This collection of papers by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral by developing theory that acknowledges the diversity of women.

Records of online collaborative mathematical activity provide us with a novel, rich, searchable, accessible and sizeable source of data for empirical investigations into mathematical practice. In this paper we discuss how the resources of crowdsourced mathematics can be used to help formulate and answer questions about mathematical practice, and what their limitations might be. We describe quantitative approaches to studying crowdsourced mathematics, reviewing work from cognitive history (comparing individual and collaborative proofs); social psychology (on the prospects for a measure of (...) collective intelligence); human–computer interaction (on the factors that led to the success of one such project); network analysis (on the differences between collaborations on open research problems and known-but-hard problems); and argumentation theory (on modelling the argument structures of online collaborations). We also give an overview of qualitative approaches, reviewing work from empirical philosophy (on explanation in crowdsourced mathematics); sociology of scientific knowledge (on conventions and conversations in online mathematics); and ethnography (on contrasting conceptions of collaboration). We suggest how these diverse methods can be applied to crowdsourced mathematics and when each might be appropriate. (shrink)

Analysis of online mathematics forums can help reveal how explanation is used by mathematicians; we contend that this use of explanation may help to provide an informal conceptualization of simplicity. We extracted six conjectures from recent philosophical work on the occurrence and characteristics of explanation in mathematics. We then tested these conjectures against a corpus derived from online mathematical discussions. To this end, we employed two techniques, one based on indicator terms, the other on a random sample of comments lacking (...) such indicators. Our findings suggest that explanation is widespread in mathematical practice and that it occurs not only in proofs but also in other mathematical contexts. Our work also provides further evidence for the utility of empirical methods in addressing philosophical problems. (shrink)

One of the most provocative projects in recent analytic philosophy has been the development of the doctrine of externalism, or, as it is often called, anti-individualism. While there is no agreement as to whether externalism is true or not, a number of recent investigations have begun to explore the question of what follows if it is true. One of the most interesting of these investigations thus far has been the question of whether externalism has consequences for the doctrine that we (...) have authoritative, a priori self-knowledge of our mental states. The selected works presented in this volume, some previously published, some new, are representative of this debate and open up new questions and issues for philosophical investigation, including the connection between externalism, self-knowledge, epistemic warrant, and memory. (shrink)

"Active intervention" with suicidal callers to telephone crisis lines involves breaking confidentiality by dispatching emergency services, typically the police, to a suicidal person without that person's consent and sometimes without his or her knowledge.1 Those who oppose active intervention often refer to it as "nonvoluntary intervention." Active intervention is rapidly becoming the standard of practice for crisis centers and is required for certification by the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), the primary organization that certifies telephone crisis centers. A policy of (...) active intervention is also required for any crisis center affiliated with the Hope Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline .. (shrink)

“Active intervention” with suicidal callers to telephone crisis lines involves breaking confidentiality by dispatching emergency services, typically the police, to a suicidal person without that person’s consent and sometimes without his or her knowledge. In this paper I am concerned with the issue of whether active intervention is ethically justified from a feminist bioethical perspective, and if so, under what conditions.

Feminist bioethics is a relatively new field, the major works in which only started to appear in the late 1980s. At first feminist bioethicists focused mainly on issues of particular concern to women such as reproduction. Recently, papers have begun to appear that show that a feminist analysis can be brought to bear on any subject traditional bioethics discusses. So far, however, feminist bioethics has not been brought to bear on psychiatry. There have been feminist critiques of psychiatry and feminist (...) discussions of certain diagnostic categories that disproportionately affect women, but these are concerned with womens issues within psychiatry and how psychiatry has been used to oppress women. Certainly these are important, but what has been missing is a discussion of psychiatry in the sense that feminist bioethics suggests a general critique of psychiatry and the rethinking of the practice of psychiatry, regardless of whether the specific instances involved are womens issues. In this paper I look at what such a feminist bioethical intervention into psychiatry would look like. (shrink)

This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

: This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

This study examined the role of reflection on personal cases for making ethical decisions with regard to new ethical problems. Participants assumed the position of a business manager in a hypothetical organization and solved ethical problems that might be encountered. Prior to making a decision for the business problems, participants reflected on a relevant ethical experience. The findings revealed that application of material garnered from reflection on a personal experience was associated with decisions of higher ethicality. However, whether the case (...) was viewed as positive or negative, and whether the outcomes, processes, or outcomes and processes embedded in the experience were examined, influenced the application of case material to the new problem. As expected, examining positive experiences and the processes involved in those positive experiences resulted in greater application of case material to new problems. Future directions and implications for understanding ethical decision making are discussed. (shrink)

SUMMARYAs the Enlightenment drew to a close, translation had gradually acquired an increasingly important role in the international circulation and transmission of scientific knowledge. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the translators responsible for making such accounts accessible in other languages, some of whom were women. In this article I explore how European women cast themselves as intellectually enquiring, knowledgeable and authoritative figures in their translations. Focusing specifically on the genre of scientific travel writing, I investigate the narrative (...) strategies deployed by women translators to mark their involvement in the process of scientific knowledge-making. These strategies ranged from rhetorical near-invisibility, driven by women's modest marginalization of their own public engagement in science, to the active advertisement of themselves as intellectually curious consumers of scientific knowledge. A detailed study of Elizabeth Helme's translation of the French ornithologist François le Vaillant's Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique [Voyage into the Interior of Africa] allows me to explore how her reworking of the original text for an Anglophone reading public enabled her to engage cautiously – or sometimes more openly – with questions regarding how scientific knowledge was constructed, for whom and with which aims in mind. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to Irigaray's work, dealing with the questions of cultural difference that a culture of sexual difference raises. It sets out the main elements of Irigaray's thought and work without assuming any prior knowledge of it. It discusses her status as a French thinker and her reception in Anglo-academia, emphasizing the influence of Heidegger and Hegel on her thinking, and questioning her categorization as a `French feminist' and exponent of `feminine writing'. It highlights Irigaray's work in (...) the 1990s, particularly its more political aspects. Her proposals for a democracy based on the man-woman couple are discussed, as is her relation to Italian feminism and her work within the European Parliament to bring about a sexed definition of citizenship. Irigaray is presented as a political philosopher of change who is concerned with a future of justice for everyone. (shrink)

This study examined the role of temporal orientation and affective frame in the execution of ethical decision-making strategies. In reflecting on a past experience or imagining a future experience, participants thought about experiences that they considered either positive or negative. The participants recorded their thinking about that experience by responding to several questions, and their responses were content-analyzed for the use of ethical decision-making strategies. The findings indicated that a future temporal orientation was associated with greater strategy use. Likewise, a (...) positive affective frame was associated with greater strategy use. Future orientation may permit better strategy execution than a past orientation because it facilitates more objective, balanced contemplation of the reflected-upon situation and minimizes potential self-threat associated with past behavior. A positive affective frame likely improves strategy execution because it facilitates active analysis of the experience. Future directions and implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

To adequately model mathematical arguments the analyst must be able to represent the mathematical objects under discussion and the relationships between them, as well as inferences drawn about these objects and relationships as the discourse unfolds. We introduce a framework with these properties, which has been used to analyse mathematical dialogues and expository texts. The framework can recover salient elements of discourse at, and within, the sentence level, as well as the way mathematical content connects to form larger argumentative structures. (...) We show how the framework might be used to support computational reasoning, and argue that it provides a more natural way to examine the process of proving theorems than do Lamport’s structured proofs. (shrink)

Ethical concerns about therapeutic misconception have been raised since the early 1980s. This concept was originally described as research participants' assumptions that decisions relating to research interventions are made on the basis of their individual therapeutic needs. The term has since been used to refer to a range of ‘misunderstandings’ that research participants may have. In this paper, we describe a new concept—therapeutic appropriation. Therapeutic appropriation occurs when patients, or clinicians, actively reframe research participation as an opportunity to enhance patients' (...) clinical care, while simultaneously acknowledging the generalised research aims. To illustrate the concept of therapeutic appropriation, we draw on data from an interview study which we conducted to investigate the experiences of patients and general practitioners involved in clinical trials in primary care. We argue that therapeutic appropriation has two key elements: comprehension that the research project is not necessarily aiming to benefit participants and the deliberate use of incidental features of the research for personal therapeutic benefit of various kinds. We conclude that therapeutic appropriation is a useful concept that refines understanding of potential ethical problems in clinical research, and points to strategies to address them. (shrink)

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume distinguished philosophers, political scientists, international lawyers, environmentalists and anthropologists discuss some of the most difficult questions of human rights (...) theory and practice: What do human rights require of the global economy? Does it make sense to secure them by force? What do they require in jus post bello contexts of transitional justice? Is global climate change a human rights issue? Is there a human right to democracy? Does the human rights movement constitute moral progress? For students of political philosophy, human rights, peace studies, and international relations. (shrink)

The scientific, ethical, and policy issues raised by research involving the engraftment of human neural stem cells into the brains of nonhuman primates are explored by an interdisciplinary working group in this Policy Forum. The authors consider the possibility that this research might alter the cognitive capacities of recipient great apes and monkeys, with potential significance for their moral status.

This project examined the ethical issues faced by academics and professionals in the Humanities. We conducted focus groups to gather information about the ethical concerns in these fields and used the qualitative data arising from the discussions to create a taxonomy that represents the structure of ethical issues in the Humanities. A key implication of our findings is that while the focus of ethics research and interventions has been primarily on the sciences and engineering, academics and professionals in other fields (...) also encounter some unique critical ethical dilemmas that require further research and methods of intervention. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform is an invaluable resource for policymakers, faculty, students, and anyone interested in how decisions made about the education system ultimately affect the quality of education, educational access, and social justice.

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben—whose work has influenced intellectuals in political theory, political philosophy, legal theory, literature, and art—stands among the foremost intellectual figures of the modern era. Engaging with a range of thinkers from Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger to Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou, Agamben considers some of the most pressing issues in recent history and politics. His work explores the relationship between the sovereign state and the politically marginalized _Homo Sacer_—exiles, refugees, prisoners of war, and others whom (...) the state actively excludes from political participation and full humanity. Further, his critique of the increasing deployment of a “state of exception”—the declaration of a state of emergency that legitimizes the sovereign state’s suspension of law for the public good—as a dominant paradigm for governing has particular power in today’s global political climate. Infused with the spirit of Agamben’s critical self-reflection, this special issue of _SAQ_ examines his seminal works _Homo Sacer_, _The Open_, and _State of Exception_. Some contributors use Agamben’s work to examine the history of abortion law in the West, the history of slavery, and women’s rights. Others analyze the connections between Agamben’s work and that of his contemporaries, including Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Still other essays identify new points of interdisciplinary communication between some of Agamben’s most provocative ideas and popular twentieth-century writing. _Contributors_. Andrew Benjamin, Claire Colebrook, Jean-Philippe Deranty, Penelope Deutscher, Eleanor Kaufman, Adrian Mackenzie, Catherine Mills, Alison Ross, Lee Spinks, Ewa Płonowska Ziarek, Krzysztof Ziarek. (shrink)

I am on record as a fan of Rock, Bone, and Ruin, and I was pleased to discover that, in our paired cover blurbs, Martin Rudwick and I make essentially the same point: the great virtue of Rock, Bone, and Ruin is that Adrian Currie combines what you might describe as a jeweler’s-eye view, in his attention to the messy details of research practice in the historical sciences, with a cartographer’s breadth of vision that, as Rudwick puts it, leads (...) him to “explore the surprising commonalities that underlie these superficially diverse sciences.” Rather than appraising the epistemic prospects of the historical sciences against an abstract, trans-contextual template, Currie builds this breadth from close analysis of the strategies by which epistemically “unlucky” historical scientists parlay their limited evidential resources into a robust understanding of temporally remote geological events, evolutionary processes and cultural dynamics. As a demonstration of how productive such a turn to practice can be, Currie’s approach has meta-philosophical implications to which I return at the end, but first I offer a selective review of his appraisal of the limitations of trace-centric accounts. (shrink)