This article considers the depictions of imperial officials and their interactions with Christian communities in the genre of ecclesiastical history. It focuses on one particular episode where the emperor Valens ordered his praetorian prefect Domitius Modestus to disperse an assembly of Nicene Christians at the martyrium of Thomas at Edessa. The four fifth-century Nicene ecclesiastical historians Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret offer the same basic narrative of the events which led to the prefect’s abandonment of his mission. Yet they construe (...) the causes and implications of his reluctance to persecute in strikingly different ways. These adaptations reveal their differing views of the role of imperial officials in matters concerning the church and, more broadly, of what Christian communities might expect from the imperial state in a Christian empire. (shrink)

Sally Haslanger has recently argued that philosophical focus on implicit bias is overly individualist, since social inequalities are best explained in terms of social structures rather than the actions and attitudes of individuals. I argue that questions of individual responsibility and implicit bias, properly understood, do constitute an important part of addressing structural injustice, and I propose an alternative conception of social structure according to which implicit biases are themselves best understood as a special type of structure.

Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do (...) so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two-tier system itself—manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co-constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work. (shrink)

Primary works on Huang-Lao Taoism and Yin-yang philosophy, lost for more than two thousand years, are translated and prefaced with an informative introduction.

Google is a complex and complicated political beast with a significant, and often confusing, interest, in copyright matters. On one hand, for example, Google is widely accused of profiting from piracy. On the other, Google routinely complies with what is rapidly approaching a billion copyright takedown requests annually. In the present article, Foucault, neo-Gramscians, and Deleuze and Guattari are utilized to help construct a 32 dispositive analysis framework that overlaps three dispositive modalities and perspectives. In applying the framework to the (...) Google–copyright relationship, the article shows how Google was “born political”: in that it was, and still is, disposed by an apparatus comprised of copyright laws, Silicon Valley culture, and broad advances in digitization. Moreover, the article shows how Google continuously acts where “politics is born”: as it significantly shapes copyright considerations by disposing of human and organizational phenomena through articulations and assemblages. (shrink)

Etzioni has recently proposed that the success of Internet enabled commerce is surprising due to what I label the “trust in strangers” problem. In here responding to Etzioni, I argue that the “trust in strangers” problem effectively dissolves once it is recognized that current manifestations of Internet commerce are not associated with high levels of anonymity, but rather, with high levels of surveillance. In doing so, I first outline how data capitalism and security considerations have contributed to Internet surveillance being (...) close to ubiquitous. Following this, I differentiate between three types of surveillance—i.e. top-down, bottom-up, networked—that many people who digitally connect rely upon. In concluding, I emphasize my basic argument. Namely, that it is “trust in surveillance”, rather than “trust in strangers”, that supports current manifestations of commerce online. (shrink)

This book treats Chinese philosophy today as a global project, presenting the work of both Chinese and Western philosophers.

For many centuries, Aristotle's Physics was the essential starting point for anyone who wished to study the natural sciences. This is the first complete translation since 1930 of Aristotle's key work on science. It presents Aristotle's thought accurately, while at the same time simplifying and expanding the often crabbed and elliptical style of the original, so that it is very much easier to read. A lucid introduction and extensive notes explain the general structure of each section of the book, and (...) shed light on particular problems. (shrink)

An innovative new history of how the migration of designers in the 20th century shaped modernist art and architecture.

In this paper, I will be arguing that the most recent incarnation of AI research -- that of embodied robotics and situated cognition -- demonstrates a strict and remarkable parallel with the work of mid-century French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and that through this parallel we see demonstration and confirmation of ideas about minds, bodies, and what Merleau-Ponty often called a 'dialogue with the world'. Seeing these theories confirmed in AI research will ultimately provide us with evidence that suggests our traditional (...) understanding of minds as these isolated entities shuffling symbolic representations around in the absence of interaction is simply absurd, and in fact dialogue itself comes first -- dialogue with others and dialogue with the world itself. (shrink)

It has by now become a commonplace among the historians of the republic that optimates and populares were not political parties in any modern sense. Nevertheless the ghost of the ‘popular party’ still lingers in subtle disguises, the most insidious of which is donned whenever populares is translated as ‘the populares’, with all that the definite article may imply.

Legal frameworks are in place to protect those who lack the capacity to consent to research, such as the Mental Capacity Act in the UK. Assent is sought instead from a proxy, usually a relative. However, the same legislation may, perversely, affect the welfare of those who lack capacity and of others by hindering the process of recruitment into otherwise potentially beneficial research. In addition, the onus of responsibility is moved from those who know most about the study (ie, the (...) scientific community) to those who know less (the proxies). In this paper, we describe the characteristics of a sample at different stages of the recruitment process of an influenza vaccine-based randomised control trial in elderly care home residents (the FEVER study). 62% (602/968) of potential subjects lacked capacity but only 29% (80/277) of those actually randomised. Older age, being female and living in an Elderly Mentally Ill care home were the only variables associated with lacking capacity. Considering this was a study based in a care home setting where the prevalence of dementia approximates 80%, the trial, like many others, was thus significantly biased. We believe that difficulties seeking proxy assent contributed significantly to this problem. Further thought should be given to how assent to enter research for those who lack capacity should be provided, and we suggest avenues for further discussion such as independent risk/benefit expert panels. (shrink)

This book investigates what actually happens when Pierre Bayle writes about the past and challenges the still prevalent view that he is dispassionate in the way he treats the subjects of the more than two thousand articles in his biographical Dictionnaire historique et critique. It opens with two case studies of the way he uses the sources available to him, which reveal a committed writer at work. Subsequent chapters explore the theory that shapes his erudition; the method that he devised (...) to discern falsehood from truth; his critical approach to Scripture; his conceptual reconstruction of the past. Bayle emerges from this as a writer whose interest in the past is more than antiquarian. The ideal of impartiality, which he drew from Renaissance conceptions of history, is not neutral but always situated. For all their apparent objectivity, the articles in the Dictionnaire are actually shaped by the debates, conflicts, and politics of Bayle's own time and place. In 1989, when this book was first published, its intertextual and contextualised reading of Bayle was innovative. Although many similar studies followed, this book led the way by developing an approach that allows us to gain access to the deeper strata of Bayle's thought. (shrink)

Presents an illuminating interpretation of key 18th- and 19th-century European political thinkers' accounts and assessments of the societies and political institutes of the non-Western world. This book is of interest to students and scholars of both political philosophy and thought as well as historians of this important period of history.

Arendt and Dewey argue that action is only political when undertaken in a certain way and fear the abolition of a realm in which action can remain political in the strongest sense of the term. But unlike Dewey, Arendt seems to bar some activities from admittance to the public sphere on the grounds that they are insufficiently political. These purportedly nonpolitical activities include urgent measures undertaken to alleviate human want, the application of the sciences to human life, andendeavors to free (...) the populous from political life itself. Dewey however selectively allows these activities to be considered political if and when they prove they are not a threat to the plurality, the hallmark of the public realm. Science must accommodate rather than stifle plurality of opinion, political activity must strive toward an end other than freedom from political life, and action must be performed by actors exercising judgment, in accord with principles. In this way, Dewey’s work show us in more concrete detail than Arendt’s, but in the same spirit, how the private sphere can overlap with the political sphere without infiltrating it or robbing it of its distinctness. (shrink)

Cicero’s De Finibus contains a debate about whether practical knowledge should be compared to theoretical knowledge (theôreia/sapientia), or to technical knowledge (technê/ars). The way in which practical knowledge is conceived by the Stoics on the one hand, and Peripatetics on the other, lies behind and explains, for Cicero, the tendency of Peripatetics to place greater priority upon harmony with the external world, and that of the Stoics to seek inner harmony at the cost of harmony with that external world. The (...) dialogue ends in aporia because, for Cicero, practical knowledge either comes to bear an excessive resemblance to technê, as in the case of the Peripatetics, or to theoretical knowledge, as in the case of the Stoics; for him, it must fall neither to one nor the other extreme. (shrink)

The present essay argues against the view that Santayana’s philosophy can unproblematically be classified as epiphenomenalist. To this end, it examines the central tenets that provide the foundation for his position on metal causation as developed in Scepticism and Animal Faith. This analysis shows that a range of positions are available to Santayana that are compatible with his prohibition on invoking ideas as motor causes, perhaps even demanded by it. While Santayana is consistent in denying that ideas are causes, taken (...) in the usual sense of efficient or motor causes, he does not clearly deny that they are necessary conditions for some behavioral effects. The essay then responds to the objection that we should sooner reject the claim that essences are necessary conditions for action than attempt to argue for the compatibility of this claim with the claim that essences are causally inert. It is argued that Santayana is not alone in considering these assertions compatible, and therefore his position should be classed alongside those of contemporary philosophers who also assert their compatibility. The essay closes by examining some similarities between Santayana’s view and those of contemporary compatibilists. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

In the early twentieth century, fatigue research marked an area of conflicting scientific, industrial, and cultural understandings of working bodies. These different understandings of the working body marked a key site of political conflict during the growth of industrial capitalism. Many fatigue researchers understood fatigue to be a physiological fact and allied themselves with Progressive-era reformers in urging industrial regulation. Opposed to these researchers were advocates of Taylorism and scientific management, who held that fatigue was a mental event and that (...) productivity could be perpetually increased through managerial efficiency. Histories of this conflict typically cease with the end of the First World War, when it is assumed that industrial fatigue research withered away. This article extends the history of fatigue research through examining the activities of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory in the 1920s and 1930s. The Laboratory developed sophisticated biochemical techniques to study the blood of exercising individuals. In particular, it found that exercising individuals could attain a biochemically “steady state,” or equilibrium, and extrapolated from this to assert that fatigue was psychological, not physiological, in nature. In contrast to Progressive-era research, the Laboratory reached this conclusion through laboratory examination, not of industrial workers, but of Laboratory staff members and champion marathon runners. The translation of laboratory research to industrial settings, and the eventual erasure of physiological fatigue from discussions of labor, was a complex function of institutional settings, scientific innovation, and the cultural meanings of work and sport. (shrink)

It is often disillusioning to find that many great thinkers arenot nice people. Frequently, they are not even happy people.Schopenhauer was as miserable as they come, Heidegger was a memberof the Nazi Party, and Nietzsche went mad (though probably due to syphilis rather than philosophy). We expect philosophy to help us to live happily and wisely, yet many philosophers not only fail to do this, but are dull or unpleasant into the bargain.

Future Forms in English. A look at "will" and the futurates. Pretty basic stuff, but some people might find it useful. Register in Academic Writing . This is where I get Hallidayan for a change: an analysis of two different academic genres, with some comments about the teaching of academic writing (this is the paper I would have given at the Reading University conference on writing if I'd been able to afford the air fare!).

The split in our thinking between "masculine" and "feminine" is probably as old as language itself. Human beings seem to have a natural tendency to divide things into pairs: good/bad, light/dark, subject/object and so on. It is not surprising, then, that the male/female or masculine/feminine dichotomy is used to classify things other than men and women. Many languages actually classify all nouns as "masculine" or "feminine" (although not very consistently: for example, the Spanish masculine noun pollo means "hen", while the (...) feminine polla is slang for "penis"). This is perfectly natural; it is part of the way categorisation works in language. This does not, however, mean that it is right. It is probably unimportant whether a table or a chair is thought of as masculine or feminine. It may not even be very important these days whether we think of the sun as male and the moon as female (like the ancient Greeks) or vice versa (like most of the German tribes). However, when we start associating abstract concepts like Reason or Nature with men and women, we run into serious difficulties. (shrink)

A pilot study examined the relationship in daily life between companion animal guardianship and peoples' laughter. The study divided participants into 4 mutually exclusive groups: dog owners, cat owners, people who owned both dogs and cats, and people who owned neither. For one day, participants recorded in "laughter" logs the frequency and source of their laughter and the presence of others when laughing. Dog owners and people who owned both dogs and cats reported laughing more frequently than cat owners, as (...) did people who owned neither. The most frequent source of laughter was spontaneous laughter resulting from a situation. People who owned both dogs and cats reported most frequent spontaneous laughter resulting from an incident involving a pet. Dog owners reported less; cat owners, the least. Dog owners and people who owned both dogs and cats reported laughing more frequently in the presence of their pets than did cat owners. Findings suggest a complex relationship between pet ownership and laughter. Dogs may serve as friends with whom to laugh or their behaviors may provide a greater source of laughter. (shrink)

I am extremely grateful to all the participants in this symposium for engaging so thoughtfully and generously with Mandeville’s Fable, as I am to Robin Mills for bringing them together. As the fore...

What is agroecology’s moral vision, and what are the larger metaphysical, even theological, implications of it? Even though agroecology as a field now gathers collaborators from across the natural and social sciences, as well as members of farming communities and international movements, there remains relatively little explicit and sustained reflection upon this question. My main contention is that expanding agroecology’s dialogue of wisdoms (_diálogo de saberes_) to include theological traditions can address this lacuna. To show how, I explore the contribution (...) of one particular theological tradition—Catholic social teaching—and how its account of integral ecology enables agroecologists to deepen their engagement with fundamental questions raised by their own normative commitments. (shrink)

Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees outraged its eighteenth-century audience by proclaiming that private vices lead to public prosperity. Today the work is best known as an early iteration of laissez-faire capitalism. In this book, Robin Douglass looks beyond the notoriety of Mandeville's great work to reclaim its status as one of the most incisive philosophical studies of human nature and the origin of society in the Enlightenment era. Focusing on Mandeville's moral, social, and political ideas, Douglass offers (...) a revelatory account of why we should take Mandeville seriously as a philosopher. Douglass expertly reconstructs Mandeville's theory of how self-centred individuals, who care for their reputation and social standing above all else, could live peacefully together in large societies. Pride and shame are the principal motives of human behaviour, on this account, with a large dose of hypocrisy and self-deception lying behind our moral practices. In his analysis, Douglass attends closely to the changes between different editions of the Fable; considers Mandeville's arguments in light of objections and rival accounts from other eighteenth-century philosophers, including Shaftesbury, Hume, and Smith; and draws on more recent findings from social psychology. With this detailed and original reassessment of Mandeville's philosophy, Douglass shows how The Fable of the Bees-by shining a light on the dark side of human nature-has the power to unsettle readers even today. (shrink)