Street art has exploded: it pervades our back alleys, surrounds us at bus-stops, covers billboards, competes with advertising and generally serves as urban wallpaper in most cities. But what is street art? A far cry from mere graffiti, street art has gained some social acceptance, but it remains neither officially sanctioned like public art, nor institutionally condoned, like its more traditional artistic cousins in museums. Somewhere in between these two extremes, street art has emerged, occupying a metaphysically suspect grey area (...) between illegal activity and bona fide art. This paper explores the nature of this emerging art form and draws out some of the differences between street art, public art and ‘mere’ graffiti. (shrink)

I argue that activists have co-opted street art as a tool for addressing epistemic injustices, injustices that result from negative identity prejudices that silence certain groups of people unfairly. To defend this claim, I explore the special nature of street art that makes it an especially appropriate tool for activists to enlist in the fight against epistemic injustices. From there, I will examine in detail two case studies which illustrate how street art is used to respond to and correct for (...) these injustices: first, the street art series, “Stop Telling Women to Smile” by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and then Chris Metzger’s Inside Out Project in Baltimore. Drawing on these examples, I highlight the features in virtue of which street art constitutes a particularly effective tool for correcting epistemic injustices. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the relationship between witness-bearing arts as a form of creative activism designed to respond to social injustices. In the first section, I present some common features of bearing witness, as conceptualized within media studies and journalism. Then I explain how artworks placed in the streets can bear witness in a similar way. I argue that witness-bearing art transmits knowledge about certain unjust and harmful events, which then places a moral burden or responsibility on the viewer. (...) To defend this view, I offer some examples of activist art that bears witness to certain events. I suggest that witness-bearing art is placed in the streets in order to make certain truths publicly available, by offering evidence of them embedded in the artwork. The final section considers why the bearing witness is especially effective for activist art. Witness-bearing art plays a crucial knowledge-transmitting function, one which enables art to engage in creative activism. I conclude by considering how witness-bearing art offers a powerful and persuasive voice for the oppressed. (shrink)

Collaboration in the arts is no longer a conscious choice to make a deliberate artistic statement, but instead a necessity of artistic survival. In today’s hybrid world of virtual mobility, collaboration decentralizes creative strategies, enabling artists to carve new territories and maintain practice-based autonomy in an increasingly commercial and saturated art world. Collaboration now transforms not only artistic practices but also the development of cultural institutions, communities and personal lifestyles. This book explores why collaboration has become so integrated into a (...) greater understanding of creative artistic practice. It draws on an emerging generation of contributors—from the arts, art history, sociology, political science, and philosophy—to engage directly with the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of collaborative practice of the future. (shrink)

Playing with LEGO is naturally educational—it supports free play, imagination, and creativity. LEGO is forward‐thinking—it was one of the first toys to promote gender equality. LEGO advertises itself as a lifestyle choice whose values include being part of a team that educates people, that does the right thing, and that prides itself on its wholesomeness. This image is rather different from the reality of LEGO as a for‐profit company. The Greenpeace video undermines the entire ideology behind the LEGO brand and (...) everything it stands for. This chapter examines the relation between one's ideology and politics, on the one hand, and one's status as a consumer of LEGO toys, on the other. It also considers LEGO's long‐standing and problematic partnership with Shell. Shell, of course, is one of the world's largest and most profitable oil companies. The Greenpeace video hints at many possible criticisms of LEGO's relationship with Shell. (shrink)

Many works are attributed to artists after their death, even when someone else has contributed substantively to the content of the work or when the work left by the artist is deemed incomplete by any standard of completion. Call these works posthumous works.1 Consider, for instance, Garden of Eden, Mysterious Stranger, Silmarillion, Symphony No. 10, Symphony No. 7, Sagrada Familia, the film A.I., Woyzeck, to name just a few. These are examples where..

Arthur Danto's style matrix brings together many facets of his thinking about philosophy and about art, particularly his intentionalism, art criticism, and historicism. This chapter presents the mechanics of the style matrix and offers modifications of the view in the light of certain criticisms. The style matrix has an interesting consequence for the range of artistic properties that can apply to artworks. In describing the style matrix, Danto relies on causal relations among artworks as a way of identifying stylistic properties. (...) The chapter considers some of the most influential Danto scholars and their interpretations of Danto's style matrix in relation to the debate about epistemic and metaphysical nature of the properties of artworks. Adopting a metaphysical interpretation of the style matrix also allows us to understand another, more general claim that Danto defends about the evolution of art. The correct interpretation of the style matrix hangs on adequate defenses of epistemic and metaphysical historicism. (shrink)

This paper explores how engaging in and with philosophy in the streets has unique and special potential for children doing philosophy both inside and outside the classroom. We highlight techniques drawn from research into the political, social and activist potential of street art, and we illustrate how to apply these techniques in a P4C context in what we call guerrilla philosophy. We argue that guerrilla philosophy is a pedagogically powerful method to philosophically engage students whose ages range from 11-13. In (...) calling attention to the power of guerrilla philosophy to engage students philosophically, we are tacitly assuming a Deweyan philosophical approach, which emphasises the importance of promoting civic-mindedness as a social value; the reliance on imaginative, creative and experiential forms of learning as essential to education ; and a vision of the classroom as an embodiment of the larger civic community to which we all belong and in which we all must cooperate and engage. This paper traces these three themes in Dewey’s philosophical views of education and democracy, and considers how they are given a twenty-first century interpretation through street art, guerrilla philosophy and children’s activism. (shrink)

In countries like the United States, White people benefit from appropriating Black hair culture, even while Black men and women experience race-based hair discrimination and oppression. One goal of this paper is to raise awareness of hair discrimination and oppression within the philosophical community. Another is to consider whether current theories of appropriation can account for the wrongness of this widespread phenomenon and, if so, how. We are particularly interested in the special case where one minority group appropriates from another (...) minority group—viz. the appropriation of Black hairstyles by Non-Black Persons of Colour. Our paper highlights the complexity of appropriation claims between competing minority groups—both of which have been oppressed, albeit differently, by White people— due to their multi-ethnic, multicultural and, therefore, intersectional, status. (shrink)

LEGO and Creativity -- LEGO, Ethics, and Rules -- LEGO and Identity -- LEGO, Consumption, and Culture -- LEGO, Metaphysics, and Math.

Advances in molecular technologies have the potential to help remedy health inequities through earlier detection and prevention; if, however, their delivery and uptake are not more carefully considered, there is a very real risk that existing inequities in access and use will be further exacerbated. We argue this risk relates to the way that information and knowledge about the technology is both acquired and shared, or not, between health practitioners and their patients.A healthcare system can be viewed as a complex (...) social network comprising individuals with different worldviews, hierarchies, professional cultures and subcultures and personal beliefs, both for those giving and receiving care. When healthcare practitioners are not perceived as knowledge equals, they would experience informational prejudices, and the result is that knowledge dissemination across and between them would be impeded. The uptake and delivery of a new technology may be inequitable as a result. Patients would also experience informational prejudice when they are viewed as not being able to understand the information that is presented to them, and information may be withheld.Informational prejudices driven by social relations and structures have thus far been underexplored in considering equitable implementation and uptake of new molecular technologies. Every healthcare interaction represents an opportunity for experiencing informational prejudice, and with it the risk of being inappropriately informed for undertaking such screening or testing. Making knowledge acquisition and information dissemination, and experiences of informational prejudice, explicit through sociologically framed investigations would extend our understandings of equity, and offer ways to affect network relationships and structures that support equity in delivery and uptake. (shrink)

This is a revision of game theory which takes account of agents' own descriptions of their situations, and which allows people to reason as members of groups.

This study assesses the extent to which job application forms violate the New Zealand Human Rights Act. The sample for the study includes 229 job application forms, collected from a variety of large and small, public- and private-sector organizations that together employ approximately 200,000 workers. Two hundred and four or 88% of the job application forms contain at least one violation of the Act. One hundred and sixty five or 72% contain two or more and 140 or 61% contain three (...) or more violations. The most common violations concern age, gender, nationality, and disability. The least common concern political opinion, ethical belief, religious belief, and sexual orientation. Despite widespread violations, many forms do have non-discriminatory questions that yield the same kind of useful information as discriminatory questions. Employers could incorporate these into their job application forms to bring themselves into compliance with the law. The same lessons also generally apply to North American employers, given the high degree of comparability between American, Canadian, and New Zealand anti-discrimination laws. (shrink)

: The article investigates the earliest appearance of a group of words which are identified in the literature as the shahāda but are rarely defined on the assumption that everyone knows what the shahāda is. The basic argument is that there was more than one version of the shahāda circulating in the Islamic world at the beginning of the eighth decade A.H./690s C.E. and that scholars need to define which version they mean when using the term “shahāda” for this early (...) period. Evidence for the argument includes data from stelae from Aswan to the Fatimid era, the Dome of the Rock and early Muslim coinage. (shrink)

As recent elections in Iran and Iraq have shown, the increasing diversity of religious practices around the world may redefine democracy as we know it—leaving many of us to wonder just how compatible religion and democracy really are. _The Pluralist Paradigm _explores this difficult question with essays from a variety of disciplines, including theology, philosophy, political science, sociology, and ethics. It will be an ideal reference for anyone concerned with fostering tolerance in a progressively global society.

In recent years there have been various attempts to relate theories of emotion to the concerns of Christian ethics. In this article, I consider two such attempts, those of Daniel Maguire and Paul Lauritzen, and thereby identify five ways in which a theory of emotion might in principle contribute to the formulation of a Christian ethic. I then argue that some recent developments in theoretical reflection on the emotions, especially the idea that feelings may be world-directed in their own right, (...) enable these five points of connection to be stated with new clarity and cogency. The article concludes that a theory of emotion can help to articulate the following claims: love is properly a cardinal concept for ethical theory; there are specifically Christian emotions, which make possible a specifically Christian moral personality; religious faith (informed by ‘real assent’) is a cognitive state which is of its nature motivationally effective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of American Music EducationSondra Wieland HoweA History of American Music Education, 3rd edition, by Michael L. Mark and Charles L. Gary. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2007, 500 pp., $95.00 cloth, $44.95 paper.Mark and Gary's editions of A History of American Music Education are indispensable reading for every music education student, practicing professional music educator, and the general reader who is interested in the development (...) of music teaching in American public schools. Based on excellent secondary sources, this history presents an overview of music education from Colonial America, through the development of textbooks in the nineteenth century and the growth of professional organizations in the early twentieth century, to the expansion of the curriculum and the role of government in education since 1950.This third edition is written by Michael L. Mark, professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland, and dedicated to the memory of his friend and coauthor, Charles L. Gary.1 Mark has written two other books that complement the history editions. Contemporary Music Education surveys various reform projects since the 1950s, trends in the philosophy of music education, government policies, and the development of new methods.2Music Education: Source Readings includes writings about music education from both the European and American perspectives.3 There are many recent articles and dissertations on the history of music education, but the only recent book is Terese Volk's Music, Education, and Multiculturalism, which describes school programs and materials emphasizing multiculturalism in the twentieth century from a historical perspective.4 Publications in musicology add to our knowledge of the history of music in American society, but musicologists rarely write about music in public schools. Publications on the history of education are helpful in understanding trends in music education, but these publications do not discuss music.The third edition of A History of American Music Education is expanded to 500 pages from the approximately 400 pages of the earlier editions, largely because of new formatting and [End Page 115] spacing that make the third edition easier to read. Each chapter has a reference list in APA style in contrast to the Chicago Manual style of the earlier editions, with endnotes plus a bibliography at the end of each chapter. The material in Mark's third edition is basically the same as the earlier editions, with some expansion of the history of music education after 1950.This book, based on secondary sources, is an overview of the history of music in American public schools, showing the response of education to societal needs during various historical periods. There is an emphasis on the role of national music organizations, especially MENC: The National Association for Music Education (MENC), in advocating for the importance of music for every child. The historical account includes the various justifications for teaching music and discussions of the meaning of music. There were times when music educators were interested in aesthetics, but there were also many times when they were mainly interested in a practical understanding of music and extrinsic motives for including music in the school curriculum.5The first section on "The Western Heritage" (chapters 1-3) briefly covers music in Jewish traditions through the Greek and Roman cultures because the insights of these ancient thinkers influenced all Western societies. The chapter on the Middle Ages through the Reformation shows the role of music as a practical subject, part of the quadrivium with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. As music became an integral part of the church, musicians developed methods of teaching note reading. Martin Luther promoted the singing of "good music" in schools and education in the vernacular for the middle classes. With the development of Italian conservatories and the patronage of music by the elite classes of the Renaissance, music training became specialized for musicians working in the church and courts. These various conflicting European opinions of the role of music in society influenced American education.The second section on "The New World" (chapters 4-5) emphasizes the use of music as a means of praising God. Spanish musicians established successful music education programs in Peru and Mexico to promote Christianity. The French brought Christianity to... (shrink)

Women music educators in the USA have been active in public and private schools, churches, and community organizations. In the nineteenth century, Julia E. Crane founded the Crane Institute of Music, the first institution to train music supervisors; and women developed kindergarten programs throughout the US. In the "private sphere," women taught in home studios and Sunday schools, and published children's songs and hymns. In 1907, the Music Supervisors National Conference (which became the Music Educators National Conference) was founded under (...) the leadership of Frances E. Clark, although only thirteen women have been president of MENC between 1907 and 2010. In the twentieth century, women have edited music textbook series and served on editorial boards of music education journals. This survey of nationally prominent music educators shows the importance of quality education, guiding personal philosophies, positive supportive mentors, and leadership opportunities within the profession for developing successful lifetime careers. (shrink)

Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it also challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority, and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case-studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, (...) the book shows how the public understanding of science questions raises issues of the epistemic commitments and institutional structures which constitute modern science. It suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and uptake of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures. (shrink)

This collection of papers in epistemic logic is oriented towards applications to game theory and individual decision theory. Most of these papers were presented at the inaugural conference of the LOFT (Logic for the Theory and Games and Decisions) conference series, which took place in 1994 in Marseille. Among the notions dealt with are those of common knowledge and common belief, infinite hierarchies of beliefs and belief spaces, logical omniscience, positive and negative introspection, backward induction and rationalizable equilibria in game (...) theory. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting with material forms. We then contrast thinking through materiality with thinking about it. We discuss these in terms of their evolutionary significance and history (...) as attested by stone tools and writing, material forms whose interaction endowed our lineage with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. (shrink)