Recent Criticism Research Articles

‘Are You Really Anglicans?’ Reflections on Church Planting, Innovation and Ecclesiastical Authority in the Church of England

Abstract This paper seeks to grapple with questions of polity and innovation in the Church of England and specifically to explore the place of non-parochial forms of church within this tradition of Anglicanism. The paper begins by outlining recent developments within the Church of England around the ‘mixed ecology’ and church planting, before summarizing Alison Milbank’s recent critique of these changes. Then, building on in example of the Guild Churches Act from London Diocese in the mid-twentieth century, it is argued that within a commitment to Anglican polity there lies a vision for creativity in mission which might sometimes mean the pursuing non-parochial forms of ministry.

A discrepancy in discrepancy scores? Comparing the Borich and Ranked Discrepancy Models for determining professional development needs

The Borich (1980) model has been widely used to determine professional development (PD) needs of school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers over the past 40-plus years. However, recent criticism, primarily focused on a purported statistical issue, has led to development of the Ranked Discrepancy Model [RDM (Narine & Harder, 2021)] as a potential alternative. This article provides perspective on the statistical issue in question and compares the results of using the Borich model and the RDM to assess precision agriculture (PA) PD needs of Arkansas SBAE teachers (N = 44). Our quantitative results indicated the two models produced different PD priorities, especially among the highest rated priorities. The mean weighted discrepancy scores [MWDSs (Borich model)] and the ranked discrepancy scores [RDSs (RDM)] had a shared variance of 54.8%; the PD priority rankings established by the two methods had a shared variance of 47.6%. Additionally, the number of tied priorities with the RDM complicated identifying priority PD workshop topics. We recommend further research and dialogue before wholesale abandonment of the Borich model for the RDM as a method of determining PD needs.

Modus Darwin redux

How should we evaluate Darwin and Wallace's arguments for common ancestry over separate ancestry? Elliott Sober defends a likelihood reconstruction of Darwin's reasoning that he dubs modus Darwin: similarity, therefore common ancestry. One assumption of Sober's approach is that separate ancestors have traits that are probabilistically independent. I motivate an objection to this assumption by appeal to 19th century naturalist alternatives such as those of Geoffroy and Owen. On Geoffroy and Owen's separate ancestry models, the ancestors can have traits that are probabilistically dependent. I then prove a generalization of Sober's approach that allows for similarity matching among traits to favour common ancestry over separate ancestry even when the traits of the separate ancestors are probabilistically dependent. I consider Helgeson's recent criticisms of Sober's approach and his alternative interpretation of Darwin's reasoning: more similar, hence, more recent common ancestry. I defend Sober's approach against Helgeson's objections.

On the Goodness of Whitehead's God: A Defense and Metaphysical Interpretation

Abstract My purpose in this article is to defend the goodness of Whitehead's God against two recent critics: Pierfrancesco Basile and Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes. I will both rely on Whitehead's own statements regarding God's goodness and offer a metaphysical interpretation of these statements in relation to his “axianoetic” universe.

Experience, Experiments, and the History of Empiricism

This paper discusses arguments from my recent book, Empiricisms: Experience and Experiment from Antiquity to the Anthropocene (2021). I discuss the origin of empiricism in ancient Greek medicine, and its merger with experimental research in the modern period. I also discuss the arguments of recent critics of empiricism, including W. V. Quine, Donald Davidson, and Richard Rorty. I introduce a distinction between theorematic and problematic empiricism and show how this difference divides the various empiricisms of history. My conclusions are: 1. Knowledge requires experience; results have to be tested, which takes experience. 2. The “experience” of empirical philosophy is the experience from which we learn. 3. Experimental values are many, but truth is not one of them. 4. Empiricism began as an antidote to rationalism, and that remains its vocation today.

On the Epistemic Value of Reflection

Against philosophical orthodoxy, Kornblith (2012) has mounted an empirically grounded critique of the epistemic value of reflection. In this paper, I argue that this recent critique fails even if we concede that the empirical facts are as Kornblith says they are, and assume that reliability is the only determinant of epistemic value. The critique fails because it seeks to undermine the reliability of reflection in general but targets only one of its variants, namely individual reflection, while neglecting social reflection. This critique comprises two arguments which have a common structure: they both impose a requirement on the reliability of reflection, but deny, on empirical grounds, that the requirement is met. One argument imposes an introspection requirement, which I reject as superfluous. I show how reflection can proceed without introspection. The other argument imposes an efficacy requirement. This requirement concerns whether reflection is causally efficacious i.e., whether it leads us to change our minds for the better. I accept this as a genuine requirement. Even if we concede that individual reflection fails to meet this requirement, I argue that we have not been given sufficient evidence to believe that social reflection is bound to violate this requirement. Furthermore, my analysis of the conditions under which social reflection works best provides us with prima facie grounds for optimism regarding the reliability of social reflection. Ultimately, then, these arguments fail to undermine the epistemic value of reflection in general.

Fishes in Warming Waters, the Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory and the Debate Around Mechanistic Growth Models

Mechanistic explanations of the impact of climate change on fish growth are currently under debate. However, critical assessments of even the most prominent theories are not always based on accurate interpretations of their underlying mechanistic models. This contribution addresses some of the major misunderstandings still causing the Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT) from being examined based on its actual structuring elements and assumptions, rather than erroneous perceptions. As we argue, recent critiques of the GOLT are based on implausible interpretations of respirometry data that are invoked to distinguish maintenance costs and overhead costs of growth. Discussing the current state of the debate, we emphasize the fact that fasting young and, thus, growing fish for short periods of time is not sufficient to suppress energy (i.e., oxygen) allocation to growth. In the process of dealing with these issues, several cases of apparent ‘counter-evidence’ are discussed. Highlighting the need to base critical discussions and examinations of the GOLT on its actual predictions, we recommend that testing the theory should focus on broad reviews or meta-analyses, e.g., on datasets of gill surface area and the relationship of these data to growth performance under different temperature regimes.

Challenging the use of the overall adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) score: Comparing total ACEs, maltreatment, and household dysfunction on mental health problems among White, African American, and Native American women under correctional control.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been consistently linked to mental health problems. There have been recent conceptual and empirical critiques that suggest maltreatment and household dysfunction to not be combined to create a composite ACE score. Women in correctional custody demonstrate disproportionately high ACE levels and greater mental health problems as to racial minorities. The present study compared the effects of varying operationalizations of the ACEs measure on women's mental health stratified across race using a sample of White, African American, and Native American women in correctional custody in Oklahoma. The cross-sectional study administered a paper-and-pencil survey to 494 women. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. Maltreatment was a significant predictor of women's mental health across all racial groups but demonstrated the strongest effect among African American inmates. Household dysfunction was not a significant predictor of mental health for any racial group. When comparing the maltreatment-only model to the maltreatment and household dysfunction model, and the overall ACE score model, there was little explained variance lost. These findings indicate that maltreatment demonstrates unique associations with women's mental health and may be the driving force behind the relationship between ACEs and adult mental health among women within correctional custody. Researchers are advised to not use the overall ACE score and instead break down the measure into the maltreatment and household dysfunction subscales. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Power, Politics, and Personification: Toward a Critique of Postone’s Theory of Antisemitism

Abstract This essay offers an immanent critique of Moishe Postone’s theory of antisemitism. It argues that his account of modern antisemitism as a form of fetishistic anti-capitalism contains a decisive ambiguity. Postone oscillates between two distinct conceptions of anti-capitalism: explicit and implicit. These conceptions are conflated when Postone draws a line from his paradigm case of modern antisemitism to recent anti-imperialist criticism of particular nation-states. This conflation also allows him implicitly to suggest that anti-communism is a form of anti-capitalism. More attention to the differences between these senses of anti-capitalism could have led Postone to a richer theoretical account of the place of abstraction in the distinctively political dangers that obsessed modern antisemitism, which might, in turn, have drawn his attention in the present toward contemporary Islamophobia, rather than criticism of the US, as redolent of certain aspects of the modern antisemitic imaginary.

50+ years of psychological acculturation research: Progress and challenges

Acculturation psychology, now over fifty years old, has evolved significantly since its inception in the mid-1960s. This paper seeks to shape the future of the field by addressing recent criticisms and controversies such as the association between integration and adaptation. The author reflects on acculturation psychology’s journey and highlights how global migration trends have accelerated the growth of acculturation as a critical area in psychology. Despite its popularity, the field has faced methodological challenges that necessitate a review of psychometric issues and foundational models. Given the profound impact of acculturation research on millions of lives, our findings must be clear and uncontested. The paper calls for re-evaluating the field's goals and objectives in light of the evolving ethnic compositions of societies. It advocates for leveraging methodological advancements and sophisticated statistical tools to ensure that acculturation research continues to contribute positively to humanity.

Focusing on an object or reflexive self-awareness? Mindfulness, phenomenology and the Pāli suttas

ABSTRACT The concept of mindfulness within the contemporary mindfulness movement was the subject of a recent phenomenological critique. The present article confronts that critique in order to develop a phenomenologically viable interpretation of mindfulness that corresponds with how the word sati is used in the Pāli suttas. By clarifying the distinction between intentional objects and intentional acts, it can be shown that mindfulness was not originally conceived of as an exercise in focusing on a meditation object, but as reflexive self-awareness. Consequently, it is wrong to describe mindfulness as ‘bare attention’. Mindfulness was originally a philosophical enterprise, an attitude that can be cultivated only when one is attending to things while remaining aware of the broader context. Furthermore, an ordinary person (puthujjana) cannot cultivate what the Buddha called ‘right mindfulness’ (sammāsati). This is the province of the noble ones who have acquired the right view and are accomplished in virtue.

From the Periphery: The Family Novels of Lilli Gruber and Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Recent criticism on the nature and history of the family novel has refined our understanding of this genre and of its persistence to the present day. Two recent examples of this sort of writing are the trilogies by the contemporary writers Lilli Gruber and Simonetta Agnello Hornby. Although these works treat what is roughly the same chronological period, they are set at different ends of the Italian peninsula, Gruber’s in the Tyrol region and Agnello Hornby’s in Sicily. While there are other important differences between the two works, both describe failures of once dominant patriarchal families whose demises are not lamented but simply chronicled from a new and more cosmopolitan perspective shared by both the novels’ characters and by their authors – a posture perhaps typical of many writers and thinkers in the new millennium.

Sissy the Archive: Ambivalent Intimacies between “Sissy” and “Trans” in Trans* Archives and Contemporary Fiction

Abstract: In this article, I examine the ambivalent relation between sissies and trans women in historical and contemporary trans cultural production. Sissification porn depicts a forced-feminization fetish in which a man is “nonconsensually” transformed into a girlish bimbo. His masculinity and selfhood are “negated” through fantasies of masochistic feminized embodiment. Trans-exclusionary feminists claim that sissy porn induces gender dysphoria in its viewers and converts unsuspecting cis men into trans women through sissification. Rather than simply repudiating any relation between the trans woman and the sissy, I insist on tarrying with the negativity of sissification and the bad affects saturating this relation as the figure of the sissy haunts trans archives. Recent fiction and criticism by Imogen Binnie, Torrey Peters, Alison Rumfitt, and Andrea Long Chu reveal an ambivalent intimacy between the trans woman and the sissy. In sitting with this ambivalence, I critique a desexualized (trans)gender identity without dissolving the negativity of the sissy into a countercultural, queer pleasure.

Decentering the colonial native speaker

Abstract: In this article, we advocate a speakerhood studies approach as part of an effort to decenter the 'native speaker' in linguistics. Recent critiques of native-speakerhood problematize this construct's links to essentializing discourses born of ethnolinguistic nationalism and colonialism and advocate for more specific and less reductionist approaches to describing speakers in linguistics (e.g. Babel & Grammon 2021, Birkeland et al. 2024, Cheng et al. 2021). We argue that it is important to consider—indeed, to center—conceptions of speakerhood in multilingual, transnational communities that offer a contrast to discourses centered on language purism, nationalism, and standard language ideologies. We examine data from speakers of Quechua, analyzing ways in which their ideologies of speakerhood diverge from naturalized scientific discourses in linguistics, in order to demonstrate the possibilities and the stakes of a speakerhood studies approach.

Revaluing and devaluing higher education beyond neoliberalism: Elitist, productivist, and populist policy and rhetoric in a field of conflict

The transformation of higher education provision by neoliberal values has been well documented. However, recent criticisms and even attacks upon higher education indicate a new politics extending beyond neoliberalism. This article draws on the sociology of conventions to unpick the distinctions at work in these new criticisms of universities. By distinguishing between values based in the market world, industrial world and civic world, we elaborate the political basis of recent value controversies around higher education (HE), reflected in policy and rhetoric. Looking to reject aspects of the neoliberal HE model, some critics have sought to revalue higher education upon productivist values, attacking universities for failing to generate ‘use’ value for students and society. Populist actors have launched stronger criticisms, aiming to revalue higher education on nationalistic and traditional values. This has generated the devaluation of higher education in national public spheres. As higher education has expanded globally, this new politics emerges from conflicts within and between conservative and liberal elites. Trends in Hungary and Brazil indicate the successes and failures of populist attacks on universities. Trends in the United Kingdom and Australia reflect productivist revaluations of market-based HE. Elite revaluation and devaluation is producing an emerging new global politics of HE.

Reframing covenant for nursing: From individual commitments to covenant with society.

Today's constrained healthcare environment can make it very difficult for nurses to provide compassionate, competent, and ethical care, and yet their continued commitment to care is viewed as requisite. Nurses' commitment to care of patients, enmeshed with professional identity, may be understood as heroic. A few nursing scholars have advanced the concept of a nurse-patient covenant to explain or inspire nurses' commitment to care. Covenant describes an enduring relationship characterised by mutual promises and generous responsiveness. However, recent critique has revealed a general misunderstanding and misuse of the term covenant in much of the nursing literature whereby individual nurses are improperly and impossibly idealised as holding sole responsibility in the commitment to care. Such an interpretation obscures society's responsibilities in caring for both patients and nurses and contributes to the idealisation of nurses' commitment to extend themselves to fill in healthcare system gaps. Yet, the concept of a covenant relationship, when reframed as occurring between society and the profession of nursing, may lead us toward solutions to the very problems the originally misused concept sustained. Evidence within healthcare systems globally suggests that nurses' commitments are fragile or fragmented under duress due to increasing pressure, demands, and even risks. A reframing of covenant has the common good for society and nursing at its core and, we argue, may lead to a more sustainable nursing identity. We present the results of an exploratory project, undertaken to examine the utility and suitability of covenant as a relational framework for nursing. We explore a reframing of a covenant of care as a relationship between nursing and society, which may provide a fruitful path toward a sustainable, shared commitment for healthcare. This covenant of care re-centres shared work-a joint responsibility between society and nursing-as necessary for the common good.

The Fundamental Argument without any garbage

AbstractRik Peels's (2017) Fundamental Argument is an important argument against epistemic scientism. The crucial premise of the Fundamental Argument is that if nonscientific sources of belief did not provide us with knowledge, neither could the sciences. But, the sciences do provide us with knowledge. Thus, epistemic scientism is false. This paper defends Peels's argument against recent criticisms. In particular, Hietanen and colleagues criticize Peels's argument for resting on what they call the “garbage in, garbage out” principle (GIGO). This paper strengthens their attacks on the GIGO principle. It shows, however, that we don't need the GIGO principle to motivate the crucial premise of the Fundamental Argument. Instead, it argues that the crucial premise is true for the following reasons: scientific knowledge is the result of successful inquiry; at some point we lacked scientific knowledge; and, we cannot successfully inquire without some prior knowledge.

The proper scope of education for flourishing

Abstract The concept of flourishing has recently come into vogue within various areas of the humanities and social sciences (e.g. philosophy, psychology, economics, health, education). This article focuses on its potential role within education, where the retrieval of flourishing has perhaps been most visible of all the recent areas of interest, setting in motion what some have called a ‘flourishing bandwagon’. This bandwagon has blazed a trail for the somewhat radical view that flourishing can be seen not only as a significant aim, but even the central aim, of all educational endeavours. Recent criticisms of the flourishing view focus on its potential vacuity and its unhelpful conflation of general and laudable, but uneducable, socio-political and psycho-moral aims with educable ones, hence placing unreasonable burdens on practitioners. After providing a brief historical and conceptual backdrop, this article aims at fleshing out and finessing the scope of education for flourishing and, hence at responding to the recent critics. This is done inter alia through an analogy with health where a similar theoretical problem beckons about possible conceptual underpopulations and overpopulations of the content of the aim of health itself.

The Neurobiology of Formal Thought Disorder.

The concept of Formal Thought Disorder (FTD) is an ambiguous and disputed one, even though it has endured as a core psychopathological construct in clinical Psychiatry. FTD can be summarized as a multidimensional construct, reflecting difficulties or idiosyncrasies in thinking, language, and communication in general and is usually subdivided into positive versus negative. In this article, we aim to explore the putative neurobiology of FTD, ranging from changes in neurotransmitter systems to alterations in the functional anatomy of the brain. We also discuss recent critiques of the operationalist view of FTD and how they might fit in its biological underpinnings. We conclude that FTD might be the observable phenotype of many distinct underlying alterations in different proportions.

Pilot Evaluation of Silicone Surrogates for Oral Mucosa Simulation in Craniofacial Surgical Training.

Surgical simulators are crucial in early craniofacial and plastic surgical training, necessitating synthetic materials that accurately replicate tissue properties. Recent critiques of our lab's currently deployed silicone surrogate have highlighted numerous areas for improvement. To further refine our models, our group's objective is to find a composition of materials that is closest in fidelity to native oral mucosa during surgical rehearsal by expert craniofacial surgeons. Fifteen platinum silicone-based surrogate samples were constructed with variable hardness and slacker percentages. These samples underwent evaluation of tactile sensation, hardness, needle puncture, cut resistance, suture retention, defect repair, and tensile elasticity. Expert craniofacial surgeon evaluators provided focused qualitative feedback on selected top-performing samples for further assessment and statistical comparisons. An evaluation revealed surrogate characteristics that were satisfactory and exhibited good performance. Sample 977 exhibited the highest performance, and comparison with the original surrogate (sample 810) demonstrated significant improvements in critical areas, emphasizing the efficacy of the refined composition. The study identified a silicone composition that directly addresses the feedback received by our team's original silicone surrogate. The study underscores the delicate balance between biofidelity and practicality in surgical simulation. The need for ongoing refinement in surrogate materials is evident to optimize training experiences for early surgical learners.