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Selected AbstractsAre There Passive Desires?DIALECTICA, Issue 2 2009David Wall What is the relation between desire and action? According to a traditional, widespread and influential view I call ,The Motivational Necessity of Desire' (MN), having a desire that p entails being disposed to act in ways that you believe will bring about p. But what about desires like a desire that the committee chooses you without your needing to do anything, or a desire that your child passes her exams on her own? Such ,self-passive' desires are often given as a counter-example to MN. If MN is true then self-passive desires seem absurd: if someone has a self-passive desire she will be disposed to act, thereby preventing her from getting what she desires. But it seems that we can reasonably, and often do, have such desires. However, I argue that self-passive desires are not, in fact, counter-examples to MN: close consideration of the content of these desires, the contexts in which we ascribe them, and what is claimed by MN show that they are not a problem for that view. I also argue that strengthened versions of the examples are unsuccessful, and I offer a diagnosis of why these kinds of case are commonly thought to raise a challenge to MN. [source] Through thick and thin: good and its determinatesDIALECTICA, Issue 2 2004Christine Tappolet What is the relation between the concept good and more specific or ,thick' concepts such as admirable or courageous? I argue that good or more precisely good pro tanto is a general concept, but that the relation between good pro tanto and the more specific concepts is not that of a genus to its species. The relation of an important class of specific evaluative concepts, which I call ,affective concepts', to good pro tanto is better understood as one between a determinable and its determinates, whereas concepts such as courageous can be analysed in terms of affective concepts and purely descriptive concepts. [source] Biopolitical Utopianism in Educational TheoryEDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY, Issue 7 2007Tyson Lewis Abstract In this paper I shift the center of utopian debates away from questions of ideology towards the question of power. As a new point of departure, I analyze Foucault's notion of biopower as well as Hardt and Negri's theory of biopolitics. Arguing for a new hermeneutic of biopolitics in education, I then apply this lens to evaluate the educational philosophy of John Dewey. In conclusion, the paper suggests that while Hardt and Negri are missing an educational theory, John Dewey is missing a concept of democracy adequate to the biopolitical struggles of the multitude. Thus, I call for a synthesis of Dewey and Hardt and Negri in order to generate a biopedagogical practice beyond both traditional models of education as well as current standardization. [source] Seasonally Variable Eusocially Selected Traits in the Paper Wasp, Mischocyttarus mexicanusETHOLOGY, Issue 7 2007Charles W. Gunnels IV The expression of alternative traits that benefit eusocial individuals but are not directly involved in reproductive differences among those individuals, which I call ,eusocially selected traits', may vary in response to environmental changes if this increases an individual's inclusive fitness. In this study, I describe traits that separate individuals within the reproductive division of labor of Mischocyttarus mexicanus, a eusocial paper wasp, and determine whether observed eusocially selected traits vary across seasons. I examined M. mexicanus because females initiate new nests throughout most of the year where they experience different conditions depending on the season. Findings from this study suggest two main conclusions: (1) phenotypic differences among M. mexicanus females are mixed, showing specialized, generalized, and context-dependent eusocially selected traits and (2) a female's position within the reproductive division of labor may be influenced by its state. The presence of context-dependent traits, e.g. large females initiated solitary nests in the spring and grouped nests during the summer, suggests that the payoff for pursuing different positions within the reproductive division of labor changes across seasons. The expression of context-dependent eusocially selected traits also suggests that, roles, instead of castes, may better reflect the reproductive division of labor among individuals of eusocial species like M. mexicanus. [source] Value Maximisation, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective FunctionEUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001Michael Jensen This paper examines the role of the corporate objective function in corporate productivity and efficiency, social welfare, and the accountability of managers and directors. I argue that since it is logically impossible to maximise in more than one dimension, purposeful behaviour requires a single valued objective function. Two hundred years of work in economics and finance implies that in the absence of externalities and monopoly (and when all goods are priced), social welfare is maximised when each firm in an economy maximises its total market value. Total value is not just the value of the equity but also includes the market values of all other financial claims including debt, preferred stock, and warrants. In sharp contrast stakeholder theory, argues that managers should make decisions so as to take account of the interests of all stakeholders in a firm (including not only financial claimants, but also employees, customers, communities, governmental officials and under some interpretations the environment, terrorists and blackmailers). Because the advocates of stakeholder theory refuse to specify how to make the necessary tradeoffs among these competing interests they leave managers with a theory that makes it impossible for them to make purposeful decisions. With no way to keep score, stakeholder theory makes managers unaccountable for their actions. It seems clear that such a theory can be attractive to the self interest of managers and directors. Creating value takes more than acceptance of value maximisation as the organisational objective. As a statement of corporate purpose or vision, value maximisation is not likely to tap into the energy and enthusiasm of employees and managers to create value. Seen in this light, change in long-term market value becomes the scorecard that managers, directors, and others use to assess success or failure of the organisation. The choice of value maximisation as the corporate scorecard must be complemented by a corporate vision, strategy and tactics that unite participants in the organisation in its struggle for dominance in its competitive arena. A firm cannot maximise value if it ignores the interest of its stakeholders. I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximisation and stakeholder theory. I call it enlightened value maximisation, and it is identical to what I call enlightened stakeholder theory. Enlightened value maximisation utilises much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximisation of the long run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders. Managers, directors, strategists, and management scientists can benefit from enlightened stakeholder theory. Enlightened stakeholder theory specifies long-term value maximisation or value seeking as the firm's objective and therefore solves the problems that arise from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory. The same conclusions hold. Balanced Scorecard theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard which gives no score,that is, no single-valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organisation or division (and it must be consistent with the organisation's strategy). Given this we then encourage managers to use measures of the drivers of performance to understand better how to maximise their score. And as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organisation it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm. [source] HOW ARE DELETERIOUS MUTATIONS PURGED?EVOLUTION, Issue 12 2003DRIFT VERSUS NONRANDOM MATING Abstract Accumulation of deleterious mutations has important consequences for the evolution of mating systems and the persistence of small populations. It is well established that consanguineous mating can purge a part of the mutation load and that lethal mutations can also be purged in small populations. However, the efficiency of purging in natural populations, due to either consanguineous mating or to reduced population size, has been questioned. Consequences of consanguineous mating systems and small population size are often equated under "inbreeding" because both increase homozygosity, and selection is though to be more efficient against homozygous deleterious alleles. I show that two processes of purging that I call "purging by drift" and "purging by nonrandom mating" have to be distinguished. Conditions under which the two ways of purging are effective are derived. Nonrandom mating can purge deleterious mutations regardless of their dominance level, whereas only highly recessive mutations can be purged by drift. Both types of purging are limited by population size, and sharp thresholds separate domains where purging is either effective or not. The limitations derived here on the efficiency of purging are compatible with some experimental studies. Implications of these results for conservation and evolution of mating systems are discussed. [source] MOVING BEYOND BIOPOWER: HARDT AND NEGRI'S POST-FOUCAULDIAN SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORYHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2005RÉAL FILLION ABSTRACT I argue in this paper that the attempt by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Empire and Multitude to "theorize empire" should be read both against the backdrop of speculative philosophy of history and as a development of the conception of a "principle of intelligibility" as this is discussed in Michel Foucault's recently published courses at the Collège de France. I also argue that Foucault's work in these courses (and elsewhere) can be read as implicitly providing what I call "prolegomena to any future speculative philosophy of history." I define the latter as concerned with the intelligibility of the historical process considered as a whole. I further suggest, through a brief discussion of the classical figures of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, that the basic features of speculative philosophy of history concern the articulation of both the telos and dynamics of history. My claim is that Hardt and Negri provide an account of the telos and dynamics of history that respects the strictures imposed on speculative philosophy of history by Foucault's work, and thus can be considered as providing a post-Foucauldian speculative philosophy of history. In doing so, they provide a challenge to other "theoretical" attempts to account for our changing world. [source] Application of molecular clocks in ornithology revisitedJOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2006A. Townsend Peterson Molecular clocks have seen many applications in ornithology, but many applications are uncritical. In this commentary, I point out logical inconsistencies in many uses of clocks in avian molecular systematics. I call for greater rigor in application of molecular clocks , clocks should only be used when clocklike behavior has been tested and confirmed, and when appropriate calibrations are available. Authors and reviewers should insist on such rigor to assure that systematics is indeed scientific, and not just storytelling. [source] Generalizing Detached Self-Reference and the Semantics of Generic OneMIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 4 2010FRIEDERIKE MOLTMANN In this paper I will give an analysis of what I call ,generalizing detached self-reference' within a general account of reference to the first person. With generalizing detached self-reference an agent attributes properties to a range of individuals by putting himself into their shoes, or simulating them. I will show that generalizing detached self-reference plays an important role in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the English generic one and in what syntacticians call arbitrary PRO. [source] Vision, Action, and Make-PerceiveMIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 4 2008ROBERT EAMON BRISCOE I argue inter alia that the enactive account falsely identifies an object's apparent shape with its 2D perspectival shape; that it mistakenly assimilates visual shape perception and volumetric object recognition; and that it seriously misrepresents the constitutive role of bodily action in visual awareness. I argue further that noticing an object's perspectival shape involves a hybrid experience combining both perceptual and imaginative elements,an act of what I call ,make-perceive'. [source] "I fell in love with Carlos the meerkat": Engagement and detachment in human,animal relationsAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 2 2010MATEI CANDEA ABSTRACT Relationship, connection, and engagement have emerged as key values in recent studies of human,animal relations. In this article, I call for a reexamination of the productive aspects of detachment. I trace ethnographically the management of everyday relations between biologists and the Kalahari meerkats they study, and I follow the animals' transformation as subjects of knowledge and engagement when they become the stars of an internationally popular, televised animal soap opera. I argue that treating detachment and engagement as polar opposites is unhelpful both in this ethnographic case and, more broadly, in anthropological discussions of ethics and knowledge making. [human,animal relations, science, media, ethics, engagement, detachment] [source] How dogs dream: Amazonian natures and the politics of transspecies engagementAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 1 2007EDUARDO KOHN Under the rubric of an "anthropology of life," I call for expanding the reach of ethnography beyond the boundaries of the human. Drawing on research among the Upper Amazonian Runa and focusing, for heuristic purposes, on a particular ethnological conundrum concerning how to interpret the dreams dogs have, I examine the relationships, both intimate and fraught, that the Runa have with other lifeforms. Analytical frameworks that fashion their tools from what is unique to humans (language, culture, society, and history) or, alternatively, what humans are commonly supposed to share with animals are inadequate to this task. By contrast, I turn to an embodied and emergentist understanding of semiosis,one that treats sign processes as inherent to life and not just restricted to humans,as well as to an appreciation for Amazonian preoccupations with inhabiting the points of view of nonhuman selves, to move anthropology beyond "the human," both as analytic and as bounded object of study. [source] Theorizing world culture through the New World: East Indians and creolizationAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 4 2006VIRANJINI MUNASINGHE This article is an ethnographic inquiry into the production of theory. In it, I specifically ask why the concept "creole" has assumed such significance today for theorists working outside the Caribbean for interpreting the dynamics of cultural change globally. Relocating "creole" in its historical and regional context, I analyze how and why interculturation, an essential feature of creolization that is championed by global theorists, is transformed into acculturation when creolization theory is applied to East Indians in Trinidad. I argue that creolization fails as theory with respect to East Indians because of its ontology as a schizophrenic theory, that is, one in which theory and ideology are conflated. I call for a reconceptualization of creolization theory by first recognizing the limitations imposed by such instances of epistemological collapse. [source] The One-Winged Angel.ORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 3 2009History, Memory in the Literary Discourse of W. G. Sebald This study explores an ambiguity in W. G. Sebald's literary discourse. The author presents writing as a way to resist the fatality of the historical process and to overcome the limits of historical representation. His narratives are founded on the recognition that it is ethically necessary to speak in the name of the victims, but epistemologically impossible to do so. In order to overcome his scepticism, Sebald developed a discourse of memory largely inspired by Nabokov's and Benjamin's ideas of aesthetic redemption. The reader should be transformed through a sort of epiphany, an aesthetic illumination that works in his imagination and engages him in a ritual of mourning. This discourse, however, hides a tendency to glorify the figure of the melancholy writer, portraying him as a cultural hero. The narrator of Sebald's fictions is not just a critical witness of the catastrophic course of the world, but an image of the poet who struggles heroically against fatality and is redeemed, not because he triumphs, but precisely because he fails. It is my contention that Sebald's concept of the writer as a sublime tragic figure , what I call ,the one-winged angel', undermines the political, if not the ethical, significance of his artistic legacy. [source] Neo-Pragmatist (Practice-Based) Theories of MeaningPHILOSOPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2009Ronald Loeffler In recent years, several systematic theories of linguistic meaning have been offered that give pride of place to linguistic practice, or the process of linguistic communication. Often these theories are referred to as neo-pragmatist or new pragmatist; I call them ,practice-based'. According to practice-based theories of meaning, the process of linguistic communication is somehow constitutive of, or otherwise essential for the existence of, propositional linguistic meaning. Moreover, these theories disavow, or downplay, the semantic importance of inflationary notions of representation. I introduce the basic ideas and motives behind some practice-based theories of meaning, and offer some reasons why an eliminativist, non-quietist, epistemic practice-based approach to meaning that 1) disavows any explanatory role for the linguistic community as such, 2) prioritizes sentence meaning over word meaning, and 3) may, in the end, be naturalistic, should be favored over its practice-based competitors. [source] Physicalism, Nothing Buttery, and SupervenienceRATIO, Issue 3 2001Giovanna Hendel I consider the position (which I call,the triad') according to which physicalism is a reductive claim which is capturable in terms of the idea (the ,nothing buttery' idea) that there is nothing but/nothing over and above the physical, an idea which, in its turn, is meant to be capturable in terms of a determinate form of supervenience. (Physicalism is then meant to be capturable in terms of the form of supervenience in question.) I argue that there is a tension in the triad. The notion of ,nothing buttery' required has features which can't be captured by the supervenience of the triad. Hence, one cannot have both physicalism as nothing-buttery-reductive and physicalism as supervenience of the kind in question. If one wants to hold onto the idea of physicalism as nothing-buttery-reductive, one must be prepared to identify physicalism with a much stronger claim than one might have originally thought, a claim that can't be captured by the supervenience of the triad. [source] Employing multiple theories and evoking new ideas: The use of clinical materialTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 2 2008Judy L. Kantrowitz In this paper, I wish to illustrate how working with a patient who had a certain kind of narcissistic difficulty led me to develop particular clinical strategies to facilitate the development of a sturdier sense of self, greater affect tolerance and modulation, the diminution of harshness of her superego, and the ownership of projected parts of herself, and to decrease paranoid ideation. I call upon concepts from various theoretical schools of psychoanalysis to make sense of the dynamic intricacies of the patient's psychological organization as they revealed themselves in the analytic process. These conceptualizations of the patient's difficulties and of clinical interventions to address them result in a hybrid theory of both theory and technique. What transpired in the clinical work also led me to propose an additional way to understand this kind of patient's difficulties with accepting interpretations or any view that differed from the patient's subjectivity. I am proposing that ,otherness' itself, rather than only specific conflictual aspects of the self, is disowned. It is the analyst's empathic stance toward all that is repudiated , the specific disowned aspects of the self and ,otherness' itself , along with empathy for the patient's conscious state that will enable reinternalization and ultimately healing. [source] Gender Equality and Gender Differences: Parenting, Habitus, and Embodiment (The 2008 Porter Lecture),CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 2 2009ANDREA DOUCET S'appuyant sur un projet de recherche d'une durée de quatre ans concernant des pères canadiens dispensateurs de soins de première ligne ainsi que sur deux projets récents sur la première année de soins prodigués au nourrisson, l'auteure attire l'attention sur plusieurs questions théoriques importantes pour l'étude de l'égalité des sexes et de la différence entre les sexes au sujet de l'éducation des enfants. Elle propose d'abord de transférer le centre d'intérêt, qui porte en ce moment sur les travaux domestiques, vers les responsabilités familiales et communautaires. Elle soutient ensuite que le terrain politique à la base de l'étude du maternage et du paternage exige de la clarté sur la façon dont les chercheurs interprètent l'interaction constante entre l'égalité et les différences. Finalement, elle défend l'idée voulant que les responsabilités parentales, étant donné qu'il y a eu certains changements au cours du temps, demeurent influencées par le genre parce qu'elles sont profondément enracinées dans l'habitus et dans la personnification dans des contextes spatiaux et temporels spécifiques. Drawing on a four-year research project on Canadian primary caregiving fathers, as well two recent projects on the first year of parenting, this article highlights several theoretical and substantive issues in the study of gender equality and gender differences in parenting. First, I call for shifts from a focus on domestic tasks toward domestic and community-based responsibilities. Second, I argue that the political terrain underpinning the study of mothering and fathering calls for clarity on how researchers interpret the constant interplay between equality and differences. Third, while there has been some change over time, parental responsibilities remain gendered because they are deeply rooted in habitus and embodiment across specific spatial and temporal contexts. [source] | |||||||||||||