First published in 1984, Cultural Analysis is a systematic examination of the theories of culture contained in the writings of four contemporary social theorists: Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. This study of their work clarifies their contributions to the analysis of culture and shows the converging assumptions that the authors believe are laying the foundation for a new approach to the study of culture. The focus is specifically on culture, a concept that remains subject (...) to ambiguities of treatment, and concentrates on questions concerning the definition and content of culture, its construction, its relations with social conditions, and the manner in which it may be changing. The books demonstrates how these writers have made strides towards defining culture as an objective element of social interaction which can be subjected to critical investigation. (shrink)

The United Nations' designation of 1979 as the International Year of the Child marked the first global effort undertaken to heighten awareness of the special needs of children. Activities initiated during this special year were designed to promote purposive and collaborative actions for the benefit of children throughout the world. Michigan State University's celebration of the International Year of the Child was held from Septem ber 1979 through June 1980. A variety of activities focused attention on the multiplicity of factors (...) affecting the welfare of today's children as well as the children of the future. Many people involved with the university were concerned that benefits to children continue beyond the official time allocated to the celebration. The series Child Nurturance is one response to this concern. The first five volumes of Child Nurturance reflect directly the activities held on the Michigan State University campus and consist of original contributions from guest speakers and invited contributors. Subsequent biennial volumes will present original contributions from individuals representing such fields as anthropology, biology, education, human ecology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and medicine. We hope the material presented in these volumes will promote greater understanding of children and encourage interdisciplinary inquiry into the individual, family, societal and cultural variables which influence their welfare and development. We would. like to express both our thanks and our admiration for who not only typed the camera-ready copy for each of Margaret Burritt the volumes, but also served as general manager of the entire project. (shrink)

On April 1, 2016, at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, a book symposium, organized by Alyssa Ney, was held in honor of David Albert’s After Physics. All participants agreed that it was a valuable and enlightening session. We have decided that it would be useful, for those who weren’t present, to make our remarks publicly available. Please bear in mind that what follows are remarks prepared for the session, and that on some (...) points participants may have changed their minds in light of the ensuing discussion. (shrink)

The avocado (Persea americana) is a major crop commodity worldwide. Moreover, avocado, a paleopolyploid, is an evolutionary “outpost” among flowering plants, representing a basal lineage (the magnoliid clade) near the origin of the flowering plants themselves. Following centuries of selective breeding, avocado germplasm has been characterized at the level of microsatellite and RFLP markers. Nonetheless, little is known beyond these general diversity estimates, and much work remains to be done to develop avocado as a major subtropical‐zone crop. Among the goals (...) of avocado improvement are to develop varieties with fruit that will “store” better on the tree, show uniform ripening and have better post‐harvest storage. Avocado transcriptome sequencing, genome mapping and partial genomic sequencing will represent a major step toward the goal of sequencing the entire avocado genome, which is expected to aid in improving avocado varieties and production, as well as understanding the evolution of flowers from non‐flowering seed plants (gymnosperms). Additionally, continued evolutionary and other comparative studies of flower and fruit development in different avocado strains can be accomplished at the gene expression level, including in comparison with avocado relatives, and these should provide important insights into the genetic regulation of fruit development in basal angiosperms. BioEssays 30:386–396, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This study examines how and why peoples of African descent access and utilize community-based pedagogical spaces that exist outside schools. Employing a theoretical framework that fuses historical methodology and border-crossing theory, the researchers review existing scholarship and primary documents to present an historical examination of how peoples of African descent have fought for and redefined education in nonschool educative venues. These findings inform the authors? analysis of results from an oral history project they conducted into how Black Bermudian men utilized (...) learning spaces outside schools, such as the family, Black church, and athletics clubs, to augment their personal and scholastic development. Based on their historical and empirical research findings, the authors argue that educational actors (including teachers, administrators, policy makers, and researchers) focused on school-based issues like the academic achievement gap would do well to recognize the impact learning spaces outside of schools may have on student scholastic success, particularly for minority men. (shrink)

On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from (...) eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). -/- Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world. (shrink)

This article explores the limits of introductory social justice education and the ways in which a social foundations course could expand and deepen the social justice lens of current and future educators. The authors, members of an introductory graduate-level Social Foundations course, discuss the limitations they realized in their previous social justice education courses, and the importance of courses that further student's understandings of the ever-evolving ways people enact and experience identity, power, and privilege. The authors identify three main pedagogical (...) and theoretical elements that advanced their social justice knowledge: examining theories for their potential to uncover or obscure lived experience; unpacking binary constructions of identity; and exploring the limits and possibilities of intersectional thinking. This article offers implications and suggestions for educators who seek to challenge and expand the social justice knowledge of future educators and administrators. (shrink)

This symposium provides five case studies of the ways that John Dewey's philosophy and practice were influenced by women or "weirdoes" (our choices include F. M. Alexander, Albert Barnes, Helen Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp, and Jane Addams) and presents some conclusions about the value of dialoging across difference for philosophers and other scholars.

I conduct an empirical analysis of the temporally asymmetric character of our epistemic access to the world by providing an experimental scheme whose results represent the core empirical content of the epistemic asymmetry. I augment this empirical content by formulating a gedanken experiment inspired by a proposal from David Albert. This second experiment cannot be conducted using any technology that is likely to be developed in the foreseeable future, but the expected results help us to state an important constraint (...) on our ability to know the future. Finally, I show that a third experiment concerning precognition, described by Michael Scriven and John Mackie, does not characterize any additional empirical content but does help to illustrate why it is unlikely that any precognition exists. (shrink)

Bruno Bauer has been the subject of intense controversies since the 1830s, yet his work remains inaccessible and his meaning elusive. He is most familiar as the object of Marx’s sharp polemical attacks in the Holy Family and the German Ideology, though Albert Schweitzer, in his widely-noted Quest of the Historical Jesus, gives him a receptive and sensitive reading. Bauer is a far more complex figure than the caricature that Marx’s denunciations make of him. In the decisive political circumstances (...) of the German Vormärz, the prelude to the revolutions of March 1848, Bauer, inspired by Hegel, speaks for an original republicanism. He is a theorist of revolution, of its causes and its failures. Analyzing the political and social crisis of the Restoration, he criticizes both the old order and the oppositional currents of liberalism and socialism. Bauer attributes an epochal significance to the revolution he theorizes. It is a fundamental political, social, and cultural transformation that completes the unfinished tasks of the French Revolution; but it also addresses the unprecedented challenges posed by the emergence of modern civil society. Its aim is the creation of a republican league of equal right, eliminating irrational privileges, refashioning social relations, and eradicating religious and political alienation. As the culmination of modernity’s emancipatory strivings, it fulfills the promise of the transcendental project initiated by Kant and perfected by Hegel. This post-Kantian philosophical context shapes Bauer’s understanding of the political struggle. His ethical idealism has as its object the unity of thought and being, to be secured by reshaping the forms of objective life in accordance with the insights of critical judgment. Based on history as the record of self-consciousness, the judgment takes a special form. Our purpose here is to analyze this judgment. (shrink)

Bruno Bauer has been the subject of intense controversies since the 1830s, yet his work remains inaccessible and his meaning elusive. He is most familiar as the object of Marx’s sharp polemical attacks in the Holy Family and the German Ideology, though Albert Schweitzer, in his widely-noted Quest of the Historical Jesus, gives him a receptive and sensitive reading. Bauer is a far more complex figure than the caricature that Marx’s denunciations make of him. In the decisive political circumstances (...) of the German Vormärz, the prelude to the revolutions of March 1848, Bauer, inspired by Hegel, speaks for an original republicanism. He is a theorist of revolution, of its causes and its failures. Analyzing the political and social crisis of the Restoration, he criticizes both the old order and the oppositional currents of liberalism and socialism. Bauer attributes an epochal significance to the revolution he theorizes. It is a fundamental political, social, and cultural transformation that completes the unfinished tasks of the French Revolution; but it also addresses the unprecedented challenges posed by the emergence of modern civil society. Its aim is the creation of a republican league of equal right, eliminating irrational privileges, refashioning social relations, and eradicating religious and political alienation. As the culmination of modernity’s emancipatory strivings, it fulfills the promise of the transcendental project initiated by Kant and perfected by Hegel. This post-Kantian philosophical context shapes Bauer’s understanding of the political struggle. His ethical idealism has as its object the unity of thought and being, to be secured by reshaping the forms of objective life in accordance with the insights of critical judgment. Based on history as the record of self-consciousness, the judgment takes a special form. Our purpose here is to analyze this judgment. (shrink)

In recent years, direct brain interventions have shown increased success in manipulating neurobiological processes often associated with moral reasoning and decision-making. As current DBIs are refined, and new technologies are developed, the state will have an interest in administering DBIs to criminal offenders for rehabilitative purposes. However, it is generally assumed that the state is not justified in directly intruding in an offender’s brain without valid consent. Thomas Douglas challenges this view. The state already forces criminal offenders to go (...) to jail without their consent. This represents a serious interference with an offender’s rights. If criminal offenders are already morally liable to incarceration, why is the state not also entitled to administer DBIs without consent for the purposes of rehabilitation? Douglas argument focuses on the right to ‘bodily integrity’. He argues that there is no compelling reason to believe that bodily rights that protect an offender from non-consensual DBIs are stronger than rights that protect an offender from incarceration. This paper will extend Douglas’ analysis. It will consider the more fundamental right to ‘mental integrity’. The right to mental integrity defends an inner sphere of liberty. It protects critical capacities necessary for the exercise of autonomous human agency—without which a vast majority of moral rights could not exist. Thus, the right to mental integrity is ultimately more important for a moral assessment of DBIs. The right strongly suggests that both presently, and in the future, there may be many cases in which the state is not entitled to administer DBIs to criminal offenders without valid consent. (shrink)

An important obstacle to lawhood in the special sciences is the worry that such laws would require metaphysically extravagant conspiracies among fundamental particles. How, short of conspiracy, is this possible? In this paper we'll review a number of strategies that allow for the projectibility of special science generalizations without positing outlandish conspiracies: non-Humean pluralism, classical MRL theories of laws, and Albert and Loewer's theory. After arguing that none of the above fully succeed, we consider the conspiracy problem through the (...) lens of our preferred view of laws, an elaboration of the MRL view that we call the Better Best System (BBS) theory. BBS offers a picture on which, although all events supervene on a fundamental level, there is no one unique locus of projectibility; rather there are a large number of loci corresponding to the different areas (ecology, economics, solid-state chemistry, etc.) in which there are simple and strong generalizations to be made. While we expect that some amount of conspiracy-fear-inducing special science projectibility is inevitable given BBS, we'll argue that this is unobjectionable. It follows from BBS that the laws of any particular special or fundamental science amount to a proper subset of the laws. From this vantage point, the existence of projectible special science generalizations not guaranteed by the fundamental laws is not an occasion for conspiracy fantasies, but a predictable fact of life in a complex world. (shrink)

?A highly useful core text for courses in the field?as well as an invaluable reference for any serious student of the ethics of war.??Albert Pierce, U.S. Naval AcademyWhen and why is war justified? How, morally speaking, should wars be fought? The Morality of War confronts these challenging questions, surveying the fundamental principles and themes of the just war tradition through the words of the philosophers, jurists, and warriors who have shaped it.The collection begins with the foundational works of just (...) war theory, as well as those of two competing perspectives, realism and pacifism. Subsequent selections focus on issues related to the resort to war, the conduct of war, and the judgment of war crimes. Both traditional just war concerns and those that have emerged in response to contemporary developments?such as the U.S. ?war on terror??are thoroughly covered.With articles that are crucially relevant to today?s world paired with contextual introductions to each section, the reader is ideally constructed to inform and guide students as they consider the morality of past and current military actions.David Kinsella is associate professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University. He is editor of International Studies Perspectives and coauthor of World Politics: The Menu for Choice. Craig L. Carr is professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government. He is author of On Fairness and editor of The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf. (shrink)

In his major works, Albert Borgmann has explored in depth and detail the role of technology in contemporary life and provided compelling critical, philosophical perspectives. In this study, I primarily discuss Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992) in relation to the themes of his earlier Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (1984). While appreciating Borgmann's attempt to provide distinctions between modernity and postmodernity as historical epochs, I challenge his analysis of a postmodern divide and sketch out an alternative conception (...) of technology that critically engages some of Borgmann's positions. My argument will be that while technology threatens democracy, community, individual sovereignty, and other values many of us hold in common, it also provides the potential for a positive reconstruction of social life and an enhancement of human life. My provocation will be to deconstruct what I take to be a too sharp distinction in Borgmann's text between a "hyperreal" technosphere contrasted to a "real" world of concrete human interaction and focal activities. I attempt to show that some of Borgmann's own positive values can be realized in the cyberspaces of the new technologies and provide some examples. These reflections will force us to rethink the concepts of the public sphere, democracy, community, and technology. (shrink)

Albert Borgmann's new book Holding onto Reality. The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (1999) continues the interrogation of the epochal significance of new information technology he began in Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992). For Borgmann, the postmodern divide involves, among other things, a shift from involvement with "focal" things and practices (i.e. activities such as eating, gardening, running, and the like), to immersion in media fantasies, or the thrills of cyberspace and virtual reality. Borgmann continues (...) his defense of "reality" against the champions of the hyper or virtual realities of cyberspace and new technologies, focusing on the concept of information and its vicissitudes under the impact of new computer and information technology. (shrink)

I spell out a problem with the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo: that, contra the doctrine, it is not possible to efficiently cause something from nothing. This is because an efficient cause requires a material cause in order to have an effect. The material cause supplies the potency that the efficient cause actualises. Because nothingness has no potencies, there is nothing for an efficient cause to actualise. I show that this objection presupposes that the theory of noneism (the proposition that (...) some things do not exist) is false. I postulate that the universe (i.e. the created order) is a non-existent item and so there is no problem with the claim that it was efficiently caused to come from nothing – the universe has no being anyway. After rehearsing the rather strong reasons in favour of the truth of noneism, I deal with two objections that are peculiar to my claim that the universe lacks reality: that creation possesses characteristics that are sufficient to render it existent and that a non-existent object has its properties independent of divine fiat. I show that there are sensible replies to both objections. With regard to the first I show that the possession of such characteristics at most shows that the universe has an ontological status that is equivalent to some reference point. With regard to the second I argue that the Characterisation Principle (i.e. in some world – not necessarily the actual world – an object has the properties that it is characterised as having) entails that non-existent objects possess their properties in virtue of some existent entity and that the only plausible candidate for such an entity is a divine mind of some sort. (shrink)

William Albert Crawford-Frost was a Canadian born philosopher who developed a unique form of idealism that he called the Philosophy of Integration. This he presented in 1906 in a book by that title which he described in the subtitle as An Explanation of the Universe and of the Christian Religion. What I have taken the liberty of calling his Fusion Philosophy is the metaphysical theory outlined in this work as explained and developed further in his two other books, Old (...) Dogma in a New Light, and A New Theory of Evolution, as well as in a number of shorter pamphlets. I am using the term “fusion” rather than “integration” partly to avoid the social and political emphasis which the latter word has since acquired. However, I am not at all unhappy that my term “fusion” calls to mind our developing nuclear technology since, as will be seen, it is an implication of Crawford-Frost’s idealism that the development and application of nuclear fission, as opposed to fusion, is quite literally nothing less than the work of the Devil. This makes Crawford-Frost’s philosophy of some interest to us today, though I think that his unique form of idealism is, in many ways, interesting in itself. (shrink)

According to the manuscripts of On the Crown, Demosthenes mockingly claims that, as the youthful Aeschines led processions in his mother's mystery-cult celebrations, he was hailed by various old women as ἔξαρχος καὶ προηγεμὼν καὶ κιττοφόρος καὶ λικνοφόρος καὶ τοιαῦθ’. Τhese are clearly special titles—Aeschines is not just one celebrant among many but a leading figure in the train of worshippers—and recent editors accordingly note that κιττοφόρος seems weak and follow Albert Rubens in printing instead κιστοφόρος, which Harpocration reports (...) was read by some authorities here. κιστοφόρος appears to be supported by ΣF2 18.260 ὁ φέρων τὰς κίστας, which is easily taken to confirm that Demosthenes meant that Aeschines stood out in the crowd of celebrants inter alia because he carried containers within which must have been sacred implements of some sort. (shrink)

No mais profundo centro: João da Cruz e o Sufismo Sadili cantam a união transformante Carlos Frederico Barboza de Souza O camelô em Belo Horizonte: aspectos da informalidade e da identidade Maria Aparecida Carvalho de Castro Igreja, povo de Deus, sujeito da comunhão e da missão Cleto Caliman A literatura como questionamento do sujeito da modernidade: Memórias do cárcere, de Graciliano Ramos, e A peste, de Albert Camus João Pereira Pinto O ensino religioso na rede pública estadual de Belo (...) Horizonte -MG: história, modelos e percepções de professores sobre formação e docência Douglas Cabral Dantas. (shrink)

Vol. presents a method for critically evaluating relevance in arguments based on case studies & a new relevance theory incorporating techniques of argumentation theory, logic & artificiaI intelligence. For scholars/students in argumentation & rhetoric.

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in the mass (...) media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. (shrink)

A "slippery slope argument" is a type of argument in which a first step is taken and a series of inextricable consequences follow, ultimately leading to a disastrous outcome. Many textbooks on informal logic and critical thinking treat the slippery slope argument as a fallacy. Walton argues that used correctly in some cases, they can be a reasonable type of argument to shift a burden of proof in a critical discussion, while in other cases they are used incorrectly. Walton identifies (...) and analyzes four types of slippery slope argument. Walton presents guidelines that show how each type of slippery slope argument can be used correctly or incorrectly, using over fifty case studies of argumentation on controversial issues. These include abortion, medical research on human embryos, euthanasia, the decriminalization of marijuana, pornography, and censorship, and banning of American flag burning. (shrink)

Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right dialogue conditions (...) by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies. (shrink)