Book Symposium Research Articles

Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology

Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology

Replies to critics

In this article, I respond to critics in the book symposium on Delusions and Beliefs: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge 2019).

Collaborative-Dialogic Practice: Relationships and Conversations That Make a Difference Across Culture and Context: Book Symposium, Part 1

Often the chasm between people from differing cultures, language, and views seems impossible to navigate, even with the best intentions. Whether you work in a boardroom, schoolroom, therapy room, or community organization, our book Collaborative-Dialogic Practice: Relationships and Conversations That Make a Difference Across Contexts and Cultures (Anderson & Gehart, 2023) offers a humanizing approach to facilitating dialogues that make a difference in our fast-changing, diverse, and ever-shrinking world.

Neander on a Mark of the Mental

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 105, Issue 2 p. 484-489 BOOK SYMPOSIUM Neander on a Mark of the Mental Christopher S. Hill, Corresponding Author Christopher S. Hill christopher_hill@brown.edu Department of Philosophy, Brown University, Providence, RI Correspondence Christopher S. Hill, University of California, Berkeley. Email: christopher_hill@brown.eduSearch for more papers by this author Christopher S. Hill, Corresponding Author Christopher S. Hill christopher_hill@brown.edu Department of Philosophy, Brown University, Providence, RI Correspondence Christopher S. Hill, University of California, Berkeley. Email: christopher_hill@brown.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 31 December 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12932Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume105, Issue2September 2022Pages 484-489 RelatedInformation

Whither Symbolic Efficiency? Social Media, New Structuralism, and Algorithmic Desire

Responding to the book symposium on his Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media, Matthew Flisfeder engages with the thoughtful responses made by Clint Burnham, Jamil Khader, and Anna Kornbluh, expressing appreciation for the provocations and productive disagreements being generated. The author highlights previous work regarding the decline of symbolic efficiency, his intended meaning of algorithmic desire, and the implications of subjectivity in a social media age in which the subject is apparently aware of the big Other’s nonexistence. He reveals Algorithmic Desire as implicitly correcting for a critical- and cultural-theory landscape that has not fully absorbed the Slovenian school’s (Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupančič) psychoanalytic interventions into the critique and development of Althusserian theories of ideology and subjectivity. The essay concludes that this methodology reveals the perverse nature of twenty-first-century neoliberal logic and reiterates that a truly social media is only possible under conditions of universal emancipation.

The trouble with merit

The last few years have witnessed a resurgence of interest among both scholars and public intellectuals over issues associated with distributive justice and its gravitational orbit of concepts, including the idea of merit and the adjacent vision of a meritocratic society. Nevertheless, despite its centrality for conceptions of equality of opportunity, a merit-based allocation of advantaged social positions has been confronted by a range of objections. Michael Sandel’s book The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? provides a nuanced examination of ‘the age of meritocracy’ and meritocratic rationality as its key characteristic. It dovetails an elaborated analysis of the troubled legacy of meritocracy with an in-depth elucidation of the various flaws and shortcomings it came to be associated with. This article aims to examine some of the distinguishing features of merit-based allocation of advantaged social positions and the main shortcomings this distributive mechanism has been associated with. The introductory section identifies the most distinctive characteristics of the merit-based allocation of advantaged social positions. The central section reconstructs some of the arguments advanced by Michael Sandel in his book The Tyranny of Merit (2020). The concluding section presents the motivational impulse for the book symposium on The Tyranny of Merit and the main issues arising out of the discussion between the commentators and Prof. Sandel.

Introduction: methodology and non-ideal theory in Christine Hobden’s Citizenship in a Globalised World

ABSTRACT This contribution examines the methodology of Christine Hobden’s Citizenship in a Globalised World. It introduces some concepts, themes, and arguments that arise in the discussion by the three commentators Ashwini Vasanthamukar, Anna Stilz, and Shuk Ying Chan in this book symposium. It then examines Hobden’s approach to non-ideal political theorising and her proposal for citizens’ responsibilities.

Billionaires in world politics: clarifications and refinements

ABSTRACT This is a response to the comments by Filipe Campello, Julian Culp, Klaus Dingwerth and Julian Eckl, Indira Latorre, and Uchenna Okeja within the present book symposium discussing my book Billionaires in World Politics. While disagreeing with some critiques, I welcome most of the comments as invitations for theoretical refinement and further research. I start with questions about conceptual delineations and the structural background, arguing that ‘political modernity’ is a concept that is too broad to capture the specific context that allows billionaires to exercise power on the world stage. Then I address questions of agency, which are about the relationships between individual billionaires and collective actors, and the associated issue of legitimacy. The connection between billionaires and their corporations receives special attention, and is discussed in relation to legal innovations that establish individual accountability. I end with thoughts about neo-feudalism, a concept that I reject, because the political agency of billionaires remains wedded to capitalism.

Book Symposium: Philosophy of Psychedelics

This special issue focuses on the Philosophy of Psychedelics (OUP 2021) by Chris Letheby in the form of a book symposium. Introduced by Matthew Johnson (2022), Letheby presents the main claims of this book that explores the apparent conflict between psychedelic therapy and naturalism in a préci​s (Letheby, 2022a).​​ Seven contributions criticize, expand or comment on Letheby's arguments, focusing either on his proposed mechanism for psychedelic therapy (Colombo, 2022; Hoffman, 2022; Lyon and Farennikova, 2022; Martin and Sterzer, 2022) or on the epistemic implications (Bortolotti and Murphy-Hollies, 2022; Caporuscio, 2022; Fink, 2022). The symposium concludes with Letheby’s replies to these commentaries (Letheby, 2022b).

Themes from The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

In The Epistemic Role of Consciousness, I argue that phenomenal consciousness plays an indispensable role in explaining our knowledge and justified beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Without phenomenal consciousness, we cannot know anything at all. The book develops a systematic theory of epistemic justification that applies to knowledge of every kind. In this brief summary, however, I will focus on the epistemology of perception, since that is the main topic addressed by the commentators in this book symposium.

Book Symposium on Margaret Martin’s "Judging Positivism": Introduction

Introducción Esta introducción fornece una visión general del Book Symposium sobre el libro Judging Positivism, de Margaret Martin, con contribuciones de André Coelho, Thomas Bustamante y Jorge Fabra-Zamora, así como una respuesta analítica de Margaret Martin.

The Growing Block, the Epistemic Objection and Zombie Parrots

Abstract In this book symposium contribution, I raise a question about Correia and Rosenkranz’s version of the Growing Block Theory: Is it meant to be a Four-Dimensionalist theory (with a commitment to temporal parts), or a Three-Dimensionalist theory (according to which an object is wholly present whenever it is present)? I argue that a downside of giving the first answer to this question (that the theory is committed to temporal parts) is that in that case their theory will be vulnerable to the Epistemic Objection to the Growing Block Theory. I further argue that an important advantage of giving the second answer to my question (that the theory does not come with a commitment to temporal parts) is that the Three-Dimensionalist version of the Growing Block Theory is not susceptible to the Epistemic Objection. And I also suggest that an apparent disadvantage of saying that their theory is a Three-Dimensionalist theory, namely, that in that case they will have difficulty answering questions about the properties of non-present objects (such as parrots from the distant past), can be dealt with in a way that does not commit them to either zombie parrots or bare particulars.

Response to Comments and Criticisms

Abstract These responses are replies to the contributions to a book symposium devoted to my book Knowing and Seeing. Groundwork for a New Empiricism (2019), held at the University of Vienna in February 2020.

HOBBESIAN LIBERALISM

Book Symposium on "Dealing with Diversity: A Study in Contemporary Liberalism" by D. Melidoro: comments and replies.

WHY LIBERALISM NEEDS AUTONOMY

Book Symposium on "Dealing with Diversity: A Study in Contemporary Liberalism" by D. Melidoro: comments and replies.

OPEN ACCESS, THE HUMANITIES, AND CONTEMPLATION THROUGH SCIENCE

OPEN ACCESS, THE HUMANITIES, AND CONTEMPLATION THROUGH SCIENCE

Response to Book Symposium Commentaries on Modern Advertising and the Market for Audience Attention

The key question I attempted to answer with my book Modern Advertising and the Market for Audience Attention. was the question of how the commodification of attention happened. In turn, three scholars – Shahram Azhar, Nora Draper, and Daniel Pope – raised important questions about my book. They raise interrelated interpretative questions about the agency and consciousness of audiences and the relation between mass appeals and narrowly targeted marketing. They also raise the philosophical, ethical, and political question of how to respond to attention commodification. In this response I engage their questions, though with few definitive conclusions (especially on the last point).

Justice, autonomy and care: symposium on Asha Bhandary’s freedom to care: liberalism, dependency care and justice

ABSTRACT This contribution discusses Asha Bhandary’s book Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care and Justice and engages with some key concepts used by three commentators Daniel Engster, Kelly Gawel, and Andrea Westlund in this book symposium. The symposium makes it clear that care can be a central notion not only in the ethics of care, but also in debates about liberalism, justice and autonomy.

On legal personhood: Rejoinders, reflections and restatements

This reply addresses the contributions of the book symposium, containing the author’s reflections, clarifications and counterarguments.

Private actors in development projects: reflections on human rights between power and resistance

The theme of the book symposium ‘The Rule of Law in Transnational Development Projects’ is, as Bhatt's Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities (2020) and Lander's Transnational Law and State Transformation (2020) highlight, ripe for critical reflection. The two books reveal the power wielded by private for-profit actors in the co-constitution of legal norms, often at the expense of local communities in development-investment settings. The co-constitution of legal norms by private actors via ‘contracts’, ‘policies’ and ‘intermediaries’ (Bhatt, Lander and Taekema, Book Symposium Introduction in this issue) development permeates rule of law in the public sphere, including in ways that affect the application of domestic and international legal norms relating to human rights. Of course, rule of law may be defined by ‘thick’ conceptions … as a just system of laws ‘consistent with international human rights norms and standards’ (UN Secretary General, 2004, para. 6) or ‘thin’ conceptions with more formalistic requirements that do not prescribe political or social values. Deontological questions aside, even in its ‘thinnest’ conception, rule of law means that legal norms ‘should be publicly promulgated; be predictable in their application; apply to all citizens, including government officials; and be subject to some form of neutral adjudication in the event of disputes as to their interpretation or application’ (Trebilcock, 2011, p. 209). Yet, rule of law has often been applied ‘to favour entrenched elites over resistance groups, vested interests … over civil disobedience, official actors over unofficial actors and property owners over protestors’ (Simpson, 2012, p. 9).