Fair trade is at a critical juncture as a social movement. In the midst of a sales boom and vastly increased visibility, the tensions and contradictions that exist within the movement are intensifying. In particular, expansion of the fair-trade system to cover new commodities, and the process of 'mainstreaming' fair trade have opened rifts in the movement and called into question the meaning of 'fairness'. This essay reviews three recent books on fair trade, and examines current threats to the system, (...) as well as fair trade's potential for supporting a broad process of social, economic, political, and ecological transformation. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This edited volume presents critical scholarship analysing governance practices in diverse jurisdictions in Europe and North America, at multiple scales, and in relation to several different arenas of policy and practice. The contributors address shortcomings in the mainstream literature on governance within the discipline of political science. The volume as a whole is marked by geographical and topical diversity. However, what the individual chapters have in common is that each considers whether and how gender, racialized identity, and/or other axes of (...) marginalization are visible within the conceptualizations and/or practices of governance under discussion. Drawing together insights and conceptual tools from both feminist and post-structuralist frameworks in analysing governance practices, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and graduates who engage with feminist and/or post-structural analysis of policy and governance. It will also be of use to critical policy scholars in anthropology, geography, sociology, and women's studies. (shrink)

There is general agreement in mathematics about what continuity is. In this paper we examine how well the mathematical definition lines up with common sense notions. We use a recent paper by Hud Hudson as a point of departure. Hudson argues that two objects moving continuously can coincide for all but the last moment of their histories and yet be separated in space at the end of this last moment. It turns out that Hudson’s construction does not (...) deliver mathematically continuous motion, but the natural question then is whether there is any merit in the alternative definition of continuity that he implicitly invokes. (shrink)

It has been well documented how language‐specific cues may be used for word segmentation. Here, we investigate what role a language‐independent phonological universal, the sonority sequencing principle (SSP), may also play. Participants were presented with an unsegmented speech stream with non‐English word onsets that juxtaposed adherence to the SSP with transitional probabilities. Participants favored using the SSP in assessing word‐hood, suggesting that the SSP represents a potentially powerful cue for word segmentation. To ensure the SSP influenced the segmentation process (i.e., (...) during learning), we presented two additional groups of participants with either (a) no exposure to the stimuli prior to testing or (b) the same stimuli with pauses marking word breaks. The SSP did not influence test performance in either case, suggesting that the SSP is important for word segmentation during the learning process itself. Moreover, the fact that SSP‐independent segmentation of the stimulus occurred (in the latter control condition) suggests that universals are best understood as biases rather than immutable constraints on learning. (shrink)

Pupils' notes of some lectures on religious belief which Wittgenstein gave in 1938 have recently been published, and what I have to say is set against the background of these lectures. My title may suggest that there is a distinctive and precise account of religious belief which can be extracted from them and stated clearly for consideration. But I do not think that this is so. It is evident from these lectures that, in the subject of religious belief, Wittgenstein's prodigious (...) capacity for puzzlement, in which Moore recognised the marks of genius, found full scope. But, at many points, it is not clear to me, at any rate, just how he is resolving – or would resolve – the puzzlement. So I am most certainly not setting myself up to explain ‘what Wittgenstein really meant’. However, like everything which we have from him, these lectures are fascinating, suggestive, provocative. And, at some hazard, I am going to offer a few observations on one or two of the points which he was, or appears to have been, making. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Pupils' notes of some lectures on religious belief which Wittgenstein gave in 1938 have recently been published, and what I have to say is set against the background of these lectures. My title may suggest that there is a distinctive and precise account of religious belief which can be extracted from them and stated clearly for consideration. But I do not think that this is so. It is evident from these lectures that, in the subject of religious belief, Wittgenstein's prodigious (...) capacity for puzzlement, in which Moore recognised the marks of genius, found full scope. But, at many points, it is not clear to me, at any rate, just how he is resolving – or would resolve – the puzzlement. So I am most certainly not setting myself up to explain ‘what Wittgenstein really meant’. However, like everything which we have from him, these lectures are fascinating, suggestive, provocative. And, at some hazard, I am going to offer a few observations on one or two of the points which he was, or appears to have been, making. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It has been well documented how language-specific cues may be used for word segmentation. Here, we investigate what role a language-independent phonological universal, the sonority sequencing principle (SSP), may also play. Participants were presented with an unsegmented speech stream with non-English word onsets that juxtaposed adherence to the SSP with transitional probabilities. Participants favored using the SSP in assessing word-hood, suggesting that the SSP represents a potentially powerful cue for word segmentation. To ensure the SSP influenced the segmentation process (i.e., (...) during learning), we presented two additional groups of participants with either (a) no exposure to the stimuli prior to testing or (b) the same stimuli with pauses marking word breaks. The SSP did not influence test performance in either case, suggesting that the SSP is important for word segmentation during the learning process itself. Moreover, the fact that SSP-independent segmentation of the stimulus occurred (in the latter control condition) suggests that universals are best understood as biases rather than immutable constraints on learning. (shrink)

Coleridge, Mark Review of: Australian religious thought: Six explorations, by Wayne Hudson, Clayton, VIC: Monash University Publishing, 2016, pp. 352, paperback, $39.95.

This book argues for the importance of writing to conceptions of language, technology, and civilization in the early modern era.

Philosophical Papers Vol.32(1) 2003: 15-22.

A short philosophical narrative about an angel wrestling with the decision to rebel against God and leave his post in the Garden of Eden.

This chapter contains section titled: Community in Early America: The Colonizers, the Colonized, the Marginalized, and the Enslaved The Unresolved American Dilemma: Community, Segregation, and Desegregation The “Failure of Integration”? Conclusion: Pluralism and the Challenge of the New Millennium.

Mark Jago presents an original philosophical account of meaningful thought: in particular, how it is meaningful to think about things that are impossible. We think about impossible things all the time. We can think about alchemists trying to turn base metal to gold, and about unfortunate mathematicians trying to square the circle. We may ponder whether God exists; and philosophers frequently debate whether properties, numbers, sets, moral and aesthetic qualities, and qualia exist. In many philosophical or mathematical debates, when (...) one side of the argument gets things wrong, it necessarily gets them wrong. As we consider both sides of one of these philosophical arguments, we will at some point think about something that’s impossible. Yet most philosophical accounts of meaning and content hold that we can’t meaningfully think or reason about the impossible. -/- In The Impossible, Jago argues that we often gain new information, new beliefs, and, sometimes, fresh knowledge through logic, mathematics, and philosophy. That is why logic, mathematics, and philosophy are useful. We therefore require accounts of knowledge and belief, of information and content, and of meaning which allow space for the impossible. Jago’s aim in this book is to provide such accounts. He gives a detailed analysis of the concept of hyperintensionality, whereby logically equivalent contents may be distinct, and develops a theory in terms of possible and impossible worlds. Along the way, he provides a theory of what those worlds are and how they feature in our analysis of normative epistemic concepts: knowledge, belief, information, and content. (shrink)

By questions of “canon,” we mean questions of what is fictionally true of some character, story, or world. What is canon is treated as authoritative or official, usually by creators and fans alike. But disputes about canon have arisen as storytellers and publishers have sought to capitalize on the popularity of their characters, churning out more and more stories to meet public demand, and at the same time engaging with growing fan bases. As audiences have become more involved, and as (...) fictional worlds have become messier, the authoritative nature of canon—and who authorizes it—has begun to erode. In this paper, we characterize canon as an article in the evolving relation between authors and audiences. More specifically, we characterize canon as an intangible good, subject to a form of cultural negotiation, resting on a power relation between producers and consumers of fictions. In Part I, we consider the author’s evolving role, and the rights of the creator to a story, character, or world. In Part II, we discuss the emerging activities of fans, particularly as they weigh on issues of canon. In Part III, we discuss canon as being subject to cultural negotiation, highlighting the importance of power dynamics in this negotiation. (shrink)

(2003). Intellectuals for our times. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 6, The Public Role of Intellectuals, pp. 33-50. doi: 10.1080/1369823042000241258.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1896 Edition.

Nondescriptivist views in many areas of philosophy have long been associated with the commitment that in contrast to other domains of discourse, there are no propositions in their particular domain. For example, the ‘no truth conditions’ theory of conditionals1 is understood as the view that conditionals don’t express propositions, noncognitivist expressivism in metaethics is understood as advocating the view that there are not really moral propositions,2 and expressivism about epistemic modals is thought of as the view that there is no (...) such thing as the proposition that Jack might be at home, over and above the proposition that Jack is at home.3 Of course, it is nearly always acknowledged that advocates of a nondescriptivist theory need not deny that there are conditional, moral, or modal propositions ‘at the end of the day’ – for if they also endorse a deflationary reading of talk about propositions, as famously advocated by Simon Blackburn, then they can employ such deflationary talk just as much as the rest of us. They just don’t appeal to propositions to do any of the work in their theories. Rather, they ‘earn the right’ to talk about propositions.4 It is the aim of this paper to upset this way of thinking about the proper attitude of nondescriptivists toward propositions, and to advocate a more constructive and in some ways more radical alternative on behalf of the nondescriptivist. I will begin by introducing and developing a set of problems that are faced by any nondescriptivist theory which tries to do without propositions. All of these problems are easily solved by any view which postulates propositions across the board, but none of them are solved by merely deflationary talk about propositions – their most promising solutions require propositions to do real theoretical work, and therefore the problems themselves remind us of and illustrate some of the important reasons why it is worth positing propositions in the first place.. (shrink)

There have been and continue to be disagreements about how to consider the traditional square of opposition and the traditional inferences of obversion, conversion, contraposition and inversion from the perspective of contemporary quantificational logic. Philosophers have made many different attempts to save traditional inferences that are invalid when they involve empty classes. I survey some of these attempts and argue that the only satisfactory way of saving all the traditional inferences is to make the existential assumption that both the subject (...) and predicate classes and their complement classes are non-empty for all the propositions we admit. I briefly indicate the room for continued controversy over how properly to interpret Aristotle?s statements regarding these inferences, but find some plausibility in the views of Manley Thompson and A.N.Prior that Aristotle had in mind a particular arrangement of existential import unfamiliar to most contemporary logicians. (shrink)

Excerpt from An Introduction to the Study of Government Since this book was conceived and written, events have come to pass which will ultimately be reflected in momentous political changes among the chief states of the modem world. Such changes, however, will certainly develop along the lines of liberal experiment in government as such experiment has been made in various democratic countries. A study of modern government in general will, therefore, have a value to the student in his consideration of (...) coming possibilities in European political organization. This book has been written to place before students a concise statement of the nature, organization, and operation of government as government exists in the foremost states of the modern world. On the one hand, it covers a narrower field than the current textbooks on Political Science; on the other, it covers a wider field than the current textbooks on the government of the United States. I have endeavored, after a study of various modern governments, to set forth general principles of government and to show how these general principles are modified in practice by particular states. Two years ago I wrote to several of the leading publishers in this country asking for the titles of their publications covering the field of government, and specified the nature of the material I desired. In reply, the publishers submitted works on Political Science, books on the government of the United States, and theoretical treatises on principles of government in general. So far as I could discover, no book of the precise character I wanted was in print. After considerable hesitation, I planned the work myself. The greatest part of my available time since then has been spent in writing the book. The general divisions of my plan are those that are commonly adopted by political science writers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This essay uses Garland’s framework from The Culture of Control to suggest an agenda for critical penology. This includes, as well as the analysis of choices actually made and the cultural repertoire actually available, describing and advocating other possible choices, and analysing the conditions of possibility for the adoption of other (better) policies and practices; and examining the implications for the future of choices which are currently being made. Carlen’s Women and Punishment: The Struggle for Justice and Garland’s edited collection (...) Mass Imprisonment in the USA are examples of these penologies. Another way in which penologists, social theorists and philosophers can attempt to influence policy choices is to contribute to enlargement of the available cultural repertoire. The development and promotion of restorative justice is given as one example of this; another is work by philosophers such as Duff, Matravers and Norrie which addresses questions such as the source, nature and limits of penal communities; the basis of political obligation, and the relational nature of responsibility for crime. (shrink)

Gaining information can be modelled as a narrowing of epistemic space . Intuitively, becoming informed that such-and-such is the case rules out certain scenarios or would-be possibilities. Chalmers’s account of epistemic space treats it as a space of a priori possibility and so has trouble in dealing with the information which we intuitively feel can be gained from logical inference. I propose a more inclusive notion of epistemic space, based on Priest’s notion of open worlds yet which contains only those (...) epistemic scenarios which are not obviously impossible. Whether something is obvious is not always a determinate matter and so the resulting picture is of an epistemic space with fuzzy boundaries. (shrink)

I discuss three ways of responding to the logical omniscience problems faced by traditional ‘possible worlds’ epistemic logics. Two of these responses were put forward by Hintikka and the third by Cresswell; all three have been influential in the literature on epistemic logic. I show that both of Hintikka's responses fail and present some problems for Cresswell’s. Although Cresswell's approach can be amended to avoid certain unpalatable consequences, the resulting formal framework collapses to a sentential model of knowledge, which defenders (...) of the ‘possible worlds’ approach are frequently critical of. (shrink)

We argue that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. First, we explain the recognition heuristic as studied by Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to, and outside the control of, the cognitive agent. We then connect the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, arguing that the recognition heuristic is best understood as an instance of (...) scaffolded cognition. In section three, we consider the double-edged sword of cognitive scaffolding. On the one hand, scaffolds can reduce the internal processing demands on cognitive agents while increasing their access to information. On the other hand, the use of scaffolding leaves cognitive agents increasingly vulnerable to forming false beliefs or failing to form beliefs at all about particular topics. With respect to the recognition heuristic, agents rely on third parties (such as the media) to report not just what’s true but also what’s important or valuable. This makes cognitive agents relying on these third parties vulnerable to two erroneous influences: 1) because they don’t recognize something, it isn’t important or valuable, and 2) because they do recognize something, it is important or valuable. Call the latter the Kardashian Inference and the former the Darfur Inference. In section four, we use Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to characterize the nature and harm of these false inferences, with special emphasis on the Darfur Inference. In section five, we use data-mining and an empirical study to show how Gigerenzer’s population estimation task is liable to produce Darfur Inferences. We conclude with some speculative remarks on more important Darfur Inferences, and how to avoid them by scaffolding better. One primary way to accomplish this it to shift the burden of embodying the virtue of epistemic justice from the hearer or consumer of media to the media themselves. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic framework for thinking about the relationship between language and technology and an argument for interweaving thinking about technology with thinking about language. The main claim of philosophy of technology—that technologies are not mere tools and artefacts not mere things, but crucially and significantly shape what we perceive, do, and are—is re-thought in a way that accounts for the role of language in human technological experiences and practices. Engaging with work by Wittgenstein, Heidegger, McLuhan, Searle, Ihde, (...) Latour, Ricoeur, and many others, the author critically responds to, and constructs a synthesis of, three "extreme", idealtype, untenable positions: only humans speak and neither language nor technologies speak, only language speaks and neither humans nor technologies speak, and only technology speaks and neither humans nor language speak. The construction of this synthesis goes hand in hand with a narrative about subjects and objects that become entangled and constitute one another. Using Words and Things thus draws in central discussions from other subdisciplines in philosophy, such as philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics, to offer an original theory of the relationship between language and technology centered on use, performance, and narrative, and taking a transcendental turn. (shrink)

In his recent article, Nicolas Rasmussen (2001) is harshly critical of what he terms 'empirical philosophy of science', a philosophy that takes seriously the history of science in advancing philosophical pronouncements about science. He motivates his criticism by reflecting on recent history in microbiology involving the 'discovery' of a new bacterial organelle, the mesosome, during the 1950's and 1960's, and the subsequent retraction of this discovery by experimental microbiologists during the late 1970's and early 1980's. In particular, he argues that (...) there was a lack of constancy in the methods microbiologists used in approaching the issue of the existence of mesosomes, and that in fact a similar sort of 'methodological flux' pervades all experimental work. My goal here is to refute Rasmussen's doctrine of flux, and in turn to re-establish order in our understanding of the methods and strategies of experimenters. My strategy in achieving this goal is to re-visit the same crucial research articles in the history of the mesosome episode that Rasmussen (2001) visits; and what I find upon returning to this literature is not flux, as Rasmussen seems to find, but a constancy of method in experimental reasoning, a constancy codified by what I call 'reliable process reasoning'. (shrink)