This paper analyzes and explores varying discourses within the talk of new practitioner direct entry (DE) midwives in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, midwifery is theorized as a feminist profession undertaken in partnership with women. Direct entry midwifery education is similarly based on partnerships between educators and students in the form of liberatory pedagogies. The context for the analysis is a large ethnographic study undertaken with a variety of differently positioned midwives based mainly in (...) one city in New Zealand. I interviewed and observed over 40 midwives in their different practice settings in 2003. Complex and contesting forms of knowledge production are analyzed in this paper drawing on methodological insights from Foucauldian discourse analysis. New practitioners engage in techniques of self‐monitoring and surveillance as they move towards becoming established practitioners. New midwifery subjectivities and forms of knowledge production which contest authoritative forms of knowledge are produced. Midwives in New Zealand are seen to inhabit a complex and liminal space of midwifery praxis. Paradoxically, they are exhorted to remain the ‘guardians of normal birth’ in a time of increasing interventions into birth both locally and internationally. Paradoxes encountered by new midwifery practitioners in New Zealand as they struggle to maintain ideals of ‘normal’ birth may be paralleled by the constraints inadvertently produced through governing discourses of emancipatory or liberatory pedagogies. The relevance of this is also highly critical for midwifery and birth practices internationally. (shrink)

This issue’s “Legal Briefing” column covers recent legal developments involving home birth and midwifery in the United States. Specifically, we focus on new legislative, regulatory, and judicial acts that impact women’s access to direct entry (non-nurse) midwives. We categorize these legal developments into the following 12 categories. 1. Background and History2. Certified Nurse-Midwives3. Direct Entry Midwives4. Prohibition of Direct Entry Midwives5. Enforcement of Prohibition6. Challenges to Prohibition7. Forbearance without License8. Voluntary Licensure9. Unclear and (...) Uncertain Status10. Growth of DEM Licensure11. Licensure Restrictions12. Medicaid Coverage. (shrink)

‘With woman’, ‘woman centred’ and ‘in partnership with women’ are new terms associated with midwifery care in Australia, and the underlying philosophy has emerged both as an antidote to the medicalisation of pregnancy and in a bid to reacquaint women with their natural capacity to give birth successfully and without intervention. A reorientation of midwifery services in the 1990s, a shift towards midwifery‐led care (MLC) and the subsequent introduction of direct entry midwifery programs all (...) contributed to this new direction. Central concepts are a focus on the childbearing woman and a valuing of women's experiences. While this philosophical re‐alignment has been applauded by many midwives in terms of maternal empowerment and improved autonomy for midwives, there are nonetheless some concerns that, with its emphasis on normality, midwifery‐led care is in danger of becoming an exclusionary model. Particular concerns include meeting the needs of a growing cohort of women, those with ‘high risk’ pregnancies, and the educational adequacy of direct entry midwifery programs. To date, there has been no thorough evaluation of this emerging midwifery philosophy in Australia. In order to open the debate, this paper aims to initiate a discussion of ‘with woman’ midwifery care as it applies to Australian practice. (shrink)

This study steps beyond the traditional arguments of feminism and examines homebirth from a libertarian perspective. It addresses the debate over homebirth and midwifery, which includes the use of direct-entry midwives as well as the philosophical implications of individual autonomy expressed through consumer choice. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the medical establishment gains economic and political control primarily through medical licensing, and uses the state to undermine personal freedom as it advances a government-enforced monopoly on birth. At (...) the same time, empirical studies have established a substantial record of high safety and low medical complication rates for homebirth as compared to hospital births. Ultimately, the state’s restriction on medical choices is incompatible with the nonaggression principle and voluntarism, and therefore, with libertarianism. (shrink)

Shared decision making has become the standard of care, yet there remains no consensus about how it should be conducted. Most accounts are concerned with threats to patient autonomy, and they address the dangers of a power imbalance by foregrounding the patient as a person whose complex preferences it is the practitioner's task to support. Other corrective models fear that this level of mutuality risks abdicating the practitioner's responsibilities as an expert, and they address that concern by recovering a nuanced (...) but genuinely directive clinical role. Cribb and Entwistle helpfully categorize models of shared decision making as ‘narrower’ and ‘broader’ and praise the latter's ‘open‐ended and fully dialogical ways of relating’. However, they stop short of providing a philosophical account of how that dialogue works. In this paper, a nurse–midwife and a philosopher collaborate to argue that the Socratic model of dialogue offers a solution to the practitioner–patient dilemma. In the Theaetetus, Socrates compares dialogical reasoning to ‘midwifery with all its standard features’. By means of a three‐way analogy, elements of midwifery practice are used to illuminate features of Socrates' claim that his dialogue is like midwifery; those features are then translated into an approach to shared decision making as the ‘midwifery of good thinking’ which both midwives and physicians would do well to adopt. A key concept that emerges is the need for practitioners to make a risk‐confidence assessment of the particular content of any decision to appropriately modulate their role in the practice of shared decision making. (shrink)

To intuit something is to apprehend it directly, without recourse to reasoning processes such as deduction or induction. Intuitionism in ethics proposes that we have a capacity for intuition and that some of the facts or properties that we intuit are irreducibly ethical. Traditionally, intuitionism also advances the important thesis that beliefs arising from intuition have direct justification. This means that such beliefs do not need to be justified by appeal to other beliefs or facts because the proposition believed (...) is either self-evident or can have justification without being supported by evidence. So, while intuitionism in ethics is about the apprehension of ethical facts or properties, traditional intuitionism is principally a view about how ethical beliefs are justified: those arising from intuition have direct justification. (shrink)

Mitotic entry and exit are switch‐like transitions that are driven by the activation and inactivation of Cdk1 and mitotic cyclins. This simple on/off reaction turns out to be a complex interplay of various reversible reactions, feedback loops, and thresholds that involve both the direct regulators of Cdk1 and its counteracting phosphatases. In this review, we summarize the interplay of the major components of the system and discuss how they work together to generate robustness, bistability, and irreversibility. We propose (...) that it may be beneficial to regard the entry and exit reactions as two separate reversible switches that are distinguished by differences in the state of phosphatase activity, mitotic proteolysis, and a dramatic rearrangement of cellular components after nuclear envelope breakdown, and discuss how the major Cdk1 activity thresholds could be determined for these transitions. (shrink)

This paper develops a framework for establishing rigour for a discourse analysis of professional transition in midwifery, theorised as a ‘female professional project’. Discourse analysis has gained recognition as a useful approach in nursing and midwifery research. It provides an alternative to those qualitative approaches that propose to reveal a ‘reality’ from the perspective of the individual experience, and that this lived experience can be directly represented in language. There are multiple discourse analytic approaches, and often researchers are (...) not explicit about what type they are employing. Furthermore, to date there are few clear guidelines for what constitutes rigour in a discourse analytic study. Rigour in qualitative research broadly falls into two categories: the replication perspective that argues for the maintenance of criteria of validity and reliability, usually with an underpinning assumption (often unquestioned) that a ‘truth’ can be revealed. The second is the parallel perspective that questions the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the replication perspective and argues for the development of criteria that reflect the assumed questionable nature of truth and reality. Transferring these criteria to a discourse analytic study revealed some problems. A common challenge identified in achieving rigour in discourse analysis is the maintenance of congruity between the epistemological and ontological basis of a piece of research and the actual analysis conducted or reported. A framework is proposed to address these incongruities and includes six elements. As nurses and midwives increasingly employ discourse analysis in their research, attempts to clarify how rigour will be determined are important if the outcomes of such research are to be seriously considered for their implications for theory, policy and practice. (shrink)

The list of Helen's suitors in the Catalogue of Women, a late epic poem attributed to Hesiod, is directly related to the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2, in that it is in fact a list of future participants in the Trojan war. That the two catalogues treat the same traditional material is demonstrated above all by their agreement on minor personages: not only the protagonists of the Trojan saga, but also such obscure figures as Podarces of Phylace, Elephenor of (...) Euboea, Thoas of Aetolia, or Menestheus of Athens feature in both Homer and Hesiod, and are characterized by basically the same traditional expressions. But, though the Hesiodic catalogue is sometimes used as evidence that a given Homeric personage belongs to the authentic tradition,3 it seems that the exegetic potential of this poem has not yet been exploited in full. As I hope to show, the Catalogue of Women throws light on one of the most controversial issues in Homeric scholarship, that of the representation of Athens and Salamis in the Catalogue of Ships. (shrink)

Academic physiology, as it was taught by John Hughes Bennett during the 1870s, involved an understanding of the functions of the human body and the physical laws which governed those functions. This knowledge was perceived to be directly relevant and applicable to clinical practice in terms of maintaining bodily hygiene and human health. The first generation of medical women received their physiological education at Edinburgh University under Bennett, who emphasised the importance of physiology for women due to its relevance for (...) the hygienic needs of the family and of society. With the development of laboratory-based science as a distinct aspect of medical education during the later nineteenth century, however, so the direct application of physiology to clinical practice diminished. The understanding of physiology as hygiene was marginalised by the new orthodoxy of scientific medicine. This shift in the physiological paradigm enabled medical women to stake out a specific field of interest within medicine which was omitted from the new definition of physiology as pure medical science: hygiene and preventive medicine. Women physicians were able to take advantage of the shift towards science as the basis of medical theory and practice to define their own specific role within the profession. (shrink)

Despite the rich body of research on the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Chinese multinationals, little attention has been given to the fact that China’s OFDI is facing a high failure rate even in their initial attempt to enter a foreign market. Grounded on institutional theory, this study provides a nuanced view of the expansion dynamic of Chinese multinational firms overseas using a unique dataset that contains both successful and troubled Chinese foreign market entry attempts between 2018 (...) and 2021. We find that at the firm level, state-owned firms are more likely to face difficulties when trying to enter a new market compared to their private counterparts. Firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting reduces the chance of failure. These effects are conditioned on the political, economic, and cultural distances between the home and host counties. (shrink)

The authors investigate the differences in ethical perceptions of Australian and Hong Kong international managers. Ethical perceptions are measured with respect to different industry types, cultures and modes of entry into international markets. Mode of entry refers to how firms select to enter foreign markets. Modes of entry include: exporting (indirect or direct), contractual methods (licensing and franchising) and via direct foreign investment (joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries). It was determined that culture and mode of (...) entry have a significant effect on the perception of ethical problems. (shrink)

As the other entries in this section have surely made clear, Carolyn McLeod's outstanding monograph, Conscience in Reproductive Health Care: Prioritizing Patient Interests, is fertile ground for fruitful philosophical analyses of issues pertaining to conscience, trust, autonomy, and more, all of which are sure to be of great interest and benefit to scholars in areas such as bioethics, health policy, and feminist ethics. Conscience in Reproductive Health Care provides a compelling response to a timely bioethical dilemma: What do we do (...) when healthcare providers refuse certain health services to patients on grounds of conscience? McLeod contends that healthcare providers, in light of their fiduciary... (shrink)

Two stages of the creative writing process were characterized through mobile scalp electroencephalography in a 16-week creative writing workshop. Portable dry EEG systems with synchronized head acceleration, video recordings, and journal entries, recorded mobile brain-body activity of Spanish heritage students. Each student's brain-body activity was recorded as they experienced spaces in Houston, Texas, and while they worked on their creative texts. We used Generalized Partial Directed Coherence to compare the functional connectivity among both stages. There was a trend of higher (...) gPDC in the Preparation stage from right temporo-parietal to left anterior-frontal brain scalp areas within 1–50 Hz, not reaching statistical significance. The opposite directionality was found for the Generation stage, with statistical significant differences restricted to the delta band. There was statistically higher gPDC observed for the inter-hemispheric connections AF07–AF08 in the delta and theta bands, and AF08 to TP09 in the alpha and beta bands. The left anterior-frontal recordings showed higher power localized to the gamma band for the Generation stage. An ancillary analysis of Sample Entropy did not show significant difference. The information transfer from anterior-frontal to temporal-parietal areas of the scalp may reflect multisensory interpretation during the Preparation stage, while brain signals originating at temporal-parietal toward frontal locations during the Generation stage may reflect the final decision making process to translate the multisensory experience into a creative text. (shrink)

In 1959, Neal Miller made the bold claim that the Stimulus–Response, Behaviorist models of that era were describing the way in which stimuli lead to the entry of contents into consciousness. Today, researchers have begun to investigate the link between external stimuli and involuntary entry, using paradigms such as the reflexive imagery task, the focus of our review. The RIT has revealed that stimuli can elicit insuppressible entry of high-level cognitions. Knowledge of the boundary conditions of the (...) RIT effect illuminates the limitations of involuntary processes and the role of consciousness in the regulation of behavior. We review the boundary conditions of this paradigm as well as its systematic effects. Systematic effects are unlikely to be due to experimental demand. While reviewing each effect, we consider its theoretical implications. In addition, throughout our review, we discuss future directions for the study of insuppressible entry using the RIT. Last, we discuss a theoretical development that stems from the RIT and illuminates how involuntary entry and encapsulation, though at times disadvantageous for the actor, are essential for adaptive action selection during the course of ontogeny. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation in patients with treatment-refractory trigeminal neuralgia and examine the utility of neuroimaging methods in identifying markers of such efficacy. Six patients with classical TN refractory to maximal medical treatment, underwent tDCS. All patients underwent pre- and posttreatment functional magnetic resonance imaging during block-design tasks as well as single-shell diffusion MRI acquisition. The precise locations of tDCS electrodes were identified by neuronavigation. Five therapeutic tDCS sessions (...) were carried out for each patient with either anodic or cathodic applications. The Numeric Rating Scale of pain and the Headache Disability Index were used to score the subjective efficacy of treatment. Altered activity of regional sites was identified by fMRI and associated changes in the spinothalamocortical sensory tract were measured by the dMRI indices of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity. Fiber counts of the bilateral trigeminal root entry zone were performed as an added measure of fiber loss or recovery. All patients experienced a significant reduction in pain scores with a substantial decline in HDI in the number of contralateral sensory fibers in the STCT with either anodic or cathodic tDCS treatment in four of the six patients. A significant reduction in FA was observed in the ipsilateral REZ in the posttreatment phase in five of the six patients. Preliminary evidence suggests that navigated tDCS presents a promising method for alleviating the pain of TN. Different patterns of activation manifested by anodic and cathodic stimulation require further elaboration to understand their implication. Activation and attenuation of responses at various sites may provide further avenues for condition treatment. (shrink)

Business Ethics is intended for business practitioners and students of business at all levels and is written in a lively and accessible style. It redresses the balance of buisness ethics writing which, up to now, has been weighted heavily in favour of American cases. There are numerous references to real businesses - from multi-national chains to French restaurants, from manufacturing giants to driving schools. Ethically 'hot' topics such as the social chapter of the Maastricht Treaty, the new EC directives, (...) class='Hi'>entry of the countries of the former Soviet Union into the world market economy, privatization and the 'green' environment are just some of the more general issues discussed. Companies covered in the book are: Allied Lyons, Apple Corporation, Avon, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Barlow Clowes, Benetton, Body Shop, British Airways, British Rail, Cadbury-Schweppes, Ecology Building Society, Fiat, Gateway Foodmarkets, Grand Metropolitan, Guinness, ICI, John Lewis, Kingfisher, Ladbrokes, Lloyds Bank, Management Week, Marks & Spencer, Mirror Group Newspapers, Nestle, Polly Peck, Price Waterhouse, Scott Bader, Securicor, Traidcraft, United Biscuits, Virgin, Worldwide Fund for Nature...and many more. Packed with excellent examples from many international companies Written in a lively and accessible style. (shrink)

The “centre-periphery” relationship historically structured scientific exchanges between metropolis and province, between the fount of empire and its outposts. But the exchange, if regarded merely as a one-way flow of scientific information, ignores both the politics of knowledge and the nature of its appropriation. Arguably, imperial structures do not entirely determine scientific practices and the exchange of knowledge. Several factors neutralise the over-determining influence of politics—and possibly also the normative values of science—on scientific practice.In examining these four examples of Indian (...) scientists in encounters with their peers at the centre, exceptional scientists are seen in a social context where the epistemology of science supposedly describes its practice. Imperialism imposes practices and patronage, which moderate the exchange of scientific knowledge. But, at Level Two, the politics of knowledge and the patterns of patronage within it mediate exchanges between the centre and the periphery.The first step in reconfiguring exchanges between centre and periphery —in this case, between Europe and India during the period 1850 to 1930— is to recognise the relation between the acquisition of resources and the maintenance of legitimacy and identity.67 Political life is not confined to the core of political institutions.68 Second, in examining science as practised in the colonies, it is necessary to see stages of scientific institutions, whose development structures the exchange.From the encounter of Ramchandra and De Morgan, it is evident that the centre-periphery framework should be separated from the models of transmission embedded within it. The notion of “translation” helps to suggest that scientists bring personal motives and meanings to each encounter. Ramchandra, for example, sought a novel method of teaching Indians calculus, while De Morgan's interest lay in finding a place for algebra in a liberal education.The hierarchy inherent in the centre-periphery framework compels the conclusion that, at Level Two, the autodidact outside the institutions of science must have his work presented to scientists at the centre by authoritative figures from the centre. This is not mainly a question of imperialism, but rather of patronage. The peripheral scientist could not be granted direct entry into the collegial circle until his efforts at the periphery could be translated into the language and concerns of the central community. Ramanujan's enigmatic formulas were translated into the language of analysis by Hardy, which enabled the creation of a field to which Hardy was committed. Scientists from the periphery who were already part of the circle by virtue of their training, were not necessarily subject to the same degree of attestation as other scientists from the periphery. P.C. Ray, with his DSc from Edinburgh, and his position at Calcutta University, had less difficulty in winning the trust of colleagues at the centre, even when he returned to India. On the contrary, remaining at the periphery, he moved from a context of patronage to a sphere of competition. In addition, Ray's collegiality, even at Level Two, was more comprehensive, and connected him with Level One.Eventually, the professional Indian science graduate found collegiality within the international community of scientists. Saha's self-imposed progressive nationalism constrained his identification with the centre and made him a potential competitor instead. Once having achieved eminence in the world of science, C.V. Raman and Saha shifted their work to journals of physics published in India in order to further the cause of physics research in their own country.69To go beyond the limitations of the centre-periphery model, it is necessary not merely to examine exchanges between scientists functioning in a “shared epistemological universe”,70 but also to recognise the part played by institutions, the experience of colonialism, and the forms of patronage characterising both colonialism and science. Put another way, although there is relative epistemological autonomy within the disciplinary research communities of science, the interplay between knowledge and power structures this exchange.The scientific links between colonial India and Britain at the turn of the century were mediated by structures which prefigured change. Does structure determine all? If it does, we are left with an Orientalist reconstruction of the docile native, and a passive cultural medium into which science percolates. But this neglects the role of scientists in creating new structures within which they worked. A middle position—one more sensitive to the exigencies of colonial scientific life—would be one where the participants are seen not as the dupes of “structure nor the potentates of action”, but as occupying a ground between the two.71. (shrink)

Existing research has examined if undergraduate factors influence chemistry and physics, or physical science, doctoral degree entry and whether variables during PhD programs associate with graduation. Yet research on the transition from bachelor’s degree to doctoral degree entry (i.e., PhD entry in less than 6 months, attainment of a master’s degree prior to doctoral degree entry, or working in a science-related job for more than a year prior to doctoral degree entry) on PhD degree graduation (...) remains scarce. Our study examines the transition from bachelor’s to doctoral degrees to see if experiences therein associate with female PhD graduation, after doctoral degree enrollment. Our logistic regression analysis, of female chemistry and physics doctorates (n = 867), indicated that attainment of a master’s degree did not change the likelihood of graduation, when compared to direct entry into physical science doctoral programs. Meanwhile working in a science-related job for a year or more is associated with a significantly lower likelihood of physical science doctoral graduation when compared to women who entered directly into PhD programs or received a master’s degree prior to enrollment. (shrink)

The entry of an external object or the ‘third element’ into the dyad is generally taken as necessary for evidence of an understanding of others' attention, leading to an equating of the terms joint attention and awareness of attention. This chapter considers meta-theoretical and methodological reasons for psychology's disregard of mutual attention in this context and provides an alternative account of the emergence and development of attention awareness. Through the course of the first year human infants show a range (...) of emotional reactions to mutual attention and an increasingly complex range of attempts to regain it when it is absent or retain it when it is present. Prior to the onset of joint attention involving distal objects, mutual attentional engagements expand from an awareness of the self as an ‘object’ of others' attention to an awareness of the infant's own actions and expressions as ‘objects’. Providing the most direct experience of others' attention, mutual attention not only also reveals an awareness of attention but is the basis upon which further appropriate development of attention awareness can occur. (shrink)

In this entry, the central issues are these: 1. Is the concept of causation basic and unanalyzable, or, on the contrary, does it stand in need of analysis? 2. If it does need to be analyzed, how can this be done? Many different answers have been offered to these questions. But the various approaches can be divided up into four general types, which I shall refer to as direct realism, Humean reductionism, non-Humean reductionism, and indirect, or theoretical-term, realism. (...) This fourfold division, in turn, rests upon the following three distinctions: first, that between reductionism and realism; second, that between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and, third, that between states that are immediately observable and those that are not. Given those distinctions, I shall discuss what can be said for and against the four general approaches to causation mentioned above. (shrink)

This paper pursues the idea that human and non-human great apes share a common set of directive (imperative) gestures and their meanings. We investigate gestures that are multifunctional, in that they have different effects in different contexts, focusing on non-human ape gestures that communicate “Stop that” in some contexts, and “Move away” in others. What may superficially appear to be lexical ambiguity can be derived from a single abstract lexical entry, “Not X!”, concluded to be a candidate for a (...) universal building block of meaning, shared by human and non-human great apes, reflections of which may also be found in the pragmatic gestures in humans. (shrink)

This entry surveys a range of proposed solutions to the problem of intentionality, that is, the problem of explaining how human thoughts can be about, or be directed toward, objects. The family of solutions described here takes the content of a mental representation—what that concept represents or is about—to be a function of causal relations between mental representations and their typically external objects. This emphasis on causal relations should be understood broadly, however, so as to cover theories couched in (...) terms of law-like natural relations or the law-governed way in which one natural event carries information about another. (shrink)

This entry provides an overview of business responsibilities with regard to international development and human and social development in less developed nations. Areas of ethical concern have grown in variety and complexity as understanding of development has changed from such narrow economic treatment in the era following World War II to the present. This entry traces that growth and considers responsibilities of multinational business engaging directly with and subcontracting in the developing world, most notably in telecommunications, the extractive (...) industries of oil, gas and minerals, and in garment manufacture. Topical consideration is given to political entanglement, corruption, warfare, non-sustainable practices and exploitation of workers. In light of these activities and topics, candidate ethical principles for multinational activity under the present global order are suggested in the final section. (Modified pre-review draft July 2016, for Robert W. Kolb, ed. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society: 2nd edition. Sage Publications. 2017. Final version substantially changed, including candidate ethical principles section removed. Corrected copies may be obtained from the author following publication, March 2017.). (shrink)

This paper explores how Charles Peirce’s habit-based epistemology leads him to theorise perception. I show how Peirce’s triadic semiotic analysis of perceptual judgment renders his theory of perception neither a representationalism nor a relationism /direct realism, but an interesting hybrid of the two. His view is also extremely interesting, I argue, in the way that by analysing symbols as habits it refuses the common assumption that perception is an affair best understood synchronically, as a ‘language-entry event’. Relatedly, I (...) extend previous work (Legg 2008) which argues that Peirce’s epistemology counts as a ‘hyperinferentialism’ in Robert Brandom’s terms, but this does not mean that Peirce’s theory of perception cannot accommodate unmediated contact with reality - what Peirce called ‘the outward clash’. (shrink)

The newly updated Right and Wrong 2nd Edition is an accessible introduction to the major traditions in western philosophical ethics, written in a lively and engaging style. It is designed for entry-level ethics courses and includes real-life ethical scenarios chosen to appeal directly to students. Greatly expanded and improved, this successful text introduces students to the major ethical traditions, and provides a simple methodology for resolving ethical dilemmas Treats teleological and deontological approaches to ethics as the two most important (...) traditions, but now includes chapters on virtue ethics and the ethics of care The very accessible writing style speaks directly to students’ own experience Draws examples from three types of real-life ethical scenarios submitted by students: academic dishonesty, partying, and personal relationships Provides a concise treatment of this notoriously complex subject, perfect for entry-level ethics and applied ethics courses. (shrink)

This is an encyclopedia entry that can be accessed following this link: http://www.iep.utm.edu/reidmind/ -/- In philosophy of mind, Reid is most celebrated today for the arguments he gave in support of the position known as direct realism, which, at its most basic, states that the primary objects of sense perception are physical objects, not ideas in human minds. However, Reid’s philosophy of mind neither begins nor ends with perception. In addition to arguing for direct realism and, consequently, (...) against “the way of ideas,” he undertook the task of establishing the equal status of the faculties of the mind, and of explaining the relationships that exist among them. He is a worthy successor of Locke, in that he believes that the mind is to be characterized in terms of a faculty psychology. He is a worthy successor of Newton, in that he believes that the scientific method is the right way of investigating the nature of mind. Reid characterized the scientific method mainly by trial and error, and by setting up experiments and drawing general conclusions from them. (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

This is an entry into the contemporary debate over contractarian theories of political obligation, with a particular focus on the "liberal" feminist critiques. It analyzes three prominent feminist critics of contractarianism, Susan Moller Okin, Carole Pateman and Nancy Hirschmann, selected because they each try to remain within the main premises and methodology of contractarian liberalism. The conclusion is that Okin's critique is too generous, Pateman's is radically incomplete, and Hirschmann's is too radical. ;It reviews the few remarks in the (...) works of Thomas Hobbes directed to issues of gender and families, and speculates that his originality might have been stimulated by a contemporary debate about gender in Seventeenth Century England. An appendix reviews the debate for its political contents. ;The analysis then turns to contractarianism in the contemporary mode of game theory. The contractarian exercise establishes the state of nature scenario, introduces male and female players, and characterizes the females as smaller, weaker, and vulnerable in childbirth and nursing. It then varies the players' moral psychologies along the egoism/altruism continuum. The exercise then applies the assumptions of contractarian game theory to analyze how a two-gender population would deal with the problems of violence and heterosexual sexual intercourse. The analysis concludes that the best strategy for females in contractarian terms is collective action and that institutions of the social contract state can be evaluated according to whether the institutions inhibit or advance that possibility. It then applies such an analysis to the theories of Robert Nozick and John Rawls and finally to three institutions of the liberal contractarian state: territorial representation, sexual individualism and individualism in employment. ;The work concludes that both theories and institutions are inadequate to provide for gender equality, because each is hostile to female collective action, the theories because of their insistence on the primacy of freedom over equality and the institutions because of their particular effects on the elements of cooperation. (shrink)

The entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002 establishing the International Criminal Court has signified a shift in the goals pursued by international criminal law. Due to new types of warfare dynamics, international protection is in need of new orientations, particularly with regard to conflict deterrence aims. This urgency is widely documented by the normative action framework of the Responsibility to Protect and, more recently, by the UN Secretary-General 2012–2013 Reports for the RtoP’s implementation. The (...) scope of this study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to explore theoretical overlapping between the jus post bellum and the RtoP with regard to deterrence effects of the ICC; on the other hand, it proposes to illustrate such dynamics by reference to Kenya’s post-electoral violence during the period 2007–2013. Kenya represents an instance of a post-conflict society whereby transitional justice actions have taken place under a de facto adoption of a RtoP framework. As a result, I defend a qualified correlation between ICC’s retribution and deterrence effects. I claim that the hypothesis of the ICC’s deterring effects accounts in Kenya is constructed upon a general condition of direct compliance by self-interested rational actors as well as on unintended effects of ethnic stabilization. I further consider that this possibility is reinforced by systemic interdependencies with other national and international initiatives such as the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation mediation initiative, the Grand Coalition Government, the Panel of African Eminent Personalities led by Kofi Annan, and the findings of the Commission of Enquiry of Post-Election Violence. (shrink)

Sense-perception—the awareness or apprehension of things by sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste—has long been a preoccupation of philosophers. One pervasive and traditional problem, sometimes called “the problem of perception”, is created by the phenomena of perceptual illusion and hallucination: if these kinds of error are possible, how can perception be what it intuitively seems to be, a direct and immediate access to reality? The present entry is about how these possibilities of error challenge the intelligibility of the (...) phenomenon of perception, and how the major theories of perception in the last century are best understood as responses to this challenge. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect communication. A central aspect of this theory is what I call the “indispensability thesis”: there are some projects only indirect communication can accomplish. The purpose of the dissertation is to disclose and assess the rationale behind the indispensability thesis. -/- A pair of questions guides the project. First, to what does ‘indirect communication’ refer? Two acceptable responses exist: (1) Kierkegaard’s version of Socrates’ midwifery method and (2) Kierkegaard’s use of artful literary devices. (...) Second, for what end does Kierkegaard use indirect communication? There are two acceptable responses here as well: (1) helping others become religious and (2) making others aware of the nature of existence. -/- These responses are interrelated. First, Kierkegaard’s notion of religion places restrictions on the means he can use to get readers to become religious. These restrictions ultimately entail that the only viable form of religious pedagogy is the midwifery method. Second, Kierkegaard engages in the midwifery method in part by making readers aware of the nature of existence (especially religious existence). But given the problems plaguing his readers, he thinks a straightforward approach to this project will likely fail. An approach that used artful literary devices such as deception and humor would be more successful. Third, Kierkegaard believes that there is one aspect of religious existence (viz. subjectivity) that people can come to know only first-hand. As such, he cannot directly impart knowledge of subjectivity to his readers. He argues that this means he must use the midwifery method. And he thinks the most productive way to do so is to provide readers with the kind of fictional narratives found in his early pseudonymous writings. Thus artful rhetorical devices play a role here as well. -/- All of Kierkegaard’s arguments for the indispensability thesis turn on debatable assumptions. But the arguments concerning artful rhetorical devices have the additional defect of being merely probabilistic in nature. They lack the strength to support the indispensability thesis even if we grant the relevant background assumptions. Therefore, to the degree that the indispensability thesis has merit, it lies with the arguments concerning the midwifery method. (shrink)

In ordinary conscious experience, consciousness of time seems to be ubiquitous. For example, we seem to be directly aware of change, movement, and succession across brief temporal intervals. How is this possible? Many different models of temporal consciousness have been proposed. Some philosophers have argued that consciousness is confined to a momentary interval and that we are not in fact directly aware of change. Others have argued that although consciousness itself is momentary, we are nevertheless conscious of change. Still others (...) have argued that consciousness is itself extended in time. In this entry, the motivations and merits of these and other positions will be expounded and assessed. (shrink)

An overview of higher-order representational theories of consciousness. Representational theories of consciousness attempt to reduce consciousness to “mental representations” rather than directly to neural or other physical states. This approach has been fairly popular over the past few decades. Examples include first-order representationalism (FOR) which attempts to explain conscious experience primarily in terms of world-directed (or first-order) intentional states (Tye 2005) as well as several versions of higher-order representationalism (HOR) which holds that what makes a mental state M conscious is (...) that it is the object of some kind of higher-order mental state directed at M. The primary focus of this entry is on HOR and especially higher-order thought (HOT) theory. The key question that should be answered by any theory of consciousness is: What makes a mental state a conscious mental state? Section 1 introduces the overall representationalist approach to consciousness and briefly discuss Tye’s FOR. Section 2 presents three major versions of HOR: higher-order thought theory, dispositional higher-order thought theory, and higher-order perception theory. In section 3, a number of common and important objections and replies are presented. Section 4 briefly outlines a close connection between HOT theory and conceptualism, that is, the claim that the representational content of a perceptual experience is entirely determined by the conceptual capacities the perceiver brings to bear in her experience. Section 5 examines several hybrid higher-order and “self-representational” theories of consciousness which all hold that conscious states are self-directed in some way. Section 6 addresses the potentially damaging claim that HOT theory requires neural activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in order for one to have conscious states. (shrink)