title: Neoliberalism and racism in Aotearoa

authors: Rew, Nathan

abstract: Webinar Toru will engage with issues of racism, neoliberalism and what Graham Hingangaroa Smith has called ‘New Formations of Colonisation’. This webinar will provide an overview of neoliberalism and racism and how they intersect and impact upon Māori, Pacific Nations and ethnic minority groups in Aotearoa.

text: Neoliberalism and racism in Aotearoa Webinar Toru will engage with issues of racism, neoliberalism and what Graham Hingangaroa Smith has called ‘New Formations of Colonisation’. This webinar will provide an overview of neoliberalism and racism and how they intersect and impact upon Māori, Pacific Nations and ethnic minority groups in Aotearoa.

year: 2025

title: Maori goddesses in literature. Part 2: 1900-1940

authors: Yates-Smith, Aroha

subjects: Atua wāhine

abstract: Many contemporary Māori are familiar with atua wāhine, Māori goddesses, through accounts that have been passed on to them by word of mouth. Few, however, have had an opportunity to consult accounts of atua wāhine that date from the early period of Māori-Pākehā contact. Those who wish to do so may have considerable difficulty in sifting through all of the written materials for the information they seek. For this reason, this paper provides a review of the literature pertaining to atua wāhine from 1900 to 1940, together with a commentary on the sources to which reference is made. A review of literature on atua wāhine from 1880 – 1900 appeared in the first issue of this Journal. The period 1940 towards 2000 will be reviewed in the next issue.

text: Maori goddesses in literature. Part 2: 1900-1940 Many contemporary Māori are familiar with atua wāhine, Māori goddesses, through accounts that have been passed on to them by word of mouth. Few, however, have had an opportunity to consult accounts of atua wāhine that date from the early period of Māori-Pākehā contact. Those who wish to do so may have considerable difficulty in sifting through all of the written materials for the information they seek. For this reason, this paper provides a review of the literature pertaining to atua wāhine from 1900 to 1940, together with a commentary on the sources to which reference is made. A review of literature on atua wāhine from 1880 – 1900 appeared in the first issue of this Journal. The period 1940 towards 2000 will be reviewed in the next issue.

year: 2001-02

title: Virtue, self-narratives, and the causes of action

authors: Lumsden, David

abstract: Virtues can be considered to play a causal role in the production of behaviour and so too can our self-narratives. We identify a point of connection between the two cases and draw a parallel between them. But, those folk psychological notions, virtues and self-narratives, fail to reduce smoothly to the underlying human physiology. As a first step towards handling that failure to connect with the scientific framework that is the familiar grounding for our understanding of causation, we consider the causal theory of action, a leading theory of action, which shows how reasons, understood as an appropriate pair of beliefs and desires, can be treated as causes of action. Davidson’s picture is based on cause as a relation between events, which can have both a description in scientific terms and in folk psychological terms. The character of both virtues and self-narratives is not that of events, even extended ones, so we need to refer to examples of scientific explanation that incorporate structural properties of objects. While we retain the spirit of the causal theory, we wish to guard against any unwarranted optimism that an explicitly scientific explanation for human action lies in our future, drawing on Chomsky’s view that a causal explanation of human actions is likely to remain beyond human science forming capacities. We take a mild-realist view of virtues and self-narratives, in the style of Dennett. We argue that, in spite of that limited form of realism, underlined by Chomsky’s mysterian position in this domain, we still need to frame our explanations of behaviour based on virtues and self-narratives in causal terms.

text: Virtue, self-narratives, and the causes of action Virtues can be considered to play a causal role in the production of behaviour and so too can our self-narratives. We identify a point of connection between the two cases and draw a parallel between them. But, those folk psychological notions, virtues and self-narratives, fail to reduce smoothly to the underlying human physiology. As a first step towards handling that failure to connect with the scientific framework that is the familiar grounding for our understanding of causation, we consider the causal theory of action, a leading theory of action, which shows how reasons, understood as an appropriate pair of beliefs and desires, can be treated as causes of action. Davidson’s picture is based on cause as a relation between events, which can have both a description in scientific terms and in folk psychological terms. The character of both virtues and self-narratives is not that of events, even extended ones, so we need to refer to examples of scientific explanation that incorporate structural properties of objects. While we retain the spirit of the causal theory, we wish to guard against any unwarranted optimism that an explicitly scientific explanation for human action lies in our future, drawing on Chomsky’s view that a causal explanation of human actions is likely to remain beyond human science forming capacities. We take a mild-realist view of virtues and self-narratives, in the style of Dennett. We argue that, in spite of that limited form of realism, underlined by Chomsky’s mysterian position in this domain, we still need to frame our explanations of behaviour based on virtues and self-narratives in causal terms.

year: 2023-10-23