To understand the radical potential of Heidegger’s model of practice, we need to acknowledge the role that temporality plays within it. Commentaries on Heidegger’s account of practical engagement, however, often leave the connection between purposiveness and temporality unexplored, a tendency that persists in the contemporary discourse generated by the interaction between the phenomenological tradition and certain approaches within cognitive science. Taking up a temporality-oriented reading that redresses this can, I want to argue here, reveal new illuminating sites for the intersection (...) between phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, particularly between Heideggerian perspectives and what have become known as enactive approaches to the study of cognition. According to the latter, cognition is an inherently relational process through which the interaction of a living being and its environment generates meaning and, ultimately, a world of significance defined by the cogniser’s self-concern. I will suggest that this emphasis upon the inextricable intertwining of agent and world renders enactive models of cognition particularly congenial to a mutually enriching dialogue with Heidegger’s account of purposiveness, particularly if we read the latter in terms of the temporal framework that Being and Time offers us. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon both argue that oppression fundamentally constrains the subject’s relationship to and embodied experience of time, yet their accounts of temporality are rarely brought together. This paper will explore what we might learn about the operation of different types of reductive temporality if we read Beauvoir and Fanon alongside each other, focusing primarily on the early works that arguably lay out the central concerns of their respective temporal frameworks. At first glance, it seems that these (...) two models of temporality have radically different emphases. While Beauvoir suggests that reductive temporalities work to sever the future from the past and present, Fanon locates this destructive operation in the heightening of their entanglement. However, I will contend that there are deep affinities between these accounts: For both Beauvoir and Fanon, freedom is bound up with futurity, with its lack therefore cashed out in terms of stagnation, repetition, and the entrapment within a hollow moment that prevents authentic projection. Both resist teleological perspectives; problematize the endeavor to describe the structures of lived temporality in neutral terms; and show that temporality is crucial to the pursuit of a political phenomenology. These resonances, however, should only serve to recast rather than dissolve the tension between their approaches; ultimately, we need to acknowledge the distinctiveness of their differing concerns and aims. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of conceptualising phenomenology as explanatory for the ongoing dialogue between the phenomenological tradition and cognitive science, especially enactive approaches to cognition. The first half of the paper offers three interlinked arguments: Firstly, that differentiating between phenomenology and the natural sciences by designating one as descriptive and the other as explanatory undermines opportunities for the kind of productive friction that is required for genuine ‘mutual enlightenment’. Secondly, that conceiving of phenomenology as descriptive rather than explanatory risks (...) committing us to what Zahavi (2019) identifies as the error of equating the phenomenological with the phenomenal. Finally, that the erroneous reduction to the descriptive occludes the rich resources that the phenomenological tradition can contribute to investigations of non-human cognition. The second half of the paper then turns to focus specifically on the promising relationship between phenomenology and enactive approaches to cognition. It will suggest that phenomenology must be seen as having explanatory capacities if it is to shed light on the structures of “mind in life” (Thompson, 2007), before drawing on the model of explanation put forward by Louis Sass to explore what this might look like. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, democracy and oligarchy are empirically the most widespread and analytically fundamental ‘constitutions’. I analyse how in different places in his Politics Aristotle ‘positively’ defines and differentiates between democracy and oligarchy. At the same time, I substantiate in detail a new interpretation of Aristotle’s view that significantly differs from the current interpretation. ‘Combining’ the elements, procedures, and principles of democracy and oligarchy gives rise to mixed ‘constitutions’, a special place among which is occupied by the polity or republic, (...) which is the best regime ‘for most states and for most people’. I show the ways in which, according to Aristotle, it is possible to form such a regime. Carl Schmitt and, later somewhat differently, Bernard Manin draw a link between Aristotle’s mixed regime and the representative democracies of today. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger svým poukázáním na mathématický charakter novověké vědy vyostřil rozbor její bytnosti prostřednictvím výkladu klíčové části její metody, jež podle něj spočívá v „souvislosti hypotéza-experiment“. V Heideggerově výkladu experimentální charakter novověké vědy znamená předchůdný metafyzický akt logického stanovení obecného porozumění významu „jsoucna“. Heidegger tedy analyzuje čtyři stupně konceptu „zakoušení“, jenž rozlišuje moderní vědu ode všech starších pojetí „vědy“. Ovšem vše, čeho chce Heidegger dosáhnout, je jasné nahlédnutí do podstaty časového charakteru „existence“.

This project seeks to address the way in which democratic citizens are equal, and the kind of equality of opportunity that follows from this notion of equality. I will then apply this theoretical discussion to public education, a fundamental component of any notion of equality of opportunity. I am asserting principles that may inform questions of equality in any democracy, but I am giving specific content to the way these ideals have been articulated in one particular democracy. Because I ultimately (...) want to make sense of the best realization of these ideals in the American educational system, I will explore these with reference to American political morality. (shrink)

This chapter uses one particular proposal for interdisciplinary collaboration – in this case, between early Heideggerian phenomenology and enactivist cognitive science – as an example of how such partnerships may confront and negotiate tensions between the perspectives they bring together. The discussion begins by summarising some of the intersections that render Heideggerian and enactivist thought promising interlocutors for each other. It then moves on to explore how Heideggerian enactivism could respond to the challenge of reconciling the significant differences in the (...) ways that each discourse seeks to apply the structures it claims to uncover. (shrink)

Heidegger’s brief remarks on the theme of love enable us to reconstruct a view of it as a powerful feeling that both requires and amplifies a truthful recognition of oneself. The emphasis this places on the significance of love for the self and of the self for love, along with the kairological temporality Heidegger associates with love, means the account ends up “both sacralising and marginalising the other” (Tömmel, 2019, 242). I will suggest that this problem arises because Heidegger’s account (...) elevates love’s disruptive possibilities at the expense of its capacity to generate a shared world of everyday experience, and that his account of world-time offers underutilized resources for addressing this issue. This, in turn, generates a picture that resonates in illuminating ways with both Yao’s (2020) model of gracious attentive love, and De Jaegher’s (2021) enactivist account of the relationship between loving and knowing. (shrink)

The enactive approach is becoming increasingly influential within the philosophy of cognition, to the extent that it is now one of the dominant models of embodied cognition—an umbrella term for a varied set of discourses sharing the view that our minds don’t just happen to be ‘in’ bodies, but are enabled, shaped and (at least partly) constituted by the specifics of our physicality. This chapter will argue that the rise of enactivism is particularly relevant to transhumanist discourses, and vice versa, (...) because their concerns intersect and conflict in vital ways. The discussion will use three core enactivist themes—organisational integrity, embodiment, and precarity—to draw out the kinds of tensions and intersections that enable enactivism and transhumanism to problematise one another. Enactivism defines life and cognition in terms of autonomy; that is, it posits that living systems generate and maintain themselves as porous yet bounded self-unities. This sets up a delicate balance—both for the enacting system and for enactivism itself—between the dual imperatives of adaptive self-creation and homeostasis. The system must change constantly in order to sustain itself, yet there is a limit to the system’s flexibility. Beyond a certain point, change means disintegration, and disintegration means death. This balance itself resonates within transhumanist discourses, in the tension between the promise of radical self-transformation and the concern about taking this too far. These discourses, however, also challenge enactivism’s potential to capture the full potential of the kinds of systems it describes. How do we determine the limits of morphological flexibility for cognisers as complex as ourselves? Are those limits fixed or malleable—and must integration always mean death, or can it facilitate redefinition? (shrink)

The art of Simon Finn has always had a markedly temporal dynamic. Vast structures built and annihilated again and again across different media, their fragmentation across space and time simultaneously methodical and darkly chaotic. Roiling waters and eldritch surfaces held captive in their unrest. Finn’s works render cycles of construction and disintegration, of stasis and motion, in ways that shed light upon the underlying structures of our experience of time while shattering simplistic notions of linearity. This is nowhere more apparent (...) than in Instability, through which Finn allows us to explore the intertwining of personal and historical time, ancestral memory and radical futurity, artefactual form and temporal function. (shrink)

Second scholasticism, ​analytical metaphysics, and Christian apologetics are the three topics characteristic of the lifelong efforts of the eminent Czech philosopher Stanislav Sousedík, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2021. To honour this anniversary, a conference named accordingly was organized in Prague. The papers presented at this event — further elaborated by their authors and supplemented with Sousedík’s remarkable “Brief Autobiography” — constitute the gist of this book: a collective homage to Professor Sousedík and an attempt to promote and develop (...) his intellectual legacy. (shrink)

Rosi Braidotti has recently argued that the emerging scholarship on posthumanism should employ what she calls nomadic thinking. Braidotti identifies Gilles Deleuze’s work on Spinoza as the genesis of posthumanist ontology, yet Deleuze’s claims about nomadic thinking or nomadology come from his work on Leibniz. I argue that for posthumanist thought to theorize subjectivity beyond the human, it must use nomadology to overcome ontology itself. To make my argument, I demonstrate that while Braidotti is correct about Spinoza’s influence on Deleuze, (...) his work on Leibniz is necessary to adequately conceptualize nomadology. I employ Deleuze and Guattari’s figure of the Thought-brain as a model for conceptualizing posthumanist subjectivity that they claim goes beyond the subject itself. (shrink)

Amongst other things, this paper argues that a kind of anthropology, referred to by Strathern as modernist anthropology, has no reason to refer to artifacts except as illustrations. They are merely useful examples to illustrate information the anthropologist has provided about a given social/cultural context, e.g. to illustrate a worldview.

Fenomenologie není pouze specifická metoda filosofického zkoumání, ale též svébytná filosofická pozice. Husserl je znám a diskutován spíše jako autor právě zmíněné metody, ovšem ta přeci měla sloužit jakožto organon pro vytvoření samostatné filosofické nauky. Proto se bude v příspěvku věnovat pozornost Husserlovu chápání toho, co je to filosofie, a to v kontrastu proti dobově populárním filosofickým pozicím, jimiž byly naturalismus a filosofie světového názoru s jeho nejodpudivější podobou nazývanou Husserlem pejorativně „Tiefsinn“: důvtipná duchaplnost. Husserl zamýšlí odstranit oba zmíněné typy (...) filosofie skutečně přísně vědeckou filosofií, jež bude filosofií fenomenologickou. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl obdržel v roce 1927 nabídku od Jamese Louise Garvina, britského editora Encyclopædia Britannica, ať napíše pro novou, tehdy čtrnáctou edici článek „Fenomenologie“. Garvin stanovil rozsah článku na 4000 slov a termín vydání na září roku 1929. Husserl pracoval na článku v časovém rozmezí mezi zářím a prosincem roku 1927, během kterého vyhotovil celkem čtyři verze. Husserl požádal o spolupráci na prvních třech verzích svého žáka Martina Heideggera, který toho času zastával profesorský stolec na univerzitě v Marburku. Heidegger strávil (...) v říjnu 1927 u Husserla několik dní, během kterých intenzivně pracovali na řečeném článku. Nicméně jejich spolupráce vedla ke vzájemnému profesnímu odcizení, protože práce na formulování článku dala vytanout nepřekonatelným obsahovým diferencím mezi oběma filosofy. Na základě Heideggerových nepřijatelných návrhů a připomínek Husserl nakonec sepsal finální, čtvrtou verzi článku již sám. Tuto poslední verzi čítající 7000 slov pak Husserl předal oxfordskému učenci Christopheru V. Salmonovi, který ji měl zkrátit a přeložit do angličtiny. Salmon sice v únoru roku 1928 opravdu dodal do redakce EB text čítající 3844 slov bez bibliografie, ovšem nejednalo se vpravdě o překlad, nýbrž dost svévolnou parafrázi. Tato podoba Husserlova článku se pak objevovala ve čtrnácté edici EB, jež se vydávala až do roku 1974, jen do roku 1956, kdy byla nahrazena článkem napsaným Johnem N. Findlayem. Původní podoba Husserlova článku byla poprvé zveřejněna až roku 1962 v rámci jeho sebraných spisů známých pod označením Husserliana, podle jejichž IX. svazku jsme vyhotovili předložený překlad z německého jazyka. Podle této edice rovněž uvádíme paginaci, která je uvedena v hranatých závorkách, přičemž stránkový přechod indikuje v textu umístěná značka |.U příležitosti 80. výročí Husserlova skonu, který připadl na rok 2018, bylo naším záměrem připomenout přínos a odkaz tohoto našeho krajana tím, že napravíme absenci překladu jeho patrně nejvíce instruktivního, přehledného a programového textu, který byť ve zkomolené podobě anglického „překladu“, po dlouhou dobu seznamoval učenou veřejnost s tím, co je to fenomenologie. (shrink)

Images of species, sets, and containers, combined with an obsolete positivist theory of meaning and a curiously illogical interpretation of a structuralist understanding of meaning, together have driven feminists and their critics to find unavoidable essentialism and binary totalism in feminist theorists' use of the category WOMEN. This paper explores an enriched imagination for how categories can be structured internally and in relations to other categories, and proposes that we need to think categories simultaneously through multiple and mixed metaphors, including (...) the metaphors of a spun thread and family resemblance, and the image of correlational densities in multidimensional quality spaces. (shrink)

In the mid 30s of the 20th century Martin Heidegger attempted to explain the “history of Being” leading to what he called “the oblivion of Being”. In this he focused on the impact of the modern science, which he grants to be a sort of metaphysics. According to Heidegger, the main feature of the modern science consists in what he calls the mathéma-character. The Greek word “to mathéma” means “it what can be learned” and “what must be know beforehand”. It (...) is Heidegger’s intention to show that the mathéma-character of the modern science is deciding about the general understanding of the meaning of “being” and that modern science is replacing the metaphysics, which is the origin of the modern science. (shrink)

Feminist ethics supports the contemporary educational trend toward increased multiculturalism and a diminished emphasis on the Western canon. First, I outline a feminist ethical justification for this development. Second, I argue that Western canon studies should not be altogether abandoned in a multicultural curriculum. Third, I suggest that multicultural education should help combat oppression in addition to simply promoting awareness of diversity. Fourth, I caution against an arrogant moralism in the teaching of multiculturalism.

This book reconstructs Heidegger’s philosophy of time by reading his work with and against a series of key interlocutors that he nominates as being central to his own critical history of time. In doing so, it explains what makes time of such significance for Heidegger and argues that Heidegger can contribute to contemporary debates in the philosophy of time. Time is a central concern for Heidegger, yet his thinking on the subject is fragmented, making it difficult to grasp its depth, (...) complexity, and promise. Heidegger traces out a history that focuses on the conceptualisations of time put forward by Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Bergson, and Husserl—an “alternative history of time” that challenges how time has been defined and studied within both philosophy and the sciences. This book explores what happens when we take seriously Heidegger’s claim that these seven figures are essential to any understanding of time, setting out what this can tell us about existence, possibility, and philosophy as a historical discipline. Heidegger’s Alternative History of Time will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on Heidegger, phenomenology, the philosophy of time, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The objective of this case study concentrated on examining the learning gap, going through some components of the transformation process, and coming up with some ways for aiding students who were experiencing lost learning. A qualitative research design was utilized by the researchers to understand and solve the cases related to Mathematics learning difficulties. Creswell (2008) asserts that qualitative research can be used to discover and comprehend the significance that certain people or groups assign to social or human issues. The (...) researchers used purposive sampling to determine 15 student participants to understand the cases of learning loss and prescribe better interventions to the students. To solve the problems associated with loss of learning experienced by the learners after remote learning, a case study will be utilized as the strategy of inquiry since it fits the situation that is to focus the said key cases, discuss some transforming process, and develop interventions. After analyzing the interviews, researchers identified three common themes across the three cases which serve to clarify the learners' experiences after the post-remote learning: the learners' learning experiences during remote learning, factors that caused learning loss in Mathematics, and learners' coping strategies. In a deeper analysis, the impact of distance learning on students during the pandemic goes beyond just the difficulties in learning and understanding lessons which resulted in difficulty in learning math during in-person classes. The lack of in-person interaction with classmates and teachers also contributes to a sense of isolation and boredom, negatively affecting students' overall well-being and mental health. (shrink)

One element in the choice of a constitutional design or model of democracy is the criterion of efficiency. Different political scientists, however, understand the word ‘efficiency’ in different ways. The author suggests a distinction between its two main meanings: (1) efficiency-action capacity and (2) effectiveness-socioeconomic performance. It is not just socio-economic effectiveness that is important, but also political efficiency-action capacity. Efficiency-action capacity is closely linked with the theory of democracy put forward by Schumpeter and adopted by the majority of political (...) scientists today. Thus efficiency is essential not only for the government (in that it simplifies the operation of power) but also, and even more importantly, for the governed, for the citizens (in that it simplifies the choice and peaceful removal of the rulers, i.e. the executive). (shrink)

The present collection of translations arises from our work within Writing Urban Places, a network of researchers interested in the different ways citizens appropriate meaningful built environments through stories, and in doing so are also better able to integrate with others. A key locus in this respect is what our network has termed the ‘mid-sized’ [or ‘intermediate’] European city. Often afforded only cursory attention in the discussion of both culture and society, overlooked in favour of more usual suspects, such urban (...) places allow for a more de-centred, and on occasions regionally focused, view of urban practices, even as they play host to a significant element of contemporary European life and experience. The quest for meaningfulness and appropriation of the urban environment through co-creative, adaptive, and transformative processes (many of which have a textual quality) became central to the theoretical framework of this initiative. Between the individual places in which such processes could be observed and documented, we hypothesized, arises the problem of intermediation – the move from place to place, and its techniques. Translation, more than a textual practice among others, emerged as a structuring consideration of the project at a European scale. Other Destinations is the outcome of this collective process presented here, offering entry into this work to an English-language readership for the first time. We hope that, even as they bring their cities of origin somewhat closer to a new readership, those readers will be uprooted and moved some distance in the direction of these ‘other destinations.’ -/- The edited volume Other Destinations. Translating the Mid-sized European City thus features English translations of 15 21st century (mainly) literary texts published in different media (books, podcasts, journals, online/social media) originally written in languages other than English and that have not previously been translated into English. The selected texts cover the topic of mid-sized European cities, where mid-sized does not solely refer to the size in terms of geographical scope or the number of inhabitants, but also to their socio-historical context of urban identity where these cities are neither metropolises nor small towns, but “other”, lesser-known European cities. The texts selected to be translated in this edited volume cover cities like Volos, Canakkale, Varna, Plovdiv, Durres, Tirana, Porto, Den Haag, Osijek, Salzburg, Naples, Zrenjanin, Loule and others…. The publication intends to enhance the dissemination and accessibility to an international readership of texts about overlooked urban contexts, “other”, lesser-known European cities, their stories and signifying practices in order to develop a better awareness of these cities, their self-constructions, and their responses to the challenges of the present. (shrink)

Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice, 2nd Edition, shows your undergraduate and graduate students how theory will help them improve the ways in which they practice nursing. It contains contributions by the original theorists, including discussion of how theories can be used in practice and examples of implementation written by nurses themselves. to help your students develop critical thinking skills, clear explanations of multiple ways of knowing are detailed, in addition to reflective practice, and background information on the process of theory (...) development. (shrink)

It is tempting to interpret Marilyn Strathern as saying that the concept of nature is a social construction, because in her essay “No Nature, No Culture: the Hagen Case” she tells us that the Hagen people do not describe the world using this concept. However, I point out an obstacle to interpreting her in this way, an obstacle which leads me to reject this interpretation. Interpreting her in this way makes her inconsistent. The inconsistency is owing to a commitment (...) that she shares with previous British anthropologists, a commitment which points to an incompatibility between two intellectual traditions. (shrink)

Marilyn McCord Adams’s perspective on the intimacy with God as a way of defeating horrendous evils in the course of a human being’s existence has been met with a series of objections in contemporary scholarship. This is due to the fact that the critiques formulated have focused more on the debilitating impact of suffering on the sufferer’s body and mind, on intimacy as mere intermittent relationships between God and humans, or on what is lost or gained from the presence (...) or absence of this intimacy with the divine being. Focusing on Adams’s appeal to esthetic arguments in theodicy and on her reflection on practical issues in theology, the article presents Adams’s perspective on intimacy as a relation initiated objectively by God at the creation and at Christ’s incarnation and continued subjectively throughout history by both God and every human being. Given its combining of objective and subjective features, this kind of intimacy is not to be understood as an exclusively private relationship of each individual with God, but rather as a process of communal advancing in rehabilitation and mutual healing that is initiated in the antemortem career and fulfilled in the post-mortem existence. (shrink)

Economics uses rational actor models, but what about anthropology? I present an interpretation of the influential anthropologist Marilyn Strathern according to which she engages in a kind of rational actor modelling, but a kind that is different from economic modelling.

Today it is commonly believed that capitalism is driven by greed. However, greed is condemned by various religious traditions. In this paper we compare how Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, and Michael Novak, a Catholic, see the possibilities of engaging in competitive business practice without the motive of greed. This discussion suggests a need to distinguish greed from self-interest. We therefore analyze whether it makes a difference in moral evaluation to claim that the real driving force of capitalism is self-interest (...) but not greed. Our analysis makes use of the rational-care theory of self-interest developed by Stephen Darwall, the discussion of which has been absent in the business ethics literature. Our conclusion is that there is a quantitative but not qualitative difference between the two. (shrink)

This paper presents an attempted pastiche of the writing and thinking style of the distinguished anthropologist Marilyn Strathern. The claim about the consequence of avoiding the charge of exoticism resembles the paradox of analysis.

Marilyn Strathern argues against the possibility of feminist research bringing about a paradigm shift in social anthropology. In an earlier paper, my interpretation of Strathern’s argument, or one of them, is similar to Janaki Nair’s response in broad outline. But it is different in detail and I also object to Strathern’s argument, whereas Nair endorses the argument she extracts. Here I identify differences and I object to the Nair-Strathern argument as well.

I respond to the charge that one of my objections to Marilyn Strathern’s rejection of feminist anthropology is the same as an objection made by Kamala Visweswaran. They may seem very similar to begin with, but I argue that there is both a difference in focus - in which premises we are concentrating on - and in method.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 5, Page 899-906, September 2022.

A prominent academic, rabbi, and government appointee claims that same-sex marriage is unjust.

In her paper ‘An Awkward Relationship: the Case of Feminism and Anthropology’, Marilyn Strathern argues that feminist research cannot produce a paradigm shift in social anthropology. I reconstruct her arguments and evaluate them, revealing that they are insufficient for ruling out this possibility.

This paper evaluates a definition of anthropology at home formulated by Marilyn Strathern in her book contribution 'The Limits of Auto-Anthropology'. According to the definition, anthropology at home is anthropology carried out in the social context that produced this discipline. I argue that this is not an adequate definition of anthropology at home.

This paper responds to an argument against a kind of anthropology. According to the argument, if the aim of anthropology is to describe the different worldviews of different groups, then anthropologists should only refer to material artefacts in order to illustrate a worldview; but the interest of artefacts to anthropology goes beyond mere illustration. This argument has been endorsed by key members of the ontological movement in anthropology, who found at least one of its premises in Marilyn Strathern’s writing.

Most see having their individuality stifled as equivalent to the terrible forced conformity found within speculative fiction like George Orwell's 1984. However, the oppression of others by those in power has often been justified through ideologies of individualism. If we look to animistic traditions, could we bridge the gap between these extremes? What effect would such a reevaluation of identity have on the modern understanding of selfhood? The term ' in-dividual' suggests an irreducible unit of identity carried underneath all of (...) our titles and experiences—the real self. By linking Marilyn Strathern's elaboration of dividualism and Nurit Bird-David's relational epistemology , a clear contrast forms between the animistic sense of self and that of the West. This system of selfhood more readily encourages a life lived in Henri Bergson's sense of duration and sets up a state of dialogical discourse , as seen in Mikhail Bakhtin's work. These concepts challenge the traditional praise for individuality and exposes how individualism can be used as a tool of marginalization as seen in Michel Foucault's critique of authorship. I argue that pursuing a sense of self rooted in these concepts instead of individualism mitigates this marginalization via a more socially aware cultural environment that the traditional Western sense of self fails to create. (shrink)

Marilyn Adams rightly pointed out that there are many kinds of evil, some of which are horrendous. I claim that one species of horrendous evil is what I call horrendous-difference disabilities. I distinguish two subspecies of horrendous-difference disabilities based in part on the temporal relation between one’s rational moral wishing for a certain human function F and its being thwarted by intrinsic and extrinsic conditions. Next, I offer a theodicy for each subspecies of horrendous-difference disability. Although I appeal to (...) some claims made by Marilyn Adams for this theodicy, I reject one particular claim. I deny that one must be aware that one participates in a horrendous evil when the horrific event occurs. To develop this point and its relevance for a theodicy for horrendous-difference disabilities, I engage with Andrew Chignell’s work on infant suffering. In doing so, I show that what partly motivates the claim is a time-bias, i.e., near-bias. By rejecting this time-bias, I show how it is possible, given post-mortem life, for persons with profound cognitive disabilities to participate in horrendous evils and how these might be defeated by God. (shrink)

Marilyn Strathern’s arguments against the possibility of feminist research bringing about a paradigm shift in social anthropology have led to a number of responses. Regarding one argument she presents, her own writings suggest a response: the argument that feminist research cannot bring about such a shift, because it is only concerned with part of society. A foray into the history of British social anthropology is of value for appreciating this argument and the response.

I present an argument Marilyn Strathern makes against characterizing Elmdon villagers as innately lazy. It looks as if the eventual direction of this material is going to be a rational actor model.

In a recent article, Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie offers three arguments for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 biotechnology research to cure sickle-cell disease (SCD) based on addressing historical and current injustices in SCD research and care. I show that her second and third arguments suffer from roughly the same defect, which is that they really argue for something else rather than for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 research in particular. For instance, the second argument argues that conducting this gene therapy research would improve the relationship between SCD (...) sufferers (who are mostly of African descent) and health care providers. But really what is essential in improving this relationship is for those providers to genuinely care and be concerned, and this could be lacking even with the CRISPR research being done. Indeed, this relationship could be improved even without that research being done, as long as there is genuine concern. Thus, this argument actually argues for the need for genuine concern. As for the third argument, one (of two) problems arises because it claims that CRISPR research for SCD should be pursued because the benefits would be shared by even non-research-participants, as non-participants would be encouraged. However, this argues for any research for SCD, not for CRISPR research in particular. I conclude that a better justice-based argument will use only Baffoe-Bonnie’s first argument, which is based on historic neglect of an actual cure for SCD (going beyond merely management or transplant therapies). (shrink)

Why do a conceptual analysis on a word that we already know how to use? Marilyn Strathern provides some information on garden cities and suburbs which suggests a novel solution to me.

This paper challenges Marilyn Strathern’s claim that it is, or was, an axiom of social anthropology that societies differ in how they handle the same facts. I present a set of foundational commitments for conducting social anthropology which leave the truth of the proposition as an empirical question of the discipline.

It is now the majority view amongst philosophers and theologians that any world could have been better. This places the choice of which world to create into an especially challenging class of decision problems: those that are discontinuous in the limit. I argue that combining some weak, plausible norms governing this type of problem with a creator who has the attributes of the god of classical theism results in a paradox: no world is possible. After exploring some ways out of (...) the paradox, I conclude that the classical theist should accept Marilyn Adams’s view that no norms apply to gods. (shrink)

Anger gaslighting is behavior that tends to make someone doubt herself about her anger. In this paper, I analyze the case of anger gaslighting, using it as a paradigm case to argue that gaslighting can be an affective injustice (not only an epistemic one). Drawing on Marilyn Frye, I introduce the concept of “uptake” as a tool for identifying anger gaslighting behavior (persistent, pervasive uptake refusal for apt anger). But I also demonstrate the larger significance of uptake in the (...) study of affective injustice: just as the concept of credibility names the epistemic behavior whereby we take someone seriously as an epistemic being, the concept of uptake names the uniquely affective cooperative behavior whereby we take someone seriously as an affective being. I answer Miranda Fricker’s epistemic notion of a prejudicial credibility economy with the affective notion of prejudicial uptake economies: uptake, like credibility, can be produced in a deficit for one social group relative to a surplus for another. Deviating from the parallels with Fricker, for whom the injustice of epistemic injustice is due to prejudice in the motives or character of individuals, as well as from accounts that ground it in aptness or affective goods, I suggest that the injustice of anger gaslighting behavior can be located at the structural scale of power relationships between social groups, in the tradition of Iris Marion Young. Anger gaslighting behavior counts as unjust wherever it (re)produces prejudicial uptake economies. Adapting sociological concepts of feeling rules and the emotion work they demand, I introduce the concepts of “uptake rules” and “uptake work” to further enable analysis of uptake economies as affective social structures, and to suggest a site for resistant or reparative affective agency. (shrink)

This brief article, appearing in Issue #2 of The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics and Art, published online on 22 November 2022), explores Nietzsche's perspective on the perils of mass psychosis in modern society and the threat it entails in accommodating increasingly repressive systems of social control against the background of the COVID pandemic, and drawing on the example of Novak Djokovic's deportation from Australia in January 2022.

John Locke is known within anthropology primarily for his empiricism, his views of natural laws, and his discussion of the state of nature and the social contract. Marilyn Strathern and Marshall Sahlins, however, have offered distinctive, novel, and broad reflections on the nature of anthropological knowledge that appeal explicitly to a lesser-known aspect of Locke’s work: his metaphysical views of relations. This paper examines their distinctive conclusions – Sahlins’ about cultural relativism, Strathern’s about relatives and kinship – both of (...) which concern the objectivity of anthropological knowledge. Although Locke’s own views of relations have been neglected by historians of philosophy in the past, recent and ongoing philosophical discussions of Locke on relations create a productive trading zone between philosophy and anthropology on the objectivity of anthropological knowledge that goes beyond engagement with the particular claims made by Sahlins and Strathern. (shrink)

Jim Sterba’s Is a Good God Logically Possible? looks to resurrect J. L. Mackie’s logical argument from evil. Sterba accepts the general framework that theists seeking to give a theodicy have favored since Leibniz invented the term: the search for some greater good provided or greater evil averted that would justify God in permitting the type and variety of evil we actually observe. However, Sterba introduces a deontic twist, drawing on the Pauline Principle (let us not do evil that good (...) may come) to introduce three deontic side constraints on God’s choice of action. He then splits the possible goods into four categories: first- vs. second-order goods, goods to which we have a right, and goods to which we do not have a right. He argues that his deontic constraints rule out each combination, thereby showing that no God-justifying good is on offer. To defuse the argument, I draw on a pair of ideas from Marilyn McCord Adams: (i) God is outside the bounds of morality, and (ii) God can defeat evils by incorporating them into an incommensurately valuable friendship with each human. Properly appreciated, these show that the new logical argument relies on a false premise that is not easily repaired. (shrink)

Interpretations are generally regarded as the formal representation of the concept of translation.We do not subscribe to this view. A translation method must indeed establish relative consistency or have some uniformity. These are requirements of a translation. Yet, one can both be more strict or more flexible than interpretations are. In this article, we will define a general scheme translation. It should incorporate interpretations but also be compatible with more flexible methods. By doing so, we want to account for methods (...) that seem to imply a sense of translation but are not reducible to interpretations. The main example will be the relative consistent proof between ZF and NBG given by Novak (1950). Further, we will explore a way of combining interpretations. This should account for truth conditions discarded by interpretations in translated theories. (shrink)