One of the most persistent and poignant human experiences is the sensation of longing--a restlessness perhaps best described as the unspoken conviction that something is missing from our lives. In this study, Drew M. Dalton attempts to illuminate this experience by examining the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas on longing, or what Levinas terms "metaphysical desire." Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, (...) much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other--both the human other and the divine Other. -/- Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas's thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas's notion of metaphysical desire--namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto--the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a "hagiography of desire" detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas's account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its "true self," and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other. -/- Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the "Good beyond being," shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas's account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing's role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.". (shrink)

There is a previously unrecognized coupling which underlies the Western evaluation of aesthetic experiences. By and large, we are taught that for our aesthetic pleasures to have any “value” (i.e. to be good) they must do more than merely entertain, distract, or delight. Instead, they should confront us with some “truth” about the nature of our existence and/or guide us to some “reality” concerning the state of our world. This paper asks: 1) whence this prejudice concerning the value of our (...) aesthetic experiences? 2) What metaphysical and ethical assumptions underlie this epistemological standard? And, finally, 3) how might our expectations concerning the nature and value of aesthetic experiences alter if these assumptions are called into question, as they are, for example, by contemporary metaphysical pessimism? This paper uses the concept of “guilty pleasures” as a site to expose the history of our Western assumptions concerning the evaluation of aesthetic experiences and to explore how a pessimistic revaluation of reality might change our analysis of what comprises “good” art. To this end, this paper traces the origins of our aesthetic assumptions in the West, shows how these assumptions continue to influence our aesthetic expectations today, exposes the hidden metaphysical premises, which underly those expectations, and explores why and how we might call these premises into question through a pessimistic revaluation of existence. All of these supports, in the end, a critical reassessment of the status and value our so-called “guilty pleasures.”. (shrink)

A provocative and entirely new account of ethical reasoning that reconceives the traditional understanding of ethical action negatively -/- In this radical reconsideration of ethical reasoning in contemporary European philosophy, Drew M. Dalton makes the case for an absolutely grounded account of ethical normativity developed from a scientifically informed and purely materialistic metaphysics. Expanding on speculative realist arguments, Dalton argues that the limits placed on the nature of ethical judgments by Kant’s critique can be overcome through a moral evaluation (...) of the laws of nature—specifically, the entropic principle that undergirds the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. In order to extract a moral meaning from this simple material fact, Dalton scrutinizes the presumptions of classical accounts and traditional understandings of good and evil within the history of Western philosophy and ultimately asserts that ethical normativity can be reestablished absolutely without reverting to dogmatism. -/- By overturning our assumptions about the nature and value of reality, The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism presents a provocative new model of ethical responsibility that is both logically justifiable and scientifically sound. Dalton argues for “ethical pessimism,” a position previously marginalized in the West, as a means to cultivate an account of ethical responsibility and political activism that takes seriously the unbecoming of being and the moral horror of existence. (shrink)

Opening a new debate on ethical reasoning after Kant, Drew Dalton addresses the problem of the absolute in ethical and political thought. Attacking the foundation of European philosophical morality, he critiques the idea that in order for ethical judgement to have any real power, it must attempt to discover and affirm some conception of the absolute good. Without rejecting the essential role the absolute plays within ethical reasoning, Dalton interrogates the assumed value of the absolute. -/- Dalton brings some (...) of the most influential contemporary philosophical traditions into dialogue with each other: speculative realists like Badiou and Meillassoux; phenomenologists, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas; German Idealists, especially Kant and Schelling; psychoanalysts Freud and Lacan; and finally, post-structuralists, specifically Foucault, Deleuze, and Ranciere. The relevance of these thinkers to concrete socio-political problems is shown through reflections on the Holocaust, suicide bombings, the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism, as well as rampant consumerism and racism. -/- This book re-defines ethical reasoning as that which refuses absolutes and resists what Milton's devil in Paradise Lost called the “tyranny of heaven.” Against traditional ethical reasoning, Dalton sees evil not as a moral failure, but as the result of an all too easy assent to the absolute; an assent which can only be countered through active resistance. For Dalton, resistance to the absolute is the sole channel through which the good can be defined. (shrink)

Central to Emmanuel Levinas’s critique of Martin Heidegger is his assessment that Heidegger’s phenomenology delimits the possibility of dealing with ethical questions in any sincere way. According to Levinas, Heidegger ontologizes these questions, reducing them to mere means to a deeper understanding of Being. Levinas, by contrast, attempts to forge a phenomenology which can providea metaphysical account of ethics which goes beyond being. In this paper we will explore the nature and validity of Levinas’s critiqueof Heidegger by comparing his approach (...) to the question of evil to Heidegger’s as presented in his 1936 lecture course on Schelling’sFreiheitschrif. (shrink)

The recent re-evaluation of Schelling’s work has blossomed interest and research into a number of Schelling’s core ideas. Amongst these Schelling’s analysis of God, the creative act and human freedom have been amongst the most explored. Much less explored has been his theory of temporality, a theory which not only underpins but is essential to understanding properly these other insights. It is the goal of this essay to correct that oversight by offering some initial remarks concerning Schelling’s theory of temporality, (...) a topic which is rarely explicitly addressed within his work. This it does by analysing closely the passages within his oeuvre wherein the topic is most explicitly treated and by addressing the ontological theory implied therein. (shrink)

According to Quentin Meillassoux, one of the principal aims of speculative philosophy “must be the immanent inscription of values in being.” In this regard, the return to speculation in contemporary philosophy is in many ways a deeply ethical project. This “inscription of values” can only be successful, however, if it can somehow assert an absolute ethical value without, on the one hand, resorting to the kind of dogmatism laid to rest by the Kantian critique; or, on the other, by falling (...) into some form of ethical relativism incapable of grounding universal ethical judgments. Unfortunately, too many of these attempts have failed. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to explore the structure and failures of two such attempts through an analysis of the ethical projects of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux, respectively; and then, secondly, to show how both of these thinkers, and the project of speculative ethics in general, could benefit by turning to the work of F.W.J. Schelling on the concept of good and evil as absolute ethical values. (shrink)

Much has been made of the so-called “empirical turn” of “speculative materialism” with thinkers like Quentin Meillassoux championing the material sciences as a new route to absolute reality. According to Meillassoux, the material sciences “provide philosophers access once again to the great outdoors, the absolute outside,” of reality in-itself. One might expect from such encomia the attempt to engage with the products of contemporary science in order to develop a new metaphysics; but, Meillassoux spends almost no time in this way, (...) focusing instead on the form and methods of the material sciences over their actual accomplishments. As a result, his praise rings hollow and his metaphysics remains undeveloped. This paper examines what would happen if we were to take seriously his claims that a new metaphysics be developed from a scientific accounting of material reality by surveying the conclusions of contemporary physics. The paper ends by contrasting such a new speculative and materialistic metaphysics with the speculative nihilism of Ray Brassier. (shrink)

Much has been made of the so-called “speculative turn” in contemporary philosophy. For some, this turn marks the “end of phenomenology” and the dawn of a new empiricism in European philosophy. For others, it amounts to nothing more than a renewal of the straw-person accusation of psychologism against phenomenology. In truth, it is neither. Instead, this article argues that while at times mutually critical of one another, speculative materialism and phenomenology are best understood as parallel projects with shared trajectories and (...) aims, common concerns, and even comparable methods. The bene????it of reading these two apparently divergent camps as parallel projects is that it allows phenomenology to understand the diversity of its own history anew and, in light of this, to draw from speculative realism as a resource for rethinking its objectives and methods in its pursuit of a robust post-Kantian realism. (shrink)

Like the Copernican revolution which initiated the Modern project, there has been a thermodynamic revolution in the empirical sciences in the last two centuries. The aim of this paper is to show how we might draw from this revolution to make new and startling metaphysical and ethical claims concerning the nature and value of reality. To this end, this paper employs Aristotle’s account of the relation of the various philosophies and sciences to one another to show how we might assert (...) a new theory of being, moral value, and practical action from the primacy of entropic decay asserted in the contemporary mathematical sciences. This paper proceeds to show how, from what the contemporary sciences have concluded concerning the primacy of entropic decay within reality, unbecoming might be forwarded as a new account of the essence of existence: i.e., the first cause and motivating principle of reality’s formal, material, efficient, and final nature. The paper concludes by arguing that a new and surprising account of universal ethical value and normative duty can be deduced from such a metaphysics of decay. (shrink)

Central to Levinas’ “phenomenological” approach to ethics is his identification of an “infinite signification” in the human face. This insistence on the appearance of an infinitely signifying phenomenon has led many, notably Dominique Janicaud, to decry Levinas’ work as anti-phenomenological: little more than a novel approach to metaphysics. A significant element of the phenomenological revolution, Janicaud insists, referencing Husserl and the early Heidegger for support, is grounded in the recognition that phenomena arise in and are circumscribed by finitude. Any reference (...) to an infinite phenomenon which breaks with apperception, he therefore concludes, necessarily breaks as well with the phenomenological tradition, signaling a reversion to idealism, metaphysics, and ultimately theology. As this paper will argue however, a close reading of Husserl reveals not only the recognition of infinite phenomena; but, more significantly, the possibility that all phenomena are potentially infinite. This means that in many ways Levinas is not only more faithful to Husserl’s project than is often admitted; but moreover, that Levinas’ work serves as a lens through which a hitherto under-emphasized element of Husserl’s work can be examined – an element which challenges the traditional critique of Levinas. What’s more, the possibility of infinite phenomena opened up in Husserl’s work, when read through Levinas’ analysis of the ethical significance of the infinite, creates the possibility of recognizing the potential ethical value of all objects, and not merely one object in particular: the human face. This possibility, as I will show, contributes to further blurring the already ambiguous distinction within Levinas between “good” and “bad” infinities – a blurring which, as I will argue, serves as a powerful heuristic in interpreting certain human pathologies, from obsessive compulsive disorder and certain forms of schizophrenia, to the temptation of evil. In this way, an analysis of the status of the infinite in Husserl and Levinas provides a purely phenomenological ground for exploring issues traditionally seen as the exclusive domain of metaphysics and theology. (shrink)

In his reflection upon Dasein’s attempt to approach, understand and appropriate the possibility of its own death in Being and Time, Martin Heidegger makes an interesting side note on the phenomenological appearance of the dead body of another. Make no mistake; it is only a note – one made in passing en route to a much larger argument. But it is a note of interest nonetheless; for within it is contained the thread of a thought that, when pursued to its (...) end, seems to unravel some of the fundamental elements of the Heideggerian analytic. It is the goal of this paper then to follow that thread to its logical end by engaging in an detailed examination of the enigmatic phenomenon that is the dead body of another and, in doing so, not only illuminate the curious nature of its appearance; but, more importantly, reveal some of the limits of the Heideggerian analytic. The paper will conclude by turning to the work of Emmanuel Levinas in attempt to stretch beyond those limits. (shrink)

Objects are inert, passive, devoid of will, and as such bear no intrinsic value or moral worth. This claim is supported by the argument that to be considered a moral agent one must have a conscious will and be sufficiently free to act in accordance with that will. Since material objects, it is assumed, have no active will nor freedom, they should not be considered moral agents nor bearers of intrinsic ethical vale. Thus, the apparent “moral neutrality” of objects rests (...) upon a kind of subject/object or mind/body dualism. The aim of this paper is to explore two paths by which western thought can escape this dualism, re-valuate the alleged “moral neutrality” of material objects, and initiate a sort of “object oriented ethics,” albeit with surprising results. To do so, this paper explores the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch Spinoza to interrogate both the claim that material objects have no will and that freedom is the necessary condition for ethical responsibility. This paper concludes by arguing that not only should objects been seen as bearers of their own ethical value, a determinate judgement can be made regarding that value through a basic understanding of the laws of physics. (shrink)

Much has been made within certain philosophic circles of Emmanuel Levinas’s interaction with and critique of Western philosophy in general and German Idealism in particular. What is little recognized, however, is that J. G. Fichte is often the hidden target of this salvo. Indeed, Fichte appears within Levinas’s work as one of the major foils against whom he attempts to define his own insights. Whenexamined in light of Levinas’s attack, however, Fichte’s work actually appears to be in remarkable contiguity with (...) Levinas. The aim of this paper is to illuminate these commonalities by making an apology for Fichte in light of Levinas’s criticism. The result of this examination is the revelation that the German Idealism of such thinkers as Fichte, rather than rivaling Levinas’s work, actually proves to be in many ways its ally and intellectual forerunner. (shrink)

The unusual lacuna which runs between the philosophical works of Emmanuel Levinas and the psychoanalytical treatises of Jacques Lacan is one of the most unusual in the history of 20th century thought. Despite the numerous interests, influences, and friends the two shared, no evidence exists to suggest that they ever met or encountered one another’s work. This alluring gap has inspired explanations by a few and compensation by others. But in all of these approaches to what has been called one (...) of the most famous “missed connections,” of the 20th century, the most powerful connection has yet to be explored: the respective attempt in each to carve out a post-Heideggerian account of subjectivity. The goal of this paper will be to compare and contrast Levinas and Lacan’s respective accounts of subjectivity to better illuminate each thinkers attempt to affirm the power of the Heideggerian critique while preserving some integrity to the idea of subjectivity. (shrink)

Yael Lin's The Intersubjectivity of Time: Levinas and Infinite Responsibility is the first sustained inquiry into Emmanuel Levinas's theory of temporality, a concept which permeates his work and can in many ways serve as a lens through which his entire system can be examined and understood. As the first book length monograph on the subject, Lin's work promises to be of significant value to scholars of Levinas. The book proceeds by tracing what the author sees as the Western roots of (...) Levinas's theory of temporality, namely the works of Martin Heidegger and Henri Bergson, then goes on to explore the various limitations and problems of that philosophical lineage, before showing how Levinas's own theory responds to those limitations and problems by drawing from the Jewish philosophical tradition. (shrink)

A Book Review of J. Aaron Simmons and Bruce Ellis Benson's The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction.

The Levinasian critique of Heidegger is well know: Heidegger’s phenomenological investigation into the nature of beings, employed towards the end of catching a glimpse of the Being behind those beings, though undeniably rich, is nevertheless fundamentally limited as it fails to allow for anything “beyond being,” anything outside the sway of presence, like, for Levinas, an ultimate Good. In recognition of this limitation, Levinas attempts to expand the Heideggerian project by accounting in his own work for those phenomena which seem (...) to indicate a Good “beyond being” at work within existence, phenomenon such as shame, Eros and fecundity. While intriguing, is Levinas’ critique of Heidegger accurate? Is it true that Heidegger excludes anything resembling a Good beyond being in his work? It is the aim of this paper to examine these questions and by exposing a hitherto unrecognized element within Heidegger’s thought and in doing so calling into question and clarifying Levinas’ criticisms of Heidegger. (shrink)

Shannon Mussett’s _Entropic philosophy_ offers a creative and important new lens through which the history of philosophy and a number of contemporary ethical, social, and political problems can be read and interpreted. By exploring the concept of entropy not merely as a scientific certainty but as a “root metaphor” through which the inexorable finitude, fragility, and vulnerability of material reality might be re-examined, Mussett invites her readers to re-consider the nature of their responsibility for one another and the material world (...) as a whole. In this way, Mussett offers her readers a new paradigm by which they can approach philosophical and ethical problems; one which takes the tendency towards pessimism entropic thinking typically inspires and transmutes it to an invitation to care more reverently for material beings, human and nonhuman alike. As such, Mussett’s work provides a valuable new contribution to contemporary philosophy by highlighting how we might re-imagine both its history and the ethical, social, and political problems which motivate it together. (shrink)

Recent studies of naturalistic face‐to‐face communication have demonstrated coordination patterns such as the temporal matching of verbal and non‐verbal behavior, which provides evidence for the proposal that verbal and non‐verbal communicative control derives from one system. In this study, we argue that the observed relationship between verbal and non‐verbal behaviors depends on the level of analysis. In a reanalysis of a corpus of naturalistic multimodal communication (Louwerse, Dale, Bard, & Jeuniaux, ), we focus on measuring the temporal patterns of specific (...) communicative behaviors in terms of their burstiness. We examined burstiness estimates across different roles of the speaker and different communicative modalities. We observed more burstiness for verbal versus non‐verbal channels, and for more versus less informative language subchannels. Using this new method for analyzing temporal patterns in communicative behaviors, we show that there is a complex relationship between verbal and non‐verbal channels. We propose a “temporal heterogeneity” hypothesis to explain how the language system adapts to the demands of dialog. (shrink)

While the ethical use of deception has been discussed in literature, the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception has yet to be studied. The current study examined nurses’ and nursing students’ ratings of the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. We predicted that nurses and nursing students would rate a truthful vignette as more ethical than a deceptive vignette. We also predicted that participants would rate nursing deception as unethical and unacceptable. A mixed design was used to examine ethics scores (...) as a within-subjects factor and order as a between-groups design factor. A total of 131 nurses and nursing students were recruited from university nursing programs and hospitals in Texas. Participants were provided with a truthful vignette and deceptive vignette and used the Multidimensional Ethics Scale-Revised 1 to rate each vignette. Participants also completed the Lies in Nursing Ethics Questionnaire. The truthful nursing vignette was rated as more ethical than the deceptive vignette. Results indicated that most participants rated nursing deception as unethical, unacceptable, and a violation of the ANA ethical code. Some participants deemed that nursing deception may be acceptable within some cases. Age and years of experience were not related to the perceived ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. Nurses and nursing students believe that using deception with patients is unethical and unacceptable. However, some participants believed that deception may be warranted within some cases. These findings may reflect nurses’ placing the patient at the core of their values and viewing honesty as important for the nurse-patient relationship. Further implications and directions are discussed. (shrink)

We clarify options for conceptualizing equity, or what we refer to as justice, in resource allocation. We do this by systematically differentiating, expounding, and then illustrating eight different substantive principles of justice. In doing this, we compare different meanings that can be attributed to “need” and “the capacity to benefit”. Our comparison is sharpened by two analytical tools. First, quantification helps to clarify the divergent consequences of allocations commended by competing principles. Second, a diagrammatic approach developed by economists Culyer and (...) Wagstaff offers a visual and conceptual aid. Of the eight principles we illustrate, only two treat as relevant both a person’s initial health state and a person’s CTB per resource unit expended: allocate resources so as to most closely equalize final health states and allocate resources so as to equally restore health states to population norms. These allocative principles ought to be preferred to the alternatives if one deems relevant both a person’s initial health state and a person’s CTB per resource unit expended. Finally, we examine some possibilities for conceptualizing benefits as relative to how badly off someone is, extending Parfit’s thought on Prioritarianism. Questions arise as to how much intervention effects accruing to the worse off count for more and how this changes with improving health. We explicate some recent efforts to answer these questions, including in Dutch and British government circles. These efforts can be viewed as efforts to operationalize need as an allocative principle. Each effort seeks to maximize in the aggregate quanta of effect that are differentially valued in favor of the worst off. In this respect, each effort constitutes one type of Prioritarianism, which Parfit failed to differentiate from other types. (shrink)

Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women (...) who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice. (shrink)

In the framework of the rigged Hilbert space, unstable quantum systems associated with first-order poles of the analytically continued S-matrix can be described by Gamow vectors which are generalized vectors with exponential decay and a Breit-Wigner energy distribution. This mathematical formalism can be generalized to quasistationary systems associated with higher-order poles of the S-matrix, which leads to a set of Gamow vectors of higher order with a non-exponential time evolution. One can define a state operator from the set of higher-order (...) Gamow vectors which obeys the exponential decay law. We shall discuss to what extent the requirement of an exponential time evolution determines the form of the state operator for a quasistationary microphysical system associated with a higher-order pole of the S-matrix. (shrink)

Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those “on (...) the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those “on (...) the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

The potential health risks of vegan diets specifically for women and children are discussed. Women and children are at higher risk of malnutrition from consumption of unsupplemented vegan diets than are adult males. Those who are very young, pregnant, lactating, elderly, or who suffer from poverty, disease or other environmentally induced disadvantages are at special risk. The size of these risks is difficult to quantify from existing studies. Fortunately the risk of dietary deficiency disease can be avoided and the potential (...) health benefits of vegan diets can be realized when diets for these groups are planned in line with theRecommended Dietary Allowances so that nutrient intakes reach or exceed recommended levels, and access to preventive and curative health services is assured. (shrink)

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

The beneficial effects of physical exercise on physical health and cognitive functioning have been repeatedly shown. However, evidence of its effect on psychosocial functioning in healthy adults is still scarce or inconclusive. One limitation of many studies examining this link is their reliance on correlational approaches or specific subpopulations, such as clinical populations. The present study investigated the effects of a physical exercise intervention on key factors of psychosocial functioning, specifically well-being, stress, loneliness, and future time perspective. We used data (...) from healthy, previously sedentary older adults who participated in a 6-month at-home intervention, either engaging in aerobic exercise or as part of a control group who participated in foreign language-learning or reading of selected native-language literature. Before and after the intervention, comprehensive cardiovascular pulmonary testing and a psychosocial questionnaire were administered. The exercise group showed significantly increased fitness compared to the control group. Contrary to expectations, however, we did not find evidence for a beneficial effect of this fitness improvement on any of the four domains of psychosocial functioning we assessed. This may be due to pronounced stability of such psychological traits in older age, especially in older adults who show high levels of well-being initially. Alternatively, it may be that the well-documented beneficial effects of physical exercise on brain structure and function, as well as cognition differ markedly from beneficial effects on psychosocial functioning. While aerobic exercise may be the driving factor for the former, positive effects on the latter may only be invoked by other aspects of exercise, for example, experiences of mastery or a feeling of community. (shrink)

While impressed by much of what Mercier & Sperber (M&S) offer through their argumentative hypothesis, we question whether the specific competencies entailed in each system are adequate. In particular, whether system 2 might not require independent reasoning capabilities. We explore the adequacy of the explanations offered for confirmation bias and the Wason selection task.

This article endorses with substantial modifications M. Bernal's claim that the Greeks based Memnon on Ammenemes II of Egypt. An Egyptian origin for Memnon appears likely from Zeus' weighing of his fate against Achilles' in the Aethiopis, which is similar to an early spell of the Book of the Dead; from his Amazonian ally, who resembles the Nile-god, clad in a girdle with a single breast; and from his apotheosis, which is unlike Homer's usual view that the soul is witless (...) in death, yet is reminiscent of the soteriological Osiris-cult, which was known to the Mycenaeans. Bernal's view that Memnon was specifically Ammenemes, however, rests on one word in Strabo, judged by editors to be a scribal error. Cases for two other proposed models, Khumben-numena I of Elam and Sethos I of Egypt, are too complex and fragile to accept. Since at least the first century, the Greeks themselves linked Memnon to Amenhotep III of Egypt, calling a portrait-colossus of that pharaoh "Memnon." This identification was based, I argue, on the fact that the statue faces sunrise on the winter solstice and so was linked to the dawn. Amenhotep's name is too unlike Memnon's to have attracted to him a preexisting Greek figure, but, as P. Gilbert proposed, Amenhotep may have been the basis for that figure, for archaeological evidence shows his contact with the Aegean. Like Memnon, Amenhotep formed military pacts with eastern kings, was son of a solar deity, and was exceptionally handsome. Moreover, his father's name was Tuthmosis . In short, Bernal argues well that epic based Memnon on a real person, rightly seeks him in Egypt, but fails to rule out Amenhotep. (shrink)

In the First Antinomy of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant drew two conclusions from the argument he gives. First, Kant took his argument to show that the referent of the concept of ‘world’ does not exist as a thing in itself. For at B532 he says.

In the First Antinomy of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant drew two conclusions from the argument he gives. First, Kant took his argument to show that the referent of the concept of ‘world’ does not exist as a thing in itself. For at B532 he says.

Statius' Silvae owe their preservation to a copy made in Switzerland for Poggio in 1417 by a local scribe. This copy, brought to light by G. Loewe in 1879, was recognized for what it was by A.C. Clark and A. Klotz twenty years later, and since then its descendants have had at best historical interest. To extract much of that from them an editor must endeavour to survey all the extant material, and A. Marastoni in the recent Teubner edition (...) claims to have done just that: ‘omnes manuscriptos libros veteresque editiones iterum contuli’ he says at the opening of his preface, and the reviewers echo his words. (shrink)

Statius' Silvae owe their preservation to a copy made in Switzerland for Poggio in 1417 by a local scribe. This copy, brought to light by G. Loewe in 1879, was recognized for what it was by A.C. Clark and A. Klotz twenty years later, and since then its descendants have had at best historical interest. To extract much of that from them an editor must endeavour to survey all the extant material, and A. Marastoni in the recent Teubner edition (...) claims to have done just that: ‘omnes manuscriptos libros veteresque editiones iterum contuli’ he says at the opening of his preface, and the reviewers echo his words. (shrink)

This study drew on three theoretical perspectives – attribution theory, power, and role identity theory – to compare the job-related outcomes of sexual harassment from organizational insiders and organizational outsiders in a sample of UK police officers and police support staff. Results showed that sexual harassment from insiders was related to higher intentions to quit, over-performance demands, and lower job satisfaction, whereas sexual harassment from outsiders was not significantly related to any of the outcome variables investigated. We also examined (...) two moderator variables: equal opportunity support and confidence in grievance procedures. Consistent with our hypotheses, equal oppor- tunity support mitigated the effects of sexual harassment from supervisors on intent to quit and over-performance demands. Confidence in grievance procedures moderated the relationship between sexual harassment from supervisors and all outcome variables. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

In 1293, only two years after the fall of Acre, but many years before the end of crusading aspirations to reclaim Jerusalem, William Durandus, Bishop of Mende, composed a new rite for those taking up the cross “to go in aid of the Holy Land,” which he included in his magisterial and enduring edition of the Roman pontifical. In this rite the bishop would bless and then bestow to the departing crusader the devotional insignia of his canonical status: the cross, (...) along with the traditional pilgrim's scrip and staff. Durandus' rite drew on a number of long-standing texts for travel benedictions and pilgrimage benedictions, but reworked them into an elegant whole, the sum of which was far greater than its inherited parts. It enjoined the crusader to “take up the cross” and hasten towards “your [that is, Christ's] tomb,” beseeched God to protect him from danger and absolve him from the chains of sin, and emphasized taking the cross as a passion emblematic of Christ's own salvific sacrifice. The rite thus echoed the ideals, shaped the language, and embodied the spiritual and devotional values of crusading around 1300, which had increasingly emphasized Christomimetic suffering as central to the spiritual value of crusade. As such, the rite is testament to the idea of the crusade and crusading as it had developed over the course of two centuries. (shrink)

Experiments may contribute to understanding the basic processes of cultural evolution. We drew features from previous laboratory research with small groups in which traditions arose during several generations. Groups of four participants chose by consensus between solving anagrams printed on red cards and on blue cards. Payoffs for the choices differed. After 12 min, the participant who had been in the experiment the longest was removed and replaced with a naı¨ve person. These replacements, each of which marked the end (...) of a generation, continued for 10 – 15 generations, at which time the day’s session ended. Time-out duration, which determined whether the group earned more by choosing red or blue, and which was fixed for a day’s session, was varied across three conditions to equal 1, 2, or 3 min. The groups developed choice traditions that tended toward maximizing earnings. The stronger the dependence between choice and earnings, the stronger was the tradition. Once a choice tradition evolved, groups passed it on by instructing newcomers, using some combination of accurate information, mythology, and coercion. Among verbal traditions, frequency of mythology varied directly with strength of the choice tradition. These methods may be applied to a variety of research questions. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)