In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or RationalizationTony PreusRobert Mayhew. The Female in Aristotle’s Biology: Reason or Rationalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. xi +136. Cloth, $28.00.Aristotle's views on the ethical, social, and political roles of women have repeatedly drawn the attention of scholars. Often, the central focus of the discussion is Politics I.13, 1260 a13, where Aristotle says that although women have a deliberative faculty, (...) it is akuron, "without authority." A charitable (from our point of view) interpretation of that word would have him mean that women are capable of ethical and political decision-making, but fourth-century BCE Athenian social arrangements prevent their exercising that capacity outside the home. However, many readers of Aristotle suppose that he means to indicate a natural difference between men and women, some mental or moral inferiority of women. A few passages in the Politics support that interpretation (e.g., Pol. I.2, 1254 b13, 12.1259 a40), but those do not provide a "scientific" or "biological" grounding of female inferiority. That sort of thing one would expect to find in the biological works. Mayhew's monograph is an exposition of the errors and exaggerations of some of those writers, from the usually careful Martha Nussbaum to the usually unreliable Luce Iragaray.The least cautious critics of Aristotle's views on women typically fasten on his views on sexual generation; as Mayhew shows (ch. 3), such critics either claim that Aristotle believed that women contribute only a place for generation to occur, or that women contribute totally passive matter. Mayhew is able to demonstrate, rather easily, that either claim depends on total ignorance or total misunderstanding of the actual contents of the Generation of Animals. In Aristotle's opinion, the female provides proximate matter for the offspring, something that is almost able to develop into a new individual and needing only the impetus and form provided by the male contribution. Having started with the "form/matter" distinction, it is pretty obvious that the female provides the matter (a bird egg is all of the matter that goes to make the chick), and the male is necessary for reproduction to [End Page 109] occur, so it must be a source of movement (at least) and some element of form (since the offspring partially resembles its male parent) that comes from that source. (For older discussions of this issue, see my Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works [Hildesheim, 1975], ch. 2, and J. Morsink, "Was Aristotle's Biology Sexist?" J. Hist. Biol.12 [1979]:83-112, neither noted by Mayhew). But what would be the ethical or political implications of that distinction? Aristotle says that it is "better" to provide form, but there's no straightforward way to conclude from that difference that a woman's deliberative faculty is less authoritative than a man's, any more than there is any straightforward way to argue from the fact that a woman might spend some time pregnant that a permanent pay differential is justified. And Aristotle does not try to make that sort of argument, as a matter of fact.Mayhew deals with most of the other arguments that some have derived from the biological works to support their view that Aristotle's "science" is the foundation of his (supposed) sexism. For example, he points out that although Aristotle does call "kings" the bees that we call "queens," he also calls the analogue among wasps the "mothers" or "wombs"; Mayhew says that Aristotle seems to have thought that the king/queen bee was hermaphroditic and parthenogenetic. Mayhew also has an original and interesting chapter on Aristotle's comparisons between women and eunuchs; although he notes that Aristotle was friendly with at least one eunuch, Hermeias, the uncle of Aristotle's young wife, he leaves out Aristotle's poetic praise of Hermeias (see R. Renehan, in Greek, Roman, and Byz. Stud.23 [1982]: 251-74). Suppose women were "eunuchoid" according to Aristotle, it couldn't mean that they were consequently intellectually inferior, since at least one eunuch was, in Aristotle's opinion, intellectually superior.Mayhew also discusses, adequately enough, the issues of brain... (shrink)

According to the theory theory of folk psychology, our engagement in the folk psychological practices of prediction, interpretation and explanation draws on a rich body of knowledge about psychological matters. According to the simulation theory, in apparent contrast, a fundamental role is played by our ability to identify with another person in imagination and to replicate or re-enact aspects of the other person’s mental life. But amongst theory theorists, and amongst simulation theorists, there are significant differences of approach.

Substantial research examines the follower consequences of leader alignment of words and deeds, but no research has quantitatively reviewed these effects. This study examines extant research on behavioral integrity and contrasts it with two other constructs that focus on alignment: moral integrity and psychological contract breaches. We compare effect sizes between the three constructs, and find that BI has stronger effects on trust, in-role task performance and citizenship behavior than moral integrity and stronger effects on commitment and OCB than psychological (...) contract breach. These stronger attitudinal consequences run counter to our initial expectations, but they provide evidence of important conceptual distinctions and mechanisms that we articulate. BI theory suggests that BI’s greater performance impact is due to the notion that BI affects communication clarity in addition to attitudes. Results of meta-analytic structural equation modeling are consistent with this proposed dual path of BI’s impact. We highlight avenues for future research on BI and discuss how our findings inform the broader research on leader alignment. (shrink)

Arash Abazari's Hegel's Ontology of Power is a superb study of the relevance of Hegel's logic to Marx's theory. Hegel is often dismissed by Marxists as an ‘idealist’ denying the reality of the world, as if Hegel were Bishop Berkeley with a German accent.1 Abazari recognizes this is not the case: ‘(T)he logical categories are not self-standing, but shadow, or track, the empirical world’ (Abazari 2020: 7). But the world in its full actuality does not simply consist of the objects (...) we sense or perceive. It is intrinsically intelligible, and its intelligibility can be comprehended only in thought. When it is, the ‘idealist’ thesis of the identity (in difference) of thought and being holds. Anyone asserting a truth claim implicitly asserts this identity. In so far as Marx asserts that Capital comprehends the capitalist mode of production, he too is an ‘idealist’ in the Hegelian sense of the term. (shrink)

In a step-by-step progression through Marx's three volume work, discovers a systematic theory of socio-economic categories ordered according to the dialectical logic derived from Hegel.

Great bliss clarified -- Six verses on co-emergence -- Utterly clear teaching of unification -- Definitive teaching on dreams -- Clear teaching on utter non-dwelling -- Full teaching of suchness -- Six verses on Madhyamaka.

The ancient Greeks were not only the founders of western philosophy, but the actual term "philosophy" is Greek in origin, most likely dating back to the late sixth century BC. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid, and Thales are but a few of the better-known philosophers of ancient Greece. During the amazingly fertile period running from roughly the middle of the first millennium BC to the middle of the first millennium AD, the world saw the rise of science, numerous schools of (...) thought, and—many believe—the birth of modern civilization. The Historical Dictionary of Ancient Greek Philosophy presents the history of Greek philosophy and the philosophers who made it famous. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important philosophers, concepts, issues, and events. (shrink)

This study draws on semistructured interviews with 19 white, rural, straight-identified men who have sex with men to understand how they perceive their gender and sexuality. It is among the first to use straight men’s own narratives, and helps address the underrepresentation of rural masculinities research. Through complex interpretive processes, participants reworked non-normative sexual practices—those usually antithetical to rural masculinities—to construct normative masculinity. Most chose other masculine, white, and straight or secretly bisexual men as partners for secretive sex without romantic (...) involvement. By choosing these partners and having this type of sex, the participants normalized and authenticated their sexual encounters as straight and normatively masculine. The participants engaged in bud-sex, a specific type of male–male sex that reinforced their rural masculinity and heterosexuality. The married men framed sex with men as less threatening to marriage than extramarital sex with women, helping to preserve a part of their lives that they described as central to their straightness. The results highlight the flexibility of heterosexuality; the centrality of heterosexuality to normative rural masculinity; how similar sexual practices carry different meanings across contexts and populations; and the social construction of masculinities and sexualities by age, race, gender, time period, and place. (shrink)

A major recurrent feature of the intellectual landscape in cognitive science is the appearance of a collection of essays by Noam Chomsky. These collections serve both to inform the wider cognitive science community about the latest developments in the approach to the study of language that Chomsky has advocated for almost fifty years now,1 and to provide trenchant criticisms of what he takes to be mistaken philosophical objections to this approach. This new collection contains seven essays, the earliest of which (...) were first published about ten years ago. So the linguistic work that is summarised is within the principles and parameters approach and some of the essays (particularly the first and last) provide an outline of the main ideas of the emerging minimalist programme.2 But this is not primarily a book about the details of recent linguistic theory. Rather, in these essays Chomsky offers a wealth of critical commentary on some of the most influential arguments in the philosophy of mind and language that have appeared over the past two decades or so. Indeed, Chomsky discusses a vast range of philosophical topics and reaches some radical conclusions – that many influential philosophical discussions on language and mind are utterly misconceived and that, for example, the traditional mind-body problem cannot even be coherently stated. (shrink)

Gratitude to others is typically understood as a response to good things people give to us or do for us. Occasionally, though, we thank people for things other than gifts or actions. We sometimes thank people for being there for us, for instance, or for loving us, or for being good parents or teachers, or for believing in us. In this article, I develop a set of considerations to help determine whether gratitude to others for being, loving, or believing can (...) be fitting in any of these cases. I begin by arguing that when it is appropriate for a beneficiary thank a benefactor for ϕ-ing, the beneficiary’s gratitude to the benefactor for ϕ-ing is fitting only insofar as the benefactor ϕ-ed out of benevolence, care or concern for the beneficiary. I then show that thanking can express attitudes other than gratitude, thereby highlighting the thanks-gratitude fallacy: the mistake of inferring the fittingness of one person’s gratitude to another from the fact that it would be reasonable for the former to thank the latter. These considerations imply that gratitude for being there for us, gratitude for believing in us, and gratitude for being a good professional can sometimes be fitting, while gratitude for loving us and gratitude for being a good intimate generally are not. (shrink)

Free market environmentalists believe that the extension of private property rights and market transactions is sufficient to address environmental difficulties. But there is no invisible hand operating in markets that ensures that environmentally sound practices will be employed just because property rights are in private hands. Also, liability laws and the court systems cannot be relied upon to force polluters to internalize the social costs of pollution. Third, market prices do not provide an objective measure of environmental matters. Finally, there (...) is a right to a livable environment that justifies regulations protecting the public from unreasonable environmental risks. (shrink)

This article develops a critical theory of human–computer interaction intended to test some of the assumptions and omissions made in the field as it transitions from a cognitive theoretical frame to a phenomenological understanding of user experience described by Harrison et al. as a third research paradigm and similarly Bødker :24–31; Bødker, Interactions 22):24–31, 2015) as third-wave HCI. Although this particular focus on experience has provided some novel avenues of academic enquiry, this article draws attention to a distinct bridge between (...) the conventional HCI disciplinary concerns with predominantly task-based digital work and use context and a growing business interest in consumer experiences in digital environments. Critical HCI addresses the problem of experience in two interrelated ways. On one hand, it explores the role market logic plays in putting user experiences to work. On the other hand, it engages with ontological understandings of experience hitherto realized in HCI by way of a phenomenological matrix. The article concludes by bringing in an old thinker to consider experience in novel ways that relate ontological concerns to a broader political concept of experience capitalism. (shrink)

Hegel conceptualized the capitalist economy as a system of needs, with commodities and money serving as means to human ends. While anticipating Marx’s criticisms of certain tendencies in capitalism, Hegel insisted that higher-order institutions, especially those of the modern state, could put them out of play and establish a reconciliation of universality, particularity, and individuality warranting rational affirmation. Hegel, however, failed to comprehend the emergence of capital as a dominant subject, subordinating human ends under its end. The structural coercion, domination, (...) and exploitation inherent in the capital/wage labor relationship illustrate that point, as does the depoliticization of inherently political matters in capitalist market societies. The reconciliation of universality, particularity, and individuality Hegel endorsed requires a form of socialism incorporating deliberative democracy in local workplaces and communities, conjoined with representative bodies on regional, national, and ultimately global levels. (shrink)

The dispositional account of colour has recently come under fire from a number of different directions (reflecting the various alternative options mentioned at the beginning). I believe that in the above I have dealt with the principal objections raised against this account by those who reject it. I cannot pretend to have established that the account is true; but if I am right about the failure of the objections I have discussed, and the difficulites of alternative accounts of colour, then (...) dispositionalism appears to remain the most promising account of colour available. (shrink)

Much of Halford et al.'s discussion of vector models for representing relations concerns the perceived inadequacies of alternative methods with respect to chunking, binding, systematicity, and resource requirements. Vector-based models for storing relations are in their infancy, however, and the relative merits of different schemes are not so clearly in favor of their STAR scheme as Halford et al. portray.

Smith begins with a comprehensive analysis of social theory, presents a defense of Jurgen Habermas' main contribution to social ethics and contrasts Habermas' rational foundation for ethics with the decisionism defended by Max Weber, and ...

In recent publications Paolo Virno and Carlo Vercellone have called attention to Marx’s category of the general intellect in theGrundrisse, and to the unprecedented role its diffusion plays in contemporary capitalism. According to Virno, the flourishing of the general intellect, which Marx thought could only take place within communism, characterises post-Fordist capitalism. Vercellone adds that Marx’s account of the real subsumption of living labour under capital is obsolete in contemporary cognitive capitalism. Both authors regard Marx’s value theory as historically obsolete. (...) I argue that these views rest on a confusion of value and wealth, a neglect of Marx’s account of the role of ‘free gifts’ to capital, an underestimation of the role of the general intellect in the period prior to the rise of post-Fordism/cognitive capitalism, and an underestimation of the restrictions on the diffusion of the general intellect in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

Aristotle famously claims that the essence of citizenship is participation in “administration of justice, and in offices” (Pol 3.1.1275a22-23, cf. 1275b19-21). Socrates was (not very enthusiastically) a citizen of Athens in Aristotle’s paradigmatic sense; but historical studies have shown that Socrates’ contemporaries took the essence of citizenship to be “sharing in the honors” of the polis by honoring the gods, participating in worship, and benefiting the community. The results of his trial show that he was not universally regarded as an (...) excellent citizen by his contemporaries, as they understood citizenship in Athens, though later generations apparently revised their opinion. Doubtless Plato and Xenophon took Socrates to be an exemplary citizen, though their texts do not explicitly say so, since in their accounts of Socrates, citizenship per se is not often their focus. The character of Socrates, as described by Plato and Xenophon, has had an important influence on the historical development of the idea of citizenship. My major goal here is to show how the character of Socrates both exemplifies and challenges parameters described by recent theoreticians. (shrink)

Chris Arthur‟s body of work counts as a very important and original contribution to systematic dialectics, and I have profited immensely from his writings over the years. However we disagree on a number of points. Some have to do with the relatively secondary question of the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx; others involve more substantive matters. In his reply to my review of Joseph McCarney‟s Hegel on History Arthur distinguishes three different versions of the thesis that there is a (...) “homology” between the logic of capital (in a Marxian understanding of it) and Hegel‟s “idea.” I shall comment briefly on each and then conclude with a general remark. (shrink)

In his recent work The Myth of Dialectics John Rosenthal presents a forceful polemic against Hegel and Marxists sympathetic to the Hegelian legacy. The methodology Hegel employed, his metaphysical assertions, his rejection of the principles of formal logic, and the political implications of his standpoint, are all fundamentally incompatible with Marx’s perspective, according to Rosenthal. While Rosenthal grants that Marx did make use of Hegelian motifs in his theory of value, even this is not to Hegel’s credit: the very perversity (...) of Hegel’s thought made it useful for the comprehension of the perversity of capital. In this paper I argue that a close and reasonably charitable reading of Hegel’s Logic reveals a quite different picture of his methodology and ontological commitments from that presented by Rosenthal. While there are profound substantive differences between the Hegelian and Marxian 1 perspectives on capitalist society, it is not the case that Hegel’s Logic is homologous with capital. The Logic provides helpful conceptual resources for a critique of capital. In the final section of the paper five areas are briefly sketched in which Hegelian dialectical logic remains of contemporary interest. (shrink)

_Two notions of autonomy are distinguished. The respective_ _denials that psychology is autonomous from neurobiology are neuron_ _doctrines, moderate and radical. According to the moderate neuron_ _doctrine, inter-disciplinary interaction need not aim at reduction. It is_ _proposed that it is more plausible that there is slippage from the_ _moderate to the radical neuron doctrine than that there is confusion_ _between the radical neuron doctrine and the trivial version._.

Early modern analysis of religion as imaginative construct played a pivotal role in the theoretical development of the study of religion as a discipline detached from theology. Spinoza and vico applied this analysis to the classic western mythological texts--The bible and the homeric epics, Respectively. Moreover, Vico drew more heavily upon the work of spinoza than has been previously recognized. This dependence appears not only in vico's conceptualization of the "imaginative ((as contrasted to rational() universal," but in his critical canons (...) for interpreting ancient texts and in his recognition that concepts and institutions are inseparable in the formation of archaic religion. (shrink)

Yves Grandjean, Tony Kozelj and François Salviat The Zeus Gate on Thasos p. 175-268 The Gate of Zeus and Hera, offered by Pythippos son of Paiestratos, is one of the most remarkable features of the Thasian enceinte: to the sculptured reliefs that adorned it was added a particular architectural embellishment which has never been analysed in its entirety. The numerous blocks preserved in situ make it possible to reconstruct the elevation of the gate, which was in fact a gate (...) tower, and to detail the appearance of the latter with its architectural facing of superimposed orders — Doric and Ionic — on the town side and its Doric frieze integrated into the walls of the tower on the side facing the country. The influences of Macedonian, funerary and palatial architecture are manifest. According to the lists of theoroi and the amphora stamps discovered in the levels preceding its construction, the gate tower was erected in around 300 BC. It replaced an original opening going back to the time when the enceinte visible today was built, in other words after the raid on Thasos by Histiaios of Miletus in 494; the old excavations like the recent investigations confirm the account by Herodotus (VI 46), which there is no reason to doubt. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to bring together two contrasting approaches to Aristotle’s theory of the soul—the explication of what Aristotle says about the psychē and its functions and activities, on the one hand, and on the other, the analysis of Aristotle’s contributions to the history of ideas about mental illness, its causes and remedies. The first approach has been primarily philosophical, while most of those who have written about Aristotle’s contributions to the history of madness have been medical or (...) psychiatric professionals. (shrink)

The Liberal Arts deal with the human being as a whole and hence with what lies at the essence of being human. As a result, the Liberal Arts have a far greater capacity to do good than other fields of study, for their foundation in philosophy enables them to bring students into contact with the ultimate questions which they are free to accept. Even if these questions have little or no ‘market value’, it should be obvious that the way they (...) are taught and learned is going to have a powerful impact upon the future of the students and society. It is suggested here that mathematics has an integral role in the study of the liberal arts in a first degree at a university where the ‘meal ticket’ is subsequently studied in the graduate or professional school. (shrink)

It has always seemed to me that one of my father's great contributions to monarchical practice was the manner in which, without apparent design, he managed to resolve the internal contradictions of monarchy in the twentieth century that requires it to be remote from, yet at the same time to personify the aspirations of the people. It must appear aloof and distant in order to sustain the illusion of a Monarch who, shunning faction, stands above politics and the more mundane (...) allegiances. At the same time it must appear to share intimately the ideals of the multitude, whose affection and loyalty provide the broad base of constitutional Monarchy. My father, with the instinctive genius of the simple man, found the means of squaring the apparent circle within the resources of his own character. By the force of his own authentic example – the king himself in the role of the bearded paterfamilias … he transformed the Crown as personified by the Royal Family into a model of the traditional family virtues, a model that was all the more genuine for its suspected but inconspicuous flaws. The King, as the dutiful father, became the living symbol not only of the nation, but also of the Empire, the last link holding these diversified and scattered communities. (shrink)

Neoclassical economics remains the leading theoretical alternative to Marxian economics. In this article I shall contrast the accounts of technical change in capitalism proposed by both theories. I shall introduce five criteria relevant to a comparison of competing social theories, and argue that the Marxian perspective on technical change in capitalism is superior on all five counts.

Agricultural biotechnology is a social pursuit, undertaken by social agents within social institutions.1 Any attempt to explore the social dimensions of a profound and complex technological development such as biotechnology is bound to be controversial, and any attempt to formulate an ethical assessment of such a development is bound to be yet more complex and controversial. This surely explains why many choose to ignore these inquiries. But the social dimensions of biotechnology are just as real as viruses, bacteria, enzymes, and (...) cells. To refuse to investigate them with the same seriousness that viruses, bacteria, enzymes and cells are investigated is to place an arbitrary restriction on the scope of rational inquiry. (shrink)

Extreme monetary policies successfully prevented the “Great Recession” of 2007–2009 from turning into a global depression. However, they did not address the underlying problems in global capitalism. In recent years prominent “insiders” of global capitalism have proposed reforms designed to remedy these defects. I argue that these proposals are inadequate, due in great part to a failure to acknowledge a profound change in the “deep structure” of capitalism. Technological change, which in the past has contributed so much to the dynamism (...) of capitalism development, no longer does so. The need for extreme monetary policies in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007–2009, the failure of these policies, and the lack of plausible alternatives to them, are all symptoms of an underlying disease beyond cure. A path towards a democratic form of socialism must be forged for the simple yet compelling reason Rosa Luxemburg articulated: it is a matter of socialism or barbarism. (shrink)

Extreme monetary policies successfully prevented the “Great Recession” of 2007–2009 from turning into a global depression. However, they did not address the underlying problems in global capitalism. In recent years prominent “insiders” of global capitalism have proposed reforms designed to remedy these defects. I argue that these proposals are inadequate, due in great part to a failure to acknowledge a profound change in the “deep structure” of capitalism. Technological change, which in the past has contributed so much to the dynamism (...) of capitalism development, no longer does so. The need for extreme monetary policies in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007–2009, the failure of these policies, and the lack of plausible alternatives to them, are all symptoms of an underlying disease beyond cure. A path towards a democratic form of socialism must be forged for the simple yet compelling reason Rosa Luxemburg articulated: it is a matter of socialism or barbarism. (shrink)

When, where, and how should the promotion of human rights and democracy abroad figure in American foreign policy? A compelling way for liberals to influence this debate is to underscore a Wilsonian agenda's relevance to national security.