bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Posthuman
Authors: Burton Justin Adams
Published: October 2017

Posthumanism is most often theorized as a technological/human hybridity, but here I consider a posthumanism that follows Sylvia Wynter’s insistence on a humanism that “exists outside the present conception of what it is to be human.” That present conception is neoliberal humanism, which constructs the human in the image of a hyper-capitalist marketplace that favors whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and fixed gender identities. Here, I turn toward a posthumanism that uses critical race and queer theories to find ways of being that are less violent to those who are black, queer, and feminine. What I’m interested in here is the kind of posthumanity that actively reconstructs what has long been a violently restrictive category: human.
“Desperate for Intimacy”
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

Chapter 6 shifts focus from French to North American real sex films, beginning with film reviewers’ positive response to the film Shortbus because it contains an optimistic humor absent from European-made films. Addressing these industry critiques of European “doomed, furtive or violent” real sex as in Intimacy, the chapter asks: Does this represent a different worldview? It draws on Kelley Conway’s interest in seeking out different authorship/generic configurations within a historical “malaise” by exploring the layers of narrative history conveyed by comedy and political subtext in John Cameron Mitchell’s U.S-made film Shortbus. The chapter argues that Shortbus and Michael Winterbottom’s British real sex film 9 Songs have a similar combination of sex and music, but find that this is used in very different narrative ways. Moreover, unlike 9 Songs, Shortbus has a strong political subtext that critiques both the current (capitalist) commoditization of communication technologies and the US invasion of Iraq.
French Philosophies of Qualitative Research
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

This chapter focuses on the French traditions of structuralism and post-structuralism. What unites structuralists, post-structuralists, and many qualitative scholars who work on the basis of post-structuralism is a detachment of meaning from the world. Saussure argued that meaning is not found in the references of language but, rather, internally in language as a structure. Once meaning lost its ties to the world as such, the road was open for postmodernists and others who study discourses, representations, and social constructions as symbolic spheres in their own right. With the deconstructionist approach, there is a further willingness to unsettle the signifiers and show how everything can in principle be otherwise. In other words, everything obvious is always already rendered dubious. The postmodern attitude is a stance of openness to and tolerance of the idea that there are no stable foundations—no secure ways that our understandings are hooked on to the world.
Introduction
Authors: Choi Mihwa
Published: October 2017

This study inquires into the historical question of how the politics surrounding death rituals contributed to the revival of Confucianism. It examines major changes in ritual performance both at the imperial court and in society at large during the reigns from Zhenzong to Shenzong. It investigates how polarizing debates about death rituals introduced new terrain for political power dynamics between monarchy and officialdom, and between groups of politically and intellectually divided court officials. In order to answer why death rituals in particular became focal points of contention, it delineates the social imaginaries implied in the distinct death rituals preferred by three powerful and competing social groups—emperors, scholar-officials, and rich merchants. It also aims to engage the theoretical question of how diverse social groups’ contentions over ritual were enmeshed in the struggle over social imaginaries between groups as they envisioned different construction of social reality.
Exploring the Limits of Modularity
Authors: Garrett Merrill F.
Published: October 2017

Psycholinguistic studies of language processing have revolved historically around “modular” and “interactive” accounts of language use. Experimental reports diverge in claims for the penetration of non-linguistic background information on processing for sentence comprehension. Syntactic processing effects can persist despite available contextual constraints that are sufficient to resolve temporary ambiguity or garden path errors. Nevertheless, there are multiple reports of interactive effects between basic sentence processing and both semantic and non-linguistic contextual information. The chapter suggests a rationalization of such conflicting findings in standard psycholinguistic and experimental pragmatic research, relying on interactions between language comprehension systems and language production systems. Production processes are designed to incorporate discourse and environmental constraints on linguistic formulation. These may be used to filter the products of comprehension mechanisms. A key feature of the argument for complementary roles of the two systems is a degree of modular processing for syntax to be found in both systems.
The Neurobiological Bases for the Computational Theory of Mind
Authors: Gallistel C. Randy
Published: October 2017

The language of thought hypothesis is one of Fodor’s seminal contributions to cognitive science. Prominent among the objections to it has been the argument that there is no neurobiological evidence for materially realized symbols in the brain. If memory is materially realized by enduring alterations in synaptic conductances, then this is true, because the synaptic-conductance hypothesis is simply the ancient associative learning hypothesis couched in neurobiological language. Associations are not symbols and cannot readily be made to function as such, thus neurobiologists are unable to say how simple information—for example, the durations of intervals in simple Pavlovian conditioning paradigms—are stored in altered synaptic conductances. Recent results from several laboratories converge, strongly suggesting that memories do not reside in altered synaptic conductances but rather at the molecular level inside neurons. The chapter reviews the experimental evidence for this revolutionary conclusion, as well as the plausibility arguments for it.
Imagination at the Frontiers of Psychology
Authors: Zittoun Tania , Glăveanu Vlad Petre
Published: October 2017

This introductory chapter presents the goals, scope, and organization of the Handbook. The main goals are to bring back imagination from the frontiers of psychology to its center and to show the fundamental role that imagination plays in individual lives and in society. The chapter opens with a series of examples of daily imagination, suggesting the centrality of this cultural phenomenon. It then presents the paradox of bringing together “imagination”—often thought as inner and individual, and “culture”—often thought as external and collective. Here, the authors propose a sociocultural psychology that considers these phenomena as mutually constitutive. The chapter presents the four epistemological assumptions of the approach and sketches the contributions of other disciplines that at least partially share these assumptions. On this basis, a first definition of imagination is proposed. Finally, the structure of the book is presented.
The Philosophy of Imagination
Authors: Jørgensen Dorthe
Published: October 2017

In this chapter various understandings of imagination from antiquity to the present day are presented and interpreted. On this background a new interpretation of imagination grounded in a philosophy of experience is introduced. With a departure point in contemporary philosophy as well as ancient Greek and Jewish thought, the author presents the theories of imagination formulated by Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, along with interpretations of their thinking from the hermeneutic phenomenological tradition. Other important positions from the medieval and modern periods are also addressed, including those of Vico and Baumgarten. The chapter shows that imagination is essential to cognition, moral action, and aesthetic experience. It is also evidenced from this chapter that imagination is crucial to a kind of thinking that has been called “sensitive,” “aesthetic,” and “expanded” and that is a presupposition of thinking and acting led by both reason and understanding.
Theater and Imagination to (Re)Discover Reality
Authors: Zittoun Tania , Rosenstein Adeline
Published: October 2017

Imagination plays a central role in theater. This chapter first examines how psychology has apprehended theater—as a metaphor, a tool, a cultural experience and as a sociocultural practice. It then examines the particular case of documentary theater, a genre used to bring on stage informative contents aimed at developing the viewer’s critical stance. Altogether, the authors propose a sociocultural understanding of imagination, and thus show how more specifically the theatrical choices made in the recent play Décris-Ravage triggers the viewers’ active imagination, invite them to reflect on the knowledge they have, or initiate a movement of further exploration. Finally, the authors sketch the consequences for an understanding of theater as a cultural form, and of imagination.
Music and Imagination
Authors: Klempe Sven Hroar
Published: October 2017

Music is close to language, and when we listen to music, we may also imagine certain events, stories, and the like. The differences, although obvious, are not so easy to detect. These subtle nuances are examined in this chapter with the aim of delineating the general traits of musical imagination. The author defines musical imagination in terms of a human act that provides a type of framework for cognition in which cognition and sensations are united in feelings. This also forms the basis for verticality, which is expressed in terms of musical polyphony. The multitude in musical polyphony opens up for a sort of community, which brings in a social dimension. As long as the social community forms the basis of cultural psychology, a thorough understanding of musical imagination may contribute to a more complete understanding of cultural psychology as well.
From Imagination to Well-Controlled Images
Authors: Marková Ivana
Published: October 2017

Imagination is one of the basic mental capacities that define humans as a species. Throughout history, the capacities of imagination and of liberated thought have always constituted threats to political and religious powers. Using the example of two dictatorships in the 20th century, Nazism and Stalinism, this chapter shows that these regimes used the capacity to imagine by enforcing the development of images that served their totalitarian purposes. Negative features of social imaginaries, like technicization and bureaucratization, also infiltrated nontotalitarian systems and modern democracies. Imagination is intertwined with other features of the dialogical mind and, therefore, can be understood only if explored in a holistic manner as a feature of thinking, in relation to language and other symbolic capacities and in their sociocultural contexts.
Morale
Authors: Ussishkin Daniel
Published: October 2017

The book charts the institutional, cultural, and political history of morale in modern imperial Britain. First emerging in the nineteenth century as a residual problem in military disciplinary discussions, morale gradually emerged as a central problem in the management of groups, and, during the twentieth century, was diffused to other, civilian spheres of life. By the era of the Second World War, morale had become a ubiquitous and truly British concept. Its management was seen as vital for securing victory in war and, later on, as central to the goals of industrial management in a democratic age. In its name, Britons have generated a host of institutional practices to promote and observe morale, and it served as an important organizing principle for a host of social-psychological and managerial knowledge. Throughout the book, morale is examined both as a disciplinary technology to maximize productivity or collective capacity, and as encompassing a broader political vision for the management of society. Military theorists who feared the prospect of imperial decline, industrial psychologists who lamented the prevalence of social alienation, promoters of the British welfare state who insisted on the relationship between morale, sacrifice, and postwar reconstruction, all articulated their endeavor as a quest for a social emollient, seemingly lost in a disintegrated modern civil society. Morale ends with the transformations in the understanding of morale and the political visions to which it has been linked, against the backdrop of the crumbling of the social-democratic state and the ascendancy of the New Right.
Introduction
Authors: Ussishkin Daniel
Published: October 2017

THIS BOOK TELLS the history of a concept that since the middle of the twentieth century has become ubiquitous and potent. We understand morale to be an important, if not the most important, determinant of conduct. It is seen as the foundation of proper management, which aims at increasing collective capacity of a defined group, usually in the face of a difficulty or challenge. Such groups may be experienced as one of immediate nature (such as a platoon) or as a more remote, abstract, or imagined one (a large factory, a nation, a group defined by occupation). Primarily, morale is understood as determinant of capacity in ways that are seemingly self-evident. British Army Doctrine Publication, for instance, tells us that “no doctrine, plan or formula for conducting warfare or other military actions is likely to succeed without the maintenance of morale.”...
Disorienting Frameworks
Authors: Ritzinger Justin R.
Published: October 2017

This chapter offers a close reading of Taixu’s anarchist essays. Published in the journals of the Chinese Socialist Party and the Socialist Party, these pieces were not included in the posthumously edited Complete Works and thus have been largely lost to scholars. The chapter argues that we find in these essays a series of shifting articulations of the moral frameworks that would animate Taixu’s Maitreyan theology: revolutionary utopia and Buddhahood. These articulations shift among three different approaches: economic-materialist, sociocultural, and existential-metaphysical. Yet they display a consistent concern with Datong, or utopia; the means by which it can be brought about; and the knowledge that makes this transformation possible.
Bodhisattva of Progress
Authors: Ritzinger Justin R.
Published: October 2017

This chapter offers an analysis of Taixu’s Maitreyan theology through a close reading of his commentaries on the Three Essentials—the texts he identified as the cult’s foundation. These were the “Chapter on Knowing Reality,” the Yoga Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa, and the Sutra of Maitreya’s Ascent. It argues that Taixu found in these texts, and in his interpretations augmented, indigenous analogues to the key values that inspired him as a young anarchist: science, a revolutionary ethic, and utopia. These texts further allowed him to bring these values into meaningful relationship with the core Buddhist good of Buddhahood.
Laws, Judgment, and Political Obligations of Commitment
Authors: Marin Mara
Published: October 2017

Chapter 3 argues that laws make individuals vulnerable to each other, a vulnerability that is obscured by a belief that laws are meant to insulate individuals from each other. While laws are meant to protect individuals from their vulnerability to other people’s power, this protective function is wrongly understood as erasing this vulnerability. The vulnerability cannot be erased because laws have to be interpreted, enforced, and given particular institutional form, and all of these are processes enacted by human beings in which the mutual vulnerability resurfaces. In the course of these processes, laws put us in particular social relations to each other. We should understand the protective function of laws in terms of the quality of these social relations. Laws protect us—and thus create binding obligations to obey them—when they create equal, nonhierarchical social relations. As these relations depend on the continuous, long-term action of those governed by the same system of law, we should understand our obligations under the law on the model of commitment.
Essay on an Ontology of the Mexican (1951)
Authors: Uranga Emilio
Published: October 2017

Emilio Uranga challenges the underlying assumptions of Samuel Ramos’s popular and controversial thesis regarding the “Mexican inferiority complex.” Uranga’s basic claim, influenced by Heidegger, is that Ramos’s analysis overlooks a more foundational “difference”: that between ontological sufficiency and insufficiency. Ramos’s analysis remains always at an ontic, or philosophically superficial, level of explanation, attributing “inferiority” to the Mexican character without explaining that on which it is grounded. The clue to its grounding lies in fragility, unwillingness, and melancholy, seemingly essential characteristics that define Mexican existence. Thus, fragility is not related to a simple feeling of inferiority, which is itself related to actual intersubjective relationships between Mexicans and their European colonizers, but rather to a more complex emotive life predicated on an unconscious awareness of a primordial relationship to nothingness and non-being. Unwillingness, likewise, is not a simple lack of will, but a refusal to be part of the world.
The Problem of Truth (1960)
Authors: Villegas Abelardo
Published: October 2017

This text is the conclusion to Abelardo Villegas’s seminal work, La filosofía de lo mexicano, which does not dismiss the philosophy of lo mexicano outright. His conflict is with the method underscoring that philosophical project: historicism. Historicism, or the view that truth is dependent on history, offers Mexican philosophers an opportunity to articulate their philosophies as historical beings, thus contributing historical difference to the philosophical conversation. However, historicists face a fundamental “aporia,” as their project calls for defining an essentially historical being (the Mexican) using ahistorical categories (e.g. solitude, accidentality, melancholy, etc.). Thus, Villegas chastises Emilio Uranga for his “essentialism,” for looking for essences while grounding his approach in history. Villegas concludes that a philosophy of lo mexicano is possible—not one grounded on the uniqueness of the Mexican experience, but one that grounds the possibility of communicating that uniqueness to other peoples and other times.
Congregations
Authors: Nason-Clark Nancy , Fisher-Townsend Barbara , Holtmann Catherine , McMullin Stephen
Published: October 2017

At its best, congregational life operates as a church family in which members celebrate with those who are joyous and weep with those who are suffering. They offer assistance, guidance, and friendship. They worship together and seek to live their lives according to the principles that they share. At its worst, congregational life operates as a dysfunctional family in which controlling, abusive behavior abounds, support is non-existent, jealousy and rivalry flourish, and isolation and loneliness prevail. Harnessing data from clergy, members of congregations, and those impacted directly by domestic violence, this chapter considers both the challenges for congregations related to abuse and the opportunities that ministry in this area offers. The chapter discusses practical ways that congregations can make a difference in the lives of families dealing with violence at home.
Training Religious Leaders and Faith-Based Resources
Authors: Nason-Clark Nancy , Fisher-Townsend Barbara , Holtmann Catherine , McMullin Stephen
Published: October 2017

Few religious leaders feel well equipped to respond to the needs of families impacted by abuse, and neither do recent seminary graduates. There is a chasm between the needs of pastors for preparation to respond to this critical social issue and current levels of training and preparation. This chapter explores the process and content of training religious leaders to respond compassionately and with best practices to abuse in their congregations and the communities in which they serve, with reference to both empirical data and experience in offering such seminars and workshops. The chapter also examines the factors associated with the reluctance of many seminaries to equip their students for this area of ministry.
Sentencing the Multiple Offender
Authors: Roberts Julian V. , Ryberg Jesper , de Keijser Jan W.
Published: October 2017

This book examines the complexities of sentencing when the offender stands convicted of multiple crimes. Contributors tackle the problem of multiple-offense sentencing in different ways and diverse perspectives. They consider the potential justifications for adopting a different approach when sentencing multiple offenders, one that results in more lenient sentences than would be the case if the crimes had been committed (and punished) as single offenses. They also discuss the courts’ pragmatic solutions to the problem, including the totality principle and the concept of overall proportionality, as well as proposals to justify the so-called bulk discount for multiple offending. Finally, they address the tension that exists between multiple concurrent crimes, and multiple crimes committed and punished sequentially.
Sentencing the Multiple Offender
Authors: Ashworth Andrew , Wasik Martin
Published: October 2017

This chapter discusses the principle of custodial sentencing for multiple offenders, focusing primarily on the jurisdiction of England. In England, the tools for determining custodial sentences in the case of multiple offending are threefold: concurrent sentences, consecutive sentences, and the totality principle. Custodial sentences imposed on the same sentencing occasion in England cannot overlap. This means that the total sentence must always be arrived at through a combination of concurrent and/or consecutive sentences. The chapter first explains the rationale of the totality principle and its component parts before advancing the argument that totality should be regarded as the determining principle when sentencing for multiple offenses. It also considers the approach of some other jurisdictions and concludes by proposing necessary changes in the sentencing guidelines for England and Wales.
English and I
Authors: Dressman Michael R.
Published: October 2017

Challenges facing the History of the English Language (HEL) instructor include the students’ lack of preparation for such a course, as well as the students’ lack of motivation to see how this course has any relationship to them. To spur interest in the HEL class, the instructor can use the students in the class themselves as a starting place for the study of the origins and development of the language. Every student has a history with the English language. Let students explore how the language came into their lives and investigate what part it has played in shaping them. Also, use course assignments that employ the students’ own experiences and interests, such as a linguistically based review of a film in a less familiar English variety or a five-minute talk on a broad topic, related to the course and in which the speaker is interested and has become a superficial expert.
Ethics at the Edges of Law
Authors: Kaveny Cathleen
Published: October 2017

Ethics at the Edges of Law: Christian Moralists and American Legal Thought shows how methods and doctrines drawn from the American legal tradition can constructively advance the discussion of key issues in Christian ethics. More broadly, the book argues that religious ethicists should consider legal thought to be a valuable conversation partner on a par with philosophical thought. Each of the chapters places the work of an important contemporary figure in Christian ethics in conversation with particular legal cases and questions. The book is divided into three major parts: “Narratives and Norms,” “Love, Justice, and Law,” and “Legal Categories and Theological Problems.” Ethicists considered include John Noonan Jr., Stanley Hauerwas, Jeffrey Stout, Gene Outka, Margaret Farley, Paul Ramsey, Robert E. Rodes Jr., Walter Kasper, Germain Grisez and H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. Legal topics explored include the development of the common law as a morally rich tradition, the relationship between rules and particular cases, and the role of individual experience in formulating generally applicable norms. Theological issues discussed include the meaning of covenant fidelity, the requirements of compassion, and the demands of neighbor love. Fruitful intersections between law and theological ethics are developed by considering particular examples and cases from contract law, criminal law, and health-care law. Ethics at the Edges of Law ends by examining the various and often conflicting meanings of the term “legalism,” which has long been considered a derogatory term in Christian moral thought.
The Everyday and the Exceptional
Authors: Dutta Urmitapa
Published: October 2017

This chapter makes a case for reconceptualizing human rights “from below” by grounding human rights discourses in women’s particularities and their voices rather than prescriptive policy standards. It does so by bringing together feminist perspectives grounded in decoloniality and liberation psychology. It presents findings from activist scholarship in Northeast India to offer a critical feminist analysis of civil society’s (non)response to gender-based violence and counternarratives of Garo women protagonists who explain these (non)responses. Following Garo women protagonists in their understanding of violence illuminates the fundamental heterogeneity of violence against women as well as underlying cultural institutional and structural processes. By moving between situated narrative and wider analysis, this chapter explicates the connections between “exceptional” violence and pervasive violations of women’s human rights. The research, action, and policy implications for feminist psychologists engaged in human rights scholarship are discussed.
Abbasid Courtesans and the Question of Social Mobility
Authors: Gordon Matthew S.
Published: October 2017

This chapter considers the rise to prominence by enslaved and freed persons in the major urban centers of the first Abbasid period (c. 750–900 CE). It uses the example of elite female performers at the Abbasid court, and, as evidence, a set of passages concerning three of the women, all of which occur in the 10th-century Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj al-Isbahani (d.c. 972). The passages voice the same complaint: that the singer in question was wrongly enslaved. These texts are then weighed in light of the question of upward social mobility. The singers, despite the odds, achieved and, in certain cases, sustained preeminence. The phenomenon is familiar to historians, as a number of Abbasid–era notables emerged from slavery to achieve elite standing, whether as members of political, commercial, and military circles or at the highest levels of culture and scholarship.
The Mothers of the Caliph’s Sons
Authors: Empey Heather J.
Published: October 2017

The chapter considers women taken as spoils of war (ghanima) and then distributed as concubines or sold into slavery, this during the rise to power of the Almohads, the dynasty that ruled the Islamic West (the Maghrib) from 1147 to 1269 CE. The story of these women provides a unique window onto a wider political and ideological shift—the rise of the Almohad state—in which they were significant pawns. Information on Almohad concubines and female slaves also provides a close glance at the conduct of Almohad warfare that we do not find elsewhere either in primary sources or modern secondary literature. The chapter is a welcome contribution to what remains a limited body of English-language scholarship on medieval North African history.
Remembering the Umm al-Walad
Authors: Mirza Younus Y.
Published: October 2017

The chapter raises new questions regarding the development of Islamic law, specifically as it relates to the figure of the umm al-walad (the concubine mother of the master’s child). It contends that the umm al-walad played an important role in the development of Islamic conceptions of sexuality, religious authority, and humanity. It turns on a close reading of the treatise of the great hadith scholar and historian Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), regarding the sale of the umm al-walad. The treatise demonstrates that, over many centuries, Muslim jurists struggled to define the umm al-walad’s standing. Debates of the kind, for example, divided Sunni and Shi’ite scholars. The treatise sheds important light on the rich spectrum of debate that took place in Mamluk society (c. 1250–1517) over the question of slavery.
Retail Thinking Comes to Health Care
Authors: Hoff Timothy J.
Published: October 2017

Retail thinking and tactics are beginning to find their way into health care delivery, further impacting the ability to have strong, dyadic doctor-patient relationships. External forces described in Chapter 2 and poor patient experiences provide fertile soil for their growth. The retail rhetoric consists of heavy emphasis on “value,” “transparency,” “branding,” and “consumer activation.” The implementation of retail tactics into health care shifts the emphasis from relational to transactional forms of exchange, the latter emphasizing short-duration exchanges between buyer and seller, standardized obligations, and economic satisfaction. Retail approaches give large health care organizations greater power given their scale and resources to engage in key retail tactics such as data analytics, market segmentation, marketing, and price competition. There are tangible reasons for bringing some aspects of retail thinking into health care. Their application, however, brings risks for patients and their care, and threatens to undermine doctor-patient relationships further.
Saving the Doctor-Patient Relationship and Raising Expectations
Authors: Hoff Timothy J.
Published: October 2017

We are moving quickly toward a corporately controlled, transactionally focused health care delivery system, one that sees patients as “consumers.” Retail thinking continues to take hold in the industry, emitting a rhetoric that promises much and places the organization at the center of the patient’s interactions with the system. Preserving strong, effective doctor-patient relationships in the midst of such change requires the medical profession to focus more on relational care in its training and advocacy; raising the importance of relational features such as trust and empathy in performance measurements and incentive plans for doctors; and trying to “monetize” relational care between doctor and patient in ways that make health care delivery organizations and the industry as a whole want to focus on it more as a source of brand-building and consumer loyalty.
The Limits of Free Will
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: October 2017

This volume contains a selection of chapters concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology, and, more recently, neuroscience. The chapters included in this collection were written and first published over a period of three decades, although most have appeared in the past decade or so. During this period this area of philosophy has been particularly active and it continues to attract a great deal of interest and attention. Among the topics covered, as they relate to these problems, are the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism.
Causation, Compulsion, and Compatibilism
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: October 2017

This chapter examines certain salient features of the influential compatibilist position that is widely associated with the views of several leading figures of the empiricist tradition (Hobbes, Hume, Mill, Russell, Ayer, etc.). The empiricist-compatibilist strategy falls, essentially, into two distinct stages of argument. The first stage, referred to as the “compulsion argument,” seeks to describe the general significance of the distinction between causation and compulsion for the free will dispute. The second stage of this strategy, referred to as the “regularity argument,” endeavors to reconstruct the compulsion argument on the foundation of the regularity theory of causation. Proponents of this strategy claim that the regularity argument strengthens the compatibilist position. This chapter argues, on the contrary, that the regularity argument generates serious difficulties for the compulsion argument and that it, therefore, weakens the compatibilist position.
Practical Reason and Motivational Skepticism
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: October 2017

This chapter takes up a crucial debate between Christine Korsgaard and Bernard Williams on the subject of practical reason. Korsgaard argues that if reason can itself identify substantive ends for our actions, independent of our existing desires, then there is no genuine or distinct motivational problem about how reasons can move (rational) agents to action. In criticism of this, it is argued that when we sever the link between reasons and desires we encounter a problem about whether the internalism requirement holds for pure practical reasons. If Kantian ethical theory is to find some way to explain motivation, as it concerns pure practical reason, it needs to say more about this problem. Certainly it cannot evade it on the basis of the internalist assumption that pure practical reasons must be capable of motivating rational persons. Any assumption of this kind simply begs the question against the motivational skeptic.
Songs with Consequences?
Authors: Stirr Anna Marie
Published: October 2017

This chapter focuses on the pragmatics of dohori singing in rural songfests. With a comparative focus on different types of songfest across Nepal’s rural hill areas, it addresses how songfests frame performances in ways that allow for particular pragmatic effects. These are based on forms of ritualized material and musical exchange that idealize the production of equality, yet often still reproduce inequality. It tells the history of dohori as a means of communication across social divides, often with significant material stakes in binding contests that could end in marriage. It discusses dohori’s historical connections with labor exchange and marriage exchange to show how this practice of singing is grounded in ways of producing equality and hierarchy. It gives examples of how binding dohori contests or song duels have been considered threats to the social order and how their outcomes have been reintegrated, changing aspects of individuals’ lives and social relations.
The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity
Authors: Levesque Roger J.R.
Published: October 2017

The law does not square with people’s experiences of segregation and diversity. An empirical look at the legal system’s effectiveness in addressing school segregation reveals, from a practical perspective, that segregation persists and even surpasses levels before the civil rights movement. Yet, the legal system continues as though segregation is a thing of the past. Even more bizarre, the negative effects of racial and ethnic disparities in schooling are well documented, and the legal system compels itself to ignore much of them. To exacerbate matters, legal analysts increasingly interpret the law as a system that operates in a different world than the one documented by researchers who describe disparities and what could be done about them. For their part, researchers pervasively continue to document experiences without considering the legal system’s basic concerns. This book details the source of these gaps, evaluates their empirical and legal foundation, explains why they persist, and reveals what can be done about them.
Interpreting Islam in China
Authors: Petersen Kristian
Published: October 2017

This book explores the contours of the Han Kitab tradition through discussing the works of some of its brightest luminaries in order to identify and explicate pivotal transitions in Sino-Muslim engagement with the Islamic tradition. A distinctive intellectual tradition emerged during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Sino-Muslims established an educational system known as scripture hall education (jingtang jiaoyu經堂教育‎), which utilized an Islamic curriculum made of Arabic, Persian, and Chinese works. The Han Kitab, a corpus of Chinese-language Islamic texts developed within this system, reinterpreted Islam through the lens of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian terminology. Three prominent Sino-Muslim authors are representative of major junctures within the history of Sino-Islamic thought and are used to illustrate discursive transformations within this tradition: Wang Daiyu 王岱輿‎ (1590–1658), the earliest important author; Liu Zhi 劉智‎ (1670–1724), the most prolific scholar; and Ma Dexin 馬德新‎ (1794–1874), the last major intellectual in premodern China. The chapters explore how these authors defined being a Muslim through an examination of their thoughts on the hajj, the Qur’an, and the Arabic language. In the discussions, I analyze how they deployed the categories of pilgrimage, scripture, and language in their writings, as well as their strategic objectives in doing so. More broadly, this book fosters an exploration of issues of vernacularization, translation, centers and peripheries, and tradition. It offers theoretical directions for redescription of critical categories in the study of religion, especially within translingual Muslim communities.
History of the Development of the Sino-Muslim Community
Authors: Petersen Kristian
Published: October 2017

Chapter 1 sketches a brief history of Muslims in China to aid in understanding the development of Sino-Islamic scholarship and the shifting contours of this tradition. The establishment of local religious institutions and a unique body of Chinese literature was predicated by the changing attitudes of foreign and local Muslims in relation to political, economic, and cultural policies. The chapter focuses on the transmission of Islam to China as it affected the development of Islamic thought, and situate this process within the Chinese cultural environment and then in the broader Eurasian context, focusing on global relationships and interactions across geographical boundaries. Locally, dynastic history shaped the Sino-Muslim community and their scholarly production, while developments abroad provided episodic intellectual nourishment. In this discussion, I also spar with some theoretical challenges that arise in any analysis of Asian Muslim communities—namely, the processes of Islamization, vernacularization, and syncretism.
Arabic Discourse, Linguistic Authority, and Islamic Knowledge
Authors: Petersen Kristian
Published: October 2017

This chapter outlines the use of Arabic by Wang Daiyu, Liu Zhi, and Ma Dexin, as well as the guiding principles behind it. I trace the shifting motivations that caused these scholars to employ Arabic and determine why they chose to utilize it in their writings. I argue that the use of Arabic became more prominent over time because Sino-Muslims found themselves in a shrinking world, where the global Muslim population was establishing more contact and communication between disparate local communities. Arabic acted as a unifier between divergent linguistic and cultural Muslim communities in both theological and practical levels. The language served as a means for social and religious positioning through the posturing of Han Kitab discursive models and linguistic revision. Han Kitab scholarship joined the perceived orthodox Islamic intellectual tradition through the use of an established discursive framework when employing Arabic.
Philosophy of Science
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

Psychology grew out of philosophy, and the science of psychology is at the heart of how psychologists develop a body of knowledge. Despite the central role of science and philosophy in psychology, sport and exercise psychologists often ignore issues related to philosophy of science. This chapter discusses the scientific method upon which most quantitative research is based. It also discusses ontological and epistemological issues and the various philosophical assumptions that underpin research. In particular, two epistemological opposites are addressed, social constructionism and cognitivism, along with their strengths and weaknesses and resultant implications for past and future research. Because psychology is inherently the study of how and why people think and act, to completely disavow the mind as the primary cause of human agency is antithetical to the discipline and profession of psychology. Thus considerable attention is given to refuting critics who refute the primacy of the mind and its role in human behavior while still acknowledging that social, environmental, and culture factors play important roles in people’s lives.
Leaving Sport
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

This chapter addresses the unique difficulties that disabled athletes face upon leaving sport. For instance, because athletes with disabilities tend to have less social connectedness than that of able-bodied athletes, further reducing it upon leaving a team may be problematic. Retiring athletes also experience numerous barriers to fitting in lifestyle physical activity and formal exercise. Hence they are at risk for overweight, obesity, and associated hypokinetic diseases. Athletes with disabilities are often intensely committed to sport, have strong and sometimes exclusive athletic identities, and disregard other important aspects of life. As a result, upon leaving sport they might experience a range of negative emotions, such as loss of self-esteem. At the same time, many athletes make the transition out of sport with relatively minor anguish. In some cases athletes look forward to leaving daily hard practices behind and embrace the opportunity to have more time to pursue other interests. For some athletes the difficulty of a transition is eased by remaining in sport as a coach or manager. Government programs are being developed for elite-level athletes , such as career assistance programs, to help athletes’ successful transition out of sport and into careers.
Supercrip Identity
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

A common stereotype in the disability literature is known as the supercrip, or someone who overcomes their disability in ways that are often seen by the public as inspiring. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the supercrip identity among athletes in disability sport settings. The supercrip stereotype has been criticized as portraying athletes with disabilities as overcoming or defeating their disability via heroic efforts. Often the accomplishments they are praised for are superior gold-medaling winning performances, but more mundane tasks such as going shopping are also praised. Excessive praise for engaging in everyday activities is thought to reflect low expectations about what a person with a disability can do. Many individuals view their impairment as part of their identity and not something to overcome or defeat. Supercrip-related praise for Paralympians can unrealistically raise expectations for all people with disabilities, including many who cannot do many of the things athletes with disabilities can do. The chapter discusses reasons for the supercrip identity, whether it is inspiring, and nuanced commentaries on the supercrip identity by academics, coaches, and athletes in disability sport.
Self-Efficacy
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

Self-efficacy theory is one of the most researched topics in sport psychology. This chapter defines self-efficacy and provides an overview of the antecedents and outcomes of strong and weak self-efficacy. An overview of self-efficacy-based research in disability sport is also provided. Correlational work has demonstrated that athletes with strong self-efficacy, relative to athletes with weaker efficacy, have stronger psychological skills, less anxiety, more positive affect, and less negative affect and receive more social support from significant others. Imagery and self-talk are also related to self-efficacy providing theoretical support for these two antecedents. Athletes with strong training self-efficacy also tend to have strong performance self-efficacy. Research examining self-efficacy for pain management and the challenges of training is advocated as well as longitudinal research and intervention work. Similarly, work examining disability and disability sport–specific antecedents and outcomes of efficacy is called for, as is research into coach, team, and referee self-efficacy.
Social Barriers
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

People with disabilities often face social barriers to physical activity (PA). The purpose of this chapter is to survey research on the most common social groups who limit or prevent people with disabilities from being involved in sport and exercise. Many people with disabilities, especially those with severe disabilities, may need personal assistance to engage in PA, and a lack of personal assistance is often an obstacle to PA. Children with impairments report that not having someone to play with makes them disinclined to engage in PA. When parents are fearful of their children getting hurt in sport they can become barriers to their children’s PA. Various healthcare professionals working in assisted living settings may prevent adequate PA when they view it as harmful to individuals with disabilities and refuse to help patients be active. Community, recreation, and fitness facility personnel can be viewed as barriers when they exhibit dismissive attitudes toward individuals with impairments who wish to engage in exercise and sport. Physical education teachers lacking academic preparation and confidence in adapting games and sports for students with disabilities act as impediments to PA. Thus many people in the social worlds of individuals with disabilities actively and passively limit their ability to engage in PA.
Environmental Barriers
Authors: Martin Jeffrey J.
Published: October 2017

In addition to individual and social barriers to physical activity (PA), people with impairments also face a physical or built environment that is often not conducive to PA. The purpose of this chapter is to survey the most common, and some idiosyncratic, environmental barriers to PA and protections intended via the Americans with Disabilities Act. While opportunity barriers are often under people’s control, other barriers such as inclement weather are outside of human control. However, sidewalks and wheelchair ramps that are not shoveled free of snow are examples of where uncontrollable and controllable barriers merge. Other examples include transportation barriers: Often entrances to public transportation are inaccessible, and waiting for public transportation and carrying equipment on public transportation are seen as barriers to PA. Ramps too steep for wheelchairs, bathroom and locker room doors too narrow for wheelchairs, no grab bars in showers, lack of lifts into a pool, and pools that are too cold also make it hard for people to use exercise facilities. Other environmental obstacles to PA include a lack of auditory signals at crosswalks, and uneven and unkempt paved walking and jogging paths.