“Bodyheartminding” (Xin 心): Reconceiving the Inner Self and the Outer World in the Language of Holographic Focus and Field

In this essay, inspired by the somatic turn in philosophy initiated by Richard Shusterman, I want to invoke the language of classical Confucian philosophy to think through the best efforts of William James and John Dewey to escape the mind-body and nature-nurture dualisms—that is, to offer an alternative vocabulary that might lend further clarity to the revolutionary insights of James and Dewey by appealing to the processual categories of Chinese cosmology. What I will try to do first is to refocus the pragmatist’s explanation of the relationship between mind and body through the lens of a process Confucian cosmology. And then, to make the case for James and Dewey, I will return to the radical, imagistic language they invoke to try and make the argument that this processual, holistic understanding of “vital bodyminding” is in fact what they were trying to say all along.     

Scepticism and its Sources

A number of recent philosophers, including Michael Williams, Barry Stroud and Donald Davidson, have argued that scepticism about the external world stems from the founda-tionalist assumption that sensory experience supplies the data for our beliefs about the world. In order to assess this thesis, I offer a brief characterisation of the logical form of sceptical arguments. I suggest that sceptical arguments rely on the idea that many of our beliefs about the world are'underdetermined'by the evidence on which they are based. Drawing on this characterisation of scepticism, I argue that Williams, Stroud and Davidson are right to see the foundationalist assumption as essential to the sceptic's argument, but wrong to think that scepticism is inevitable once that assumption is in place. By pursuing an analogy with some recent debates in the philosophy of science, I try to locate the additional assumptions which the sceptic must make, in order to derive her conclusion.     

Reconceptualizing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods: A Case Study Dealing with Place as an Exemplar

A useful framework for understanding methods is to think of them as being on a continuum of holistic and pattern focused to particularistic and specific. This paper argues for this conceptualization rather than thinking of quantitative and qualitative methods as oppositional and potentially contradictory. A case study provides an example of using both quantitative and qualitative methods in a holistic and pattern-focused study, while also attending to the values and goals of community psychology. The substantive research goal is to understand a child's experience of places related to school. Methods include ethnographic long-term participation and observation, interviews, multidimensional scaling, and social network analysis. Most quantitative method variables are generated from study participants; no outside structure is imposed. The quantitative methods extend and inform the qualitative methods, just as the qualitative methods extend and inform the quantitative methods. The quantitative and qualitative methods work reciprocally to extend and inform each other.     

Philosophy in America: Remarks on John McCumber's Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era

John McCumber is right to think that analytic philosophy has had a particularly central and dominating position in American philosophy, and that philosophy is less significant in American public life than in the public life of many European countries. I believe he is wrong to think that American philosophers have turned to analytical work in order to escape being politically relevant, and that he is wrong to suppose that prominent academic philosophy is something to wish for.     

New atheism and moral theory

Over the past decade, New Atheists have campaigned against the influence of religion in public life and favored a more enlightened understanding of the world – one based on the methods and theories of the natural sciences. Although the leaders of this movement refuse to give religion, even moderate religion, any place in determining moral conduct, they offer few alternatives. Most define moral responsibility by referring to facts about human biology or natural moral intuitions, yet without adequately defending this or exploring the possibilities of non-naturalistic secular moralities. This essay argues that New Atheists' moral theories tend to be weak because of their naturalist assumptions. Its leading proponents seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that moral philosophy can play a role in developing secular moral precepts because philosophy fails to meet their strong criteria of scientific validity. This position is misguided not only because it has led New Atheists to defend weak moral theories but also because the methods of inquiry used in moral philosophy make it distinct from faith for many of the same reasons that the New Atheists think that science is distinct from faith.     

What Is Trans Philosophy?

In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler’s notion of philosophy’s Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker’s distinction between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming to academic voice of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context: (1) What does philosophy have to offer? (2) Given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims about the world? (3) What is the relation between philosophy and “the literature”? In attempting to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to “the everyday.” Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue, trans philosophy attempts to illuminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile. Alternative socialities are required, I argue, in order to make trans philosophy possible.     

Is the worldview of qualitative inquiry a proper guide for psychological research?

Qualitative methods are becoming increasingly popular in psychology. Although the distinction between qualitative and quantitative often is stated in terms of methods, the real distinction is between worldviews: that favored by most qualitative methodologists, which emphasizes subjective experience and multiple realities, and that commonly accepted in science. The worldview accepted by most adherents of qualitative inquiry suggests the exclusive use of methods that include verbal reports of lived experience. Qualitative methods serve an important function in psychology, but their use as recommended by their adherents is limited in 2 respects: The adherents use a narrow and unconventional approach to qualitative methods that differs from that normally understood, and they favor use of a restricted range of qualitative methods over other qualitative methods and quantitative methods. If qualitative inquiry is to make a greater contribution to psychology, researchers in that tradition must acquire a better understanding of contemporary science, correct their misunderstandings of the rationale for quantitative methods, and address the apparent limitations of their methods emphasizing reported experience.     

Women,philosophy and the history of philosophy*

ABSTRACT

It is only in the last 30 years that any appreciable work has been done on women philosophers of the past. This paper reflects on the progress that has been made in recovering early-modern women philosophers in that time and the role of the history of philosophy in that process. I argue that as women are integrated into the broader picture of philosophy, there is a danger of overlooking the different conditions under which they originally philosophized and which shaped their philosophies. Having retrieved them from oblivion, we now face the challenge of avoiding a ‘new amnesia’ by developing historical narratives and modes of analysis which acknowledge the different conditions within which they worked, without diminishing their contribution to philosophy. I offer these remarks as a contribution to current debates about the forms that historical narrative should take, and the best way to promote women in philosophy today, in the belief that we can learn from our own more recent history.     

Carnapian explications,experimental philosophy,and fruitful concepts

It seems natural to think that Carnapian explication and experimental philosophy can go hand in hand. But what exactly explicators can gain from the data provided by experimental philosophers remains controversial. According to an influential proposal by Shepherd and Justus, explicators should use experimental data in the process of ‘explication preparation’. Against this proposal, Mark Pinder has recently suggested that experimental data can directly assist an explicator’s search for fruitful replacements of the explicandum. In developing his argument, he also proposes a novel aspect of what makes a concept fruitful, namely, that it is taken up by the relevant community. In this paper, I defend explication preparation against Pinder’s objections and argue that his uptake proposal conflates theoretical and practical success conditions of explications. Furthermore, I argue that Pinder’s suggested experimental procedure needs substantial revision. I end by distinguishing two kinds of explication projects, and showing how experimental philosophy can contribute to each of them.     

Idealizations and scientific understanding

In this paper, I propose that the debate in epistemology concerning the nature and value of understanding can shed light on the role of scientific idealizations in producing scientific understanding. In philosophy of science, the received view seems to be that understanding is a species of knowledge. On this view, understanding is factive just as knowledge is, i.e., if S knows that p, then p is true. Epistemologists, however, distinguish between different kinds of understanding. Among epistemologists, there are those who think that a certain kind of understanding??objectual understanding??is not factive, and those who think that objectual understanding is quasi-factive. Those who think that understanding is not factive argue that scientific idealizations constitute cognitive success, which we then consider as instances of understanding, and yet they are not true. This paper is an attempt to draw lessons from this debate as they pertain to the role of idealizations in producing scientific understanding. I argue that scientific understanding is quasi-factive.     

WHITHER INTERNALISM? HOW INTERNALISTS SHOULD RESPOND TO THE EXTENDED MIND HYPOTHESIS

Abstract: A new position in the philosophy of mind has recently appeared: the extended mind hypothesis (EMH). Some of its proponents think the EMH, which says that a subject's mental states can extend into the local environment, shows that internalism is false. I argue that this is wrong. The EMH does not refute internalism; in fact, it necessarily does not do so. The popular assumption that the EMH spells trouble for internalists is premised on a bad characterization of the internalist thesis—albeit one that most internalists have adhered to. I show that internalism is entirely compatible with the EMH. This view should prompt us to reconsider the characterization of internalism, and in conclusion I make some brief remarks about how that project might proceed.     

Educational Theory as a Writerly Practice

Educational theory does not oppose educational practice, as manyseem to think; instead it is a form of practice and the action oftheory exists at two levels. At a cultural level theory ischaracterized by linguistic forms of action and at a social level it is characterized by the day to day practices thatorganize and reward the work of producing educational philosophy.While the social practices that govern the production ofphilosophy certainly beg for ethnographic attention,any consideration anthropologists or philosophers giveit will eventually find its way to the page and hence tothe cultural forms of linguistic action that are thesubject of this paper. Focusing on how educationalphilosophers see the things that they do, as opposedto what they see, I will suggest that the wayeducational philosophy is fashioned is an importantpart of what is fashioned. Ironically, as I will show,the ``way' of educational philosophy can flow with oragainst the ``what' of it – an author, that is, can saythat they are for or against this or that, but their stylized way of saying it can contradict the literalmeaning of their words.     

Oracularity

Abstract: In contemporary North American contexts, to say that a claim is oracular is seriously to undermine its philosophical credibility. My thesis is that this negative judgement of oracularity is unwarranted and that it is rooted in an excessively narrow notion of what constitutes ‘good’ philosophy. More specifically, I argue that oracular utterance is appropriate to the expression of views that regard the phenomena towards which they are directed as radically, non‐systematically integrated wholes. Importantly, such views are falsifiable—or at least as falsifiable as scientific paradigms, which, in one important respect, they resemble. However, I argue further that there is good reason to think that such views cannot, without distortion, be expressed using the systematic‐analytic forms of argumentation that are frequently regarded as essential to the pursuit of philosophy. Yet the questions that they compass, concerning the way in which parts are related to the wholes that they constitute, fall squarely within the purview of traditional metaphysics. Thus, in proscribing oracular utterance we divest ourselves of the opportunity to contemplate world orders of potential philosophical interest that systematic‐analytic argument is incapable of conveying to us.     

A Critical Survey of Some Recent Philosophical Research in China

In this paper, I survey some recent literature produced by the established Chinese philosophers who regularly publish in Chinese philosophy journals and work in Mainland China. Specifically, I review the recent research of these philosophers in two areas: Chinese Philosophy and epistemology. In each area, I focus on two topics that have caught the attention of a lot of Chinese philosophers. I argue that the Chinese philosophers’ research on these topics has two prevalent problems: (i) a lot of arguments they make are weak; (ii) they tend not to critically engage with others. I discuss a metaphilosophical objection that weak argumentation and disengagement are not vices of philosophical research. I also try to make sense of (i) and (ii) in terms of some cultural factors.     

Reaching out in a climate of negativity: perceptions and persistence among Muslim sources engaging with news media

The conceptions sources have of journalists influence whether and in what ways those sources engage with the news media. In this paper, I consider the contribution of Muslim sources to news in a context of perceived negativity. Scholarship on the content of British news stories about Muslims has found a consistently negative tone; my study examines the impressions of sources as co-producers of that content. My data come from qualitative fieldwork conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, studying relationships between journalists and Muslim sources through a combination of methods, with an emphasis on interviews. In these interviews, sources articulated an overwhelmingly negative conception of journalists and news organisations. I consider different constructions of negativity and what they suggest about how participants perceive the media, and I problematise the minority instances of positive conceptions. Finally, I evaluate why sources who identify as Muslim would bother participating in media production, given this perception of negativity. This discussion is informed by Couldry’s concept of ‘media meta-capital’ (Couldry 2003), which a macro-level power that imposes other fields of public life, and Schlesinger’s attentiveness to source strategies (Schlesinger 1990), a form of agency at the micro-level. This case study suggests that, whatever sources think of media coverage, their choice to contribute to its production is conditioned by strategic considerations, revealing development in the media’s relations with Muslims in Britain.     

Philosophy of Language and Meta-Ethics

Meta-ethical discussions commonly distinguish 'subjectivism' from 'emotivism', or 'expressivism'. But Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have argued that plausible assumptions in the philosophy of language entail that expressivism collapses into subjectivism. Though there have been responses to their argument, I think the responses have not adequately diagnosed the real weakness in it. I suggest my own diagnosis, and defend expressivism as a viable theory distinct from subjectivism.     

Moral Learning,Rationality, and the Unreliability of Affect

James Woodward and John Allman [2007, 2008] and Peter Railton [2014, 2016] argue that our moral intuitions are products of sophisticated rational learning systems. I investigate the implications that this discovery has for intuition-based philosophical methodologies. Instead of vindicating the conservative use of intuitions in philosophy, I argue that what I call the rational learning strategy fails to show philosophers are justified in appealing to their moral intuitions in philosophical arguments without giving reasons why those intuitions are trustworthy. Despite the fact that our intuitions are outputs of surprisingly sophisticated learning mechanisms, we do not have reason to unreflectively trust them when offering arguments in moral philosophy.     

Commentary on neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology

I welcome the paper on Neoliberal ideology in WOP as a valuable critique of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) encouraging practitioners and researchers to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve and how they make sense of the world of work.     

Where Philosophical Intuitions Come From

Little is known about the aetiology of philosophical intuitions, in spite of their central role in analytic philosophy. This paper provides a psychological account of the intuitions that underlie philosophical practice, with a focus on intuitions that underlie the method of cases. I argue that many philosophical intuitions originate from spontaneous, early-developing, cognitive processes that also play a role in other cognitive domains. Additionally, they have a skilled, practiced, component. Philosophers are expert elicitors of intuitions in the dialectical context of professional philosophy. If this analysis is correct, this should lead to a reassessment of experimental philosophical studies of expertise.     

Examining arguments against quantitative research: “Case studies” illustrating the challenge of finding a sound philosophical basis for a human sciences approach to psychology

This article offers a close examination of critiques of quantitative research by Michell, 2011, Marecek, 2011, and Morawski (2011). One goal is to show that these three critics actually share with most mainstream quantitative researchers commitments to the Cartesian framework, even though this is not obvious because Cartesianism can appear in different guises. As a result of these commitments, the three theorists advance criticisms of mainstream quantitative research that fail to identify its key failings, put forward flawed views about how we should conduct research, and offer misguided criticisms of an approach I advocate called explicitly interpretive quantitative research. Another goal is to use the examination of the three critiques as a vehicle for clarifying the participatory perspective, a philosophical viewpoint that departs from the Cartesian framework. With regard to research methodology, the participatory perspective provides the basis for explicitly interpretive quantitative research, leads to ideas about changes we should make in how we conduct qualitative research, and treats quantitative and qualitative research as fundamentally similar because both should be pursued as interpretive modes of inquiry. I suggest that my analyses of the three critiques of quantitative research – or “case studies,” as I call these analyses – also may prove useful to researchers and theorists who want to develop a human sciences approach to other issues besides research methodology by helping them (1) recognize when lines of thinking that seem to depart from the mainstream actually represent variants of Cartesianism, and (2) consider what the participatory perspective might have to offer if they were to use it as the philosophical basis for their efforts.