It Can Be a “Very Fine Line”: Professional Footballers’ Perceptions of the Conceptual Divide Between Bullying and Banter.James A. Newman,Victoria E. Warburton &KateRussell -2022 -Frontiers in Psychology 13.detailsThis study explores professional footballers’ perceptions of where banter crosses the conceptual line into bullying. The study’s focus is of importance, given the impact that abusive behaviors have been found to have on the welfare and safeguarding of English professional footballers. A phenomenological approach was adopted, which focused on the essence of the participants’ perceptions and experiences. Guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 male professional footballers from three Premier League and Championship football clubs. The (...) findings from this study revealed several key superordinate themes in relation to the dividing line between bullying and banter. These themes included “perception,” “intentionality,” “detecting the line,” and “having a bit of banter.” The findings demonstrate how perceptions of bullying and banter are nuanced by individual differences among the players and the culture of the professional football context. Specifically, it was found that the professional football context can legitimize forms of humor blurring the lines between bullying and banter, challenging the typically positive view of the concept of banter in this environment. From an applied perspective, these findings highlight the need for coaches, players, and football clubs more broadly to address cultural expectations around banter in their environment, while educating individuals around their own perceptions of bullying and banter. (shrink)
What is nature?: culture, politics, and the non-human.Kate Soper -1995 - Cambridge: Blackwell.details'This is an excellent book. It addresses what, in both conceptual and political terms, is arguably the most important source of tension and confusion in current arguments about the environment, namely the concept of nature; and it does so in a way that is both sensitive to, and critical of, the two antithetical ways of understanding this that dominate existing discussions.'Russell Keat, University of Edinburgh.
Deciphering Soviet philosophical forewords: an attentive reading of V.F. Asmus.Kate I. Khan -2023 -Studies in East European Thought 75 (4):641-652.detailsThe article investigates the issue and the mechanisms of censorship and self-censorship in Soviet philosophy. The major forms of censorship are described and analyzed together with their epistemological implications and the peculiar policy of truth. The philosophical problem of defining and describing “facts” and ideological judgments during the “double” technique of reading and re-reading was exposed in the articles of V.F. Asmus and V.V. Bibikhin, thinkers, who experienced the self-censorship and reflected upon this in their texts. Analyzing the complex relation (...) between the “dogmatic” or “critical” foreword and the original word is important, as is reconstructing and deconstructing the way we can reread the ideologically biased foreword, which might be a certain reliquary or protective camouflage, acting as, potentially, either a deactivator or an inhibitor of the reader’s own interpreting efforts. The given case of an attentive reading of V. Asmus’ foreword to the Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus can itself become an interesting philosophical language game. Interpretation of the foreword may reveal a hidden sense and references and encourage reflection based on the “common sense” assessments and perception of text. These hermeneutical exercises on reading forewords may paradoxically provoke starting the dialogue with the alternative foreword by B.Russell and the text of L. Wittgenstein himself, on one hand, and Marxism-Leninism and its variations in the form of historical materialism and Soviet dialectical materialism, on another. The situation of attentive reading with “a throat, strangled by ideology” is opposed to the power of imaginative “broadening of vocal ranges of the Others” thinking, whereas an inattentive reading of the text leaves a complete disability to object, or reply, to the censorship. (shrink)
Gruesome connections.MaryKate McGowan -2002 -Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):21-33.detailsIt is widely recognized that Goodman's grue example demonstrates that the rules for induction, unlike those for deduction, cannot be purely syntactic. Ways in which Goodman's proof generalizes, however, are not widely recognized. Gruesome considerations demonstrate that neither theories of simplicity nor theories of empirical confirmation can be purely syntactic. Moreover, the grue paradox can be seen as an instance of a much more general phenomenon. All empirical investigations require semantic constraints, since purely structural constraints are inadequate. BothRussell's (...) theory of empirical knowledge and Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism illustrate the inadequacy of purely structural constraints. (shrink)
"BertrandRussell 1921-1970: The Ghost of Madness" by Ray Monk. [REVIEW]Tim Crane -2000 -The Economist 1.details‘Poor Bertie’ Beatrice Webb wrote after receiving a visit from BertrandRussell in 1931, ‘he has made a mess of his life and he knows it’. In the 1931 version of his Autobiography,Russell himself seemed to share Webb’s estimate of his achievements. Emotionally, intellectually and politically, he wrote, his life had been a failure. This sense of failure pervades the second volume of Ray Monk’s engrossing and insightful biography. At its heart is the failure ofRussell’s (...) marriages to Dora Black and Patricia (Peter) Spence, his poor relationships with his children John andKate, and the decline in his reputation as a philosopher.Russell, who had changed the direction of philosophy irrevocably, was in later years unable to find permanent academic employment in Britain, ousted from his professorship at the City College of New York because of his views on sex and marriage, and was reduced to giving nonspecialist lectures at a foundation established by the Philadelphia philanthropist Albert C. Barnes. Eventually in 1944 he returned to Cambridge, but by then the philosophical world was in the grip of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas, andRussell was largely ignored. (shrink)
Beauvoir and Sartre's “disagreement” about freedom.Kate Kirkpatrick -2023 -Philosophy Compass 18 (11):e12942.detailsThe French existentialists Simone de Beauvoir and Jean‐Paul Sartre are renowned philosophers of freedom. But what “existentialist freedom” is is a matter of disagreement amongst their interpreters and, some argue, between Beauvoir and Sartre themselves. Since the late 1980s several scholars have argued that a Sartrean conception of freedom cannot justify the ethics of existentialism, adequately account for situations of oppression, or serve feminist ends. On these readings, Beauvoir disagreed with Sartre about freedom—making existentialist ethics, resistance to oppression, and feminism (...) coherently defensible. This article identifies four conceptions of freedom in order to clarify the questions of whether and how they disagreed, arguing that some incompatibilist readings of Sartre and Beauvoir conflate or confuse these conceptions in ways that render their conclusions unconvincing. However, there are stronger grounds on which to claim that Beauvoir disagreed with Sartre about morality—and the conditions of its possibility. (shrink)
One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict.Russell Hardin -1995 - Princeton University Press.detailsIn a book that challenges the most widely held ideas of why individuals engage in collective conflict,Russell Hardin offers a timely, crucial explanation of group action in its most destructive forms. Contrary to those observers who attribute group violence to irrationality, primordial instinct, or complex psychology, Hardin uncovers a systematic exploitation of self-interest in the underpinnings of group identification and collective violence. Using examples from Mafia vendettas to ethnic violence in places such as Bosnia and Rwanda, he describes (...) the social and economic circumstances that set this violence into motion. Hardin explains why hatred alone does not necessarily start wars but how leaders cultivate it to mobilize their people. He also reveals the thinking behind the preemptive strikes that contribute to much of the violence between groups, identifies the dangers of "particularist" communitarianism, and argues for government structures to prevent any ethnic or other group from having too much sway. Exploring conflict between groups such as Serbs and Croats, Hutu and Tutsi, Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants, Hardin vividly illustrates the danger that arises when individual and group interests merge. In these examples, groups of people have been governed by movements that managed to reflect their members' personal interests--mainly by striving for political and economic advances at the expense of other groups and by closing themselves off from society at large. The author concludes that we make a better and safer world if we design our social institutions to facilitate individual efforts to achieve personal goals than if we concentrate on the ethnic political makeup of our respective societies. (shrink)
heritability and causal reasoning.Kate E. Lynch -2017 -Biology and Philosophy 32 (1):25-49.detailsGene–environment covariance is the phenomenon whereby genetic differences bias variation in developmental environment, and is particularly problematic for assigning genetic and environmental causation in a heritability analysis. The interpretation of these cases has differed amongst biologists and philosophers, leading some to reject the utility of heritability estimates altogether. This paper examines the factors that influence causal reasoning when G–E covariance is present, leading to interpretive disagreement between scholars. It argues that the causal intuitions elicited are influenced by concepts of agency (...) and blame-worthiness, and are intimately tied with the conceptual understanding of the phenotype under investigation. By considering a phenotype-specific approach, I provide an account as to why causal ascriptions can differ depending on the interpreter. Phenotypes like intelligence, which have been the primary focus of this debate, are more likely to spark disagreement for the interpretation of G–E covariance cases because the concept and ideas about its ‘normal development’ relatively ill-defined and are a subject of debate. I contend that philosophical disagreement about causal attributions in G–E covariance cases are in essence disagreements regarding how a phenotype should be defined and understood. This moves the debate from one of an ontological flavour concerning objective causal claims, to one concerning the conceptual, normative and semantic dependencies. (shrink)
The Costs and Labour of Whistleblowing: Bodily Vulnerability and Post-disclosure Survival.Kate Kenny &Marianna Fotaki -2021 -Journal of Business Ethics 182 (2):341-364.detailsWhistleblowers are a vital means of protecting society because they provide information about serious wrongdoing. And yet, people who speak up can suffer. Even so, debates on whistleblowing focus on compelling employees to come forward, often overlooking the risk involved. Theoretical understanding of whistleblowers’ post-disclosure experience is weak because tangible and material impacts are poorly understood due partly to a lack of empirical detail on the financial costs of speaking out. To address this, we present findings from a novel empirical (...) study surveying whistleblowers. We demonstrate how whistleblowers who leave their role as a result of speaking out can lose both the financial and temporal resources necessary to redevelop their livelihoods post-disclosure. We also show how associated costs involving significant legal and health expenditure can rise. Based on these insights, our first contribution is to present a new conceptual framing of post-disclosure experiences, drawing on feminist theory, that emphasizes the bodily vulnerability of whistleblowers and their families. Our second contribution repositions whistleblowing as a form of labour defending against precarity, which involves new expenses, takes significant time, and often must be carried out with depleted income. Bringing forth the intersubjective aspect of the whistleblowing experience, our study shows how both the post-disclosure survival of whistleblowers, and their capacity to speak, depend on institutional supports or, in their absence, on personal networks. By reconceptualizing post-disclosure experiences in this way—as material, embodied and intersubjective—practical implications for whistleblower advocacy and policy emerge, alongside contributions to theoretical debates. Reversing typical formulations in business ethics, we turn extant debates on the ethical duty of employees to speak up against wrongdoing on their heads. We argue instead for a responsibility to protect whistleblowers exposed to vulnerability, a duty owed by those upon whose behalf they speak. (shrink)
Marriage and Morals.BertrandRussell -1929 - Routledge.details_Marriage and Morals_ is a compelling cross-cultural examination of individual, familial and societal attitudes towards sex and marriage. By exploring the codes by which we live our sexual lives and conventional morality,Russell daringly sets out a new morality, shaped and influenced by dramatic changes in society such as the emancipation of women and the wide-spread use of contraceptives. From the origin of marriage to the influence of religion,Russell explores the changing role of marriage and codes of (...) sexual ethics. The influence of this great work has turned it into a worthy classic. (shrink)
(1 other version)Memes as multimodal metaphors.Kate Scott -2021 -Pragmatics and Cognition 28 (2):277-298.detailsIn this article I analyse object labelling image macro internet memes as multimodal metaphors, taking the Distracted Boyfriend meme as a case study. Object labelling memes are multimodal texts in which users add labels to a stock photograph to convey messages that are often humorous or satirical in nature. Using the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor, I argue that object labelling memes are multimodal metaphors which are interpreted using the same processes as verbal metaphors. The labelling of the image guides the (...) viewer in the construction of ad hoc concepts, and it is these ad hoc concepts that contribute to the overall meaning that is communicated. The analysis in this article is rooted in the relevance-theoretic claim that pragmatic interpretive processes are triggered by all and any ostensive acts of communication. I also draw heavily on Deirdre Wilson’s work on lexical pragmatics to show how this plays out in the case of a multimodal digital text. Memes, like verbal metaphors, do not require a special theory or framework. They can be understood as ostensive stimuli which trigger the search for an optimally relevant interpretation. (shrink)
Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia.Russell T. McCutcheon -1997 - New York: Oxford University Press USA.detailsIn this new book, authorRussell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, (...) demonstrating that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical, but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism. (shrink)
No categories
‘To Lend a Voice to Suffering is a Condition for All Truth’: Adorno and International Political Thought.Kate Schick -2009 -Journal of International Political Theory 5 (2):138-160.detailsThis paper explores the ways in which a fuller attention to suffering in the tradition of the early Frankfurt School might valuably inform international political thought. Recent poststructural writing argues that trauma is silenced to prevent it disrupting narratives of order and progress and instead advocates a continual ‘encircling’ of trauma that refuses incorporation into a broader historical narrative. This paper welcomes this challenge to mainstream international ethics: attention to particular suffering provides an important challenge to the abstraction, instrumentalism and (...) universalism of modernity. However, if we simply mark trauma and refuse to incorporate it into any kind of narrative, we cannot profit from the ways in which suffering can illuminate the structures and ways of thinking that create it. Drawing on Adorno's negative dialectics, the paper argues that a dialectical understanding of the relationship between universalising order and disrupting particularity can lead from individual suffering towards a political re-engagement with the universal. (shrink)
Human Nature and Respect for the Evolutionarily Given: a Comment on Lewens.Russell Powell -2012 -Philosophy and Technology 25 (4):485-493.detailsAny serious ethical discussion of the enhancement of human nature must begin with a reasonably accurate picture of the causal-historical structure of the living world. In this Comment, I show that even biologically sophisticated ethical discussions of the biomedical enhancement of species and speciel natures are susceptible to the kind of essentialistic thinking that Lewens cautions against. Furthermore, I argue that the same evolutionary and developmental considerations that compel Lewens to reject more plausible conceptions of human nature pose equally serious (...) problems for some prominent critiques of biomedical enhancement that presuppose the existence of a “given” biological potential that can be distorted by agentic cultural influences. (shrink)
Cognitive factors that affect the adoption of autonomous agriculture.S.Kate Devitt -2018 -Farm Policy Journal 15 (2):49-60.detailsRobotic and Autonomous Agricultural Technologies (RAAT) are increasingly available yet may fail to be adopted. This paper focusses specifically on cognitive factors that affect adoption including: inability to generate trust, loss of farming knowledge and reduced social cognition. It is recommended that agriculture develops its own framework for the performance and safety of RAAT drawing on human factors research in aerospace engineering including human inputs (individual variance in knowledge, skills, abilities, preferences, needs and traits), trust, situational awareness and cognitive load. (...) The kinds of cognitive impacts depend on the RAATs level of autonomy, ie whether it has automatic, partial autonomy and autonomous functionality and stage of adoption, ie adoption, initial use or post-adoptive use. The more autonomous a system is, the less a human needs to know to operate it and the less the cognitive load, but it also means farmers have less situational awareness about on farm activities that in turn may affect strategic decision-making about their enterprise. Some cognitive factors may be hidden when RAAT is first adopted but play a greater role during prolonged or intense post-adoptive use. Systems with partial autonomy need intuitive user interfaces, engaging system information, and clear signaling to be trusted with low level tasks; and to compliment and augment high order decision-making on farm. (shrink)
Let’s Talk About Sex…Cell Lineages.Kate MacCord -forthcoming -Biological Theory:1-14.detailsSex is fundamental to many organisms. It is through sexual reproduction that humans, and many metazoans (multicellular eukaryotes in the animal kingdom), propagate our species. For more than 150 years, sexual reproduction within metazoans has been understood to rely on the existence of a discrete category of cells (germ cells) that are usually considered uniquely separate from all other cells in the body (somatic cells), and which form a cell lineage (germline) that is sequestered from all somatic cell lineages. The (...) consideration of germ cells and germline as the lone source of reproductive potential within metazoans has allowed many investigators to place the hereditary and evolutionary burdens of sexually reproducing lineages solely within these cells and cell lineages, making them central to many important topics within biology, such as units of selection, transmission and population genetics, Darwinian evolution, and individuality. Regarding these topics, there is a predominant and shared understanding of germ cells, somatic cells, and the ways in which these two relate to each other that is rarely critically evaluated. In this article, I lay out how germ cells and germline within metazoans are understood by a majority of scientists and philosophers, both now and historically, by sketching out what I call the predominant epistemic framework of germ. I show how this framework conflicts with empirical evidence, propose a series of revisions to realign it with this evidence, and indicate why such revisions are urgently needed by highlighting the case of somatic cell genome editing. (shrink)
Katharine Jane Tait, 1923–2021.Andrew Bone &Sheila Turcon -2022 -Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 41 (2):98-98.detailsIn lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Katharine Jane Tait, 1923–2021Andrew Bone and Sheila Turcon Click for larger view View full resolutionIt was with great sadness that the BertrandRussell Research Centre learned of the death on 26 July 2021 of Katharine Tait, BertrandRussell’s daughter. Dr. Tait was a founder of the BertrandRussell Society, attended several of its annual meetings, and was always strongly supportive of, and involved in, research and (...) inquiry into the life, times and writings of her father. She attended McMaster’sRussell Centenary Celebrations in 1972. Her scholarly interests and commitments extended to the McMaster edition ofRussell’s Collected Papers, of whose Advisory Editorial Board she was a longstanding member.Kate herself wrote an important and poignant memoir, My Father BertrandRussell; she was an always charming and friendly visitor to McMaster on those occasions she undertook work in theRussell Archives, which included an annotated, as yet unpublished edition of her correspondence with her father. She contributed articles and reviews to this journal. Several members of the McMaster community cherish her personal letters, notes and greeting cards to them.— Andrew Bone; photo by Sheila Turcon [End Page 98]Copyright © 2021 McMaster University... (shrink)
Wildlife Spectacles.Russell A. Mittermeier,Patricio Robles Gil,Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier,Thomas Brooks,Michael Hoffman,William R. Konstant,Gustavo A. B. Da Fonseca,Roderic Mast,Peter A. Seligmann &William G. Conway -2003 - Conservation International.detailsThis lavishly illustrated book highlights the conservation importance of congregatory animals species--those which gather in vast groups. It also focuses on the irreplaceability of the congregation sites which are able to support such large gatherings of animals, fish, or birds.
Rendezvous with Utopia: Two Versions of the Future in the Rama Novels.Russell Blackford -2007 -Colloquy 14:21-29.detailsPublished in 1973, Arthur C. Clarkes Rendezvous with Rama won the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Awards . Its im- pressive collection of awards, outstanding commercial success, and intrinsic interest make it one of the few truly iconic works of hard science fiction. It depicts the work of astronauts in space, and shows an obvious concern for scientific accuracy and logic. In all, Rendezvous with Rama seems like an unlikely candidate for a utopian novel, and that expression would, indeed, (...) misdescribe it. Yet, it contains strong mythic, satirical, and utopian elements, which give it much of its interest. Alas, many of those elements are discarded in the trilogy of novels that appeared much later as an extended sequel to the novels action. (shrink)
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