In the revised and updated edition of this popular book, Sean Burke shows how the attempt to abolish the author is fundamentally misguided and philosophically...

Recent work has deployed the logic of jury theorems to assert that crowd-sourced peer review is superior to traditional peer review. That argument is shown to fail by counterexample: in a model of scientific communities with incumbents that favour work consistent with their own, the probability of genuinely revolutionary ideas being published tends to zero as the size of the “jury” increases. A related problem is that the fundamental purpose of peer review in the context of intellectual inquiry and progress (...) is given inadequate consideration. Remedying that calls into question the appropriateness of the jury theorem logic. The broader argument made for crowd-sourced peer review suffers from problems on three additional dimensions. First, it does not clearly establish what the problems are with traditional peer review that need to be resolved. Second, its appeals to diversity are suspect, contradicted by the counterexample, and arguably inadmissible because they find no expression in the formal model used. Finally, the assertion that these matters can be resolved by empirical evidence from implementation of alternative systems is premised on questionable epistemic assumptions that are neither stated nor defended. The conclusion drawn is that no case has been established for the implementation of crowd-sourced peer review, and claims made in that regard evince a concerning epistemic gap between the soundness of their arguments and the strength of their proposals. (shrink)

In this editorial introduction, the authors contextualise the special issue ‘Education for a better future? Theory, practice, and social justice,’ and provide a summary of its papers. They draw attention in particular to discussions around the aims of education in relation to social justice, as well as to the specific approach the authors took in bringing those who wrote the various papers of this special issue together.

Reichenbach’s ‘principle of the common cause’ is a foundational assumption of some important recent contributions to quantitative social science methodology but no similar principle appears in econometrics. Angrist et al. has argued that the principle is necessary for instrumental variables methods in econometrics, and Angrist Krueger builds a framework using it that he proposes as a means of resolving an important methodological dispute among econometricians. Through analysis of instrumental variables methods and the issue of multicollinearity, we aim to show that (...) the relationship of the principle to econometric methods is more nuanced than implied by previous work but nevertheless may make a valuable contribution to the coherence and validity of existing methods. (shrink)

In this article we investigate how Latino immigrant farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States navigate United States Department of Agriculture programs, which necessitate standardizing farming practices and an acceptance of bureaucracy for participation. We show how Latino immigrant farmers’ agrarian norms and practices are at odds with the state’s requirement for agrarian standardization. This interview-based study builds on existing historical analyses of farmers of color in the United States, and the ways in which their farming practices and (...) racialized identities are often unseen by and illegible to the state. This disjuncture leads to the increased racial exclusion of immigrant farmers from USDA opportunities. Such exclusions impede the transition to a “new era of civil rights,” as has been proclaimed by USDA leadership. Although efforts to address institutionalized racism on a national level may be genuine, they have failed to acknowledge this schism between rural Latino immigrants and the state, thereby inhibiting a meaningful transition in the fields, and continuing a legacy of unequal access to agrarian opportunities for non-white immigrant farmers. (shrink)

The core thesis of this book is that to understand the implications of incentive structures in modern higher education, we require a deeper understanding of associated issues in the philosophy of science. Significant public and philanthropic resources are directed towards various forms of research in the hope of addressing key societal problems. That view, and the associated allocation of resources, relies on the assumption that academic research will tend towards finding truth – or at least selecting the best approximations of (...) it. The present book builds on, and extends, contributions in philosophy and higher education to argue that this assumption is misplaced: with serious implications for modern higher education and its role in informing societal decisions and government policy. The book develops a philosophical foundation for the analysis of the connection between higher education incentives, scientific progress and societal outcomes. That in turn is used to demonstrate how the current approach to incentivising intellectual and scientific progress is likely not only to fail, but in fact to cause harm on the very dimensions it purports to improve. The arguments presented are illustrated with examples from medicine and academic economics, making the book one of the first to examine issues of scientific progress and social consequences across the human and social sciences. In doing so, it develops a novel critique of modern economics that in turn provides a more philosophically substantive foundation for popular critiques of economics than has existed to date. (shrink)

This article explores one of the key themes of Hans J. Morgenthau's moral theory, the concept of the lesser evil. Morgenthau developed this concept by reference to classical political theory, especially the articulation of the lesser evil found in Aristotle and Epicurus. The article begins by differentiating Morgenthau's work from that of E. H. Carr, whom he regards as engaged in a Quixotic quest to provide Machiavellism with greater ethical purpose. The article also contrasts the ethics of the lesser evil (...) with Kantian ethics. Morgenthau places the lesser evil in the context of a modernity that has lost the capacity to think about the relationship between politics and morality and stresses the importance of coming to grips with the existential demands of love and power. Finally, the article argues that despite the ubiquity of evil, the existence of the lesser evil gives rise to the development of specifically political virtues such as prudence and moderation which raise the possibility of moral politics beyond mere expedience. (shrink)

This commentary shall focus on the central claim made in Lynch et al.’s paper “Promoting Ethical Payment in Human Infection Challenge Studies.” According to their paper, there is a threefold...

The purpose of this paper is to set out the contours for a pedagogy of dissent, i.e., a pedagogical approach to religion that recognizes the role of dissent in bridging the conventional antagonism between religious and LGBTQ concerns for education. Seán Henry begins it with the view that a pedagogy conducive to this kind of work can be engaged with if the relation between education and religion is framed in radically conservative terms. From here, Henry inquires into the pedagogical commitments (...) necessary for dissent as a mode of bridge-building to occur. These commitments are (1) an orientation toward remembrance, understood less in terms of a commonality of religious identity and more in terms of a “structural condition of the present”; and (2) an embodied attention to the proximity of the other. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the nature of the pedagogical content that could be helpful in enacting these commitments. Henry suggests that pedagogies of dissent require theological content that (1) reworks past traditions, without justifying or downplaying their shortcomings; and (2) is explicit in its rejection of heteronormativity through a sensitivity to the lived experiences of LGBTQ people. (shrink)

En este trabajo, se analizan los modos en que se define, vivencia y valoriza el trabajo en experiencias de organización colectiva de la economía popular. Partimos de poner en diálogo resultados de dos investigaciones etnográficas desarrolladas junto a dos organizaciones nucleadas en la Confederación/Unión de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular. Mientras que los estudios sobre estas experiencias señalaron que la apelación a un sujeto trabajador constituyó la base del proceso de formulación de demandas por derechos hacia el Estado, aquí buscaremos (...) dar cuenta del modo en que la construcción de una definición ampliada del trabajo permea las prácticas cotidianas de quienes integran las organizaciones. Recuperando perspectivas antropológicas que propusieron repensar el trabajo más allá de modelos económicos hegemónicos y aportes de la economía feminista, buscaremos mostrar que tanto las prácticas desarrolladas en las unidades productivas como sus modos de interactuar con el Estado evidencian la imbricación de lo que habitualmente se conceptualiza como productivo y reproductivo, laboral y comunitario, y dan lugar a una reinvención de aquello que se entiende como “trabajo” y en particular como trabajos que valen o son considerados “productivos”. Sostenemos que estas formas de valorizar, jerarquizar y disputar qué es trabajo y qué trabajos son socialmente relevantes constituye la base de la reivindicación del valor de quienes los llevan adelante en su lucha por el reconocimiento de sus derechos. (shrink)

Reluctance to endorse mask wearing to slow transmission of SARS-Cov-2 has been rationalized by the failure of randomized control trials (RCTs) to provide supportive evidence. In contrast, a mechanism-based approach suggests that mask wearing should be expected to reduce transmission: so that contrary evidence from RCTs likely reflects the need to focus policy attention on addressing interacting or mediating factors that offset the basic positive effect. The differing conclusions that result from these two approaches reflect the limitations of RCT-based approaches (...) that are compounded in scenarios, such as pandemics, where urgent decisions are required with limited evidence. (shrink)

This article claims William Shakespeare’s Macbeth anticipates many elements of contemporary nihilism. The article focuses on the active and passive nihilism of Macbeth and Malcolm but also explores the structural nihilism pervading the Kingdom of Scotland, and, finally, a cosmic nihilism in which the Weird Sisters and Hecate represent the absurd regnant. In an era defined by a lack of faith in both God and man, Macbeth’s exploration of the nihilistic will to power and its effects on politics and society (...) is perhaps more relevant than ever. (shrink)

This paper outlines a first attempt to model the special constraints that arise in language processing in conversation, and to explore the implications such functional considerations may have on language typology and language change. In particular, we focus on processing pressures imposed by conversational turn-taking and their consequences for the cultural evolution of the structural properties of language. We present an agent-based model of cultural evolution where agents take turns at talk in conversation. When the start of planning for the (...) next turn is constrained by the position of the verb, the stable distribution of dominant word orders across languages evolves to match the actual distribution reasonably well. We suggest that the interface of cognition and interaction should be a more central part of the story of language evolution. (shrink)

A recent strand of literature argues that the importance of epistemic virtues is overstated and that knowledge generation and transmission benefit from traits that can be characterised as epistemic vices. This goes against the stance of the research integrity literature, which takes it as given that epistemic vices are bad and should be combated. Arguments ‘in defence of vice’ utilise qualitative, historical cases of epistemic vice that contributed to desirable scientific outcomes or knowledge transmission, and formal models of scientific research (...) in which virtues can be harmful and vices beneficial. A typical stance is that negative effects of individual-level vices will be addressed at the level of the scientific or research community. I argue that singular case studies and highly stylised formal models only demonstrate possibility results with no established relation to the actual dynamics of research or even to the universe of possible models. While historical evidence does serve as a counterexample to the claim that epistemic virtues are always beneficial and epistemic vices are always harmful, that extreme stance is not needed to endorse epistemic virtues and integrity. The harms of basic epistemic vices to the modern research enterprise are evident from considering their implications for components of the research process such as peer review. While economics is the inspiration for many formal modelling exercises, the literature neglects economic literature on market failures, the importance of social norms, and trust. Recent contributions have not provided an adequate basis for treating research integrity and traditional epistemic virtues as anything less than fundamental to the process of inquiry and knowledge generation. (shrink)

An economy based on agriculture required access to both tillage and tillers. Power was shared by two groups in the ruling class. The warriors’ priority was to mobilize the tillers for war and the acquisition of more lands by conquest at the cost of peace and agriculture. The priority of their rivals in power, known colloquially as ‘Mandarins’ in European languages, was to liberate the tillers from warfare and to promote peace and agriculture. The technocratic Mandarins could not use martial (...) prowess to defeat the warriors’ ‘hard power’. Confucian thought emerged from this continuous struggle as a ‘soft power’ strategy. Today, Chinese thinkers and strategists are reinterpreting Confucian ideals to promote a ‘harmonious society’ and a ‘harmonious world’ based on a classical Confucian concept of the entire world as one common space to be shared harmoniously, perhaps responding to a collective ‘Western’ vision of self-interested Realpolitik with a Confucian dream of peace. (shrink)

Hegel’s ‘Natural Law’ essay is widely discussed but its substance and the implications of its argument are misunderstood. Hegel’s essay is most often read via other philosophers. Interpretations of this kind are useful but only illuminate those parts of Hegel’s text that intersect with other philosophers’ concerns. This article takes a different approach by focusing on the entirety of the essay and exploring the implications of its two primary arguments: firstly, that there has been a breach between philosophy and natural (...) law; secondly, that without philosophy natural law is thrown back on its own resources, producing two schools of post-philosophical thought—empiricism and formalism—neither of which is adequate to serve as its foundation. I argue that in response to this inadequacy Hegel sublates empiricism and formalism to develop undistorted intuition as a way of thinking designed to effect the re-philosophization of natural law. (shrink)

Bu araştırma, yapay zekâ ile İslam hukuku disiplinlerini bir arada ele alan multidisipliner bir incelemedir. Çalışmamız İslam hukukunun temel yapısıyla uyumlu bir yapay zekâ sisteminin geliştirilmesine yönelik teorik ve pratik katkılar sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmanın problemi, İslam hukukunun kavramsal mahiyetini oluşturan fıkhetme ve ictihad etme yetisinin yapay zekâ tarafından yerine getirilip getirilemeyeceğidir. Araştırmamız, yapay zekânın İslam hukukunun kavramsal yapısı içindeki yerine dair teorik bir çerçeve sunmakta, insan aklı, zekâsı ve sezgisel yetkinliğiyle anlam ve hüküm üretme kapasitesi, yapay zekâ sistemleriyle karşılaştırılmakta; özellikle (...) tefakkuh ve ictihad gibi zihinsel ve manevi yönü güçlü faaliyetlerin makine temelli sistemlerce taklit edilip edilemeyeceği sorgulanmaktadır. Konu, analitik yaklaşım ve tümevarımsal yöntem çerçevesinde değerlendirilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, yapay zekânın fıkhî çıkarım yapabilme yeteneği; onun işleyiş mekanizması, temel yaklaşımları ve akıl-zekâ-yapay zekâ ilişkisi üzerinden, İslam hukukunun bakış açısıyla yorumlanarak analiz edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu sebeple, çalışmada İslam hukukunun teorik temellerine ve fıkhın kuramsal detaylarına derinlemesine girilmemiş; bu alanlar araştırmanın kapsamı dışında bırakılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonucunda tefakkuhun ahlaki, ruhî ve sezgisel boyutlarının modern yaklaşımlı yapay zekâ tarafından tam anlamıyla temsil edilemeyeceği vurgulanmakta; ictihad faaliyeti için uzman İslam hukukçularının katkısıyla kural tabanlı hibrit yaklaşımlı yapay zekâ modellerinin geliştirilmesi önerilmektedir. (shrink)

This study presents pioneering data on how adult early bilinguals (heritage speakers) and late bilingual speakers of Turkish and German process grammatical evidentiality in a visual world setting in comparison to monolingual speakers of Turkish. Turkish marks evidentiality, the linguistic reference to information source, through inflectional affixes signaling either direct (-DI) or indirect (-mIş) evidentiality. We conducted an eye-tracking-during-listening experiment where participants were given access to visual ‘evidence’ supporting the use of either a direct or indirect evidential form. The behavioral (...) results indicate that the monolingual Turkish speakers comprehended direct and indirect evidential scenarios equally well. In contrast, both late and early bilinguals were less accurate and slower to respond to direct than to indirect evidentials. The behavioral results were also reflected in the proportions of looks data. That is, both late and early bilinguals fixated less frequently on the target picture in the direct than in the indirect evidential condition while the monolinguals showed no difference between these conditions. Taken together, our results indicate reduced sensitivity to the semantic and pragmatic function of direct evidential forms in both late and early bilingual speakers, suggesting a simplification of the Turkish evidentiality system in Turkish heritage grammars. We discuss our findings with regard to theories of incomplete acquisition and first language attrition. (shrink)

Whether economics warrants public trust depends on the extent to which assertions by economists can be deemed credible. Three examples from microeconomics are examined to assess how the discipline performs in this regard. First, a purely theoretical argument with broad conceptual implications: a quasi-evolutionary argument for rational choice based on the notion of money pumps. Second, a modelling-related claim with significant social implications: economists’ objection to minimum wages based on a simple supply-demand model. Third, methodological choices with implications for all (...) empirical work in microeconomics: the recent proclamation of a ‘credibility revolution’ in applied microeconomics through the use of experimental and quasi-experimental methods. These are assessed against proposed criteria for credibility: epistemic validity, epistemic reliability, and epistemic reflexivity. On the basis of the performance of the discipline against these criteria on the examples considered, I conclude that public distrust of economics and economists can be well-founded. (shrink)

The relationship between sexuality education and religion is often framed antagonistically, especially when it comes to tensions between the teaching of sexuality education and the priorities of some religious communities. In this paper, we argue that this antagonism can be structured as much by the prevalent forms of engagement that display it (dialogue and debate), as it is by the antagonism between contrasting ethical systems. While we acknowledge the importance of debate and dialogue in the public sphere, we contend that (...) appeals to these discursive forms in schools and classrooms can limit possibilities for rethinking engagements across sexuality education and religion. This is because of the tendency within certain manifestations of dialogue (for example, dialogical models connected to liberal political projects) to err on the side of predictability, rationality and abstraction. To address some of these limits, we draw on the recent turn to conversation in educational thinking. We think through the significance of conversation in offering a mode of engagement for students, teachers and school communities that is conditioned by the dispossession of the self and is attuned to the unpredictable, affective and contextual landscapes of shared encounters. We conclude with some thoughts on the practical implications of conversation for rethinking the role of the sexuality education teacher, practices of parental consultation and processes of policy enactment in schools. (shrink)

The 21st-century construction of a new Chinese political discourse faces the same dilemma that Chinese intellectuals first identified in the 19th century – how to make currently pre-eminent Eurocen...

Who protects individual liberties and human dignity from domination by the State, by Civil Society or by individuals is a question under debate in China as well as the West, not from the point of view of Liberalism, but from the point of view of ‘Relationality’. Liberalism posits the individual as the measure of these matters but the ‘individual’ in question is an abstraction. Relationality posits social relations as the measure of these matters. Persons are not abstractions. They combine several (...) different social ‘roles’, and each role includes obligations as well as rights. These roles limit the individual’s freedom of action. There are no unipersonal societies. Liberalism also posits rights as an abstraction: ‘All men are created equal’. Relationality posits rights in a context of mutual recognition of rights and responsibilities. Rights only exist if they can in fact be exercised. From the point of view of Relationality, therefore, a person’s ability to exercise her or his rights must be seen in the light of a concept of Justice and there must be an agency that can guarantee this Justice, the exercise of these rights, while it guarantees the fulfilment of social obligations. Is this the role of the State? of Civil Society? of the Market? To truly discuss these matters in a transcultural context, we would need to look for common ground, not take as ‘self-evident’ the classical Liberal perception of the individual. Understanding the underlying political philosophy of China’s concept of ‘responsive authoritarianism’ does not mean endorsing it. But understanding this idea and its ramifications does provide room for amplifying the basic question of who protects individual liberties and human dignity. (shrink)

This paper explores comedy as a queer pedagogical form that subverts problematic representational tropes of queerness pervading mainstream depictions of queer experience. Articulating ‘form’ less as a fixed arrangement of characters, images, objects, and ideas, and more as a kind of formation that positions these in dynamic relation to the wider context in which comedies are encountered, we mobilise the idea of queer pedagogical forms to capture how comedy can foster new modes of thinking about and embodying queerness for, and (...) with, audiences. Drawing on specific examples from Schitt’s Creek and Derry Girls, we document the potential of specific comedic modalities (e.g. irony, sarcasm, irreverence, and slapstick) to foster alternative representations of queerness, in which normative tropes are poked fun at, problematised, and reimagined. Through these examples, we demonstrate how comedies can enable us to ‘laugh ourselves out of the closets’ we live by, feel, navigate, and embody. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas's Totality and Infinity is explicitly con cerned with the suppression of the voice of the Other by the synoptic totalizations of the voice of western philosophy. Levinas contests this emergence of Being and the systems of totality it indicates with the irruption of the face of the other, which signifies through contact and sensibility the presence of infinity within the human situation. Derrida's reading of this fundamental testing of western ontology rests on the accusation that western philosophy already (...) has a term for this: empiricism. That is, Derrida exposes an alien voice within Levinas's exposure of the voice alienated from ontological formulations. In the later Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence Levinas implic itly recognizes the truth of Derrida's demonstration of a residual con ceptualism, and shifts from the thematization of infinite exteriority given by the Other, alterity and the face-to-face relation, to the search for a signifyingness that will breach the noema's identificational closure, that is, to the direct and exposed gesture of saying. Both the limit terms of Totality and Infinity and the response they produced in Derrida have become the starting-point of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence: the testimony that is irreducible to a thematizing knowledge. What saves this saying from becoming in its turn another theme is that, in addition to its acting in the text, it acts upon and as HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 10 No. 3 © 1997 SAGE Publications [0952-695110:3] the text. The vocabulary, form of composition and mode of address of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence strain against their inherited limits. And the work this obliges the reader to undergo is, of course, an ethical necessity, given the work's message. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas's Totality and Infinity (1961) is explicitly con cerned with the suppression of the voice of the Other by the synoptic totalizations of the voice of western philosophy. Levinas contests this emergence of Being and the systems of totality it indicates with the irruption of the face of the other, which signifies through contact and sensibility the presence of infinity within the human situation. Derrida's reading of this fundamental testing of western ontology rests on the accusation that western philosophy (...) already has a term for this: empiricism. That is, Derrida exposes an alien voice within Levinas's exposure of the voice alienated from ontological formulations. In the later Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974) Levinas implic itly recognizes the truth of Derrida's demonstration of a residual con ceptualism, and shifts from the thematization of infinite exteriority given by the Other, alterity and the face-to-face relation, to the search for a signifyingness that will breach the noema's identificational closure, that is, to the direct and exposed gesture of saying. Both the limit terms of Totality and Infinity and the response they produced in Derrida have become the starting-point of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence: the testimony that is irreducible to a thematizing knowledge. What saves this saying from becoming in its turn another theme is that, in addition to its acting in the text, it acts upon and as HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 10 No. 3 © 1997 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi) [0952-6951(199708)10:3] the text. The vocabulary, form of composition and mode of address of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence strain against their inherited limits. And the work this obliges the reader to undergo is, of course, an ethical necessity, given the work's message. (shrink)

Judith Butler argues that every category of personal identity, such as gender, the body, nationality, sexuality, or ethnicity, is predicated in part on a crisis between what that identity affirms and what it excludes. How this crisis manifests itself in everyday life is key to understanding how identities are reinforced, negotiated, subverted, or rejected on both social and individual levels. In this paper I consider three films directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi between 2001 and 2006, arguing that they are especially competent (...) in not only representing ontological tensions of this kind within their narratives, but also in manifesting these tensions so that they are made viscerally available to the viewer as affect. To understand how this is achieved, I draw on the work of Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, among others, to articulate how a stylistic system, or aesthetic, is developed across these films, and what techniques contribute to its production. I find that key components... (shrink)

North Korea references gender equality in its socialist constitution, but the de facto social and legal circumstances that women face in the country are far below the de jure status they are purported to enjoy. North Korean women endure extremely low public health standards and pervasive harassment. Yet their growing market power and social influence are underestimated. Women account for the majority of North Korean border crossers, and their informal economic activities are supporting families while modernizing the economy. This essay (...) examines the dangers of exploitation that North Korean women face and highlights the ethical and legal imperatives of supporting their roles in marketizing the economy and liberalizing the society in one of the worst human rights–violating states. Women are North Korea's most deserving recipients of international assistance and the country's most promising partners to the world. (shrink)

This collection explicates Levinas's major contribution to these debates, namely the idea of the primacy of ethics over ontology or epistemology.