This commentary aims to place Grace de Laguna’s critique of pragmatism in its historical context. It examines her 1904 response to Henry Heath Bawden, her 1909 attack on John Dewey’s immediate empiricism, and her 1910 book Dogmatism and Evolution, focusing on the following question: Why did she describe her approach as an attempt to complete the pragmatists’ Darwinian revolution in logic?

In Metaphor and Film, Trevor Whittock demonstrates that feature films are permeated by metaphors that were consciously introduced by directors. An examination of cinematic metaphor forces us to reconsider the nature of metaphor itself, and the ways by which such visual imagery can be recognised and understood, as well as interpreted. Metaphor and Film identifies the principal forms of cinematic metaphor, and also provides an analysis of the mental operations that one must bring to it. Recent developments in cognitive (...) psychology, especially those relating to the nature and formation of categories, are called upon to explain these processes. Metaphor and Film ranges widely over film theory as it does over philosophical, literary, linguistic, and psychological accounts of metaphor. Particularly useful to those studying film, literature, and aesthetics, this study is also a provocative contribution to an important debate in which film theorists and philosophers are currently engaged. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the applicability of a principalist approach for a global, or cross-cultural, bioethics. We focus especially on the principle of individual autonomy, a core value in ethical discourse. We echo some long-standing criticisms of other anthropologists, sociologists, and many medical ethicists that the individualistic approach to autonomy is a Euro-American value and cannot be ethically applied in all settings. As a remedy, we suggest an adaptation of Kleinman's Explanatory Model approach to questions of decisionmaking. We (...) argue that the analysis and resolution of ethical dilemmas might also benefit from forms of pedagogy that integrate anthropological and other social science perspectives, and the incorporation of ethnographic techniques in ethical practice. (shrink)

This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions we might draw (...) in light of these results, and argue that none comes cost free. In the course of laying out possible responses to my arguments, we'll have a chance to evaluate various doctrines about the interplay between contingency and essence, as well as develop some alternative reductions of metaphysical modality to essence. I don't decisively come down in favor of one response over the others, though I say some things that point towards the conclusion that essence has no role to play in reducing metaphysical modality. (shrink)

The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz's classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms (...) of this consensus position. My second aim is to show what form substantivalism must take in order to uphold the consensus while addressing this challenge. The result is a novel "plenitudinous" substantivalist view, which predicts that certain modal facts about spacetime are vague or indeterminate. I then argue against this view on independent grounds, concluding that substantivalists should reject the consensus position. The paper also discusses the way forward for substantivalists in light of this conclusion. (shrink)

Formal criteria of theoretical equivalence are mathematical mappings between specific sorts of mathematical objects, notably including those objects used in mathematical physics. Proponents of formal criteria claim that results involving these criteria have implications that extend beyond pure mathematics. For instance, they claim that formal criteria bear on the project of using our best mathematical physics as a guide to what the world is like, and also have deflationary implications for various debates in the metaphysics of physics. In this paper, (...) I investigate whether there is a defensible view according to which formal criteria have significant non-mathematical implications, of these sorts or any other, reaching a chiefly negative verdict. Along the way, I discuss various foundational issues concerning how we use mathematical objects to describe the world when doing physics, and how this practice should inform metaphysics. I diagnose the prominence of formal criteria as stemming from contentious views on these foundational issues, and endeavor to motivate some alternative views in their stead. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 104-105 [Access article in PDF] William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 344. Cloth, $40.00. Newman and Principe have produced a masterful study of intellectual context, primarily by correcting the commonly held belief that there was a radical break (...) in the seventeenth century between late medieval alchemy and early modern chemistry. Although their main focus is on George Starkey (the 'alchemist') and Robert Boyle (the 'chemist'), they also provide copious details on the chemical practices and theories of Van Helmont, Benjamin Worsley, Frederick Clodius, and Kenelm Digby, among others. It is hard to do justice to their complex study in a short review. Following a brief summary, therefore, I will limit my discussion to how the authors' conclusions are significant for a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of philosophy in the seventeenth century.After a helpful introduction, Chapter 1 outlines the differences in the early lives of the English, aristocratic Boyle and the American, Harvard-educated Starkey. Chapter 2's background on late medieval chemistry includes an examination of corpuscular theories within that tradition as well as Van Helmont's arguments concerning the way in which mathematics is useful for explaining "superficial" changes but not the real, internal changes in bodies. Chapters 3 and 4 provide a close study of Starkey's laboratory notebooks. Among the entries, recorded in a style adapted from Scholasticism, there are passages that adopt the secrecy of alchemy, while others show Starkey's effective use of theoretical principles and such experimental quantitative methods as mass balance. Chapter 5 examines Boyle's intellectual context. Newman and Principe argue convincingly for Starkey's role in Boyle's addition of Helmontian elements to the general Baconian program. Chapter 6 looks at the [End Page 104] results of Boyle's eclectic mix of chemistry and mechanism. Although Helmontian chemistry played a significant role in Boyle's natural philosophy, the authors attribute his meager interest in quantitative measures and analyses to his attempts to use chemistry as a support for mechanism and as evidence against Aristotelianism. The concluding chapter draws together elements from previous chapters to provide the full argument against the idea of a radical break between medieval alchemy and modern chemistry.Newman and Principe's reconsideration of traditional categories surrounding the idea of a radical break should provide an impetus for similar reconsideration in the history of philosophy. As they point out, 'the' mechanical philosophy drew from a diverse range of disciplines. Boyle's eclectic and complex attempt to develop a unique version of the mechanical philosophy can be seen in other English philosophers, especially Locke and Newton. This study provides a promising basis for yet more extensive and refined studies of the seventeenth-century milieu. The continuing over-emphasis on the physical principles of Descartes and Gassendi's versions of the mechanical philosophy and the tendency to reduce all mechanism to their view needs revision. Also in need of reconsideration is the currently popular belief that the study of context simply means adding social elements to an uncontroversial intellectual context. As the authors clearly show, much more work on the intellectual context remains to be done.One line of research in the history of philosophy that could be pursued concerns the role of Francis Bacon in this context. Although Newman and Principe mention the general Baconian ethos, a detailed discussion of Bacon was clearly beyond their scope. Yet Bacon's own debts to chemistry, although frequently unrecognized, seem more significant given this study. Also, it would be interesting to see the extent to which Bacon's works influenced Van Helmont or Starkey. Newman and Principe's claims regarding the novelty of Starkey's notebooks, for example, may be a little overstated. Many of the elements from Starkey's notebooks can be found in Bacon's advice in his Natural and Experimental Histories (1622). In that work, Bacon advised writers... (shrink)

Résumé Même si les utopies sont potentiellement dangereuses, les visions utopiques nous sont malgré tout indispensables. La perte de l’espoir et de l’utopie signifie la perte de l’humanité. Mais comment empêcher l’utopie de tourner en dystopie? L’utopie pensée en termes de perfection, de pureté et d’exclusivité impose sa version d’une vie meilleure comme la seule et unique. L’utopisme d’opposition par contre ne cherche ni la perfection, ni la suppression des possibilités d’évolution. Son objectif est le progrès et non pas la (...) répression de l’homme. Ce n’est pas l’utopisme qui est défectueux, le problème vient davantage de la conviction qu’une utopie particulière puisse faire advenir la seule façon correcte de vivre. (shrink)

The Hermopolis letters showcase the personal concerns of those writing Aramaic letters in the era of Persian Egypt. One individual named Nabuša is particularly interesting because of his familial correspondence and emotional tone. This study will examine what can be known about this writer and his complaints about an unwanted tunic and a snakebite. There have been several notable disagreements about the Aramaic translation of Nabuša’s concerns, whose discussion will help heighten our understanding of his passion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 25-27 [Access article in PDF] Gender, Body, Meaning:Anthropological Perspectives on Self-Injury and Borderline Personality Disorder Carolyn Sargent THE CENTRAL THEMES OF "Commodity Body/Sign: Borderline Personality Disorder and the Signification of Self-Injurious Behavior" reflect issues that cut across the disciplines represented by this journal and have received increasing attention from anthropologists. Medical anthropologists, as well as psychological anthropologists and others interested in symbolic (...) analysis of the body, have addressed such topics as the culture of biomedicine and the cultural shaping of psychiatric classification, the multiple meanings of body modifications, power relations in therapeutic interactions between doctor and patient, and cultural variation in understandings of normality and abnormality.Curiously, there is little anthropological literature that directly focuses on either borderline personality disorder (BPD) or self-injurious acts per se. Indeed anthropological research on psychiatric diagnosis, classification, and treatment, as well as ethnopsychiatry, include scant reference to personality disorders. One exception is Nuckolls' 1992 article, "Toward a Cultural History of the Personality Disorders," which raises pertinent questions for one of Potter's introductory statements—that the majority of those diagnosed with BPD are women. Nuckolls directly addresses gender ideology and gender roles in the United States in his comparison of antisocial personality and histrionic personality diagnoses. In his paper, he argues that these personality disorders have cultural histories and are strongly congruent with prevailing gender stereotypes, such that men are many times more likely to be diagnosed as antisocial than women and women much more likely to be diagnosed as histrionic (Nuckolls 1992, 37). He also historicizes the emergence of certain behavioral styles that have been seen as characteristic of women and men, and the evolution of psychiatric diagnoses that classify extreme manifestations of these behavioral styles.The issue of why women, rather than men, are more frequently diagnosed with BPD is not elaborated in Potter's article, although she notes the importance of considering the intersection of gender and "identifying behaviors" associated with BPD. Cultural analyses of gender ideology in the [End Page 25] United States might suggest that the connection involves gendered expectations concerning emotionality and relational context but these articulations remain intriguing and underexplored. One might speculate that BPD/self-injury occurs in the context of particular gender ideologies, perhaps in class-based, industrialized societies where the body is highly commodified. It appears that the history of this constellation of symptoms and behaviors remains to be written.Cultural analysis of self-injury, a theme that runs through Potter's article, tends to be embedded in the anthropological literature on body ornamentation, initiation rituals, and "culture-bound" syndromes. Mascia-Lees and Sharpe (1992, 1) describe the body as "a site of adornment, manipulation, and mutilation," practices with roots reaching back as far as 30,000 years, and include as examples head deformation, scarification, foot binding, tooth filing, lip plates, nose rings, tattoos, subincision, and genital cutting.However, the concept of self-injury, as Potter notes, is problematic in the discipline of anthropology given the significance historically accorded to cultural relativism. Correspondingly, body "modification" is not "self-injury" as long as it is socially normative, for example, a facet of an initiation ordeal or body ornamentation (e.g., circumcision, scarification, piercing). Among the rare examples of acts that seem readily identifiable as "self-injury" are New Guinea practices of cutting off a finger to demonstrate mourning and Baatombu (West African) male finger amputation to show grief and anger over a wife's infidelity. Both are, however, considered culturally legitimate and not indicative of pathology.Potter's argument draws heavily on the notion of "body as text," derived largely from literary theory and feminist philosophy (Butler 1990; Jaggar and Bordo 1989). The perspective of "body as text" has influenced anthropological theory over the past two decades, particularly in the interpretive and postmodernist schools of thought. The body as a text of femininity is aptly characterized by Bordo, who argues that the continuum between female disorder and normal femininity is revealed by means of an analysis of symbolic meaning of gender in... (shrink)

Significant challenges arise for clinical care teams when a patient or surrogate decision-maker hopes a miracle will occur. This article answers the question, “How should clinical bioethicists respond when a medical decision-maker uses the hope for a miracle to orient her medical decisions?” We argue the ethicist must first understand the complexity of the miracle-invocation. To this end, we provide a taxonomy of miracle-invocations that assist the ethicist in analyzing the invocator's conceptions of God, community, and self. After the ethicist (...) appreciates how these concepts influence the invocator's worldview, she can begin responding to this hope with specific practices. We discuss these practices in detail and offer concrete recommendations for a justified response to the hope for a miracle. (shrink)

We show that Weak Vopěnka’s Principle, which is the statement that the opposite category of ordinals cannot be fully embedded into the category of graphs, is equivalent to the large cardinal principle Ord is Woodin, which says that for every class [Formula: see text] there is a [Formula: see text]-strong cardinal. Weak Vopěnka’s Principle was already known to imply the existence of a proper class of measurable cardinals. We improve this lower bound to the optimal one by defining structures whose (...) nontrivial homomorphisms can be used as extenders, thereby producing elementary embeddings witnessing [Formula: see text]-strongness of some cardinal. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive volume to offer a state of the art investigation both of the nature of political ideologies and of their main manifestations. The diversity of ideology studies is represented by a mixture of the range of theories that illuminate the field, combined with an appreciation of the changing complexity of concrete ideologies and the emergence of new ones. Ideologies, however, are always with us.

This book considers how language can be appropriately theorized as both a natural and cultural phenomenon. In reaching his conclusion, Pateman draws on a wide range of work in linguistics, philosophy, and social theory, and argues in defense of Chomsky and against Wittgenstein, all within the framework of a realist philosophy of science and contemporary social theory.

The hole argument purports to show that all spacetime theories of a certain form are indeterministic, including the General Theory of Relativity. The argument has given rise to an industry of searching for a metaphysics of spacetime that delivers the right modal implications to rescue determinism. In this paper, I first argue that certain prominent extant replies to the hole argument—namely, those that appeal to an essentialist doctrine about spacetime—fail to deliver the requisite modal implications. As part of my argument, (...) I show that threats to determinism of the sort brought out by the hole argument are more general than has heretofore been recognized. I then use these results to propose a novel essentialist doctrine about spacetime that successfully rescues determinism, what I call sufficiency metric essentialism. However, I go on to argue that once we realize what an essentialist doctrine about spacetime must look like in order to address the hole argument, we should reject all such doctrines, because they can't fulfill their ambition of improving on standard modal replies to the argument. I close by suggesting some lessons for future work on spacetime and the metaphysics of physics more broadly, and also drawing some general morals for contemporary metaphysics, in particular about (i) whether essence can be used to articulate a precise structuralist doctrine, and (ii) the relationship between essence and modality. (shrink)

In Pragmatism’s Evolution, Trevor Pearce demonstrates that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism owes an enormous debt to specific biological debates in the late 1800s, especially those concerning the role of the environment in development and evolution. Many are familiar with John Dewey’s 1909 assertion that evolutionary ideas overturned two thousand years of philosophy—but what exactly happened in the fifty years prior to Dewey’s claim? What form did evolutionary ideas take? When and how were they received by American philosophers? Although (...) the various thinkers associated with pragmatism—from Charles Sanders Peirce to Jane Addams and beyond—were towering figures in American intellectual life, few realize the full extent of their engagement with the life sciences. In his analysis, Pearce focuses on a series of debates in biology from 1860 to 1910—from the instincts of honeybees to the inheritance of acquired characteristics—in which the pragmatists were active participants. If we want to understand the pragmatists and their influence, Pearce argues, we need to understand the relationship between pragmatism and biology. (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have not reached a consensus about whether or not individuals who contribute to climate change have a moral obligation to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, I side with those who think that such individuals do have such an obligation by appealing to the concept of integrity. I argue that adopting a political commitment to work toward a collective solution to climate change—a commitment we all ought to share—requires also adopting a personal commitment to reduce (...) one’s emissions. On these grounds, individuals who contribute to climate change have a prima facie moral duty to lower their personal greenhouse gas emissions. After presenting this argument and supporting each of its premises, I defend it from two major lines of objection: skepticism about integrity’s status as a virtue and concerns that the resulting moral duty would be too demanding to be morally required. I then consider the role that an appeal to integrity could play in galvanizing the American public to take personal and political action regarding climate change. (shrink)

Examines the work of transcendental filmmakers such as Bela Tarr and Terence Malick using a metaphysical framework.

This book examines the link between population growth and environmental impact and explores the implications of this connection for the ethics of procreation. In light of climate change, species extinctions, and other looming environmental crises, Trevor Hedberg argues that we have a collective moral duty to halt population growth to prevent environmental harms from escalating. This book assesses a variety of policies that could help us meet this moral duty, confronts the conflict between protecting the welfare of future people (...) and upholding procreative freedom, evaluates the ethical dimensions of individual procreative decisions, and sketches the implications of population growth for issues like abortion and immigration. It is not a book of tidy solutions: Hedberg highlights some scenarios where nothing we can do will enable us to avoid treating some people unjustly. In such scenarios, the overall objective is to determine which of our available options will minimize the injustice that occurs. This book will be of great interest to those studying environmental ethics, environmental policy, climate change, sustainability, and population policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prepping for the Day You Hope Never Arrives:Facing RecurrenceTerra TrevorMy 14–year–old son was eight years past diagnosis of a brain tumor. Gone were the pristine sick days when his white hooded sweatshirt stayed spotlessly clean for weeks at a time. Each time he left a muddy footprint on the kitchen floor I rejoiced; it felt so good to have a healthy kid again. However, my son was a survivor (...) of an anaplastic ependymoma, grade IV, brain tumor, and although I wanted to be out of the woods, I knew we were not. I’d climbed out of the space where medical problems were fi led in my mind, yet I kept the door open because statics showed that the type of brain tumor he had, frequently recurred.Still, I was determined to keep our lives as ordinary as possible. But for a brain tumor family this meant staying connected to sources of support. Parent programs, patient and sibling support groups [End Page 27] and camps, and we remained connected to hospital resources. Most of all we needed to have fun as a family, and we attended the cancer survivor picnics and parties our hospital hosted, where the doctors served as volunteers, grilling hamburgers and dishing up ice cream for the guest of honor patients.My husband and I felt confident that as long as we worked as a team with our doctors and stayed connected to resources offered, we would find a way to meet any challenges that might surface.In the end ultimately what saved us was this mosaic of support provided to us over the years from a multitude of good people and organizations offering help when we needed it most. And I had the opportunity to learn to accept help, which it turns out, is far harder than offering to help.Shortly after my son Jay celebrated his 8th year as a brain tumor survivor, I watched him open the medicine cabinet and reach for the bottle of Advil, for the second time in a row that day. “Do you have a headache again?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders, then hiccupped hard, and ducked his head in the toilet and threw up. Tears welled in his eyes. I sank into the deep, silent panic that made me calm.Our primary care physician called in an authorization for an MRI. Jay hid his fear behind a mask of quiet strength. It was ten days before his fifteenth birthday.While we waited for the MRI appointment, that week Jay was elected student of the month, and he got a lead part in the school play. My idyll of family hood continued until the MRI confirmed my worst fear—the tumor was back, and this time its fingers spread into the brainstem.We had to decide on a plan of treatment. Surgery was scheduled. When Jay was admitted to the hospital and I requested that he be placed in the pediatric ward, an environment he was familiar with, they agreed. Although Jay was a teenager, the recurrence caused him to revert emotionally back to a younger age. It was as if he was seven–years–old again, reliving his first brain tumor experience, and he kept his childhood security item—a small teddy bear with him, tucked under the hospital covers, like he had with the first diagnosis.Luck held. With surgery most of the tumor was resected and symptoms disappeared. Three days later, on Thanksgiving, he was feeling well enough to be excited about the Thanksgiving dinner our hospital provided us. A table and chairs were brought in, along with a feast of good food. The nurses gave Jay lavish attention, they laughed at the corny jokes he told, and made us feel like special company.Within a week Jay was out of the hospital, recovering well. But what to do about the remaining brain tumor slivers that were inoperable? He had already received his lifetime dose of whole brain radiation, and chemotherapy available offered little hope of curing a recurrent tumor. But there was a small chance that stereotactic radiation might stall tumor growth. We set up a consultation.We had... (shrink)

Readers have much to consider when evaluating Greenblum and Hubbard’s conclusion that ‘physicians have no business doing theology’.1 The two central arguments the authors offer are fairly convincing within the confines they set for themselves, the provisos they stipulate and their notions of ‘privacy’ and ‘public reason’. However, I would ask readers to consider two questions, the answers to which I believe the authors leave opaque. First, what is theological negotiation? Second, what makes chaplains the singular group of healthcare professionals (...) responsible for theological negotiation? In this Commentary, I explore these questions not with the goal of rejecting the authors’ conclusion, but rather with the goal of highlighting relevant considerations when evaluating the authors’ central tenets. First, I would like readers to consider Greenblum and Hubbard’s descriptions of theological negotiation. They categorise theological negotiation into metaphysical, normative and alternative responses, and hold that this kind of negotiation is, for the most part, impermissible for healthcare professionals, save chaplains.1 The examples of Dr Chatterjee and Dr Thompson expand theological negotiation to include instances where physicians add a theological veneer to their clinical recommendations. In both the examples, the physician has made the case for accepting or rejecting a certain intervention—for Dr Chatterjee, accepting …. (shrink)

The word ‘environment’ has a history. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of a singular, abstract entity—the organism—interacting with another singular, abstract entity—the environment—was virtually unknown. In this paper I trace how the idea of a plurality of external conditions or circumstances was replaced by the idea of a singular environment. The central figure behind this shift, at least in Anglo-American intellectual life, was the philosopher Herbert Spencer. I examine Spencer’s work from 1840 to 1855, demonstrating that he was exposed (...) to a variety of discussions of the ‘force of circumstances’ in this period, and was decisively influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte in the years preceding the publication of Principles of psychology (1855). It is this latter work that popularized the word ‘environment’ and the corresponding idea of organism–environment interaction—an idea with important metaphysical and methodological implications. Spencer introduced into the English-speaking world one of our most enduring dichotomies: organism and environment. (shrink)

Scholarship on European imperialism in the Americas has become increasingly prominent in the historiography of early America after a long period when the subject was hardly discussed. Historians have come to see that local experience in the Americas needs to be placed in a wider, comparative Atlantic context. They have realised that what united most peoples’ experiences in the Americas was that they lived as colonial subjects within colonies that were part of imperial polities. This article examines recent writings on (...) European empires in the Americas, relating imperial history to related developments in fields such as Atlantic history. It suggests that renewed attention to imperialism allows historians to discuss in a fruitful fashion the relationship between power and authority in the formation of colonial societies and draws attention to the continuing importance of metropolitan influence in the articulation of colonial identities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) and moral constructs (...) related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts, those which are praiseworthy but not obligatory, have become a significant topic in contemporary moral philosophy, primarily because morally supererogatory acts have proven difficult to reconcile with other important aspects of normative ethics. However, despite the similarities between ethics and epistemology, epistemic supererogation has received very little attention. In this paper, I aim to further the discussion of supererogation by arguing for the existence of epistemically supererogatory acts and considering the potential implications of their existence. First, I offer (...) a brief account of moral supererogation and how morally supererogatory acts generate a strong intuition that a similar phenomenon should exist in epistemology. Afterward, I argue for the existence of epistemically supererogatory acts by examining five cases where an epistemic activity appears to be epistemically supererogatory. Epistemic supererogation appears to provide the best explanation for our considered judgments about the individuals’ behavior in these different cases. Finally, I consider how epistemic supererogation might impact the contemporary study of epistemology, particularly with regard to how we appraise certain epistemic duties. (shrink)

SARGENT A. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 134–143 [Epub ahead of print]Reframing caring as discursive practice: a critical review of conceptual analyses of caring in nursingThis study critically examines the way in which the concept of caring is presented in the nursing literature through conceptual analytic approaches. A critical reflection on the potential consequences of representing a concept of caring as vague and ambiguous, yet central to ontology and epistemology in professional nursing is presented drawing on comparisons between the conceptual (...) analyses of caring, and of structuralist perspectives of language, and how this potentially limits scholarship in this area. A search of the literature revealed nine conceptual papers. These papers highlight the self‐referential characteristics of the concept of caring, and of analytical methods in general. It is proposed that this is the result of a systematic adherence to a rigid, structuralist view of language, whereby stable relationships between words and their meanings are assumed. An alternative perspective is offered by viewing caring as a discursive practice rather than a fixed conceptual entity, calling into question the role that the concept plays in nursing practice. A poststructuralist perspective requires caring to be perceived as a discourse of nursing that is fluid and contingent, rather than a central and guiding concept, opening up a new orientation for nursing scholarship in caring research. (shrink)

Recent official publications have emphasised the need for differentiation to take place in classrooms in order to ensure that the needs of all pupils, including the more able, are met effectively. These publications list methods of differentiation which are ‘recommended’ for classroom use. This article researches the views of teachers about the value of these recommended methods of differentiation for able pupils in primary and secondary classrooms. It concludes that the teachers are more subtle in their use of the methods (...) than the official publications allow for and it suggests that no single method can be applied without understanding the context in which it is used. (shrink)