Graduates' employability indicates the excellent education and relevant preparation they obtained from their respective degrees. Tracer studies have enabled higher education institutions to profile their graduates while also reflecting on the quality of education they provide. With the foregoing, a tracer study determined the demographic and academic profile of teacher education graduates from 2017 to 2020 in a state university in the West Philippines. It also ascertained the advanced studies they attended after college, their employment data, the relevance of college (...) preparation with their current employment, difficulties they encountered while securing employment and in their present job, and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program. The study utilized a descriptive survey research design with 80 non-random samples chosen based on availability. The survey was based on the Philippine Commission on Higher Education with modifications elucidated from previous studies. Results showed that graduates took the teacher education program with a strong passion for the teaching profession. More graduates received honors and awards, passed the licensure examinations for teachers, attended advanced studies for professional development, and are employable. Besides, the graduates’ college preparation is relevant to their current employment. Further, difficulties and problems encountered and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program were noted. These findings may serve as a baseline for curriculum review and give suggestions for future tracer studies. (shrink)

HISTÓRIA DA SOCIOLOGIA: O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA SOCIOLOGIA I -/- A SOCIOLOGIA NOS ESTADOS UNIDOS -/- -/- HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY I -/- SOCIOLOGY IN UNITED STATES -/- -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva – IFPE-BJ, CAP-UFPE e UFRPE. E-mails: [email protected] e [email protected] WhatsApp: (82)9.8143-8399. -/- -/- PREMISSA -/- A Sociologia nos Estados Unidos desenvolveu-se no contexto de dois grandes eventos que marcaram profundamente a história do país. -/- O primeiro foi a Guerra de Secessão (também conhecida como (...) Guerra Civil Americana), que ocorreu entre 1861 e 1865 e gerou ressentimentos e atritos entre a população do sul e a do norte dos Estados Unidos. -/- Em contrapartida, houve a urbanização das terras do oeste e das áreas centrais do país, o que contribuiu para o crescimento da economia e a expansão industrial. No norte, graças ao esforço de guerra, houve um grande crescimento, principalmente na metalurgia, no transporte ferroviário, na indústria de armamentos e na indústria naval. O comércio também se expandiu de maneira exponencial em todo o território estadunidense. -/- O padrão de cultura dos Estados Unidos passou a ser o ideal nortista de “trabalho duro, educação e liberdade econômica a todos”. Houve ainda um grande desenvolvimento de escolas e instituições de ensino superior. -/- O segundo grande evento que marcou a história estadunidense foi a chegada em massa de estrangeiros. Entre 1860 e 1900, os Estados Unidos passaram de país agrícola, com população em torno de 4 milhões, para país industrial, com uma das maiores economias do mundo e com 75 milhões de habitantes. -/- O incremento populacional e a industrialização redundaram em um processo de urbanização sem precedentes que continuou até a década de 1930. Para se ter uma ideia, em 1860 viviam em Chicago 102 260 pessoas; em 1900, a população da cidade passou a 1 698 575 e, em 1930, a 3 375 329. Em virtude desses fatores, consolidaram-se nos Estados Unidos uma burguesia industrial, comercial e financeira significativa, uma classe trabalhadora majoritariamente formada por imigrantes e uma classe média em ascensão. -/- As principais cidades passaram a ser um espaço de conflito e alvo de preocupações. Temas como imigração, aculturação, conflitos étnicos, comportamentos desviantes e políticas públicas foram importantes na Sociologia desenvolvida inicialmente no país. -/- Entre os principais fundadores da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos estão William Graham Sumner (1840 -1910), Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913), Albion Woodbury Small (1854-1926), Franklin Henry Giddings (1855-1931), Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929), William Isaac Thomas (1863-1947), Robert Ezra Park (1864-1944), Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) e George Herbert Mead (1863-1931). -/- A herança cultural desses fundadores é muito diversa: foram influenciados principalmente pela tradição religiosa protestante disseminada em quase todo o território, pelo liberalismo econômico clássico conservador, do tipo laissez-faire, pelo evolucionismo do inglês Charles Darwin (1809-1882) e pelo darwinismo social de Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Acrescente-se a esse cadinho de concepções de mundo e ciência o pragmatismo do filósofo e psicólogo William James (1842-1910) e do filósofo Charles Pierce (1839-1914). -/- Essa herança permite compreender as duas grandes características da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos: -/- • multiplicidade de temas, problemas e propostas e diversidade teórica e metodológica; -/- • desenvolvimento desse campo do conhecimento em universidades, nas quais as atividades eram financiadas pelo Estado e pelo setor privado (Fundação Rockefeller, comitês e associações normalmente religiosas). -/- Por causa dessa segunda característica, optei por analisar o desenvolvimento da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos em três importantes universidades estadunidenses: a de Chicago, Harvard e Columbia. -/- 1. A Universidade de Chicago -/- A Universidade de Chicago foi fundada em 1890 pelo magnata do petróleo John D. Rockefeller e recebeu os primeiros alunos em 1892. Nela foi criado o primeiro departamento de Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, sob a direção de Albion Woodbury Small. -/- No início de seus trabalhos sociológicos, a Universidade de Chicago deu primazia à pesquisa empírica, procurando conhecer, por meio da observação direta, a dinâmica das relações sociais. Desenvolveu uma forte tendência pragmática e microssociológica, que viria a ser conhecida como a Escola de Chicago. A maior preocupação dos integrantes dessa Escola foi com os problemas das grandes cidades dos Estados Unidos, como a marginalidade social, o alcoolismo, as drogas, a segregação racial e a delinquência, estabelecendo uma relação entre a pesquisa sociológica e a intervenção dos organismos públicos na sociedade. -/- Os sociólogos de Chicago também se dedicaram ao que chamaram de ecologia humana, em oposição à ecologia animal e vegetal. -/- Em 1895, Albion Woodbury Small fundou o American Journal of Sociology e, em 1907, participou ativamente da fundação da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia. Ele publicou, com Georges Vincent, em 1894, talvez o primeiro manual de Sociologia para estudantes, intitulado Introdução ao estudo da sociedade. Tendo estudado na Alemanha, Small foi o principal divulgador do pensamento de Georg Simmel nos Estados Unidos. -/- Entre os integrantes da Escola de Chicago mais conhecidos no Brasil, podemos citar William I. Thomas (1863-1947) e Florian Znaniecki (1882-1958), cuja principal obra foi O camponês polonês na Europa e na América, editada em 1918. -/- Destacam-se ainda Robert E. Park (1864-1944) e Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966), que escreveram, entre outras obras, Introdução à ciência da Sociologia, em 1921. -/- Os dois, com Roderick Mackenzie, escreveram o clássico A cidade, em 1925. Outro membro de destaque foi Louis Wirth (1897-1952), autor de O gueto, escrito em 1928, e de um artigo que se tornou famoso, “Urbanismo como modo de vida”, publicado em 1938, no American Journal of Sociology. -/- A Escola de Chicago congregou, ainda, sociólogos e antropólogos com ligação com a Psicologia Social, que desenvolveram uma abordagem sociológica das relações sociais conhecida como interacionismo simbólico. A principal figura dessa vertente foi George Herbert Mead (1863-1932), que trabalhou em diversas áreas, sobretudo como psicólogo social e como professor de várias gerações de antropólogos e sociólogos. Seus escritos foram sistematizados por seus alunos e publicados com o nome Mind, self and society (A mente, o eu e a sociedade), em 1934. -/- Além da tradição intelectual dos Estados Unidos, os integrantes da Escola de Chicago receberam a influência de Jean-Gabriel de Tarde, Émile Durkheim e Georg Simmel. Seus continuadores foram Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) e Everett C. Hughes (1897-1983). -/- 1.1 Erving Goffman (1922-1982) -/- O representante da Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade de Chicago mais influente no Brasil é Erving Goffman, que nasceu em Manville, Alberta, no Canadá, em 1922, e faleceu nos Estados Unidos em 1982. Obteve o grau de bacharel pela Universidade de Toronto, em 1945, e concluiu mestrado (1949) e doutorado (1953) na Universidade de Chicago, onde estudou Sociologia e Antropologia Social. Em 1958, tornou-se professor da Universidade da Califórnia e, em 1968, ingressou na Universidade da Pensilvânia, onde foi professor de Antropologia e Sociologia. -/- Entre 1981 e 1982, Goffman foi presidente da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia e realizou pesquisas na linha da Sociologia interpretativa e cultural, iniciada por Max Weber, desenvolvendo a ideia de que o mundo é um teatro e cada um, individualmente ou em grupo, interpreta papéis de acordo com as circunstâncias em que se encontra. Essas circunstâncias são marcadas por rituais e posições distintivas em relação a outros indivíduos ou grupos. Para ele, é possível distinguir indivíduos, grupos e classes com base, por exemplo, em aspectos como as formas de vestir ou de se apresentar publicamente. -/- O sociólogo considera a interação social como um processo fundamental de identificação e de diferenciação dos indivíduos e grupos, analisando-a no cotidiano, especialmente em lugares públicos. Goffman estudou com especial atenção o que chamou de “instituições totais”, lugares onde o indivíduo é isolado da sociedade, como prisões e manicômios. -/- De acordo com o sociólogo brasileiro Édison Gastaldo: -/- O trabalho de Goffman trouxe à luz aspectos da vida cotidiana que não se julgavam “sociologicamente relevantes”. Seus insights sobre as interações ordinárias, sobre o deslocamento dos pedestres, sobre a ocupação social dos espaços públicos, sobre a atuação dos vigaristas, mendigos, loucos, espiões, jogadores e de todos aqueles que passam cotidianamente debaixo de nossos narizes sem que prestemos atenção modificaram o pensar sociológico no mundo. Sua descrição etnográfica de um hospital para doentes mentais colaborou decisivamente para deflagrar a luta antimanicomial no mundo inteiro. Vinte e dois anos depois de sua morte, os temas e os conceitos desenvolvidos por Goffman ainda estão em pleno uso e vitalidade (GASTALDO, 2004, p. 9/10). -/- Suas três obras mais conhecidas são: A representação do eu na vida cotidiana (1959), Manicômios, prisões e conventos (1961) e Estigma: notas sobre a manipulação da identidade (1963). -/- 2. A Universidade Harvard -/- A história de Harvard começa em 1636, quando foi fundada, na cidade de Cambridge, no estado de Massachusetts, uma instituição de ensino denominada New College. Em 1639, essa instituição recebeu o nome de Harvard College, em homenagem a John Harvard, seu principal mecenas. -/- A Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade Harvard é marcada por uma preocupação teórica e tem dois sociólogos como expoentes: Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968) e Talcott Edgar Frederick Parsons (1902-1979). Este último influenciou muito o desenvolvimento da Sociologia no mundo e no Brasil. -/- 2.1 Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) -/- Talcott Parsons nasceu no Colorado, nos Estados Unidos. Em 1924, graduou-se em Biologia e Filosofia na Faculdade Amherst. Em 1925, pós-graduou-se em Ciências Sociais na Escola de Economia de Londres, na Inglaterra, e, em seguida, doutorou-se na Universidade de Heidelberg, na Alemanha. -/- Nos Estados Unidos, lecionou Economia e Sociologia na Universidade Harvard durante 45 anos (1927-1973). Em 1944, tornou-se presidente do Departamento de Sociologia, transformando-o, dois anos depois, no Departamento de Relações Sociais, a fim de unir a Sociologia a outras ciências sociais. -/- Assim como Sorokin, Parsons voltou-se para a Sociologia europeia, tendo por base as ideias de Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) e Émile Durkheim, além das do economista inglês Alfred Marshall (1842-1924). Fundamentado nesses autores, desenvolveu uma grande obra teórica, que dominaria a Sociologia estadunidense desde então. -/- Parsons é o sociólogo estadunidense mais conhecido no mundo. Em geral, seus críticos entenderam-no como um pensador conservador, preocupado basicamente com o bom ordenamento da sociedade. Seu interesse era determinar a função que os indivíduos desempenhavam na estrutura social. Entendia o indivíduo como expressão dessa estrutura, a qual devia ser mantida e preservada. Caso isso não ocorresse, deviam entrar em ação os mecanismos de controle social (moral, ética, sistema jurídico e penal etc.), como instrumentos preventivos ou corretivos. -/- Seu trabalho exerceu influência em diversos países e ambientes acadêmicos (particularmente nas décadas de 1950 a 1970), até mesmo na então União Soviética, onde, em 1964, ministrou aulas sobre a Sociologia estadunidense a convite da Academia de Ciências da União Soviética (URSS). -/- Suas principais obras foram: A estrutura da ação social (1937), O sistema social (1951), Economia e sociedade (1956, com N. Smelser), Estrutura e processo nas sociedades modernas (1960), Sociedades: perspectivas evolucionárias e comparativas (1966), Teoria sociológica e sociedade moderna (1968), Política e estrutura social (1969), Sistemas sociais e a evolução da teoria da ação (1977) e Teoria da ação e a condição humana (1978). -/- 3. A Universidade Columbia -/- A King’s College foi fundada em 1754, em Nova York, nos Estados Unidos. Quando as colônias inglesas se declararam independentes da Grã-Bretanha, a instituição passou a se chamar Universidade Columbia. A partir da última década do século XIX, essa universidade se destacaria por uma importante produção no campo da Sociologia, tendo como pioneiro Franklin Giddings (1855-1931), fundador da cadeira de Sociologia. Fortemente marcado pelo evolucionismo e pelo pragmatismo, foi um dos primeiros a usar métodos quantitativos e experi-mentais no estudo dos fenômenos sociais. -/- Dois sociólogos de Columbia merecem destaque, por serem muito conhecidos no Brasil: Robert K. Merton e Charles Wright Mills. -/- 3.1 Robert King Merton (1910-2003) -/- Merton nasceu na Filadélfia e faleceu em Nova York. Graduou-se em Sociologia na Universidade Temple e pós-graduou-se na Universidade Harvard, onde trabalhou com Pitirim Sorokin e Talcott Parsons até a defesa de seu doutorado, em 1936. -/- Em 1941 Merton transferiu-se para a Universidade Columbia, onde permaneceu durante 38 anos, até aposentar-se. Nessa universidade procurou integrar teoria à prática sociológica. Estudou o comportamento desviante e os processos de adaptação social, tendo por base pesquisas qualitativas e quantitativas do exercício profissional em ambiente de solidariedade e de conflito. Com Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976), desenvolveu o Departamento de Pesquisa Social Aplicada. -/- O nome de Merton está vinculado à proposta de criação de teorias de alcance médio, segundo a qual os sociólogos seriam mais úteis à sociedade se deixassem de lado as grandes teorias (criticando Parsons) e criassem outras de médio alcance. Essas teorias estariam situadas entre as hipóteses de trabalho rotineiras na pesquisa e as amplas especulações. Mediariam, dessa forma, as abstrações, generalizações e fundamentos empíricos da pesquisa. -/- Merton tinha uma visão humanista da função social da ciência, demonstrando influência clara de Max Weber. Concebia a ciência como um conjunto de conhecimentos compartilhados por todos os membros da sociedade, que deveriam julgar a credibilidade das postulações científicas de acordo com suas expectativas e valores morais. Mas as decisões acerca do fazer científico não caberiam à sociedade, e sim ao próprio cientista, sempre adequando seus valores aos da sociedade. -/- 3.2 Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) -/- Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) nasceu em Waco, no Texas, Estados Unidos. Mestre em Artes, Filosofia e Sociologia pela Universidade do Texas, concluiu, em 1942, seu doutorado em Sociologia e Antropologia pela Universidade de Wisconsin. Foi professor de Sociologia nas universidades de Maryland e Columbia, onde passou a lecionar em 1947 e permaneceu até a morte, em 1962. -/- Charles Mills representa uma tendência quase marginal na Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, por apresentar uma visão crítica e militante da sociedade estadunidense e da própria Sociologia. -/- Influenciado por Karl Marx e Max Weber, Mills procurou conciliar o conceito de classe social com o de status, visando esclarecer processos e mecanismos dos conflitos e das mudanças sociais. Por meio de pesquisas, tentou elucidar a complexidade de estruturas de poder, particularmente das elites (em lugar de classes dominantes), e de seu papel na mudança social, fugindo da ideia de revolução como única via para a transformação social. -/- Charles Wright Mills é conhecido principalmente por seu livro A imaginação sociológica, publicado originalmente nos Estados Unidos em 1959. Nele, o autor propõe que os sociólogos, ao exercer a profissão, não deixem a imaginação e a criatividade de lado em favor de uma pretensa objetividade e neutralidade do trabalho científico. Para Mills, os grandes intelectuais da história nunca abriram mão da reflexão e da criatividade e mantiveram uma postura crítica diante da realidade. -/- Atribuindo aos sociólogos a responsabilidade de agentes ativos na sociedade, cabendo-lhes tomar parte nos debates públicos de sua época, Mills defendia a ideia de que a Sociologia deveria ser compreensível para o grande público. Para ele, a ciência social era inseparável da vida pessoal do cientista: a intuição, a imaginação e o comprometimento com o tempo em que se vivia eram fundamentais para compreender cientificamente a sociedade. Suas obras foram publicadas em vários idiomas. Além da citada anteriormente, as mais importantes são: A nova classe média (1951), A elite do poder (1956), Sobre o artesanato intelectual (1959) e Os marxistas (1962). -/- Mills escreveu também artigos em revistas e dois livros que tiveram grande exposição na mídia dos Estados Unidos, por seu caráter polêmico: As causas da Terceira Guerra Mundial (1958), no qual discute a corrida nuclear, e A Revolução em Cuba (1960), em que analisa a fase inicial da Revolução Cubana. -/- Outros sociólogos que defendem uma postura crítica na Sociologia estadunidense, continuadores ou não de Charles Wright Mills, são Irving Louis Horowitz (1929-2012), Martin Nicolaus (1928-) e Alvin Gouldner (1920-1980). -/- REFERENCIAL TEÓRICO -/- BOTTOMORE, T.; et al. Dicionário do pensamento social do século XX. Trad. Eduardo Francisco Alves. Álvaro Cabral. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1996. -/- COULON, A. A Escola de Chicago. Trad. Tomás R. Bueno. 1ª ed. Campinas: Papirus, 1995. -/- CUIN, C. H.; GRESLE, F. História da Sociologia. Trad. Roberto Leal Ferreira. São Paulo: Ensaio, 1994. -/- DOMINGUES, J. M. A sociologia de Talcott Parsons. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Annablume, 2008. -/- GASTALDO, É. (org.); et al. Erving Goffman, desbravador do cotidiano. 1ª ed. Porto Alegre: Tomo Editorial, 2004. -/- NOVA, S. V. Introdução à Sociologia. 6ª ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2004. -/- SILVA, A. et al. Sociologia em movimento. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2016. -/- VALLADARES, L. do P. A Escola de Chicago: impacto de uma tradição no Brasil e na França. 1ª ed. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2005. -/- VÁRIOS, autores. O livro da sociologia. As grandes ideias de todos os tempos. Trad. Rafael Longo. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Globo, 2015. -/- SBS - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia PUCRS - PPG em Ciências Sociais Avenida Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon CEP: 90619-900 - Porto Alegre, RS [email protected] Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva ©2019 -/- Estimule a criatividade. Respeite os direitos autorais. (shrink)

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume. This striking and provocative book explores the history of bodily beautification; the physicality of socially or culturally determined choices of beautification; the interplay of gender, race, class, age, sexuality, and ethnicity within and on the (...) body; and the aesthetic meaning of the concept of beauty in an increasingly globalized world. Foreward by Carolyn Korsmeyer. Authors include Noel Carroll, Gregory Velazco Y Trianosky, Monique Roelofs, Whitney Davis, Eleanor Heartney, Diana Tietjens Meyers, Phoebe M. Farris, Mary Devereaux, Jo Ellen Jacobs, Karina L. Cespedes-Cortes and Paul C. Taylor, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Stephen Davies, Jane Duran, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, Keith Lehrer, Allen Douglas, Cynthia Freeland, Eva Kit Wah Man, Mary Bittner Wiseman, and Peg Brand's essay, "ORLAN Revisited: Disembodied Virtual Hybrid Beauty.". (shrink)

An important topic in the ethics of technology is the extent to which recent digital technologies undermine user autonomy. Supporting evidence includes the fact that recent digital technologies are known to have an impact on attention, which balances "bottom-up" and "top-down" influences on cognition. As described in numerous papers, these technologies manipulate bottom-up influences through cognitive fluency, intermittent variable rewards, and other techniques, making them more attractive to the user. We further reason that recent digital technologies reduce the user’s ability (...) to exert top-down attention due to the scale of the content—they provide far more content at a much faster pace than other technologies, which over time reweights the balance of attention in favor of bottom-up influences. After reviewing evidence for these effects, including their temporal duration, we consider their downstream effects on both autonomy and creativity. We find that while the impact of recent digital technologies on top-down attention may allow for more idea generation, that creativity also depends on control, which is undermined by these technologies. We are more circumspect with autonomy, reasoning that in certain cases it might not make sense to see user autonomy as harmed through these effects. We conclude with other ways that recent digital technologies may improve creativity, which may act as an offset to the detrimental impacts of these technologies. (shrink)

The process of adopting a child is “not for the faint of heart.” This is what we were told the first time we, as a couple, began this process. Part of the challenge lies in fulfilling the licensing requirements for adoption, which, beyond the usual home study, can include mandatory participation in parenting classes. The question naturally arises for many people who are subjected to these requirements whether they are morally justified. We tackle this question in this paper. In our (...) view, while strong reasons exist in favour of licensing adoptive parents, these reasons support the licensing not only of adoptive parents, but of all or some subset of so-called “natural” parents as well. We therefore conclude that the status quo with respect to parental licensing, according to which only adoptive parents need to be licensed, is morally unjustified. (shrink)

In 2018 Academic Placement Data and Analysis ran a survey of doctoral students and recent graduates on the topics of diversity and inclusivity in collaboration with the Graduate Student Council and Data Task Force of the American Philosophical Association. We submitted a preliminary report in Fall 2018 that describes the origins and procedure of the survey [1]. This is our final report on the survey. We first discuss the demographic profile of our survey participants and compare it to the United (...) States general population, its doctoral students, and APA membership, finding several areas of underrepresentation (i.e. gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic, and veteran status). We then discuss the results of questions regarding diversity and inclusivity. We find, for instance, that participant comfort in philosophy depends on gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, disability, and language status and that participants most often mentioned the theme of diversity when asked how philosophy could be more inclusive. Finally, we discuss the results of questions related to graduate program and placement. We find, for example, that underrepresented graduates are both less likely to recommend their graduate program to others and less likely to prefer an academic job. We close by making some recommendations for the APA and for the discipline based on our findings. (shrink)

Attention has a long history in philosophy, despite its near absence in the twentieth century. This chapter provides an overview of philosophical research on attention. It begins by explaining the concept of "selection from limitation," contrasting it with the more recent "selection for action." It reviews historical texts that discuss attention, focusing on those in the Western canon whose understanding of "attention" aligns with contemporary usage. It then describes the differential treatment of attention in phenomenology and behaviorism in the last (...) century. Finally, it discusses contemporary research by topic: attention, perception, and knowledge; attention and consciousness; attention and action; and attention and the self. It includes work by Allport,Aristotle, Astell, Augustine, Bergson, Berkeley, Block, Bradley, Buddhaghosa, Campbell, Cherry, De Brigard, Dehaene and Naccache, Descartes, Dickie, Du Bois, Ganeri, Hegel, Heidegger, James, Kant, Koch and Tsuchiya, LaBerge, Locke, Mack and Rock, Malebranche, Merleau-Ponty, Mole, Montemayor and Haladjian, Neumann, Pashler, Posner, Prinz, Reid, Rensink, Reynolds and Heeger, Treisman, Watzl, Wittgenstein, Wollstonecraft, and Wu. (shrink)

Doctoral graduates in philosophy are an excellent source of information about the discipline: they are at the cutting edge of research trends, have an inside view of researchfocused departments, and their employment prospects provide early insights on the future health of the discipline. We report on the results of a survey sent to recent PhD graduates and current students, as well as data gathering efforts by Academic Placement Data and Analysis that have taken place over the past ten years. In (...) this report we especially focus on demographic representation, program ratings, academic job placement, and non-academic careers. (shrink)

Wayne Wu argues that attention is necessary for action: since action requires a solution to the ‘Many–Many Problem’, and since only attention can solve the Many–Many Problem, attention is necessary for action. We question the first of these two steps and argue that it is based on an oversimplified distinction between actions and reflexes. We argue for a more complex typology of behaviours where one important category is action that does not require a solution to the Many–Many Problem, and so (...) does not require attention. (shrink)

This article examines the meaningful intervention that Gert-Jan Van der Heiden’s recent book, The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony, makes in the developing field of the philosophy of testimony. I argue that this intervention is accomplished through a phenomenological investigation into the nature of the testimonial object and of the demand that it makes upon one who bears witness. In taking such an approach, I argue, Van der Heiden initiates an ontological turn in the field of testimonial (...) theory, shifting the conversation away from a debate about the conditions in which belief in testimony is justified – a debate that has in many ways defined the field for philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. I suggest that Van der Heiden’s account is helpful in demonstrating that, in many cases, doing justice to a testimonial object requires an epistemic-ethical attitude other than belief. The article concludes by developing a few questions for Van der Heiden based on my interpretation of his project, including to what extent his phenomenology of testimony can account for how often our receptivity to testimony depends on the default trust that we have in others by virtue of our fundamental immersion in social life. (shrink)

This paper addresses the likely impact on women of being denied emergency contraception (EC) by pharmacists who conscientiously refuse to provide it. A common view—defended by Elizabeth Fenton and Loren Lomasky, among others—is that these refusals inconvenience rather than harm women so long as the women can easily get EC somewhere else nearby. I argue from a feminist perspective that the refusals harm women even when they can easily get EC somewhere else nearby.

In Explaining Attitudes, Baker argues that we should treat our everyday practices as relevant to metaphysical debates, resulting in a stance of realism with respect to intentional explanations. In this chapter I will argue that if one is going to be a practical realist about anything, it should be the self, or subject of attention. I will use research on attention combined with the stance of practical realism to argue in favor of a substantive self. That is, I will present (...) an account of the self that directs and controls attention, in line with our everyday view of the self. I will contrast this account with what I call the “illusion view,” which presents the self and its apparent causal power in the case of attention as an illusion. My account of the self will make use of several of Baker's ideas, including non-reductive materialism and broad supervenience. (shrink)

This paper comes out of a panel honoring the work of Anne Donchin (1940-2014), which took place at the 2016 Congress of the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) in Edinburgh. My general aim is to highlight the contributions Anne made to feminist bioethics, and to feminist reproductive ethics in particular. My more specific aim, however, is to have a kind of conversation with Anne, through her work, about whether reproductive justice could demand insurance coverage for in vitro (...) fertilization. I quote liberally from Anne’s work for this purpose, but also to shower the reader with her words, reminding those of us who knew her well what a wonderful colleague she was. (shrink)

Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 7-18.

Currently, the preferred accommodation for conscientious objection to abortion in medicine is to allow the objector to refuse to accede to the patient’s request so long as the objector refers the patient to a physician who performs abortions. The referral part of this arrangement is controversial, however. Pro-life advocates claim that referrals make objectors complicit in the performance of acts that they, the objectors, find morally offensive. McLeod argues that the referral requirement is justifiable, although not in the way that (...) people usually assume. (shrink)

This book examines the central role that language plays in understanding and human flourishing. The book begins by exploring Heidegger's idea that language is an essential element of how we dwell in the world and is, for the most part, ready-to-hand for us. With Gadamer, I then begin to explore phenomena where language is not ready-to-hand but calls for interpretation. The latter half of the book explores distinct ways in which language can become unready-to-hand for individuals (e.g., in cases of (...) trauma, depression, and social subordination) and examines the way that such situations have been analyzed by twentieth-century Continental thinkers (e.g., Blanchot, Kristeva, Derrida). (shrink)

Some of the oldest and deepest questions in philosophy fall under the umbrella of consciousness and mind: What is the mind and how is it related to the body? What provides our thoughts with content? How is consciousness related to the natural world? Do we have distinctive causal powers? Analytic philosophers have made significant progress on these and related problems in the last century. Given the high volume of work on such topics, this chapter is necessarily selective. It offers major (...) touchstones but is slanted in favor of work that touches base with the sciences. The chapter starts by describing the progression of thought on the mind-body problem, from dualism and behaviorism to non-reductive materialism. It then describes the problem of intentionality, with a focus on partial solutions from Dretske and Millikan, ending with a brief discussion of 4E theories of mental content. The section on the problem of consciousness starts with the well-known knowledge and modal arguments before describing some attempted initial solutions, such as eliminative materialism and panpsychism. Finally, there is a brief section on agency and free will, which focuses on the link between free will and consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter presents Gadamer’s conception of language and of its role in the process of understanding. The chapter begins by explaining what Gadamer means when he says that language is characterized by an essential “self-forgetfulness” [Selbstvergessenheit] and how this relates to his account of the fore-structure of the understanding. Next, it explains what it means to conceive of a linguistic presentation (e.g., a poem or a lecture) as a hermeneutic event and how this conceptualization is essential to Gadamer’s account of (...) understanding and of the dialectical unity between language and being. The chapter ends by considering how Gadamer’s analysis of conversation further clarifies what it means to be open to the event of language. (shrink)

There are two attitudes regarding the historical situation of understanding commonly held today. On the one hand, we believe that we only achieve a real, worthwhile understanding of a topic when our thinking manages to break free from the dogmas of the past. We believe that this transcendence of the historical situation of thought is both possible and desirable. We applaud those whose thought appears to us to proceed unhinged by traditional dogmas, whether those dogmas be old habits of scientific (...) thought or traditional ideas about social life. We celebrate as epistemic heroes those who discover their own way of thinking. On the other hand, many are quick to accept as a general rule that one’s understanding is inevitably bound to one’s particular historical and cultural situation. Nobody understands things in a historical vacuum. Accordingly, we believe that there is no transcending the historicity of the understanding and thus no epistemic heroes to applaud. This chapter examines Gadamer's argument in “The Elevation of the Historicity of Understanding" (a central section in "Truth and Method") as a critique of both of these alternatives -- alternatives that can be traced back to the historical epochs of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. I argue that, for Gadamer, both of these historical models of understanding misconstrue the way that understanding is grounded in historical consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter presents a conception of understanding where understanding emerges out of the joint experience of conversation. On this conception, understanding requires more than the pre-reflective acquisition of shared social meanings – a conception of understanding historically highlighted by existential phenomenologists. Beyond this, it requires what occurs in genuine conversation, namely, that one put one’s pre-reflective social meanings at risk in the process of critical self-reflection. Drawing from the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer, I argue that conversation is that joint (...) experience that gives rise to such critical self-reflection and that it is conversation’s play-structure in particular that makes it a source of understanding in this sense. (shrink)

In 1929 when Aurel Kolnai published his essay “On Disgust” in Husserl's ]ahrbuch he could truly assert that disgust was a "sorely neglected" topic. Now, however, this situation is changing as philosophers, psychologists, and historians of culture are turning their attention not only to emotions in general but more specifically to the large and disturbing set of aversive emotions, including disgust. We here provide an account of Kolnai’s contribution to the study of the phenomenon of disgust, of his general theory (...) of emotions and of the phenomenological methodology he employed in his work. (shrink)

Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA), a project funded by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and headed by Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), aims “to make information on academic job placement useful to prospective graduate students in philosophy.” The project has just been updated to include new data, which Professor Jennings describes in a post at New APPS. She also announces a new interactive data tool with which one can sift through and sort information. (from Daily Nous).

It is beyond doubt that the legal system established by the Nazi government in Germany between 1933-1945 represented a gross departure from the rule of law: the Nazis eradicated legal security and certainty; allowed for judicial and state arbitrariness; blocked epistemic access to what the law requires; issued unpredictable legal requirements; and so on. This introduction outlines the distorted nature of the Nazi legal system and looks at the main factors that contributed to this grave divergence.

In 1935, the Nazi government introduced what came to be known as the abrogation of the pro- hibition of analogy. This measure, a feature of the new penal law, required judges to stray from the letter of the written law and to consider instead whether an action was worthy of pun- ishment according to the ‘sound perception of the people’ and the ‘underlying principle’ of existing criminal statutes. In discussions of Nazi law, an almost unanimous conclusion is that a system (...) of criminal law ought not to contain legislation of this sort. This conclusion is often based on how the abro- gation relates to the normative claim that the law ought to be predictable. In particular, it has been argued that since the law ought to be predictable, and since this type of analogy legis- lation implied, caused or contributed to the diminution of the law’s predictability, this type of legislation ought to be prohibited. In this paper, we argue that this argument is not entirely correct. While we believe that the law ought to be predictable and that there is evidence for the claim that the Nazis’ intro- duction of analogical reasoning implied, caused, or contributed to a diminution of predictability, this fact is logically too weak to ground the conclusion that necessarily a penal system ought not to contain legislation of this kind. Despite the undeniable wickedness of the Nazi penal system, this type of analogical reasoning can be made consistent with the pre- dictability of the law. We argue that consistency of this sort depends on whether the use of analogy is supplemented by certain contextual background conditions. The occurrence of these conditions blocks an inference from the fact that the law ought to be predictable to the conclusion that a penal system ought not to allow for this type of analogical reasoning. (shrink)

In his The Meaning of Disgust, Colin McGinn employs elements of the phenomenological theory of disgust advanced by Aurel Kolnai in 1929. Kolnai’s treatment of what he calls “material” disgust and of its primary elicitors—putrefying organic matter, bodily wastes and secretions, sticky contaminants, vermin—anticipates more recent scientific treatments of this emotion as a mode of protective recoil. While Nina Strohminger charges McGinn with neglecting such scientific studies, we here attempt to show how Kolnai goes beyond experimental findings in his careful (...) description of the phenomenological differences between disgust and other emotions of forceful disapproval. (shrink)

Language is often conceived of today as providing a person with a worldview and a set of communicative norms that one accepts unambiguously. However, in his 1992 lecture, “Monolingualism of the Other,” Jacques Derrida insists that his mother tongue is for him “not a natural element, not the transparency of the ether, but an absolute habitat.” In other words, while French is an intimate part of his existence, his relationship to it is nevertheless ambiguous. Derrida claims that his situation is (...) not exceptional though, since for no person is language simply a “natural element.” In this essay, I examine first the phenomenological basis for this controversial claim, drawing from Derrida’s lecture as well as earlier explorations by Martin Heidegger to elucidate the point. Later I turn to address the ethical-political dimensions of Derrida’s claim, explaining how it serves to protest against a problematic process of consolidating power. (shrink)

Some bioethicists argue that conscientious objectors in health care should have to justify themselves, just as objectors in the military do. They should have to provide reasons that explain why they should be exempt from offering the services that they find offensive. There are two versions of this view in the literature, each giving different standards of justification. We show these views are each either too permissive (i.e. would result in problematic exemptions based on conscience) or too restrictive (i.e. would (...) produce problematic denials of exemption). We then develop a middle ground position that we believe better combines respect for the conscience of healthcare professionals with concern for the duties that they owe to patients. Our claim, in short, is that insofar as objectors should have to justify themselves, they should have to do it according to the standard that we defend rather than according to the standards that others have developed. (shrink)

This is a good time for such a substantial book on Buddhaghosa. His ideas may be more difficult to digest than those of contemporary authors, but Ganeri convincingly argues for their relevance. Together with Ganeri’s considerable interpretive and philosophical work, Buddhaghosa’s view helps to fill out a perspective that is popular in cognitive science, in which the self is replaced by systems. In this case, the self is replaced by systems of attention, a view that Ganeri calls ‘Attentionalism.’ In this (...) review I will focus on two aspects of the account that I find especially puzzling, with the hope that this leads to further elucidation, whether by Ganeri or others. Specifically, I will focus on the concepts of ekaggatā, or “placing,” and anatta, or “no-self,” as interpreted by Ganeri. (shrink)

Audience segmentation is necessary in health communications to ensure equitable resource distribution. Peer crowds, which are macro-level teen subcultures, are effective psychographic segments for health communications because each crowd has unique mindsets, values, norms, and health behavior profiles. These mindsets affect behaviors, and can be used to develop targeted health communication campaigns to reach those in greatest need. Though peer crowd research is plentiful, no existing peer crowd measurement tool has been formally validated. As such, we developed and validated Virginia's (...) Mindset Lens Survey (V-MLS), a mindset-based teen peer crowd segmentation survey to support health communication efforts. Using an online convenience sample of teens (N = 1,113), we assessed convergent and discriminant validity by comparing the V-MLS against an existing, widely-used peer crowd survey (I-Base Survey®) utilizing a multi-trait multi-method matrix. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

A review of Holly Fernandez Lynch's book Conflicts of Conscience in Medicine (MIT Press, 2008).

This is the co-authored--with Carolyn Korsmeyer--Introduction to the first published feminist scholarship in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Volume 48, Number 4, Fall 1990). Contributors included Hilde Hein, Paul Mattick, Jr., Timothy Gould, Joanne B. Waugh, Joseph Margolis, Mary Devereaux, Noel Carroll, Flo Leibowitz, Anita Silvers, Elizabeth Ann Dobie, Renee Cox, and Ellen Handler Spitz. All essays were subsequently published in an expanded book version entitled, Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics by Penn State Press (1995).

Contextual emergence is a relatively simple but disruptive concept. It undermines the claim that emergence is necessarily a form of supervenience, often repeated by philosophers. It bucks the “false forced choice” between weak and strong emergence. It is scientifically grounded but challenges the prevailing reductive worldview in science. It has much to recommend a detailed philosophical treatment, such as this one. This book is thus a welcome treatise on a timely topic.

A model policy for conscientious objection in medicine.

Singh's cultural evolutionary theory posits that methods of inducing shamanic altered states of consciousness differ, resulting in profoundly different cognitive states. We argue that, despite different methods of induction, altered states of consciousness share neurophysiological features and cause shared cognitive and behavioral effects. This common foundation enables further cross-cultural comparison of shamanic activities that is currently left out of Singh's theory.

Combining aesthetic theory with gender analysis opens a large and diverse territory to explore. Both familiar issues in the philosophy of art and new, expanded questions about the influence of culture on imagination and identity have become subjects of feminist research. Film, literature, graphic arts, advertising, and the legacies of history all contribute to the forces that shape self-image, desire, behavior, and social role – as well as the ability to imagine possibilities for change. This issue brings together an international (...) group of scholars from several disciplines who explore gender and femininity, sexuality and its several iterations, and the politics of everyday life and culture. (shrink)

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

Galileo’s Error is a superlative work of public philosophy, particularly as a way of introducing modern academic panpsychism to a broader audience. In this commentary, I reflect on an issue that is prominent, though often with different background concerns, in both academic and popular discourse: what it means to be ‘scientific’ or ‘unscientific’. Panpsychism is not itself a scientific hypothesis, but neither is it (as critics sometimes claim) in conflict with science. Indeed, Goff argues, and I agree, that panpsychism is (...) an eminently scientific worldview, in the sense of a way of viewing reality that accords with and embraces what science reveals. But what exactly it means to ‘accord with and embrace’ science is disputed; this paper tries to untangle some of the threads. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail (...) to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

In this аrtiсlе, thе аuthоr fосusеs оn еluсidаting sоmе philоsоphiсаl аspесts оf intеrсulturаl соmmuniсаtiоn in thе соntеxt оf glоbаlizаtiоn оn thе bаsis оf rесоgnizing thе соntributiоns аnd limitаtiоns оf Wittgеnstеin tо thе birth оf philоsоphy. сulturе study. Thоsе philоsоphiсаl issuеs аrе: thе similаrity in thinking аnd асting оf pеоplе асrоss сulturеs; divеrsity оf сulturеs, wоrldviеws аnd wаys оf lifе. Frоm thе Mаrxist pоint оf viеw, thе аuthоr pоintеd оut аnd сritiсizеd thе limitаtiоns оf Wittgеnstеin's philоsоphiсаl соnсеptiоn; аnd аt thе sаmе (...) timе оffеr аnd еxplаin sоlutiоns tо implеmеnt intеrсulturаl соmmuniсаtiоn in thе соntеxt оf сurrеnt glоbаlizаtiоn. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 165-189, May 2022. It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health care is needed to address the significant market failures in these sectors; however, it is also thought that the primary rationale for state involvement in health must lie elsewhere, for example in an egalitarian commitment to equalizing access to health care for all citizens. This paper argues that a complete theory of justice in (...) health can be derived from a commitment to correcting market failure, or in other words promoting Pareto-efficiency, in the domain of health. This approach can address familiar problems around access to care, as well as problems related to resource allocation and rationing, the control of health care costs, and the foundations of public health. Egalitarian theories of justice in health cannot make sense of the depth and pervasiveness of state involvement in health and health care; only a theory rooted in the need to correct market failure can. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)