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel; 2) Discussion of the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödel's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e.g., Penrose; 3) Replies to an instructive criticism of my 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance of Tarski's semantical (...) work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel, and our understanding of Gödel's theorem itself. (shrink)

1) A survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937–1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel; 2) Discussion of the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödel's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e.g. , Penrose; 3) Replies to an instructive criticism of my 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance of (...) Tarski's semantical work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel, and our understanding of Gödel's theorem itself. (shrink)

A German translation with 2017 postscript of Floyd, Juliet. 2012. "Wittgenstein's Diagonal Argument: A Variation on Cantor and Turing." In Epistemology versus Ontology, Logic, Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Per Martin-Löf, edited by P. Dybjer, S. Lindström, E. Palmgren and G. Sundholm, 25-44. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. An analysis of philosophical aspects of Turing's diagonal argument in his (136) "On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem" in relation to Wittgenstein's writings on Turing and Cantor.

O presente artigo procede, em primeiro lugar, a um exame das evidências disponíveis referentes à atitude de Wittgenstein em relação ao, bem como conhecimento do, primeiro teorema da incompletude de Gödel, incluindo as suas discussões com Turing, Watson e outros em 1937-1939, e o testemunho posterior de Goodstein e Kreisel Em segundo lugar, o artigo discute a importância filosófica e histórica da atitude de Wittgenstein em relação ao teorema de Gödel e outros teoremas da lógica matemática, contrastando esta atitude com (...) a de, por exemplo, Penrose. Finalmente, a autora responde também a criticas instrutivas feitas por Mark Steiner a um artigo seu publicado em 1995, as quais estabelecem a importância do trabalho semântico de Tarski, quer para o nosso entendimento das observacoes de Wittgenstein. /// This paper presents, first, a survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937-1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel Secondly, the article discusses the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödal's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e. g., Penrose. Finally, the author also replies to an instructive criticism of her 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance ofTarskih semantical work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Godel, and our understanding ofGodeVs theorem itself. (shrink)

This Tractatus’s engagement with the issue of the nature of truth and falsity emerged from engagement with Russell. This engagement reverberated through the Vienna Circle and in particular affected Gödel. The Tractatus’s “elementary sentences” must be seen against the backdrop of Russell’s “multiple relation theory of judgment”, his theory of truth in Principia Mathematica, which Wittgenstein discussed at length with Russell in 1912–1913 and Gödel studied in 1929–1932. Russell’s approach was directed against both Idealism and William James’s pragmatist view of (...) truth. It aimed at a direct treatment of the distinction between truth and falsity in terms of particular, logically simple beliefs (judgments lacking in truth-functional and quantification complexity). Schlick rejected Russell’s view in favor of his more holistic correspondence theory, one which, however, tipped easily into pragmatism, conventionalism and verificationism. The Tractatus begins, rather, with Russell’s bottom-up approach truth, and then draws in two further ideas: (1) The need for a medium of representation and (2) The importance of modality (possibility and necessity) to logic. This approach was developed further in his later work, i.e., Philosophical Investigations.Aware of the Tractatus and Russell’s engagement with Wittgenstein on truth, Gödel continued to engage with Russell’s multiple relation theory of truth and Principia philosophically up through 1944. The parallel yet distinct engagements of Gödel and Wittgenstein with Russell on truth (and Vienna positivism) show that each regarded Russell’s view as requiring amendment. However, their philosophical differences with one another are not merely to be understood in terms of the dichotomy between conventionalism (the usual view of Wittgenstein) and Platonism (the usual view of Gödel). They must rather be seen to emerge from the original approach to truth we find in Russell. (shrink)

BOOK REVIEWS 475 mean the traditional notion of arche, i.e., a present homogeneous origin/kingdom" . The significance of this Ursprung is that of the event of world pretheoretically yielding itself itself and things . Van Buren's basic contention is that Heidegger's demythologized question about being in the early Freiburg period is overtaken by remythologizing tendencies, from the existential-transcendental configuration of the question in Being and Time to various mythopoetic reconfigurations. The latter developments are at odds with Heidegger's earlier Freiburg elaboration (...) of the concrete historicity and the personal, lived, anarchic character of the question of being. One intriguing and far-reaching implication of van Buren's interpretation is that Being and Time amounts to an Abweg, a mistaken by-way, from which Heidegger, despite the Kehre, never fully recovers. The choice of the meta- phor of an Abwegis revealing and, in this connection, perhaps not entirely felicitous. For, if Being and Time is truly "off track," then there is presumably a right way and it must be possible to demonstrate both that right way and the nature of Being and Time's deviation from it. The terms of this crucial argument have been expertly set by van Buren in his monumental.. (shrink)

O presente texto objetiva investigar o retorno do fenômeno religioso por meio da teoria de Karl Marx sobre o estranhamento, em obras como A questão Judaica, Crítica da filosofia do direito de Hegel – Introdução, Manuscritos Econômicos-filosóficos e a Ideologia Alemã, obras nas quais Marx discute as condições materiais de existência para explicar a sociedade moderna (a política, a religião etc.), o que possibilita uma discussão sobre as estruturas concretas e sociais do sistema capitalista. Essas análises permitem entender como a (...) religião se faz tão presente na vida dos indivíduos, uma vez que o capitalismo é permeado por um trabalho fragmentado, que conduz o homem à perda de si, um trabalho marcado pelas contradições da propriedade privada. Para Marx, a religião não é um fenômeno abstrato, mas social e pode ser investigada pelo estudo das condições materiais da realidade. Portanto, se a religião persiste na sociedade é porque o capitalismo não promove uma real emancipação, mas apenas uma vida humana estranhada. A busca pela religião é uma forma de o homem reconciliar-se consigo mesmo, já que o mundo material o aflige e dilacera. (shrink)

Abstract:Romeo and Juliet is one of the first works to emphasize the important place that romantic love holds in the lives of two individuals. Less frequently acknowledged is the role of romantic love in the play's criticism of feudal society. Using the notion of an unlikely couple, I explore the play's critique of feudal society for allowing the antagonism between the two lovers' noble households to undermine the possibility of their finding true love. The play argues for the importance (...) of a strong, centralized state in securing the welfare of its citizens. (shrink)

To the memory of my mother ErnaThe axis on which art creativity revolves is originality. Any genuine piece of art must be original; otherwise, it boils down to a mere replication or imitation and is of little worth. A work is thought to be the more original the newer it is. But what exactly should be new in it and to what extent for it to get sufficient ground to claim originality still remain a riddle.What is meant by the new? (...) Usually, it is construed as what has not existed before and is just brought into the world. In other words, novelty should have no immediate precursor in the past. But such a treatment holds a serious inner contradiction. Where does the new come from if it does not grow out of the old? It... (shrink)

We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters (...) contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. (shrink)

To the memory of my mother ErnaShakespeare saw in the beauty and passion of young hearts "the irradiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a dark world." In contrast to Arthur Brooke, the dramatist shows not the omnipotence of merciless and inexorable fate but an inextinguishable image of "light, every form and manifestation of it: the sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning, the flash of gunpowder, and the reflected light of beauty and of love." All these are opposed to "night, darkness, (...) clouds, rain, mist and smoke."1 And that is not merely a radical turn as compared with Brooke but a breaking of the literary tradition that, until then, did not depict love in such a perspective. Shakespeare proposed, in fact, a... (shrink)

We give a formalism for approximate isomorphism in continuous logic simultaneously generalizing those of two papers by Ben Yaacov [2] and by Ben Yaacov, Doucha, Nies, and Tsankov [6], which are largely incompatible. With this we explicitly exhibit Scott sentences for the perturbation systems of the former paper, such as the Banach‐Mazur distance and the Lipschitz distance between metric spaces. Our formalism is simultaneously characterized syntactically by a mild generalization of perturbation systems and semantically by certain elementary classes of two‐sorted (...) structures that witness approximate isomorphism. As an application, we show that the theory of any ‐tree or ultrametric space of finite radius is stable, improving a result of Carlisle and Henson [8]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Motion and Mercutio in Romeo and JulietDaryl W. PalmerThere is nothing permanent that is not true, what can be true that is uncertaine? How can that be certaine, that stands upon uncertain grounds? 1It is by now a commonplace in modern scholarship that drama, particularly Tudor drama, poses questions, rehearses familiar debates, and even speculates about mere possibilities. 2 In 1954, Madeleine Doran spelled out some of the ways (...) in which debate "affected the structure of Elizabethan drama." 3 In turn, Joel B. Altman, having eloquently extended Doran's examination, concludes that "the plays functioned as media of intellectual and emotional exploration for minds that were accustomed to examine the many sides of a given theme, to entertain opposing ideals, and by so exercising the understanding, to move toward some fuller apprehension of truth that could be discerned only through the total action of the drama." 4 Altman points to Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres (c. 1490) as an exemplar of this practice. Although the interlude instructs and entertains, "the center of interest has shifted from demonstration to inquiry. The action develops not from an abstract assertion, but from a specific question: who is the nobler man, Cornelius or Gaius?" 5 By the time William Shakespeare began to write his plays, inquiry was an essential part of dramatic construction. So Juliet asks, "What's in a name?" 6 Hamlet opens with the question: "Who's [End Page 540] there?" (1.1.1), and achieves a kind of apotheosis in the figure of its hero: "To be, or not to be, that is the question..." (3.1.55). Everyone recognizes these familiar questions, and we know (or think we know) how to describe the most viable answers. I want to suggest, however, that this familiarity has dulled our appreciation of the drama's interrogative range. As a way of resisting this tendency, I want to argue that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet takes up an ancient conversation about motion, a dialog that originates with the pre-Socratics. This is not to say that the play is ultimately about motion. It obviously engages a panoply of thematic materials. I have simply chosen, in this limited space, to concentrate on the way the playwright stages his questioning as a kind of fencing lesson. My goal is to produce neither a "reading" of the play nor an allegory of philosophy, but rather to recollect the ways in which Shakespeare's drama qualifies and extends an ancient interrogative tradition. In so doing, I follow Stanley Cavell who maintains "that Shakespeare could not be who he is—the burden of the name of the greatest writer in the language, the creature of the greatest ordering of English—unless his writing is engaging the depth of the philosophical preoccupations of his culture." 7Some of the most venerable documents of Western philosophy fix on the problem of motion. If we go back more than 2,300 years, we come upon Plato's Theaetetus, in which Socrates explains a "first principle" to the title character, namely that "the universe really is motion and nothing else." 8 A kind of history lesson in ontology and epistemology, this tentative explanation has its origins in Heraclitus or Empedocles or Protagoras or some combination of the aforementioned. Perhaps the most famous expression of this ideal comes from Heraclitus: "You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on." 9 More to the point is the following declaration from the same philosopher: "Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed." 10 In this spirit, Protagoras declares, "All matter is in a state of flux." 11 Such precedents provide the backdrop for Socrates in the Theaetetus as he summarizes: "The point is that all these things are, as we were saying, in motion, but there is a quickness or slowness in their motion" (Thea, 156c). In this historical spirit, he identifies "a tradition from the ancients, who hid their meaning from the common herd in poetical figures, that Oceanus and Tethys, the source of all things, are flowing streams and nothing is at rest" (Thea, 180d–e).To... (shrink)

Cadherin‐mediated cell‐cell adhesion is perturbed in protein tyrosine kinase (PTK)‐transformed cells. While cadherins themselves appear to be poor PTK substrates, their cytoplasmic binding partners, the Arm catenins, are excellent PTK substrates and therefore good candidates for mediating PTK‐induced changes in cadherin behavior. These proteins, p120ctn, β‐catenin and plakoglobin, bind to the cytoplasmic region of classical cadherins and function to modulate adhesion and/or bridge cadherins to the actin cytoskeleton. In addition, as demonstrated recently for β‐catenin, these proteins also have crucial signaling (...) roles that may or may not be related to their effects on cell‐cell adhesion. Tyrosine phosphorylation of cadherin complexes is well documented and widely believed to modulate cell adhesiveness. The data to date, however, is largely correlative and the mechanism of action remains unresolved. In this review, we discuss the current literature and suggest models whereby tyrosine phosphorylation of Arm catenins contribute to regulation or perturbation of cadherin function. (shrink)

Objectives: Young people who are concerned that consultations may not remain confidential are reluctant to consult their doctors, especially about sensitive issues. This study sought to identify issues and concerns of adolescents, and their parents, in relation to confidentiality and teenagers’ personal health information.Setting: Recruitment was conducted in paediatric dermatology and general surgery outpatient clinics, and on general surgery paediatric wards. Interviews were conducted in subjects’ own homes.Methods: Semistructured interviews were used for this exploratory qualitative study. Interviews were carried out (...) with 11 young women and nine young men aged 14–17. Parents of 18 of the young people were interviewed separately. Transcripts of tape recorded interviews provided the basis for a framework analysis.Results: Young women were more concerned than young men, and older teenagers more concerned than younger teenagers, about people other than their general practitioner having access to their health information. Young people with little experience of the healthcare system were less happy than those with greater knowledge of the National Health Service for non-medical staff to access their health information. As they grow older, adolescents become increasingly concerned that their health information should remain confidential.Conclusion: Young people’s willingness to be open in consultations could be enhanced by doctors taking time to explain to them that their discussion is completely confidential. Alternatively, if for any reason confidentiality cannot be assured, doctors should explain why. (shrink)

The two vegetative cell types of the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum ‐ amoebae and plasmodia ‐ differ greatly in cellular organisation and behaviour as a result of differences in gene expression. The development of uninucleate amoebae into multinucleate, syncytial plasmodia is under the control of the mating‐type locus matA, which is a complex, multi‐functional locus. A key period during plasmodium development is the extended cell cycle, which occurs in the developing uninucleate cell. During this long cell cycle, many of (...) the changes in cellular organisation that accompany development into the multinucleate stage are initiated including, for example, alterations in microtubule organisation. Genes have been identified that show cell‐type specific expression in either amoebae or plasmodia and many of these genes alter their pattern of expression during the extended cell cycle. With the introduction of a DNA transformation system for P. polycephalum, it is now possible to investigate the functions of genes in the vegetative cell types and their roles in the cellular reorganisations accompanying development. (shrink)

Spinoza is widely regarded as either a God-forsaking atheist or a God-intoxicated pantheist, but Clare Carlisle says that he was neither. In Spinoza's Religion, she sets out a bold interpretation of Spinoza through a lucid new reading of his masterpiece, the Ethics. Putting the question of religion centre-stage but refusing to convert Spinozism to Christianity, Carlisle reveals that "being in God" unites Spinoza's metaphysics and ethics. Spinoza's Religion unfolds a powerful, inclusive philosophical vision for the modern age--one that (...) is grounded in a profound questioning of how to live a joyful, fully human life. Like Spinoza himself, the Ethics doesn't fit into any ready-made religious category. But Carlisle shows how it wrestles with the question of religion in strikingly original ways, responding both critically and constructively to the diverse, broadly Christian context in which Spinoza lived and worked. Philosophy itself, as Spinoza practiced it, became a spiritual endeavor that expressed his devotion to a truthful, virtuous way of life. Offering startling new insights into Spinoza's famously enigmatic ideas about eternal life and the intellectual love of God, Carlisle uncovers a Spinozist religion that integrates self-knowledge, desire, practice, and embodied ethical life to reach toward our 'highest happiness'--to rest in God. Seen through Carlisle's eyes, the Ethics prompts us to rethink not only Spinoza but also religion itself. (shrink)

For Aristotle, excellence is not an act but a habit, and Hume regards habit as ‘the great guide of life’. However, for Proust habit is problematic: ‘if habit is a second nature, it prevents us from knowing our first.’ What is habit? Do habits turn us into machines or free us to do more creative things? Should religious faith be habitual? Does habit help or hinder the practice of philosophy? Why do Luther, Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard and Bergson all criticise habit? (...) If habit is both a blessing and a curse, how can we live well in our habits? In this thought-provoking book Clare Carlisle examines habit from a philosophical standpoint. Beginning with a lucid appraisal of habit’s philosophical history she suggests that both receptivity and resistance to change are basic principles of habit-formation. Carlisle shows how the philosophy of habit not only anticipates the discoveries of recent neuroscience but illuminates their ethical significance. She asks whether habit is a reliable form of knowledge by examining the contrasting interpretations of habitual thinking offered by Spinoza and Hume. She then turns to the role of habit in the good life, tracing Aristotle’s legacy through the ideas of Joseph Butler, Hegel, and Félix Ravaisson, and assessing the ambivalent attitudes to habit expressed by Nietzsche and Proust. She argues that a distinction between habit and practice helps to clarify this ambivalence, particularly in the context of habit and religion, where she examines both the theology of habit and the repetitions of religious life. She concludes by considering how philosophy itself is a practice of learning to live well with habit. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand the complex response to the current Black Lives Matter protests against police violence, which pose deeper questions about the forms of politics that black citizens—who are experiencing a defining moment of racial terror in the United States in the twenty-first century—can and should pursue. When other citizens and state institutions betray a lack of care and concern for black suffering, which in turn makes it impossible for those wrongs to be redressed, is it fair to (...) ask blacks to enact “appropriate” democratic politics? These questions are explored via a reading of Danielle Allen and Ralph Ellison’s meditations on the problem of democratic loss and Hannah Arendt’s critique of school desegregation battles in the 1960s. I suggest that there is a conceptual trap in romantic historical narratives of black activism that recast peaceful acquiescence to loss as a form of democratic exemplarity. (shrink)

Singular they has emerged as a key term in contemporary gender politics, reflecting growing usage of they/them as nonbinary personal pronouns. Drawing on interviews with 54 progressive gender activists, we consider how singular they can be used to resist and redo aspects of the prevailing gender structure. We identify three distinct usages of singular they: as a nonbinary personal pronoun, as a universal gender-neutral pronoun, and as an indefinite pronoun when a person’s self-identified gender is unknown. While previous research on (...) singular they as a gender-inclusive language practice has focused primarily on its usage as a nonbinary personal pronoun, our findings point to the relevance for gender politics of all three usages. Our analysis offers new insight into how nonbinary they challenges dominant gender norms and practices beyond incorporating additional gender categories. Given our findings, we propose further investigation of how using gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in specific contexts can advance progressive activists’ goals. Finally, we argue that the longstanding usage of singular they as an indefinite pronoun has new importance today in affirming gender as a self-determined identity. (shrink)

We are witnessing a Europe in turmoil, tormented by the violence of ethnic and nationalist struggles which legitimate themselves in the name of identity. This anthology explores the assumptions of identity by disassembling old myths and fictions of unity in relation to the subject, politics and art. Other than identity offers the possibility of rethinking the concept and introducing instead notions of self and other, identity politics and aesthetics. Through theoretical and concrete examples, this study exemplifies the best of current (...) thinking concerning identity. It marks a new venture in multi-disciplinarity, bringing together writers identified with different discursive fields and visual artists to produce work specifically for this publication. Not only will each chapter be a contribution to particular specialist genres but the collection as a whole will offer new possibilities for rethinking identity. The multifarious approach will appeal to a wide spectrum of disciplines and discourses and to anyone with an interest in what is traditionally identified as culture. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship between Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. It explains that Heidegger mentioned Kierkegaard in much of his work from the early 1920s until his latest writings, but did not clarify the relationship between his own thought and Kierkegaard's. The chapter analyses Kierkegaard's distinctive contribution to philosophy and evaluates how this was taken up by Heidegger in his writings, particularly in Being and Time. It also evaluates the extent to which contemporary interpretation of Kierkegaard was influenced by (...) Heidegger's philosophy. (shrink)

Spinoza's account of acquiescentia has been obscured by inconsistent translations of acquiescentia, and forms of the verb acquiescere, in the standard English edition of the Ethics. For Spinoza, acquiescentia is an inherently cognitive affect, since it involves an idea of oneself (as the cause of one's joy). As such, the affect is closely correlated to the three kinds of cognition identified by Spinoza in Ethics II. Just as there are three kinds of cognition, so too are there three kinds of (...) acquiescentia. Two qualities—stillness and obedience—provide the criteria for distinguishing between these. This illuminates Spinoza's positive account of acquiescentia, and also clarifies how it responds critically to the equivalent Cartesian passion, la satisfaction de soimême, which is translated as acquiescentia in se ipso in the relevant Latin edition of Les passions de l'âme. (shrink)

Although a modus operandi throughout history, the passing down of beliefs and values from parent to child is a practice that must now be challenged. Drawing a connection between fundamentalist religious beliefs and inter-generational violence, this paper examines an ethical dilemma that lies at its crux: on the one hand, the peaceful intentions of fundamentalist believers, and on the other a number of violent consequences for individuals, society, and the world. Applying interdisciplinary religious and peace theory scholarship to the case (...) of Christian fundamentalism in Australia, a number of intertwining issues surrounding religion and education are explored. Should religion be taught to children? What is the difference between indoctrination and education? Is some enculturation desirable? Who decides? Do children have a right to choose their own religion? Do parents have a right to teach them theirs? Is indoctrination avoidable? Is neutrality of the teacher attainable? Does a liberal society have a right not to tolerate the intolerant? How might these complex paradoxes be addressed from a philosophical and peace education perspective? (shrink)