Se analizan las políticas medio ambientales e indígenas durante el período 1990- 2010 de gobiernos de la Concertación, los tratados internacionales sobre el medio ambiente que inciden en el uso de recursos naturales en territorios huilliche. Se concluye que la política pública medioambiental, por su naturaleza reactiva, en el contexto de los mercados globales, se ha visto sobrepasada por la hegemonía del poder de las transnacionales que invierten en los commodities forestal, minero, agropecuario, amparadas por una legislación ambiental débil y (...) un discurso político obsecuente. (shrink)

Abstract‘Representing Race and Gender’ was the first course in the undergraduate curriculum of the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney to foreground race. This paper provides a critical reflection of our embodied and affective experiences teaching this course as women of different racial and cultural backgrounds (Korean American and Anglo Australian). We draw on feminist pedagogies to illuminate the strategic ways we have performed our own intersectional identities in lecture and tutorial spaces. In particular we (...) focus on the different ways we have approached and taught material on whiteness and white privilege and how students of various backgrounds have responded to the same material when it is taught by a white or non-white lecturer. Through this discussion, we think through how ‘Representing Race and Gender’ functions as a space where pedagogical decisions and approaches are inextricably linked to our goal of developing students’ capacities for engaging with racial difference and racism in critically conscious ways that extend beyond the classroom. (shrink)

The preservation of our planet’s decreasing biodiversity is a global challenge. Human attitudes and preferences toward animals have profound impacts on conservation policies and decisions. To date, the vast majority of studies about human attitudes and concern toward animals have focused largely on western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic populations. In order to mitigate biodiversity loss globally, an understanding of how humans make decisions about animals from multicultural perspectives is needed. The present study examines familiarity, liking and endorsement of government (...) protection amongst six broad cultural groups living in Qatar for five threatened animal species indigenous to the Arabian Gulf. Our findings highlight similarities and differences across cultures toward animals. Overall, familiarity did not predict endorsement for government protection after liking was accounted for. Liking, however, emerged as an important predictor of endorsement for government protection across cultures, although the degree of animal liking varied culturally. WEIRD and South East Asian participants showed similar and more positive attitudes toward animals compared to the other groups. Participants from the Arabian Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia responded similarly toward the animals. Interestingly, the Arabian Gulf group demonstrated significantly less liking and protection endorsement for animals, including those animals which play an important role in their culture. This research highlights intriguing avenues for future research and points to liking as a possible universal human attitude toward animals that influences decision making about conservation across all cultures while suggesting applications for improving education. (shrink)

Lynch, Parke, and O’Malley highlight the need for better evaluative criteria for causal explanations in microbiome research. They propose new interventionist criteria, show that paradigmatic examples of microbiome explanations are flawed using those criteria, and suggest numerous ways microbiome explanations can be improved. While we endorse their primary criticisms and suggestions for improvements in microbiome research, we make several observations regarding the use of mooted causal models in microbiome research that have significant implications for their overall argument. In sum, we (...) contend that their critique is too modest and that even flawed causal inferences like those they criticize can be valuable for generating better causal models and evaluating explanatory outcomes in individual cases. (shrink)

Lynch, Parke, and O’Malley highlight the need for better evaluative criteria for causal explanations in microbiome research. They propose new interventionist criteria, show that paradigmatic examples of microbiome explanations are flawed using those criteria, and suggest numerous ways microbiome explanations can be improved. While we endorse their primary criticisms and suggestions for improvements in microbiome research, we make several observations regarding the use of mooted causal models in microbiome research that have significant implications for their overall argument. In sum, we (...) contend that their critique is too modest and that even flawed causal inferences like those they criticize can be valuable for generating better causal models and evaluating explanatory outcomes in individual cases. (shrink)

Little literature has looked at the role of universities promoting and supporting grassroots social innovations. This paper addresses this gap by examining how universities contribute to social innovation in Colombia. In seeking to develop a good understanding of how universities can contribute to the development of social innovation niches, we draw upon the Strategic Niche Management theory and the three areas of activity which constitute effective niche-building: social networks, expectations and visions and learning. We explore this phenomenon with the Parque (...) Científico de Innovación Social, founded by Uniminuto University in 2012, using video case study research methodology. Findings suggest the important role played by Uniminuto University influencing the current higher education system regime by enhancing the development of social innovation niches. These results have implications for advancing the debate on the role of higher education institutions in contributing to the development of social innovation processes.Poca literatura ha analizado el papel de las universidades promoviendo y apoyando las innovaciones sociales de base. Este documento aborda esta brecha al examinar cómo las universidades contribuyen a la innovación social en Colombia. Al tratar de desarrollar una buena comprensión de cómo las universidades pueden contribuir al desarrollo de nichos de innovación social, recurrimos a la teoría de Gestión Estratégica de Nichos y las tres áreas de actividad que constituyen la creación efectiva de nichos: redes sociales, expectativas y visiones y aprendizaje. Exploramos este fenómeno con el Parque Científico de Innovación Social, fundado por la Universidad de Uniminuto en 2012, utilizando la metodología de investigación de estudios de casos de video. Los hallazgos sugieren el importante papel desempeñado por la Universidad de Uniminuto que influye en el régimen actual del sistema de educación superior al mejorar el desarrollo de nichos de innovación social. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones para avanzar en el debate sobre el papel de las instituciones de educación superior en la contribución al desarrollo de los procesos de innovación social. (shrink)

Park rangers hold a unique set of knowledge—of science, of publics, of institutional structures, of place, and of self—that should be recognised as valuable. For too long, models of the knowledge of scientists and publics have set people like rangers in an inbetweener position, seeing them as good at communicating, translating or negotiating from one side to the other, but not as making knowledge that is powerful in its own right. In this paper we argue that focus groups with (...) park rangers across regional and conservation parks in Aotearoa/New Zealand reveal the complexity and multiplicity of rangers’ knowledge-making that shows the science-public model as incomplete. We argue further that the model is flawed for its focus on the making and holding of knowledge and not also on how it is enacted. Rangers, we argue, are responsible every day for making knowledgeable decisions for the health and well-being of parks and people. Making good decisions, though, requires not just knowledge but also care. An understanding of the many ways rangers know and enact their knowledge is important for biosecurity practice, especially in models of adaptive governance. (shrink)

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

Many philosophers hypothesize that our concept of personal identity is partly constituted by the one-person-one-place rule, which states that a person can only be in one place at a time. This hypothesis has been assumed by the most influential contemporary work on personal identity. In this paper, we report a series of studies testing whether the hypothesis is true. In these studies, people consistently judged that the same person existed in two different places at the same time. This result undermines (...) some widely held philosophical assumptions, supports others, and fits well with recent discoveries on identity judgments about inanimate objects and non-human animals. (shrink)

[This] is a... guide to both the major schools of literature and the political, philosophical and cultural theories informing them from the nineteenth century to the present. It covers the fundamental basics of each theory alongside discussions of current debates and contemporary usage..."--Back cover.

Evidence from life science, cognitive science, and philosophy supports the hypothesis that knowledge is a central norm of the human practice of assertion. However, to date, the experimental evidence supporting this hypothesis is limited to American anglophones. If the hypothesis is correct, then such findings will not be limited to one language or culture. Instead, we should find a strong connection between knowledge and assertability across human languages and cultures. To begin testing this prediction, we conducted three experiments on Koreans (...) in Korean. In each case, the findings replicated prior results observed in Americans and were corroborated by key findings from new replication studies on Americans using materials back-translated from Korean. These findings support the theory that there is a core, cross-culturally robust human practice of assertion and that, according to the rules of this practice, assertions should express knowledge. (shrink)

Feminism is sensational -- On being directed -- Willfulness and feminist subjectivity -- Trying to transform -- Being in question -- Brick walls -- Fragile connections -- Feminist snap -- Lesbian feminism -- Conclusion 1: A killjoy survival kit -- Conclusion 2: A killjoy manifesto.

_The Promise of Happiness_ is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: “I just want you to be happy”; “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the “happiness duty,” the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in that which (...) is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those willing to live their lives in the right way. Ahmed draws on the intellectual history of happiness, from classical accounts of ethics as the good life, through seventeenth-century writings on affect and the passions, eighteenth-century debates on virtue and education, and nineteenth-century utilitarianism. She engages with feminist, antiracist, and queer critics who have shown how happiness is used to justify social oppression, and how challenging oppression causes unhappiness. Reading novels and films including_ Mrs. Dalloway_, _The Well of Loneliness_, _Bend It Like Beckham_, and _Children of Men_, Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who challenge and are challenged by the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant. Through her readings she raises critical questions about the moral order imposed by the injunction to be happy. (shrink)

Introduction: find your way -- Orientations toward objects -- Sexual orientation -- The orient and other others -- Conclusion: disorientation and queer objects.

This study examines whether L1 English/L2 Spanish learners at different proficiency levels acquire a novel L2 phoneme, the Spanish palatal nasal /ɲ/. While alveolar /n/ is part of the Spanish and English inventories, /ɲ/, which consists of a tautosyllabic palatal nasal+glide element, is not. This crosslinguistic disparity presents potential difficulty for L1 English speakers due to L1 segmental and phonotactic constraints; the closest English approximation is the heterosyllabic sequence /nj/. With these crosslinguistic differences in mind, we ask: Do L1 English (...) learners of L2 Spanish produce acoustically distinct Spanish /n/ and /ɲ/ and Does the distinction of /n/ and /ɲ/ vary by proficiency? In the case that learners distinguish /n/ and /ɲ/, the second question investigates the acoustic quality of /ɲ/ to determine if learners' L2 representation patterns with that of an L1 Spanish representation or if learners rely on an L1 representation and if the acoustic quality of L2 Spanish /ɲ/ varies as a function of proficiency. Beginner and advanced L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers and a comparison group of 10 L1 Spanish/L2 English speakers completed delayed repetition tasks in which disyllabic nonce words were produced in a carrier phrase. English critical items contained an intervocalic heterosyllabic /nj/ sequence ; Spanish critical items consisted of items with either intervocalic onset /ɲ/ or /n/ ['xa.na]. We measured duration and formant contours of the following vocalic portion as acoustic indices of the /n/~/ɲ/ and /ɲ/ ~/nj/ distinctions. Results show that, while L2 Spanish learners produce an acoustically distinct /n/ ~ /ɲ/ contrast even at a low level of proficiency, the beginners produce an intermediate /ɲ/ that falls acoustically between their English /nj/ and the L1 Spanish /ɲ/ while the advanced learners' Spanish /ɲ/ and English /nj/ appear to be in the process of equivalence classification. We discuss these outcomes as they relate to the robustness of L1 phonological constraints in late L2 acquisition coupled with the role of perceptual cues, functional load, and questions of intelligibility. (shrink)

The most popular uniting theme in feminist peace literature grounds women's peace work in mothering. I argue if maternal arguments do not address the variety of relationships different races and classes of mothers have to institutional violence and/or the military, then the resulting peace politics can only draw incomplete conclusions about the relationships between maternal work/thinking and peace. To illustrate this I compare two models of mothering: Sara Ruddick's decription of "maternal practice" and Patricia Hill Collins's account of racial-ethnic (...) women's "motherwork.". (shrink)

The debate on love's reasons ignores unrequited love, which—I argue—can be as genuine and as valuable as reciprocated love. I start by showing that the relationship view of love cannot account for either the reasons or the value of unrequited love. I then present the simple property view, an alternative to the relationship view that is beset with its own problems. In order to solve these problems, I present a more sophisticated version of the property view that integrates ideas from (...) different property theorists in the love literature. However, even this more sophisticated property view falls short in accounting for unrequited love's reasons. In response, I develop a new version of the property view that I call the experiential view. On this view, we love a person not only in virtue of properties shaped by and experienced in a reciprocal loving relationship, but also in virtue of perspectival properties, whose value can be properly assessed also outside of a reciprocal loving relationship. The experiential view is the only view that can account not only for reciprocated love's reasons, but also for unrequited love's reasons. (shrink)

Envy is almost universally condemned. But is its reputation warranted? Sara Protasi argues envy is multifaceted and sometimes even virtuous.

In this paper I present a novel taxonomy of envy, according to which there are four kinds of envy: emulative, inert, aggressive and spiteful envy. An inquiry into the varieties of envy is valuable not only to understand it as a psychological phenomenon, but also to shed light on the nature of its alleged viciousness. The first section introduces the intuition that there is more than one kind of envy, together with the anecdotal and linguistic evidence that supports it. The (...) second section proposes and explains in detail a definition of envy tout court. The third section presents a recurring distinction between behavioral tendencies of envy, which has been explained in two distinct ways, one mostly proposed by psychologists, the other discernible in the philosophical tradition. The fourth section argues that these models of explanation track two variables, whose interplay is responsible for the existence of the four envies. The fifth section illustrates four paradigmatic cases, and provides a detailed analysis of the phenomenology, motivational structure, and typical behavioral outputs of each. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the implications of the taxonomy for moral education. (shrink)

The paper suggests that we can usefully approach whiteness through the lens of phenomenology. Whiteness could be described as an ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they `take up' space, and what they `can do'. The paper considers how whiteness functions as a habit, even a bad habit, which becomes a background to social action. The paper draws on experiences of inhabiting a white world as a non-white body, and explores how whiteness becomes worldly (...) through the noticeability of the arrival of some bodies more than others. A phenomenology of whiteness helps us to notice institutional habits; it brings what is behind to the surface in a certain way. (shrink)

Structural proof theory is a branch of logic that studies the general structure and properties of logical and mathematical proofs. This book is both a concise introduction to the central results and methods of structural proof theory, and a work of research that will be of interest to specialists. The book is designed to be used by students of philosophy, mathematics and computer science. The book contains a wealth of results on proof-theoretical systems, including extensions of such systems from logic (...) to mathematics, and on the connection between the two main forms of structural proof theory - natural deduction and sequent calculus. The authors emphasize the computational content of logical results. A special feature of the volume is a computerized system for developing proofs interactively, downloadable from the web and regularly updated. (shrink)

Bird argues that scientific progress consists in increasing knowledge. Dellsén objects that increasing knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific progress, and argues that scientific progress rather consists in increasing understanding. Dellsén also contends that unlike Bird’s view, his view can account for the scientific practices of using idealizations and of choosing simple theories over complex ones. I argue that Dellsén’s criticisms against Bird’s view fail, and that increasing understanding cannot account for scientific progress, if acceptance, as opposed to (...) belief, is required for scientific understanding. (shrink)

The brain networks underlying human multiple-cue judgment, the judgment of a continuous criterion based on multiple cues, have been examined in a few recent studies, and the ventral precuneus has been found to be a key region. Specifically, activation differences in ventral precuneus (as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) has been linked to an exemplar-based judgment process, where judgments are based on memory for previous similar cases. What aspects of exemplar-based judgment ventral precuneus supports is however poorly understood. (...) Ventral precuneus is a brain region important for various episodic memory processes, where increased engagement of this region together with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the medial temporal lobes (MTL) during learning have been linked to retrieval success. Several alternatives are plausible, for example that reduced brain activity in ventral precuneus during learning to make exemplar-based judgments could reflect reduced needs for visuo-spatial attention as a function of learning to master the task. The present study used fMRI during a multiple-cue judgment task to gain novel neurocognitive evidence informative for the link between learning-related activity changes in ventral precuneus and exemplar-based judgment. Participants (N = 27) spontaneously learned to make judgments during fMRI, in a multiple-cue judgment task specifically designed to induce exemplar-based processing. Contrasting brain activity during late learning to early learning indeed revealed higher activity in ventral precuneus, the bilateral MTL and the vmPFC. Activity in the ventral precuneus and the vmPFC was found to parametrically increase between each judgment event, and activity levels in the ventral precuneus predicted performance after learning. These results are interpreted such that the ventral precuneus supports the aspects of exemplar-based processes that are related to episodic memory, tentatively by building and retrieving memory representations for judgment. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Many realists argue that present scientific theories will not follow the fate of past scientific theories because the former are more successful than the latter. Critics object that realists need to show that present theories have reached the level of success that warrants their truth. I reply that the special theory of relativity has been repeatedly reinforced by unconceived scientific methods, so it will be reinforced by infinitely many unconceived scientific methods. This argument for the special theory of relativity overcomes (...) the critics’ objection, and has advantages over the no-miracle argument and the selective induction for it. (shrink)

Sara HeinSmaa rediscovers neglected passages of Le Duexi_me Sexe in her quest to follow Simone de Beauvoir's line of thinking. She finds the masterpiece to be grounded in the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

This book investigates the role of inference in argumentation, considering how arguments support standpoints on the basis of different loci. The authors propose and illustrate a model for the analysis of the standpoint-argument connection, called Argumentum Model of Topics. A prominent feature of the AMT is that it distinguishes, within each and every single argumentation, between an inferential-procedural component, on which the reasoning process is based; and a material-contextual component, which anchors the argument in the interlocutors’ cultural and factual common (...) ground. The AMT explains how these components differ and how they are intertwined within each single argument. This model is introduced in Part II of the book, following a careful reconstruction of the enormously rich tradition of studies on inference in argumentation, from the antiquity to contemporary authors, without neglecting medieval and post-medieval contributions. The AMT is a contemporary model grounded in a dialogue with such tradition, whose crucial aspects are illuminated in this book. (shrink)

In this article, we explore how deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices designed to “close the loop”—to automatically adjust stimulation levels based on computational algorithms—may risk taking the individual agent “out of the loop” of control in areas where (at least apparent) conscious control is a hallmark of our agency. This is of particular concern in the area of psychiatric disorders, where closed-loop DBS is attracting increasing attention as a therapy. Using a relational model of identity and agency, we consider whether (...) DBS designed for psychiatric regulation may require special attention to agency. To do this, we draw on philosophical work on relational identity and agency, connecting it with reports from people using first-generation DBS devices for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. We suggest a way to extend a notion of relational agency to encompass neural devices. (shrink)

The most popular uniting theme in feminist peace literature grounds women's peace work in mothering. I argue if maternal arguments do not address the variety of relationships different races and classes of mothers have to institutional violence and/or the military, then the resulting peace politics can only draw incomplete conclusions about the relationships between maternal work/thinking and peace. To illustrate this I compare two models of mothering: Sara Ruddick's decription of "maternal practice" and Patricia Hill Collins's account of racial-ethnic (...) women's "motherwork.". (shrink)

Sometimes, we face choices between actions most likely to lead to valuable outcomes, and actions which put us in a better position to learn. These choices exemplify what is called the exploration/exploitation trade-off. In computer science and psychology, this trade-off has fruitfully been applied to modulating the way agents or systems make choices over time. This article extends the trade-off to belief. We can be torn between two ways of believing, one of which is expected to be more accurate in (...) light of current evidence, whereas the other is expected to lead to more learning opportunity and accuracy in the long run. Further, it is sometimes rationally permissible to choose the latter. The article breaks down the features of action which give rise to the trade-off, and then argues that each feature applies equally well to belief. This conclusion is an instance of a systematic, foreseeable way in which what is rational to believe now depends on what one expects to be doing in the future. That is, epistemic rationality fundamentally concerns time. (shrink)

Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

Scientific realists argue that present theories are more successful than past theories, so present theories will not be superseded by alternatives, even though past theories were superseded by alternatives. Alai (2016) objects that although present theories are more successful than past theories, they will be replaced by future theories, just as past theories were replaced by present theories. He contends, however, that past theories were partly true, and that present theories are largely true. I argue that Alai’s discrimination between past (...) and present theories is subject to his own criticism against realists’ discriminations between past and present theories, and also subject to other criticisms that philosophers have raised against scientific realism and pessimism. (shrink)

Today intersectionality has expanded from being primarily a metaphor within structuralist feminist research to an all-encompassing theory. This article discusses this increasing dedication to intersectionality in European feminist research. How come intersectionality has developed into a signifier for ‘good feminist research’ at this particular point in time? Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial theory the authors examine key articles on intersectionality as well as special issues devoted to the concept. They interrogate the conflicts and meaning making processes as well as the (...) genealogies of the concept. Thus, the epistemology and ontology behind the ‘intersectional turn’ in feminist theory is the main concern here. The authors argue that the lack of ontological discussions has lead to its very popularity. Intersectionality promises almost everything: to provide complexity, overcome divisions and to serve as a critical tool. However, the expansion of the scope of intersectionality has created a consensus that conceals fruitful and necessary conflicts within feminism. (shrink)

I argue for the view that envy and jealousy are distinct emotions, whose crucial difference is that envy involves a perception of lack while jealousy involves a perception of loss. I start by noting the common practice of using ‘envy’ and ‘jealousy’ almost interchangeably, and I contrast it with the empirical evidence that shows that envy and jealousy are distinct, albeit similar and often co-occurring, emotions. I then argue in favor of a specific way of understanding their distinction: the view (...) that envy is a response to a perceived lack of a valuable object, while jealousy is a response to a perceived loss of a valuable object. I compare such a view with the most compelling alternative theories, and show that it accounts better for paradigmatic cases. I conclude by showing how the lack vs. loss model can handle complications: ambiguous cases, that is, when it is epistemically unclear whether one experiences lack or loss; hybrid cases, that is, when one seems to experience both lack and loss; and borderline cases, that is, when it is metaphysically unclear whether one experiences lack or loss. (shrink)

This study examined the potential for a new area of corporate social responsibility washing: gender equality. Companies are increasingly recognized for advertisements promoting gender equality, termed “femvertisements.” However, it is unclear whether companies that win femvertising awards actually support women with an institutionalized approach to gender equality. A quantitative content analysis was performed assessing company leadership team listings, annual reports, CSR reports, and CSR websites of 61 US-based companies to compare the prevalence of internal and external gender-equality CSR activities of (...) companies that have won femvertising awards. When controlling for number of employees and annual revenue, award-winning companies committed to more internal efforts that support women than non-award-winning companies. However, no significant differences were found in the number of external efforts or representation in female leadership between companies with and without award-winning femvertisements. Overall, a majority of award-winning companies engaged in less than ten of the possible 23 gender-equality CSR activities, suggesting these companies’ female empowerment commercials were often not in line with their broader CSR activities. While more research is needed in this area, we propose the term “fempower-washing” to describe CSR-washing in the context of gender equality. (shrink)

Episodic and semantic memory are often taken to be fundamentally different mental systems, and contemporary philosophers often pursue research questions about episodic memory, in particular, in isolation from semantic memory. This paper challenges that assumption, and puts pressure on philosophical approaches to memory that break off episodic memory as its own standalone topic. I present and systematize psychological and neuroscientific theories of semanticization, the thesis that memory content tends to drift from episodic to semantic in structure over time and exposure (...) to an environment. Semanticization, I argue, is a long-term interconnection between episodic and semantic systems that requires approaching both the content and function of these two memory systems as a whole. Thus we have a reason to reject projects by Michael Martin, which aims to carve out a uniquely episodic memory content, and Kourken Michaelian, which pairs episodic memory to its own unique function. Instead, seeing declarative memory as a single system with two facets or even a continuum of features allows for deeper insight into both content and function. (shrink)

A general method for generating contraction- and cut-free sequent calculi for a large family of normal modal logics is presented. The method covers all modal logics characterized by Kripke frames determined by universal or geometric properties and it can be extended to treat also Gödel-Löb provability logic. The calculi provide direct decision methods through terminating proof search. Syntactic proofs of modal undefinability results are obtained in the form of conservativity theorems.

The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an extension of or in conflict with mechanistic research strategies? When and how can network and mechanistic approaches interact in productive ways? In this paper we address these questions by focusing on how biological networks are represented and analyzed in a diverse class of case studies. Our examples span from (...) the investigation of organizational properties of biological networks using tools from graph theory to the application of dynamical systems theory to understand the behavior of complex biological systems. We show how network approaches support and extend traditional mechanistic strategies but also offer novel strategies for dealing with biological complexity. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that prosthetic limbs are the subjects of some of the same rights as traditional body parts. This is a strong argument in favour of respecting the rights of users of prosthetics. I argue that all of the reasons to consider paradigm prosthetics the subjects of body-like rights apply to the relationship between some emotional support animals and their handlers. ESAs are integrated into the functioning of their handlers in ways that parallel the ways that paradigm prosthetics (...) are integrated into the functioning of their users. ESAs are also phenomenologically integrated into their handler’s lives in ways that parallel the phenomenological integration that prosthetic users experience. These parallels provide a strong reason to take the rights of ESA handlers much more seriously than we do now. I will highlight that the current treatment of ESA handlers presumes that they have no rights to ESAs at all. Even if ESAs are the subject of very minimal body-like rights, ESA handlers are having their rights violated. There are of course disanalogies between ESAs and paradigm prosthetics. Most notably, ESAs are alive and separate from their handlers. However, none of these disanalogies are relevant to the question of body-like rights. The differences between ESAs and paradigm prosthetics are in terms of what treatment is owed to them, not in terms of what rights their handlers and users should have. ESAs are not prosthetics, but they deserve some of the rights prosthetics do. (shrink)

Differences That Matter challenges existing ways of theorising the relationship between feminism and postmodernism which ask 'is or should feminism be modern or postmodern?' Sara Ahmed suggests that postmodernism has been allowed to dictate feminist debates and calls instead for feminist theorists to speak (back) to postmodernism, rather than simply speak on (their relationship to) it. Such a 'speaking back' involves a refusal to position postmodernism as a generalisable condition of the world and requires closer readings of what postmodernism (...) is actually 'doing' in a variety of disciplinary contexts. Sara Ahmed hence examines constructions of postmodernism in relation to rights, ethics, subjectivity, authorship, meta-fiction and film. (shrink)

What does it mean to hold a belief? Some of our ways of speaking in English suggest that to hold a belief is to have something in your mind: beliefs are things we acquire, defend, recover, and so on (Abelson, 1986). That is, believing is a matter of being in a state of having a thing. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative: believing is something we do. This is not a new suggestion. For instance, Matthew Boyle (2011) (...) defends a theory of belief as an activity, which he traces back to Aristotle. This paper, however, makes two new contributions: first, I argue for an analogy between belief and planning that fleshes out what it would mean to understand belief as an activity, and second, I aim to show how the resulting view can help sense of a variety of theories in cognitive psychology that suggest cognitive information storage is dynamic and reconstructive. (shrink)

In _Willful Subjects_ Sara Ahmed explores willfulness as a charge often made by some against others. One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will and (...) willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination. (shrink)

Mental simulation — such as imagining tilting a glass to figure out the angle at which water would spill — can be a way of coming to know the answer to an internally or externally posed query. Is this form of learning a species of inference or a form of observation? We argue that it is neither: learning through simulation is a genuinely distinct form of learning. On our account, simulation can provide knowledge of the answer to a query even (...) when the basis for that answer is opaque to the learner. Moreover, through repeated simulation, the learner can reduce this opacity, supporting self-training and the acquisition of more accurate models of the world. Simulation is thus an essential part of the story of how creatures like us become effective learners and knowers. (shrink)

We have no interest whatever in minimizing the continuing history of racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise abusive biologisms, or the urgency of their exposure, that has made the gravamen of so many contemporary projects of critique. At the same time, we fear — with installation of an automatic antibiologism as the unshifting tenet of `theory' — the loss of conceptual access to an entire thought-realm. I was left wondering what danger had been averted by the exclusion of biology. What does (...) the nominative `biological or anatomical body' actually refer to? And what secures the separation of its inadmissible matter from the proper purview of Irigaray's textual interventions? When I asked a question to this effect it was met with a certain nervous comprehension. Deciding, perhaps, that I must still be immersed in a precritical understanding of the body, the speaker dismissed me with a revealing theatrical gesture. As if to emphasize the sheer absurdity of my question she pinched herself and commented `Well I don't mean this body'. And so it seemed with a gesture so matter of fact that it required no further comment, the fact of matter was both decided and dispatched. Feminism has been as deeply implicated in routinized antiessentialism as any of our critical procedures. Even though questions of `the body' have become increasingly fashionable in all manner of feminist projects, the schedule of feminism's antibiologism has been little altered. In most of these projects on `the body', the body in question is pursued in its socially, experientially, or psychically constituted forms, but rarely in its physiologically, biochemically, or microbiologically constituted form, the idea of biological construction having been rendered either unintelligible or naive. Despite an avowed interest in the body, there is a persistent distaste for biological detail. These feminist theories have usually been reluctant to engage with biological data: they retain, and encourage, the fierce antibiologism that marked the emergence of second wave feminism. That feminist scholars are particularly prone to a `knee jerk constructivism' helps explain the reluctance of those in the humanities to engage seriously with the claims of science. This book functions primarily as a reminder to social, political, and cultural theorists, particularly those interested in feminism, antiracism and questions of the politics of globalisation, that they have forgotten a crucial dimension of research, if not necessary to, then certainly useful for more incisively formulating the concepts on which they so heavily, if implicitly rely. It is written as a remembrance of what we have forgotten — not just the body, but that which makes it possible and which limits its actions: the precarious, accidental, contingent, expedient, striving, dynamic status of life in a messy, complicated, resistant, brute world of materiality, a world regulated by the exigencies, the forces, of space and time. We have forgotten the nature, the ontology, of the body, the conditions under which bodies are encultured, psychologized, given identity, historical location, and agency. We have forgotten where we come from. (shrink)

I argue that fitting envy plays a special role in safeguarding our happiness and flourishing. After presenting my theory of envy and its fittingness conditions, I contrast Kant’s view that envy is always unfitting with D’Arms and Jacobson’s defense of fitting envy as an evolutionarily-shaped response to a deep and wide human concern, that is, relative positioning. However, D’Arms and Jacobson don’t go far enough. First, I expand on their analysis of positional goodness, distinguishing between an epistemic claim, according to (...) which we use implicit or explicit comparison to know what position we occupy in a continuum of goodness, and thus to form judgments of goodness, and a metaphysical one, according to which much human goodness depends on implicit or explicit rankings and positionality. Second, I argue that fitting envy is not only intrinsically valuable qua fitting response to authentic goodness, but can be epistemically, morally and prudentially valuable. (shrink)