J. Smith

This volume presents discussions on a wide range of topics focused on eco-phenomenology and the interdisciplinary investigation of contemporary environmental thought. Starting out with a Tymieniecka Memorial chapter, the book continues with papers on the foundations, theories, readings and philosophical sources of eco-phenomenology. In addition, it examines issues of phenomenological anthropology, ecological perspectives of the human relationship to nature, and phenomenology of the living body and the virtual body. Furthermore, the volume engages in a dialogue with contemporary behavioral sciences on topics such as eco-alienation, sustainability, and the human relationship to the earth in the context of the cosmos.

Historical temporality of the concept of boredom is counter to Heidegger’s treatment of boredom as essential to his philosophical investigation of temporality/time but without the grounding of boredom in historical or cultural milieu or, for that matter, in psychology or neuroscience. A mood (Stimmung) of boredom does not have a direct intentional object of its own, but it can accompany emotional and/or cognitive experiences by giving them a certain coloring or tonality. Heidegger’s final statements are about contemporary man avoiding or suppressing profound boredom out of concealment and lack of courage to face the question of oppression “in this fundamental attunement.” Levinas, on the other hand, sees insomnia as “primordial opening” to the understanding of “impossibility of hiding in oneself” (Levinas E (1993) God, death, and time. Edited by Jacques Roland. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p 209).Thus, Heidegger’s investigation of boredom parallels Levinas’s investigation of insomnia as revealing particular states of awareness and consciousness. But, unlike the Being held captive in a particular mood of boredom in Heidegger’s metaphysics and the pessimistic evaluation of profiting from the experience of profound boredom, Levinas’s insomnia reveals “the Other within the Same who does not alienate the Same but who awakens him” (Levinas E (1993) God, death, and time. Edited by Jacques Roland. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p 209).

This volume investigates the intersection of phenomenology and posthumanism by rethinking the human and nonhuman specifically with regard to boredom, isolation, loneliness, and solitude. By closely examining these concepts from phenomenological, philosophical, and literary perspectives, this diverse collection of essays offers insights into the human and nonhuman in the absence of the Other and within the postapocalyptic. Topics of interest include modalities of presence and absence with regard to body, time, beast, and things; the phenomenology of corporeity; ontopoiesis and the sublime; alienation, absurdity, and phenomenology of existence; memory, posthistoricity, posthuman nihilism, and posthumanity; speculative cosmology, cosmic holism, and consciousness; ecophenomenology; and the philosophy of the aesthetic. These essays parse and probe distinct aspects of the posthuman condition and what it means to exist in a posthuman world, thereby furthering the vast, rich scope of phenomenological research and study. This text appeals to students and researchers working in these topics and fields.

The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined these questions in a pre-registered experiment with a working adult sample, a conceptual replication of that experiment with a student sample, and an analysis of data compiled and posted by a psychology researcher on their public weblog with the stated goal to improve research replicability by rank-ordering psychology researchers by their “estimated false discovery risk.” Participants in the experiments were randomly assigned to read a news article describing a successful vs. failed replication attempt of original work from a male vs. female psychological scientist, and then completed measures of researcher competence, likability, integrity, perceptions of the research, and behavioral intentions for future interactions with the researcher. In both working adult and student samples, analyses consistently yielded large main effects of replication outcome, but no interaction with researcher gender. Likewise, the coding of weblog data posted in July 2021 indicated that 66.3% of the researchers scrutinized were men and 33.8% were women, and their rank-ordering was not correlated with researcher gender. The lack of support for our pre-registered gender-replication hypothesis is, at first glance, encouraging for women researchers’ careers; however, the substantial effect sizes we observed for replication outcome underscore the tremendous negative impact the reproducibility movement can have on psychologists’ careers. We discuss the implications of such negative perceptions and the possible downstream consequences for women in the field that are essential for future study.

Because men are overrepresented within positions of power, men are perceived as the default in academia. Androcentric bias emerges whereby research by men and/or dominated by men is perceived as higher quality and gains more attention. We examined if these androcentric biases materialize within fields that study bias. How do individuals in close contact with psychology view psychology research outlets with titles including the words women, gender, sex, or feminism or contain the words men or masculinity versus psychology journals that publish other-specialized research, and do these perceptions differ in the general public? While the men-related journal was less meritorious than its other-specialty journal, evidence emerged supporting androcentric bias such that the men-related journal was more favorable than the other sex/gender-related journals. Further, undergraduate men taking psychology classes rated sex/gender-related versus other-specialty journals as less favorable, were less likely to recommend subscription, and rated the journals as lower quality. Low endorsement of feminist ideology was associated with less support for sex/gender-related journals versus matched other-specialty journals. Decreased subscription recommendations for sex/gender-related journals were mediated by decreased favorability and quality beliefs, especially for men and those low in feminist ideology. However, we found possible androcentric-interest within the public sphere. The public reach of articles published in sex/gender-related was greater than other-specialty journals. The consequences of these differential perceptions for students versus the public and the impact on women’s advancement in social science and psychological science are discussed.

This edited volume explores the intersections of the human, nonhuman, transhuman, and posthuman from a phenomenological perspective. Representing perspectives from several disciplines, these investigations take a closer look at the relationship between the phenomenology of life, creative ontopoiesis, and otherness; technology and the human; art and the question of humanity; nonhumans, animals, and intentionality; and transhumanism. Ontological positioning of the human is reconsidered with regard to the nonhuman, transhuman, and posthuman within the cosmos. Further examination of the artificial and object in the lifeworld is also explored. This volume also pays tribute to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and her methodical contributions to phenomenology. This text appeals to students and researchers of phenomenology worldwide.

Can epistemologies anchor processes of social inequality? In this paper, we consider how epistemological dominance in science, engineering, and health fields perpetuates disadvantages for students who enter higher education with alternative epistemologies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Native American students enrolled at two US research universities who adhere to or revere indigenous epistemologies, we find that epistemological dominance in SE&H degree programs disadvantages students through three processes. First, it delegitimizes Native epistemologies and marginalizes and silences students who value them. Second, in the process of imparting these dominant scientific epistemologies, SE&H courses sometimes require students to participate in pedagogical practices that challenge indigenous ways of knowing. Third, students encounter epistemological imperialism: most students in the sample are working to earn SE&H degrees in order to return to tribal communities to “give back,” yet, because the US laws regulating the practice of SE&H extend onto tribal lands, students must earn credentials in epistemologies that devalue, delegitimate, and threaten indigenous knowledge ways to practice on tribal lands. We examine how students navigate these experiences, discuss the implications of these findings for SE&H education, and describe how epistemological dominance may serve as a mechanism of inequality reproduction more broadly.

My dissertation, "Novel Epistemologies: Cultures of Reform in the Age of Locke," attempts to shift the understanding of what Lockean epistemology contributed to eighteenth-century projects of reform. Thinkers prior to Locke tend to view customary, political, and other forms of culture as forces prone to taint human knowledge and agency. Although he somewhat shares their suspicion, Locke suggests engaging with culture as an object of reform and transforming cultural memory. According to him, if the customs of a poor household breed certain undesirable habits in a child or a political association conveys certain biases to new initiates, then a carefully engineered moral culture can, by logical extension, reproduce and disseminate morality. ;After establishing the connection between Locke's epistemology and moral culture, I sustain this connection across a diverse range of texts, including religious disquisition, sermons, novels, and erotic fiction. If Locke approaches moral culture as a practice by which specific competencies are produced or reproduced, proponents of the charity school movement institutionalize this relation as broadly social pedagogy meant not only to cultivate but also to disseminate religious and moral habits. Their project aims at nothing less than a rippling effect of moral reform throughout society, and they imagine children, especially indigent children, as key agents in the near spontaneous spread of improvement to every corner of the nation---but in particular to the poor household. In the forties, novelists begin to reinvent reform, moving from childhood to female judgment as a point of mediation in debates about sexuality, status, and the family. Considered here are Samuel Richardson's Pamela, parts one and two, and John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, both of which explicitly engage with Locke's epistemology. These fictions both take up epistemological questions only to arrive at novel answers, Richardson bringing the romance narrative and Cleland the erotic Bildungsroman to the question of moral reform. In sum, the dissertation tracks notions of reform across three related registers of epistemological controversy---or, more appropriately, across three developing cultures of reform: moral philosophy, philanthropy, and the novel