ABSTRACT In this article, I indicate how the naturalized and individualized conception of disability that prevails in philosophy informs the indifference of philosophers to the predictable COVID-19 tragedy that has unfolded in nursing homes, supported living centers, psychiatric institutions, and other institutions in which elders and younger disabled people are placed. I maintain that, insofar as feminist and other discourses represent these institutions as sites of care and love, they enact structural gaslighting. I argue, therefore, that philosophers must engage in (...) conceptual engineering with respect to how disability and these institutions are understood and represented. To substantiate my argument, I trace the sequence of catastrophic events that have occurred in nursing homes in Canada and in the Canadian province of Ontario in particular during the pandemic, tying these events to other past and current eugenic practices produced in the Canadian context. The crux of the article is that the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into vivid relief the carceral character of nursing homes and other congregate settings in which elders and younger disabled people are confined. -/- KEYWORDS carceral, conceptual engineering, nursing home-industrial-complex, philosophy of disability, structural gaslighting. (shrink)

This article is a feminist intervention into the ways that disability is researched and represented in philosophy at present. Nevertheless, some of the claims that I make over the course of the article are also pertinent to the marginalization in philosophy of other areas of inquiry, including philosophy of race, feminist philosophy more broadly, indigenous philosophies, and LGBTQI philosophy. Although the discipline of philosophy largely continues to operate under the guise of neutrality, rationality, and objectivity, the institutionalized structure of the (...) discipline implicitly and explicitly promotes certain ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies as bona fide philosophy, while casting the ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies of marginalized philosophies as mere simulacra of allegedly fundamental ways of knowing and doing philosophy and thus rendering these marginalized philosophies more or less expendable. This article is designed to show that legitimized philosophical discourses are vital mechanisms in the problematization of disability. (shrink)

Cecilea discusses with Shelley Tremain her experience as a first-generation U.S. citizen and first-generation university graduate; why she was motivated to study philosophy and become a professional philosopher; the launching of the new, open access, online journal, the Journal of Philosophy of Emotions (JPE); the “mismatch” between what she seemed like “on paper” and what she is is capable of; how societal, institutional, professional, and philosophical practices and policies must be adjusted to enable others like her to flourish as (...) professional philosophers; and any resources—such as articles, books, and videos—that she would like to recommend on the topics and issues that she has addressed in this interview. (shrink)

If, as Richard Wollheim says, the Acquaintance Principle is ‘a well-entrenched principle in aesthetics,’ it would be surprising if there were not something true at which those who have asserted it have been aiming. I argue that the Acquaintance Principle cannot be true on any traditional epistemic interpretation, nor on any usability interpretation of the sort Robert Hopkins has recently suggested. I then argue for an interpretation of the principle that treats acquaintance as the end to which judgments of aesthetic (...) value are the means as opposed to the other way around. (shrink)

The default theory of aesthetic value combines hedonism about aesthetic value with strict perceptual formalism about aesthetic value, holding the aesthetic value of an object to be the value it has in virtue of the pleasure it gives strictly in virtue of its perceptual properties. A standard theory of aesthetic value is any theory of aesthetic value that takes the default theory as its theoretical point of departure. This paper argues that standard theories fail because they theorize from the default (...) theory. (shrink)

Isenbergian particularism is the view that we make no appeal to general principles in criticism. Sibleyan generalism is the view that we do make appeal to general reasons in criticism. I argue that Isenbergian particularism and Sibleyan generalism are compatible one with another. I refer to their conjunction as "critical compatibilism" and argue that we ought to accept it over its rivals: strong particularism (the view that we make appeal neither to general principles nor to general reasons in criticism) and (...) strong generalism (the view that we make appeal both to general principles and to general reasons in criticism). (shrink)

Locke’s account of personal identity has been highly influential because of its emphasis on a psychological criterion. The same consciousness is required for being the same person. It is not so clear, however, exactly what Locke meant by ‘consciousness’ or by ‘having the same consciousness’. Interpretations vary: consciousness is seen as identical to memory, as identical to a first personal appropriation of mental states, and as identical to a first personal distinctive experience of the qualitative features of one’s own thinking. (...) There is wide agreement, however, that Locke’s theory of personal identity is meant to complement his moral and theological commitments to a system of divine punishment and reward in an afterlife. But these commitments seem to require also a metaphysical criterion, and Locke is insistent that it cannot be substance. The difficulty reconciling the psychological and metaphysical requirements of the theory has led, at worst, to charges of incoherence and, at best, to a slew of interpretations, none of which is widely accepted. (shrink)

A summary of issues related to symbolic capital, authorial presences, and intellectual property rights, and the necessity of finding a way out of 500-600 years of capitalist exploitation of the knowledge commons.

Arthur Danto argued from the premiss that artworks are essentially cognitive to the conclusion that they are incidentally aesthetic. I wonder why Danto, and the very many of us he persuaded, came to believe that the cognitive and the aesthetic oppose one another. I argue, contrary to Danto’s historical claims, that the cognitive and the aesthetic did not come into opposition until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and that they were brought into opposition for reasons of art-critical expediency (...) rather than philosophical necessity. I conclude that a robustly cognitive notion of the aesthetic remains an option for us. (shrink)

: This article critically examines the constitution of impairment in prenatal testing and screening practices and various discourses that surround these technologies. While technologies to test and screen prenatally are claimed to enhance women's capacity to be self-determining, make informed reproductive choices, and, in effect, wrest control of their bodies from a patriarchal medical establishment, I contend that this emerging relation between pregnant women and reproductive technologies is a new strategy of a form of power that began to emerge in (...) the late eighteenth century. Indeed, my argument is that the constitution of prenatal impairment, by and through these practices and procedures, is a widening form of modern government that increasingly limits the field of possible conduct in response to pregnancy. Hence, the government of impairment in utero is inextricably intertwined with the government of the maternal body. (shrink)

This commentary responds to Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal’s call for further investigations of the whiteness of AI. My response focuses on three overlapping projects needed to more fully understand racial bias in the construction of AI and its representations in pop culture: unpacking the intersections of gender and other variables with whiteness in AI’s construction, marketing, and intended functions; observing the many different ways in which whiteness is scripted, and noting how white racial framing exceeds white casting and thus (...) cannot be undone by more diverse and inclusive hiring. Our techno-utopian fantasies, I conclude, are morally suspect in ways that go beneath and beyond the white plastic covering on robotic bodies. (shrink)

in their famous correspondence, Stillingfleet objects that Locke's definition of knowledge, by limiting certainty to the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, lessens the credibility of faith. Locke replies that his definition of knowledge does not affect the credibility of an article of faith at all, for faith and knowledge are entirely different cognitive acts: The truth of the matter of fact is in short this, that I have placed knowledge in the perception of the agreement or disagreement (...) of ideas. This definition of knowledge, your lordship said, "might be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith, which you have endeavored to defend." This I denied, and gave this reason for it, viz.... (shrink)

Locke’s theory of personal identity was philosophically groundbreaking for its attempt to establish a non-substantial identity condition. Locke states, “For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d” (II.xxvii.13). Many have interpreted Locke to think that consciousness identifies a self both synchronically and diachronically by attributing thoughts and actions to a self. Thus, many have attributed to Locke either a memory theory or an appropriation theory of personal identity. But the former (...) stumble on circularity and the latter is insufficient for Locke’s moral theory insofar as he is committed to a theory of divine rectification. The common problem is that Locke’s theory seems to demand an objective, or metaphysical, fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to a traditional notion of substance for the continuity. I’m suggesting something new. In II.xxvii of the Essay, we see an ambiguity in Locke’s use of the term ‘consciousness’. Locke seems to see consciousness as both a mental state by means of which we are aware of ourselves as perceiving and as the ongoing self we are aware of in these conscious states. First, I make the textual argument why we should read Locke as having a conception of a metaphysical fact of a continuing consciousness that does not appeal to thinking or bodily substance to establish its continuity. I then argue that the metaphysical fact of an enduring consciousness is revealed to us as a phenomenological fact of experience. Due to the nature of certain kinds of perceptual situations we have an experience of ourselves as temporally extended. Although the text bears out that Locke seemed to think there is a fact of an ongoing consciousness, I argue that it is consistent with his reluctance elsewhere that he makes no further epistemological or ontological claims about it. Finally, I provide an account of Locke’s understanding of memory and its relation to consciousness that supports the claim that consciousness is something ontologically distinct from either thinking or bodily substance. (shrink)

In this article, I offer an account of what one of the short-term political aims of proponents of greater equality ought to be. I claim that the strengthening of reflective capacity—citizens’ ability to impose a temporary level of distance from their commitments, to consider alternatives to them, and to evaluate their origins and validity—ought to be one key aim of egalitarian politics under present political conditions. I then propose activist-led education programs as one desirable means to deliver this end of (...) strengthened reflective capacity. Where activist-led education provides plentiful informational resources and opportunities to practice deploying one’s reflective capacity, and also emphasizes and encourages intellectual humility, it seems well placed to help bring about this aim. Activist-led education programs are commonly subject to what I term the indoctrination worry, but I try to show that there are not good grounds for concluding in advance of further study that the delicate balancing of ends that permissible activist-led education requires is either categorically unachievable, or avoidable in the way these objectors often press. The argument thus provides presumptive grounds for considering the proliferation of suitably organized activist-led education programs an important component of a broader strategy of egalitarian social change. (shrink)

This article examines one way institutionalized sexism operates in the university setting by examining the gender roles and gender hierarchies implicit in (allegedly gender-neutral) university tenure and promotion policies. Current working assumptions regarding (1) what constitutes good research, teaching, and service and (2) the relative importance of each of these endeavors reflect and perpetuate masculine values and practices, thus preventing the professional advancement of female faculty both individually and collectively. A gendered division of labor exists within (as outside) the contemporary (...) academy wherein research is implicitly deemed "men's work" and is explicitly valued, whereas teaching and service are characterized as "women's work" and explicitly devalued. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: With this article, I advance a historicist and relativist feminist philosophy of disability. I argue that Foucault’s insights offer the most astute tools with which to engage in this intellectual enterprise. Genealogy, the technique of investigation that Friedrich Nietzsche famously introduced and that Foucault took up and adapted in his own work, demonstrates that Foucault’s historicist approach has greater explanatory power and transgressive potential for analyses of disability than his critics in disability studies have thus far recognized. I show (...) how a feminist philosophy of disability that employs Foucault’s technique of genealogy avoids ahistorical, teleological, and transcultural assumptions that beleaguer much work in disability studies. The article also situates feminist philosophical work on disability squarely in age-old debates in (Eurocentric) Western philosophy about universalism vs. relativism, materialism vs. idealism, realism vs. nominalism, and freewill vs. determinism, as well as contributes to ongoing discussions in (Western) feminist philosophy and theory about (among other things) essentialism vs. constructivism, identity, race, sexuality, agency, and experience. (shrink)

Review of “The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 1910-37”, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, November 25, 2011-March 4, 2012. A version of this essay appeared in the Appendices of Gavin Keeney, Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art and Architecture (CSP, 2014), pp. 153-57.

Locke has been accused of failing to have a coherent understanding of consciousness, since it can be identical neither to reflection nor to ordinary perception without contradicting other important commitments. I argue that the account of consciousness is coherent once we see that, for Locke, perceptions of ideas are complex mental acts and that consciousness can be seen as a special kind of self-referential mental state internal to any perception of an idea.

A discussion of what operates from "within" formal agency as irreal surplus to artworks and how otherwise discursive systems become abstracted by the artwork. Text by Gavin Keeney. Images by Parsa Khalili.

An essay on non-discursive forms of knowledge that inhabit art photography. A version of this essay appeared in Gavin Keeney, "Else-where": Essays in Art, Architecture, and Cultural Production 2002-2011 (CSP, 2011), pp. 209-26.

Until now, philosophical debate about human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research has largely been limited to its ethical dimensions and implications. Although the importance and urgency of these ethical debates should not be underestimated, the almost undivided attention that mainstream and feminist philosophers have paid to the ethical dimensions of hESC research suggests that the only philosophically interesting questions and concerns about it are by and large ethical in nature. My argument goes some distance to challenge the assumption that ethical (...) considerations alone must be foregrounded in philosophical discussions about hESC research by introducing a critical stance on the epistemological and ontological assumptions that underlie and condition it. A central aim of the paper is to show how Foucault's insights into knowledge-power, taken in combination with Hacking's claims about styles of reasoning, can make these assumptions evident, as well as cast light on their potentially deleterious implications for disabled people. Arguing in this way also enables me to draw out constitutive effects of research on stem cells, that is, to indicate how the discursive practices surrounding research on stem cells, as well as the technology itself, contribute to the constitution of impairment. (shrink)

Abstract and Keywords Mainstream philosophers take for granted that disability is a prediscursive, transcultural, and transhistorical disadvantage, an objective human defect or characteristic that ought to be prevented, corrected, eliminated, or cured. That these assumptions are contestable, that it might be the case that disability is a historically and culturally specific, contingent social phenomenon, a complex apparatus of power, rather than a natural attribute or property that certain people possess, is not considered, let alone seriously entertained. This chapter draws on (...) the insights of Michel Foucault to advance a historicist and relativist conception of disability as an apparatus (dispositif) of power and identify mechanisms of power within philosophy that produce the underrepresentation of disabled philosophers in the profession and the marginalization of philosophy of disability in the discipline. -/- Keywords: disability, Michel Foucault, apparatus, historicist, relativist, underrepresentation of disabled philosophers. (shrink)

This paper sketches a brief account of multiculturalism in order to distinguish it from other positions that have been under attack recently. Following this, we address two prevalent and diametrically opposed criticisms of multiculturalism, namely, that multiculturalism is relativistic, on the one hand, and that it is absolutist, on the other. Both of these criticisms, we argue, simply mask liberal democratic theory's myth- begotten attempt to resolve the tension between the one and the many. Multiculturalism challenges the myths of meritocracy (...) and abstract individualism which underlie liberalism; properly understood, it evades the criticisms often hurled at it. (shrink)

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just social (...) change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. (shrink)

The feminist charge that Michel Foucault's work in general and his history of sexuality in particular are masculinist, sexist, and reflect male biases vexes feminist philosophers of disability who believe his claims about (for instance) the constitution of subjects, genealogy, governmentality, discipline, and regimes of truths imbue their feminist analyses of disability and ableism with complexity and richness, as well as inspire theoretical sophistication and intellectual rigor in the fields of philosophy of disability and disability studies more generally. No aspect (...) of Foucault's corpus has been more consistently subjected to the charges of masculinism and male bias than his example of the nineteenth-century farmhand Charles Jouy who, at about forty years of age, engaged in sexual activity with a girl, Sophie Adam, was reported to authorities, and subsequently was incarcerated in Maréville for the rest of his days. My central aim in this paper is to interrupt the momentum of the accepted feminist interpretation of the Jouy case by advancing a feminist perspective on Jouy's identity and the incidents involving Jouy and Adam that takes seriously insights derived from philosophy of disability and critical disability theory and history. (shrink)

Landscape Agency New York was founded by Gavin Keeney, c.1997, and encompassed a wide array of activities and effects – e.g., research, writing, design, consulting, and teaching. /S/OMA (Syntactical Operations Metaphorical Affects) was the mobile, and sometimes global design and teaching module within LANY, focusing primarily on entirely hypothetical and/or irreal projects, many becoming the foundation for lectures and courses delivered at institutions in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe, from 2003 to 2007. Lastly, the LANY Archive-Grotto was established (...) following publication of On the Nature of Things: Contemporary American Landscape Architecture (Birkhauser, 2001), primarily as a means of escaping the then-formulaic production of texts common to Landscape Architecture and Architecture. (shrink)

This paper argues that the behaviorist label yields a caricature of Ryle's position in The Concept of Mind that cannot be adequately fleshed out by reference to the larger corpus of Rylean texts. On the interpretation of Ryle that I offer here, he is best characterized as an "ontological agnostic." Ryle's aim, I believe, is to develop a nondenotational theory of meaning for mental-conduct terms--a theory of meaning which does not presuppose any metaphysical or ontological theory and, hence, does not (...) presuppose behaviorism. (shrink)

I attempt to make sense of Hume's enigmatic characterization of the standard of taste as "a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another." In particular, I take up the questions (a) how the standard could be both a rule and a decision, (b) why it is at least a decision if not a rule, and (c) why, if a rule, it may reconcile various sentiments rather (...) than merely confirm one and condemn another. (shrink)

Social robots are marketed as human tools promising us a better life. This marketing strategy commodifies not only the labor of care but the caregiver as well, conjuring a fantasy of technoliberal futurism that echoes a colonial past. Against techno-utopian fantasies of a good life as one involving engineered domestic help, I draw here on the techno-dystopian television show Humans (stylized HUMⱯNS) to suggest that we should find our desires for such help unsettling. At the core of my argument is (...) a return of the “uncanny valley” problem, from its reformulation as an engineering/design problem to its origins as a psychosocial symptom of an unresolved, traumatic past. I conclude that our sense of the uncanny may be best understood as a moral capacity that should be honed rather than evaded. (shrink)

Critical diversity studies (CDS) can be found within “traditional,” or “established,” university disciplines, such as philosophy, as well as in relatively newer departments of the university, such as African studies departments, women’s and gender studies departments, and disability studies departments. In this article, therefore, I explain why philosophy of disability, an emerging subfield in the discipline of philosophy, should be recognized as an emerging area of CDS also. My discussion in the article situates philosophy of disability in CDS by both (...) distinguishing this new subfield’s claims about disability from the arguments about disability that mainstream philosophers make and identifying the assumptions about social construction and antiessentialism that philosophy of disability shares with other areas of CDS. The discussion is designed to show that a (feminist) philosophy of disability that draws upon the work of Michel Foucault will transform how philosophers understand the situation of disabled people. By drawing upon Foucault, that is, I offer philosophers of disability and other practitioners of CDS a new understanding of disability as an apparatus of power relations. -/- . (shrink)

Diaristic, mixed notes on: John Ruskin's The Poetry of Architecture (1837) and Modern Painters (1885); Caravaggio, Victorian Aesthetes, G.K. Chesterton, and Tacita Dean; Jay Fellows' Ruskin’s Maze: Mastery and Madness in His Art (1981); Slavoj Žižek at Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, New York, USA, April 23, 2009, “Architectural Parallax: Spandrels and Other Phenomena of Class Struggle”; “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice”, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, March 15-August 16, 2009; Janet Harbord, Chris Marker: La Jetée (...) (2009); The Politics of the Envelope, Princeton Envelope Group (PEG), ARC504, Princeton School of Architecture, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, Friday, May 8, 2009; Rhode Island School of Design, Degree Project Reviews, Division of Architecture & Design, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, May 16, 2009; etc. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the current debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.

This brief essay – based partially on remarks made as a member of a "diversity panel" at a recent Florida Philosophical Association meeting and partially on the reception of those remarks – concerns the rhetorical spaces from which one is allowed to speak as a woman in philosophy. I identify two gendered locations from which women are allowed to speak about the diversity problem in philosophy: 1) the happy woman of reason and 2) the unhappy feminist philosopher. Drawing on Marilyn (...) Frye's analysis of the double-bind as a symptom of oppression and Sara Ahmed's reflections on the figure of "the feminist killjoy", I argue that both gendered locales undermine one’s ability to bring about transformative change in the discipline. (shrink)

Essays and documents in support of the works of Gaialight - DOCUMENTS: The Passion of Jeanne d’Art (2007) - Letter to Gaia (2007) - “Art as Such”: This is Not Pop ... (2008) - Writing Toward Darkness (2009) - Scarlett Words: Light America (2009) - The Darklight Elaboration (2010) - The Darklight Elaboration: Zeitgeist or Episteme? (2010) - Cam Girls (2011) - Brooklyn Buzz (2011) - Brooklyn Buzz: The Semi-divine Metropolis (2011) - Reconnaissance: Light War, Mass Surveillance, Video Games (2011) (...) - First Cause (2011) - Met Ladies (2011) - When Cam Girls Met Ladies (2011) / OUTTAKES (2007): 15 Questions About Editioned Art Photography (2007) - A Few Awkward Questions for Francesca Woodman (2007) - October Revolution (2007) . (shrink)

This paper examines the complexity and fluidity of maternal identity through an examination of narratives about "real motherhood" found in children's literature. Focusing on the multiplicity of mothers in adoption, I question standard views of maternity in which gestational, genetic and social mothering all coincide in a single person. The shortcomings of traditional notions of motherhood are overcome by developing a fluid and inclusive conception of maternal reality as authored by a child's own perceptions.

Essay on the modern artistic ego as sponsored by the exhibition, "Gustav Courbet," February 27-May 18, 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA. A version of this essay appeared in Gavin Keeney, "Else-where": Essays on Art, Architecture, and Cultural Production 2002-2011 (CSP, 2011), pp. 191-98.

Final Circular for the multimedia exhibition, "'Shadow-lands': The Suffering Image" (April 18-May 18, 2012), in association with the PhD project, "Visual Agency in Art & Architecture," Deakin University, 2011-2014.

Review of “Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union: New Art from Russia,” Saatchi Gallery, London, England, and “Calder After the War,” Pace Gallery, London, England, April 2013. A version of this essay appeared in the Appendices of Gavin Keeney, Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art and Architecture (CSP, 2014), pp. 157-60.

This paper comments on the strategies and goals of a politics of recognition as celebrated by Nancy Nicol’s important documentary coverage of the gay and lesbian movement for family rights in Quebec. While agreeing that ending legal discrimination against lgbt families is important, I suggest that political recognition of same-sex families and their children is a too limited goal for queer families and their allies. Moreover, it is a goal, I argue, that often trades on trades on troublesome assumptions about (...) gender, class, race, age and normative commitments to monogamy as these relate to distinctions between, for example, “fit” and “unfit” parents. (shrink)

An examination of the debates over the so-called 'false' memory syndrome. In this paper, I concur that memory is malleable, but interrogate notions of truth and falsity underlying standards used to evaluate the accuracy of memories of abuse. Such standards divert us, I suggest, from recognizing the truth behind widespread recollections of abuse at the hands of patriarchy.

In this address, I defend happiness as a disposition conducive to, or at least compatible with, a view of the world that is both cognitively and politically valuable, that is, both conducive to truth and ethically appropriate.

This two-part, semi-gothic literary essay seeks a provisional definition of “benevolent capital” and a working description of types of artistic and scholarly work that have no value for Capital as such. The paradox observed is that such works may actually appeal to a certain aspect of Capital, insofar as present-day capitalism has within it forms of pre-modern political economy that may actually save Capital from its mad rush toward self-immolation.

A draft White Paper associated with Fulbright Specialist Program lectures at the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia, in March-April 2015, concerning neo-liberal capitalist exploitation of academic research and publications.