Conference Papers by Maeve Kelly
Merleau-Ponty’s seminal work Phenomenology of Perception outlines his arguments against idealist ... more Merleau-Ponty’s seminal work Phenomenology of Perception outlines his arguments against idealist and empiricist theories of perception before building on Husserl’s phenomenological work (amongst the work of others) to arrive at a theory of embodied subjectivity. Although concentrating quite heavily on the personal subjective experience, in the latter chapters of the book he works with Sartre’s conceptions of self, others, and objects, Scheler’s work on the relationship between self and other, and Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditations to outline his own position on an embodied intersubjective relationship between the self and other. Similar to Scheler and Husserl, Merleau-Ponty rejects the argument from analogy as a possible explanation of how we know others. Although rejected so long ago by so many thinkers, the argument from analogy still enjoys much interest in philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive science today in its new guise as the Simulation Theory of other minds. Simulation Theorists often refer to their theory as putting oneself in another’s shoes and it continues to be highly influential in theories of empathy and mindreading. In the first half of this paper I will look at Merleau-Ponty’s position on the other, the two supports he uses to defend our knowledge and certainty of the other’s existence and his dismissal of the argument from analogy. Exploring the argument from analogy in knowledge of other minds theory, I will outline what is assumed in the modern debate to be contained in the argument from analogy or Simulation Theory as respects our knowledge of others.
Although not necessarily imperative for the plausibility of his thesis, which is that we are situated goal-directed beings in the world, Merleau-Ponty still chooses to make strong use of the pathological case of the brain-damaged war veteran Schneider (as studied by Geld and Goldstein) throughout his work to support his position. Schneider, a man who suffers with deficits in his own proprioceptive awareness and kinaesthetic abilities, struggles most when asked to perform actions out of context as opposed to within habitual processes. In the second half of this paper I will outline how Merleau-Ponty discusses the case of Schneider, what he believes is going wrong for Schneider and where the impairment comes from. Within his analysis of Schneider, however, I will then make the argument that Merleau-Ponty is guilty of undermining his own dismissal of the argument from analogy and in effect starts to do some shoe swapping. Following on from this exposition, I will posit some ideas as to why he might do this, whilst being himself unaware, and the difficulties that come with the argument from analogy in analysing our intersubjective world.
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Seven year old Joseph kneels down in the sitting room just outside the kitchen door threshold wit... more Seven year old Joseph kneels down in the sitting room just outside the kitchen door threshold with a toy model plane in his hand, as quiet as can be. He moves very slowly, although his eyes are not on his plane as usual. His gaze is directed at me whilst I go about my work in the kitchen. I know he's there because I can catch him in my peripheral vision, although he is unaware of this knowledge. The game of airplane incursion continues only if I make no obvious movement to communicate to him that I know what he’s doing. Eventually, with a snap of my head I'm looking directly at him and the hilarity ensues. He knows he's been caught and commences laughing. "Are airplanes allowed in the kitchen Joseph?" I query. "Nooooo" is the response. And a retreat commences back to sitting room airspace.
My stepson Joseph has A.S. (Autism Spectrum). Although quite ‘high functioning’ and in mainstream school he still has many expected traits. Many people inside and outside of our family work with him. But Joseph cannot pass the standard false-belief test for mindreading. When we have tried it with him he gets confused with all of the instructions and pronouns, stressed out and comes close to crying in his frustration. But I do not believe he lacks the ability to mindread. Although I am not the first to say that the false belief test is overly complicated (ie. Zaitchik and others), I believe the development of the ability to mindread suffers from similar problems found in the performance of this test.
Joseph’s ability to mindread has been supported by our long-term developed intersubjective loving relationship and by motivation. Although he cannot pass the false belief test, I catch him often making eye contact with me or looking at my body language to know something which is of the utmost importance to any 7 year old: whether his actions will get him into trouble. He is motivated to look at me for his own self-interest. When recommendations are made for those working with children with A.S., the child is the primary focus in a doctor-patient type of format with a therapist (basically, a stranger). I believe this to be a methodological mistake, in a somewhat Foucauldian manner, within the disciplines that work with A.S.. Although recognising A.S. as a social diffability, many disciplines do not think to question the medicalised approach with one-to-one ‘treatment’ organised between a stranger and children as opposed to adjusting perspectives or prioritising different ways of working with parents.
Within this paper, I will use philosophy (Foucault and Gallagher & Zahavi) and disability and equality studies (Lynch, Baker & Lyons) to further explore the inefficiencies of this medicalised approach to working with autism, why it has continued to remain medicalised, why it is a methodological mistake, and the importance and benefits of a family social context approach to developing the abilities of children with AS (including the ability to mindread).
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Paper Presented
Mother and Infant as a Combined and Complementary Physical and Mental Identity
... more Paper Presented
Mother and Infant as a Combined and Complementary Physical and Mental Identity
Maeve Kelly, PhD Student, UCD School of Philosophy, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
Many philosophical traditions make no distinction between men and women. For many years this could often be attributed to the overlooking of women as a subject deserving of focus. Stemming from modern equal rights and feminist movements there has been an effort to incorporate studies of women into studies of men and make no differentiation between the two. Although this has been defended as important for women to reach equal stature with men in terms of legal rights, the movement could be said to have contributed to an overshadowing of and a devaluating of the difference between the two with the result that the act of highlighting the difference can be received negatively in the area of women’s studies. Without attempting to betray the achievements of equality of women in our society, in this work, I attempt to embrace the difference on a physical and mental level and defend the importance of this action to advance our knowledge of woman as a mother whilst at the same time recognising the complementary role the mother plays in an infant or neonate’s development of the self. In order to do this I will endeavour to combine work within the psychoanalytic tradition of Daniel Stern and Peter Fonagy, György Gergely, and others with the philosophical tradition, specifically the phenomenologist Max Scheler. In looking at Stern’s mother as a self-regulating other, Fonagy et al.’s affect modulating and regulating mother, and Scheler’s beliefs of a common consciousness I will explore the initial and developing physical and mental identity in the mother and infant’s relationship. This exploration will be used to defend the importance of treating women and their bodies with a higher degree of distinction not only in the understanding of women and mothers in general but in the role it can be defended to play in our understanding of the infant’s development of the self. This analysis and interpretation of the united physical relationship between the mother and unborn baby during pregnancy and the complementary physical and mental relationship after birth can be a basis for proposals of consideration in other areas of study of the intersubjective self. Looking at common patterns within the works of Stern, Fonagy et al. and Scheler (amongst others) a method of self-creation, by the infant, emerges as a plausible defence of the importance and priority that should be placed on the mother/infant relationship as a potentially unrepeatable process (or to a much lesser degree of effectiveness) with men and other non-mother women.
http://www.swip-ireland.com/index.php/news/118-swip-ireland-annual-conference-on-women-s-bodies
***Paper removed from Academia.edu as currently under consideration to being included in an Edited Collection.***
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For some people having a home, being "settled," or "mobileless" is not a compliment. This stateme... more For some people having a home, being "settled," or "mobileless" is not a compliment. This statement is not
meant to belittle the fact that, for many, homelessness is a great hardship. It is important, however, to look at
the different causes and experiences of homelessness to derive an understanding of the full picture of it, and
hopefully, a better appreciation. Some members of the homeless community choose to be homeless. These
people make up a part of the “chronic homeless” community but that term often entails further negative connotations (mental illnesses & drug dependency). For clarity, I will refer to the people who choose to be homeless as "mobile," so as to employ a term distanced from these negative assumptions and to distinguish them. There was a period in Ireland's history where certain of its inhabitants emigrated to the UK in search of opportunity and a better life and via a number of different avenues, ended up “choosing” to remain homeless in the UK as opposed to a settled life in Ireland. Those of us in the mobileless community struggle with the idea of someone choosing to be homeless. And there is a history behind this. The links between having a home and being a citizen go as far back as Aristotle. These links still have implications in the modern state and generate contradictions in guarantees for all citizens: both mobile and mobileless. This paper will draw on work in
philosophy and sociology to build a fuller flavoured picture of a type of mobile person. The overall intention of this paper is to help the mobileless gain a greater appreciation for another view of homelessness and to further consider and reflect on our view and relationship to this section of the homeless community.
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http://homelessconference2014.wordpress.com/
For some people having a home, being "immobile," is not a compliment. This statement does not di... more For some people having a home, being "immobile," is not a compliment. This statement does not disregard that, for many, homelessness is a great hardship. It is important, however, to look at the different causes and experiences of homelessness to derive an understanding and appreciation of the full picture. Some members of the homeless community choose to be homeless. Part of the “chronic homeless,” this term often entails further negative connotations (mental illnesses & drug dependency). I will refer to these people as "mobile" to distinguish them. There was a period in Ireland's history when its inhabitants emigrated to the UK in search of opportunity. Via a number of different avenues many ended up “choosing” to remain homeless in the UK as opposed to returning to a home in Ireland. Those of us in the immobile community struggle with the idea of someone choosing to be homeless. There are historical links, back to Aristotle, to this connection between having a home and being a citizen. These links still have implications in the modern state for all citizens: mobile and immobile. This paper will draw on a broad spectrum of information: philosophy (Aristotle), literature (William Trevor’s 1994 Felicia’s Journey), and sociology (a 2008 case study on homeless women) to build a fuller flavoured picture of the mobile person. The overall intention is to help the immobile, from a philosophical standpoint, gain a greater appreciation for another view of homelessness and to further reflect on our relationship with the homeless community.
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Conference Presentations by Maeve Kelly
Introduction Powerpoint for this workshop, outlining the background from a Philosophy and UCD Phi... more Introduction Powerpoint for this workshop, outlining the background from a Philosophy and UCD Philosophy/SWIP Ireland background, and the schedule for the day.
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Striving for gender equality in Irish academia continues to be a challenge in Irish third level i... more Striving for gender equality in Irish academia continues to be a challenge in Irish third level institutions. In recent months, the work of Dr. Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington at NUIG to redress this imbalance has brought this disparity into Irish headlines such that interest and support is at an all-time high. Ireland’s universities are not alone in this current challenge. Dr. Sheehy-Skeffington has pointed to the number of instances that taskforces have been created within universities over the last 25 years but which have been unsuccessful in redressing this balance. How can these be the case? There are many bodies within UCD actively working on this cause and the graduate students of the Schools of Philosophy and Social Justice seek to be of further assistance here.
University of Sheffield Philosopher Miranda Fricker’s (2007) work Epistemic Injustice outlines the belief that people suffering a wrong, as knowers, have a number of different challenges to overcome. One of these challenges, hermeneutic injustice, relates to a scarcity of language resource regarding their experiences so that the experiencers can make sense of them and also they can communicate these experience to others. As such, Durham University Philosopher Ian James Kidd has sought to create this language and these concepts in relation to gender challenges within academic settings, specifically Philosophy.
Within this presentation I will seek to discuss Fricker and Kidd’s work as it applies to UCD Philosophy and Social Justice’s upcoming graduate workshop: “Gender and Equality in the Academy: Gender Across Disciplines.” The workshop will seek to engage with students, staff and other key stakeholders within UCD specifically and academia in general. This workshop, however, will not simply seek to focus on and challenge the representational numbers of gender within academia. We will primarily look to examine and challenge the way that we DO academia to better realise how our customs may actually support the perpetuation of the status quo. Some of these methodologies may have favoured certain gender norms of the past, but do not necessarily benefit non-men genders today. An indepth examination of academic customs in light of the modern world may also illuminate that they might not really benefit men genders, either.
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I will seek in this presentation (in a non-academic way) to bemoan the loss of and the lack of ap... more I will seek in this presentation (in a non-academic way) to bemoan the loss of and the lack of appreciation of the art of scratching. Through pub philosophy/folk philosophy methodology I aim to challenge socially held normative judgements on properties of smoothnes and roughness. I will then seek to outline the importance of the rough, scratching, and touch as it relates to interpersonal and intrapersonal activity and experiences.
Through my own personal anecdotes, my family's long history as healers and champions of the power of touch, and various other colloquialistic and proverbial treatment of the topic, I hope to spark a lengthy conversation on this topic that is overdue for debate.
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Newspaper Articles by Maeve Kelly
Opinion Column: Overview of the current situation of Adjunct/Casual/Occassional Lecturers, the ch... more Opinion Column: Overview of the current situation of Adjunct/Casual/Occassional Lecturers, the challenges, and current activity in this area.
Newspaper: UCD's College Tribune
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Drafts by Maeve Kelly
This presentation gives a high level of the problems I find inherent in the current abortion deba... more This presentation gives a high level of the problems I find inherent in the current abortion debate. Activists for the pro-choice side, in their efforts to seek equality of the genders, have agreed to engage the forces on the side of pro-life in our society (prolife activists, patriarchy, neoliberalism), on the terms set out by the pro-life side. In this presentation I give high level details on why we should all reject the terms as set out in the debate and seek to redefine these terms in our overarching aim to achieve gender equality in this area.
People ask me what side of the abortion debate I am on: pro-life or pro-choice? I answer that I am neither. This is a difficult to understand position in our society because, as a woman (especially), we pick a side and that becomes very important in our own individual and group identities. But I believe the abortion debate is a flawed debate. I am not willing to give it legitimacy and respect by engaging in it or picking a side. Sadly, not enough people are seeking to point out these flaws and fighting to redefine the debate around the real problems that we should be fighting from an equal and human rights perspective. Many of you will not like what I have to say. The debate around abortion is heated and people have been fighting on one side or another for a long time. As such it is understandable that people’s self identity is strongly tied up with this group identity. I only ask that you keep an open mind and consider some of my points. This area is vastly under researched in philosophy for many reasons including: 1. Seen as feminist/women’s issue, 2. Women’s issues are considered feminist philosophy which is silo’d away from other philosophy’s, 3. Most philosophers are men who have never and will never experience pregnancy although everyone is born and so these issues concern everyone, 4. There is a societally accepted disrespect for what women actually do in pregnancy as women are the major part of creating the miracle. The patriarchy does not want to give women any power and therefore the role of women in pregnancy is not afforded respect in western societies. This is also related to why men are not as disgusted by rape as they are by menstrual periods. And there are other reasons.
So, here are my top 7 things wrong with the abortion debate. I welcome feedback from researchers in this area from a constructive criticism perspective and recommendations as to other research in this area.
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Uploads
Conference Papers by Maeve Kelly
Although not necessarily imperative for the plausibility of his thesis, which is that we are situated goal-directed beings in the world, Merleau-Ponty still chooses to make strong use of the pathological case of the brain-damaged war veteran Schneider (as studied by Geld and Goldstein) throughout his work to support his position. Schneider, a man who suffers with deficits in his own proprioceptive awareness and kinaesthetic abilities, struggles most when asked to perform actions out of context as opposed to within habitual processes. In the second half of this paper I will outline how Merleau-Ponty discusses the case of Schneider, what he believes is going wrong for Schneider and where the impairment comes from. Within his analysis of Schneider, however, I will then make the argument that Merleau-Ponty is guilty of undermining his own dismissal of the argument from analogy and in effect starts to do some shoe swapping. Following on from this exposition, I will posit some ideas as to why he might do this, whilst being himself unaware, and the difficulties that come with the argument from analogy in analysing our intersubjective world.
My stepson Joseph has A.S. (Autism Spectrum). Although quite ‘high functioning’ and in mainstream school he still has many expected traits. Many people inside and outside of our family work with him. But Joseph cannot pass the standard false-belief test for mindreading. When we have tried it with him he gets confused with all of the instructions and pronouns, stressed out and comes close to crying in his frustration. But I do not believe he lacks the ability to mindread. Although I am not the first to say that the false belief test is overly complicated (ie. Zaitchik and others), I believe the development of the ability to mindread suffers from similar problems found in the performance of this test.
Joseph’s ability to mindread has been supported by our long-term developed intersubjective loving relationship and by motivation. Although he cannot pass the false belief test, I catch him often making eye contact with me or looking at my body language to know something which is of the utmost importance to any 7 year old: whether his actions will get him into trouble. He is motivated to look at me for his own self-interest. When recommendations are made for those working with children with A.S., the child is the primary focus in a doctor-patient type of format with a therapist (basically, a stranger). I believe this to be a methodological mistake, in a somewhat Foucauldian manner, within the disciplines that work with A.S.. Although recognising A.S. as a social diffability, many disciplines do not think to question the medicalised approach with one-to-one ‘treatment’ organised between a stranger and children as opposed to adjusting perspectives or prioritising different ways of working with parents.
Within this paper, I will use philosophy (Foucault and Gallagher & Zahavi) and disability and equality studies (Lynch, Baker & Lyons) to further explore the inefficiencies of this medicalised approach to working with autism, why it has continued to remain medicalised, why it is a methodological mistake, and the importance and benefits of a family social context approach to developing the abilities of children with AS (including the ability to mindread).
Mother and Infant as a Combined and Complementary Physical and Mental Identity
Maeve Kelly, PhD Student, UCD School of Philosophy, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
Many philosophical traditions make no distinction between men and women. For many years this could often be attributed to the overlooking of women as a subject deserving of focus. Stemming from modern equal rights and feminist movements there has been an effort to incorporate studies of women into studies of men and make no differentiation between the two. Although this has been defended as important for women to reach equal stature with men in terms of legal rights, the movement could be said to have contributed to an overshadowing of and a devaluating of the difference between the two with the result that the act of highlighting the difference can be received negatively in the area of women’s studies. Without attempting to betray the achievements of equality of women in our society, in this work, I attempt to embrace the difference on a physical and mental level and defend the importance of this action to advance our knowledge of woman as a mother whilst at the same time recognising the complementary role the mother plays in an infant or neonate’s development of the self. In order to do this I will endeavour to combine work within the psychoanalytic tradition of Daniel Stern and Peter Fonagy, György Gergely, and others with the philosophical tradition, specifically the phenomenologist Max Scheler. In looking at Stern’s mother as a self-regulating other, Fonagy et al.’s affect modulating and regulating mother, and Scheler’s beliefs of a common consciousness I will explore the initial and developing physical and mental identity in the mother and infant’s relationship. This exploration will be used to defend the importance of treating women and their bodies with a higher degree of distinction not only in the understanding of women and mothers in general but in the role it can be defended to play in our understanding of the infant’s development of the self. This analysis and interpretation of the united physical relationship between the mother and unborn baby during pregnancy and the complementary physical and mental relationship after birth can be a basis for proposals of consideration in other areas of study of the intersubjective self. Looking at common patterns within the works of Stern, Fonagy et al. and Scheler (amongst others) a method of self-creation, by the infant, emerges as a plausible defence of the importance and priority that should be placed on the mother/infant relationship as a potentially unrepeatable process (or to a much lesser degree of effectiveness) with men and other non-mother women.
http://www.swip-ireland.com/index.php/news/118-swip-ireland-annual-conference-on-women-s-bodies
***Paper removed from Academia.edu as currently under consideration to being included in an Edited Collection.***
meant to belittle the fact that, for many, homelessness is a great hardship. It is important, however, to look at
the different causes and experiences of homelessness to derive an understanding of the full picture of it, and
hopefully, a better appreciation. Some members of the homeless community choose to be homeless. These
people make up a part of the “chronic homeless” community but that term often entails further negative connotations (mental illnesses & drug dependency). For clarity, I will refer to the people who choose to be homeless as "mobile," so as to employ a term distanced from these negative assumptions and to distinguish them. There was a period in Ireland's history where certain of its inhabitants emigrated to the UK in search of opportunity and a better life and via a number of different avenues, ended up “choosing” to remain homeless in the UK as opposed to a settled life in Ireland. Those of us in the mobileless community struggle with the idea of someone choosing to be homeless. And there is a history behind this. The links between having a home and being a citizen go as far back as Aristotle. These links still have implications in the modern state and generate contradictions in guarantees for all citizens: both mobile and mobileless. This paper will draw on work in
philosophy and sociology to build a fuller flavoured picture of a type of mobile person. The overall intention of this paper is to help the mobileless gain a greater appreciation for another view of homelessness and to further consider and reflect on our view and relationship to this section of the homeless community.
Conference Presentations by Maeve Kelly
University of Sheffield Philosopher Miranda Fricker’s (2007) work Epistemic Injustice outlines the belief that people suffering a wrong, as knowers, have a number of different challenges to overcome. One of these challenges, hermeneutic injustice, relates to a scarcity of language resource regarding their experiences so that the experiencers can make sense of them and also they can communicate these experience to others. As such, Durham University Philosopher Ian James Kidd has sought to create this language and these concepts in relation to gender challenges within academic settings, specifically Philosophy.
Within this presentation I will seek to discuss Fricker and Kidd’s work as it applies to UCD Philosophy and Social Justice’s upcoming graduate workshop: “Gender and Equality in the Academy: Gender Across Disciplines.” The workshop will seek to engage with students, staff and other key stakeholders within UCD specifically and academia in general. This workshop, however, will not simply seek to focus on and challenge the representational numbers of gender within academia. We will primarily look to examine and challenge the way that we DO academia to better realise how our customs may actually support the perpetuation of the status quo. Some of these methodologies may have favoured certain gender norms of the past, but do not necessarily benefit non-men genders today. An indepth examination of academic customs in light of the modern world may also illuminate that they might not really benefit men genders, either.
Through my own personal anecdotes, my family's long history as healers and champions of the power of touch, and various other colloquialistic and proverbial treatment of the topic, I hope to spark a lengthy conversation on this topic that is overdue for debate.
Newspaper Articles by Maeve Kelly
Newspaper: UCD's College Tribune
Drafts by Maeve Kelly
People ask me what side of the abortion debate I am on: pro-life or pro-choice? I answer that I am neither. This is a difficult to understand position in our society because, as a woman (especially), we pick a side and that becomes very important in our own individual and group identities. But I believe the abortion debate is a flawed debate. I am not willing to give it legitimacy and respect by engaging in it or picking a side. Sadly, not enough people are seeking to point out these flaws and fighting to redefine the debate around the real problems that we should be fighting from an equal and human rights perspective. Many of you will not like what I have to say. The debate around abortion is heated and people have been fighting on one side or another for a long time. As such it is understandable that people’s self identity is strongly tied up with this group identity. I only ask that you keep an open mind and consider some of my points. This area is vastly under researched in philosophy for many reasons including: 1. Seen as feminist/women’s issue, 2. Women’s issues are considered feminist philosophy which is silo’d away from other philosophy’s, 3. Most philosophers are men who have never and will never experience pregnancy although everyone is born and so these issues concern everyone, 4. There is a societally accepted disrespect for what women actually do in pregnancy as women are the major part of creating the miracle. The patriarchy does not want to give women any power and therefore the role of women in pregnancy is not afforded respect in western societies. This is also related to why men are not as disgusted by rape as they are by menstrual periods. And there are other reasons.
So, here are my top 7 things wrong with the abortion debate. I welcome feedback from researchers in this area from a constructive criticism perspective and recommendations as to other research in this area.
Although not necessarily imperative for the plausibility of his thesis, which is that we are situated goal-directed beings in the world, Merleau-Ponty still chooses to make strong use of the pathological case of the brain-damaged war veteran Schneider (as studied by Geld and Goldstein) throughout his work to support his position. Schneider, a man who suffers with deficits in his own proprioceptive awareness and kinaesthetic abilities, struggles most when asked to perform actions out of context as opposed to within habitual processes. In the second half of this paper I will outline how Merleau-Ponty discusses the case of Schneider, what he believes is going wrong for Schneider and where the impairment comes from. Within his analysis of Schneider, however, I will then make the argument that Merleau-Ponty is guilty of undermining his own dismissal of the argument from analogy and in effect starts to do some shoe swapping. Following on from this exposition, I will posit some ideas as to why he might do this, whilst being himself unaware, and the difficulties that come with the argument from analogy in analysing our intersubjective world.
My stepson Joseph has A.S. (Autism Spectrum). Although quite ‘high functioning’ and in mainstream school he still has many expected traits. Many people inside and outside of our family work with him. But Joseph cannot pass the standard false-belief test for mindreading. When we have tried it with him he gets confused with all of the instructions and pronouns, stressed out and comes close to crying in his frustration. But I do not believe he lacks the ability to mindread. Although I am not the first to say that the false belief test is overly complicated (ie. Zaitchik and others), I believe the development of the ability to mindread suffers from similar problems found in the performance of this test.
Joseph’s ability to mindread has been supported by our long-term developed intersubjective loving relationship and by motivation. Although he cannot pass the false belief test, I catch him often making eye contact with me or looking at my body language to know something which is of the utmost importance to any 7 year old: whether his actions will get him into trouble. He is motivated to look at me for his own self-interest. When recommendations are made for those working with children with A.S., the child is the primary focus in a doctor-patient type of format with a therapist (basically, a stranger). I believe this to be a methodological mistake, in a somewhat Foucauldian manner, within the disciplines that work with A.S.. Although recognising A.S. as a social diffability, many disciplines do not think to question the medicalised approach with one-to-one ‘treatment’ organised between a stranger and children as opposed to adjusting perspectives or prioritising different ways of working with parents.
Within this paper, I will use philosophy (Foucault and Gallagher & Zahavi) and disability and equality studies (Lynch, Baker & Lyons) to further explore the inefficiencies of this medicalised approach to working with autism, why it has continued to remain medicalised, why it is a methodological mistake, and the importance and benefits of a family social context approach to developing the abilities of children with AS (including the ability to mindread).
Mother and Infant as a Combined and Complementary Physical and Mental Identity
Maeve Kelly, PhD Student, UCD School of Philosophy, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
Many philosophical traditions make no distinction between men and women. For many years this could often be attributed to the overlooking of women as a subject deserving of focus. Stemming from modern equal rights and feminist movements there has been an effort to incorporate studies of women into studies of men and make no differentiation between the two. Although this has been defended as important for women to reach equal stature with men in terms of legal rights, the movement could be said to have contributed to an overshadowing of and a devaluating of the difference between the two with the result that the act of highlighting the difference can be received negatively in the area of women’s studies. Without attempting to betray the achievements of equality of women in our society, in this work, I attempt to embrace the difference on a physical and mental level and defend the importance of this action to advance our knowledge of woman as a mother whilst at the same time recognising the complementary role the mother plays in an infant or neonate’s development of the self. In order to do this I will endeavour to combine work within the psychoanalytic tradition of Daniel Stern and Peter Fonagy, György Gergely, and others with the philosophical tradition, specifically the phenomenologist Max Scheler. In looking at Stern’s mother as a self-regulating other, Fonagy et al.’s affect modulating and regulating mother, and Scheler’s beliefs of a common consciousness I will explore the initial and developing physical and mental identity in the mother and infant’s relationship. This exploration will be used to defend the importance of treating women and their bodies with a higher degree of distinction not only in the understanding of women and mothers in general but in the role it can be defended to play in our understanding of the infant’s development of the self. This analysis and interpretation of the united physical relationship between the mother and unborn baby during pregnancy and the complementary physical and mental relationship after birth can be a basis for proposals of consideration in other areas of study of the intersubjective self. Looking at common patterns within the works of Stern, Fonagy et al. and Scheler (amongst others) a method of self-creation, by the infant, emerges as a plausible defence of the importance and priority that should be placed on the mother/infant relationship as a potentially unrepeatable process (or to a much lesser degree of effectiveness) with men and other non-mother women.
http://www.swip-ireland.com/index.php/news/118-swip-ireland-annual-conference-on-women-s-bodies
***Paper removed from Academia.edu as currently under consideration to being included in an Edited Collection.***
meant to belittle the fact that, for many, homelessness is a great hardship. It is important, however, to look at
the different causes and experiences of homelessness to derive an understanding of the full picture of it, and
hopefully, a better appreciation. Some members of the homeless community choose to be homeless. These
people make up a part of the “chronic homeless” community but that term often entails further negative connotations (mental illnesses & drug dependency). For clarity, I will refer to the people who choose to be homeless as "mobile," so as to employ a term distanced from these negative assumptions and to distinguish them. There was a period in Ireland's history where certain of its inhabitants emigrated to the UK in search of opportunity and a better life and via a number of different avenues, ended up “choosing” to remain homeless in the UK as opposed to a settled life in Ireland. Those of us in the mobileless community struggle with the idea of someone choosing to be homeless. And there is a history behind this. The links between having a home and being a citizen go as far back as Aristotle. These links still have implications in the modern state and generate contradictions in guarantees for all citizens: both mobile and mobileless. This paper will draw on work in
philosophy and sociology to build a fuller flavoured picture of a type of mobile person. The overall intention of this paper is to help the mobileless gain a greater appreciation for another view of homelessness and to further consider and reflect on our view and relationship to this section of the homeless community.
University of Sheffield Philosopher Miranda Fricker’s (2007) work Epistemic Injustice outlines the belief that people suffering a wrong, as knowers, have a number of different challenges to overcome. One of these challenges, hermeneutic injustice, relates to a scarcity of language resource regarding their experiences so that the experiencers can make sense of them and also they can communicate these experience to others. As such, Durham University Philosopher Ian James Kidd has sought to create this language and these concepts in relation to gender challenges within academic settings, specifically Philosophy.
Within this presentation I will seek to discuss Fricker and Kidd’s work as it applies to UCD Philosophy and Social Justice’s upcoming graduate workshop: “Gender and Equality in the Academy: Gender Across Disciplines.” The workshop will seek to engage with students, staff and other key stakeholders within UCD specifically and academia in general. This workshop, however, will not simply seek to focus on and challenge the representational numbers of gender within academia. We will primarily look to examine and challenge the way that we DO academia to better realise how our customs may actually support the perpetuation of the status quo. Some of these methodologies may have favoured certain gender norms of the past, but do not necessarily benefit non-men genders today. An indepth examination of academic customs in light of the modern world may also illuminate that they might not really benefit men genders, either.
Through my own personal anecdotes, my family's long history as healers and champions of the power of touch, and various other colloquialistic and proverbial treatment of the topic, I hope to spark a lengthy conversation on this topic that is overdue for debate.
Newspaper: UCD's College Tribune
People ask me what side of the abortion debate I am on: pro-life or pro-choice? I answer that I am neither. This is a difficult to understand position in our society because, as a woman (especially), we pick a side and that becomes very important in our own individual and group identities. But I believe the abortion debate is a flawed debate. I am not willing to give it legitimacy and respect by engaging in it or picking a side. Sadly, not enough people are seeking to point out these flaws and fighting to redefine the debate around the real problems that we should be fighting from an equal and human rights perspective. Many of you will not like what I have to say. The debate around abortion is heated and people have been fighting on one side or another for a long time. As such it is understandable that people’s self identity is strongly tied up with this group identity. I only ask that you keep an open mind and consider some of my points. This area is vastly under researched in philosophy for many reasons including: 1. Seen as feminist/women’s issue, 2. Women’s issues are considered feminist philosophy which is silo’d away from other philosophy’s, 3. Most philosophers are men who have never and will never experience pregnancy although everyone is born and so these issues concern everyone, 4. There is a societally accepted disrespect for what women actually do in pregnancy as women are the major part of creating the miracle. The patriarchy does not want to give women any power and therefore the role of women in pregnancy is not afforded respect in western societies. This is also related to why men are not as disgusted by rape as they are by menstrual periods. And there are other reasons.
So, here are my top 7 things wrong with the abortion debate. I welcome feedback from researchers in this area from a constructive criticism perspective and recommendations as to other research in this area.