Definitions of the concept of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and suggested therapies are controversial. There are no widely acknowledged therapies and the ethical implications and methodologic issues around identifying and defining people with MCI are important concerns. The psychosocial implications for the person being labeled as having MCI have not been widely explored. This paper addresses these issues and presents data from two contrasting case studies. Key analytical themes identified in the qualitative analysis include different views about the causes of (...) dementia ("normal aging" versus disease); fear and anxiety about dementia; how such factors influence presentation to health professionals; and the effect of a label of cognitive impairment on quality of life. Our conclusion is that the usefulness and justification for early identification of cognitive impairment in a situation that has not yet been recognized by those involved should be questioned. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mild Cognitive Impairment:Where Does It Go From Here?John Bond (bio) and Lynne Corner (bio)Keywordsbiomedicalization, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, subjectivityThe joy of formal interdisciplinary discussion of this kind is the way that ideas presented through the gaze of social scientists stimulate such exciting thoughts and responses from other disciplines such as philosophy and psychology. We would like to thank Sabat and Thornton for their supportive and provocative reactions (...) to our paper. In the spirit of their responses, it is not our intention to respond to their thoughts directly; rather, we take the opportunity to theorize sociologically about this new category of psychiatry that has come to be known simply as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In reviewing the responses of Sabat and Thornton, three thoughts emerged. First, together we have covered ontologic, epistemologic, methodologic, and theoretical questions about MCI, but none of us has posed basic political questions, such as: Why has MCI emerged as a new psychiatric label at this particular time? Second, this discussion brings together social scientists with a psychologist and a philosopher, but important constituents are missing. Consequently we are missing "insider" views on the importance of MCI to clinical practice. Third, this discussion highlights for us even more acutely the central question: Is MCI a real entity? In the following, we reflect on the first of these because our response also addresses the third. We first revisit the "evidence" about the importance of MCI for clinical practice.The notion of MCI as the transitional state between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias has existed in a number of guises for many years, with benign senescent forgetfulness (Kral 1962) being the forerunner of a number of other terms, including questionable dementia, incipient dementia, isolated memory impairment, mild neurocognitive decline, age-associated memory impairment, age-associated cognitive decline, and cognitive-impairment-not-demented (Geda et al. 2004). Given that psychiatric labels implying the existence of MCI have been part of the practice landscape for over forty years, it is perhaps not surprising that its reinvention in the form of MCI has not, it appears, raised much attention outside specialist centers in North America and Europe. The reaction from grassroots clinical practice has been similar in intensity to their subdued reaction to the antipsychiatry movement in the 1960s. But for specialist clinics like the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, it has been an expanding [End Page 29] industry with numerous published papers, international conference presentations, and research funding opportunities.MCI can be distinguished from similar diagnostic categories that preceded its appearance in 1991. A key diagnostic criteria is the requirement for a subjective memory complaint by the person subsequently diagnosed as having MCI. Other diagnostic criteria include normal general cognitive function, normal activities of daily living, and memory being impaired for age, but not being demented (Petersen et al. 1999; Petersen and Morris 2003). To our knowledge, the idea of subjectivity being an important diagnostic criterion, as opposed to a means of identifying signs and symptoms, is a first in medical science. We know of no other medical category or diagnosis where subjectivity plays such a significant role, other than perhaps severe health phobias. Broadly speaking, two kinds of clinical evidence for MCI exist: first, that originating from studies (some quite small) applying the diagnostic criteria in specialist clinic populations; and, second, that found in large population studies. The main distinction between these two sets of evidence is that one is based on selected clinic populations and the other on unselected community populations. Most studies conclude that people whose memory is impaired for their age, as measured by similar cognitive tests such as the Mini-Mental State Examination, show decline in cognition that often leads to Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia in the future. This finding is not remarkable given that it has long been known that age is a predictor of cognitive impairment. However, the population studies suggest a lower conversion rate than those for specialist clinics (Ritchie, Artero, and Touchon 2001).Petersen (2005) provides a robust defense as to why MCI might be a useful category in research and also indicates the potential benefits of treating MCI... (shrink)

As part of the international efforts to observe the Venus transit of June 1769, Protestant Denmark-Norway engaged the Viennese astronomer Maximilian Hell, despite Hell being Catholic and even Jesuit. Hell’s site of observation was Vardø in the remote northeastern corner of Norway. He had ambitions to present his journey and scientific results—which reached far beyond astronomy—in a grand work entitled Expeditio litteraria ad Polum arcticum. This work was never printed, although several fragments were published otherwise. Among the pieces not (...) published were his geomagnetic observations. Hell’s original manuscripts contain a considerable amount of declination readings as well as notes on instruments, practical procedures, and theoretical reflections involved in his work. In Vardø he set up a magnetic observatory, along with the astronomical one, and recorded, on an irregular schedule, the magnetic declination several times a day from April to June 1769. The records exhibit a clear signature of the diurnal variation as well as magnetic storms. Hell vigorously refuted contemporary suggestions of a connection between magnetic storms and Northern Lights. On the return voyage, a number of observations of magnetic declination along Norway were carried out, with a technique combining a gnomon with observations of the Sun’s altitude with a quadrant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ambiguities of Mild Cognitive ImpairmentTim Thornton (bio)Keywordsclassification, disease, mild cognitive impairment, normative, valuesCorner and Bond's paper (2006) raises some key ethical questions about the classification and diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this commentary, I wish to revise some of the general issues about the classification of mental disorder raised by this particular classificatory concept. The central issue raised is the connection between the pathologic status of (...) a condition and what I term the plain facts about the frequency and nature of its symptoms.There are a number of ethical questions raised by applying the label of MCI. Centrally, perhaps, is the concern, illustrated by the case vignettes, that a diagnosis carries negative repercussions that might outweigh the more narrowly medical advantages of an early diagnosis. But although that concern may be appropriate, such ethical complications are a danger of any psychiatric classification or diagnosis, even the most well grounded. Any psychiatric diagnosis can carry a danger of stigma, for example.What seems to make such ethical concerns more serious in this case—at least to a philosopher outsider—is the implicit further concern that MCI is not a real, objective, or, to use a more medical term, valid category or classification. If it is not valid, then any negative connotations of the diagnosis will not be outweighed by medical technological achievements. In other words, the further ethical issues are given much greater weight if the question of validity is not satisfactorily resolved.The question of the reality, objectivity, or validity of MCI can be divided into two issues:1. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology?2. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid psychological illness, disease, or pathology?A condition might be a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology without being a real illness. It might be some other aspect of human living. Szasz (1960) suggests that this is the case with mental illness (he might more properly say "so-called mental illness") as a whole. But, less controversially, the unusual ability to calculate, mentally and in a flash, the date of future Easter Sundays is a genuine feature of human living—some people possess the ability even if most do not—without either it, or its lack, being an illness. Being real as an illness is a very specific kind of being. It is this, I suggest, that raises difficulties in the case of MCI by contrast with the easier question of whether something is a genuine feature of human living in some other way. [End Page 21]From "normal" and "normative" to "correct" and "incorrect"Corner and Bond (2006) usefully suggest that the question of whether MCI is real is made more difficult by an ambiguity in the sense of the word normal. They suggest that although "physiologic and cognitive decline is assumed to be a normal experience" this still leaves "boundary problems" about "distinguishing normal aging from disease" (Corner and Bond 2006, 3–4). Thus, if the symptoms of MCI are continuous with the ordinary phenomena of physiologic and cognitive decline, then they might also be merely normal. But this does not settle the status of MCI because normal can mean either "normative, that is, usual; or it can mean nonpathologic" (Corner and Bond 2006, 4).On the assumption that MCI is at least continuous with phenomena that are normal, then its symptoms might be normal in the sense of usual but nevertheless pathologic: an inevitable illness. Or they might be usual and nonpathologic, that is, merely a feature of aging that, although regrettable, lacks the connotations of illness (e.g., the appropriateness, if not the possibility, of treatment). (In principle on the assumption in play—that the symptoms of MCI are normal—they might be unusual but nonpathologic akin, for example, to an improved ability to solve crosswords with age that might affect a small lucky proportion of the population. Perhaps such a crossword puzzler might be reassured by their doctor: "Well that is very unusual but there is no need to worry: it is not a symptom of any illness. You are perfectly normal.")Thus the question "Is MCI normal... (shrink)

This chapter examines the role played by derogatory terms (e.g., ‘inyenzi’ or cockroach, ‘inzoka’ or snake) in laying the social groundwork for the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. The genocide was preceded by an increase in the use of anti-Tutsi derogatory terms among the Hutu. As these linguistic practices evolved, the terms became more openly and directly aimed at Tutsi. Then, during the 100 days of the genocide, derogatory terms and coded euphemisms were used to direct killers (...) to their victims. Understanding these speech acts helps to illuminate the important ways that power is enacted through discourse, how speech acts can prepare the way for physical and material acts, and how speech generates permissions for actions hitherto uncountenanced. Studying the role of speech acts and linguistic practices in laying the groundwork of the genocide illuminates how patterns of speech acts become linguistic practices that constitute permissibility conditions for non-linguistic behaviors. Further, the analysis presented here helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can be part and parcel of genocide, not only an antecedent to it. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate (...) descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

Applying a medical conception of toxicity to speech practices, this paper calls for an epidemiology of discursive toxicity. Toxicity highlights the mechanisms by which speech acts and discursive practices can inflict harm, making sense of claims about harms arising from speech devoid of slurs, epithets, or a narrower class I call ‘deeply derogatory terms.’ Further, it highlights the role of uptake and susceptibility, and so suggests a framework for thinking about damage variation. Toxic effects vary depending on one’s epistemic position, (...) access, and authority. An inferentialist account of discursive practice plus a dynamic view of the power of language games offers tools to analyze the toxic power of speech acts. A simple account of language games helps track changes in our discursive practices. Identifying patterns contributes to an epidemiology of toxic speech, which might include tracking increasing use of derogatory terms, us/them dichotomization, terms of isolation, new essentialisms, and more. Using this framework, I analyze some examples of speech already said to be toxic, working with a rough concept of toxicity as poison. Finally, exploring discursive toxicity pushes us to find ways that certain discursive practices might “inoculate” one to absorbing toxic messages, or less metaphorically, block one’s capacity to make toxic inferences, take deontic stances that foster toxicity, etc. (shrink)

The very rules of our language games contain mechanisms of disregard. Philosophy of language tends to treat speakers as peers with equal discursive authority, but this is rare in real, lived speech situations. This paper explores the mechanisms of discursive inclusion and exclusion governing our speech practices, with a special focus on the role of gender attribution in undermining women’s authority as speakers. Taking seriously the metaphor of language games, we must ask who gets in the game and whose moves (...) can score. To do this, I develop an eclectic analysis of language games using basic inferential role theory and the concept of a semantic index, and develop the distinction between positional authority and expertise authority, which often conflict for members of oppressed groups. Introducing the concepts of master switches and sub-switches that attach to the index and change scorekeeping practices, I argue that women’s gender status conflicts with our status as authoritative speakers because sex marking in semantics functions as a master switch—“the F-switch”—on the semantic index, which, once thrown, changes the very game. An advantage of using inferentialism for understanding disregard of women’s discursive authority is that it locates the problem in the sanctioned moves, in the deontic structure of norms and practices of scorekeeping, and not primarily in the individual intentions of particular people. (shrink)

Toxic speech inflicts individual and group harm, damaging the social fabric upon which we all depend. To understand and combat the harms of toxic speech, philosophers can learn from epidemiology, while epidemiologists can benefit from lessons of philosophy of language. In medicine and public health, research into remedies for toxins pushes in two directions: individual protections (personal actions, avoidances, preventive or reparative tonics) and collective action (specific policies or widespread “inoculations” through which we seek herd immunity). This paper is the (...) beginning of a project of identifying potential inoculations and antidotes to toxic speech. The essay brings a social practice theory of language, with special reliance on language‐games and inferential roles, into conversation with concepts from the study of biologic toxins. Some speech harms are acute while others are chronic and insidious; they have different methods of delivery, come in variable doses, and not everyone is equally susceptible to the power to harm. I argue that of the many kinds of challenges we might issue against toxic speech, challenging its expressive commitments has the greatest potential to stop the damage. The essay explores the different sorts of protections that inoculations and antidotes might offer against discursive toxins and sketches how to imagine these in the practices that govern our speech. The paper does not make policy recommendations, but an epidemiology of discursive toxicity reveals several kinds of “more speech” that might fight against “bad speech.”. (shrink)

Toxic speech inflicts damage to mental and physical health. This process can be chronic or acute, temporary or permanent. Understanding how toxic speech inflicts these harms requires both an account of linguistic practices and, because language is inherently social, tools from epidemiology. This paper explores what we can learn from two epidemiological models: a common source model that emphasizes poisons, and a propagated transmission model that better fits contagions like viruses.

Speech is a major vehicle for enacting and enforcing misogyny, so can counter-speech stop the harms of misogynist speech? This paper starts with a discussion of the nature of misogyny, from Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Frye, up to K. Manne’s new work, here emphasizing the ways that women are attacked or undermined through speech and images. Misogyny becomes toxic when it sharply and steadily limits the life prospects, including daily functioning, of the women it targets. To address the questions of counter-speech, (...) one first needs a robust account of language—it’s power, how it functions, whether it can actually be gainsaid. Once the speech act is issued, can its damage be un-done, or substantially mitigated? To answer this, one must understand the kinds of harms that language achieves, and the kinds of counter-speech available. That is, one needs an understanding of how the speech of misogyny functions, rooted in a theory of how language works. This article offers a brief account of language as a complex set of social practices, which includes the speech of law, and an account of the power and limits of counter-speech. I argue that it is unhelpful to think in terms of free speech vs. censorship. Speech is not completely free, and censorship is a blunt tool. Instead, we should look at the ways that discursive harms are enacted and what kinds of normative changes could minimize the frequency of assault, and which changes might minimize the power of misogyny. (shrink)

Metaphor is commonly taken to be an elliptical simile. This article offers a rational reconstruction of two types of simile theories of metaphor: reductive and non-reductive. Careful analysis shows the differences between these theories, but in the end, neither does the explanatory work it sets out to do. In assimilating metaphor to simile and simile to literal comparison, the reductive simile theory obscures what is most important to an account of metaphor: an account of what it is to interpret a (...) bit of discourse metaphorically. The reductive simile theory fails because the reduction to literal comparison fails. The non-reductive simile theory faces most of the same problems that undermine the simile theory, particularly problems generating a corresponding simile when the metaphor contains quantificational terms and other linguistic complexities. Analysis of the non-reductive simile theory highlights the troublesome assumption (inherent in all simile theories) that metaphor and simile play the same linguistic role: making or prompting us to make comparisons. In both guises, the simile theory mistakes the task of explaining what a metaphor means with how metaphor (in general) has meaning; it confuses explanation with explication. In diagnosing and arguing against the simile theory, this article sets out a framework for understanding the difference between literal and metaphorical interpretation. (shrink)

Apology is a necessary component of moral repair of damage done by wrongs against the person. Analyzing the role of apology in the aftermath of atrocity, with a focus on the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, 1994, this article emphasizes the role of recognition failures in grave moral wrongs, the importance of speech acts that offer recognition, and building mutuality through recognition as a route to reconciliation. Understanding the US role in the international failure to stop the ’94 genocide (...) raises the question of how any response could mitigate a world-shattering wrong like genocide. With a focus on survivors, this article explains the concepts of recognition harm and spirit murder to illuminate what survivors experience and need. The third section develops a theory of apology as offering recognition to the victim of wrongdoing —through both the act of speaking-to and through its content. The article examines US President Bill Clinton’s 1998 apology to Rwandans, to understand it as an apology, and to see how it began reconciliation between Americans and Rwandans. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the inter-related significance of apology and material reparations. (shrink)

Feminists have urged women to take semantic authority. This article explains what such authority is, how it depends upon community recognition, and how it differs from privilege and from authority as usually conceived under patriarchy. Understanding its natures and limits is an important part of attaining it. Understanding the role of community explains why separatism is the logical conclusion of this project, and why separatism is valuable even to those who do not separate.

This article argues that the real promise of feminist philosophy of language is in its account of articulated normativity. Feminist philosophy of language began within a descriptivist framework, seeking to identify and root out sexist discursive practices, like naming practices that subsume women’s identity under men’s, descriptive practices that erase or undermine women’s accomplishments and presence as subjects, and so on. This approach had its limits, and led to increased attention to the discursive practices through which we articulate our experiences (...) and construct our lives. Examining the core frameworks through which feminists have analyzed the power of language to shape social reality and construct social selves, this article shows how language is normative in its production and reproduction of social norms by way of its content, forms, and constitutive discursive practices. The article urges feminists to use knowledge of the processes of articulation and legitimation to effect and explain feminist reconstitution of women as whole. (shrink)

Freedom of expression is considered a basic human right, and yet most countries have restrictions on speech they deem harmful. Following the genocide of the Tutsi, Rwanda passed a constitution (2003) and laws against hate speech and other forms of divisionist language (2008, 2013). Understanding how language shaped “recognition harms” that both constitute and fuel genocide also helps account for political decisions to limit “divisionist” discourse. When we speak, we make expressive commitments, which are commitments to the viability and value (...) of ways of speaking. This article explores reasons a society would decide to say, “We don’t talk that way around here,” thus taking control of its own expressive commitments. Understanding the scope of the law in Rwanda promises to help clarify limits to hate speech and other forms of derogatory discourse (including images). Ultimately, the argument is that wherever recognition harms are a significant factor in social and political life, changing permissible expressive commitments is crucial to social and political repair. (shrink)

Making sense of MacKinnon’s claim that pornography silences women requires attention to the discursive and interpretive frameworks that pornography establishes and promotes. Treating pornography as a form of hate speech is promising, but also limited. A close examination of a legal case, in which pornographic images were used to sexually harass, focuses on the hate speech analogy while illustrating the broad and lasting impact of such depictions when targeted at an individual. Applying the distinction between Absolutist and Reclaimer approaches to (...) hate speech and derogatory terms, the article concludes with a discussion of the possibility of creative development of discursive practices within a context that undermines the semantic authority of members of certain groups. (shrink)

This article shows how attention to extended metaphors provides the basis for a substantive account of what it is to understand a metaphor. Offering an analysis of extended metaphors modeled on an analysis of co-referential anaphoric chains, this article presents an account of how contexts makes metaphors. The analysis introduces the concept of expressive commitment, commitment to the viability and value of particular modes of discourse. Unlike literal interpretation, metaphorical interpretation puts the expressive commitment in the forefront of the interpretive (...) process. The analogy between extended metaphors and anaphora provides a structure for describing what it is to interpret expressions metaphorically. It generates an account that explains the affinities and differences between extension and explication, and hence of the age-old problem of paraphrase. Further, the account allows for the open-endedness of metaphor without succumbing to the view that metaphor is non-cognitive. Finally, the account developed here underscores the role of expressive commitment in metaphorical interpretation. (shrink)

An imperfect “politics of justice” seems to be inevitable in the aftermath of genocide. In Rwanda, this is especially true, given the scale of the atrocities, the breadth of participation, and the need to build a justice system from scratch while establishing security and restoring the rule of law. Official contexts for survivor testimony and corresponding perpetrator punishment are crucial for establishing shared norms and narratives, but these processes can destabilize social relations in important ways. Accordingly, without development, these justice (...) mechanisms can undermine social stability and emerging cohesion. The converse is also true: without official contexts of testimony and judgment, development is only material support, and has no recognitive force. Learning from Rwanda’s post-’94 transitional justice, broadly construed, I argue that without development, platforms for testimony and the meting out of punishment yield insufficient recognition and so undermine social stability and emerging cohesion. The converse is also true: without official contexts of testimony and judgment, development is only material support, and lacks crucial recognitive force. The crucial interdependence of development, which provides distributive justice, with criminal proceedings, which offer retributive and restorative justice, has the potential to secure a lasting and stable peace. (shrink)

The use of virtual environments for the provision of health‐care is on the increase, and with each new development brings debates about their impact on care, nursing and nursing practice. Such environments offer opportunities for extending care and improvements in communication. Others believe these developments threaten aspects of nursing they hold sacrosanct. This paper explores the development of an assemblage of computer networks, databases, information systems, software programs and management systems that together work to manage health‐care in Australia, namely casemix. (...) We contend that spatial theories on network society show how this assemblage co‐ordinates and operates to manage care. We discuss how this assemblage affects care and suggest that changes in organisation may be a part of the shift in how bodily organisation occurs more generally, but more specifically in health‐care. We also suggest how nurses are enrolled in and by such networks, leading to transformation in nurses’ practices. Finally, we argue that using spatial forms of analysis allows an interpretation of such assemblages that may account for their strengths and their shortcomings. (shrink)

Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport begins with the history of sport, delves into both the metaphysics and ethics of sport, and also addresses dimensions of the social and political elements of sport. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of sport with a straightforward layout that professors can plan and build their courses around.

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic epithets) have long played various roles and achieved diverse ends in works of art. Focusing on basic aspects of an aesthetic object or work, this article examines the interpretive relation between point of view and content, asking how aesthetic contextualization shapes the impact of such terms. Can context, particularly aesthetic contexts, detach the derogatory force from powerful epithets and racist and sexist images? What would it be about aesthetic contexts that would make this possible? The (...) article puts into aesthetic contexts both Absolutist and Reclaimer views about the power of derogatory terms, applying an inferential role semantics, developed for language, to both words and images. The Reclaimer’s position, that derogation is a matter of pragmatics, of use, emphasizes the context-sensitivity of the term, that is matters who says it, to whom, when, where, and why. Understanding derogatory terms used as hate speech helps to make this position clear. The Absolutist’s position, that no contextual variations can detach the derogation from these deeply derogatory terms, is developed here through attention to subordinating images in pornography. The article argues that art may be able to achieve the deviant interpretations that the Reclaimer needs to undermine the derogations while maintaining sensitivity and awareness of the history of oppression. (shrink)

Drawing on my recent work using inferential role semantics and elements of speech act theory to analyze the role of derogatory terms (a.k.a. ‘hate speech’, or ‘slurs’) in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as the role of certain kinds of reparative speech acts in post-genocide Rwanda, this paper highlights key pragmatist commitments that inform the methods and goals of this practical analysis of real world events. In “Genocidal Language Games”, I used conceptual tools from Wittgenstein, (...) Sellars, Lewis, and Brandom, with a nod to Searle’s concept of status-functions, to develop an analysis that helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can at least partially constitute genocide, not only be an antecedent to it. In this paper, I sketch some of the tools and lessons of this project, with an eye to highlighting their pragmatist roots and the directions to which such real-world investigations lead. (shrink)

Drawing on writers as diverse as Saul Kripke, Stanley Cavell, G. E. M. Anscombe, Jonathan Lear, and Bernard Williams, I offer an interpretation of Wittgenstein's key notion of a form of life that explains why Wittgenstein was so enigmatic about it. Then, I show how Hilary Putnam's criticism of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics and Richard Rorty's support of (what he takes to be) Wittgenstein's legacy in the philosophy of mind both require mistaken assumptions about Wittgenstein's idea of a form of (...) life. Finally, I consider the extent to which the idea of a form of life is subject to Donald Davidson's critique of the idea of a conceptual scheme. (shrink)

Davidson suggests that metaphor is a pragmatic (not a semantic) phenomenon; on his view, metaphor is a perlocutionary effect prompts its audience to see one thing as another. Davidson rightly attacks speaker-intentionalism as the source of metaphorical meaning, but settles for an account that depends on audience intentions. A better approach would undermine intentionalism per se, replacing it with a social practice analysis based on patterns of extending the metaphor. This paper shows why Davidson’s perceptual model fails to stave off (...) semantic analysis, and argues that the professed virtues of Davidson's position are more readily found in an account that focuses on the nature of metaphorical interpretation. (shrink)

Although Nietzsche's writings clearly deliver an unhealthy dose of misogyny, it must be noticed that they also contain the seeds of a deconstruction of that misogyny. This paper exposes one set of deconstructing elements of Nietzsche's works with respect to his views on women. The wider philosophical context of Nietzsche's thought provides grounds for taking seriously several passages of The Gay Science that reveal a more sympathetic understanding of women, since these passages take seriously Nietzsche's anti-dualism, his perspectivism, and his (...) early existentialist notion of the self. The destabilizing force of these passages, combined with Nietzsche's remarks about women within this philosophical context, reveals that Nietzsche's works promise more insight than many feminists have previously noted. A feminist analysis of Nietzsche's anti-dualism, perspectivism and discussion of the power of naming promises to inform contemporary feminist concerns about the importance of women's articulating our lives. (shrink)

This article explores the cognitive and epistemic dimensions of a harm-centered theory of evil, as set out in Card’s The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. Examining testimony of both survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide helps to support, clarify, and extend Card’s view. Of particular concern are questions of recognizing evil as such, whether the demand to avoid evil sets too high a standard of control over oneself and one’s circumstances, and how to understand agency within evil (...) contexts. This article introduces the concept of ‘recognition harm’, which is an epistemic harm presupposed by and often constitutive of the kinds of intolerable harms that constitute evil, arguing that it is consistent with Card’s account. Finally, the article addresses to the application of the atrocity paradigm to chronic, enduring, systemic harms like sexism. (shrink)

The capacity for telling stories is necessary for being moral agents. The minimal necessary features for moral agency involve the capacities necessary for articulation, and articulation is a key part of what we learn and practice through telling stories. Developing the interdependence between agency and articulation, this article offers an account of both categorical moral agency and a degree-of-sophistication account of agency. Central to these are three factors: a moral agent has (1) the capacity to represent, (2) a sense of (...) self (including a sense of self in relation to others), and (3) the normative capacity to make judgments marked by authority. Featuring an analysis of Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” the article argues that Morrison portrays a moral sensibility emerging in the telling of the story, even in the absence of moral judgments within the text. Understanding the value of stories, fictional or factual, requires less attention to the moral value of the actions depicted within the story and more attention to the perspective and point of view developed in the narrative voice. Of most significance is the articulative process of the artist, the storyteller, the novelist, modeled for the reader, who must engage with that developing perspective. (shrink)

All athletes experience victory and defeat, but how many truly learn from the experience of sport? For ancient Greek philosophers, sport was an integral part of education. Today, athletics programs remain in schools, but we face a growing gap between the modern sports experience and enduring educational values. This book seeks to bridge that gap by advocating a philosophical approach to the sports experience. Combining issues and ideas from traditional philosophy with contemporary analyses of sport and applied "thinking activities," this (...) book invites athletes to learn about life from their experience of sport. The text works its way from internal reflection to social interaction by addressing four important topics: self-discovery, responsibility, respect, and citizenship. This sequence is important because authentic self-knowledge is an essential foundation for effectively dealing with the personal and social challenges faced by philosophical athletes. Reid discusses specific issues such as violence, racism, and performance-enhancing drugs in their relevant contexts, although philosophical athletes focus on the big picture, approaching each issue from a complete vision of themselves, their moral commitments, and their social roles. Athletes as diverse as the teenage college recruit and the aging weekend-warrior will gain insight into their sports experience and into their lives. This philosophical approach maximizes what we can learn from sport and gives us the best chance for leading better lives because of it. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has necessitated widespread adaptation of revised treatment regimens for both urgent and routine medical problems in patients with and without COVID-19. Some of these alternative treatments maybe second-best. Treatments that are known to be superior might not be appropriate to deliver during a pandemic when consideration must be given to distributive justice and protection of patients and their medical teams as well the importance given to individual benefit and autonomy. What is required of the doctor discussing (...) these alternative, potentially inferior treatments and seeking consent to proceed? Should doctors share information about unavailable but standard treatment alternatives when seeking consent? There are arguments in defence of non-disclosure; information about unavailable treatments may not aid a patient to weigh up options that are available to them. There might be justified concern about distress for patients who are informed that they are receiving second-best therapies. However, we argue that doctors should tailor information according to the needs of the individual patient. For most patients that will include a nuanced discussion about treatments that would be considered in other times but currently unavailable. That will sometimes be a difficult conversation, and require clinicians to be frank about limited resources and necessary rationing. However, transparency and honesty will usually be the best policy. (shrink)

The social production of an enterprise clinic: nurses, clinical pathway guidelines and contemporary healthcare practicesIn this paper I critically engage with the forming of contemporary nursing practice with/in an ‘enterprise clinic’ in order to discuss the practical potential of developing a mode of reflective practice that is a critical ontology of self. Critical engagement in the paper is secured through a ‘troubling’ of the relationship between the contemporary practices of both the self and governance, without the reduction of one to (...) the other. The paper draws on my doctoral study in which I combined the techniques of ethnography and discourse analysis in order to critically examine registered nurses’ employment of clinical pathway guidelines through an analysis of the political technologies through which that engagement was constituted. This critical purchase was applied because of the influence of the contemporary ‘problematisation’ of healthcare provision in western society on the formation and deployment of the professional identities of nurses. (shrink)

Although language has long been regarded as a primarily arbitrary system, sound symbolism, or non-arbitrary correspondences between the sound of a word and its meaning, also exists in natural language. Previous research suggests that listeners are sensitive to sound symbolism. However, little is known about the specificity of these mappings. This study investigated whether sound symbolic properties correspond to specific meanings, or whether these properties generalize across semantic dimensions. In three experiments, native English-speaking adults heard sound symbolic foreign words for (...) dimensional adjective pairs and for each foreign word, selected a translation among English antonyms that either matched or mismatched with the correct meaning dimension. Listeners agreed more reliably on the English translation for matched relative to mismatched dimensions, though reliable cross-dimensional mappings did occur. These findings suggest that although sound symbolic properties generalize to meanings that may share overlapping semantic features, sound symbolic mappings offer semantic specificity. (shrink)

Understanding evil requires both addressing the grave wrongs done to the victim and addressing the perpetrator who does these wrongs. Claudia Card's concept of social vitality was developed to explain what génocidaires destroy in their victims. This essay brings that concept into conversation with perpetrator testimony, arguing that the génocidaires’ desire for their own social vitality, achieved through their destruction of the social world of their targets, in fact boomerangs to corrode the vitality of their own lives. This is true (...) whether they succeed or fail in their genocidal project. Card's recent analysis of “being a badass” is brought to bear on the cultivation of evil, and the essay suggests four strategies for meeting Card's “moral challenge of avoiding evil responses to evil.”. (shrink)

Given that university faculty members and supervisors practicing in the community have been involved in at least one research supervisor-graduate student relationship, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the ethical issues involved in such relationships. Indeed, as a student and her or his graduate research supervisor may be involved in a close working relationship for many years, it is understandable that several opportunities can arise that could be considered dual or multiple relationships. Examples of such (...) relationship issues discussed in this article include authorship matters, favoritism or inequitable treatment of students, and sexual relationships. Depending on the nature of the relationship, the impact on students can be quite severe; although, the effects on students have not been adequately studied. Existing ethical guidelines do not provide enough guidance in this area where students are in a position of diminished power with respect to the supervisor. Following the discussion of relationship issues, we suggest extensions of current guidelines to deal with these issues. (shrink)

Following the success of Hong Kong Corner Houses, German photographer Michael Wolf continues his collaboration with Hong Kong University Press to produce Small God, Big City. Wolf again uses his creative eye to draw attention to overlooked objects in the visually rich urban environment of Hong Kong. This time the object is the Earth God shrine, found commonly by the doorways of shops and homes throughout Hong Kong. Through his visually stimulating and thought-provoking photographs, Wolf challenges our sensitivity to (...) seemingly familiar everyday things. An interpretative text for the photographs is authored by two familiar names: Lee Ho Yin and Lynne DiStefano, who are well-known academics and practitioners of heritage conservation in Hong Kong. The text is a highly readable curatorial essay that leads readers to a better understanding of the topic and the meaning behind Wolf 's photographs of Earth God shrines in urban Hong Kong. The topic of this book is timely, given the vulnerability of traditional beliefs and practices in an increasingly urbanized Hong Kong. It is hoped that Small God, Big City will provoke deeper thoughts on who we are and what we believe in this modern world. (shrink)

Language matters to feminism because language is a structure of significances that governs our lives. It contains and conveys the categories through which we understand ourselves and others, and through which we become who and what we are. Our linguistic practices are constituted largely by inferences which in turn constitute or contribute to our understanding of the connections (causal and otherwise) between things. These inferential roles and patterns, which are normatively inscribed, give order and significance to the categories. Once we (...) realize that our linguistic categories reflect and are reflected by our social categories, and once we see that our discursive practices are normative, it is a short step to see language as an arena of political struggle. Feminism is, at the very least, a struggle to end sexist oppression by eradicating both the means by which oppression is carried out and the ideology that seeks that it be carried out. As our most powerful and yet nuanced symbol system, language is perhaps the primary means by which the ideology of sexism is developed and reinforced; it is not news that language is an instrument of oppression. A narrow focus on sexist semantics is of limited use to feminist philosophers, for at best such studies yield lists of past and present harms, with little more to add than “stop it, now.” The real promise of philosophy of language for feminists is an understanding of articulated normativity; by understanding how language really works, we might just understand how the rabbit of normativity gets pulled from the hat of articulation. Language is normative in its production and reproduction of social norms by way of its content, by way of its forms, and most especially by way of its constitutive discursive practices. Once we understand how women are paradoxically constituted by and yet erased from discourse, we may use what we know of these processes of articulation and legitimation to effect and explain our reconstitution as whole. (shrink)

Confronting evils pulls the minds and hearts in several directions. This chapter focuses on acute cataclysmic events that shock people into awareness, or chronic corrosive evils that damage the agency and dull the attention. It also focuses on those who commit grave wrongs, or those who suffer them. Claudia Card's work has offered a steady focus on the experiences and needs of survivors of atrocities and grave wrongs. The chapter explores what Card's most recent work suggests about perpetrators, that is, (...) about the moral risks of participating in evil. Obvious atrocities include terrorism, torture, forced starvation, slavery, rape, and genocide; these each involve many grave wrongs. Card's concepts of social vitality and social death make sense of such cases, enabling us to see a perpetrator's act as a particular destruction of a survivor's world. Social vitality is important for each of us, in all phases of the lives. (shrink)

. Undoubtedly, multinational corporations must play a significant role in the advancement of global ecological ethics. Our research offers a glimpse into the process of how goals of ecological sustainability in one multinational corporation can trickle down through the organization via the sustainability support behaviors of supervisors. We asked the question “How do supervisors in a multinational corporation internalize their corporation’s commitment to ecological sustainability and, in turn, behave in ways that convey this commitment to their subordinates?” In response, we (...) created a theoretical framework for supervisor sustainability support behavior based on Stern et al., Human Ecology Review 6(2), 81-97 (1999) value-belief-norm (VBN) theory. We then tested our framework by performing a survey-based field study of supervisors in a multinational pharmaceutical company that has publicly professed a goal of ecological sustainability. (shrink)

This book explores how some word meanings are paradigmatically related to each other, for example, as opposites or synonyms, and how they relate to the mental organization of our vocabularies. Traditional approaches claim that such relationships are part of our lexical knowledge (our "dictionary" of mentally stored words) but Lynne Murphy argues that lexical relationships actually constitute our "metalinguistic" knowledge. The book draws on a century of previous research, including word association experiments, child language, and the use of synonyms (...) and antonyms in text. (shrink)