In COVID’s immediate wake, the 2020 death toll from a different enemy of the public’s health — gun violence — ticked up by 15 percent in the United States from the previous year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Caniglia v. Strom that will allow people who have recently threatened suicide — with a gun — to keep unsecured guns in their home unless police take time to obtain a search warrant to remove them.

"... both an excellent introduction and a thoroughgoing analysis of Kristeva’s writing." —Signs "The book is a brilliant combination of a recuperative and a critical reading of Kristeva’s work." —Changes: An International Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy "... a thorough, detailed, and critical analysis of the writings of Julia Kristeva." —Elizabeth Grosz "... the most involved and engaging study of Julia Kristeva’s work to date..." —The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory This first full-scale feminist interpretation of Kristeva’s work (...) situates her within the context of French feminism. Oliver guides her readers through Kristeva’s intellectual formation in linguistics, Freud, Lacan, and poetics. This comprehensive introduction to Kristeva makes accessible her important contributions to philosophy, linguistics, and psychoanalytic feminism. (shrink)

Introduction: The role of animals in philosophies of man -- Part I: What's wrong with animal rights? -- The right to remain silent -- Part II: Animal pedagogy -- You are what you eat : Rousseau's cat -- Say the human responded : Herder's sheep -- Part III: Difference worthy of its name -- Hair of the dog : Derrida's and Rousseau's good taste -- Sexual difference, animal difference : Derrida's sexy silkworm -- Part IV: It's our fault -- The (...) beaver's struggle with species-being : De Beauvoir and the praying mantis -- Answering the call of nature : Lacan walking the dog -- Part V: Estranged kinship -- The abyss between humans and animals : Heidegger puts the bee in being -- Strange kinship : Merleau-Ponty's sensuous stickleback -- Stopping the anthropological machine : Agamben's tick-tocking tick -- Psychoanalysis and the science of kinship -- Psychoanalysis as animal by-product : Freud's zoophilia -- Animal abjects, maternal abjects : Kristeva's strays -- Conclusion: Sustainable ethics. (shrink)

In The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege contended that the difference between concepts and objects was absolute. He meant that no object could be a concept and no concept an object. Benno Kerry disagreed; he contended that a concept could be an object, and that therefore the difference between concepts and objects was only relative. In this book, Jolley aims to understand the debate between Frege and Kerry. But Jolley's purpose is not so much to champion either side; rather, it (...) is to utilize an understanding of the debate to shed light on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein-and vice versa. Jolley not only sifts through the debate between Frege and Kerry, but also through subsequent versions of the debate in J. J. Valberg and Wilfred Sellars. Jolley's goal is to show that the central notion of Philosophical Investigations, that of a 'conceptual investigation', is a legacy of the Frege/Kerry debate and also a contribution to it. Jolley concludes that the difference between concepts and objects is as absolute in its way in Philosophical Investigations as it was in The Foundations of Arithmetic and that recognizing the absoluteness of the difference in Philosophical Investigations provides a beginning for a 'resolute' reading of Wittgenstein's book. (shrink)

The concepts of animal, human, and rights are all part of a philosophical tradition that trades on foreclosing the animal, animality, and animals. Rather than looking to qualities or capacities that make animals the same as or different from humans, I investigate the relationship between the human and the animal. To insist, as animal rights and welfare advocates do, that our ethical obligations to animals are based on their similarities to us reinforces the type of humanism that leads to treating (...) animals—and other people—as subordinates. But, if recent philosophies of difference are any indication, we can acknowledge difference without acknowledging our dependence on animals, or without including animals in ethical considerations. Animal ethics requires rethinking both identity and difference by focusing on relationships and responsivity. My aim is not only to suggest an animal ethics but also to show how ethics itself is transformed by considering animals. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the social trinitarian account in Richard Swinburne's "The Christian God." After setting out the route Swinburne follows in reaching his conclusions about the Godhead, I endeavour to show two things: (i) that his account does not avoid the charge of tritheism and thus is not faithful to key elements in the Christian creeds; (ii) the philosophical moves behind his conclusions are not compelling if, as we can, we challenge his assumptions about divine necessity. A (...) better account of divine necessity takes us away from Swinburne's version of trinitarianism/tritheism. (shrink)

What follows is talky—I skitter across a number of difficult topics much too quickly and with little attempt to defend what I say. I may be able to add some defense later in discussion, but I don't promise anything much and certainly nothing fancy. I am still very much in the process of thinking about these topics, and I aim to do no more than to perhaps nudge you to think about them too.By "poetry" in what follows, I typically mean (...) "lyric poetry." There are poems and poems and poems, and the dactyls make a difference, as do many other features internal to poetry. I will also say upfront that I have no working definition of "lyric poetry." I also have no working definition of "philosophy," although I will be... (shrink)

Josiah Royce (1855-1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by G. W. F. Hegel and F. H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness. Royce also made original contributions in ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion and logic. His major works include The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), The World and the Individual (1899-1901), The (...) Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), and The Problem of Christianity (1913). Royce's friendly but longstanding dispute with William James, known as "The Battle of the Absolute," deeply influenced both philosophers' thought. In his later works, Royce reconceived his metaphysics as an "absolute pragmatism" grounded in semiotics. This view dispenses with the Absolute Mind of previous idealism and instead characterizes reality as a universe of ideas or signs which occur in a process of being interpreted by an infinite community of minds. These minds, and the community they constitute, may themselves be understood as signs. Royce's ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion, and logic reflect this metaphysical position. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the liberal framework-its autonomous individuals with equal rights-allows judges to justify enforcing surrogacy contracts. More importantly, even where judges do not enforce surrogacy contracts, the liberal framework conceals gender and class issues which insure that the surrogate will lose custody of her child. I suggest that Marx's analysis of estranged labor can reveal the class and gender issues which the liberal framework conceals.

In this essay, I respond to A. W. Moore’s instructive chapter on Frege. I respond by asking various questions, and I question particularly Moore’s claim that Frege, in reacting to Benno Kerry, falls into Hegelian excess. I toy with responding to my question by regarding Frege as anticipating a Wittgensteinian-Heideggerian exaction. It remains unclear whether this constitutes (much) progress.

Traditional notions of crime control often position the police against an individual, known or not yet known, who is responsible for the commission of a crime. However, with increasingly sophisticated technology, policing increasingly prioritizes the prevention of crime, making it necessary to ascertain who, or what class of persons, may be the next likely criminal before a crime can be committed, termed predictive policing. This causes a shift from individualized suspicion toward predictive profiling that may sway the expectations of a (...) police patrol. Classically, where a patrol officer forms reasonable suspicion prior to a stop, it is based upon his/her analysis of the situation taken as a whole in context. However, where a predictive profile is employed, information available to the officer accordingly adjusts his/her perception of context and affects the application of the reasonable suspicion standard. This article addresses the way in which new approaches to forming reasonable suspicion affect the due process protection of individuals’ fundamental rights. It argues that while an officer still operates with good faith discretion, using predictive profiling causes reasonable suspicion to be based on an augmented understanding of reality and as a result, due process guarantees are weakened. The rights to non-discrimination and the presumption of innocence are assessed and argued as illustrative of this weakening and shift in policing standards. The article ultimately argues that while predictive policing cannot be categorically labeled as inconsistent with criminal justice, changes as seemingly moderate as the manner in which discretion operates have larger effects on individuals’ rights. (shrink)

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he (...) neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

In my paper “Parental Love and the Ethics of Sex Selection,” published in the previous issue of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, I set out to determine whether a plausible argument could be constructed in support of a common intuition about the ethics of sex selection. The intuition in question is that sex selection for nonmedical reasons is incompatible with a proper parental love: that is, with the sort of love that a parent ought to have for her child (...) or, equivalently, with the sort of love that someone accurately describable as a good parent will have for her child. I concluded that there is a prima facie compelling argument that fits the bill, though I did little more than introduce and set that argument out. In the current paper, my aim will be to subject it to closer scrutiny, by considering a number of possible objections to it. I will start by asking why the argument should be thought to apply only to sex selection for nonmedical reasons and not to cases in which selection is employed in order to prevent the birth of children with serious sex-linked genetic conditions. (shrink)

Parental burnout is a unique and context-specific syndrome resulting from a chronic imbalance of risks over resources in the parenting domain. The current research aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment across Spanish-speaking countries with two consecutive studies. In Study 1, we analyzed the data through a bifactor model within an Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling on the pooled sample of participants obtaining good fit indices. We then attained measurement invariance across both gender (...) and countries in a set of nested models with gradually increasing parameter constraints. Latent means comparisons across countries showed that among the participants’ countries, Chile had the highest parental burnout score, likewise, comparisons across gender evidenced that mothers displayed higher scores than fathers, as shown in previous studies. Reliability coefficients were high. In Study 2, we tested the relations between parental burnout and three specific consequences, i.e., escape and suicidal ideations, parental neglect, and parental violence toward one’s children. The medium to large associations found provided support for the PBA’s predictive validity. Overall, we concluded that the Spanish version of the PBA has good psychometric properties. The results support its relevance for the assessment of parental burnout among Spanish-speaking parents, offering new opportunities for cross-cultural research in the parenting domain. (shrink)

In the dissertation I explore three central issues in Plotinus' philosophical psychology: The fall of the soul, the relationships of soul and body, and the concept of the ego. ;Chapter 1 introduces the issues. Chapter 2 argues for a dual-aspect theory about the soul's fall. Chapter 3 characterizes the relationships between soul and body. Much of the chapter is devoted to distancing Plotinus' dualism from Cartesian dualism. The chapter ends with a discussion of Plotinus on perception. Chapter 4 investigates the (...) concept of the ego, the function of the ego in union with the One, and the relationship between the ego and the other powers of the soul. (shrink)

What is it to read Wittgenstein resolutely? In this essay, I make a suggestion about how to answer that question. I backtrack in time to a debate about Philosophical Investigations between O. K. Bouwsma and Gilbert Ryle. I selectively reconstruct that debate, highlighting features of it that I take to be interesting in their own right and in relation to debates about PI, but also interesting in analogy with debates about resolute and standard readings of Tractatus logico-philosophicus. As will be (...) clear, my sympathies are with Bouwsma against Ryle, and with resolute readers against standard readers. But I do not vindicate Bouwsma; I will, in fact, be critical, carefully or guardedly critical of him.Nor do I vindicate resolute reading of TLP. I suggest a way of seeing resolute reading that makes clearer what it is and how it contrasts with standard reading, and, in so doing, that makes clearer what some of the difficulties of the debate between the readings really are, whether about TLP or about PI. (shrink)

In this essay, we focus primarily on Moore’s “Proof of an External World” and Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism.” We are not exactly commenting on Clarke’s “The Legacy of Skepticism,” interpreting it, although what we do involves us in (some of) that. Instead of directly commenting on it, we do things with Legacy; we read Moore’s Proof and Kant’s Refutation with Clarke in mind. And by way of doing this, we bring onto the stage a post-Legacy Moore, and a post-Legacy Kant. (...) We do not claim to present Moore and Kant per se (to use Clarke’s term); we do not portray Moore and Kant as they are independently of “The Legacy of Skepticism.” We propose instead Moore and Kant as we read them after Legacy, i.e., in light of the pure/plain distinction. (shrink)

In the last half century, oral history has emerged as a historical approach that is being considered by archivists involved with the collection and accessibility of archival collections for researchers and interested members of the public. The approach to ethics by oral historians has emerged from two major fears: the fear of failing as researchers and the fear of failing the narrators and doing harm. Archivists also need to be cognisant of these fears when collecting oral history. Confronting these fears (...) makes it possible to understand the complex questions behind oral historians’ and archivists’ preoccupations and sheds light on how oral history has evolved and expanded as a field. The research objectives of this article are to determine the three principles identified from the Belmont Report that relate and should be applied to the collection of oral histories by archivists and historians from communities and individuals residing and working in and alongside the Kruger National Park. The theoretical framework for this article is the critical race theory to address historical accounts from communities and individuals sidelined by the mainstream media in South Africa. For the purposes of this article, the study was conducted with the Makuleka and Tsonga communities to determine what ethical implications need to be respected when conducting oral history projects with communities.Contribution: This article will contribute to ethics concerning social sciences and specifically the collection of oral history. (shrink)

Thousands of youth suffering from acquired brain injury or other early-life neurological disease live, mature, and learn with only limited communication and interaction with their world. Such cognitively capable children are ideal candidates for brain-computer interfaces. While BCI systems are rapidly evolving, a fundamental gap exists between technological innovators and the patients and families who stand to benefit. Forays into translating BCI systems to children in recent years have revealed that kids can learn to operate simple BCI with proficiency akin (...) to adults. BCI could bring significant boons to the lives of many children with severe physical impairment, supporting their complex physical and social needs. However, children have been neglected in BCI research and a collaborative BCI research community is required to unite and push pediatric BCI development forward. To this end, the pediatric BCI Canada collaborative network was formed, under a unified goal to cooperatively drive forward pediatric BCI innovation and impact. This article reflects on the topics and discussions raised in the foundational BCI-CAN meeting held in Toronto, ON, Canada in November 2019 and suggests the next steps required to see BCI impact the lives of children with severe neurological disease and their families. (shrink)

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and (...) fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God. 1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune. 2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses. 3. (shrink)

Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language. Think for instance about one's astonishment that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we can say must, a priori, be nonsense.

Readers of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics need hardly be told that each year a huge amount of very valuable work in bioethics is carried out in the academic's study and the university seminar room and appears in the pages of specialist, restricted-readership journals. However, if it is to be as effective, relevant, and influential as it deserves to be, there arguably comes a point when this work needs to leave the confines of the academy and engage the wider (...) public. This perhaps happens less often than it should. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva is known as rejecting feminism, nonetheless her work is useful for feminist theory. I reconsider Kristeva's rejection of feminism and her theories of difference, identity, and maternity, elaborating on Kristeva's contributions to debates over the necessity of identity politics, indicating how Kristeva's theory suggests the cause of and possible solutions to women's oppression in Western culture, and, using Kristeva's theory, setting up a framework for a feminist rethinking of politics and ethics.

This article critically engages Julia Kristeva’s latest work on maternal passion as an antidote to what she calls “feminine fatigue.” Oliver elaborates, criticizes, and expands Kristeva’s view that maternity can be a model for thinking about passion and its relation to creativity and even to ethics. She relates Kristeva’s thinking about feminine fatigue to contemporary feminism in the United States. .

The ecohumanist/service-learning approach to environmental education provides a bridge between science and public policy on the one hand, and direct civic action on the other. This pedagogy appears to be a promising way to engage students and to extend the reach of environmental education beyond the classroom. This paper surveys the philosophical context for ecohumanities pedagogy, relates the key moments of teaching such a course, describes specific outcomes, and offers practical advice for those who might wish to try a similar (...) approach to environmental education. (shrink)

Between the Psyche and the Social is the first collection that specifically features the field of psychoanalytic social theory emerging in and between psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, and across the disciplines of philosophy, literary, film, and cultural studies. This collection of essays takes the psychoanalytic study of social oppression in some new directions by engaging—indeed, stirring up—unconscious fantasies and ethical tensions at the heart of social subjectivity.

This essay explores the important role played by the figure of the virgin girl at the centre of The Beast and The Sovereign. Derrida hints that she may offer a figure between the beast and the sovereign, between the two marionettes of Nature and Culture. Moreover, it seems that she is both what props up the fabled distinction between man and animal and at the same time that upon which man erects himself as sovereign lord and master. Taking Derrida's suggestions (...) further, I argue that the virgin girl both does and undoes sovereign power as phallic power. She is the figure behind the erection of sovereignty. Indeed, her appearance is both necessary and threatening insofar as she both erects sovereign phallic power and threatens to reveal its impotence. In this way, the girl operates between feminine and masculine, between Nature and Culture, between the beast and the sovereign, particularly as her virginity and its deflowering are essential to the cut between the two sides of these traditional binaries. Finally, her appearance is telling in relation to the movements and rhythms of Derrida's deconstructive approach to philosophy and literature in this seminar and in his work more generally. (shrink)

Have we entered a historical moment of 'post-feminism'? This volume presents a timely and convincing 'no'. These essays demonstrate that there is a new generation of French women who take up questions of equality and difference from a position distinct from either first or second wave feminism, a position that often attempts to move beyond the binary of equality and/or difference to a new form of the individual.