While science is often presented as a body of knowledge or collection of passively accumulated facts, science should be examined and experienced as a performed process, a human endeavor connected to the ways we access the world. In this white paper, I briefly introduce the practice of science from the perspective of performance theory. By examining science in the context of performance, we may approach certain key questions about science directly. How do scientists perform experiments and practice the scientific method (...) (or, more accurately, scientific methodologies)? How does science rely on particular performer(s) and the particular contexts of those performances? What distinguishes the activity of science from other kinds of human performances? By reframing science as a human performance in the context of human practices and rituals, we more closely approach an accurate and communicable explanation of what the process of “doing science” actually is as something that humans do. (shrink)

This year’s topic is “Genomics and Philosophy of Race.” Different researchers might work on distinct subsets of the six thematic clusters below, which are neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive: (1) Concepts of ‘Race’; (2) Mathematical Modeling of Human History and Population Structure; (3) Data and Technologies of Human Genomics; (4) Biological Reality of Race; (5) Racialized Selves in a Global Context; (6) Pragmatic Consequences of ‘Race Talk’ among Biologists.

Dissertation Prospectus. Exploring the limits of New Mechanism as a general theory of scientific explanation, limiting its scope and proposing constraints.

In recent years, New Mechanism has become one of the most popular and widely discussed philosophical accounts of scientific explanation. Some of its proponents see it as a successor to traditional deductive nomological and statistical approaches to the philosophy of explanation. New Mechanists thus argue for the generality of their approach as a model of scientific explanation. Here we will show that the generality of NME as an account of scientific explanation is restricted. Most significantly, NME is widely recognized to (...) have trouble in accounting for explanation in traditional physics. Yet, in the face of obstacles to NME in the physical sciences, New Mechanists have yet to provide a convincing defense of the generality of their view. In this paper, I (1) summarize when and how NME works, (2) describe briefly what NME is not and can’t be, (3) outline some areas of contemporary scientific explanation where New Mechanism misses the mark; and (4) demonstrate that New Mechanism does not constitute a general theory of scientific explanation but rather covers a restricted scope of explanations. (shrink)

In this dissertation I achieve the following: (1) I present motivating criteria for a general comprehensive theory of scientific explanation. I review historical approaches to modeling explanation in light of these criteria. (2) I present New Mechanist Explanation ("NME") as the leading candidate for a contemporary, complete theory of scientific explanation. (3) I present constraints on the applicability of New Mechanism in modeling biology, chemistry, and physics. I argue for the unsuitability of NME as a candidate for a general theory (...) of explanation due to its significant omissions of explanatory content and subsequent incompleteness. (4) I present arguments for the indispensable explanatory power of mathematics in science, noting that much of NME's failures are owed to its poor integration of mathematical explanation as applied to science. (5) I propose a Rational-Relational theory of explanation(“RRE”). I present RRE in detail and demonstrate it as a true working general theory of explanation which best meets the motivating criteria presented in (1). I disambiguate RRE from structural explanation ("SE"). I show that historical models of explanation, including the deductive nomological (DNE) model, statistical relevance ("SRE") model, structural model (SE) and unification model ("UE") may be successfully treated as sub-classes of explanation within the scope of RRE. I provide a rubric for selecting amongst sub-theories of explanation under RRE in the purpose of highlighting particular features of relational explanations. (6) In conclusion, I argue that philosophers of science should move forward using RRE as a general model of scientific explanation as a working alternative to the incomplete model of NME. (shrink)

Successful teamwork doesn't work overnight, what makes teamwork potent is team building. (Plagiarism) According to Abdullah, et. al., (2022) team building training can improve group cohesiveness or the quality of sticking together or unity teamwork more likely to be higher with a significant score difference. This study used mixed methods both qualitative and quantitative data collection, and an analysis method to answer the research method, random sampling is named as such because the data set is chosen via random selection, where (...) every member of the population has an equal probability of being selected (Tao, 2023). The respondents were 100 restaurant employees and 10 managers from the chosen restaurant in Malolos City in Bulacan. The subcategories of team building, including activities, communication, skills, personality, problem-solving, and values, have all received a consensus of strong agreement, with weighted averages falling within the range of 3.26 to 3.44. This level of agreement aligns with the scores for motivation at 3.43 and productivity at 3.38. These values have been calculated by determining the mean, which spans from 3.25 to 4.00. The advantages of team building that is being observed by the managers is to create familiarity and teamwork among the employees, to improve the quality of service and the quality of the food especially the respondents are in the food service sector, development, and training for the employees to achieve the establishments’ goal and lastly rebuilding and build a relationship with one employee to another. However, for the disadvantages, it costs a lot of money to conduct team building in the management. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected. Despite the fact that there is a low correlation between teambuilding activities and motivation and employee productivity, there is still a significant relationship between the variables. (shrink)

Multilegalism is a species of legal pluralism denoting the existence of quasi-autonomous “minority jurisdictions” for at least some legal matters within a “normal” state jurisdiction. Multiculturalism in the advocatory sense might provide the justification for establishing such minority jurisdictions. This paper aims to provide 1) a detailed idea about what such a multicultural multilegal arrangement would amount to and how it differs from certain related concepts and legal frameworks, 2) in what sense some standard multicultural arguments could provide a starting (...) point for seriously considering multicultural multilegalism in practice, 3) how the idea fares against some standard liberal criticisms, and finally 4), to point out three salient problems for multilegalism, concerning a) choice of law problems, b) a dilemma facing us as to whether state supremacy should be upheld or not, and c) clashes with basic human rights. (shrink)

Semiotics has been making progressively inroads into marketing research over the past thirty years. Despite the amply demonstrated conceptual appeal and empirical pertinence of semiotic perspectives in various marketing research streams, spanning consumer research, brand communications, branding and consumer cultural studies, there has been a marked deficit in terms of consolidating semiotic brand-related research under a coherent disciplinary umbrella with identifiable boundaries and research agenda. -/- The Handbook of Brand Semiotics furnishes a compass for the perplexed, a set of anchors (...) for the inquisitive and a solid corpus for scholars, while highlighting the conceptual richness and methodological diversity of semiotic perspectives. -/- Written by a team of expert scholars in various semiotics and branding related fields, such as John A. Bateman, David Machin, Xavier Ruiz Collantes, Kay L. O’Halloran, Dario Mangano, George Rossolatos, Merce Oliva, Per Ledin, Gianfranco Marrone, Francesco Mangiapane, Jennie Mazur, Carlos Scolari, Ilaria Ventura, and edited by George Rossolatos, Chief Editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, the Handbook is intended as a point of reference for researchers who wish to enter the ‘House of Brand Semiotics’ and explore its marvels. -/- The Handbook of Brand Semiotics, actively geared towards an inter-disciplinary dialogue between perspectives from marketing and semiotics, features the state-of-the-art, but also offers directions for future research in key streams, such as: -/- · Analyzing and designing brand language across media · Brand image, brand symbols, brand icons vs. iconicity · The contribution of semiotics to transmedia storytelling · Narrativity and rhetorical approaches to branding · Semiotic roadmap for designing brand identity · Semiotic roadmap for designing logos and packaging · Sociosemiotic accounts of building brand identity online · Multimodality and Multimodal critical discourse analysis · Challenging the omnipotence of cognitivism in brand- related research · Semiotics and (inter)cultural branding · Brand equity semiotics Comparative readings of structuralist, Peircean and sociosemiotic approaches to brandcomms . (shrink)

I develop a theory of counterfactuals about relative computability, i.e. counterfactuals such as 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then the halting problem would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is true, and 'If the validity problem were algorithmically decidable, then arithmetical truth would also be algorithmically decidable,' which is false. These counterfactuals are counterpossibles, i.e. they have metaphysically impossible antecedents. They thus pose a challenge to the orthodoxy about counterfactuals, which would treat them as uniformly true. What’s more, I (...) argue that these counterpossibles don’t just appear in the periphery of relative computability theory but instead they play an ineliminable role in the development of the theory. Finally, I present and discuss a model theory for these counterfactuals that is a straightforward extension of the familiar comparative similarity models. (shrink)

Epistemic decision theory produces arguments with both normative and mathematical premises. I begin by arguing that philosophers should care about whether the mathematical premises (1) are true, (2) are strong, and (3) admit simple proofs. I then discuss a theorem that Briggs and Pettigrew (2020) use as a premise in a novel accuracy-dominance argument for conditionalization. I argue that the theorem and its proof can be improved in a number of ways. First, I present a counterexample that shows that one (...) of the theorem’s claims is false. As a result of this, Briggs and Pettigrew’s argument for conditionalization is unsound. I go on to explore how a sound accuracy-dominance argument for conditionalization might be recovered. In the course of doing this, I prove two new theorems that correct and strengthen the result reported by Briggs and Pettigrew. I show how my results can be combined with various normative premises to produce sound arguments for conditionalization. I also show that my results can be used to support normative conclusions that are stronger than the one that Briggs and Pettigrew’s argument supports. Finally, I show that Briggs and Pettigrew’s proofs can be simplified considerably. (shrink)

For two ideally rational agents, does learning a finite amount of shared evidence necessitate agreement? No. But does it at least guard against belief polarization, the case in which their opinions get further apart? No. OK, but are rational agents guaranteed to avoid polarization if they have access to an infinite, increasing stream of shared evidence? No.

A comprehensive understanding of the ethics of the COVID-19 pandemic priorities must be sensitive to the influence of social inequality. We distinguish between ex-ante and ex-post relevance of social inequality for COVID-19 disadvantage. Ex-ante relevance refers to the distribution of risks of exposure. Ex-post relevance refers to the effect of inequality on how patients respond to infection. In the case of COVID-19, both ex-ante and ex-post effects suggest a distribution which is sensitive to the prevalence social inequality. On this basis, (...) we provide a generic fairness argument for the claim that welfare states ought to favour a healthcare priority scheme that gives particular weight to protecting the socially disadvantaged. (shrink)

The best accuracy arguments for probabilism apply only to credence functions with finite domains, that is, credence functions that assign credence to at most finitely many propositions. This is a significant limitation. It reveals that the support for the accuracy-first program in epistemology is a lot weaker than it seems at first glance, and it means that accuracy arguments cannot yet accomplish everything that their competitors, the pragmatic (Dutch book) arguments, can. In this paper, I investigate the extent to which (...) this limitation can be overcome. Building on the best arguments in finite domains, I present two accuracy arguments for probabilism that are perfectly general—they apply to credence functions with arbitrary domains. I then discuss how the arguments’ premises can be challenged. We will see that it is particularly difficult to characterize admissible accuracy measures in infinite domains. (shrink)

We introduce a fairness criterion that we call Spanning. Spanning i) is implied by Calibration, ii) retains interesting properties of Calibration that some other ways of relaxing that criterion do not, and iii) unlike Calibration and other prominent ways of weakening it, is consistent with Equalized Odds outside of trivial cases.

This essay has two aims. The first is to correct an increasingly popular way of misunderstanding Belot's Orgulity Argument. The Orgulity Argument charges Bayesianism with defect as a normative epistemology. For concreteness, our argument focuses on Cisewski et al.'s recent rejoinder to Belot. The conditions that underwrite their version of the argument are too strong and Belot does not endorse them on our reading. A more compelling version of the Orgulity Argument than Cisewski et al. present is available, however---a point (...) that we make by drawing an analogy with de Finetti's argument against mandating countable additivity. Having presented the best version of the Orgulity Argument, our second aim is to develop a reply to it. We extend Elga's idea of appealing to finitely additive probability to show that the challenge posed by the Orgulity Argument can be met. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pettigrew reports a generalization of the celebrated accuracy-dominance theorem due to Predd et al., but Pettigrew’s proof is incorrect. I will explain the mistakes and provide a correct proof.

A standard way to challenge convergence-based accounts of inductive success is to claim that they are too weak to constrain inductive inferences in the short run. We respond to such a challenge by answering some questions raised by Juhl (1994). When it comes to predicting limiting relative frequencies in the framework of Reichenbach, we show that speed-optimal convergence—a long-run success condition—induces dynamic coherence in the short run.

One famous debate in contemporary epistemology considers whether there is always one unique, epistemically rational way to respond to a given body of evidence. Generally speaking, answering “yes” to this question makes one a proponent of the Uniqueness thesis, while those who answer “no” are called “permissivists”. Another influential recent debate concerns whether non-truth-related factors can be the basis of epistemic justification, knowledge, or rational belief. Traditional theories answer “no”, and are therefore considered “purists”. However, more recently many theorists have (...) argued to the contrary, claiming that impurist factors, such as practical stakes, can sometimes encroach or even override truth-related considerations. This paper bridges the two debates by presenting and defending what I call “Impurist Permissivism”. I support Impurist Permissivism by showing how it can resist Roger White’s famous Argument from Arbitrariness (2005). (shrink)

It is commonly held that the ascription of truth to a sentence is intersubstitutable with that very sentence. However, the simplest subclassical logics available to proponents of this view, namely K3 and LP, are hopelessly weak for many purposes. In this article, I argue that this is much more of a problem for proponents of LP than for proponents of K3. The strategies for recapturing classicality offered by proponents of LP are far less promising than those available to proponents of (...) K3. This undermines the ability of proponents LP to engage in public reasoning in classical domains. (shrink)

Braun explores the use of digital twin technology in medicine with a particular emphasis on the question of how such simulations can represent a person.1 In defining some first conditions for ethically justifiable forms of representation of digital twins, he argues that digital twins do not threaten an embodied person, as long as that person retains control over their simulated representation via dynamic consent, and ideally with the option to choose both form and usage of the simulation. His thoughtful elaboration (...) provides insight into the challenges inherent in interactions between a person and their digital twin, emphasising the modes of control required to respect personal modes of freedom. This individual-centric approach to the question of representation leaves out the important ethical consideration of ensuring that all, not merely some, can be represented. Braun describes dynamic consent as a necessary mode of control, arguing that where a person is unable to give consent, ‘such simulations threaten to become illegitimate representations. They would then shift the kind of interaction from representation to illegitimate forms of prediction or surveillance and thereby could lead to infringements to individual modes of freedom.’ Consequently, the implementation of digital twin technology in healthcare would seem to exclude the most vulnerable members of society from participation in and benefiting from medical innovation, …. (shrink)

This article argues that personal medical data should be made available for scientific research, by enabling and encouraging individuals to donate their medical records once deceased, similar to the way in which they can already donate organs or bodies. This research is part of a project on posthumous medical data donation developed by the Digital Ethics Lab at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. Ten arguments are provided to support the need to foster posthumous medical data donation. (...) Two major risks are also identified—harm to others, and lack of control over the use of data—which could follow from unregulated donation of medical data. The argument that record-based medical research should proceed without the need to secure informed consent is rejected, and instead a voluntary and participatory approach to using personal medical data should be followed. The analysis concludes by stressing the need to develop an ethical code for data donation to minimise the risks, and offers five foundational principles for ethical medical data donation suggested as a draft code. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with Gadamer’s reflections on solidarity and practice as found in several of his later writings. While Gadamer offers a robust explanation of practice, practical reason, and how both are operative in solidarities, his investigations of solidarity are in no way systematic. He does, however, distinguish two aspects of solidarity, viz. what one might call “natural solidarity” and “avowed solidarity”. In contrast to natural solidarities, avowed solidarities require an intentional decision and commitment to act with others for (...) a common cause. Since Gadamer’s writings on solidarity are more sketches than detailed treatises, we will bring his work into dialogue with feminist and political philosopher Sally Scholz. Scholz has devoted significant research to the concept of political solidarity. Like Gadamer, Scholz too is concerned with how we engage natural others and how our present practices harm and exploit them. By bringing Scholz’s and Gadamer’s work into dialogue, we gain a better understanding of different facets and types of solidarity, how they interrelate and influence one other, and how their interrelations might help to effect positive social and political changes for all who inhabit this world. (shrink)

David Stove's essay “The intellectual capacity of women” was first published in 1990, in the Proceedings of a Sydney philosophical society. It has been re-published twice since his death. It seems though that during his lifetime Stove himself refused to agree to its being re-printed. This raises two questions: Did Stove believe his essay on women contains mistakes? And: does it contain mistakes? The main flaws in the essay stem from a rash adoption of simplistic ideas about probability coupled with (...) a question-begging definition of capacity. The work also contains contradictions and exaggerations and some unwise forays into social history. Stove was an intelligent man so it seems likely that he would have recognised those flaws. (shrink)

We provide counterexamples to some purported characterizations of dilation due to Pedersen and Wheeler :1305–1342, 2014, ISIPTA ’15: Proceedings of the 9th international symposium on imprecise probability: theories and applications, 2015).

Several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Jürgen Habermas, John Caputo, and Robert Bernasconi, have at times painted a somewhat negative picture of Gadamer as not only an uncritical traditionalist, but also as one whose philosophical project fails to appreciate difference. Against such claims, I argue that Gadamer’s reflections on art exhibit a genuine appreciation for alterity not unrelated to his hermeneutical approach to the other. Thus, by bringing Gadamer’s reflections on our experience of art into conversation with key aspects of his (...) philosophical hermeneutics, we are able to better assess the viability of Gadamer’s contributions to contemporary discussions of difference and alterity. -/- Sections two through six focus on key concepts in Gadamer’s account of art’s dynamic ontology and our experience of art. Such concepts include the play structure of art, hermeneutic identity, tarrying with a work, and contemporaneity. The opening sections provide not only a discussion of these central themes, but they also (1) draw attention to the various ways in which difference and otherness are integral to Gadamer’s account, and (2) utilize relevant musical examples that prepare the reader for a more focused discussion of a Gadamerian approach to free jazz in section seven. By highlighting how Gadamer’s understanding of art possesses a dialogical play structure, is characterized by identity and difference, requires actively engaged spectators and auditors, and is amenable to what many criticize as an unintelligible musical expression, viz. free jazz, Gadamer’s project is shown as other-affirming and open to ambiguity and dynamism. That is, the essential structures and concepts characterizing Gadamer’s reflections on art are likewise central to his overall hermeneutical project, and hence are not rightly described as un-attuned to difference or other-negating. Rather, Gadamer’s philosophical project upholds difference, since it requires a dialogical interplay between self and other that creates the possibility for a transformative experience. (shrink)

Frantz Fanon offers a lucid account of his entrance into the white world where the weightiness of the ‘white gaze’ nearly crushed him. In chapter five of Black Skins, White Masks, he develops his historico-racial and epidermal racial schemata as correctives to Merleau-Ponty’s overly inclusive corporeal schema. Experientially aware of the reality of socially constructed (racialized) subjectivities, Fanon uses his schemata to explain the creation, maintenance, and eventual rigidification of white-scripted ‘blackness’. Through a re-telling of his own experiences of racism, (...) Fanon is able to show how a black person in a racialized context eventually internalizes the ‘white gaze’. In this essay I bring Fanon’s insights into conversation with Foucault’s discussion of panoptic surveillance. Although the internalization of the white narrative creates a situation in which external constraints are no longer needed, Fanon highlights both the historical contingency of ‘blackness’ and the ways in which the oppressed can re-narrate their subjectivities. Lastly, I discuss Fanon’s historically attuned ‘new humanism’, once again engaging Fanon and Foucault as dialogue partners. (shrink)

Translators’ Abstract: This is a translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s recently discovered 1952 Berlin speech. The speech includes several themes that reappear in Truth and Method, as well as in Gadamer’s later writings such as Reason in the Age of Science. For example, Gadamer criticizes positivism, modern philosophy’s orientation toward positivism, and Enlightenment narratives of progress, while presenting his view of philosophy’s tasks in an age of crisis. In addition, he discusses structural power, instrumental reason, the objectification of nature and human (...) beings, the reduction of both to mere means, and the colonization of scientific-technological ways of knowing and being—all of which continue to impact our social and political lives together and threaten the very existence of every living being. This speech is essential reading for Gadamer scholars interested in the social, political, and ethical dimensions of his thought and for those interested in bringing Gadamer into conversation with critical theory. (shrink)

While the substantiation of “best interests” has received much attention, the question of how “the child” is conceptualised to ensure any action taken or decision made is in the particular child’s best interests has been largely neglected. In this paper, I argue that the lack of robust understanding of who “the child” is means that we continue to make many generalisations and category-based assumptions in determining the child’s best interests. In addressing the challenge of doing right by the individual child, (...) I propose a three-step approach based on a theoretical model of the child that avoids presumptions about child-typical needs and insists on an assessment of the child’s individual characteristics, needs, qualities, and circumstances, making it the only conceptualisation fully meeting the child centrism criterion required by children’s rights as determined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (shrink)

Like human existence itself, our enduring legacies—whether poetic, ethical, political, or philosophical—continually unfold and require recurrent communal engagement and (re)enactment. In other words, an ongoing performance of significant works must occur, and this task requires the collective human activity of re-membering or gathering-together-again. In the Symposium, Diotima provides an account of human pursuits of immortality through the creation of artifacts, including laws, poems, and philosophical discourses that resonates with Gadamer’s account of our engagement with artworks and texts. This essay explores (...) common places among Gadamer and Plato; however, it does so through the complex character of Diotima the philosopher-priestess. Diotima’s teaching on the processive character of human existence and her understanding of knowledge as dynamic has been largely ignored. Given Gadamer’s historically oriented philosophical hermeneutics, not to mention his creative and critical engagement with Platonic themes such as beauty, recollection, and art, Diotima makes for an especially fruitful dialogue partner. (shrink)

Almost every facet of the experience of musical listening—from pitch, to rhythm, to the experience of emotion—is thought to be shaped by the meeting and thwarting of expectations. But it is unclear what kind of mental states these expectations are, what their format is, and whether they are conscious or unconscious. Here, we distinguish between different modes of musical listening, arguing that expectations play different roles in each, and we point to the need for increased collaboration between music psychologists and (...) philosophers in order to arrive at a more detailed characterisation of conscious musical experience and the role of expectations therein. (shrink)

In Interstitial Soundings, Cynthia R. Nielsen brings music and philosophy into a fruitful and mutually illuminating dialogue. Topics discussed include the following: music's dynamic ontology, performers and improvisers as co-composers, the communal character of music, jazz as hybrid and socially constructed, the sociopolitical import of bebop, Afro-modernism and its strategic deployments, jazz and racialized practices, continuities between Michel Foucault's discussion of self-making and creating one's musical voice, Alasdair MacIntyre on practice, and how one might harmonize MacIntyre's notion of virtue (...) development with Foucauldian resistance strategies. (shrink)

Through examining Douglass's and Fanon's concrete experiences of oppression, Cynthia R. Nielsen demonstrates the empirical validity of Foucault's theoretical analyses concerning power, resistance, and subject-formation. Going beyond merely confirming Foucault's insights, Douglass and Fanon expand, strengthen, and offer correctives to the emancipatory dimensions of Foucault's project. Unlike Foucault, Douglass and Fanon were not hesitant to make transhistorical judgments condemning slavery and colonization. Foucault's reticence here signals a weakness in his account of human being. This weakness sets him at cross-purposes (...) not only with Scotus, but also with Douglass and Fanon. Scotus's anthropology provides a basis for transhistorical moral critique; thus he is a valuable dialogue partner for those concerned about social justice and human flourishing. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that one can articulate a historically attuned and analytically rich model for understanding jazz in its various inflections. That is, on the one hand, such a model permits us to affirm jazz as a historically conditioned, dynamic hybridity. On the other hand, to acknowledge jazz’s open and multiple character in no way negates our ability to identify discernible features of various styles and aesthetic traditions. Additionally, my model affirms the sociopolitical, legal (Jim Crow and copyright (...) laws), and economic structures that shaped jazz. Consequently, my articulation of bebop as an inflection of Afromodernism highlights the sociopolitical, and highly racialized context in which this music was created. Without a recognition of the sociopolitical import of bebop, one’s understanding of the music is impoverished, as one fails to grasp the strategic uses to which the music and discourses about the music were put. (shrink)

Adoption may be defined as ‘the legal process through which the state establishes a parental relationship, with all its attendant rights and duties, between a child and a (set of) parent(s) where there exists no previous procreative relationship’ . In adoptions from care, state intervention effectively converts an established, or nascent, adult– child relationship into ‘family’ in the legal sense. From the state’s perspective, adoption thus entails the transfer of parental responsibilities for a child in public care to a private (...) family unit, enabling the state to permanently delegate its duties towards a child to this new unit. This seemingly straightforward legal act raises deeper philosophical questions relating to such state ‘family creation’, particularly when the child’s perspective is taken. Such a child- centric approach normatively regards children as equal moral beings, who ought to be included in actions concerning them, regardless of their capacity to form and express an opinion. Accordingly, adoption from care can be described as a moral decision, aimed at doing what is in the child’s best interests. The purpose of this chapter is to explore a suspicion of a lack of child- centrism in adoption from care practice, and to illustrate how adopted children’s rights are inferior to those of their non- adopted peers. This will shed light on a practice currently lacking transparency and accountability and will increase our understanding of how we fail to treat children as equal moral individuals in decision- making that severely impacts children’s lives. (shrink)

Frederick Douglass, in his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, describes how his sociopolitical identity was scripted by the white other and how his spatiotemporal existence was likewise constrained through constant surveillance and disciplinary dispositifs. Even so, Douglass was able to assert his humanity through creative acts of resistance. In this essay, I highlight the ways in which Douglass refused to accept the other-imposed narrative, demonstrating with his life the truth of his being—a human being unwilling to (...) be classified as thing or property. As I engage selected passages and key events from Douglass's narrative, I likewise explore the ways in which the resistance tactics. (shrink)

In this essay, I analyze Romare Bearden’s art, methodology, and thinking about art, as well as his attempt to harmonize his personal aesthetic goals with his sociopolitical concerns. I then turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience (Erfahrung) of art. I show how Bearden’s approach to art and the artworks themselves resonate with Gadamer’s critique of aesthetic consciousness and his contention that artworks address us, make claims upon us, and even reveal truth. Lastly, I discuss Gadamer’s emphasis (...) on the spectator’s active yet non-mastering role in the event of art’s address—an event that implicates the spectator and has the potential to transform him or her. This leads to a discussion of Gadamer’s notion of the type of self-(and world) understanding that occurs through aesthetic experience. I close by returning to Bearden in order to discuss how his art unearths a crucial feature of our being-in-the-world. I call this feature “world-unmasking” and show how it expands and enriches Gadamer’s account. (shrink)

A significant proportion of child protection cases involve care-experienced mothers, which reveals a continuous cycle of mothers who lose their children to social services after having been in state care themselves as children. While the importance of protecting children requires little explanation and forms the justificatory basis for child protection interventions, it is important to remember that care-experienced mothers were once children entrusted to the state’s care, and who arguably have been failed by the state in that their parenting opportunities (...) are significantly reduced. This paper aims to address this underexplored dilemma between protecting children and safeguarding mothering opportunities for care-experienced mothers. Appealing to the concept of solidarity, I argue that the state has an obligation to increase its compensatory efforts to secure the right of care-experienced women to not only become parents but to be able to be parents, with the aim of breaking the cycle of care experience. (shrink)

One way of viewing the organizing structure of the Confessions is to see it as an engagement with various texts at different phases of St. Augustine’s life. In the early books of the Confessions, Augustine describes the disordered state that made him unable to read any text (sacred or profane) properly. Yet following his conversion his entire orientation— not only to texts but also to reality as a whole—changes. This essay attempts to trace the winding paths that lead up to (...) Augustine’s conversion through his various encounters with texts (and individuals) and to examine his struggles both intellectual and spiritual along the way. In the final section, I bring Augustine into conversation with Hans-Georg Gadamer in order to highlight a number of hermeneutical continuities shared by premoderns and postmoderns. After comparing premodern and modern hermeneutical orientations, I conclude that Augustine’s approach to Scripture contrasts sharply with a (strict) modern grammatico-historical biblical methodology, whereas premodern hermeneutics share a number of continuities with Gadamerian and postmodern emphases. Lastly, in light of Gadamer’s famous statement, ‘all of life is hermeneutics’, I suggest that perhaps we could read Augustine’s life as affirming this claim. By taking a close look at Augustine’s story, I will attempt to show how pre-judgments, interpretative traditions and a dynamic/analogical rather than a static/univocal understanding of text (and reality) decisively affected his spiritual and intellectual vision—observations Gadamer would no doubt heartily affirm. (shrink)

Foucault’s later writings continue his analyses of subject-formation but now with a view to foregrounding an active subject capable of self-transformation via ascetical and other self-imposed disciplinary practices. In my essay, I engage Foucault’s studies of ancient Greco-Roman and Christian technologies of the self with a two-fold purpose in view. First, I bring to the fore additional continuities either downplayed or overlooked by Foucault’s analysis between Greco-Roman transformative practices including self-writing, correspondence, and the hupomnemata and Christian ascetical and epistolary practices. (...) Second, I add exegetical support to recent arguments denying Foucault’s advocacy for the death of the subject per se. In fact, my analyses show that Foucault’s ethico-aesthetic turn and its corresponding concern with self-transformation and self-(re)constitution via ascetical practices assumes a subject with rational and volitional capacities. Without these capacities, the art of living Foucault describes is not possible. (shrink)

This article argues that understanding any space or site relies on a knowledge of its fourth dimension - the timescape. It will explore this by situating the investigation in the museum - a place of heightened contrivance which could easily be shallowly interpreted as "mere style". It will defend a new method of investigating museum temporality which combines both phenomenology and literary theory, and will replace the idea of geo-epistemology with geochronic epistemology: an understanding of context and situation which takes (...) on time as well as spatial location. In so doing, it moves on from notions of the museum as a place out of time, situating it in the networks of meaning, power and politics in which we have lived and are living. Thus, "the whole space of the exhibition" as Lyotard said, "becomes the remains of all time": the Museum on the Edge of Forever. (shrink)

The work of prominent analytical Marxist G. A. Cohen provides a vision of socialism which has distributive justice and community at its core. While Cohen's view of distributive justice has been hugely influential, much less has been said about community. This article argues that community plays three distinct roles in Cohen's socialism. One is as an independent value, the second is as a necessary adjacent counterpart to justice, which serves both to restrict and facilitate distributive equality, and the third is (...) as a critique of the liberal contractualist view of humanity. We argue that each of these are distinct and valuable elements in Cohen's thought, each of which must be recognized to understand the range and implications of Cohen's socialism. (shrink)

Although contemporary Western culture and criticism has usually valued composition over improvisation and placed the authority of a musical work with the written text rather than the performer, this essay posits these divisions as too facile to articulate the complex dynamics of making music in any genre or form. Rather it insists that music should be understood as pieces that are created with specific intentions by composers but which possess possibilities of interpretation that can only be brought out through performance.

According to luck egalitarianism, it is unjust if some are worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. The most common criticism of luck egalitarianism is the ‘harshness objection’, which states that luck egalitarianism allows for too harsh consequences, as it fails to provide justification for why those responsible for their bad fate can be entitled to society's assistance. It has largely gone unnoticed that the harshness objection is open to a number of very different interpretations. (...) We present four different interpretations of the harshness objection in which the problem pertains to counterintuitive implications, badness of outcome, disproportionality, or inconsistency, respectively. We analyse and discuss appropriate luck egalitarian replies. Disentangling these different versions clarifies what is at the heart of this dispute and reveals the point of the harshness objection. We conclude that only the inconsistency version involves a durable problem for luck egalitarianism. (shrink)

Relational egalitarianism is a theory of justice according to which people must relate as equals. In this article, we develop relational sufficientarianism – a view of justice according to which people must relate as sufficients. We distinguish between three versions of this ideal, one that is incompatible with relational egalitarianism and two that are not. Building on this, we argue that relational theorists have good reason to support a pluralist view that is both egalitarian and sufficientarian.