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.

From Augustine’s (death) drive towards an imaginary time before speech to Marx’s drive toward an imaginary time after speech as we know it, we learn that we are always already within the bonds of the mother tongue. In the late twentieth-century, Derrida turns to both Augustine and Marx to repeat the fantasy of escaping the mother (tongue). Derrida responds to Marx’s analysis of our repeated failure to forget the mother tongue by turning to Augustine’s analysis of the (...) mother’s touch: we cannot forget the mother tongue because it is licked upon our skin. Drawing on Derrida’s relationship to Augustine and Marx on the topic of touch and language, I argue that although the bond of the mother tongue is inescapable, its very real grip upon our skin is founded upon a number of fantasies: the fantasy of the Mother, of a cut with the Mother by the Mother, which separates us from an original shared skin and binds us to the Mother tongue, the fantasy of self-articulation in the death of the Mother. I suggest that the symptoms of the fantasmatic foundation of our entrapment by the mother tongue-touch is expressed in barely perceptible glitches—a shiver passing over one’s skin, a stutter in one’s speech. (shrink)

The Black woman has always been portrayed in clichéd images in the white media, stereotyping them in a racist and sexist manner. In Black Women Image Makers, Mary Helen Washington dwells upon such unfair portrayals as the tragic mulatto, the hot blooded exotic whore and the strong Black Mammy. And this is probably why the black mother frequently appears in literature as a figure of towering strength. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), an old grandmother, (...) a former slave, accurately describes her position in this society: "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see". The black mother is not a woman with power, not a liberated woman, but a mule, picking up the burdens that everyone else has thrown down and refused to carry. To outsiders, the Negro mother appears to be the one-dimensional Rock of Gibraltar – strong of back, long of arm, incapable of destruction. The proposed paper would study the black mothers as portrayed in Alice Walker’s novels, The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian. To Walker, the Black mother is an individual – profound, tragic, mysterious, sacred, and unfathomable – strong in many, but not in all ways. She claims that the assertion of the black mother as a superwoman is a myth, and she feels that the black mother isn’t always strong. A black man does have a history of ignoring his responsibilities, but the black mother has had no choice in any matter; she has had to pick up the burdens that no one else would carry. In her fiction, Walker introduces the real-feeling, caring, uncaring, disappointed, indifferent black mother to the world. (shrink)

Today’s societies place challenging demands on individuals, who are confronted with complexity in many aspects of their lives. Individuals need to acquire a wide range of competencies in order to overcome the complex challenges of today’s world. Using real-world problems is important not only to hone students’ mathematical thinking and competency but also to prepare them in making well-grounded decisions that involve logical and mathematical reasoning. Thus, this study explored the competence of the students in applying mathematics in (...) class='Hi'>real world problems and determined the predictors using the selected profile variables. Regression analysis was used to identify if there are predictors that determine the results of the assessment. The main tool of the study was the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test in mathematics. Findings revealed that the predictors include confidence level, repeated kinder, mother work status and highest level of education to complete. This study could be a guide for determining the strengths and weaknesses of students in applying mathematics in the real world as framework in helping them handle the rigors of connecting math with their lives. (shrink)

In The Age of the World Picture, philosopher Martin Heidegger claims that scientific representations do not reduce themselves to pure appropriations of what they present. Rather, they convey investigations that confine being to rules of appropriation. Those rules govern how natural science accesses phenomena. The choice of natural science as the predominant mode of representation of reality entails what Heidegger calls a process of objectification (Vergegenständlichung). In his Zollikon Seminars, Heidegger questions the tribute paid by the sciences of the mind (...) to the logic of the natural sciences, and stresses that Freud, by thinking of the mind as a machine driven by instinctive powers, assigns to human phenomena the objective features set by the natural sciences. This paper purports to show that Winnicott, by formulating a theory of personal maturing, disagrees with the objectifying requirements of the natural sciences. For Winnicott, traditional psychoanalysis uses categories that are inadequate for describing the changes babies undergo in the environment that gives them care and attention, because its analysis is confined to the field of libido relations. With that in mind, it is not possible to speak about human maturation processes using an objectifying language; Winnicott stresses (in The newborn and his mother) that “I cannot sacrifice a patient on the altar of science”. This paper argues that Winnicott disagrees with the naturalistic imperative, which reduces the real to what is objective and places physics as a model for the sciences. The paper also broaches on the issue of how far the considerations of Heidegger and Winnicott regarding access to human phenomena allow us to discuss the current overwhelming process of medicating everyday life. (shrink)

Contemporary social science research is often concerned to engage with and promote particular forms of postmodern and innovative data production, such as photo-elicitation, autoethnography or free association interviews. This fascination with the latest and greatest techniques has been accompanied by an ever more fragmented range of research methods training for students where the week-by-week shift between approaches engenders a disjointed view of becoming the researcher. This individualisation of techniques has set up rival camps and critiques where the common ground of (...) being embedded in traditional ethnography is often forgotten. For researchers, who began their academic careers in the ethnographic tradition, there is an appreciation of the holistic base of enquiry from which a family of methods can be effectively employed. However, more recently qualitative researchers have been distracted by ‘the technique’; a distraction that can blind them to the occupation of ethnography. Concurrently, there have been shifts in the social and economic expectations placed on qualitative inquiry that have acted to close down spaces of ethnographic teaching and practice. In response, this article focuses on the importance of the ‘waiting field’; an opportunity to explore the times where real lives carry on before they make room for the intrusion of the data production of ‘the technique’ and remind us that much qualitative research is, in fact, an ethnographic undertaking: one that encompasses the researcher within and beyond the field. (shrink)

This paper explores a new and post-structuralist discourse on the relationship between Lacan’s theory of mirror stage and the story of Narcissus as a mythological narrative. According to this discourse, subject is a construction posterior to the ‘I’. Lacan suggests that in the mirror stage 6-18 months old infants discern the I as something distinct from and outside of themselves for the first time through a reflective surface. An infant comprehends the image they see in this reflective surface as a (...) being independent of their mother and an object belonging to themselves, and they greatly admire this independent object as an ideal-I. That is, by discerning their own being through an image, the infant achieves a feeling of unity via this image and perceives their own being as an admirable unity. This feeling of I and unity, however, is doomed to decay as to become subject by means of the elements of Lacanian reality, namely language and the laws of society. Within the reality, Narcissus – exactly like in the Lacan’s theory of mirror – lost the confrontation of perceiving the image he admired in his reflection. The I of Narcissus, which he has been holding on as an image in this world, is drawn and demised whilst going beyond the water mirror so as to become a subject. In other words, the I that Narcissus admired in the reflection of the water underwent an unsurmountable deformation and he paid the price with his life. In this study, from the perspective of the Lacanian theory of subject it will be argued that the tragic split between imaginary and symbolic order represented by the death of Narcissus is not only a psychopathologic fact, but it is also a fundamental narrative about the construction of subject in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This article takes up the idea of language as a home and dwelling, and reconsiders what this might mean in the context of diasporic bilingualism – where as a ‘heritage speaker’ of a minority language, the ‘mother tongue’ may be experienced as both deeply familiar yet also alien or alienating. Drawing on a range of philosophical and literary accounts (Cassin, Arendt, Anzaldúa, Vuong, among others), this article explores how the so-called ‘mother tongue’ is experienced by heritage speakers in (...) an English-dominant world. From navigating one’s being in-between language-worlds, to the experience of language loss and efforts of reconnection, I argue that bilingual dwelling involves many complex layers often overlooked by philosophical accounts of language that do not attend to the lived world of the migrant and racialised outsider. By turning to the example of bilingual parenting, I then examine how such an undertaking, while labour-intensive, offers opportunities to refresh and co-create language-worlds anew. (shrink)

In recent years, the notion of “tiger mother” has been popularized since Amy Chua’s publication of her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). This notion is allegedly representative of “Chinese” mothering that produces “stereotypically successful kids” (ibid., p.3). No wonder, the characteristics of the tiger mother revolve around strict disciplining and pressuring of children to excel academically based on her assumption that children “owe everything” to her and that she knows “what is best for [the] (...) children” (ibid., p.53). Chinese mothering is based roughly on Confucian mothering—a traditional mothering style originating from Confucian East Asia. Given the intense debate that has been generated by this popular book, it seems timely to theorize about what Confucian mothering involves, which has been largely neglected by Confucians themselves or contemporary feminists. This chapter attempts to start a conversation on this very important topic and explores the idea of Confucian mothering as follows: In sections II and III, I examine exemplary mothers in Confucian East Asia of the past in order to derive a preliminary idea of Confucian mothering. In order to consider whether Confucian mothering is conducive to promoting the Confucian ideal, I first identify the Confucian ideal in section IV by providing a plausible conception of Confucianism as a universal philosophical system. In section V, I elaborate on how Confucian mothering in its goal and style has been conducive to enabling male children to realize the Confucian ideal. Yet these historical instances of Confucian mothering cannot be incorporated into the universal Confucian philosophical system because Confucian mothers themselves were prevented from realizing the Confucian ideal. I therefore argue in section VI for a reconceptualization of Confucian mothering consistent with Confucianism as a universal philosophical system. Reconceptualized in this way, I show in section VII the ways in which Confucian mothering is distinct from tiger mothering and argue that tiger mothering is morally unjustifiable. Finally, I conclude by examining why Confucian mothering is relevant even for contemporary American parents in the 21st century. (shrink)

When a mother deliberately harms her child, it is tempting to assume that she must be either insane or lacking the "natural" love of a mother for her children. We want to believe that such mothers have almost nothing in common with "good" mothers. Drawing extensively on empirical research, Sarah LaChance Adams' Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What A "Good" Mother Would Do shows that maternal ambivalence, simultaneous desires to nurture and violently reject one's children, is both (...) common and reasonable, the result of genuine conflicts between mothers' interests and those of their children. Both appropriate support and deliberative agency are necessary to avoid maternal ambivalence... (shrink)

Sara Ruddick's contemporary philosophical account of mothering reconsiders the maternal arguments used in the women's peace movements of the earlier part of this century. The culmination of this project is her 1989 book, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Ruddick's project is ground-breaking work in both academic philosophy and feminist theory. -/- In this chapter, I first look at the relationship between the two basic components of Ruddick's argument in Maternal Thinking: the "practicalist conception of truth" (PCT) and feminist (...) standpoint theory (FST). I argue that Ruddick is never clear about the exact relation between the two components. These tensions point to a deeper problem in Ruddick's discussion of the critical power of maternal thinking. -/- The diversity of maternal practices presents a genuine challenge to Ruddick’s account. I argue that neither of the components she explores can adequately ground a feminist peace politics without first answering the question of who speaks for mothers. While I can suggest ways to make Ruddick's argument consistent, she still faces-despite her claims of universality- the deeper problem of reconciling her account of maternal practice with the genuine diversity of actual maternal practices. (shrink)

L.A. Paul argues that interesting issues for rational choice theory are raised by epistemically transformative experiences: experiences which provide access to knowledge that could not be known without the experience. Consideration of the epistemic effects of pregnancy has important implications for our understanding of epistemically transformative experiences and for debate about the ethics of abortion and applied ethics more generally. Pregnancy is epistemically transformative both in Paul’s narrow sense and in a wider sense: those who have not been pregnant face (...) significant barriers to acquiring the knowledge made accessible through pregnancy. This knowledge is crucial for engaging with the ethics of abortion. The epistemically transformativeWIDE nature of pregnancy may require us to use new methods to try to partially grasp what pregnancy is like such as for example, significant engagement with narrative literature. Because pregnancy is also epistemically transformative in a narrow sense, we need to work out how to engage in ethical reasoning when relevant knowledge is not fully accessible to all. This argument has implications beyond the debate about abortion. Philosophers in many areas of applied ethics will need to work out how to respond appropriately to epistemically transformative experiences. (shrink)

As new communication technologies transform everyday life in the 21st century, personal, family, and other social relations are transformed with it. As a way of exploring the larger question, "how exactly does communication technology transform love and how love is lived?" here I explore the cell phone, instant messaging and other communication technologies as electronic extensions of maternal bodies connecting (cyber)mother to (cyber)children. -/- Feminist explorations of the marketing and use of cell phones, as well as other communication technologies, (...) have largely remarked on the pernicious gender ideologies intertwined with technological innovation and application. If, however, we take seriously Haraway’s (1991) claim that postmodern humans are cyborgs, the distinction between human animals and machines breaks down in ways that invite us to revision the questions we ask about technology. Thus instead of inquiring about the oppression engendered by the production and consumption of communication technologies, here I explore the ways in which technology functions as an extension and modification of human embodiment that transforms our experiences of intimacy and our ability to create, maintain and transform loving relationships with others. More specifically, I examine cyborg mothering as transformative of loving relationships between women and children. (shrink)

This paper aims to give an introductory account of mothering in light of virtue ethics. Firtly I set out an argument for the use of the term 'mothering' rather than 'parental' virtues. Then I consider what is involved in the mother/child relationship and criticise the idea that the aim of mothering is the flourishing of the child. I argue instead that the proper aim of mothering is to create conditions condusive to the child's flourishing. Finally, I discuss the virtue (...) of patience as applied to the field of mothering. (shrink)

Infant feeding decisions are highly emotionally charged. I argue elsewhere that many problems surrounding infant feeding decisions result from a moralized context created by mistakes in our assumptions about maternal duties including the mistaken assumption that mothers have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed. Mothers have a reason, but not a moral duty to breastfeed. Even those who are convinced by my argument in the case of full-term babies, might find it harder to accept in the case of premature babies. (...) It might seem that mothers do have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed or, as is more likely to be appropriate in such cases, to express breastmilk. Here, I explain why preterm neonates present a tricky case for the right not to breastfeed. I show why, nonetheless, moral pressure for mothers to express breastmilk in the neonatal unit is neither permissible nor pragmatically advisable. I argue that instead we should address structural barriers to providing breastmilk and support donor milk initiatives. (shrink)

“Our later and more critical philosophies are mere fads and fancies compared with this natural mother-tongue of thought”, says William James in his lecture on common sense. The deep bond connecting language, common sense and nature is also one of the main concerns of the later Wittgenstein. The aim of this paper is to compare the two philosophers in this respect, particularly focusing on James’ Pragmatism and on Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Similarities, but also differences, will be highlighted. A further (...) element will be offered by the analysis of a fragment of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, which anticipates his image of the river-bed of thought through the critique of James’ stream of thought. By means of this comparison, I will question Wittgenstein’s explicit refusal of pragmatism. I will argue that his late philosophy can be said to be even more pragmatist than James’, in that it delineates a conception of the common sense certainties which shape our Weltbild (world-picture) as practically, and not merely epistemically, connected to our life. (shrink)

While artificial womb technology is currently being studied for the purpose of improving neonatal care, I contend that this technology ought to be pursued as a means to address the unprecedented rate of unintended pregnancies. But ectogenesis, alongside other emerging reproductive technologies, is problematic insofar as it threatens to disrupt the natural link between procreation and parenthood that is normally thought to generate rights and responsibilities for biological parents. I argue that there remains only one potentially viable account of parenthood: (...) the voluntarist account, which construes parental rights as robust moral obligations that must be voluntarily undertaken. The problem is that this account mistakenly presumes a patriarchal divide between procreation and parenthood. I propose a reframing of procreation and parenthood from a feminist perspective that recognises gestational motherhood as involving robust moral obligations that ought to be voluntarily undertaken. If this were the case, all gestational mothers would be, by definition, willing mothers. To make this happen I argue that ectogenesis technology must be a widely available reproductive option. (shrink)

This paper considers two explanations for why the main character of Flora Nwapa’s novel One is Enough does not answer the question of how many times her mother-in-law has visited. One of these is a variation on the surprise exam paradox.

Feelings of gratitude toward the natural environment are problematic because gratitude seems to be an appropriate response to someone’s intentional decision to benefit us, and ecosystems that sustain human life do not choose to do so. In accordance with one defense of the rationality and appropriateness of gratitude toward nature, intentional action can be regarded as not being a necessary condition for feelings of gratitude. Instead, gratitude toward an entity can be considered both rational and appropriate when (1) that entity (...) is the source of a valuable and unearned benefit and (2) the benefit did not result from some accidental and/or regrettable feature of that entity’s character. According to this analysis, we can provide a rational ground for gratitude to particular ecosystems by citing the valuable and unearned benefits that we receive from those systems and by demonstrating that these benefits result from elements within the ecosystems that are neither regrettable nor accidental. (shrink)

Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women must be independent citizens, but that they cannot be that unless they fulfill certain duties as mothers. This is problematic in a number of ways, as argued by Laura Brace in a 2000 article. However, I argue that if we understand Wollstonecraft's concept of independence in a republican, rather than a liberal context, and at the same time pay close attention to her discussion of motherhood, a feminist reading of Wollstonecraft is not only possible but (...) enriching. I will attempt to show, in particular, that the seeds of a feminist argument for co-parenting are to be found in the Vindication of the Rights of Woman. (shrink)

This article aims to bring some work in contemporary analytic metaphysics to discussions of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I will show that some unusual claims of the Real Presence doctrine exactly parallel what would be happening in the world if objects were to time-travel in certain ways. Such time-travel would make ordinary objects multiply located, and in the relevantly analogous respects. If it is conceptually coherent that objects behave in this way, we have a (...) model for the behaviour of the Eucharist which shows the doctrine to be coherent, at least with respect to the issues discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mother-Daughter Relations and the Maternal in Irigaray and ChodorowAlison StoneGod the Father and Jesus the Son; Abraham and Isaac; Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus; Zeus and Dionysus; Hamlet and his father; Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons—representations of and fantasies about father-son relationships are central to Western culture and philosophy. Within philosophy, one thinks of Hegel’s conception of the dialectic in terms of the divine trinity, Nietzsche’s preoccupation with (...) Christ and Dionysus, or Kierkegaard’s meditations on Abraham’s near-murder of Isaac. In contrast, mother-daughter relationships have been shrouded in near-universal silence—much more so than representations of either mothers and sons (Oedipus and Jocasta; Mary and Jesus) or fathers and daughters (Agamemnon and Iphigenia; Lear and Cordelia). Female and feminist theorists, writers, and artists have done much to bring mother-daughter relationships into representation and to reimagine the maternal beyond its traditional subservience to father-son dynasties.Amongst continental feminists, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva have, of course, made major contributions to this task. Within Anglophone feminism, too, feminist psychoanalytic thinkers have sought to rectify Freud’s overemphasis on the paternal and on father-son relations. Nancy Chodorow’s important work in this area paints a portrait of contemporary mother-daughter relations which seems, at first sight, strikingly similar to Irigaray’s. Both thinkers suggest that mothers and their infant daughters experience a unique level of mutual identification. But under patriarchy—specifically, given exclusively female childrearing for Chodorow and given the absence of any symbolization of female subjectivity for Irigaray—daughters are forced to turn to the father [End Page 45] to achieve any psychical independence from their mothers. The independence that daughters thus attain coexists with ongoing psychical identification with their mothers, so that women oscillate endlessly between separation from and mergence with their mothers. If the dominant template for father-son relations involves violent rivalry followed by guilt-ridden father-worship as the cement of fraternal society, as Freud described in Totem and Taboo (Freud 2001), the template for mother-daughter relations involves hostile separation constantly undone by ongoing fusion. This difference in templates maps the social-symbolic difference between the paternal position of power/authority/law and the maternal position of powerlessness/silence/body.However, the manifest similarities between Irigaray’s and Chodorow’s pictures are embedded in deep theoretical differences. The details of their descriptions of mother-daughter relations differ, and they give different explanations for why these relations follow a logic of separation and fusion: female mothering for Chodorow, the paternal symbolic order for Irigaray. They make different proposals for how to change these relations: shared parenting for Chodorow versus symbolic transformation for Irigaray. They hold conflicting conceptions of the self and of language, reflecting their heterogeneous psychoanalytic backgrounds in Anglo-American object relations versus French Lacanianism and poststructuralism. These deep differences raise questions about whether Chodorow and Irigaray are discussing mother-daughter relations in the same sense at all.Bringing Irigaray and Chodorow together across their different intellectual contexts, this article compares and partially synthesizes their visions of the maternal and of mother-daughter relations. By integrating their perspectives, we can move beyond the “impasse” between Lacanian and object-relations feminisms that dominated psychoanalytic feminist debates in the 1980s and 1990s (Brennan 1991)—debates that have crucially shaped continental feminists’ orientation towards questions of sexual difference, language and representation, and the embodied psyche.The impasse in question has at least two strands. First, for object-relations feminists such as Chodorow, our pre-Oedipal relations with our mothers shape us so that we acquire “core” selves with a fairly stable gender. This approach elevates the mother in importance (compared to classical psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the father), but it loses sight of psychic and gender instability. This can make Chodorow’s views seem rather dated given the impact of Judith Butler’s work and her emphasis on the unstable, shifting nature of gender. Lacanian feminists such as Jacquelyn Rose (Rose 1986) reemphasize psychic instability, but they do so by stressing that the subject is split between paternal language and the pre-Oedipal maternal realm, which means that these theorists also... (shrink)

While scientific inquiry crucially relies on the extraction of patterns from data, we still have a far from perfect understanding of the metaphysics of patterns—and, in particular, of what makes a pattern real. In this paper we derive a criterion of real-patternhood from the notion of conditional Kolmogorov complexity. The resulting account belongs to the philosophical tradition, initiated by Dennett :27–51, 1991), that links real-patternhood to data compressibility, but is simpler and formally more perspicuous than other proposals (...) previously defended in the literature. It also successfully enforces a non-redundancy principle, suggested by Ladyman and Ross, that aims to exclude from real-patternhood those patterns that can be ignored without loss of information about the target dataset, and which their own account fails to enforce. (shrink)

This research delves into the intricate relationship between language and mathematics education, particularly within the context of mother-tongue-based instruction. It addresses the challenge of reconciling the language of instruction, the learners' mother tongue, and the language of mathematical concepts, emphasizing the need for synchronization to enhance the teaching and learning process. Drawing from international experiences and the Philippine educational landscape, which transitioned to the K-12 curriculum, this study investigates the role of code-switching in Grade-One mathematics education. By conducting (...) a pretest-posttest group design at an Elementary School in Bohol, Philippines, the study evaluates the effects of code-switching within a mother-tongue-based instruction framework. Findings demonstrate that code-switching improves mathematics performance, with the experimental group excelling in advanced and proficient levels post-implementation. Notably, the control and experimental groups exhibited similar pretest scores, indicating their comparability. This research concludes that code-switching is an effective strategy for bridging the linguistic gaps between the mother tongue and mathematical concepts, thereby enhancing the meaningfulness and comprehensibility of mathematics. In light of these findings, the study recommends the adoption of code-switching in teaching mathematics, especially for students with lower academic achievement. Additionally, it encourages future research to explore the applicability of code-switching in other subjects and higher grade levels. This study advocates for an inclusive and adaptive approach to mathematics instruction that recognizes the complex interplay of languages and aims to empower students to understand, participate actively, and develop a profound love for the subject. Based on the empirical findings of this study, it is strongly recommended that the integration of code-switching as a pedagogical strategy in mathematics instruction be formally endorsed within the school setting. This endorsement serves the paramount goal of enhancing the mathematical proficiency and overall academic performance of the students. -/- . (shrink)

I argue that judgments of what is ‘true in a fiction’ presuppose the Reality Assumption: the assumption that everything that is true is fictionally the case, unless excluded by the work. By contrast with the more familiar Reality Principle, the Reality Assumption is not a rule for inferring implied content from what is explicit. Instead, it provides an array of real-world truths that can be used in such inferences. I claim that the Reality Assumption is essential to our ability (...) to understand stories, drawing on a range of empirical evidence that demonstrates our reliance on it in narrative comprehension. However, the Reality Assumption has several unintuitive consequences, not least that what is fictionally the case includes countless facts that neither authors nor readers could ever consider. I argue that such consequences provide no reason to reject the Reality Assumption. I conclude that we should take fictions, like non-fictions, to be about the real world. (shrink)

This article investigates some of the constraining factors experienced by 16 school-going mothers in the Okalongo circuit, Namibia. This was a qualitative phenomenological study, conducted through in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions, and reflective journals with 16 school-going mothers between the ages of 17 and 20, purposively selected from three different public rural schools. This qualitative, phenomenological study analyses, through feminist and intersectionality theory, the lived experiences of these young mothers as they encounter the traditional, patriarchal attitudes and practices of (...) the Ovambadja community because these girls fell pregnant before their formal, cultural initiation. The article documents, through the voices of the young women themselves, the numerous constraints they experienced and overcame in their determination to complete their schooling. The findings show that, aside from the deeply held destructive patriarchal beliefs that significantly constrain and harm the mother-learners, the Namibian Learners Pregnancy Policy, which is intended to protect and ensure pregnant learners and motherlearners complete their schooling, is not being properly or effectively implemented. The study recommends an increase in efforts at the national level in Namibia to raise awareness among members of parliament, school administrators and principals, and all policymakers to develop better monitoring systems that will improve policy implementation in schools. (shrink)

The doctrine that Christ is really present in the Eucharist appears to entail that Christ's body is not only multiply located but present in different ways at different locations. Moreover, the doctrine poses an even more difficult meta-question: what makes a theological explanation of the Eucharist a ‘real presence’ account? Aquinas's defence of transubstantiation, perhaps the paradigmatic account, invokes Aristotelian metaphysics and the machinery of Scholastic philosophy. My aim is not to produce a ‘rational reconstruction’ of his analysis but (...) rather to suggest a metaphysically innocent alternative that will ‘save the phenomena’ of religious belief and practice.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.The real presenceVolume 49, Issue 1H. E. BABER DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412512000121Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. The real presenceVolume 49, Issue 1H. E. BABER DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412512000121Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. The real presenceVolume 49, Issue 1H. E. BABER DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412512000121Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

An important strand in the debate on abortion focuses on the moral status of fetuses. Knowledge of the moral value of fetuses is needed to assess fetuses’ moral status. As Errol Lord argues, acquaintance plays a key role in moral and aesthetic knowledge. Many pregnant persons have acquaintance with their fetus that provides privileged access to knowledge about that fetus’ moral value. This knowledge is (a) very difficult to acquire without being pregnant and (b) relevant for assessing the moral status (...) of fetuses. This has implications for public debate on abortion and the research methods of philosophers working on abortion. (shrink)

The relationship between feminist theory and traditionally feminine activities like mothering and caring is complex, especially because of the current diversity of feminist scholarship. There are many different kinds of feminist theory, and each approaches the issue of women's oppression from its own angle. The statement, "feminist ethics is about mothering and caring," can be critically evaluated by outlining specific feminist approaches to ethics and showing what role mothering and caring play in each particular view. In this paper, feminine and (...) feminist perspectives are delineated, and the four classic feminist approaches (liberal, Marxist, radical, and socialist) are summarized. I argue that to some extent all of the examples of feminist ethics are "about" mothering and caring. In some cases this is because the particular view describes mothering and caring as features of the roots of women's oppression, or as a positive force in changing the prevailing social order to do away with oppression. I include a discussion of an additional role mothering might play in the socialist feminist framework. (shrink)

The symbolic argument against women's ordination supposes that the theological significance of Christ's sex is his saving relationship to the Church, which takes the form of that of a bridegroom and his bride. It infers that a male priest alone is fit to represent Christ in his capacity as the Saviour of the Church, and thus that only men should be ordained. Since the emergence of the symbolic argument, however, scholars have rediscovered a long tradition of understanding Christ's saving relationship (...) to the Church in maternal terms. While remaining neutral on whether women ultimately ought to be ordained or not, I argue that the kind of reasoning in the symbolic argument, if updated with the Jesus as Mother tradition, would suggest that it is fitting for a female priest to represent Jesus as Mother, just as it is fitting for a male priest to represent Christ the Bridegroom. Other critics of the symbolic argument tend to contest what is seen as its ‘literalist’ or ‘essentialist’ or overly gendered-valanced assumptions about priestly representation. I show that even if we grant to the symbolic argument more gendered and ‘essentialist’ views on each of the major points of disagreement in these debates, women might still be fit to represent Christ because of the maternal ways that Christ has traditionally been thought to relate to the Church. As a result, the symbolic argument may be repurposed to support women's ordination rather than undermine it. (shrink)

Cognitivists about the emotions minimally hold that it is a necessary condition for being in an emotional state that one make a certain judgement or have a certain belief. For example, if I am angry with Sam, then I must believe that Sam has wronged me. Perhaps I must also elicit a certainly bodily response or undergo some relevant experience, but crucial to the view is the belief or judgement. In the face of ‘recalcitrant emotions’, this once very popular view (...) has come under heavy criticism that has led many theorists to either abandon the view or to offer more nuanced representational views of the emotions. Against what seems to now be received wisdom, I argue that cognitivists have tools at their disposal that allow them to alleviate the apparent conflicts presented by cases of recalcitrance. But I also believe that cognitivists are still in trouble. Although cognitivists have a range of underexplored resources, their use comes at a high cost. In particular, cognitivists must adopt a widespread and thoroughgoing inaccessibility to our own thoughts and judgements that should strike one as implausible. It is mental opacity rather than mental conflict that is the real problem posed by recalcitrance. (shrink)

Growing-Block theorists hold that past and present things are real, while future things do not yet exist. This generates a puzzle: how can Growing-Block theorists explain the fact that some sentences about the future appear to be true? Briggs and Forbes develop a modal ersatzist framework, on which the concrete actual world is associated with a branching-time structure of ersatz possible worlds. They then show how this branching structure might be used to determine the truth values of future contingents. (...) They point out three different ways of interpreting the logical connectives, which give rise to three different logics of the open future: one supervaluationist, one corresponding to Lukasiewicz's strong Kleene logic, and one intuitionist. (shrink)

We critically review qualitative research studies conducted from 2000 to 2012 exploring Western mothers’ breastfeeding experiences. We used the search criteria “breastfeeding,” “qualitative,” and “experiences” to retrieve 74 qualitative research studies, which were reduced to 28 when the terms “existential’’ and “research’’ were applied. We found that the impact of technology and the pervasive worldwide marketing of infant formula devalued breastfeeding mothers’ narratives in a number of ways. Women’s bodies were viewed as machine-like objects and the breast was seen as (...) a disembodied object. Dominated by technological narrative, women’s bodies were considered unpredictable and hormonal, needing to be managed by health care professionals. This means the disseminating breastfeeding discourse needs to be reinterpreted for practical use. We found that some of the researchers utilized narrative informed by phenomenological philosophy that appears to edge closer to understanding mothers’ experiences in a more profound way than nonphenomenological research. However, we need to be mindful of the transparency of terms in replacing one form of technological narrative with another. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, machine learning and neural networks represent extremely exciting and powerful machine learning-based techniques used to solve many real-world problems. Artificial intelligence is the branch of computer sciences that emphasizes the development of intelligent machines, thinking and working like humans. For example, recognition, problem-solving, learning, visual perception, decision-making and planning. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning in artificial intelligence that has networks capable of learning unsupervised from data that is unstructured or unlabeled. Deep (...) learning is a technique used to generate face detection and recognize it for real or fake by using profile images and determine the differences between them. In this study, we used deep learning techniques to generate models for Real and Fake face detection. The goal is determining a suitable way to detect real and fake faces. The model was designed and implemented, including both Dataset of images: Real and Fake faces detection through the use of Deep learning algorithms based on neural networks. We have trained dataset which consists of 9,000 images for total in 150 epochs, and got the ResNet50 model to be the best model of network architectures used with 100% training accuracy, 99.18% validation accuracy, training loss 0.0003, validation loss 0.0265, and testing accuracy 99%. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper I reconstruct Kant’s proof of the existence of a ‘most real being’ while also highlighting the theory of modality that motivates Kant’s departure from Leibniz’s version of the proof. I go on to argue that it is precisely this departure that makes the being that falls out of the pre-critical proof look more like Spinoza’s extended natura naturans than an independent, personal creator-God. In the critical period, Kant seems to think that transcendental (...) idealism allows him to avoid this conclusion, but in the last section of the paper I argue that there is still one important version of the Spinozistic threat that remains. -/- . (shrink)

Background: The study aimed to explore the perception of mothers of adolescent girls and health service providers in urban slums toward HPV vaccination. Methodology: A cross-sectional mixed-method study in the slums of Rayer Bazaar, Kamlapur and Mohakhali was conducted. The quantitative part included a household survey of mothers (n=150) and service providers (n=30) through a semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire and qualitative interviews included in-depth interviews (IDI) with mothers (n=10) and key-informant interviews (KII) with service providers (n=10). Results: Around 96% of mothers (...) had never heard of HPV, and 98% were unaware that the virus's transmission could be halted. Only 3.3% of mothers were aware that HPV can cause cervical cancer, although, during IDI, it was seen that the majority of mothers said that cervical cancer is a communicable disease. Nearly 98% of mothers wanted their daughters to get vaccinated. Service providers had a good understanding of HPV, HPV vaccine, and cervical cancer. All service providers during KII agreed that if they had received adequate training on HPV vaccination and cervical cancer, they could have treated their patients better. Conclusion: The findings of this study have important implications for the design and advocacy of HPV immunization programs in Bangladesh. (shrink)

In the Confessions, Augustine speculates that before we are aware of language, we learn our mother tongue through our mother's touch. These early lessons in language are first taught through a gentle touch: the nipple of the mother in the mouth of the infant. Language is later reinforced by a violent touch: the schoolmaster's switch. Augustine suggests that any memory of a time before the touch of language is purely imaginary. Nevertheless, his autobiography attempts to return to (...) a time before the touch of the mother, which, for Augustine, is at once the touch of the mother tongue.1 Since our relationship to our own infancy is imaginary, our infancy neither properly belongs to our memory nor can it be properly... (shrink)

Do scientific theories limit human knowledge? In other words, are there physical variables hidden by essence forever? We argue for negative answers and illustrate our point on chaotic classical dynamical systems. We emphasize parallels with quantum theory and conclude that the common real numbers are, de facto, the hidden variables of classical physics. Consequently, real numbers should not be considered as ``physically real" and classical mechanics, like quantum physics, is indeterministic.

Discussions of the functions of biological traits generally take the notion of a trait for granted. Defining this notion is a non-trivial problem. Different approaches to function place different constraints on adequate accounts of the notion of a trait. Accounts of function based on engineering-style analyses allow trait boundaries to be a matter of human interest. Accounts of function based on natural selection have typically been taken to require trait boundaries that are objectively real. After canvassing problems raised by (...) each approach, I conclude with some facts that satisfactory notions of trait must respect. (shrink)

As a way to make medical decisions, Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) has failed. EBM's failure arises from not being founded on real-world decision-making. EBM aspires to a scientific standard for the best way to treat a disease and determine its cause, but it fails to recognise that the scientific method is inapplicable to medical and other real-world decision-making. EBM also wrongly assumes that evidence can be marshaled and applied according to an hierarchy that is determined in an argument by (...) authority to the method by which it has been obtained. If EBM had valid theoretical, practical or empirical foundations, there would be no hierarchy of evidence. In all real-world decision-making, evidence stands or falls on its inherent reliability. This has to be and can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis applying understanding and wisdom against the background of all available facts—the "factual matrix." EBM's failure is structural and was inevitable from its inception. EBM confuses the inherent reliability and probative value of evidence with the means by which it is obtained. -/- EBM is therefore an ad hoc construct and is not a valid basis for medical decision-making. This is further demonstrated by its exclusion of relevant scientific and probative real-world decision-making evidence and processes. It draws upon a narrow evidence base that is itself inherently unreliable. It fails to take adequate account of the nature of causation, the full range of evidence relevant to its determination, and differing approaches to determining cause and effect in real-world decision-making. EBM also makes a muddled attempt to emulate the scientific method and it does not acknowledge the role of experience, understanding and wisdom in making medical decisions. (shrink)

Formal epistemologists often claim that our credences should be representable by a probability function. Complete probabilistic coherence, however, is only possible for ideal agents, raising the question of how this requirement relates to our everyday judgments concerning rationality. One possible answer is that being rational is a contextual matter, that the standards for rationality change along with the situation. Just like who counts as tall changes depending on whether we are considering toddlers or basketball players, perhaps what counts as rational (...) shifts according to whether we are considering ideal agents or creatures more like ourselves. Even though a number of formal epistemologists have endorsed this type of solution, I will argue that there is no way to spell out this contextual account that can make sense of our everyday judgments about rationality. Those who defend probabilistic coherence requirements will need an alternative account of the relationship between real and ideal rationality. (shrink)

Attempts to unify Marxist and feminist social critique have been vexed by the fact that ‘patriarchy’ predates the advent of capitalism (its transhistorical status). Feminists within the Marxist, socialist, and materialist traditions have responded to this point by either granting patriarchy a certain autonomy relative to capitalism (the ‘dual/triple systems’ approach), or by suggesting that patriarchal relations have a foundational and necessary status in the history of capitalist development (which we term the ‘origins-subsistence’ approach). This paper offers an alternative account (...) of the relationship between capitalism and the transhistorical status of ‘patriarchy’. In aid of a ‘unitary theory’ of Marxist Feminism, we argue that the transhistorical status of patriarchy is better understood through an application of Marx’s concepts of formal and real subsumption. A modified version of these concepts can illuminate not only capitalist appropriation of antecedent social and economic forms, but also its capacity to produce new forms of gendered exploitation and oppression. (shrink)

In the early 1990’s, many feminist philosophers found that the practice of the women´s movement as well as those of other new social movements, could be articulated most adequately in terms of citizenship. The classical political vocabulary of citizenship seemed to offer a viable alternative to the vocabularies that until then had been dominant in feminist political theory: the individualistic, rights-oriented discourse of liberalism, and the structuralist, interest-oriented perspectives of socialism and marxism.

A single mother is a person who is accountable for raising their children alone because they do not have a husband or live-in partner. Single mothers claim to have no co-parenting relationships at all, comparing single parents to those who are married, cohabiting, or without children, single parents experience the worst work-life balance. A single parent may feel overwhelmed by the demands of juggling child care, a career, paying bills, and maintaining household responsibilities. Single-parent households frequently deal with several (...) extra obligations and possible complications that other families would not. The study also emphasizes the difficulties and coping mechanisms faced by contractual single parents as well as their lived experiences. The study's findings, which were based on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, were as follows: (1) Work-life balance can be difficult for single parents. They struggle to keep their jobs while taking care of their family because they are the only ones in charge of the children. (2) Single contractual mothers face particular difficulties due to a lack of resources for basic expenses. (3) Contractual single women lean on their kids, the good people in their lives, and their faith in God to get through problems. (shrink)

Despite what might seem to be the case, "Virtual" reality can be used to create fully "real" places with their own grammar and norms, where real events take place.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set time-bound targets that are powerful shapers of how and for whom health is pursued. In this paper we examine some ramifications of both the temporal limitation, and maternal-child health targeting of MDG 4 and 5. The 2015 end date may encourage increasing the number of mass campaigns to meet the specific MDG objectives, potentially to the detriment of a more comprehensive approach to health. We discuss some ethical, political, and pragmatic ramifications of this tendency, (...) and show that these are not unique to the MDGs but rather have a long history in health policy debates. We also examine attempts to counter a narrow focus on vertical interventions in campaigns through integrated health system delivery platforms. We argue that the way forward is not to assume that evidence is value free, but rather to make explicit the political and ethical decisions in the design of metrics and evaluation research. We propose an index of five factors that should be included in research designed to inform decision making about providing interventions as part of routine services or periodic campaigns, toward serving more members of the population, and long-term strengthening of the health system via integrated health interventions. (shrink)

Article on the relation between real and ideal self.

Kant holds that in order to have knowledge of an object, a subject must be able to “prove” that the object is really possible—i.e., prove that there is neither logical inconsistency nor “real repugnance” between its properties. This is (usually) easy to do with respect to empirical objects, but (usually) impossible to do with respect to particular things-in-themselves. In the first section of the paper I argue that an important predecessor of Kant’s account of our ignorance of real (...) possibility can be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In the middle sections I discuss the way in which our inability to prove the real possibility of things-in-themselves motivates Kant’s famous prohibition on certain kinds of knowledge-claims about them. In the final section I examine Hegel’s attempts to dissolve this problem of real repugnance and thereby remove an inherited obstacle to speculative knowledge of the supersensible. -/- . (shrink)