We believe we know our bodies intimately—that their material reality is certain and that this certainty leads to an epistemological truth about sex, gender, and identity. By exploring and giving equal weight to transgendered subjectivities, however, Gayle Salamon upends these certainties. Considering questions of transgendered embodiment via phenomenology (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Paul Ferdinand Schilder), and queer theory, Salamon advances an alternative theory of normative and non-normative gender, proving the value and vitality of trans experience for thinking about (...) embodiment. Salamon suggests that the difference between transgendered and normatively gendered bodies is not, in the end, material. Rather, she argues that the production of gender itself relies on a disjunction between the "felt sense" of the body and an understanding of the body's corporeal contours, and that this process need not be viewed as pathological in nature. Examining the relationship between material and phantasmatic accounts of bodily being, Salamon emphasizes the productive tensions that make the body both present and absent in our consciousness and work to confirm and unsettle gendered certainties. She questions traditional theories that explain how the body comes to be—and comes to be made one's own—and she offers a new framework for thinking about what "counts" as a body. The result is a groundbreaking investigation into the phenomenological life of gender. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the just war literature suggest that soldiers have a duty to assume certain risks in order to protect the lives of all innocent civilians. I challenge this principle of risk by arguing that it is justified neither as a principle that guides the conduct of combat soldiers, nor as a principle that guides commanders in the US military. I demonstrate that the principle of risk fails on the first account because it requires soldiers both to violate their (...) strict duty of obedience and loyalty and to exceed their special obligations to protect their fellow comrades, the state, the state's constituents and other protected civilians. I then illustrate that the principle of risk fails on the second account since it conflicts with the commander's primary obligation to protect and promote the welfare and lives of his or her soldiers. I conclude by arguing that we cannot reasonably expect soldiers and commanders to adhere to the principle of risk until there is a radical, institutional-level transformation of militaristic goals, values, strategies, policies, warrior codes and expectations of service members in the US Armed Forces. (shrink)

Derek Longhurst’s rhetorical strategies don’t leave me much room to maneuver. By constructing my essay in such a way that we are opponents, he offers only two choices: I can recant or enter into battle. Actually, I would rather do neither; I agree with most of what he says and would like a chance to explore those points where we differ. But in order to do that, it is first necessary to see where our differences really lie; and Longhurst’s response (...) does not make it easy.Granted, some of his criticisms are sound. He is right that I use the word “we” too loosely and that I sketched out my argument on an extremely abstract level, which resulted in, among other things, a blurring of the differences between American and British literature. But more often than not, Longhurst attacks me for taking positions that I do not in fact hold. For instance, he suggests that I believe the categories “popular” and “serious” to be fixed, and that my scheme would therefore shatter when confronted with a text like The Citadel, which was regarded as “both ‘serious’ and ‘popular.’ ” Yet my essay was intended precisely to offer a way to talk about such cases—of which The Glass Key is one—and while my solution may have its flaws, the rigidity of categories that Longhurst attacks it for is surely not one of them. Peter J. Rabinowitz is associate professor of comparative literature at Hamilton College. He is the author of Before Reading , a book about the conventions of reading, and is also active as a music critic for such publications as Fanfare and Ovation. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences” , “Who Was That Lady? Pluralism and Critical Method” , and “The Turn of the Glass Key: Popular Fiction as Reading Strategy”. (shrink)

In conceptualizing vulnerability, it is common for researchers to assume that some participants are more vulnerable on the basis of their membership of a particular group or because they exhibit particular characteristics. Older people are often viewed as inherently more vulnerable by ethics committees and the ethical guidelines committees construct. Because age alone does not confer or cause vulnerability, risk of harm to older research participants is not purely associated with their intrinsic connection to a vulnerable group, and classifying older (...) research participants as vulnerable may not necessarily protect them from harm. Drawing on the preliminary findings of a qualitative study of older people who had survived a suicide attempt, we reflect on how the specific context of our study had the potential of framing older people as vulnerable, and describe ways in which these were managed and resolved. Specifically, we discuss potential for harm through the ethical principles of coercion and distress. (shrink)

This is Oh, the Places You'll Never Go-the ultimate hilarious, cynical, but absolutely realistic view of a college graduate's future. And what he or she can or can't do about it. "This commencement address will never be given, because graduation speakers are supposed to offer encouragement and inspiration. That's not what you need. You need a warning." So begins Carl Hiaasen's attempt to prepare young men and women for their future. And who better to warn them about their precarious paths (...) forward than Carl Hiaasen' The answer, after reading Assume the Worst, is: Nobody. And who better to illustrate-and with those illustrations, expand upon and cement Hiaasen's cynical point of view-than Roz Chast, best-selling authorllustrator and National Book Award winner' The answer again is easy: Nobody. Following the format of Anna Quindlen's commencement address (Being Perfect) and George Saunders's commencement address (Congratulations, by the way), the collaboration of Hiaasen and Chast might look typical from the outside, but inside it is anything but. This book is bound to be a classic, sold year after year come graduation time. Although it's also a good gift for anyone starting a job, getting married, or recently released from prison. Because it is not just funny. It is, in its own Hiaasen way, extremely wise and even hopeful. Well, it might not be full of hope, but there are certainly enough slivers of the stuff in there to more than keep us all going. (shrink)

Access to reliable health advice can make the difference between life and death. But good advice is hard to come by. Within the confines of the professional-client or doctor-patient relationship, the First Amendment operates in a way that protects good and sanctions bad advice. Outside of this relationship, however, the traditional protections of the First Amendment prohibit content- and viewpoint discrimination. Good and bad advice are treated as equal. A core assumption of First Amendment theory is the autonomy of speakers (...) and listeners. Another assumption, as this Article demonstrates in the health context, is the availability of access to professional advice. This assumption, however, is erroneous because access to health advice in fact is unevenly distributed.This Article argues that assuming access to professional advice creates indefensible inequality. Lack of access to expert advice puts some listeners at much higher risk than others. Current First Amendment doctrine is largely unproblematic for those who can afford expert advice, and makes expert advice much costlier where health provider access is needed to obtain good advice. Those who lack access must place a higher degree of trust in widely-available information because they have no more reliable alternative. In other words, First Amendment doctrine places a higher burden on those who can least afford expert advice and who are most dependent on experts in public discourse. (shrink)

In many domains of biology, explanation takes the form of characterizing the mechanism responsible for a particular phenomenon in a specific biological system. How are such explanations generalized? One important strategy assumes conservation of mechanisms through evolutionary descent. But conservation is seldom complete. In the case discussed, the central mechanism for circadian rhythms in animals was first identified in Drosophila and then extended to mammals. Scientists' working assumption that the clock mechanisms would be conserved both yielded important generalizations and served (...) as a heuristic for discovery, especially when significant differences between the insect and mammalian mechanism were identified. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Programs in Science Studies and Cognitive Science, 0119, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093‐0119; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

If cosmology is to obtain knowledge about the whole universe, it faces an underdetermination problem: Alternative space-time models are compatible with our evidence. The problem can be avoided though, if there are good reasons to adopt the Cosmological Principle (CP), because, assuming the principle, one can confine oneself to the small class of homogeneous and isotropic space-time models. The aim of this paper is to ask whether there are good reasons to adopt the Cosmological Principle in order to avoid (...) underdetermination in cosmology. Various strategies to justify the CP are examined. For instance, arguments to the effect that the truth of the CP follows generically from a large set of initial conditions; an inference to the best explanation; and an inductive strategy are assessed. I conclude that a convincing justification of the CP has not yet been established, but this claim is contingent on a number of results that may have to be revised in the future. (shrink)

We propose a friendly amendment to integrative experiment design (IED), adversarial-collaboration IED, that incentivizes research teams from competing theoretical perspectives to identify zones of the design space where they possess an explanatory edge. This amendment is especially critical in debates that have high policy stakes and carry a strong normative-political charge that might otherwise prevent free exchange of ideas.

Since Aristotle the central question in biology was the origin of organic form; a question put in the backyard by neo-Darwinism that considers organic form as a side effect of the interactions between genes and their products. On the other hand, the fashionable notion of self-organization also fails to provide a true causal explanation for organic form. For Aristotle form is both a cause and the principle of intelligibility and this coupled to the classical concepts of potentiality and actuality provides (...) a rational framework,currently embodied in the contemporary concept of ‘attractor’, for understanding the origin of organic form. (shrink)

Corporate responsibility is considered the “epitome of corporate ethics.” In “the balanced concept of the firm,” a corporation is seen as a moral agent that has a balanced approach to managing three interrelated and equally important responsibilities viz. economic, social, and environmental. The case study aims to advance our understating of the “triple bottom line approach to CSR” by showing how a news media organization committed itself to dispensing its corporate responsibilities despite facing lawless situations. Through a detailed study of (...) organizational records and interviews with the top management of the organization, we found that Prabhat Khabar could reap rich benefits for its stakeholders by engaging in role-related work and following business practices that were innovative, contextually appropriate, and ethically correct. As Prabhat Khabar’s growth happened in a market that was adverse to business activities, we believe that its story would act as a role model function of corporate conduct in emerging economies. Moreover, it would help organizations understand how to commit themselves to corporate responsibilities in unfavourable circumstances. (shrink)

The presumption of innocence is not a presumption but an assumption or legal fiction. It requires agents of the state to treat a suspect or defendant in the criminal process as if he were in fact innocent. The presumption of innocence has a limited field of application. It applies only to agents of the state, and only during the criminal process. The presumption of innocence as such does not determine the amount of evidence necessary to find a defendant guilty. In (...) spite of these limits, the presumption of innocence protects suspects and defendants from specific dangers inherent in the criminal process. German procedure law is used to show these areas. (shrink)

The obligation to inform and obtain the consent of human subjects is axiomatic in social and medical research. Yet educational researchers are often reluctant to inform their subjects: class teachers and headteachers, for example, are often used as gatekeepers, and investigators sometimes do not so much seek consent as assume it. This chapter discusses the principle of informed consent, in particular that of children. It proposes guidelines for gatekeepers who may be called upon to authorise research and to grant to (...) investigators access to children in their care. (shrink)

Assuming the existence of a monster model, tameness, and continuity of nonsplitting in an abstract elementary class (AEC), we extend known superstability results: let $\mu>\operatorname {LS}(\mathbf {K})$ be a regular stability cardinal and let $\chi $ be the local character of $\mu $ -nonsplitting. The following holds: 1.When $\mu $ -nonforking is restricted to $(\mu,\geq \chi )$ -limit models ordered by universal extensions, it enjoys invariance, monotonicity, uniqueness, existence, extension, and continuity. It also has local character $\chi $. This (...) generalizes Vasey’s result [37, Corollary 13.16] which assumed $\mu $ -superstability to obtain same properties but with local character $\aleph _0$.2.There is $\lambda \in [\mu,h(\mu ))$ such that if $\mathbf {K}$ is stable in every cardinal between $\mu $ and $\lambda $, then $\mathbf {K}$ has $\mu $ -symmetry while $\mu $ -nonforking in (1) has symmetry. In this case:(a) $\mathbf {K}$ has the uniqueness of $(\mu,\geq \chi )$ -limit models: if $M_1,M_2$ are both $(\mu,\geq \chi )$ -limit over some $M_0\in K_{\mu }$, then $M_1\cong _{M_0}M_2$ ;(b)any increasing chain of $\mu ^+$ -saturated models of length $\geq \chi $ has a $\mu ^+$ -saturated union. These generalize [31] and remove the symmetry assumption in [10, 38].Under $(<\mu )$ -tameness, the conclusions of (1), (2)(a)(b) are equivalent to $\mathbf {K}$ having the $\chi $ -local character of $\mu $ -nonsplitting.Grossberg and Vasey [18, 38] gave eventual superstability criteria for tame AECs with a monster model. We remove the high cardinal threshold and reduce the cardinal jump between equivalent superstability criteria. We also add two new superstability criteria to the list: a weaker version of solvability and the boundedness of the U-rank. (shrink)

The obligation to inform and obtain the consent of human subjects is axiomatic in social and medical research. Yet educational researchers are often reluctant to inform their subjects: class teachers and headteachers, for example, are often used as gatekeepers, and investigators sometimes do not so much seek consent as assume it. This chapter discusses the principle of informed consent, in particular that of children. It proposes guidelines for gatekeepers who may be called upon to authorise research and to grant to (...) investigators access to children in their care. (shrink)

There is a widespread and largely unchallenged assumption within philosophy that the word ‘normal’ is ambiguous: i.e., that it can mean different things in different contexts. This assumption appears in work within topics as varied as the philosophy of biology, medicine, justification, causation, and more. In this paper I argue that we currently lack any independent reason for adopting such an assumption. The reason that would most likely be offered in its favour requires us to ignore an alternative and equally (...) plausible explanation for the seeming variety of different meanings that ‘normal’ is taken to have. Meanwhile, the well-known conjunction reduction test for ambiguity provides no evidence for the ambiguity of ‘normal’, and in fact suggests that maintaining this ambiguity claim is more difficult than has been initially supposed. Therefore, with the way things stand at present, it should not be assumed without argument that ‘normal’ is an ambiguous term. (shrink)

Qu’en est-il du doute qui porte sur l’existence même de Dieu, l’objet de la foi? Doit-on l’assumer sans jamais prétendre l’éliminer? On le doit, dit Tillich, dans un écrit de 1919 intitulé «Justification et doute», où, de façon paradoxale, il confronte un tel doute à l’idée paulino-luthérienne de la justification. Étant nous-mêmes porteurs, en tant que personnes, d’un sens imprégné de mystère, nous sommes à la fois conscients de la distance infinie qui nous sépare de l’absolu et de la singulière (...) parenté qui nous en approche. (shrink)

A consideration of Nietzsche and Marx on Epicurus, and focused on Epicurus as a philosopher in whom, as Nietzsche puts it, 'wisdom assumes bodily form'.

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

There is an old joke about a theoretical physicist who was charged with figuring out how to increase the milk production of cows. Although many farmers, biologists, and psychologists had tried and failed to solve the problem before him, the physicist had no trouble coming up with a solution on the spot. “ First,” he began, “we assume a spherical cow... ” [Tenenbaum & Griffiths].

In his liberal theory of justice, John Rawls stipulates that the principles of justice selected will be generally complied with. This assumption of full compliance is characteristic of what Rawls calls “ideal theory,” i.e., a theory that seeks to formulate and justify ideal principles of justice. David Schmidtz contends that the full compliance assumption undermines the practical relevance of ideal theory. I argue that Schmidtz’s criticisms of full compliance do not succeed. Understanding why his arguments fail requires an examination of (...) both Schmidtz’s and Rawls’s views of the nature of justice and the function of political philosophy. I explain why full compliance can plausibly be assumed in Rawls’s ideal theory given the conception of justice he employs, and articulate the problem Schmidtz’s argument faces if it relies on his view of the role of political philosophy. (shrink)

In previous publications on probability, I have followed I.J. Good in arguing that probability must be defined subjectively if we accept that the world is causally deterministic. In this article I go significantly beyond this position, arguing that we are forced to accept a subjective definition of probability if we use any probabilistic methods at all. In other words, all probabilistic methods tacitly assume a subjective definition of probability.

Abstract. The analysis of legal statements that are made from an "internal point of view" must distinguish statements where legal obedience is accepted from statements where legal obedience is only assumed. Statements that are based on accepted obedience supply reasons for action, but statements where obedience is merely assumed can never provide reasons for action. It is argued in this paper that John Searle neglects this distinction. Searle claims that a statement from the internal point of view provides the speaker (...) with reasons for actions that are "self-sufficient" in the sense that they are independent of the speaker's beliefs and desires. This claim is mistaken. A statement that is based on assumed obedience is self-sufficient, but does not give reasons for action. A statement that is based on accepted obedience gives reasons for action, but these reasons are not self-sufficient. (shrink)

The conceptual basis of the paper is the difference between two types of responsibi- lity: the agent’s responsibility for his own acts and their effects; a responsibi- lity which is primarily oriented to the Other, about whom one is concerned and for whom one guarantees. The paper deals with this second meaning of responsibility: an imputation of a deed to somebody as its agent. The author explores the origins of the modern concept of imputation, its specific character and effectiveness, as (...) well as its limitations. She focuses on three approaches: those of M. Weber, A. Giuliani and P. Ricœur. Weber’s responsibility means a causal imputation. But it was not Weber, who introduced this way of defining the act’s ethical value. Giuliani shows, how the theological concept of imputation is related to its later laicization in the theory of natural law. Ricœur argues that the real history of responsibility began after responsibility has been separated from the theological context. In conclusion it is showed, that although responsibility rooted in one’s realizing the vulnerability of the Other differs from the responsibility of the agent for his own deeds, these are neither historically, nor theoretically two independent realms. (shrink)

People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism. At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to (...) cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind–brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that “a change in a person's brain” is accompanied by “a change in the person's mind” more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that “future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person's brain,” participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person's mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios. By uncovering people's intuitive theories of the mind–brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments. (shrink)