Skeptical Reflections Research Articles

The Effects of Feminism in Pride and Prejudice: A Pragmatic Study

This study identifies how a feminist perspective has the potential to critique certain aspects of the work "Pride and Prejudice." By analyzing the way Austen deals with her even-spirited heroine, critiques gender roles through the narrative presentation, and offers marriage as a necessary compromise showcasing the unsatisfactory life of women, the study provides pertinent findings to explicate possible reasons for the narrative portrayal of Elizabeth's journey. The findings of the study suggest the feminist interpretation of "Pride and Prejudice" outlines some compelling critiques, including the representation of a woman who is often contradictory and not portrayed in the best light. Elizabeth Bennet can be seen as deeply flawed, and yet her story is intended to be empowering. Austen employs a narrative that draws a great deal of attention to the subject of gender relations and the various functions of its females as they strive to find an assertive place within a mostly patriarchal society. However, this narrative representation is problematic in part because her exploration of these gender relations often dwells on ceremony and the active subjection to male prerogatives—an active choice rather than an oppressive paradigm. What emerges from this is a commentary on the individuality of love through Elizabeth’s story, as well as a skeptical reflection on marriage as an institution and its corrosive potential in colonizing relations. The jumping-off point for this critique, however, is the agency Elizabeth must carry within the narrative, where she must mature and thus foretell the corruptions that will occur if she were to refuse this traditional patriarchal paradigm. Generally, feminist theory in language and literature assumes that women are subordinated, excluded, and often objectified, and it believes that the two incompatible ideologies have no right, class, or sex barriers. Instead, feminists contend that the two discourses are promoted due to certain interest groups' desire, and particularly the benefit of males, which requires power to keep this social system-like hierarchy. Undeniably, we can expect feminist theory beyond the geopolitical boundary. As such, this paper can critically and prudently bring another literary work from another era to feminist discussion, which lets us dig deeper into a woman's perspective.

“The World in a Verse”: Stevens, World History, and Global Modernisms

“The World in a Verse”: Stevens, World History, and Global Modernisms Gül Bilge Han I. Introduction IN HIS 1942 ESSAY “The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words,” Wallace Stevens commented on the situation of the modern subject in a global context in the following way: It is not only that there are more of us and that we are actually close together. We are close together in every way. We lie in bed and listen to a broadcast from Cairo, and so on. There is no distance. We are intimate with people we have never seen and, unhappily, they are intimate with us. (CPP 653) Written in the midst of US involvement in the Second World War, when seemingly distant events felt closer to home than ever, Stevens’s lines weave together the intimate and the global as a constitutive feature of ordinary, common life. His remarks highlight the emergence of new forms of cognitive and affective proximity between diverse places and subjects, fostered through new media technologies—particularly, the radio and how it relayed the news. The experience of a lack of “distance,” or of being “close together in every way . . . unhappily,” indicates an imposed mode of connectivity that threatens the demarcation of the boundaries between the individual and the collective, the local and the global, the private and the public realms. Stevens implicitly figures this new mode of collective intimacy as a threatening force against the domain of the individual self, which, in turn, suggests a common modernist trope. But Stevens’s poetic responses to the demands of the global and its distant others, especially from the 1930s onwards, express more than a desire to salvage a degree of individual autonomy and interiority from the intrusions of an increasingly globalized modernity, just as his skeptical reflections on the “broadcast from Cairo” do more than exhibit an anxiety over the advent of [End Page 133] communication technologies—resulting in “an extraordinary pressure of news” (CPP 655)—that brought the world closer in unprecedented ways. Certainly, the new media environment of the early and mid-twentieth century shaped the aesthetic and social sensibilities of modernist writers, including Stevens (Kalliney 121–56). Mass media and circulation of the news are, in fact, part and parcel of modernism’s global networks, in which the news sparked alternative forms of engagement with world events that were negotiated through different journalistic and media discourses. Such developments had crucial implications for modernist conceptualizations of world and self, since they allowed for new ways of imagining cultural and political transfers, across spaces and peoples, without necessitating physical closeness or direct contact. The news as a poetic and creative source, in particular, played a constitutive part in Stevens’s responses to the historical pressures of the actual world. He was, as Jahan Ramazani and Rachel Galvin have discussed most prominently, well aware of how the news “mediate[d] between the individual and the event,” how it shaped “the raw material of history” (Galvin 169), and thereby produced what Stevens called the “pressure of news . . . of a new world” against which he imagined poetry should and would push back (CPP 655). But what seemed equally pressing for Stevens, judging by his wartime remarks, is the emergence of a global collective consciousness reinforced by the news technologies and the media: the heightened presence of an imaginative collective vision, intensified by the globally perceived events of his epoch, which included the Great Depression, two world wars, and the rise of fascism. In “The Noble Rider,” Stevens refers to this shared collective sensibility as “the consciousness of the world,” which he feared would replace the “imagination,” as he put it in the same essay.1 “[F]or more than ten years,” Stevens wrote, “the consciousness of the world has concentrated on events which have made the ordinary movement of life seem to be the movement of people in the intervals of a storm” (CPP 655). Seen at once as a creative and suffocating force, this consciousness of the world manifests itself most markedly in Stevens’s envisaging of the poetic imagination as a potential source for a global vision of collectivity, or what he calls a “civil...

A skeptical reflection: Contextualizing police shooting decisions with skin-tone.

This commentary expands the discussion of Cesario's Missing Forces Flaw by identifying and discussing variables that influence police shooting decisions but are often absent from bias-based research. Additionally, the closing identifies novel recommendations for future contextually related research.

The Humors in Hume's Skepticism

In the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, Hume’s skeptical reflections have plunged him into melancholy. He then proceeds through a complex series of stages, resulting in renewed interest in philosophy. Interpreters have struggled to explain the connection between the stages. I argue that Hume’s repeated invocation of the four humors of ancient and medieval medicine explains the succession, and sheds a new light on the significance of skepticism. The humoral context not only reveals that Hume conceives of skepticism primarily as a temperament, not a philosophical view or system. It also resolves a puzzle about how Hume can view skepticism as both an illness and a cure. The skeptical temperament can, depending on its degree of predominance, either contribute to or upset the balance of temperaments required for proper mental functioning.

What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Community? Commentary on “It Takes a Village to Sustain a Village” by Christina Hertel, Sophie Bacq, and Frank-Martin Belz

In light of Hertel et al.’s contribution, our commentary offers a constructive critique and reflects on three opportunities to continue expanding the frontiers in our limited understanding of commu...

Reflexiones escépticas, principiológicas y económicas sobre el consentimiento necesario para la recolección y tratamiento de datos

Is there a correspondence or affinity between the juridicalprincipiological and factual-economical conceptions for the effective protection of the consent of the holder of personal data when hiring in a network?Under the mantle of the present question, it aims to analyze the contemporary contractual scenario under the perspective of the privacy policy and the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD). In this context, it is proposed a skeptical reflection on the principles and economic guidelines defended by law and doctrine to verify if the consent is an instrument of real effectiveness to the tutelage of the subjects in network. The first topic concerns the conceptual and conceptual analysis of consent in the LGPD and in the specialized doctrine. The second topic deals with the limited rationality of the users of the network services in understanding the dispositions in the policies of privacy and in the terms of electronic services. At the end, it is concluded that despite the juridical and legal defense aimed at solidifying consent as an indispensable tool for collecting and processing data, the current electronic contractual model does not allow its effective concretization, proposing, in this case, an alternative. The rationale is anchored in the deductive, bibliographical and integrated research methods and in the case study technique.

COMPLEXITY THEORY AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Amongst the many calls for regulatory reform voiced in the wake of the global financial crisis, the contributions of Andrew G. Haldane and his colleagues at the Bank of England stand out as some of the most politically and intellectually ambitious. In 2009, Haldane, the Bank's Executive Director of Financial Stability, delivered a speech advocating the integration of complex systems theory (particularly as developed in the field of ecosystems science) into the toolkit of financial regulation. In an effort to understand what is at stake in such calls for theoretical and regulatory regime change, this article traces the prehistory of complex systems thinking in economics. It focuses special attention on two contributions to this minor tradition – the little-known later work of the Austrian neoliberal, Friedrich von Hayek, who elaborated a philosophy of spontaneous economic order on the basis of complex systems theory, and the more recent work of the so-called ‘new institutionalists’, economists who lay claim to the tradition of ‘evolutionary’ philosophy articulated by the neoclassical Alfred Marshall. These exemplary currents in economic complexity theory articulate very similar critiques of the neoclassical orthodoxy yet diverge sharply in their political commitments. This paper situates recent calls to import complexity theory into financial regulation in ambivalent tension between the Austrian and new institutionalist traditions. It concludes with some skeptical reflections on the notion that the financial crisis signals the ‘death of neoliberalism’.

Skepticism Between Excessiveness and Idleness

Abstract: Skepticism seems to have excessive consequences: the impossibility of successful enquiry and differentiated judgment. Yet if skepticism could avoid these consequences, it would seem idle. I offer an account of moderate skepticism that avoids both problems. Moderate skepticism avoids excessiveness because skeptical reflection and ordinary enquiry are immune from one another: a skeptical hypothesis is out of place when raised with in an ordinary enquiry. Conversely, the result of an ordinary enquiry cannot be used to disprove skepticism. This ‘immunity’ can be explained by theories such as contextualism, or sensitive invariantism. Moderate skepticism avoids idleness, because it can eliminate dogmatic elements from our commitments. An analogy is used to illustrate this: Consider someone who is rootless—someone who doesn't have a home. She won't take this conclusion to undermine her judgment that she is flying home for the holidays—even if she is sleeping in the guest bedroom. Similarly, a skeptic won't take the skeptical conclusion to undermine ordinary claims to know. Yet concluding that one is rootless is significant: it can shape one's commitments; for instance it can check one's nationalism. Similarly, accepting the skeptical conclusion is significant; it can undermine dogmatic commitments and ultimately bring about intellectual catharsis.

States with constitutions, constitutions without states, and democracy: skeptical reflections on Scheuerman's skeptical reflection

Let me first thank Bill Scheuerman for his long and rich argument on my different considerations of global and European constitutionalism and democracy. It was an inspiring reading, and I have learnt a lot by it. I agree with most of his basic assumptions, and even with some of his more critical remarks. Here, I will first take the opportunity to make some revisions and clarify some conceptual misunderstandings. I will then make some additional remarks on my theoretical framework, and the ideas of law and constitution which are fundamental for it. In the last section I discuss again the issue of state and constitution about which Scheuerman and I already had a short controversy in Constellations last year.1 This time, however, I will discuss the development of modern society in a broader historical, or evolutionary, perspective.

Postnational democracies without postnational states? Some skeptical reflections

Prominent critical theorists (including Jürgen Habermas) have embraced a radical democratic version of the popular notion of ‘global governance without government,’ according to which postnational democratization can be achieved without establishing robust firms of postnational statehood. The sources of the argument in Hauke Brunkhorst's recent theorizing are critically interrogated. Brunkhorst's interpretation of the European Union as an emerging case of postnational democracy, his critique of traditional ideas of state sovereignty, and Kelsenian notions about the primacy of global law are criticized. Robust democracy ‘beyond the nation-state’ will necessarily require the establishment of democratic postnational statehood.

Skeptical Reflections on Justice Aharon Barak's Optimism - The Judge in Democratic Society by Aharon Barak [Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2006] 360 pp.

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Cross‐border Higher Education in India: False understandings and true overestimates

The on going debate about the (World Trade Organisation) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework brings out conflicting views about cross‐border education the world over. Between the enthusiastic views of trade promoters, at one end, and the sceptical reflections of academics with a traditional outlook, at the other, there are many different viewpoints. Academics who support the view that education should not be treated as a tradeable commodity argue that cross‐border education should always have a revenue generation approach that would be to the disadvantage of developing countries. There are trade enthusiasts who are convinced that the commercialisation of higher education at the global level is unavoidable in the near future and that it is up to the countries to prepare themselves to benefit from the new opportunities of the global market. Sometimes strong criticism of these academics is based on false understandings. It is also true that the views of trade promoters might be equally wrong in some national contexts, based only on optimistic overestimations rather than on grounded realities. This paper explores these false understandings and overestimations that shape the arguments about cross‐border education in the Indian context.

Contextualism Reconsidered: Some Skeptical Reflections

A number of theorists have touted the merits of the contextual approach to political theory, arguing that a close examination of real-world cases is more likely to yield both theoretical insight and practical solutions to pressing problems. This is particularly evident, it is argued, in the field of multiculturalism in political theory. The present paper offers some skeptical reflections on this view, arguing the merits of a view of political theory which sees the contextual approach as less distinctive than its proponents imagine, and less useful than many would suggest. It maintains that there are serious limits to what political theorists can achieve, even if political theory is not without its uses if we value social criticism.

The Future of European Welfare: A New Social Contract?

Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors List of Tables and Charts Introduction: Europe's Social Contract under Stress M. Rhodes & Y. Meny PART ONE: INTERPRETATIONS Unemployment and Social Exclusion: An Economic View P. Ormerod Poverty and Social Exclusion: A Sociological View S. Paugam Against Exclusion: the Poor and the Social Sciences G. Procacci PART TWO: WELFARE SYSTEMS UNDER STRESS The Four 'Social Europes': Between Universalism and Selectivity M. Ferrera The Evolution of Financial Poverty in Western Europe K. Van Den Bosch In Defence of Welfare: Social Protection and Social Reform in Eastern Europe U. Gotting PART THREE: WELFARE AND THE GLOBAL ARENA Negative and Positive Integration in the Political Economy of European Welfare States F. Scharpf Globalisation, Labour Markets and Welfare States: A Future of 'Competitive Corporatism'? M. Rhodes Global and Regional Agencies and the Making of Post-Communist Social Policy in Eastern Europe B. Deacon PART FOUR: THE SEARCH FOR A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT The Social Contract and the Problem of the Firm C. Crouch European Social Citizenship: Why a New Social Contract Will (Probably) Not Happen B. Jordan Some Sceptical Reflections on EU Citizenship as the Basis of a New Social Contract C. Closa Index

Media Literacy in Support of Critical Thinking

One of the main aims of the Education agenda in the last decade has been to develop critical thinking (C. T.) in children, in order to educate them to be active, involved citizens in democratic society. Different Media Literacy (M.L.) studies explore C.T. towards media texts by cultivating the pupils’ ability to respond critically to both surface and underlying media messages. This paper discusses partial results of a research study designed to examine the support provided by an M.L. program in the development of C.T. of pupils aged 10‐12 years in northern Israel. The resulting data demonstrate that M.L. programmatic intervention and its long‐term cumulative effect were two important factors underlying the significant differences found among the test groups. An interesting variable was also found which explained the superior results of the low achievements pupils (as evaluated by their teachers) compared with the less pronounced gains found among the high achievement pupils. Finally the paper asks theoretical questions about the extent to which a young critical thinker is capable of skeptical reflection towards media texts.

A rise of racism and fascism in contemporary Europe?: Some sceptical reflections on its nature and extent

Abstract This article examines recent suggestions that manifestations of racism and fascism are becoming more widespread throughout Europe. Without denying that there may have been a ‘rise in racism’, it is argued that statistical evidence of a rise in racist incidents also reflects an increased willingness to report these incidents. In turn this may reflect a greater political recognition of the dangers of racism and fascism. This recognition brings with it its own problematic, implying a demand for political action to avert an impending evil. Doomsday scenarios of a looming catastrophe, akin to events in the 1930s, do not adequately reflect the complex and troubling issues now facing Europe.

The camera eye as I witness: Sceptical reflections on the “Hidden Messages” ofAnthropology and Photography, 1860–1920

Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. Anthropology and Photography, 1860–1920. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, in association with the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1992, illus., index, xi, 275 pp, £19.95.

Serious Questions. An ABC of Skeptical Reflections

Serious Questions. An ABC of Skeptical Reflections

Skeptical Reflections on a Europe of Regions: Britain, Germany, and the ERDF

ABSTRACTEuropean Community policymaking has been predicated upon the member governments acting as gatekeepers which mediate between their respective domestic political systems and EC institutions. However, the sweeping changes associated with Project 1992 threaten the gatekeeping status of the Twelve. This article explores the domestic and international consequences, which are cast in terms of three scenarios: the maintenance of the status quo, the emergence of a ‘Europe of Regions’, and a variegated set of outcomes. As an attempt to move beyond the realm of pure speculation, concrete lessons are culled from the reform of the European Regional Development Fund since 1979 and its effect on national and subnational interests in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. The theoretical premise is that national and subnational actors respond to Community initiatives within a structured context, the domestic policy networks in which they are embedded. These clusters of interorganizational relationships at the domestic level reflect the underlying distribution of resources among actors, and endow them with different capabilities and vulnerabilities as they seek to cope with changes administered to their policy environment by the EC. The findings suggest skepticism of the image of strengthened regions breaking out of the orbit of weakened states with the assistance of the EC. While the ability of member states to retain their roles as gatekeepers varies, this capacity remains strong. Moreover, subnational actors often view the EC as yet another exogenous institutional constraint on action.

E. Chargaff, Serious Questions — an ABC of Skeptical Reflections. VIII + 261 S. Boston—Basel—Stuttgart 1987. Birkhäuser Verlag. ISBN: 3‐7643‐3337‐5

Journal of Basic MicrobiologyVolume 28, Issue 4 p. 279-279 Book Review E. Chargaff, Serious Questions — an ABC of Skeptical Reflections. VIII + 261 S. Boston—Basel—Stuttgart 1987. Birkhäuser Verlag. ISBN: 3-7643-3337-5 Horst Malke, Horst Malke JenaSearch for more papers by this author Horst Malke, Horst Malke JenaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 1988 https://doi.org/10.1002/jobm.3620280412AboutPDF 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 onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume28, Issue41988Pages 279-279 RelatedInformation