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Hall, Stuart. Cultural Identity and Diaspora
1990, in J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Diference. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 222-237.
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Added by: Zoé Grange-Marczak
Abstract:

Stuart Hall (1932–2014) was born in British Jamaica, and educated in Oxford. A long-term political activist, especially in anti-racism, he taught at the Open University and was a fellow of the British Academy. He co-created and headed the Creator of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, which contributed greatly to the definition and orientation of British cultural studies. In the neoliberal climate of the 1980s, Hall coined the term "Thatcherism", and generally contributed to Marxism as a founder of the New Left Review, developing a Gramsci inspired theory of power and applying textual analysis to the media. He bridged French Theory (Foucault, Derrida) with anglo-saxon race and gender theory. This 1990 paper is one example of Hall as a theorist of the Caribbean experience, diasporas, and more generally of collective cultural identities. Drawing on Senghor and Césaire, he sees in the Caribbean the intersection of several cultural traditions, and argues against an accomplished, transparent understanding of identity, trying to take into account the position of the creator of representations and the situation of discourse on identity. Hall finds two ways of thinking identity: (1) as a collective "true self" which each individual holds within themselves, the essence of which can be studied, and which he finds in Senghor or Césaire ; (2) as a "becoming" rather than a "being" (p. 225-226), in a constant transformation at the intersection of "history, culture and power". This view of identity crosses "the vector of similarity and continuity; and the vector of difference and rupture", allowing to show how something can be and not be at the same time.

Comment: This is one of Hall's most famous and discussed paper. It elaborates upon other doctrines (Césaire, Senghor, Fanon, Said), tracing their actualization in the last decades of the 20th century, and bridging them with cultural studies. It also allows to explore a specific Jamaican approach to the Caribbean, and touches on the difference between French and British post-colonization.
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Miri Albahari. Perennial Idealism: A Mystical Solution to the Mind-Body Problem
2019, Philosopher's Imprint 19 (1), 1-37.
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Added by: Tammo Lossau
Abstract:

Each well-known proposed solution to the mind-body problem encounters an impasse. These take the form of an explanatory gap, such as the one between mental and physical, or between micro-subjects and macro-subject. The dialectical pressure to bridge these gaps is generating positions in which consciousness is becoming increasingly foundational. The most recent of these, cosmopsychism, typically casts the entire cosmos as a perspectival subject whose mind grounds those of more limited subjects like ourselves. I review the dialectic from materialism and dualism through to panpsychism, suggesting that explanatory gaps in the latter stem from assuming foundational consciousness to be perspectival. Its renunciation may yield the notion of an aperspectival, universal, “non-dual” consciousness that grounds all manifestation and is unstructured by subject, object or any differentia. Not only is such consciousness suggestive of a natural successor to cosmopsychism, but it has also been reported to be the direct experience of mystics who claim to have transcended the individual perspective. Their purported insight — that our aperspectival conscious nature is identical to the ground of all being — has been termed “the Perennial Philosophy”. Believing this Perennial Philosophy to offer the most promising way forward in the mind-body problem, I construct from it the foundations of a metaphysical system that I call “Perennial Idealism”. This attempts to account for manifestation in terms of dispositional, imagery-bound subjects. I then address an age-old “Parmenidean” conundrum that I refer to as “the problem of the one and the many”: How can an undifferentiated substratum ground differentia without the ground itself differentiating? The proposed solution takes its cue from mystico-philosophical writings in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, known as the ajāta doctrine.

Comment: The text is a bit too long to be read in one class, but the portions on cosmopsychism in different mystical traditions can either be extracted (for a historically oriented class) or the text can be separated in two parts.
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Takahiro Nakajima. Language as Thought
2017, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
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Added by: Veronica Cibotaru
Abstract:

How have human beings expressed the consciousness and ideas hidden deep within the individual in order to overcome the regional and particular characteristics of language and attain universality as thought? Taking up the issues that have emerged since the “linguistic turn,” this work reflects on the linguistic experiences with which philosophers, thinkers, and writers from across time and cultures—including Zhuangzi and Laozi, Kūkai, Motoori Norinaga, and Natsume Sōseki—have grappled, going beyond the confines of modern Western cultural spheres.

Comment: This book offers a comprehensive survey of the history of Japanese philosophy of language and its relationship to Chinese philosophy of language while opening paths for dialogue with prominent themes in the history of Western philosophy of language, such as the linguistic turn. Nonetheless, it presupposes proficiency in Japanese, as the book has not yet been translated into English.
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Ambrose, Alice, Lazerowitz, Morris. Fundamentals of Symbolic Logic
1948, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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Added by: Viviane Fairbank
Abstract:
This book is intended for the newcomer to formal logic and is designed to provide an introduction for the intelligent general reader as well as for the student in the classroom. Its primary purpose is to present in a clear, natural, and orderly fashion the fundamentals of a subject that has now acquired the status of an exact science... Chapters I through VII are devoted to the exposition of material necessary to the construction of the deductive system of truth-functions... Thanks to the special notation that has come to be characteristic of symbolic logic, it is possible to express the logical material with clarity and exactness and to organize it, as in Chapter VIII, into a deductive system. Chapters IX through XI are given over to the study of general propositions and of forms of inference involving them... Care has been taken to show how Aristotelian logic is accommodated within the framework of the extended, present-day subject: by introducing the reader to quantification theory and to the current notation for expressing forms of general propositions, and finally, by presenting, in Chapter XII, the calculus of classes.
Comment: This introductory textbook to formal logic was widely used in America in the mid-20th Century. Although some of the methods and notations are now outdated, it still provides a useful introduction to central ideas in formal and informal logic, and could be used as a reference for those preparing an introductory logic course (or for those interested in the history of logic education).
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Struyf, Joke. Please Leave the Emergency Lane in an Orderly Fashion: Ableism in Western Normative Motherhood
2023, Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, 26(3/4): 217-234
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Joke Struyf
Abstract:

In this article, I propose the hypothesis that in contemporary western normative motherhood, pregnancy and (early) motherhood are often perceived as a temporary fit of bewilderment, both physically, psychologically and socially. I introduce the metaphor of the emergency lane to express this state of exception. Mothers are granted temporary relief from certain expectations. However, the need to get back in shape and back to work – the need to leave the emergency lane – quickly, preferably unharmed, reveals the assumption that mothers in that early period are not fully regarded as people. Drawing on insights from maternal and critical disability scholars I argue that these norms are deeply ableist and affect all mothers. Moreover, I suggest that postponed motherhood might be linked to the fear of this emergency lane, and I use the decline theory, a concept from ageing studies, to make this argument.

Comment: This text links Crip theory with the critical study of motherhood/mothering. It can spark further discussion on parallels between these. It also makes explicit the ableism (understood broadly based on Wolbring's and Lewis' definitions) in normative motherhood, understanding ableism in a broad way. In this way, it can fuel further discussion on ableism as the underlying ‘ism’ that structures all other prejudices/'isms'.
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Whiteley, Ella Kate. Attentional discrimination and victim testimony
2024, Philosophical Psychology, 37:6, 1407-1431

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Added by: Heng Ying, Contributed by: Heng Ying
Abstract:
Sometimes, a form of discrimination is hard to register, understand, and articulate. A rich precedent demonstrates how victim testimonies have been key in uncovering such “hidden” forms of discrimination, from sexual harassment to microaggressions. I reflect on how this plausibly goes too for “attentional discrimination”, referring to cases where the more meaningful attributes of one social group are made salient in attention in contrast to the less meaningful attributes of another. Victim testimonies understandably dominate the “context-of-discovery” stage of research into these initially opaque forms of discrimination; a victim’s encounter with the gap between their experience and dominant conceptual frameworks for understanding it is what provides an initial foothold for analysis to begin. Some object, however, to this methodology continuing to dominate the later “context-of-justification” stage, where the hypothesis is rigorously challenged. I argue that this objection underestimates not just how other methodologies are more likely to inherit the various mechanisms of invisibility hiding the discrimination in question, but also how victim testimonies are distinctively well-suited to recognize and challenge those mechanisms. Victim testimonies, then, ought to continue playing a dominant role into these later stages of research regarding hidden forms of discrimination.
Comment: 1) Whiteley discusses an issue arising in interpersonal interactions, how individuals' preferred traits are ignored and how people often look at others through their preferred lens. This identifies a form of discrimination not fully articulated in the previous work. It could be used for discussions of ideas such as respect of personhood. 2) This paper also introduces testimonies of victims of this form of discrimination as a useful tool for identifying new social issues and justifying new moral claims. It motivates methodological reflection on how we bring lived experiences into discussions of morality.
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Kind, Amy. Philosophy of Mind: The Basics
2020, Routledge
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Publisher’s Note:

From the publisher: Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the fundamental philosophical questions and theories about the mind. The author Amy Kind, a leading expert in the field, examines central issues concerning the nature of consciousness, thought, and emotion. The book addresses key questions such as:

  • What is the nature of the mind?
  • What is the relationship between the mind and the brain?
  • Can machines have minds?
  • How will future technology impact the mind?

With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a lively and accessible introduction to the rich and complex study of philosophy of mind.

Comment: This is an excellent book to introduce key debates in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind. It can be helpful for first year undergraduate students, including students whose major isn't philosophy.
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Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized
1965, translated by H. Greenfeld. New York: Orion Press.
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Added by: Zoé Grange-Marczak
Abstract:

A Jew born in Tunisia, Memmi (1920–2020) rose to fame with The Colonizer and The Colonized, prefaced by Sartre. Educated in Tunisia, Algeria, and France, he settled in Paris, where he wrote novels and essays alike. His main topics include colonialism, the Jewish condition, and Tunisia.
An early theorist of decolonization, he used a sociological approach, getting to psycho-sociology, working through portraits—the original title of the book is Portrait of the Colonized, Preceded by Portrait of the Colonizer—trying to describe "rendings of the spirit" as "introjections of social conflicts", according to Sartre in his preface.
Published in 1957, this work aims to show the interweaving of the colonizer's and the colonized's mind, clearly sketched out by the binary structure of the essay.
Memmi starts with the economic aspect of colonization, describing how the fundamental inequality of colonization gives the colonizer a much more favorable material situation. One of his key theses is the interdependence of the colonizer and the colonized, trying to go beyond Marxism and psychoanalysis. He characterizes the consciousness of the colonizer through three discoveries: "profit, privilege, and usurpation". To this duality, he adds several third parties: nationals of other countries, assimilated minorities, Jews, colonized participating in the colonial administration, etc, giving a vivid account of the entanglement between both subjectivity and objective structures, and colonizer and colonized.

Comment: Memmi is a good complement to a class on colonization as he brings in a specific North-African Jewish point of view. His influence on existentialist philosophy also makes him appropriate for political philosophy. Can go with readings of Sartre, Said or Fanon.
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Yamahashi, Sachiko. Japanese Provides a New Relation between Language and the Real World
2010, Kagaku Tetsugaku, 43(1), pp. 1-29.
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Added by: Veronica Cibotaru
Abstract:

In Categories and On Interpretation, Aristotle develops his view on the relation between language and the real world. However, there exist in Japanese words conflicting with the idea. This paper argues that each of the four formal classes of lexically meaningful elements of Japanese defined on their combinability with the nominative case and the tense markers consistently corresponds to the divisions of reality, and shows that the relation of words to the world cannot be predicted from their use in a sentence. Under this analysis, Aristotle's idea, which is based on the “omoma-rhema” distinction, from which the universal “noun-verb” distinction originates, is thrown into a question.

Comment: This is a very useful article for students interested in challenging some fundamental assumptions of the Western philosophy of language that originate in Aristotle's writings, but it does presuppose knowledge of the Japanese language.
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Young, Iris Marion. Responsibility for Justice
2011, Oxford Universiy Press
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Added by: Olivia Maegaard Nielsen
Abstract:

When the noted political philosopher Iris Marion Young died in 2006, her death was mourned as the passing of “one of the most important political philosophers of the past quarter-century” (Cass Sunstein) and as an important and innovative thinker working at the conjunction of a number of important topics: global justice; democracy and difference; continental political theory; ethics and international affairs; and gender, race and public policy. This book discusses our responsibilities to address “structural” injustices in which we among many are implicated (but for which we are not to blame), often by virtue of participating in a market, such as buying goods produced in sweatshops, or participating in booming housing markets that leave many homeless. The book argues that addressing these structural injustices requires a new model of responsibility, which it calls the “social connection” model. The book develops this idea by clarifying the nature of structural injustice; developing the notion of political responsibility for injustice and how it differs from older ideas of blame and guilt; and finally how we can then use this model to describe our responsibilities to others no matter who we are and where we live.

Comment: This book is very suitable for teaching classes on justice, structures, or metaethics, since it at once covers various important ethical theories and theories of justice, while also asking a question that is still relevant to this day: what responsibility do we carry in the face of structural injustices? The book could be read in length, but the chapters can also be read individually.