Horner, Robyn; Tucker, Steven Theology is a required study for persons seeking accreditation to teach Religious Education in Catholic schools in Victoria. In this context it is distinguished from Religious Education, not only in the senses that to undertake Theology is neither to undertake Religious Education nor to study the aims and processes of Religious Education, but also in the sense that Religious Education studies are mandated alongside the study of Theology for those seeking accreditation, and further, in (...) the sense that the provision of Theology in a Catholic university is subject to distinct ecclesial oversight. (shrink)

The Neo-Moorean Deduction (I have a hand, so I am not a brain-in-a-vat) and the Zebra Deduction (the creature is a zebra, so isn’t a cleverly disguised mule) are notorious. Crispin Wright, Martin Davies, Fred Dretske, and Brian McLaughlin, among others, argue that these deductions are instances of transmission failure. That is, they argue that these deductions cannot transmit justification to their conclusions. I contend, however, that the notoriety of these deductions is undeserved. My strategy is to clarify, attack, defend, (...) and apply. I clarify what transmission and transmission failure really are, thereby exposing two questionable but quotidian assumptions. I attack existing views of transmission failure, especially those of Crispin Wright. I defend a permissive view of transmission failure, one which holds that deductions of a certain kind fail to transmit only because of premise circularity. Finally, I apply this account to the Neo-Moorean and Zebra Deductions and show that, given my permissive view, these deductions transmit in an intuitively acceptable way—at least if either a certain type of circularity is benign or a certain view of perceptual justification is false. (shrink)

Just as theory of representation is deficient if it can’t explain how misrepresentation is possible, a theory of computation is deficient if it can’t explain how miscomputation is possible. Nonetheless, philosophers have generally ignored miscomputation. My primary goal in this paper is to clarify both what miscomputation is and how to adequately explain it. Miscomputation is a special kind of malfunction: a system miscomputes when it computes in a way that it shouldn’t. To explain miscomputation, you must provide accounts of (...) computational behavior, computational norms, and how computational behavior can deviate from computational norms. A secondary goal of this paper is to defend an (quasi-)individualist, mechanistic theory of miscomputation. Computational behavior is narrowly individuated. Computational norms are widely individuated. A system miscomputes when its behavior manifests a narrow computational structure that the widely individuated norms say that it should not have. (shrink)

Abstractionists claim that the only bearers of intrinsic value are abstract, necessarily existing states of affairs. I argue that abstractionism cannot succeed. Though we can model concrete goods such as lives, projects, and outcomes with abstract states, conflating models of goods with the goods themselves has surprising and unattractive consequences. I suggest that concrete states of affairs or facts are the only bearers of intrinsic value. I show how this proposal can overcome the concerns lodged against abstractionism and, in the (...) process, reconnect us with the good. (shrink)

In recent years, the notion of relational autonomy has transformed the old debate about the freedom of the individual in society. For Spinoza, individual humans are embedded in natural, social and political circumstances from which they derive their power and freedom. I take this to mean that Spinoza’s is best described as a constitutive theory of relational autonomy. I will show how by defining freedom in terms of power, Spinoza understands individual freedom as irreducibly relational. I propose that Spinoza develops (...) his theory of power to understand how individual power or freedom is limited and enhanced by the power of those around one. For Spinoza, the power of an individual is a function of that individual’s emotions, imaginative conceptions of itself and the world and its appetites. In this paper (1) I will argue that Spinoza reformulates a concept of freedom in terms of power. (2) His mature theory of freedom as power proposes that individual power is determined through social interaction, and is thus best understood as a relational theory of freedom. (3) I will show that as a consequence of Spinoza’s theory, individual power and empowerment relies on those around the individual, and thus, to achieve individual liberation we must pursue collective empowerment. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether and when experience can be evidence. It argues that experiences can be evidence, and that this claim is compatible with just about any epistemological theory. It evaluates the most promising argument for the conclusion that certain experiences (e.g., seeming to see) are always evidence for believing what the experiences represent. While the argument is very promising, one premise needs further defense. The argument also depends on a certain connection between reasonable belief and the first person perspective.

v. 1. Tucker's life and writings -- v. 2. Essays on various subjects of taste, morals, and national policy -- v. 3. A voyage to the moon -- v. 4. Essays, moral and metaphysical.

The metaphor of weighing reasons brings to mind a single (double-pan balance) scale. The reasons for φ go in one pan and the reasons for ~φ go in the other. The relative weights, as indicated by the relative heights of the two pans of the scale, determine the deontic status of φ. This model is simple and intuitive, but it cannot capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. A reason pushes the φ pan down toward permissibility (has justifying weight) (...) only insofar as it pushes the ~φ pan up toward impermissibility (has requiring weight). Thus, Single Scale is committed to Single Proportion (first pass): all reasons have the same proportion of justifying and requiring weight. Many normative theories reject Single Proportion, and they are not thereby confused about how to weigh reasons. One can be mistaken about the weight of a reason without being confused about how reasons are to be weighed. Single Scale is problematic, not because it appeals to the image of a scale, but because it appeals to the image of a single scale. We need two scales to capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. (shrink)

How do historians, comparative linguists, biblical and textual critics and evolutionary biologists establish beliefs about the past? How do they know the past? This book presents a philosophical analysis of the disciplines that offer scientific knowledge of the past. Using the analytic tools of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science the book covers such topics as evidence, theory, methodology, explanation, determination and underdetermination, coincidence, contingency and counterfactuals in historiography. Aviezer Tucker's central claim is that historiography as a scientific discipline (...) should be thought of as an effort to explain the evidence of past events. He also emphasizes the similarity between historiographic methodology to Darwinian evolutionary biology. This is an important, fresh approach to historiography and will be read by philosophers, historians and social scientists interested in the methodological foundations of their disciplines. (shrink)

Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln’s pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana’s dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist position. But the widespread (...) faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. (shrink)

As the international art market globalizes the indigenous image, it changes its identity, status, value, and purpose in local and larger contexts. Focusing on a school of Australian Aboriginal painting that has become popular in the contemporary art world, Robyn Ferrell traces the influence of cultural exchanges on art, the self, and attitudes toward the other. Aboriginal acrylic painting, produced by indigenous women artists of the Australian Desert, bears a superficial resemblance to abstract expressionism and is often read as (...) such by viewers. Yet to see this art only through a Western lens is to miss its unique ontology, logics of sensation, and rich politics and religion. Ferrell explores the culture that produces these paintings and connects its aesthetic to the brutal environmental and economic realities of its people. From here, she travels to urban locales, observing museums and department stores as they traffic interchangeably in art and commodities. Ferrell ties the history of these desert works to global acts of genocide and dispossession. Rethinking the value of the artistic image in the global market and different interpretations of the sacred, she considers photojournalism, ecotourism, and other sacred sites of the western subject, investigating the intersection of modern art and postmodern culture. She ultimately challenges the primacy of the "European gaze" and its fascination with sacred cultures, constructing a more balanced intercultural dialogue that deemphasizes the aesthetic of the real championed by western philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the dominant contemporary accounts of forgiving do not capture what forgiving most centrally is. I spend the first parts of the paper trying to elucidate what it is that these accounts miss about forgiving, and to explain why I think they miss it. I spend the latter parts of the paper suggesting an alternative, which I call “the charity account.” This account draws much of its theoretical framing from the work of Thomas Aquinas, presenting (...) forgiving as something importantly volitional and essentially loving. (shrink)

Often side-lined or simplified, evil women challenge societal norms of womanhood. This volume explores how evil women have been constructed, punished, and erased within literature, culture, and film and how this contributes to our understanding of womanhood.

Including the perspectives of scientists about the nature and process of science is important for an authentic and nuanced portrayal of science in science education. The small number of studies that have explored scientists’ worldviews about science has thus far generated contradictory findings, with recent studies claiming that scientists simultaneously hold contradictory sophisticated and naïve views. This article reports on an exploratory study that uses the framework of Bhaskar’s critical realism to elicit and separately analyse academic scientists’ ontological and epistemological (...) views about science in semi-structured interviews. When the views of scientists are analysed through the lens of critical realism, it is clear that it is possible to hold a realist ontological commitment about what knowledge is of, simultaneously with a fallibilist epistemological commitment about knowledge itself. The apparent incongruence of scientists’ so-called naïve and sophisticated views about science is resolved when analysed using a critical realist framework. Critical realism offers a simple and coherent framework for science educators that avoids many of the problems of positivism and social constructivism by finding a middle ground between them. The three pillars of critical realism: ontological realism, epistemological fallibilism and judgmental rationality help to make sense of how socially constructed scientific knowledge can be anchored in an independent reality. (shrink)

I argue that there are two distinct views called ‘value pluralism’ in contemporary axiology, but that these positions have not been properly distinguished. The first kind of pluralism, weak pluralism, is the view philosophers have in mind when they say that there are many things that are valuable. It is also the kind of pluralism that philosophers like Moore, Brentano and Chisholm were interested in. The second kind of pluralism, strong pluralism, is the view philosophers have in mind when they (...) say there are many values, or many kinds of value. It is also the kind of pluralism that philosophers like Stocker, Kekes and Nussbaum have advanced. I separate and elucidate these views, and show how the distinction between them affects the contemporary debate about value pluralism. (shrink)

_The Record of Great Doubts_ emphasizes the role of _qi_ in achieving a life of engagement with other humans, with the larger society, and with nature as a whole. Rather than encourage transcendental escapism or quietism, Ekken articulates a philosophy of material force as a basis of living a life of commitment to the world. In this spirit, moral cultivation is not an isolated or a self-centered preoccupation, but an activity that occurs within the dynamic forces of nature and amid (...) the rigorous demands of society. In this context, a vitalism of _qi_ is an emergent force, not only providing the philosophical grounding for this vibrant interaction but also giving a basis for an investigation of the natural world that plumbs the principle within things. Ekken thus aimed to articulate a creative and dynamic milieu for moral education, political harmony, social coherence, and agricultural sustainability. _The Record of Great Doubts_ embodies Ekken's profound commitment to Confucian ideas and practices as a method for establishing an integrative ethical vision, one he hoped would guide Japan through a new period of peace and stability. A major philosophical treatise in the Japanese Neo-Confucian tradition, _The Record of Great Doubts_ illuminates a crucial chapter in East Asian intellectual history. (shrink)

John Tucker; II.—Godel and Epimenides, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 25–48, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.

Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. The Moorean view is often considered a relic; the fitting-attitude view is increasingly popular. I think this unfortunate. Though the fitting-attitude analysis is powerful, the Moorean view is still attractive. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore’s program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; (...) I argue that they do not succeed. (shrink)

Written as companion texts, the Bendō 弁道 and the Benmei 弁名 present Ogyū Sorai’s most mature and comprehensive expression of his philosophical thought. Sorai modestly spoke of the texts in a letter to a student, Uno Shirō 宇野士朗, calling them “my humble achievements”. In another letter to a student, Yamagata Shūnan 山県周南, Sorai related that after a prolonged bout with ill-health, he feared passing like the morning dew. Therefore, he took up his writing brush and completed the two works. Sorai (...) added that while more than a millennium had passed since Confucius’ death, the Way had only been clarified in recent times. Yet rather than boast of this, Sorai suggested that his hand in the process had been by heaven’s decree. With the two works, he added that even if he passed away soon, his life would not have been wasted. (shrink)

This paper explores Ogyū Sorai’s 荻生徂徠 thinking on the most sensational and controversial incident of eighteenth-century Japan, and perhaps the most well-known in all Japanese history, the forty-seven rōnin incident of 1701–1703. Viewed in relation to his lifework, Sorai’s views on the incident are significant insofar as they reveal the extent to which his philosophical thinking was occasionally shaped decisively by neither ancient Chinese nor later Confucian texts, Neo- or otherwise, but instead by formative life-experiences he had as a youth (...) living in exile. No doubt, Confucian and Neo-Confucian notions, which Sorai knew in-depth, helped him filter, epistemologically, events, issues, and most importantly what he understood to be righteous and just behaviour in a polity. Yet ironically enough, Sorai’s thinking on the rōnin incident shows that however philosophically erudite, cosmopolitan, and urbane he was as an intellectual, his appraisals of things sometimes harked back to rural experiences he had early on with some of the most primitive and foundational expressions of human agency, civilization, and socio-political ethics in early-eighteenth century Japan. In the process, Sorai’s essay reveals, through its later resonance with some Meiji thought, how his views on those same primitive expressions remained relevant even in modern contexts. (shrink)

Moore's moral programme is increasingly unpopular. Judith Jarvis Thomson's attack has been especially influential; she says the Moorean project fails because ‘there is no such thing as goodness’. I argue that her objection does not succeed: while Thomson is correct that the kind of generic goodness she targets is incoherent, it is not, I believe, the kind of goodness central to the Principia. Still, Moore's critics will resist. Some reply that we cannot understand Moorean goodness without generic goodness. Others claim (...) that even if Moore does not need Thomson's concept, he still requires the objectionable notion of absolute goodness. I undermine both these replies. I first show that we may dispense with generic goodness without losing Moorean intrinsic goodness. Then, I argue that though intrinsic goodness is indeed a kind of absolute goodness, the objections marshalled against the concept are unsound. (shrink)

Home, digital technologies and data are intersecting in new ways as responses to the COVID-19 pandemic emerge. We consider the data practices associated with COVID-19 responses and their implications for housing and home through two overarching themes: the notion of home as a private space, and digital technology and surveillance in the home. We show that although home has never been private, the rapid adoption and acceptance of technologies in the home for quarantine, work and study, enabled by the pandemic, (...) is rescripting privacy. The acceleration of technology adoption and surveillance in the home has implications for privacy and potential discrimination, and should be approached with a critical lens. (shrink)

John Tucker; II.—Godel and Epimenides, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 25–48, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.

_Thoughts and Utterances_ is the first sustained investigation of two distinctions which are fundamental to all theories of utterance understanding: the semantics/pragmatics distinction and the distinction between what is explicitly communicated and what is implicitly communicated.

A review of the literature indicates that linear models are frequently used in situations in which decisions are made on the basis of multiple codable inputs. These models are sometimes used normatively to aid the decision maker, as a contrast with the decision maker in the clinical vs statistical controversy, to represent the decision maker "paramorphically" and to "bootstrap" the decision maker by replacing him with his representation. Examination of the contexts in which linear models have been successfully employed indicates (...) that the contexts have the following structural characteristics in common: each input variable has a conditionally monotone relationship with the output; there is error of measurement; and deviations from optimal weighting do not make much practical difference. These characteristics ensure the success of linear models, which are so appropriate in such contexts that random linear models may perform quite well. 4 examples involving the prediction of such codable output variables as GPA and psychiatric diagnosis are analyzed in detail. In all 4 examples, random linear models yield predictions that are superior to those of human judges. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary analysis presents an innovative examination of the nature of pride and humility, including all their slippery nuances and points of connection. By combining insights from visual art, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and psychology, this volume adapts a complementary rather than an oppositional approach to examine how pride and humility reinforce and inform one another. This method produces a robust, substantial, and meaningful description of these important concepts. The analysis takes into account key elements of pride and humility, including (...) self-esteem and self-confidence, human interconnectedness, power's function and limitations, and the role of fear. Shawn R. Tucker explores the many inflections of these terms, inflections that cast them by turns as positive or negative, emboldening or discouraging, and salubrious or vicious depending upon the context and manner in which they are used. (shrink)

We can often permissibly choose a worse self-interested option over a better altruistic alternative. For example, it is permissible to eat out rather than donate the money to feed five hungry children for a single meal. If we eat out, we do something permissibly partial toward ourselves. If we donate, we go beyond the call of moral duty and do something supererogatory. Such phenomena aren’t easy to explain, and they rule out otherwise promising moral theories. Incommensurability and Ruth Chang’s notion (...) of parity can explain certain small improvement puzzles, but they can’t explain permissible partiality and supererogation. On the other hand, Josh Gert’s distinction between justifying and requiring weight can explain all three phenomena: permissible partiality, supererogation, and the relevant small improvement puzzle. Indeed, this chapter provides a reason to endorse the justifying/requiring weight distinction by showing that it provides the only extant explanation of all three phenomena. (shrink)

This accessible, original book is an exploration of the relevance of classical social theory in the contemporary world. It examines the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim through the lens of new theoretical issues, such as the role of Empire, the problem of cultural differences, and the possibilities of democracy that are implicit in each theorist's perspective.

This study examines Itō Jinsai’s 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705) criticisms of the Great Learning (C: Daxue 大學 J: Daigaku). Three primary sources are considered: Jinsai’s Shigi sakumon 私擬策問 (Personal Essays, 1668); the Daigaku teihon 大學定本 (The Definitive Text of the Great Learning, manuscript 1685); and his essay, “Daigaku wa Kōshi no isho ni arazaru no ben” 大學非孔氏之遺書辨 (The Great Learning is not a Writing Confucius Transmitted, 1705), appended to his Gomō jigi 語孟字義. The study suggests that Jinsai’s critical inclinations grew from his (...) acceptance of Zhu Xi’s views about the value of doubt for progress in learning. The study also suggests that Jinsai’s thinking on the Great Learning had political implications derived in many respects from Jinsai’s overall approach to philosophizing via analysis of words and their meanings. (shrink)

Dawes points out the fallacy in many commonly held beliefs in therapy and takes issue with many current treatment methods.

Proper linear models are those in which predictor variables are given weights such that the resulting linear composite optimally predicts some criterion of interest; examples of proper linear models are standard regression analysis, discriminant function analysis, and ridge regression analysis. Research summarized in P. Meehl's book on clinical vs statistical prediction and research stimulated in part by that book indicate that when a numerical criterion variable is to be predicted from numerical predictor variables, proper linear models outperform clinical intuition. Improper (...) linear models are those in which the weights of the predictor variables are obtained by some nonoptimal method. The present article presents evidence that even such improper linear models are superior to clinical intuition when predicting a numerical criterion from numerical predictors. In fact, unit weighting is quite robust for making such predictions. The application of unit weights to decide what bullet the Denver Police Department should use is described; some technical, psychological, and ethical resistances to using linear models in making social decisions are considered; and arguments that could weaken these resistances are presented. (shrink)

Abstract:In recent years, the field of animal rights has increasingly focused on trying to change the legal status of animals from things to rights-bearing legal persons. This has most prominently been seen in the work of Steven Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP). The NhRP has initiated various habeas corpus proceedings on behalf of certain animals who it argues are entitled the status of legal persons and the fundamental right to bodily liberty. The NhRP appeals to existing principles of (...) common law. It argues that its animal clients are 'practically autonomous,' which, it asserts, is sufficient for them to be entitled to the status of legal persons and to the fundamental right to bodily liberty. Herein, the author argues that whilst Wise and the NhRP have garnered a significant amount of mainstream attention in the animal rights field, less mainstream attention has been paid to understanding how our treatment of some groups of humans and all animals are connected, and how having a deeper understanding of this could assist in producing better strategies for legal change. In this article, the author considers the status quo treatment of animals by reference to the concept of dualistic thinking and explores how the status quo is underpinned by anthropocentrism. In light of these observations, the author critiques the work of Steven Wise and the NhRP by considering how this approach perpetuates the same anthropocentric ideals that underpin the status quo treatment of animals. The author ultimately advocates for an intersectional approach to seeking legal reform and discusses what legal change might look like if an intersectional approach is adopted. (shrink)

In Free Will and Luck, Mele presents a case of an agent Ernie, whose zygote was intentionally designed so that Ernie A-s in 30 years, bringing about a certain event E. Mele uses this case of original design to outline the zygote argument against compatibilism. In this paper I criticize the zygote argument. Unlike other compatibilists who have responded to the zygote argument, I contend that it is open to the compatibilist to accept premise one, that Ernie does not act (...) freely and is not morally responsible for anything he does. I argue that compatibilists should deny premise two. Diana’s effective intention to create Ernie’s zygote such that Ernie A-s in 30 years and her intervention to bring about his A-ing mark a significant difference between Ernie and normal agents in a deterministic universe with regard to how their zygotes were created that affects whether those agents act freely and are morally responsible for so acting. (shrink)

Anthropocentrism is "the belief that there is a clear and morally relevant dividing line between humankind and the rest of nature, that humankind is the only principal source of value or meaning in the world" p. 51.

This article responds to Marzia Milazzo's article ‘On white ignorance, white shame, and other pitfalls in critical philosophy of race’, in which Milazzo argues that the concepts white shame, white guilt, white privilege, white habits, white invisibility and white ignorance are pitfalls in the process of decolonisation. Milazzo contends that the way these concepts are theorised in much critical philosophy of race minimises white people's active interest in reproducing the racial status quo. While I agree with Milazzo's critique of white (...) shame and white guilt, I argue that these affective responses are fundamentally different to the remaining concepts. Drawing on critical whiteness studies and agnotology, I argue that white privilege, white invisibility and white ignorance are valuable conceptual tools for revealing white people's active investment in maintaining racial inequality. Whereas Milazzo sees a contradiction between white people's active interest in maintaining racial inequality and concepts like white invisibility and white ignorance, I argue that, correctly theorised, these concepts resolve this apparent contradiction. I contest Milazzo's call to reject white privilege, white invisibility and white ignorance, arguing that these concepts are useful tools in the project of decolonisation. (shrink)

Teaching students to ask and answer questions is critically important if they are to engage in reasoned argumentation, problem-solving, and learning. This study involved 35 groups of grade 6 children from 18 classrooms in three conditions (cognitive questioning condition, community of inquiry condition, and the comparison condition) who were videotaped as they worked on specific inquiry-based science tasks. The study also involved the teachers in these classrooms who were audio-taped as they interacted with the children during these tasks. The results (...) show that while there were no significant differences in the children's explanatory behaviour across the two time periods, there were significant differences in the total verbal interactions between the children in the cognitive questioning condition and their peers in the community of inquiry and comparison conditions. Furthermore, the children in the cognitive questioning condition obtained higher reasoning and problem-solving scores than peers in the other conditions. Interestingly, while there were no significant differences between the teachers’ basic and extended mediating behaviours in the three conditions at Times 1 and 2, there was a significant difference in extended mediation behaviours with the teachers demonstrating nearly three times more extended mediation to promote students’ learning at Time 2 than they did at Time 1. Teacher intervention in providing guidance in how to interact during cooperative, inquiry-based science appears to be critical to helping students engage in higher-level thinking and learning. (shrink)

The pandemic has been the most vivid agent of change that many of us have known. But it has not changed everything: plenty of the institutions, norms, and practices that sustain racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy have either weathered the storm of the crisis or been nourished by its effects. And yet enough has changed for us to see that the pandemic has profoundly recontextualised those structures and systems of violence, bringing us into a fresh negotiation with, for example, (...) the question of how we discuss and imagine freedom. Responding in part to this unexpected provocation, activist-scholars Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson forged a collaboration from the lockdown of 2020, corresponding by letter to create their forthcoming book, Rehearsals for Living, due to be published by Haymarket Books (US) and Knopf (Canada) in 2022. In this interview, we asked them to explain the epistolary form of the book and expand on the concept of “rehearsal”, before inviting them to reflect on a series of issues that animate our current crises: the politics of recognition; the notion of apocalypse; ways to disrupt linear temporalities; practises of reciprocity against proprietary logics; the gendered violence of state apparatuses; and worldbuilding as a method of resistance. In their expansive answers, Robyn and Leanne draw on their experiences as organisers and educators, commenting on anticolonial struggles, the Movement for Black Lives, and the rise of abolition discourse. Stressing the need to build a multiplicity of shared homespaces in the face of racial/colonial capitalism and organized abandonment, they challenge us to rethink the predicaments and possibilities of the present, enabling us to imagine futures liberated of extractivist, carceral governance – “planting more liberatory futures in the present”, as Robyn puts it. The task of sowing those seeds is a collective praxis of rewriting the narratives that constitute us, refusing to hear that nothing can change and insisting that everything must. (shrink)

"At once rigorous, insightful, and accessible.... the most thorough study yet available on the phenomenological treatment of God as gift in Marion and Derrida. Invaluable reading for those concerned with the theological promise of contemporary Continental philosophy."-Thomas A. Carlson, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Drawing on 38 in-depth, qualitative interviews, this article explores how people working in the equality sector in England and Wales view and use the current law around sex and gender, and how they imagine law’s future, particularly potential decertification, where the state would withdraw from certifying and regulating a person’s sex/gender. Whilst situated in the bureaucratic strand of the literature, the paper also contributes to wider legal consciousness studies. This literature has generally focused on people’s relationships to law in terms (...) of domination, alienation and game-playing. Drawing on idioms and the language of touch, the paper unpacks the way in which equality actors talked about law not as remote or alienating, but as close and familiar; not as oppressive, but as “precious” and hard-won. Some also regarded law as a place of safety in unsafe times. These proposed ‘attached to law’ and ‘protective of law’ strands of consciousness enrich and extend Ewick and Silbey’s classic ‘before the law’ narrative. The findings are also useful for critical legal and feminist scholarship. Combined with the equality sector’s pragmatic and tactical use of law to problem-solve, this close and protective orientation towards law reproduces its hegemony. The paper concludes by exploring a recurrent refrain that, in relation to decertification, “we’re not there yet” and that gender equality would need to be achieved before decertification would “fly”. (shrink)