Thinking About Gender

I present a way of thinking about gender that I have found helpful in evaluating various proposed feminist projects. By considering gender and value as independent dimensions, relationships of “difference” can be more clearly perceived as involving relationships of lack, of complementarity, or of perversion. I illustrate the use of my gender/value “compass” with applications to questions of self-identity, rationality, and knowledge. This way of thinking about gender allows a conceptualization of feminism that neither erases nor emphasizes gender distinctions.     

Neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion and mouth opening: Methodological aspects and evidence of early individual differences

The present work examines imitation of mouth opening and tongue protrusion in 32 full-term infants at three different occasions: When the infants are two to three days, three weeks, and three months old. The analysis focuses (1) on individual differences in imitative behaviour and (2) on how to operationalize the infants' responses. The overall group analysis revealed that imitation of tongue protrusion was statistically significant for both two- to three-day-old and three-week-old infants but not when the children had become three months old. No statistically significant effect was observed for imitation of mouth opening. Two different imitation indexes were constructed in order to assess individual differences in early imitative behaviour. Results show that short-term stability in imitative tendencies exists between the first and second observation. The results further reveal that methodological factors must be seriously considered when studying neonatal imitation: the overall imitation found for tongue protrusion is demonstrated to be dependent on how the infants' responses are coded.     

Spiritual and Ethical Beliefs of Humanists in the Counseling Profession

Considerable controversy has been waged over the spiritual and ethical beliefs of humanism. A survey of humanist counselors was conducted on selected spiritual and ethical beliefs. The results showed that ethical/spiritual pluralism best characterized the humanists' stance. The findings are discussed within the context of historical and contemporary schools of humanism.     

"EVERYMAN'S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT": A DISSIDENT VERSION

We must agree, I think, with Frank Ebersole that there is something preposterous in supposing that the God of religious belief, the God who handed down tablets to Moses on Mt. Sinai, etc., should be proven to exist by the ontological argument. Indeed, when we place the one, the ontological argument, by the side of the other, the God of religious belief, there seems hardly to be any connection between them. But if we agree to this perception of things, what sense can we make of the ontological argument, for example, the “pull” that it sometimes exerts on us?     

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND SOCIALLY EXTENDED MENTATION

Abstract: The leading accounts of the ethics of proxy decision making implicitly draw on internalist conceptions of the philosophy of mind, or so this essay tries to demonstrate. Using the views of Ronald Dworkin as its jumping-off point, the essay argues that accepting the sort of externalism associated with writers such as Putnam and Burge would alter Dworkin's conclusions concerning how we should respond to the current or precedent decisions of people suffering from dementia. Building on the views of Agnieszka Jawarska, it argues that accepting "active" externalism à la Clark and Chambers would provide currently competent people with new resources for establishing the authority of their present values over inconsistent values they might come to entertain should they become demented.     

INQUIRY, CONVERSATION AND THEISTIC BELIEF: WILLIAM JAMES AND RICHARD RORTY GET RELIGION

This essay examines William James' view that pragmatic philosophy allows for theistic belief and compares it to Richard Rorty's argument that theistic belief is fundamentally incompatible with pragmatic philosophy. Theism is permissible for James because it is commensurate with his view of philosophy as inquiry . Theism is impermissible for Rorty because it incommensurate with his view of philosophy as conversation . James' arguments are shown to be too generic in their conception of the God in whom theistic belief may be placed, and Rorty's arguments against the desirability of theistic belief are shown to run afoul of his own philosophical program.