Chapter 14 Flashcards
evaluative concepts whose proper use is contested, where such contestation does not arise from confusion but rather from the internally complex character of the concept and the fact that different persons are liable to weigh the diverse constituent elements of the concept differently. There is, conceptually, no best exemplar of such concepts. Disputes concerning the use of such concepts are both genuine (not based on mistakes) and irresolvable by rational argument.
Essentially Contested Concept
relatively well-defined groups of persons who possess the power to govern the rules, norms, and decisions of a particular domain of activity (culture, economic, politics).
Elites:
a term, introduced by Michel Foucault, to register the point that practices of power involve forms of knowledge that give shape and direction to the exercise of power, as well as producing effects that are the objects of knowledge. This is not to assert the identity of power and knowledge, but to note that they stand in relationship to one another and, hence, the analysis of power must attend to the forms of knowledge presupposed by exercises of power and the forms of knowledge that these exercises of power make possible.
Power-Knowledge:
a term introduced by Nietzsche and adopted by Foucault to refer to exercises in historical philosophy that attempt (a) to trace how we have been formed as the subjects we are (in some aspect, e.g., sexuality), (b) to demonstrate the contingent power-laden character of this process, and, thereby, (c) to open up space for critical reflection on the ways in which we currently understand and act on ourselves.
Genealogy:
a group of French thinkers who critically distanced themselves from structuralism, an approach that focused on rules and norms independent of agency, in order to explore the interaction of agents and structures across a wide range of disciplines. Foucault and Derrida are the most prominent post-structuralist thinkers.
Post-Structuralist:
a form of injustice that arises when the combined, unplanned actions of a plurality of actors in institutions put large categories of persons under a systematic threat of domination or deprivation of the means to develop and exercise their capacities, at the same time as they enable others to dominate or give them access to an abundance of resources.
Structural Justice:
biases that arise from attributing bad behavior of out-group members to their character and of in-group members to the situation in which they find themselves, and vice versa with respect to good behavior.biases that arise from attributing bad behavior of out-group members to their character and of in-group members to the situation in which they find themselves, and vice versa with respect to good behavior.
Attribution Biases:
