This paper examines the identity of Asian swamp buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) from different value orientations. Buffalo were introduced into Northern (Top End) Australia in the early nineteenth century. A team of transdisciplinary researchers, including an ethicist, has been engaged in field research on feral buffalo in Arnhem Land over the past three years. Using historical documents, literature review, field observations, interviews with key informants, and interaction with the Indigenous land owners, an understanding of the diverse views on the scientific, cultural, (...) and economic significance of buffalo was obtained. While the diverse stakeholders in buffalo exploitation and management have historically delivered divergent value orientations on the nature of the human–buffalo relationship, we argue that over time there is the possibility of values and ethical convergence. Such convergence is possible via transdisciplinary and transcultural agreement on the value stances that constitute the construction of the being or identity of buffalo in the face of the overwhelming need to manage population density and gross numbers. (shrink)

What if anyone in Hell could take a bus trip to Heaven and stay there forever if they wanted to? In The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven. The amazing opportunity is that anyone who wants to stay in Heaven, can. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment. Lewis's revolutionary idea is (...) the discovery that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In Lewis's own words, "If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.". (shrink)

Ontology tends to be held in deep suspicion by many currently engaged in the study of technology. The aim of this paper is to suggest an ontology of technology that will be both acceptable to ontology’s critics and useful for those engaged with technology. By drawing upon recent developments in social ontology and extending these into the technological realm it is possible to sustain a conception of technology that is not only irreducibly social but able to give due weight to (...) those features that distinguish technical objects from other artefacts. These distinctions, however, require talk of different kinds of causal powers and different types of activity aimed at harnessing such powers. Such discussions are largely absent in recent technological debates, but turn out to be significant both for ongoing technology research and for the recasting of some more traditional debates within the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

By reconsidering the theme of isolation in the philosophy of technology, and by drawing upon recent developments in social ontology, Lawson provides an account of technology that will be of interest and value to those working in a variety of different fields. Technology and Isolation includes chapters on the philosophy, history, sociology and economics of technology, and contributes to such diverse topics as the historical emergence of the term 'technology', the sociality of technology, the role of technology in social acceleration, (...) the relationship between Marx and Heidegger, and the relationship between technology and those with autism. The central contribution of the book is to provide a new ontology of technology. In so doing, Lawson argues that much of the distinct character of technology can be explained or understood in terms of the dynamic that emerges from technology's peculiar constitutional mix of isolatable and non-isolatable components. (shrink)

This article reports on empirical research that establishes strong, positive, and significant correlations between the ethical issues of bullying and unfair supervision in the workplace and the presence of Corporate Psychopaths. The main measure for bullying is identified as being the witnessing of the unfavorable treatment of others at work. Unfair supervision was measured by perceptions that an employee's supervisor was unfair and showed little interest in the feelings of subordinates. This article discusses the theoretical links between psychopathy and bullying (...) and notes that little empirical evidence confirms the connection in management research. The sample of 346 Australian senior white collar workers used in the research is described as is the measure of behavior for identifying psychopaths. The findings are then presented and discussed showing that when Corporate Psychopaths are present in a work environment, the level of bullying is significantly greater than when they are not present. Further, that when Corporate Psychopaths are present, supervisors are strongly perceived as being unfair to employees and disinterested in their feelings. This article concludes that around 26% of bullying is accounted for by 1% of the employee population, those who are Corporate Psychopaths. (shrink)

Professor Shannon Vallor’s theoretical framework of technomoral virtue ethics identifies character traits that can be cultivated to foster a future worth wanting in an environment of emerging technologies. Such technologies and increased citizen participation in the new digital environment have reconfigured what is possible in policing and intelligence-gathering more quickly, perhaps, than sober and sensible policy reflection and formulation can keep pace with. Sensational and dramatic, seismic and devastating, the Snowden disclosures represent a particular expression of dissent against American intelligence (...) community exploitation of emerging technologies in undertaking mass surveillance on a global scale. Responses to Snowden’s actions, and perceptions of the value of the disclosures he made, are polarized. Polar opposites equate to vices in the Aristotlean view that posits virtue as the middle way. Here, the theoretical framework of technomoral virtue ethics is used for objective evaluation of Snowden’s asserted motivations and documented actions against the benchmark of good cyber-citizenship that the framework describes. The fact that Snowden’s account is strongly disputed by the U.S. Government does not in and of itself invalidate a theoretical evaluation. It is not the probative value of Snowden’s account that is being tested, but how the narrative presented measures up to an ethical framework. (shrink)

Intro -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: "The best-laid plans of mice and men ..." -- Chapter 2: "Why won't you do what we think is best for you?" -- Chapter 3: How can I stop screwing up? -- Chapter 4: "Ouch!" -- Why did that backfire? -- Chapter 5: Scientific progress -- that's a good thing, right? -- Chapter 6: Surely trying to protect people can't be bad? -- Chapter 7: Can bad intentions turn out for the good? -- Chapter (...) 8: The upside -- unlooked for benefits -- Chapter 9: So -- how can we do good better? -- References. (shrink)

The public attitude towards the petrochemical industry tends to be one of ethical disapproval and suspicion. But how justified is it? A knowledgeable look at how the industry in general, and one major company in particular, addresses its ethical responsibilities provides a quite different picture. The author has long experience of the petrochemical industry and was most recently Public Affairs Director of ARCO Chemical Europe Inc. He now runs his own Corporate Affairs Consultancy at 82 St George’s Square, London SW1V (...) 3QX. (shrink)

The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the way various negative influences are mentioned, relating to how the values of Nature are considered in policy, including (...) mainstream environmental economics, naïve environmental pragmatism, the strategic role of corporations, neoliberalism and eco-modernism/techno-optimism. At the same time core value debates around intrinsic value in Nature and instrumentalism remain relevant, along with how plural environmental values can be articulated and acted upon. Naturalness, human relations to non-humans, and Nature as other, remain central considerations. The broadening of issues covered by the journal (e.g. covering social psychology, sociology and political science), reflect the need to address both human behaviour and the structure of social and economic systems to confront ongoing social-ecological crises. (shrink)

. The Trades Union Congress and the controversy over the National Society's Standard V Reading Book in 1879. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 236-246.

Recently, indigenous struggles against ongoing colonial violence have become prominent in the context of growing environmental destruction and the ascendancy of the far right in the United States and parts of South America. This article suggests that European radical theory is not always equipped to provide normative frameworks of allyship with such struggles. Exploring the ‘messianic tone’ in European radical theory, and in particular the works of Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben, the article argues that the analytical tendency to render (...) the subject entirely dissolute acts against indigenous demands for justice built around the latter’s sovereignty. In an effort to excavate a ‘European’ tradition that might enable relations of allyship between those in relatively privileged positions and indigenous peoples, the article foregrounds the life and thought of Gustav Landauer, a German, Jewish, anarchist revolutionary who lost his life during the 1919 German revolution. Landauer’s anarchism was suffused with his reading of his Jewishness, and as such, although he prefigures Derrida and Agamben in many ways, he ultimately refused to completely reject the sovereignty of the subject, providing a means by which to engage European political theory with indigenous struggles in the world today. (shrink)

It has been acknowledged in some philosophical quarters that of the titles that might significantly be bestowed upon Aristotle, not the least important is that of the Vanquisher of Parmenides. That is, it is accepted that the idea of the ‘potential’, which took form in the hands of Aristotle, is just the idea and the analysis which is necessary in order to steer safely between the horns of the Parmenidean dilemma. However, this status which tends to be accorded to Aristotle (...) seems to find little confirmation in modern thought, one outstanding feature of which is the volume of literature purporting to establish other solutions to the Parmenidean dilemma, especially as this dilemma is interpreted in the paradoxes of Zeno. All the attempts to answer Parmenides thus become in this way open to criticism; that is to say, the very multitude of the proposed solutions to the Parmenidean dilemma suggests that the only positive result is to make more clearly evident the range of problematic implications within the dilemma. Elucidation of this ‘problematicness’ tends to stand as a substitute for actual solutions. But modern wrestlings with the Parmenidean dilemma do nevertheless find a common and distinguishing ground precisely in their common dissatisfaction with the answer to Parmenides proposed by Aristotle—that is, the ‘raison d’être’ of modern ‘vanquishers of Parmenides’ is that there is, for some reason, a modern tradition of opposition to the idea of the potential. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to enquire whether the Aristotelian doctrine of the potential does in fact itself constitute a dilemma; in other words whether it is problematic in such a sense as to allow for dissatisfaction and objection, and to leave itself open to the criticism that its status as a solution is temporary and inadequate. In what precise sense can it still be said that Aristotle is the vanquisher of Parmenides? (shrink)

It has been acknowledged in some philosophical quarters that of the titles that might significantly be bestowed upon Aristotle, not the least important is that of the Vanquisher of Parmenides. That is, it is accepted that the idea of the ‘potential’, which took form in the hands of Aristotle, is just the idea and the analysis which is necessary in order to steer safely between the horns of the Parmenidean dilemma. However, this status which tends to be accorded to Aristotle (...) seems to find little confirmation in modern thought, one outstanding feature of which is the volume of literature purporting to establish other solutions to the Parmenidean dilemma, especially as this dilemma is interpreted in the paradoxes of Zeno. All the attempts to answer Parmenides thus become in this way open to criticism; that is to say, the very multitude of the proposed solutions to the Parmenidean dilemma suggests that the only positive result is to make more clearly evident the range of problematic implications within the dilemma. Elucidation of this ‘problematicness’ tends to stand as a substitute for actual solutions. But modern wrestlings with the Parmenidean dilemma do nevertheless find a common and distinguishing ground precisely in their common dissatisfaction with the answer to Parmenides proposed by Aristotle—that is, the ‘raison d’être’ of modern ‘vanquishers of Parmenides’ is that there is, for some reason, a modern tradition of opposition to the idea of the potential. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to enquire whether the Aristotelian doctrine of the potential does in fact itself constitute a dilemma; in other words whether it is problematic in such a sense as to allow for dissatisfaction and objection, and to leave itself open to the criticism that its status as a solution is temporary and inadequate. In what precise sense can it still be said that Aristotle is the vanquisher of Parmenides? (shrink)

I write as a non-Jew about the brief correspondence sent to my father, shortly after the Second World War, from a gifted, young Jewish violinist, and briefly outline the background story-arc of her family’s aliyah, from the Pale a couple of generations earlier to her settlement in the new state of Israel. Her story is not bound up with the Holocaust, nor did she experience antisemitism: but this essay attempts to highlight the majesty and sparkle of a moment in the (...) mundane life of a Jewish woman, and its brief impact on a gentile. The focus is on her musical remarks about some of the leading performers of the day. I also outline some of the ways I secured source materials for this primarily biographical sketch, but this article is presented more as a ‘memoire’ than an academic study. It is offered in honour and memory of a Jewish lady whom, alas, I was a little too late to meet myself, and to celebrate my father’s hundredth birthday in May 2021. (shrink)

The public attitude towards the petrochemical industry tends to be one of ethical disapproval and suspicion. But how justified is it? A knowledgeable look at how the industry in general, and one major company in particular, addresses its ethical responsibilities provides a quite different picture. The author has long experience of the petrochemical industry and was most recently Public Affairs Director of ARCO Chemical Europe Inc. He now runs his own Corporate Affairs Consultancy at 82 St George’s Square, London SW1V (...) 3QX. (shrink)

Commentators frequently point to the involvement of biomedicine and bio-science in the objectification and commodification of human body parts, and the consequent potential for violation of personal, social and community meanings. Through a study of UK media coverage of controversies associated with the removal of body parts and human materials from children, we argue that an exclusive emphasis on the role of medicine and the bio-sciences in the commodification of human materials ignores the important role played by commercially motivated mass (...) media organizations. Analysis of the language of news reports covering the period of the organ retention controversies in the UK reveals the ways in which the mass media contribute to the commodification of body parts by recruiting them for use in the manufacture of a media scandal. This is achieved through use of horror language, the fetishization of certain body parts, emphasis on the fragmentation of the body, and the use of a variety of rhetorical devices to convey enormity and massive scale. Media participation in the commodification of children's body parts has profound implications for practices and policies in relation to use of body parts, and has significantly influenced the governmental regulation of science and medicine. The role of mass media deserves fuller recognition by theorists of body commodification. (shrink)

Abstract The use of informers is morally problematic for police institutions, for investigation managers, and for those individuals either who act as informers or who have daily responsibility for handling informers. This paper examines the moral issues concerning informers at each of these levels. Recourse to informers can be accommodated within Miller and Blackler's moral theory of policing. Within this context, criteria for the morally justifiable deployment of informers are proposed and supplemented with further proposed criteria for morally justifiable informer (...) participation in crime. Morally justifiable recruitment of informers is also considered. Despite directly serving the purpose of policing, informers do not incur police professional obligations. (shrink)

The appeal to ontology is made by Hausman and Ricoeur in order to overcome a paradox. The paradox is that, on their interactionist understanding of the trope, a strong metaphor creates a meaning which is in some way objective or truthful, yet this meaning is new, which is to say that, prior to the metaphor, the independent subject terms could neither suggest the new meaning nor signify the concepts which would support it. If the meaning is new, what is it (...) that supplies the feeling of appropriateness? (shrink)

Q0 Why this FAQ? Q1 Who believes in many-worlds? Q2 What is many-worlds? Q3 What are the alternatives to many-worlds? Q4 What is a "world"? Q5 What is a measurement? Q6 Why do worlds split? What is decoherence? Q7 When do worlds split? Q8 When does Schrodinger's cat split? Q9 What is sum-over-histories? Q10 What is many-histories? What is the environment basis? Q11 How many worlds are there? Q12 Is many-worlds a local theory? Q13 Is many-worlds a deterministic theory? Q14 (...) Is many-worlds a relativistic theory? What about quantum field theory? What about quantum gravity? Q15 Where are the other worlds? Q16 Is many-worlds (just) an interpretation? Q17 Why don't worlds fuse, as well as split? Do splitting worlds imply irreversible physics? Q18 What retrodictions does many-worlds make? Q19 Do worlds differentiate or split? Q20 What is many-minds? Q21 Does many-worlds violate Ockham's Razor? Q22 Does many-worlds violate conservation of energy? Q23 How do probabilities emerge within many-worlds? Q24 Does many-worlds allow free-will? Q25 Why am I in this world and not another? Why does the universe appear random? Q26 Can wavefunctions collapse? Q27 Is physics linear? Could we ever communicate with the other worlds? Why do I only ever experience one world? Why am I not aware of the world (and myself) splitting? Q28 Can we determine what other worlds there are? Is the form of the Universal Wavefunction knowable? Q29 Who was Everett? Q30 What are the problems with quantum theory? Q31 What is the Copenhagen interpretation? Q32 Does the EPR experiment prohibit locality? What about Bell's Inequality? Q33 Is Everett's relative state formulation the same as many-worlds? Q34 What is a relative state? Q35 Was Everett a "splitter"? Q36 What unique predictions does many-worlds make? Q37 Could we detect other Everett-worlds? Q38 Why quantum gravity? Q39 Is linearity exact? (shrink)

In many ways, this is an exemplary publication, with detailed description and analysis of an important Byzantine fortification, based on twenty five years meticulous work. Using photogrammetry, the survey produced a plan at 1:50, reproduced here at half scale, in clearly readable foldouts (Tafel 31–46) that enable the phases of building and reconstruction to be easily distinguished. These plates also include detailed drawings of sections and of varying styles of masonry. There are in addition five useful sketch plans (pp.104–108) that (...) sort out the main stages of the fortifications, and abundant illustrations on 30 other plates. This might be enough for normal purposes, but the author has also produced a long and very detailed text that describes all the towers and walls, and sets them in the broader context of the history of the city, and of the development of the art of war. The different phases are presented chronologically, together with the urban and regional history and discussions of dating (pp.1–91), then usefully summarized (pp.93–103). The historical sections form a valuable complement to the material in K. Rheidt, Altertumer von Pergamon XV.2, die byzantinische Wohnstadt (Berlin 1991), which also includes a useful summary of the city's history (pp.241–253). K.'s meticulous analysis leads to several new interpretations and redatings of the walls. Some of these are open to serious question and will probably need revision, especially since K. operates in a curious ignorance or disregard for much modern literature on Byzantine fortifications, and makes poor use of available comparative material. (shrink)

Examines the thematic development of absurdity, despair, and man's quest for meaning in Russian literature.

The concept of ‘living metaphor’ receives a number of articulations within metaphor theory. A review of four key theories – Nietzsche, Ricoeur, Lakoff and Johnson, and Derrida – reveals a distinction between theories which identify a prior, speculative nature working on or with metaphor, and theories wherein metaphor is shown to be performatively always, already active in thought. The two cannot be left as alternatives because they exhibit opposing theses with regard to the ontology of metaphor, but neither can an (...) impartial philosophical appraisal of the most cogent or defensible theory be made, since the status and conduct of philosophy are part of the problem. Two responses to the predicament from within ‘living metaphor’ theory are considered: (1) Lakoff and Johnson’s ecological spirituality thesis which promises to make the contest redundant on the grounds that the origin of human concepts in our shared, embodied condition in the world removes all obstructions; (2) taking the lead from Nietzsche and Ricoeur, an approach based on the intersection of discourses, not as a resolution but as a gesture which allows the conflict to speak about ‘living metaphor’. (1) is shown to be unsuccessful, but (2) results in ‘living metaphor’ emerging as an attentiveness to questions of what does and does not belong, inspired by tensions between ‘is’ and ‘is not’, ‘from this perspective’ and ‘from that perspective’, and ‘is spoken about’ and ‘is spoken with’. (shrink)

Can an understanding be formed of how sensory experience might be presented or manipulated in visual art in order to promote a relational concept of the senses, in opposition to the customary, capitalist notion of sensation as a private possession, as a sensory impression that is mine? I ask the question in the light of recent visual art theory and practice which pursue relational, ecological ambitions. As Arnold Berleant, Nicolas Bourriaud, and Grant Kester see it, ecological ambition and artistic form (...) should correspond, but they fail to recognize sensation as a site where the ecological cause can be fought. Jacques Rancière argues for the political force of the senses, but his distribution of the sensible does not address the particularity of sensory experience. I identify the difference between these approaches within recent relational or ecological aesthetics and my position on sensibility, and indicate some of the problems involved in referring to the senses. I set out the concepts that are central to the cultivation of relational sensibility: style, autofiguration, and the mobility of sensory meaning, extrapolated from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of Paul Cézanne. They amount to positioning the senses ontologically as movements along lines of conceptual-sensory connection and implication, based on the transfer of meanings created artistically through style and autofiguration. (shrink)

Images in science are often beautiful but their beauty cannot be explained using traditional aesthetic theories. Available theories either rely upon concepts antithetical to science, e.g. regularity as an index of God’s design, or they omit concepts intrinsic to scientific imaging, e.g. the image is taken as a representation of “beautiful nature.” I argue that the scientific image is not a representation but a construction: a series of mutually defining intra-actions, where “intra-action” signifies that the object depicted cannot be extricated (...) from the technologies of picturing. But how can the beauty of intra-active, picturing-depicted constructions be explained, when philosophical aesthetics traditionally understands objects of appreciation to be distinct, discrete items? I argue that metaphor provides a model for the aesthetics of the scientific image, on the grounds that it is itself an intra-action that promotes salience in perception. (shrink)

Diaries and other materials in the Mass Observation Archive have been characterised as intersubjective and dialogic. They have been used to study top-down and bottom-up processes, including how ordinary people respond to sociological constructs and, more broadly, the footprint of social science in the 20th century. In this article, we use the Archive’s COVID-19 collections to study how attempts to govern the pandemic by mobilising ordinary people to see like an epidemiologist played out in the United Kingdom during 2020. People (...) were asked to think in terms of populations and groups; rates, trends, and distributions; the capacity of public services; and complex systems of causation. How did they respond? How did they use the statistics, charts, maps, concepts, identities, and roles they were given? We find evidence of engagement with science plural; confident and comfortable engagement with epidemiological terms and concepts; sceptical and reluctant engagement with epidemiological subject positions; use of both scientific and moral literacy to negotiate regulations and guidance; and use of scientific literacy to compare and judge government performance. Governing the pandemic through scientific literacy was partially successful, but in some unexpected ways. (shrink)

C. L. Stevenson, in “The Scientist’s Role and the Aims of Education,” has recently recommended that scientists join in the activity of making educational value statements, and that educationists have their value attitudes “straightened out under the guidance of beliefs that are well verified.” The argument underlying his recommendation is that since scientific knowledge is in some way relevant to questions of value in education, this knowledge must be utilized, otherwise some rather absurd educational judgments will be made, perhaps with (...) disastrous results. As he puts it, if the scientist “won’t risk making value judgments, then I’d like to ask who is going to make them. There’s always the possibility that those who aren’t reluctant to make them will turn out to be … complete asses.”. (shrink)

Trying to assess Kant's impact on contemporary aesthetics is by no means a straightforward task, for the simple reason that the subject is saturated with his influence. In all aspects of the theory and practice of art, it is possible to observe concepts and attitudes at work which are either a reflection of, or a response to, Kant's thinking. This might seem a rather overblown claim and a difficult one to substantiate but, without going into too much detail at this (...) point, one has only to consider that the central tenets of both modernism and postmodernism can be traced back to Kant's Critical thought. There is the modernist's interest in the conditions of possibility of representation – as evidenced, for example, by the push towards abstraction in the visual arts and the attempt to paint not the world but the process of painting itself – and, responding to this, the postmodernist's concern that these conditions of possibility should not become universal absolutes. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the relevance of Kant to the interpretation of contemporary art. The defining properties of contemporary art are the impossibility of definition in material, formal or stylistic terms, and the central role that concepts play in the interpretation of a work. Danto and Osborne suggest how concepts might be applied but they do not develop their proposals. Kant’s theory of judgement can provide a fuller account on the basis of the notions of purposiveness and play. The way in (...) which these notions explain the application of concepts to the world, I argue, provides a model of how concepts can be combined to form an interpretation of a work of contemporary art. A detailed example is given. (shrink)

Radio drama is often considered an incomplete or ‘blind’ artform because it creates worlds through sound alone. The charge of incompleteness, I suggest, rests upon the orthodox empiricist conception of sensation as the receipt of separate modalities of sensory impression. However, alternative theories of sensation are offered by phenomenology and—of particular importance to this study—the restructuring of cognition that takes place in these theories plays a central role in phenomenology's account of artistic expression. The significance of this phenomenological link between (...) cognition and expression is that it can provide the basis for a more positive evaluation of the aesthetics of radio drama. From a phenomenological perspective, the alleged ‘incompleteness’ of sound becomes an -exemplary form of the process whereby material elements in an artwork interact with or beckon towards one another to express a world. In this paper, I (i) show how Merleau-Ponty's ‘invitational’ account of the senses meets the charge of ‘blindness’, (ii) -demonstrate how radio drama employs the aesthetic interactions that, from the theoretical standpoints of Merleau-Ponty and Dufrenne, are definitive of expression in art, and (iii) indicate how some of my claims for the aesthetics of radio drama are supported by recent accounts of metaphor in music. (shrink)

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the earliest (...) of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)

This bibliography of Alan Holland's work was compiled without his knowledge as part of this surprise special issue in his honour. As a result it may well be incomplete, especially with respect to earlier works and the very latest. I have done my best with the help of his ex-students and colleagues to track backwards and keep up on his more recent writings. C.L.S.

Then UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s attendance at a Passover Seder organised by the radical leftist group, Jewdas, in April 2018, led to a brief but vitriolic controversy involving Anglo-Jewish umbrella organisations concerning who qualifies to speak as a Jew. This article uses this controversy to engage with Judith Butler’s attempt to address this question, suggesting that in decentring Zionist claims to Jewish subjectivity she fails to take account of how different Jewish subjectivities are formed, and thus ends up (...) proposing a ‘good Jew/bad Jew’ binary that dissolves Jewishness into universal humanism. Drawing on the work of the German-Jewish mystical anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870–1919), the article proposes a different way of understanding subjectivity that retains ontological inherency as a plausible precondition for ethical solidarity. As such, the article’s argument has implications not merely for a reworked understanding of Jewish subjectivity but for the politics of subject formation more broadly. (shrink)

The advent in universities of managerialism with its drive for individual accountability through performance management systems is contentious. With the implementation of a PMS at a South African university, academic heads of department have been key players in the performance reward component of the PMS. This study, following a qualitative descriptive research design based on in-depth interviews, explores a sample of HoDs’ experiences and perceptions of the institution's performance reward system. Most of the participants are sceptical of the PMS as (...) they view it as a business-oriented practice that is not compatible with the nature and objectives of higher education institutions. They consider the reward strategy not only to have a limited effect in promoting high performance behaviour, but to be a cause of discontent due to implementation inconsistencies, nebulous award criteria, lack of transparency about ratings, and the negligible monetary value of the reward. (shrink)

Theoretical approach - Prejudice and science - Prejudice and politics - Science and sex - Medicine and prejudice - Prejudice and literature.