Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. There has been an increasingly empirical turn in recent feminist and political theorization, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical (...) research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: 1) epistemic humility, 2) accountability, and 3) co-producing knowledge. I situate these principles within contemporary philosophical work on solidarity, and show how they might help confront power imbalances and other methodological hazards that arise when conducting research in solidarity with others. I arrive at these principles in part by critically reflecting on my own attempt to conduct research in solidarity with women’s rights activists in Senegal. (shrink)

In psychiatry, the concept of “insight” commonly refers to a patient’s judgment that they have a mental illness and need clinical treatment. However, this concept has been criticized because it imposes psychiatric knowledge on the subjective experiences of mental illness and possible interventions. A significant body of literature is critical of mental health interventions; however, insight remains under-explored in this realm. This paper adds to critical analyses of insight by exploring how it is defined and deployed by mental health professionals (...) in an acute inpatient mental health unit in a Canadian general hospital and what disciplinary and epistemic effects it has on patients. To this end, I draw on Foucault’s theories of psychiatric power and Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice to analyze results from an ethnographic study conducted in an inpatient mental health unit. The results show how patients’ resistance to medical compliance is framed by staff as a lack of insight, which reinforces the psychiatric model of mental illness. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a descriptive and normative analysis of the requirements for effective transnational solidarity between southern NGOs and their northern partners. Drawing on interviews conducted with staff members of Senegalese women’s rights NGOs and a private international development foundation, I contend that existing theories of feminist transnational solidarity cannot allow us to properly acknowledge the power asymmetries and obstacles to solidarity that these NGOs are facing. After assessing the divisions related to gender interests and limited resources that (...) characterize this NGO-ized development landscape, I develop a partial theory of transnational solidarity that would center power asymmetries in order to address practical and political obstacles to solidarity. I argue that an effective account of transnational solidarity must include a commitment to disrupting global hierarchies of power as well as to building practices of accountability and attentiveness to power structures. (shrink)

Se situant au confluent du libéralisme politique rawlsien et de l’anthropologie néoaristotélicienne, l’approche des capabilités de Martha Nussbaum offre un cadre théorique permettant de répondre aux tensions multiculturelles. Cet article constitue une analyse détaillée de la réponse de Nussbaum à ces enjeux, qui prétend unir un pluralisme axiologique à un universalisme moral fort. Nous avancerons que la démarche entreprise par la philosophe porte une tension entre le libéralisme politique rawlsien et le cadre conceptuel apporté par la liste des capabilités. Cette (...) liste pose une difficulté par le déficit démocratique de ses fondements, n’intégrant pas suffisamment des normes d’inclusion et de représentation. Dans un dernier temps, nous tenterons de pallier ces problèmes en intégrant à l’approche de Nussbaum des exigences délibératives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. — This article examines the concept of adaptive preference as it has appeared in feminist political philosophy since the 2000’s. This concept refers to preferences shaped in compliance with an oppressive environment and that jeopardizes one’s well-being. In the first part, the two most influential conceptions of adaptive preference will be discussed : the ones provided by the philosophers Martha Nussbaum and Serene Khader. Afterwards, I will assess these conceptions in the light of recent work by feminist anthropologists Saba (...) Mahmood and Lila Abu-Lughod, in which they revaluate the political project of feminist philosophy underlying adaptive preferences. -/- RÉSUMÉ. — Cet article porte sur le concept de préférence adaptative tel qu’il est apparu en philosophie féministe politique et anglophone depuis les années 2000. Ce concept désigne les préférences formées conformément à un milieu oppressif et qui vont à l’encontre du bien-être. Dans un premier temps, il sera question des deux théorisations les plus influentes à l’heure actuelle: celles développées par les philosophes Martha Nussbaum et Serene Khader. Ensuite, j’évaluerai ces positions à l’aune des récents travaux des anthropologues fémi- nistes Saba Mahmood et Lila Abu-Lughod, dans lesquels elles remettent en question le projet politique de la philosophie féministe sous-jacent aux préfé- rences adaptatives. (shrink)

Book review of Complicit Sisters: Gender and Women’s Issues across North-South Divides, by Sara de Jong.

According to the perceptual-attentional limitations hypothesis, the confusion between expressions of disgust and anger may be due to the difficulty in perceptually distinguishing the two, or insufficient attention to their distinctive cues. The objective of the current study was to test this hypothesis as an explanation for the confusion between expressions of disgust and anger in adults using eye-movements. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to identify each emotion in 96 trials composed of prototypes of anger and prototypes of disgust. (...) In Experiment 2, fixation points oriented participants’ attention toward the eyes, the nose, or the mouth of each prototype. Results revealed that disgust was less accurately recognised than anger (Experiment 1 and 2), especially when the mouth was open (Experiment 1 and 2), and even when attention was oriented toward the distinctive features of disgust (Experiment 2). Additionally, when attention was oriented toward certain zones, the eyes (which contain characteristics of anger) had the longest dwell times, followed by the nose (which contains characteristics of disgust; Experiment 2). Thus, although participants may attend to the distinguishing features of disgust and anger, these may not aid them in accurately recognising each prototype. (shrink)

L’antéposition d’un verbe non conjugué (participe passé, infinitif) en ancien et en moyen français a été assimilée à l’antéposition stylistique de l’islandais. Nous montrons que dans le cas du français, ces antépositions illustrent trois constructions différentes, toutes distinctes de l’antéposition stylistique de l’islandais. Dans la construction la plus fréquente, étiquetée déplacement stylistique à gauche, l’expression antéposée s’insère dans une position interne à la proposition plutôt que dans la périphérie gauche, à la droite immédiate de la position canonique du sujet, qui (...) peut y être réalisé, contrairement à ce que l’on observe en islandais. La même analyse est étendue aux cas où le sujet est nul ou déplacé plus à gauche. Les deux autres cas sont ceux où 1) l’expression antéposée est l’élément initial d’une construction V2, une situation rare, ou 2) il y a mise en relief du verbe non fini à la gauche immédiate de la position canonique du sujet. (shrink)

Les enjeux majeurs de l’éducation des adultes se résument en ces trois mots indissociables qu’éclaire ma théorie de la réciprocité éducative. S’éduquer, comme se nourrir, c’est à la fois recourir à l’action d’un autre et ne s’en remettre qu’à soi pour grandir, se conduire et s’épanouir. Le paradoxe de la mutualité réside en ce que j’adviens à ma singularité personnelle en voulant que tu sois toi-même par toi, et inversement. La transhumance est l’autre nom de l’éducabilité des personnes qui s’accomplissent (...) en parcourant ensemble leurs chemins, terrestres ou intérieurs. (shrink)

Neurodiversity has remained a controversial concept over the last decade. In its broadest sense the concept of neurodiversity regards atypical neurological development as a normal human difference. The neurodiversity claim contains at least two different aspects. The first aspect is that autism, among other neurological conditions, is first and foremost a natural variation. The other aspect is about conferring rights and in particular value to the neurodiversity condition, demanding recognition and acceptance. Autism can be seen as a natural variation on (...) par with for example homosexuality. The broad version of the neurodiversity claim, covering low-functioning as well as high-functioning autism, is problematic. Only a narrow conception of neurodiversity, referring exclusively to high-functioning autists, is reasonable. We will discuss the effects of DSM categorization and the medical model for high functioning autists. After a discussion of autism as a culture we will analyze various possible strategies for the neurodiversity movement to claim extra resources for autists as members of an underprivileged culture without being labelled disabled or as having a disorder. We will discuss their vulnerable status as a group and what obligation that confers on the majority of neurotypicals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 189-192 [Access article in PDF] The Responsibility of the Psychopathic Offender:Commentary on Ciocchetti Piers Benn Christopher Ciocchetti has valuable things to say in his article. He takes as his starting point some common ground between his views and my own, especially about the importance of Strawsonian participant reactive attitudes to our understanding of psychopathy. But he proceeds to claim that the distinguishing feature (...) of psychopaths is not their lack of such attitudes but their inability to understand how relationships are affected by their behavior—and indeed their inability, in some sense, to understand interpersonal relationships at all. He also takes me to task for claiming that the participant reactive attitudes (PRAs)—presumably he includes things like resentment, indignation, gratitude, and so on—are essentially communicative. For him, this is too strong a claim, because we can imagine cases when such attitudes are expressed, but without any communicative purpose.On the latter point, I concede that people often do express PRAs even though they know such expression will have no effect on those whose behavior or attitudes gave rise to them. Different things can explain this lack of effect. For example, imagine a normally responsive person who obstinately fails to see that a certain judgment applies to him or her in a particular case. Take a woman who repeatedly expresses frustration and anger toward her husband for failing to do any domestic chores, but without having the slightest effect on him. Eventually her expressions of anger serve more as an emotional release than as an attempt to get him to change. As in Ciocchetti's example of Mary's reaction to her calls not being returned, she gives up in the end, expressing anger but without any hope of getting through to the other person.But there is another possible explanation for her anger: suppose the husband's failure to contribute to the housework does not arise from his inability to respond to moral claims upon him, but because he thinks he is already doing his duty by being the sole wage earner, and is quite intransigent about this. In that case, the woman might still see him, in general, as a proper object of her PRAs. She sees his fault as local rather than general; a failure, or perhaps even an inability, to think properly about this particular issue rather than about moral demands in general. She might regard her angry outbursts as justified, not because they will have any effect on him now, [End Page 189] but because they are a proper participant response to some earlier failure, which he was then able to do something about—maybe he neglected to think properly about fairness when forming his moral outlook.Compare this case, though, with someone who just does not understand the nature of relationships and the obligations they impose. This is the sort of case Ciocchetti has in mind. Anger is, on his account, understandable, not because it is meant to communicate anything, but because it is "an expression with no further aim at all" (2003, p. 178). On this point, I agree that people sometimes do express anger (or other emotions) without trying to induce a response in someone. At the same time, there is a significant difference between times when we do hope to elicit an appropriate participant response like shame, and times when we do not. When we express such attitudes without any hope of a participant response, we miss something that is, if not essential to, at least typical of such expressions. Getting angry with the neighbor's aggressive dog or scrounging cat is understandable, but it is simply not the same kind of thing as getting angry with a normal, rational adult. The typical case, maybe the necessarily typical case, is when we experience or express such emotions toward, or at least concerning, beings capable of PRAs—and, again typically if not always, such beings are capable of understanding when and why the PRAs of others are directed toward them.But the thrust of Ciocchetti's paper lies not... (shrink)

In recent debates on phenomenal consciousness, a distinction is sometimes made, after Levine (2001) and Kriegel (2009), between the “qualitative character” of an experience, i.e. the specific way it feels to the subject (e.g. blueish or sweetish or pleasant), and its “subjective character”, i.e. the fact that there is anything at all that it feels like to her. I argue that much discussion of subjective character is affected by a conflation between three different notions. I start by disentangling the three (...) notions in question, under the labels of “for-me-ness”, “me-ness” and “mineness”. Next, I argue that these notions are not equivalent; in particular, there is no conceptual implication from for-me-ness to me-ishness or mineness. Empirical considerations based on clinical cases additionally suggest that the three notions may also correspond to different properties (although the claim of conceptual non-equivalence does not depend on this further point). The aim is clarificatory, cautionary but also critical: I examine four existing arguments from subjective character that are fuelled by an undifferentiated use of the three notions, and find them to be flawed for this reason. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define a λ-calculus typed in aMixed (commutative and non-commutative) Intuitionistic Linear Logic. The terms of such a calculus are the labelling of proofs of a linear intuitionistic mixed natural deduction NILL, which is based on the non-commutative linear multiplicative sequent calculus MNL [RuetAbrusci 99]. This linear λ-calculus involves three linear arrows: two directional arrows and a nondirectional one (the usual linear arrow). Moreover, the -terms are provided with seriesparallel orders on free variables. We (...) prove a normalization theorem which explicitly gives the behaviour of the order during the normalization procedure. (shrink)

Pindar, perhaps more than any other ancient poet, seems to demand from his interpreters declarations of their critical premises. In recent years scholars customarily have made initial acknowledgment to the work of E. R. Bundy, as psychoanalysts must to Freud, before they begin to offer their own modifications to and expansions of his fundamental work. Much contemporary scholarship has concentrated on the identification and classification in the odes of the elements whose function Bundy labelled and explained. But useful as this (...) type of analysis has been for exorcising the demon of biographical interpretation, it has, like all orthodoxies, prevented perception of other equally important truths. It constitutes no radical heterodoxy to try to account for the fact that each individual ode, for all its dependence on common conventions of structure and of content, makes a different impression. Nor is it unreasonable to try to explain what makes Pindar's style and approach distinctive.In my own work I have argued, though perhaps not always convincingly, that language as well as structure contributes to an ode's coherence. Scholars trained in America are more willing to assume that repetition of phrase or theme within a poem has significance, and that metaphors can simultaneously bear more than one connotation. The issues at stake have most recently been delineated by Michael Silk, in his discussion of the effect of metaphor in archaic poetry: ‘By “patent”, I mean effects whose existence is not in doubt, though their character may be disputed; by “latent”, those whose effective significance is so tenuous or marginal that one resents the impression of solidity that even mentioning them produces. Such insensitivity is more common than it should be among American classicists, many of whom have also been influenced by the “New Criticism”…’ As illustration of the erroneous American approach Silk cites Cedric Whitman's description of the thematic relation of fires in theIliad.Silk himself avoids the trap Whitman falls into by considering only ‘patent’ metaphors, and these consistentlyout of context, so that there is no necessity to comment on the existence or non-existence of thematic connections among them. But it is possible—at least logically—to frame the question differently, and to ask whether a metaphor cannot have patent and latent associations at the same time. (shrink)

Consumers' concerns for the environment have led to the creation of niche markets, quality certifications and labelling systems. Built by activists and NGOs, these systems were adopted by agribusiness. Such firms try to capture consumers and react to opinion campaigns, whilst appropriating the conservation (or 'fair') discourse. This leads to the rise of new forms of third-party certifications of food production based on private standards and, hence, to new forms of contract relations between producers and buyers. The nature of these (...) relationships is not always evident in these new labels or in the discourse built to justify them. This is particularly so in the case of goods produced in the South to be traded and sold in the North, as the case of Starbucks illustrates. By the end of the 1990s, Starbucks, operating through an NGO called Conservation International (CI), arrived at the region of El Triunfo, in Chiapas, and contacted the producers' cooperatives that were trying to find a market for their product. CI promoted Starbucks standards to raise the coffee quality and won the control over the production system. Meanwhile, the producers forced to sell their coffee through the largest trade company (AMSA) against whom the cooperatives were created, lost the control over their own organization. When some cooperatives refused the deal, they suffered divisions but could survive thanks the Fair Trade (FT) network in Chiapas. (shrink)

There is an increasing interest in how managers describe and respond to what they regard as moral versus nonmoral problems in organizations. In this study, forty managers described a moral problem and a nonmoral problem that they had encountered in their organization, each of which had been resolved. Analyses indicated that: (1) the two types of problems could be significantly differentiated using four of Jones' (1991) components of moral intensity; (2) the labels managers used to describe problems varied systematically between (...) the two types of problems and according to the problem's moral intensity; and (3) problem management processes varied according to the problem's type and moral intensity. (shrink)

The article proposes a framework for the analysis of identity as produced in linguistic interaction, based on the following principles: identity is the product rather than the source of linguistic and other semiotic practices and therefore is a social and cultural rather than primarily internal psychological phenomenon; identities encompass macro-level demographic categories, temporary and interactionally specific stances and participant roles, and local, ethnographically emergent cultural positions; identities may be linguistically indexed through labels, implicatures, stances, styles, or linguistic structures and systems; (...) identities are relationally constructed through several, often overlapping, aspects of the relationship between self and other, including similarity/difference, genuineness/artifice and authority/ delegitimacy; and identity may be in part intentional, in part habitual and less than fully conscious, in part an outcome of interactional negotiation, in part a construct of others’ perceptions and representations, and in part an outcome of larger ideological processes and structures. The principles are illustrated through examination of a variety of linguistic interactions. (shrink)

Carl Becker's classic 1931 address "Everyman his own historian" holds lessons for historians of science today. Like the professional historians he spoke to, we are content to display the Ivory- Tower Syndrome, writing scholarly treatises only for one another, disdaining both the general reader and our natural readership, scientists. Following his rhetoric, I argue that scientists are well aware of their own historicity, and would be interested in lively and balanced histories of science. It is ironic that the very professionalism (...) that ought to equip us to write such histories has imposed on us a powerful taboo that renders us unable to do so. We who count ourselves sophisticated in describing the effects of social forces upon past scientists have been remarkably unconscious of the ways our own practices are being shaped by our need to distinguish ourselves from scientists who write history. Our fear of presentism in general and Whig history in particular is really a taboo, that is, an excessive avoidance enforced by social pressure. It succeeds at making our work distinct from histories written by scientists, but at the awful cost of blotting out the great fact of scientific progress. Scientists may be misguided in expecting us to celebrate great men, but they are right to demand from historians an analysis of the process of testing and improvement that is central to science. If progress in general is a problematic term, we could label the process "emendation.". (shrink)

In “The Mind Incarnate” Shapiro argues that research in the area of embodied, embedded mind and cognition undermines a functionalist program. In contrast Clark, in “Pressing the Flesh”, argues that embodied, embedded approaches can be viewed as extended functionalistic approaches. In the light of these arguments my thesis is devoted to elucidating the logical relation between functionalism and embodied, embedded approaches. I argue that the functionalist programme is not undermined by embodied and embedded approaches. Shapiro argues that research of embodied, (...) embedded cognition and mind shows that characteristics of embodiment determine characteristics of mind. I label this view the body-detail model. The consequence of this model is that the very same kind of mind cannot exist in bodies with different characteristics. Thus, having a humanlike mind requires a humanlike body. This conflicts with abstract versions of functionalism that endorse multiple realization: the idea that the same mind can exist in different kinds of bodies. I argue against the body-detail model, demonstrating that for each of the research projects presented by Shapiro the strong reading that one has to have a humanlike body to have a human mind is not justified. This paves the way for an alternative reading, represented by Clark, under which the body is recognized as being part of a larger system which overall operating profile determines mind. Arguments for this position involve argumentative extensions of functionalism. On this basis I conclude that functionalism is not undermined by embodied, embedded approaches. (shrink)

Halford, Wilson & Phillips argue that cognitive development is driven by increases in processing capacity. We suggest that changes in relational knowledge are as important or more so. We present evidence that 3-year-olds' analogical abilities are sharply improved by teaching them relational labels; over a 30-minute experimental session children gained approximately 2 years in effective performance. These results mandate caution interpreting age-related change as indicating maturational change, and call for a deeper consideration of the role of epistemological change in cognitive (...) development. (shrink)

While numerous studies show that brain signals contain information about an individual’s current state that are potentially valuable for smoothing man-machine interfaces, this has not yet lead to the use of brain computer interfaces (BCI) in daily life. One of the main challenges is the common requirement of personal data that is correctly labelled concerning the state of interest in order to train a model, where this trained model is not guaranteed to generalize across time and context. Another challenge is (...) the requirement to wear electrodes on the head. We here propose a BCI that can tackle these issues and may be a promising case for BCI research and application in everyday life. The BCI uses EEG signals to predict head rotation in order to improve images presented in a Virtual Reality (VR) headset. When presenting a 360° video to a headset, Field-of-View approaches only stream the content that is in the current field of view and leave out the rest. When the user rotates the head, other content parts need to be made available soon enough to go unnoticed by the user which is problematic given the available bandwidth. By predicting head rotation, the content parts adjacent to the currently viewed part could be retrieved in time for display when the rotation actually takes place. Eleven participants generated left- and rightward head rotations while head movements were recorded using the headsets motion sensing system and EEG sensors. We trained neural network models to distinguish EEG epochs preceding rightward, leftward and no rotation. Applying these models to streaming EEG data that was withheld from the training showed that 400 ms before rotation onset, the probability ‘no rotation’ started to decrease and the probabilities of an upcoming right- or leftward rotation started to diverge in the correct direction. In the proposed BCI scenario, users already wear a device on their head allowing for integrated sensors. Moreover, it is possible to acquire accurately labeled training data on the fly, and continuously monitor and improve the model’s performance. The BCI can be harnessed if it will improve imagery and therewith enhance immersive experience. (shrink)

Alexandra Shuford's book is primarily designed to address the following question: "What can Deweyan pragmatism contribute to a feminist empiricist epistemology?" (viii). Her answer is Dewey's conception of habit, and in her final chapter, she illustrates the utility of this conception by comparing what she labels the "medicalized" model of labor and birth to that employed by practitioners of midwifery. Before looking at Shuford's reading of this contrast more closely, however, it needs to be noted at the outset that she (...) also regards her constructive project to be one of "augmenting" or "extending" the efforts of Lynn Hankinson Nelson to formulate a feminist empiricism derived from Quine's naturalized epistemology. .. (shrink)

Taking regular walks when living with Parkinson’s disease has beneficial effects on movement and quality of life. Yet, patients usually show reduced physical activity compared to healthy older adults. Using auditory stimulation such as music can facilitate walking but patients vary significantly in their response. An individualized approach adapting musical tempo to patients’ gait cadence, and capitalizing on these individual differences, is likely to provide a rewarding experience, increasing motivation for walk-in PD. We aim to evaluate the observance, safety, tolerance, (...) usability, and enjoyment of a new smartphone application. It was coupled with wearable sensors and delivered individualized musical stimulation for gait auto-rehabilitation at home. Forty-five patients with PD underwent a 1-month, outdoor, uncontrolled gait rehabilitation program, using the BeatWalk application. The music tempo was being aligned in real-time to patients’ gait cadence in a way that could foster an increase up to +10% of their spontaneous cadence. Open-label evaluation was based on BeatWalk use measures, questionnaires, and a six-minute walk test. Patients used the application 78.8% of the prescribed duration and enjoyed it throughout the program. The application was considered “easy to use” by 75% of the patients. Pain, fatigue, and falls did not increase. Fear of falling decreased and quality of life improved. After the program, patients improved their gait parameters in the six-minute walk test without musical stimulation. BeatWalk is an easy to use, safe, and enjoyable musical application for individualized gait rehabilitation in PD. It increases “walk for exercise” duration thanks to high observance.Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02647242. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether all that unites the main parts of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty—the liberty principle, the defense of free discussion, the promotion of individuality, and the claims concerning individual competence about one’s own good—is a general concern with individual liberty, or whether we can say something more concrete about how they are related. I attempt to show that the arguments of On Liberty exemplify Mill’s institutional design approach set out in Considerations of Representative Government (...) and related works. Mill’s approach reflects both his debt to Bentham and his own progressive development of the utilitarian tradition. The paper proceeds by setting out the elements of Mill’s institutional designs and then showing that On Liberty neatly applies them, thereby clarifying the structure of the arguments of On Liberty. (shrink)

Some commentators have condemned Kant’s moral project from a feminist perspective based on Kant’s apparently dim view of women as being innately morally deficient. Here I will argue that although his remarks concerning women are unsettling at first glance, a more detailed and closer examination shows that Kant’s view of women is actually far more complex and less unsettling than that attributed to him by various feminist critics. My argument, then, undercuts the justification for the severe feminist critique of Kant’s (...) moral project. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Pragmatist Philosophy of History by Marnie BinderPiers H. G. StephensA Pragmatist Philosophy of History Marnie Binder. Lexington Books, 2023.Looking at current scholarship and opinion in American philosophy, one can easily conclude that there has been much more work done on studying the history of pragmatist philosophy than there has been on what pragmatist philosophy can give to the study of history. Ever since the resurrection of interest (...) in pragmatism in the late twentieth century, we have seen a range of publications offering new interpretations for the ideas of the classical pragmatists, as well as important new applications for philosophical pragmatism and the moving to center stage of historically sidelined individuals and groups. What we have seen relatively little of, however, aside from a 2016 symposium in the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, is sustained engagement with the question of what a classically pragmatist approach to historical inquiry might contribute, entail, or imply. It is this important niche in the ecosystem of American philosophy that Marnie Binder's A Pragmatist Philosophy of History seeks to partially fill in.Binder, who is perhaps best known for her past writings on José Ortega y Gasset, is at pains from the start to indicate both the humility and the utility of her project. As befits the tradition, there are no grandiose philosophical pretensions here, with the "goal in presenting a pragmatist philosophy of [End Page 112] history" merely being "to add another apparatus to the toolkits of the philosopher and the historian," an extra perspective that is "meant to complement other methodologies" (xi; emphasis in original), as she explains in her introduction. At the same time, pragmatism can offer something distinctive, firstly through asking the pragmatic question of what difference is meant by the accepting of particular presumed facts as being true, and secondly, being able to better understand why certain historical details have relevance, value, and meaning for us as a result of answering the first question. A pragmatist philosophy of history is helpful then, Binder maintains, as it "is in a unique position to bridge the speculative analytic divide" (xiii), and her approach to doing this is to draw upon the resources found in the works of a succession of the familiar classical pragmatists, building toward a synthesis and a cashing out of insights in her concluding reflections.Structurally the work consists of an explanatory introduction followed by six chapters, each dedicated to a particular pragmatist and their insights, leading finally to an extended concluding section drawing the component parts together and answering possible objections to the project. Pragmatism, as Binder recognizes, is seldom thought of as a historically orientated philosophy, but she argues that for each of these thinkers—William James, John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and Jane Addams—there is at least the germ of a philosophy of history that can be unearthed and developed, eventually helping to inform understanding of what is needed to bring a pragmatist ethics into practical reality, the last of which is manifested primarily by Addams. Thus, the treatment of William James in chapter 1 homes in on James's psychological insights into the way that experienced reality forms a temporal continuum; our consciousness necessarily selects from the experiences of the past, ascribing interpretations and assuming levels of facticity and relevance, since no individual can know all the facts or select among them with perfect impartiality. The continuum will be one that speaks to the inquirer's concerns with accuracy, practicality, meaningfulness, and coherence, as all knowledge comes about through temporal processes, and since past events are continuously added to and can be continuously reinterpreted, it can have no real or ultimate beginning or end. Accordingly, for a Jamesian pragmatist account, the "continuum of history is the way in which we construct a meaning for history of the connected past experiences with the present and in view of the future—this is what we call 'history'" (7; emphasis in original), and Binder draws upon José Medina's recent work to further illuminate how such history can and will be continuously critically reconstructed. In addition, she observes, such reconstruction [End Page... (shrink)

This book offers a defence of mathematical fictionalism, according to which we have no reason to believe that there are any mathematical objects. Perhaps the most pressing challenge to mathematical fictionalism is the indispensability argument for the truth of our mathematical theories (and therefore for the existence of the mathematical objects posited by those theories). According to this argument, if we have reason to believe anything, we have reason to believe that the claims of our best empirical theories are (at (...) least approximately) true. But since claims whose truth would require the existence of mathematical objects are indispensable in formulating our best empirical theories, it follows that we have good reason to believe in the mathematical objects posited by those mathematical theories used in empirical science, and therefore to believe that the mathematical theories utilized in empirical science are true. Previous responses to the indispensability argument have focused on arguing that mathematical assumptions can be dispensed with in formulating our empirical theories. This book, by contrast, offers an account of the role of mathematics in empirical science according to which the successful use of mathematics in formulating our empirical theories need not rely on the truth of the mathematics utilized. (shrink)