Kathleen Wallace

An article may cross over areas, e.g., metaphysics and ethics, and thus may appear in more than one of the categories below (in this order): Metaphysics of Persons; Metaphysics; Ethics; Hume; Feminism; American Philosophy; Education; Public, Non-scholarly Publications.

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Metaphysics of Persons

Wallace, K.A. (2009) Personal Identity of an Intersectional Self. In Self and Society. Eds. Alexander Kremer and John Ryder. Central European Pragmatist Forum, Vol. 4; Value Inquiry Book Series, Vol. 207. New Amsterdam, NY: Rodopi Press, pp. 89-102.

Two recent approaches to the concept of self and person are (1) the idea of a relational or intersectional self, which seems to capture an important sense in which a self has multiple dimensions or traits; and (2) the temporal parts (four dimensionalist) idea of a person, which seems to recognize that a self is a temporal spread, that is, is its history and has historical traits. A relational view of the self arises from objections by feminists, communitarians and others to an atomistic view of the self that ignores the extent to which the self is a product of its social relations. Four dimensionalism arises from problems in the metaphysics of identity of physical objects that change over and persist through time. Both these approaches to the self were anticipated by pragmatist and naturalist American thinkers, such as Mead, Dewey and Buchler. Drawing on these sources I develop a view of the self as a process (and therefore, a temporal spread) and a complex of plural constituent relations (and therefore, an intersection of traits).

Wallace, K.A. (2007) Educating for Autonomy: Identity and Intersectional Selves. In Education for A Democratic Society, Central European Pragmatist Forum, Vol. 3, eds. John Ryder and Gert-Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Rodopi Press, 165-176.

I argue that autonomy is rooted in the process of reflexive communication, but requires in addition the capacity for inventive norm generation. Autonomy does not require abandoning social norms. An autonomous self assimilates social norms and inventively manipulates at least some of them in some respect such that a norm is the product of the self's own reflexive activity. I indicate how my approach is different from philosophically standard "proceduralist" models of autonomy, and what specific sorts of skills would contribute to autonomy as I define it. These include skills that are not typically thought of as autonomy conducing by many of the standard accounts, such as cultivating the capacities for listening, interdependence, and responsiveness to others.

Wallace, K.A. (2003) Autonomous "I" of an Intersectional Self. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17 (3), 176-191.

In recent literature, an "intersectional self" has been modeled as socially -- or, as a number of recent feminists have argued, "relationally" -- shaped and constituted. I suggest that an intersectional or relational self should be modelled more broadly. However, an issue that needs to be addressed in such a model is what an "I," that is, the capacity for taking an independent, self-directing, first-person perspective, might amount to. Through the notions of interpretation and reflexive communication, I suggest a way of conceptualizing an "I" that is both located and has the capacity for autonomy.

Wallace, K.A. (2000) Agency, Personhood and Identity: Carol Rovane's The Bounds of Agency. Metaphilosophy 31, 311-322.

A critique of Rovane's claim that her "revisionary" psychological criterion for personhood is adequate as a conception of person and as a criterion of personal identity. Article summarizes Rovane's "normative" criterion for personhood as agency-regarding rationality that entails a commitment to achieving "rational unity". Article offers four bases for critique: 1) methodological; 2) that the criterion sets too high the bar for personhood; 3) that Rovane equivocates on the possessor of "rational unity"; and 4) that Rovane's criterion is not protected from a duplication objection and thus is not sufficient for individuating a person.

Wallace, K.A.(1999) Anonymity. Ethics and Information Technology 1 (1), 23-35.

Anonymity is a form of nonidentifiability, which I define as noncoordinatabilty of traits in a given respect. This definition broadens the concept of anonymity, freeing it from its primary association with naming. It is based on a metaphysics of the self as an "intersectional self." I analyze different ways anonymity can be realized. I also discuss some ethical issues, such as privacy, accountability, and other values which anonymity may serve or undermine. My theory can also conceptualize anonymity in information systems where, for example, privacy and accountability are at issue.

Ethics

Wallace, K.A. (under review) A Kantian Perspective on Individual Responsibility for Sustainability. Submitted as a contribution to Ethics in the Anthropocene, Eds. Kenneth Schockley and Andrew Light.

In this paper I suggest that the Kantian categorical imperative can be a basis for an ethical duty to live sustainably. I argue that the universalizability formulation of the categorical imperative should be seen as a test of whether the principle underlying a way of life is self-destructive of the very system of living and acting that makes the way of life possible. In exploring this interpretation, I also propose that the self should be reconceptualized as a socially and system-constituted being, rather than an atomized will.

Wallace, K.A. (2011) Moral Transformation. In Identity and Social Transformation. Eds. Radim Sip and John Ryder. Central European Pragmatist Forum, Vol. 5; Value Inquiry Book Series, Volume 240. New Amsterdam, NY: Rodopi Press.

Abraham Edel suggested that indeterminacy is at the heart of relativism, and that the sources of indeterminacy are "field instability" and complexity. This paper picks up on the latter and explores the implications of ontological complexity for (1) contextual validation and what that might entail in ethics and (2) the possibility of moral transformation or reform. Reform implies some objective measure of improvement and thus, if it is genuinely possible, would undercut the relativist thesis.

Wallace, K.A. (2009) Common Morality and Moral Reform. Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics, 30 (17), 55-68. Available at Springer Publishers or download Author prepared PDF, with information and page numbers needed for citation.

I discuss moral reform in relation to two prescriptive approaches to common morality, which I distinguish as the foundational and the pragmatic. A foundational approach to common morality (e.g., Bernard Gert's) suggests that there is no reform of morality, but of beliefs, values, customs, and practices so as to conform with an unchanging, foundational morality. On a pragmatic view, on the other hand, common morality is relative to human flourishing, and its justification consists in its effectiveness in promoting flourishing. Morality is dependent on what in fact does promote human flourishing and therefore, could be reformed. However, a pragmatic approach, which appears more open to the possibility of moral reform, would need a more robust account of norms by which reform is measured. For the idea of moral reform depends on there being some standard or measure against which to assess progress. Otherwise, any change is not reform, but simply difference.

Wallace, K.A. (2008) On-line Anonymity. Entry for Handbook on Information and Computer Ethics, eds. Herman Tavani and Ken Himma, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 165-189.

I spell out my theory of anonymity as noncoordinatability of traits in a given respect and distinguish it from the treatment of anonymity provided by G.T. Marx. I then discuss a range of ethical issues involved in on-line anonymity, such as data mining, tracking and user's presumption of anonymity; anonymity and attribution bias; anonymity and expression of self; globalization of on-line activity; and anonymity and identity theft. I conclude with a discussion of what I refer to as the Ring of Gyges scenario, namely, that anonymity always carries with it the risk of minimizing accountability for action.

Wallace, K.A. (2007) Morality and the Capacity for Symbolic Cognition: Comment on Tse. In Moral Psychology, Vol. 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, MIT Press, 303-313.

This article criticizes P.U. Tse's account of symbolic cognition as the basis for moral distinctions. Tse's account is helpful with respect to understanding psychological states, capacities and dispositions that may influence the development of moral attitudes and behaviors. This account may be helpful in developing appropriate methods of moral education and persuasion. However, as an account of the origins of moral distinctions and judgments per se, Tse's accounts of symbolic cognition in general and of tokenization in particular do not form a coherent theory of moral distinctions such as those between right and wrong or good and evil.

Wallace, K.A. (2007) Moral Reform, Moral Disagreement and Abortion. Metaphilosophy, 38 (4), 380-403.

Bernard Gert argues that legitimate moral disagreement calls for tolerance and moral humility; when there is more than one morally acceptable course of action, then intolerance and what Gert calls "moral arrogance" would be objectionable. This article identifies some possible difficulties in distinguishing moral arrogance from moral reform and then examines Gert's treatment of abortion as a contemporary example of moral disagreement that he characterizes as morally irresolvable. I criticize Gert's claim that abortion could be legitimately restricted or prohibited by the government.

Wallace, K.A. (1999) Anonymity. Ethics and Information Technology 1 (1), 23-35. (Also listed with Metaphysics of Persons articles.)

Anonymity is a form of nonidentifiability which I define as noncoordinatabilty of traits in a given respect. This definition broadens the concept, freeing it from its primary association with naming. It is based on a metaphysics of the self as an "intersectional self." I analyze different ways anonymity can be realized. I also discuss some ethical issues, such as privacy, accountability and other values which anonymity may serve or undermine. My theory can also conceptualize anonymity in information systems where, for example, privacy and accountability are at issue.

Wallace, K.A. (1996) Commentary on "Lumps and Bumps". Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, vol. 3 (1), 17-20.

This commentary briefly discusses the roles emotion and reason have played in moral judgment and indicates some of the problematic consequences of the priority typically placed on reason for a theory of moral judgment.

Wallace, K.A. (1993) Reconstructing Judgment: Emotion and Moral Judgment. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 8 (3), 61-83. Reprinted in Gender and Justice, ed. Ngaire Naffine, Ashgate Publishing Co., 2001.

A traditional association of judgment with "reason" has drawn upon and reinforced an opposition between reason and emotion. This, in turn, has led to a restricted view of the nature of moral judgment and of the subject as moral agent, and has prejudiced the case against women as moral agents when they get associated with emotion. The alternative, I suggest, is to abandon the traditional categories and to develop a new theory of judgment. I show how Justus Buchler's theory of judgment is a robust alternative which does not prejudice the case against emotion and which positions us to conceptualize how feeling and emotion can be (or be components of) moral judgments.

Metaphysics

Wallace, K.A. (1999) Ontological Parity and/or Ordinality? Metaphilosophy 30 (4), 302-318.

Buchler's system is organized around two basic principles, ontological parity and ordinality, and its basic category of identification is "natural complex." Ontological parity affirms the equal reality of whatever is (fact and fiction, actuality and possibility, object and relation, and so on). Ordinality affirms that the nature of whatever is is complex; there are no irreducible simples. The two principles have distinct functions in Buchler's ontology. Ontological parity could be independently subscribed to, whereas ordinality signals the positive conception of the nature of reality as irreducibly complex or indefinitely related. The two principles are not necessarily at odds with one another, as some critics claim. I do identify several difficulties that follow from (1) the level of generality claimed by Buchler and (2) the claim of irreducible complexity or indefinite relatedness.

Wallace, K.A. (1992) Making Categories or Making Worlds, II. In Frontiers in American Philosophy, eds. Robert W. Burch and Herman Saatkamp, Texas A & M University Press, 147-156.

(An extended development of ideas first put forth in the 1988 JSP paper, see below.) This article argues that the perspectiveless spectator viewpoint is not required for the possibility of the kind of generality characteristic of metaphysics. Neither perspectivalism nor the fact that categories are constructed is devasting for genuine knowledge about the "way the world is." The argument runs on adopting a relational or "ordinal" ontology, an outline of which and of the consequences for the possibility of genuine knowledge are sketched in the article.

Wallace, K.A. (1991) Ordinal Possibility: A Metaphysical Concept. In Nature's Perspectives: Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics, eds. Armen Marsoobian, Kathleen Wallace and Robert S. Corrington, SUNY Press, 171-187.

Buchler defines the modal concepts, possibility and necessity (sole possibility), in terms of actualizability (and without reference to contemporary modal logics). He argues that the alleged non-contradiction involved in "logical possibility" is always ordinal, defined in terms of actual locations and conditions. Therefore, according to a metaphysics of natural complexes, the notion of "logical possibility" is -- no less than "empirical" or "real" possibility -- a matter of ordinal location. Weiss argues that Buchler's treatment of logical possibility is inconsistent with Buchler's commitment to ontological parity. (see Phil Weiss, "Possibility: Three Recent Ontologies," International Philosophical Quarterly, 1980. Reprinted in Nature's Perspectives: Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics.) Weiss and I engage in a discussion of logical possibility following our papers in this volume. My part of the discussion is called Sceptical Openness (Nature's Perspectives 195-199).

Wallace, K.A. (1991) Metaphysics and Validation. In Antifoundationalism: Old and New, eds. Thomas Rockmore and Beth J. Singer, Temple University Press, 209-238.

I characterize metaphysics as the devising of a categorial perspective or framework for the purpose of conceptual [re-]orientation. Validation in metaphysics is a function of the ongoing work of categories, not their alleged foundational irrefutability.

Wallace, K.A. (1988) Making Categories or Making Worlds. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2 (4), 322-327.

Using Justus Buchler's category of ordinality the paper explores the role of conceptual construction and evidential validation in metaphysics. The paper also indicates how we would not necessarily jeopardize objectivity by adopting the ordinal view.

Hume

Wallace, K.A. (2002) Hume on Regulating Belief and Moral Sentiment. Hume Studies, 28 (1), 83-111.

I argue that Hume's treatment of the correction of moral judgments is part of a unified treatment of regulation of judgment, cognitive (beliefs that are true or false) and moral (judgments about good and bad). I offer an interpretation of Hume's general point of view in morals as a kind of focusing activity that counterbalances situated sentiments and thereby regulates moral sentiment. The general point of view is compared to Hume's treatment of the regulation of belief. This comparison sheds new light on how production of contraiety through the general point of view is regulative in morals. The general point of view does not undermine Hume's sentimentalist thesis in morals. Rather, it is a perspective in which sentiment is properly aroused and directed, and within which justificatory practices take place. The comparison with belief-regulating mechanisms suggests that Hume has a unified or systematic treatment of regulation.

Feminism

Wallace, K.A. (2007) Educating for Autonomy: Identity and Intersectional Selves. In Education for A Democratic Society, Central European Pragmatist Forum, Vol. 3, eds. John Ryder and Gert-Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Rodopi Press, 165-176. (Also listed with Metaphysics of Persons and American Philosophy articles.)

I argue that autonomy is rooted in the process of reflexive communication, but requires in addition the capacity for inventive norm generation. Autonomy does not require abandoning social norms. An autonomous self assimilates social norms and inventively manipulates at least some of them in some respect such that a norm is the product of the self's own reflexive activity. I indicate how my approach is different from philosophically standard "proceduralist" models of autonomy, and what specific sorts of skills would contribute to autonomy as I define it. These include skills that are not typically thought of as autonomy conducing by many of the standard accounts, such as cultivating the capacities for listening, interdependence, and responsiveness to others.

Wallace, K.A. (2003) Autonomous "I" of an Intersectional Self. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17 (3), 176-191. (Also listed with Metaphysics of Persons and American Philosophy articles.)

In recent literature, an "intersectional self" has been modeled as socially -- or, as a number of recent feminists have argued, "relationally" -- shaped and constituted. I suggest that an intersectional or relational self should be modelled more broadly. However, an issue that needs to be addressed in such a model is what an "I," that is, the capacity for taking an independent, self-directing, first-person perspective, might amount to. Through the notions of interpretation and reflexive communication, I suggest a way of conceptualizing an "I" that is both located and has the capacity for autonomy.

Wallace, K.A. and Miller, Marjorie Cantor (1996) Introduction: Philosophy and Feminism. Metaphilosophy 27 (1-2), 1-9.

We discuss the relationship and the tension between feminism and philosophy in the academy today. We argue that feminist philosophy is as distinctively philosophical as any other kind of philosophy. The purpose of the introduction and of the special issue on "Philosophy and Feminism" is to situate feminist philosophical work in the mainstream of contemporary philosophical debate. Finally, we briefly introduce the contents of this double journal issue: ten articles and a Symposium: A Roundtable on Feminism and Philosophy in the mid-1990s, initially presented at the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, March 1995.

Wallace, K.A. (1993) Reconstructing Judgment: Emotion and Moral Judgment. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 8 (3), 61-83. Reprinted in Gender and Justice, ed. Ngaire Naffine, Ashgate Publishing Co. (Also listed with Ethics articles.)

A traditional association of judgment with "reason" has drawn upon and reinforced an opposition between reason and emotion. This, in turn, has led to a restricted view of the nature of moral judgment and of the subject as moral agent, and has prejudiced the case against women as moral agents when they get associated with emotion. The alternative, I suggest, is to abandon the traditional categories and to develop a new theory of judgment. I show how Justus Buchler's theory of judgment is a robust alternative which does not prejudice the case against emotion and which positions us to conceptualize how feeling and emotion can be (or be components of) moral judgments.

American Philosophy

Wallace, K.A. (2007) Educating for Autonomy: Identity and Intersectional Selves. In Education for A Democratic Society, Central European Pragmatist Forum, Vol. 3, eds. John Ryder and Gert-Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Rodopi Press, 165-176. (Also listed with Metaphysics of Persons and Feminism articles.)

I argue that autonomy is rooted in the process of reflexive communication, but requires in addition the capacity for inventive norm generation. Autonomy does not require abandoning social norms. An autonomous self assimilates social norms and inventively manipulates at least some of them in some respect such that a norm is the product of the self's own reflexive activity. I indicate how my approach is different from philosophically standard "proceduralist" models of autonomy, and what specific sorts of skills would contribute to autonomy as I define it. These include skills that are not typically thought of as autonomy conducing by many of the standard accounts, such as cultivating the capacities for listening, interdependence, and responsiveness to others.

Wallace, K.A. (2005) Entry on Justus Buchler. In Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, Thoemmes Press.

Wallace, K.A. (2004) Entry on Justus Buchler. In Blackwell Guide to American Philosophy, eds. Armen Marsoobian & John Ryder, Blackwell Publishers, 271-286.

This article is a general introduction to Buchler's metaphysics. It analyzes Buchler's basic ontological principle of ordinality and its implications for the relational constitution of objects, the nature of possibility and the nature of the human self.

Wallace, K.A. (2003) Entry on Justus Buchler. In The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 279, American Philosophers, 1950-2000, a Bruccoli Layman Clark Book, Gale Publishers, 29-38.

This piece provides a professional biography of Justus Buchler and an analytical overview of Buchler's systematic work, written between 1951 and 1971: his metaphysics of human process (in Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment, Nature and Judgment, and The Concept of Method), his general metaphysics (in Metaphysics of Natural Complexes) and his theory of poetry (in The Main of Light).

Wallace, K.A. (2003) Autonomous "I" of an Intersectional Self. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17 (3), 176-191. (Also listed with Metaphysics of Persons and Feminism articles.)

In recent literature, an "intersectional self" has been modeled as socially -- or, as a number of recent feminists have argued, "relationally" -- shaped and constituted. I suggest that an intersectional or relational self should be modelled more broadly. However, an issue that needs to be addressed in such a model is what an "I," that is, the capacity for taking an independent, self-directing, first-person perspective, might amount to. Drawing on Mead, Royce and Buchler, I suggest a way of conceptualizing an "I" that is both located and has the capacity for autonomy.

Wallace, K.A. (1997) Incarnation, Difference and Identity: Materialism, Self and the Life of Spirit. In Philosophy in Experience: American Philosophy in Transition, eds. Douglas Anderson and Richard Hart, Fordham University Press, 49-76.

Santayana gives a rich account of the self that is simultaneously bound by material conditions and circumstances and able to transcend those boundaries if not in material fact, at least in the life of spirit. In this essay I pursue the question, whether and how Santayana's view of "spirit" can be reconciled with his materialism. There is a tension between two of Santayana's claims about spirit: its inefficacy (required by his materialism) and its role in transforming human life from merely physical organic life to conscious, feeling life. What seems problematic to me is the account of "material" efficacy which Santayana commits himself to, and this problem in turn, I argue, has its origins in a limited notion of relation.

Wallace, K.A. (1995) John Smith's America's Philosophical Vision: American and/or Philosophical. Contribution to symposium on Smith's America's Philosophical Vision, Transactions Charles S. Peirce Society 31 (1), 11-19.

The article focuses on two main issues raised by Smith's work: one, the interpretation of philosophy as a discipline on the one hand and as representative of a culture on the other; two, the tension in Smith's treatment of American philosophy between an emphasis on the recovery of tradition and the propulsion to move forward to the cutting edge in philosophical thought. The author argues that the disciplinary and cutting edge features of American philosophy are somewhat underemphasized in Smith's work, while his interpretations of classical American philosophy continue to be oases of clarity in locating this philosophical tradition in a historical and cultural milieu.

Wallace, K.A. (1990) Introduction. Second, expanded edition of Metaphysics of Natural Complexes, by Justus Buchler, SUNY Press.

Wallace, K.A. (1986) Philosophical Sanity. Metaphilosophy, 17 (1), 14-25.

The article is an extended argument for the idea of philosophy as intellectual discipline and a critique of the notion that philosophy can be reduce to some form of common sense or expression of personal or cultural preference. I use the work of George Santayana on the nature of philosophy as a focus for the critical discussion because he attempts, somewhat paradoxically, to reduce philosophy to both.

Wallace, K.A. (1986) Substance, Ground and Totality in Santayana's Philosophy. Transactions Charles S. Peirce Society 22 (3), 289-309.

This article is a critical examination of Santayana's idea of substance as the "groundless ground" of existence. I analyze the key concepts he uses to develop the idea, viz., the concepts of unity, indeterminateness, power and explanatory limit, and show that in each case the formulation is flawed. I conclude that the idea of substance introduces a systematic paradox into Santayana's ontology. I also suggest that Santayana's unique literary method of "exhibitive judgment" (a concept borrowed from Buchler) is of independent philosophic interest.

Wallace, K.A. and Sidney Gelber (1986) Nature, Power and Prospect: Justus Buchler's System of Philosophy. Process Studies 15 (2), 106-119. Reprinted in Nature's Perspectives: Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics, eds. Armen Marsoobian, Kathleen Wallace and Robert S. Corrington, SUNY Press, 1991.

We distinguish three systematic trends in the Buchler's metaphysics: ontological parity, ordinality and commensurateness. The first two were explicitly identified by Buchler, the third is our name for a third, which, we argue, explains the system's approach to modality (the concepts of possibility, necessity and actuality).

Education

Wallace, K.A. (1983) General Education and the Modern University. Liberal Education 69 (3), 257-268.

This article suggests that the presence of diverse student constituencies in college is a reason for colleges and universities to develop plural approaches to general education through such curricular structures as overlapping constellations of courses and integrative seminars.

Wallace, K.A. (unpublished mss) "Five 3-credit (3x5) or Four 4-credit (4x4) Courses per Semester? Impacts on Student Learning, Access and Success, and on Organizational Development".

A full student course load may be defined as five 3-credit (3x5) or four 4-credit (4x4) courses per semester. Some colleges and universities have recently converted to a 4x4 curricular model. Surprisingly little is known about the merit of doing so. The author examines three rationales offered by faculty and administrators at a variety of four year colleges and universities in support of 4x4 (improvement in student learning and graduation rates, and favorable impact on resources and faculty load), and identifies areas for further investigation needed to substantiate any of these rationales.

Public, non-scholarly publications

Wallace, K.A. (2008) Marketing Ideas: Reshaping Academic Publishing in a Digital World. In Science Progress, a publication of the Center for American Progress.

Wallace, K.A. (2008) Who Profits When You Publish? In Academe: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, July/August 2008, 58-61. Download PDF.