McKinnon, Rachel. Trans*formative Experience
2015, McKinnon, Rachel (2015). Trans*formative Experiences. Res Philosophica 92 (2):419-440.
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Added by: Petronella Randell
Abstract: What happens when we consider transformative experiences from the perspective of gender transitions? In this paper I suggest that at least two insights emerge. First, trans* persons’ experiences of gender transitions show some limitations to L. A. Paul’s (2015) decision theoretic account of transformative decisions. This will involve exploring some of the phenomenology of coming to know that one is trans, and in coming to decide to transition. Second, what epistemological effects are there to undergoing a transformative experience? By connecting some experiences of gender transitions to feminist standpoint epistemology, I argue that radical changes in one’s identity and social location also radically affects one’s access to knowledge in ways not widely appreciated in contemporary epistemology.
Comment: This paper would work well as an additional reading on a week about transformative experience, particularly on a module which includes feminist philosophy. The paper argues that the choice to transition can be made rationally, despite this decision being a transformative decision.
Shapshay, Sandra. What Is the Monumental?
2021, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 79(2): 145-160
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
The aesthetic category of the sublime has been theorized (especially in the Kantian tradition) as integrally intertwined with the moral. Paradigmatic experiences of the sublime, such as gazing up at the starry night sky, or out at a storm-whipped sea, lead in a moral or religious direction depending on the cognitive stock brought to the experience, since they typically involve a feeling of awe and reflection on the peculiar situation of the human being in nature. The monumental is a similar aesthetic category, integrally intertwined with the political, but, by contrast, has garnered almost no attention from aestheticians. My main goal in this paper is to sketch a theory of ‘the monumental’ as an aesthetic category—one that is a species of the sublime but differs qualitatively from the natural/environmental sublime in significant ways, and thus merits a distinctive label. In doing so, I aim to shed light on the nature and power of monuments specifically, and to begin to address a lacuna in our understanding of a long-standing and culturally important form of public art.Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper can be used for discussions of whether the 'monumental' is a unique aesthetic category, especially in relation to the sublime.
Stemplowska, Zofia. The Rhodes Statue: Honour, Shame and Responsibility
2021, The Political Quarterly, 92(4): 629-637
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
Oriel College persists in displaying a statue of Cecil Rhodes, despite his role in British colonialism and despite opposition from the Rhodes Must Fall movement. This article considers arguments in support of Oriel's position—including three versions of the charge that removing the statue might distort history—and show that they all fail. I argue that the conclusion that the statue should be removed, despite possible costs and complexity, follows once we realise that the statue makes demands on our attention and once we correctly understand that the descendants of those previously oppressed by Rhodes and who are currently subject to racism have a special insight, standing and claim to shape the environment in which they study, work and live.Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper can be used for discussions on how we should respond to competing demands on our attention in the context of commemorations.
Sypnowich, Christine. Monuments and Monsters: Education, Cultural Heritage and Sites of Conscience
2021, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(3): 469–483
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
Cultural heritage, manifest in public monuments, plays an important role in education, providing tangible artefacts that chart the history of a society, its achievements, tragedies and horrors, contributing to human understanding and well-being. The educational impact is lifelong—everyone from schoolchildren to senior citizens visit and take in heritage sites. How heritage is to be approached, however, is a complex question, with conflicting narratives vying for prominence. Kingston, Ontario, where my university is situated, is the hometown of Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, whose ambition to unite the country sea-to-sea brought Canada into being. Today debate rages about how to understand Macdonald's legacy of colonialism, his actions against the Indigenous peoples, whose lands and children were taken from them, and against the families of Chinese workers, who built Canada's railway and were then impeded from making their homes in this country. In a climate of increasing awareness of racial oppression, exemplified particularly by the protests of Black Lives Matter, Kingston is in the grip of debate and demonstration, centering on calls for the removal of a prominent statue of Macdonald from a downtown park. This paper explores the problem of historic monuments to suggest that a focus on education can enable an understanding of heritage that seeks to provide the necessary conditions in which historic wrongs can be understood.Comment (from this Blueprint): This is one of the few papers that discuss how a focus on education can help us to address the problems posed by objectionable commemorations.
Ullmann-Margalit, Edna. Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting
2006, Ullmann-Margalit, Edna (2006). Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 58:157-172.
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Added by: Petronella Randell
Abstract: I want to focus on some of the limits of decision theory that are of interest to the philosophical concern with practical reasoning and rational choice. These limits should also be of interest to the social-scientists’ concern with Rational Choice.
Comment: Ullmann-Margalit's work on big decisions is a significant precursor to L.A. Paul's work on transformative experience. This paper introduces the idea of big decisions as a problem for decision theory, and would be suitable as the essential or further reading on a week discussing challenges to decision theory, rational choice, or on transformative experience.
Yun, SunInn. ‘Please Don’t Destroy Until it’s Completely Destroyed’: Acts of Education Towards Democracy
2021, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55(3): 506–515
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
The Black Lives Matter campaign has led many people around the world to reassess monuments that are installed in public spaces to commemorate historical figures. These reassessments raise questions about what it means to attack the statues of the past, what the rights and wrongs of such actions are, what this teaches us and how all this is passed on to the next generation. In line with this, I focus on a statue of the former dictator of Korea, Chun Doo-hwan, installed in 2019. The purpose of the statue was, however, somewhat different from that of many other statues currently at issue. It was erected for the purpose of humiliation rather than respect. By examining the case of the statue of Chun Doo-hwan in Korea, this paper discusses the nature of democracy in relation to these attacks on statues. In particular, it attempts to interpret the installation of the statue as a form of art for an emancipated community, where democracy is understood as involving a haunting of the collective memory. It concludes that democracy is something never to be grasped fully, something that slips away from its intentions and that is always to be tested and reconsidered. Finally, the paper addresses the educational significance of the statue in question in terms of how history is to be taught and how, in our interactions with the statues around us, the past is to be remembered.Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper explores the educational significance of commemorations in terms of how history is to be taught and how our past is to be remembered.
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