Response to "Psychology in the Public Forum" on socially sensitive research.

People negotiate agreements "in the shadow of the law," whether in the private ordering of affairs such as drafting contracts or in the public forum of settling lawsuits.[1] A reverse phenomenon, however, has gone largely unnoticed: judges occasionally declare law in the shadow of negotiated settlements. In interpreting the terms of a consent decree[2] when the parties themselves cannot agree on what obligations such terms impose, the judge may determine that both the words and the parties' own intentions are so ambiguous that the words must be interpreted in light of the substantive law that gave rise to the plaintiffs' claim. This writer has previously contended that the meaning of an ambiguous term should be determined, in part, "by reference to the constitutional or statutory rights sought to be vindicated in the litigation." Even if the law is somewhat uncertain, part of the judge's interpretive effort should be to determine which interpretation "will best serve the policies of the relevant law."[3] It appears that the federal courts, at least, have adopted this position.[4]

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Negotiating Food Heritage Interpretations: Experiences of a Project at the Estonian National Museum

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics ◽

10.2478/jef-2021-0020 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 112-134

Author(s):

Anu Kannike ◽

Ester Bardone

Keyword(s):

Research And Development ◽

Cultural Heritage ◽

Development Project ◽

Food Culture ◽

National Museum ◽

Public Forum ◽

Non Profit ◽

The Public

Abstract The article examines varied interpretations of food heritage in contemporary Estonia, relying on the authors’ experiences of a three-year research and development project at the Estonian National Museum (ENM). The study focuses on the museum researchers’ collaboration with different stakeholders, representing small entrepreneurs and the public and non-profit sectors. The authors tackle the partners’ expectations and outcomes of diverse cooperational initiatives and the opportunities and challenges of a contemporary museum as a public forum for discussions on cultural heritage. The project revealed that diverse, complementary, and contested food heritage interpretations exist side-by-side on the Estonian foodscape. Additionally, the project enabled the authors to become better aware of the researcher’s role in the heritagisation process and of the museum as a place for negotiating the meanings and values of food culture.

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Theological Virtues in the Public Forum

Society Shaped by Theology ◽

10.4324/9781315242811-10 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 201-227

Keyword(s):

Public Forum ◽

The Public ◽

Theological Virtues

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Philosophers and Public Policy

Worldview ◽

10.1017/s0084255900012304 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 14-16

Author(s):

Bernard Murchland

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

The Other ◽

Public Forum ◽

The Public ◽

Political Obligations ◽

Professional Philosopher ◽

Political Implications ◽

The Social ◽

Social Scene

When I first began to study philosophy, there was not much concern with its political implications. One thought of philosophers as being a few removes from the public forum, concerned with loftier matters, operating far from the untidiness of the social scene in a cool oasis where the imagination could play and consciousness unfold at its own pace. It was a pure world, to be sure, and the purist view is by no means an obsolete one. Just the other day I heard a well-known philosopher in heated argument with a campus activist say that the responsibilities of a professional philosopher end with his profession, that his political obligations qua philosopher were nil.

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