On Doing Justice to Cosmopolitan Values and the Otherness of the Other: Living with Cosmopolitan Scepticism

Educators, not to mention philosophers of education, find themselves in a difficult position nowadays. With the disappearance of the so-called metanarratives, it seems that the secular society has made it difficult, not to say almost impossible, to justify a particular idea of the good life that can be shared by all or at least many. The paper draws attention to some of the postmodernist critiques and thus identifies how we have ended up at this point; it then argues for a different balance between the self and the other. What is offered can be seen as an extension of Benhabib’s cosmopolitan view that the self and others should iteratively and hospitably engage in deliberation. Although we agree with her that iterations (as arguing over and over again and talking back) are worthwhile in themselves, as well as with Smith’s view that spaces should be created for adaptable practical judgements in considering the other and its relation with the self, we find Cavell’s idea of ‘living with scepticism’—particularly, acknowledging humanity in the Other and oneself as apposite to extend the theoretical premises of cosmopolitanism. Such a cosmopolitanism of scepticism is different from the universalist notions of cosmopolitanism developed so far.     

Playboy Playmate curves: changes in facial and body feature preferences across social and economic conditions

Past research has investigated ideals of beauty and how these ideals have changed across time. In the current study, facial and body characteristics of Playboy Playmates of the Year from 1960-2000 were identified and investigated to explore their relationships with U.S. social and economic factors. Playmate of the Year age, body feature measures, and facial feature measurements were correlated with a general measure of social and economic hard times. Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features.     

Cosmopolitan Sentiment: Politics,Charity, and Global Poverty

Res Publica - Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap. We have good reasons for acting yet we do not, at least consistently. A ‘sentimental education’, featuring...     

Gender Advertisements in Magazines Aimed at African Americans: A Comparison to Their Occurrence in Magazines Aimed at Caucasians

Advertisements from magazines aimed at AfricanAmericans were compared to ads from magazines aimedpredominantly at Whites. Over 200 magazineadvertisements were analyzed according to Goffman's(1976) rubrics of licensed withdrawal, function ranking,relative size, ritualization of subordination, femininetouch, and the family. Results indicated that the adsfrom White-oriented magazines were characterized by relatively frequent displays of licensedwithdrawal and ritualization of subordination. Thoseaimed at African Americans, however, were characterizedby more frequent portrayals of the family. Almost half of each sample were classified into another category which followed none ofGoffman's rubrics. Results are discussed in terms of thedemand characteristics implicit in gender advertisements and in terms of cultural differences in genderrole expectations.     

Positive Rights and the Cosmopolitan Community: A Rights-Centered Foundation for Global Ethics

The recent transnational wave of destruction that was caused by the earthquake-induced tsunamis in South East Asia has raised the issue of global justice in terms of the rights of victims to expect aid relief and the moral responsibility of the rest of the world to provide it. In this paper I will discuss the issue of global ethics in terms of positive rights that people have to assistance from others when they cannot provide such assistance themselves. The main object of the paper is to demonstrate that positive rights are universal and global in scope and cannot therefore be restricted by any national, religious, cultural or other social boundaries. Such rights provide a rational and ethical foundation for global justice that is cosmopolitan. The argument for the position offered in the paper will be broadly based on the moral philosophy of Alan Gewirth.1 1. The sources referred to in this paper with regard to Gewith's moral philosophy will, in the main, be: Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) and Alan Gewirth, The Community of Rights (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). For ease of reference, Reason and Morality will be referred to in the body of the paper as RM and Community of Rights as CR.      

Invisible Mothers: A Content Analysis of Motherhood Ideologies and Myths in Magazines

The purpose of this study is to identify prevalent motherhood ideologies and myths in contemporary women's magazines. The results indicate that contemporary magazines promote a traditional motherhood ideology, yet perpetuate motherhood myths that undermine mothers who stay home. Traditional motherhood, which excludes Women of Color and employed mothers, is promoted. Mothers are almost exclusively presented in the domestic, rather than the public or integrated domestic–public, contexts. Myths that employed mothers are busy, tired, and guilty, and that employed mothers neglect and are unattached to their children, are not upheld. However, negative myths that at-home mothers are confused, overwhelmed, and interested only in superficial topics are upheld in the magazines analyzed. The implications of these results on the perpetuation of patriarchy are discussed.     

All for Him: Articles About Sex in American Lad Magazines

Research on sources of information about sex indicates that independent reading is a primary source of information for many young people. For young men, such reading is likely to involve lad magazines, a relatively new but very popular genre of lifestyle magazines targeted at young men. In the present study, a systematic representative sample of articles about sex from American lad magazines was subjected to content analysis. Results suggest that, although many articles focus on what women want sexually, the overall message of these articles privileges a fairly narrow male sexuality oriented toward sexual variety. At the same time, the normative relational context of sex is depicted as serious dating relationships. These results are consistent with predominant gender stereotypes about sex.     

Logic and Rhetoric in Legal Argumentation: Some Medieval Perspectives

While the formal treatment of arguments in the late medieval modi arguendi owes much to dialectic, this does not remove the substance and function of the argumentative modes discussed from the realm of rhetoric. These works, designed to teach law students skills in legal argumentation, remain importantly focused on persuasive features of argumentation which have traditionally been strongly associated with a rhetorical approach, particularly in efforts to differentiate from it dialectic as a more strictly scientific and logical form of reasoning. This also sheds some light on the relative roles logic and rhetoric play in the legal discourse of our own time. In their approach to persuasive legal discourse, the modi arguendi stand between the argumentative rhetorics of Antiquity and the rhetoricized dialectics of the Renaissance, and by linking the minute technicalities of professionalized law with broad general considerations of justice, utility, nature, and emotion, they mediate between the modem trend towards atomized field-specific rhetorics and the classical idea of a unified civic rhetoric.     

The Chancellor's memory: Rhetoric and truth in discursive remembering

This paper explores the notion of truthfulness in research on conversational remembering. It argues that people's accounts of past events, before they can be taken as data on the cognitive workings of memory, need to be examined as contextualized and variable productions that perform pragmatic and rhetorical work; no one version can be taken as a person's real memory. The consequences of this discourse-analytical perspective are examined first through a critical discussion of Ulric Neisser's study of John Dean's testimony to the senate ‘Watergate’ committee. The issues are then explored more deeply in an analysis of reportings of a different event, in which similar (Watergate-like) issues of memory, truth and accuracy are also at issue. It is argued that: (a) all of Neisser's three kinds of memory–verbatim, gist and ‘repisodic’–involve problematical assumptions concerning their relation to some true, original event; and (b) that Dean's accounts of his memory and his displays of memory should be approached as occasioned productions oriented pragmatically to the assignment of guilt and avoidance of scapegoating. Through an analysis of newspaper reports (based on memory) of a controversial briefing given by the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, we then examine: (a) how discourse about what could be used as an arbiter of truth was rhetorically organized; (b) how participants' versions of events were constructed rhetorically, as parts of arguments; (c) that both sides in the dispute maintained the coherence of their positions by a form of error accounting similar to that used by Neisser with respect to Dean. It is suggested that cognitive psychologists, whether working in the laboratory or attempting to do real-world studies of everyday remembering, need to avoid simplistic notions of true original events, and can do so by addressing the rhetorical organization of participants' memory accounts.     

Meeting in the House of Callias: Rhetoric and Dialectic

The purpose of this paper is to briefly describe and compare the original goals and perspectives of both rhetoric and dialectic in theory and in practice. Dialectic is the practice and theory of conversations; rhetoric that of speeches. For theory of dialectic, this paper will turn to Aristotle's Topics and Sophistical Refutations; for theory of rhetoric, to his Rhetoric. Thus it will appear that rhetoric and dialectic are pretty close. Yet, on the other hand, there is a long tradition of mutual antagonism. The paper tries to summarize the common features of, as well as the differences between, the two. To get a taste of both dialectic and rhetoric in practice the reader is invited to enter the House of Callias, as we know it from Plato's Protagoras. After this visit there remains no doubt that rhetoric and dialectic are intertwined on the level of practice. Moreover, we may look forward to their integration on the level of theory.