Western philosophy’s relationship with prisons stretches from Plato’s own incarceration to the modern era of mass incarceration. Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration draws together a broad range of philosophical thinkers, from both inside and outside prison walls, in the United States and beyond, who draw on a variety of critical perspectives (including phenomenology, deconstruction, and feminist theory) and historical and contemporary figures in philosophy (including Kant, Hegel, Foucault, and Angela Davis) to think about (...) prisons in this new historical era. All of these contributors have experiences within prison walls: some are or have been incarcerated, some have taught or are teaching in prisons, and all have been students of both philosophy and the carceral system. The powerful testimonials and theoretical arguments are appropriate reading not only for philosophers and prison theorists generally, but also for prison reformers and abolitionists. (shrink)

What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

Much of the literature on the relationship between belief and credence has focused on the reduction question: that is, whether either belief or credence reduces to the other. This debate, while important, only scratches the surface of the belief-credence connection. Even on the anti-reductive dualist view, belief and credence could still be very tightly connected. Here, I explore questions about the belief-credence connection that go beyond reduction. This paper is dedicated to what I call the independence question: just how independent (...) are belief and credence? I look at this question from two angles: a descriptive one (as a psychological matter, how much can belief and credence come apart?) and a normative one (for a rational person, how closely connected are belief and credence?) Ultimately, I suggest that the two attitudes are more independent than one might think. (shrink)

How, in a secular world, should we resolve ethically controversial and troubling issues relating to health care? Should we, as some argue, make a clean sweep, getting rid of the Hippocratic ethic, such vestiges of it as remain? Jennifer Jackson seeks to answer these significant questions, establishing new foundations for a traditional and secular ethic which would not require a radical and problematic overhaul of the old. These new foundations rest on familiar observations of human nature and human needs. (...) Jackson presents morality as a loose anatomy of constituent virtues that are related in different ways to how we fare in life, and suggests that in order to address problems in medical ethics, a virtues-based approach is needed. Throughout, attention is paid to the role of philosophy in medical ethics, and how it can be used to clarify key notions and distinctions that underlie current debates and controversial issues. By reinstating such concepts as justice, cardinal virtue, and moral duty, Jackson lays the groundwork for an ethics of health care that makes headway toward resolving seeming dilemmas in medical ethics today. This penetrating and accessible book will be invaluable to students of sociology and health care, as well as those who are interested in the ethical uncertainties faced by the medical world. (shrink)

A defense of material implication as implication.

This highly successful textbook provides a systematic introduction to the principal theories of international relations. Combining incisive and original analyses with a clear and accessible writing style, it is ideal for introductory courses in international relations or international relations theory. Introduction to International Relations, Third Edition, focuses on the main theoretical traditions--realism, liberalism, international society, and theories of international political economy. The authors carefully explain how particular theories organize and sharpen our view of the world. They integrate excellent pedagogical features (...) throughout, including chapter summaries, key points, questions, further reading, web links, boxes, and world maps. New to this Edition: * Two new chapters, on social constructivism and foreign policy * An expanded companion website with web links to theoretical debates, maps and world situations, figures and tables from the text, and a flashcard glossary * A closer link between theory and practice * New glossary of key terms * Two-color text for easier navigation. (shrink)

Many evidentialists are impermissivists. But there’s no in-principle reason for this. In this paper, I examine and motivate permissivist evidentialism. Not only are permissivism and evidentialism compatible but there are unique benefits that arise for this combination of views. In particular, permissivist evidentialism respects the importance of evidence while capturing its limitations and provides a plausible and attractive explanation of the relationship between the epistemic and non-epistemic. Permissivist evidentialism is thus an attractive option in logical space that hasn’t received enough (...) attention. (shrink)

What can we learn about management ethics from other cultures and societies? In this textbook, cross-cultural management theory is applied and made relevant to management ethics. To help the reader understand different approaches that global businesses can take to operate successfully and ethically, there are chapters focusing on specific countries and regions. As well as giving the wider geographical, political and cultural contexts, the book includes numerous examples in every chapter to help the reader critique universal assumptions of what is (...) ethical. By taking a closer look at the way we view other cultures and their values, the author challenges us to rethink commonly held assumptions and approaches in cross-cultural management, and to apply a more critical approach. (shrink)

Credences are similar to levels of confidence, represented as a value on the [0,1] interval. This chapter sheds light on questions about credence, including its relationship to full belief, with an eye toward the empirical relevance of credence. First, I’ll provide a brief epistemological history of credence and lay out some of the main theories of the nature of credence. Then, I’ll provide an overview of the main views on how credences relate to full beliefs. Finally, I’ll turn to the (...) empirical, and suggest some ways that cognitive science does and could answer questions about credence, such as what credences one has, how credences relate to beliefs, and the extent to which we can control our credences. (shrink)

This essay is a defense of the social construction of racialism. I follow a standard definition of “racialism” which is the belief that “there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members of our species, that allow us to divide them into a small set of races, in such a way that all the members of these races share certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with other members of any other race”. In particular I want to (...) defend the “radical” social-constructive thesis that holds “the concept of race is exclusively the product of historical and cultural causes. It claims that humans do not tend to classify people into races when groups with different phenotypes meet, save for particular historical circumstances”. The quoted position is the consensus view among historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists who study racialism but has recently been criticized by philosophical defenders of cognitive/evolutionary psychological approaches to racialism. Drawing on developmental studies as well as historical and contemporary cross-cultural research, CEP philosophers point to similarities of racialism across time and space. They hold that social constructionist approaches to racialism cannot explain these similarities. I hold that SC approaches do explain these similarities and that such similarities actually pose a significant challenge to the proposed CEP research program on racialism. (shrink)

One way to challenge the substantiveness of a particular philosophical issue is to argue that those who debate the issue are engaged in a merely verbal dispute. For example, it has been maintained that the apparent disagreement over the mind/brain identity thesis is a merely verbal dispute, and thus that there is no substantive question of whether or not mental properties are identical to neurological properties. The goal of this paper is to help clarify the relationship between mere verbalness and (...) substantiveness. I first argue that we should see mere verbalness as a certain kind of discourse defect that arises when the parties differ as to what each takes to be the immediate question under discussion. I then argue that mere verbalness, so understood, does not imply that the question either party is attempting to address is a non-substantive one. Even if it turns out that the parties to the mind/brain dispute are addressing subtly different questions, these might both be substantive questions to which their respective metaphysical views provide substantive answers. One reason it is tempting to reach deflationary conclusions from the charge of mere verbalness is that we fail to distinguish it from the claim that a sentence under dispute is, in a certain sense, indisputable. Another reason is that we fail to distinguish mere verbalness from a certain sort of indeterminacy. While indisputability and indeterminacy plausibly capture forms of nonsubstantiveness, I argue that mere verbalness is insufficient to establish either indisputability or indeterminacy. (shrink)

In The Veiled God, Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft offers a detailed portrait of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s early life, ethics, and theology in its historical and social context, and critically reflects on the enduring relevance of his work for the study of religion.

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is normally applied to belief. The goal of this paper is to apply the distinction to faith and hope. Before doing so, I discuss the nature of faith and hope, and how they contrast with belief—belief has no essential conative component, whereas faith and hope essentially involve the conative. I discuss implications this has for evaluating faith and hope, and apply this to the propositional/doxastic distinction. There are two key upshots. One, bringing in (...) faith and hope makes salient additional normative categories, including the way the distinction between epistemic and practical justification interacts with the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Two, a paradigm example of propositional without doxastic justification is a belief that is evidentially supported but based on wishful thinking. Surprisingly, parallel cases of faith and hope may actually enjoy both propositional and doxastic justification. I conclude by exploring what it might look like for faith and hope to have propositional justification without doxastic justification. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes two facets of mindfulness for servant leadership of B-Corporations, which is an emerging form of social enterprise. One facet concerns inner states and motivations for leading business for non-instrumental reasons. This facet encompasses an ethics-in-practice dimension alongside of merely theoretical approaches, a dimension well suited for leadership of B-Corps, whose governance structure places ethics and sustainability at the center of the non-instrumental quest for the creation of social value and respect for human rights by business enterprises. The (...) motivation for care of the mindful servant leader matches the investors’ expectations of social impact for the firm. The other facet concerns leadership decisions and actions fulfilling the mission of B-Corporations in creating social value alongside of economic value for a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Concerning this second facet, mindfulness is vitally involved in that servant leaders pay attention to the whole business and its explicit social benefit, not just this or that element of the firm’s operations. The chapter advances two arguments. The first argument—tied to the first facet—posits that the virtue of mindfulness contributes a key element of non-instrumental motivation for leadership generally missing from extant leadership approaches. The second argument—tied to the second facet—addresses the decision-making side of mindfulness. It asserts that the virtue of mindfulness is especially poised to equip servant leadership for the B-Corporation movement for two vital challenges: balancing demands from multiple stakeholders; and assimilating multiple criteria and values—both financial and non-financial. (shrink)

The Human Mind undertakes two tasks. One is to demonstrate that centuries of debate over how to state correctly the nature of the human mind and its relation to the human body arise from muddled thinking. By attending with care to ordinary, everyday language, this bogus thinking is exposed. The traditional distinction between the human mind and the human body is revealed as misbegotten. For that reason it is to be junked, along with centuries of misguided competing theories. The second (...) task is to draw attention to an alternative distinction we already make in everyday language. It is the distinction between a person and that person’s body. A previously undetected set of arrangements in everyday language is teased into full view to expose the character of a person’s physical and mental capacities. This set of arrangements applies to talk of all human capacities, such as the capacities to think, make a promise, dislike, be annoyed, turn left or reach for a banana. There is one simple pattern or formula that personal capacities have in common. To understand this arrangement in everyday language is to have the key to authentic understanding of the human mind and its place in the universe. (shrink)

Michael Jackson has spent much of his career elaborating his rich conception of lifeworlds, mining his ethnographic and personal experience for insights into how our subjective and social lives are mutually constituted. In How Lifeworlds Work, Jackson draws on years of ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa to highlight the dynamic quality of human relationships and reinvigorate the study of kinship and ritual. How, he asks, do we manage the perpetual process of accommodation between social norms and personal emotions, (...) impulses, and desires? How are these two dimensions of lived reality joined, and how are the dual imperatives of individual expression and collective viability managed? Drawing on the pragmatist tradition, psychology, and phenomenology, Jackson offers an unforgettable, beautifully written account of how we make, unmake, and remake, our lifeworlds. (shrink)

Biases and misunderstanding stemming from pre-training in Generative Pre-Trained Transformers are more likely for users of underrepresented English varieties, since the training dataset favors dominant Englishes (e.g., American English). We investigate (potential) bias in GPT-4 when it interacts with Trinidadian English Creole (TEC), a non-hegemonic English variety that partially overlaps with standardized English (SE) but still contains distinctive characteristics. (1) Comparable responses: we asked GPT-4 18 questions in TEC and SE and compared the content and detail of the responses. (2) (...) Accurate translation: we assessed how accurate and authentic 29 TEC and 34 SE translations were. (3) Language knowledge and attitudes: we asked what language the prompts were written in and categorized the responses and examined any language attitudes that were exhibited. Content and detail in prompts were comparable. The model was proficient at translating TEC pronouns and many grammatical categories. It was weaker at processing spelling and vocabulary items. In addition, it produced several inauthentic features. Only 39% of TEC-generated sentences were fully grammatical. While GPT-4 was perfect at identifying SE, it was 21% accurate at identifying TEC, which it sometimes classified as English with “errors” and “corrected”. GPT-4’s scope of use is limited for non-hegemonic English users. It is problematic that some of its analyses perpetuate bias against underrepresented Englishes. Increased research on lesser-documented Englishes is necessary and we anticipate that this problem affects dialects of other languages. We intend to partner with Trinidadian stakeholders to train GPT-4 in the future. (shrink)

In this paper I will explore a phenomenology of the menstrual cycle, focusing on the cycle’s rhythm as a form of lived temporality. Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre and Thomas Fuchs I will outline a key connection between embodiment and rhythmic temporality more generally, before applying this analysis to the rhythm of the menstrual cycle specifically. I will consider the phenomenology of the experience of cycling through the phases of pre-ovulation, ovulation, pre-menstruation and menstruation as a pattern, or (...) specifically an embodied rhythm that constitutes a form of lived temporality. I will consider a way that the subject may potentially be alienated from this rhythm as a result of a dominant cultural narrative of “linear time”. I will argue further that this dissonance between the menstrual body and the contemporary world tends to be compounded by a lack of “menstrual literacy” in education and culture. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to (i) examine the concept of epistemic paternalism and (ii) explore the consequences of normative questions one might ask about it. I begin by critically examining several definitions of epistemic paternalism that have been proposed, and suggesting ways they might be improved. I then contrast epistemic and general paternalism and argue that it’s difficult to see what makes epistemic paternalism an epistemic phenomenon at all. Next, I turn to the various normative questions one might (...) ask about epistemic paternalism and discuss the literature’s assumptions of epistemic consequentialism and veritism. I close by comparing and contrasting epistemic paternalism with other topics in social epistemology, such as disagreement or testimony. (shrink)

This paper introduces and motivates a solution to a dilemma from peer disagreement. Following Buchak (2021), I argue that peer disagreement puts us in an epistemic dilemma: there is reason to think that our opinions should both change and not change when we encounter disagreement with our epistemic peers. I argue that we can solve this dilemma by changing our credences, but not our beliefs in response to disagreement. I explain how my view solves the dilemma in question, and then (...) offer two additional arguments for it: one related to contents and attitudes, and another related to epistemic peerhood. (shrink)

The A-theory of time is plagued by certain standard armchair problems: the presentism–eternalism dilemma, the problem of truth-makers, the alleged impossibility of cross-temporal relations, and the problem of temporary intrinsics. These challenges supposedly force A-theories to make incredible claims. I argue that these challenges are not deep antinomies in common sense, but rest on avoidable mistakes. Then I present a new A-theory that shows what’s possible once we move past the old problems. On this proposal, time’s passing is a metaphysically (...) fundamental aspect of reality. I take this to mean that there are fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. This A-theory also posits fundamental facts about the state of the universe at a time, and about cross-temporal relationships. The proposed metaphysical package attractively articulates our common sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. (shrink)

Here is the essential guide to philosophy. Philosophy: An Illustrated History of Thought is an authoritative yet fun reference book and timeline on the compilation of human knowledge. Both art and science attempt answers to the big questions -- what is truth, how to be good, and where did we come from? -- but philosophy is the interpreter we use to verify it all. We need it to make sense of the simplest math and the most esoteric poetry, and it (...) has even created a science of information itself. We begin our journey at the boundary of myth and reason, and along the way we visit the thoughts of the most high-flying of minds who could see that nothing, not ever-changing words, limitless numbers, or mystical visions, were beyond examination. Philosophy contains 100 chronological articles that recount the inspirations of great thinkers including Epicurus, St. Anselm, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Chalmers, and Nick Bostrom. Far from being the work of dead geniuses, Philosophy is today at the heart of our battle to make sense of the quantum Universe. Philosophy embraces the paradox, and we present the most mind-boggling conundrums the last 3,000 years has to offer: Includes summaries of the fields of philosophy, setting out the basics in jargon-busting and lighthearted text. The life stories behind the great philosophers give further insight to their work. Philosophy also contains a 12-page Timeline History of Philosophy. (shrink)

Felicity Haynes earned Honours degrees in English and French literature from The University of Western Australia and completed her doctorate on reason and understanding at the University of Illinoi...

J.L. Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness provides an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist, for if God existed he would not allow non-resistant non-belief to occur, but non-resistant non-belief does occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I argue that the stakes involved in theistic considerations put pressure on Schellenberg’s premise that non-resistant non-belief occurs. First, I specify conditions for someone’s being a resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfill these conditions because, given (...) some plausible assumptions, there is a very good pragmatic reason to be a theist rather than an atheist. I assume it is more likely that theists go to heaven than atheists, and I argue there is a non-zero probability that one can receive infinite utility and a method of comparing outcomes with infinite utilities in which the probability of each outcome affects the final expected values. Then, I show how this argument entails there is no good reason to think that there are very many non-resistant non-believers. (shrink)

I defend one way of solving the Impermissibility Problem—that is, the problem that on moralized approaches to coercion, coerciveness and permissibility are mutually exclusive. This brings up intuitive difficulties for cases such as taxation, which seem to be both coercive and permissible. I gloss three popular theories of coercion—the moralized baseline, nonmoralized baseline, and enforcement approaches—and conclude that only the nonmoralized baseline approach clearly solves the problem. However, Robert Nozick’s famous “slave case” raises another serious issue for the nonmoralized baseline (...) approach. So, in order to solve both the slave case and the Impermissibility Problem, I draw on Grant Lamond’s discussion of the coerciveness of law to propose the pro tanto wrong approach. On this approach, coercion is not impermissible simpliciter, but requires some sort of special justification. The pro tanto wrong approach is moralized, but on it, moralization comes in coercion’s need for justification, not in whether it is, in fact, justified. Thus impermissibility is neither necessary nor sufficient for coerciveness, and the Impermissibility Problem is avoided. I conclude that solving the problem in this way is desirable because it preserves a core belief of liberalism: certain acts, including taxation, may be both coercive and permissible. (shrink)

Crisis, Rupture and Anxiety: An Interdisciplinary Examination of Contemporary and Historical Human Challenges brings together a range of original contributions that seek to critically interrogate the concept of 'crisis', a seemingly omnipresent and defining metonym of our times. Both international and interdisciplinary in perspective, the leading doctoral scholars and early-career researchers represented in this volume unsettle hegemonic notions of crisis (and possible remedies) by exploring both a very wide range of extant crises (in and of politics, economics, communities, technologies, urban (...) policy, literary representation, media studies, language learning, nationalisms and national identity, and the legitimation of the state), as well as the roots of our contemporary understandings of crisis and the politics of 'crisis representation'. The book is broadly divided into two sections, 'Politics and Society' and 'Arts, Media and Humanities'. Originating in the University of Salford Arts, Media and Social Sciences Postgraduate Research Conference of 2010, Crisis, Rupture and Anxiety provides both an accessible and wide-ranging general introduction to various applications of the concept of crisis, as well providing a more specialist resource for students exploring crisis in one of the many disciplinary fields represented in this collection. Crisis, Rupture and Anxiety will be of particular interest to students with interdisciplinary interests that encompass cultural studies, literary theory, media studies, politics, sociology and urban studies. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a specific way that video-conferencing modifies structures of intersubjective awareness and interaction. I focus on multi-person interactions (involving more than two people) via video-call. By unpacking some of the key features of multi-person intersubjectivity in cases of embodied co-presence, I will show where and how certain social affordances are strained or lost when multi-person interactions are transferred to the screen.

This book is devoted to applied ethics. We focus on six popular and controversial topics: abortion, the environment, animals, poverty, punishment, and disability. We cover three chapters per topic, and each chapter is devoted to a famous or influential argument on the topic. After we present an influential argument, we then consider objections to the argument, and replies to the objections. The book is impartial, and set up in order to equip the reader to make up her own mind about (...) the controversial topics covered. (shrink)

It is persons who are ontologically committed. But a person is not ontologically committed by virtue of his character, his height, his social standing or whatever, but by virtue of the sentences he assents to. Hence we should look to sentences for a criterion of ontological commitment. This is precisely what is done by advocates of what I will call the Referential theory. In this paper I argue that the Referential theory faces serious objections related to the role paraphrase must (...) play in it. I then present a modified Referential theory and go on to discuss certain implications of the modified theory. More precisely, the paper divides up as follows. In §1 I present the Referential theory. In §2 I argue that it is in trouble over paraphrase. In §3 I consider a general objection to the arguments of §2. In §4 I present the modified theory. In §5 I consider the implications of the modified theory for polemic over what there is and for the existence of properties or universals. (shrink)

Gilbert Harman’s famous principle of Clutter Avoidance commands that “one should not clutter one’s mind with trivialities". Many epistemologists have been inclined to accept Harman’s principle, or something like it. This is significant because the principle appears to have robust implications for our overall picture of epistemic normativity. Jane Friedman (2018) has recently argued that one potential implication is that there are no genuine purely evidential norms on belief revision. In this paper, we present some new objections to a suitably (...) formulated version of the clutter principle qua norm on belief revision. Moreover, we argue that the clutter principle is best understood as a norm on non-doxastic stages of inquiry. In our view, it is a norm of asking and considering questions rather than a norm of settling on an answer to a question by forming a belief. (shrink)

In 2016, France passed a major law that is unique in giving terminally ill and suffering patients the right to the controversial procedure of continuous deep sedation until death (CDS). In so doing, the law identifies CDS as a sui generis clinical practice, distinct from other forms of palliative sedation therapy, as well as from euthanasia. As such, it reconfigures the ethical debate over CDS in interesting ways. This paper addresses one aspect of this reconfiguration and its implications for the (...) intentions at work in this complex time at the end of life. The concept of intention is often considered central to the ethics of end-of-life care, but its role is recognized to be problematic, with charges of elusiveness and ambiguity. I aim to show that consideration of the French law affords a new understanding of the intentionality of CDS, and that in addition to the obvious importance of this for clarifying the ethics of the practice, it may suggest new ways of addressing the wider problem of ambiguous clinical intentions at end of life. (shrink)

Presents a history of physics from the dawn of science to the present through coverage of one hundred scientific breakthroughs in the discipline, including force and inertia, hidden heat, the Doppler effect, cloud chambers, and string theory.

"...No mere collection, but a wonderful synthesis of some of the best and most representative works of modern feminist scholarship, reflecting the richness and diversity of contemporary women's studies. It provides an informative and empowering perspective on feminist scholarly achievements of the last decades." -Dale Spender, Founding member of WITS (Women, Information, Technology, and Scholarship), is author of more than 30 books, including Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Key Women Thinkers and For The Record: the Making and Meaning of Feminist (...) Knowledge. "A stimulating introduction to women's studies and a really useful teaching tool." -Mary Ellen Brown, Television and Women's Culture Women's Studies: Essential Readings provides a wide range of readers with an entirely comprehensive selection of ever 140 readings on women's studies, representing the entire diversity of current feminist thinking. The book is a divided into fourteen sections that reflect primary topics within women's studies, covering theory and perspectives, including: feminist social theory; psychological and psychoanalytic theory; cross-cultural perspectives and historical perspectives, as well as themes such as: education and work; marriage and motherhood; sexuality; the law; crime and deviance; politics and the state; science, medicine and reproductive technology; language and gender; feminist literary criticism; and the media tool Features: Introductions to each section provide an overview of the main issues and debates. Commentaries on each extract locate the work of individual authors within wider debates and identify the perspective from which they are writing. Each section contains a guide to further reading. (shrink)