Silvers, Anita. Has her(oine’s) time now come?
1990, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48 (4):365-379.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: Following suggestions drawn from both analytic and postmodernist sources, I shall advise revisionist artwriters to follow Fou- cault's caution against conceiving of the artists whose stories are related in arts scholarship as historical persons who originated (that is, were the origins of) their art, and who, consequently, are prior to and separate from it. From this perspective, it is problematic how references to properties external to works of art-properties like gender-function in the kind of artwriting crucial to canonical reform.Comment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
Simion, Mona. Epistemic Trouble for Engineering ‘Woman’
2018, Logos and Episteme, 9(1), pp. 91–98
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Added by: Veronica CibotaruAbstract:
This paper puts forth a functionalist difficulty for Sally Haslanger’s proposal for engineering our concept of ‘woman.’ It is argued that the project of bringing about better political function fulfillment cannot get off the ground in virtue of epistemic failure.
Comment: This is a useful resource for students who wish to engage more deeply with Haslanger's proposal to engineer our concept of 'woman' and explore a critical perspective. At the same time, the text remains accessible to students who are less familiar with Haslanger's theory.
Sinclair, Rebekah. Exploding Individuals: Engaging Indigenous Logic and Decolonizing Science
2020, Hypatia, 35, pp. 58–74
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
Despite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
Skabelund, Aaron. A Dog’s Life: The Challenges and Possibilities of Animal
2018, In Animal Biography: Re-framing Animal Lives. André Krebber and Mieke Roscher (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan
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Added by: Björn FreterAbstract:
If one were to write a biography of a nonhuman animal, a likely candidate is Hachikō, an Akita dog who became popular in 1932 when a newspaper claimed he had been awaiting the return of his master at a Tokyo train station since his owner’s death seven years earlier. That fame led to the production of an enormous variety of source material that a historian could use to reconstruct his life’s story. This chapter uses Hachikō to explore the methodological and theoretical challenges of animal biography. It argues that two new(er) kinds of primary sources—taxidermy and photography—allow Hachikō (and some other animals) to “speak” and play a collaborative role in telling their own stories.Comment (from this Blueprint): Using Hachikō as example (an Akita dog who became popular in 1932 when it was claimed it waited for his owner at a train station for seven years) this article explores the methodological and theoretical challenges of animal biography.
Skorburg, Joshua August. Jane Addams as Experimental Philosopher
2017, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (5): 918-938
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
This paper argues that the activist, feminist and pragmatist Jane Addams (1860–1935) was an experimental philosopher. To defend this claim, I argue for capacious notions of both philosophical pragmatism and experimental philosophy. I begin in Section 2 with a new defence of Rose and Danks’ [‘In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy’. Metaphilosophy 44, no. 4 (2013): 512–32] argument in favour of a broad conception of experimental philosophy. Koopman [‘Pragmatist Resources for Experimental Philosophy: Inquiry in Place of Intuition’. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26, no. 1 (2012): 1–24] argues that many twentieth-century American pragmatists (e.g. Peirce, James, Dewey) can make important contributions to contemporary experimental philosophy. In Section 3, I argue that while this may be true, it is also true that under the broad conception, many of the pragmatists just were experimental philosophers. In Section 4, I argue that as a pragmatist philosopher in her own right, Jane Addams also fits the bill of an experimental philosopher, broadly construed. My central argument is that working at Hull House rather than the University of Chicago is no reason to think Addams’ methods any less rigorous or empirical, nor the problems she addressed any less philosophical. I conclude by responding to potential objections to my even broader conception of experimental philosophy, and I briefly consider how my arguments might inform contemporary feminist criticisms of experimental philosophy.Comment (from this Blueprint): In this article, Skorburg argues that Jane Addams – the 20th Century activist who worked for poor and immigrant communities in Chicago – can be appropriately understood as an early experimental philosopher. In making the argument, Skorburg distinguishes between narrow and broad senses of what it means to do x-phi, as well as a narrow and broad sense of what it means to be a pragmatist. If we accept broad sense of both x-phi, and pragmatism, Jane Addams counts as both a pragmatist, and an experimental philosopher.
Slingerland, Edward. Body and Mind in Early China: An Integrated Humanities-Science Approach
2013, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81(1): 6–55
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Added by: Xintong WeiAbstract:
This article argues against the strong “holist” position that the early Chinese lacked any concept of mind–body dualism, and more broadly against a “neo-Orientalist” trend that portrays Chinese thought as radically different from Western thought. In the first half, it makes the case against strong mind–body holism by drawing upon traditional archeological and textual evidence. In the second, it turns to resources from the sciences, arguing that large-scale quantitative–qualitative analyses of early Chinese texts suggest that they embrace a quite vigorous form of mind–body dualism, and further that a huge body of evidence coming out of the cognitive sciences suggests that this is not at all surprising. In this section, the role that deep humanistic knowledge can, and should, play in scientific approaches to culture is also explored. The article concludes by suggesting that a mutually informed, humanities–scientific approach to religious studies is the best way for our field to move forwardComment (from this Blueprint): While many have argued that early Chinese thinkers endorsed a holistic view about the mind-body relationship, there is also evidence that they distinguish the mental from the body. One important notion in Confucian ethics is the idea of the extension of one’s mind. To cultivate one’s mind is to extend and deepen it so that it ‘can embrace the ten thousand things and the whole universe’ (Mengzi 7A4). To make sense of this idea, Chen (2017) suggests that we should interpret Confucians as endorsing substance dualism: the mental and the body as two distinct substances. He traces the idea of extension the mind in classic Confucian texts and neo-confucian writings such as that of Wang Yangming.
Sliwa, Paulina. In defense of moral testimony
2012, Philosophical Studies 158 (2): 175-195.
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Added by: Nick NovelliIntroduction: Moral testimony has been getting a bad name in the recent literature. It has been argued that while testimony is a perfectly fine source for nonmoral belief, there's something wrong with basing one's moral beliefs on it. This paper argues that the bad name is undeserved: Moral testimony isn't any more problematic than nonmoral testimony.Comment: This is a very good, easy to understand article on moral epistemology. The examples used are clear and well-presented, and it would be suitable even for students with no previous experience with moral epistemology. As the issue addressed, moral testimony, is a central one, this article would be recommended for an introductory course in moral epistemology.
Slowther, Anne. Truth-telling in health care
2009, Clinical Ethics 4 (4):173-175.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: This article is about the description of all the situations in which clinician find difficult to tell the truth to patients regarding their condition. Moral importance of telling the truth is recognized in both moral theory and in the practical reality of everyday living. However, empirical studies continue to show that health- care professional identify the question of truth-telling and disclosure as a source of moral and psychological discomfort in many situations. Other situation creating difficulties for clinicians are not related directly to the patient's wants or needs regarding their illness but to wider issues such as disclosure of medical error and identifying poor performance in colleagues.
Smalls, James. African-American Self-Portraiture
2001, Third Text, pp. 47-62.
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Added by: Hans MaesSummary: As 'always already' racialized object of the white patriarchal look African-Americans have enduringly suffered from having to negotiate notions of the self from a crisis position. The act of self-portraiture for the African-American artist has the value of bestowing upon the self-portraitist a sense of empowerment.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as empowerment and art's role in power relations in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Lyle Ashton Harris, Construct #10 (collection of the artist, 1988)
Harris's self-portraits are redemptive and liberatory in their focus on the self. They challenge standard discourse on identity and subjectivity to present a new sign of black power and liberation. Because his photographs expose gender as constructed and performed, they also, in the process, subvert phallocentrism and compulsory heterosexuality. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as empowerment and art's role in power relations in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Lyle Ashton Harris, Construct #10 (collection of the artist, 1988)
Harris's self-portraits are redemptive and liberatory in their focus on the self. They challenge standard discourse on identity and subjectivity to present a new sign of black power and liberation. Because his photographs expose gender as constructed and performed, they also, in the process, subvert phallocentrism and compulsory heterosexuality.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
2012, 2nd Edition. London and New York: Zed Books.
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas SorgerPublisher’s Note:
To the colonized, the term 'research' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory. This essential volume explores intersections of imperialism and research - specifically, the ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and tradition as 'regimes of truth.' Concepts such as 'discovery' and 'claiming' are discussed and an argument presented that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being. Now in its eagerly awaited second edition, this bestselling book has been substantially revised, with new case-studies and examples and important additions on new indigenous literature, the role of research in indigenous struggles for social justice, which brings this essential volume urgently up-to-date.Comment (from this Blueprint): Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonising Methodologies argued that, for the colonised, the idea and practice of academic research was imbued with imperialism. Thus, to escape this problem and reclaim indigenous forms of knowing, an effort to decolonise the methodologies of research is imperative. The reading for this week is the first chapter of the book, in which Smith advances her critique of Western knowledge to show that “every aspect of producing knowledge has influenced the ways in which indigenous ways of knowing have been represented” (p.35). Smith’s critique is far-reaching, and her point is to suggest that Western notions of history, writing, and theorising are bound up in the way research is pursued such that they exclude and marginalise indigenous groups.
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