The discrepancy between measures of preferred and actual participation in decision making was used as a measure of ecological dissonance for an organization and then used to assess its relationship to job satisfaction, job involvement, job alienation, and job formalization. Questionnaires were administered to 143 faculty and staff members of Mississippi State University. Correlational analyses indicated mild relationships between the measures of ecological dissonance and job satisfaction, job involvement, job alienation, and job formalization, thus providing support for ecological dissonance theory (...) (see Miller, Topping, & Wells-Parker, 1989). It was concluded that ecological dissonance in participation in decision making was a predictor of workers’ job satisfaction, job involvement, job alienation, and job formalization. (shrink)

This article questions traditional approaches to the study of primate cognition. Because of a widespread assumption that cognition in non-human primates is genetically encoded, these approaches neglect how profoundly apes' cultural rearing experiences affect test results. We describe how three advanced cognitive abilities – imitation, theory of mind and language – emerged in bonobos maturing in a Pan/Homo culture.

Harry Harlow is credited with the discovery of learning set, a process whereby problem solving becomes essentially complete in a single trial of training. Harlow described that process as one that freed his primates from arduous trial-and-error learning. The capacity of the learner to acquire learning sets was in positive association with the complexity and maturation of their brains. It is here argued that Harlow's successful conveyance of learning-set phenomena is of historic significance to the philosophy of psychology. Learning set (...) is said to reflect the affirmation or rejection of hypotheses. Hypotheses are generated by the learner's brain, not its muscles. Thus, learning-set research served to advance the perspective that even nonhuman primates think and that their thinking reflects the active processing of information accrued from efforts to solve problems. Their learning processes are not simply the strengthening of some motor responses over others. Hence, learning-set research served to advance studies of animals as rational agents. This trend is serving to supplant the radical-behavioristic models, formulated earlier this century, with models predicated on rational processes for animals' complex learning and behavior. (shrink)

We suggest that the phenomenon of uncertainty monitoring in nonhuman animals contributes richly to the conception of nonhuman animals' self-monitoring. We propose that uncertainty may play a role in the emergence of new forms of behavior that are adaptive. We recommend that Smith et al. determine the extent to which the uncertain response transfers immediately to other test paradigms.

We comment on the similarities and differences of Mitchell et al.'s framework for understanding classical and operant conditioning and the theoretical framework put forth by Rumbaugh et al. (2007). We propose that all nonhuman and human learning may be based on amalgams created by co-occurring stimuli that share their response-eliciting properties and that these amalgams may be propositional in nature.

Three times in Book 1 chapter 13 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says desire partakes of reason in a way. There is a consensus view in the literature about what that claim means: desire has no intrinsic rationality, but can partake of reason by being blindly obedient to the commands of reason. I argue this consensus view is mistaken: for Aristotle, adult human desire has its own intrinsic rationality, and while it is to be obedient to reason, it is not (...) blind obedience, for when reason tells desire to obey, it includes an explanation supporting its order which desire can at least potentially understand. Thus, the nature of human desire, and also of the characteristic interaction of desire and reason, is much different than it is standardly taken to be. (shrink)

Many authors have argued that Aristotle does not stay true to his official account on which every instance of choice must be preceded by deliberation, and it is a good thing that he does so because his official account has catastrophically bad theoretical implications. I argue that Aristotle does not deviate from his official account, and that the official account does not have the decisively bad implications others have claimed it to have. These objectionable entailments only obtain on a certain (...) conception of what deliberation is like, and I argue that this conception is not Aristotle’s. Once Aristotle’s own conception of deliberation is understood, the terrible putative entailments clearly do not follow from the official account, and so textually Aristotle remains consistent while conceptually he remains plausible. (shrink)

Three times in Book 1 chapter 13 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says desire partakes of reason in a way. There is a consensus view in the literature about what that claim means: desire has no intrinsic rationality, but can partake of reason by being blindly obedient to the commands of reason. I argue this consensus view is mistaken: for Aristotle, adult human desire has its own intrinsic rationality, and while it is to be obedient to reason, it is not (...) blind obedience, for when reason tells desire to obey, it includes an explanation supporting its order which desire can at least potentially understand. Thus, the nature of human desire, and also of the characteristic interaction of desire and reason, is much different than it is standardly taken to be. (shrink)

I offer a novel analysis of the relations between Aristotle’s three species of desire - appetite, temper, and wish - and the three things he says in EN 2.3 lead to pursuit - the pleasant, the beneficial, and the noble. It has long been tempting to think that these trios line up with one another in some way, ideally relating their members in one-to-one fashion. One account, by John Cooper, has gathered prominent adherents, but other authors, notably Giles Pearson, have (...) argued we should give up on even trying to correlate the two trios. I attempt to show that the two trios do relate in interesting ways, but not in a way that correlates their members in a one-to-one fashion. Instead, I argue that both appetite and temper are ultimately for the pleasant, while all things that an agent takes as objects of wish are conceived of as either pleasant, beneficial, or noble. This account conflicts with a dominant understanding of the species of desire as differentiated by their objects. I reply defend the view by showing that there is a second criterion for differentiating the species of desire. (shrink)

Abstract Christopher Gauker has argued that a cause?effect analysis of the acquisition of communication skills in chimpanzees is adequate to describe the data reported in our work at the Language Research Center. I agree that the cause?effect approach to language function is the only viable method of analyzing language. Language must be studied as a process that functions to organize behavior between two or more individuals. However, the problem of language understanding is not addressed satisfactorily by the perspective offered by (...) Gauker. Some more recent work, particularly with the pygmy chimpanzee ?Kanzi?, is now beginning to explicate a cause?effect analysis of language comprehension. It is argued that in the young chimpanzee, as with children, language comprehension is the driving force underlying the language acquisition process. It is further argued that the transition from comprehension to production is made possible by the capacity for goal?directed observational imitation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Deep Listening and Virtuous Friendship:Spiritual Care in the Context of Religious MultiplicityDuane R. BidwellA monk asked Zen master Yunmen: “What is the teaching of the Buddha’s entire lifetime?” Yunmen answered:“An appropriate response.”1In a pivotal scene from the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda, con artist Wanda Gershwitz is fed up—finally—with her partner, Otto West. When his jealousy and ersatz intellectualism repeatedly jeopardize their attempts to steal $20 million in (...) diamonds, Wanda yells: “Now let me correct you on a few things, okay? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every Man for Himself.’ And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto, I looked them up.”2 It’s a funny moment, of course. But Otto’s (mis)understanding of Gautama’s teaching demonstrates a challenge in translating a spiritual-religious tradition from one cultural setting to another. Too often, and usually without intention, we are like Otto; we colonize and domesticate unfamiliar ideas, assimilating them into our existing worldview instead of experiencing and accommodating their challenging differences. Otto’s facile appropriation of Buddhism confirms rather than confronts his pre-critical, individualistic, and perhaps Darwinist worldview. A Buddhist caregiver might say that Otto was not “listening deeply” to the myriad voices that shaped his perspective.Similar hazards face someone writing about deep listening in relation to religious multiplicity.3 Deep listening, as a caring practice, “belongs” to the emerging field of Buddhist contemplative care,4 in which it has a technical (although perhaps undertheorized) usage richly informed by Buddhist thought and practice. But when I reflect as a pastoral theologian and spiritual caregiver trained in the Christian traditions of cura animarum, the cure or care of souls, deep listening can become unmoored from its origins. Someone marinated in the discourses and practices of Christian care can easily and perhaps unintentionally conflate deep listening with classic Christian [End Page 3] concepts of care such as the ministry of presence, the practice of unconditional positive regard,5 and the giving of oneself to God for the sake of the care seeker. Although I identify as a Buddhist Christian, habitual Christian views shape my thinking the way a canyon or streambed shapes the flow of water; unless I am attentive to the ways that Buddhist thought and practice seek fissures and carve new channels through the sediment of Christian spiritual care, I risk appropriating or erasing the practices that Buddhist caregivers call deep listening.Mindful of these waters, I want to immerse myself and readers in a particular question: In the context of spiritual care, what happens at the confluence of deep listening and a practitioner’s multiple religious voices? In responding to this question I have three aims: to describe deep listening, to provide a theoretical and experiential account of deep listening in the context of religious multiplicity, and to suggest an image from the Pāli canon that can help practitioners engage religious multiplicity in ways that minimize harm, increase compassion, and realize wisdom. A particular moment in spiritually integrative psychotherapy serves as a touchstone for my reflection; thus, I begin where the canyon creates a slender and fast-moving channel for deep listening: psychotherapy with Julie.6violence, karma, and compassionAt twenty-seven years of age, Julie was a soft-spoken, biracial graduate student who radiated mindful presence. She identifies as Asian American, and with her shaved head and tendency to wear dark colors and dramatic scarves, she might seem a typical LA hipster to other passengers on the commuter train she rode to and from our appointments. One year before our psychotherapeutic work, Julie had been beaten and raped by a boyfriend; subsequent thoughts of suicide led to a brief hospitalization. At that time she was assigned diagnoses of bipolar II and post-traumatic stress disorders. Daily, she swallowed a powerful mood stabilizer; monthly, she visited a psychiatrist. The symptoms of bipolar disorder, substance abuse, addiction, schizophrenia, depression, and suicide were present in her extended family. Julie sought counseling because of tension between what she called her “Buddhist identity” and the mental health diagnoses assigned to her. She said she... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Practicing the Religious Self: Buddhist-Christian Identity as Social ArtifactDuane R. BidwellIt is somewhat paradoxical to write or speak about identity formation in two religious traditions that ultimately deny the reality of any identity that we might claim or fashion for ourselves. In the Christian traditions, a person’s true (or ultimate) identity is received through God’s action and grace in baptism; to foreground any other facet of the self, or (...) to anchor identity in anything but baptism, could be considered a form of idolatry. In the Buddhist traditions human identity is empty, woven not from an inherent or externally granted essence but through the interdependent arising of all things; 1 to cling to self and to identity as independent, enduring, immutable, or autonomous signals a mistaken understanding of reality.2 Indeed, as religious scholar Alice Keefe has written, “belief in the self as independent and self-existent is our fundamental delusion and root poison.” 3Yet day by day most of us experience our identities, including our religious, cultural, and social identities, as neither empty nor erased. On the contrary: they seem to be inscribed with enduring meaning. Knowledge has been chiseled into them through our participation in the rituals and relationships of the world. At times the very fullness of our identities can feel on the verge of overflowing. This sense of dynamic presence and fullness causes our identities to serve as important (and perhaps essential) tools for negotiating the hurly-burly of experience and relationship in the mundane, finite, material world.4 From this perspective, our religious identities are social artifacts, entities and meanings formed in between, or on the margins of, biological selves that are related to one another through communities of practice.5 These communal artifacts may then be interiorized by individuals as resources that can be employed in or offered back to the world—performed, if you will—through particular (and sometimes disciplined) practices.6The primacy of social process in creating and maintaining religious identity implies that community remains central to the process of fashioning the religious self in contemporary Buddhist and Christian practice. If this is true, it raises, of course, important questions about our understandings of ecclesiology and the nature of the sangha, theological anthropology and Buddhist understandings of the person. These questions [End Page 3] deserve to be answered, but they are too broad to be addressed here. My more modest intention is to contribute to generative conversation about religious identity formation by illustrating how my own religious identities as Buddhist and Christian have been practiced and performed as social artifacts in two particular instances. In a secondary sense, this essay serves as a reflection on pastoral work in a multifaith context, something “much needed in the Buddhist-Christian studies milieu.” 7Given the diverse academic approaches to Buddhist-Christian studies, it seems wise to begin by describing my own background and approach. By training I am a pastoral theologian, someone who seeks to understand critically the richness and complexity of human experiences and then to respond with appropriate, faithful, and effective acts of care. The psychological meta-theory of social constructionism serves as a primary conversation partner for my work; it invites me to ask “not what goes on ‘inside’ people, but what people go on inside of.” 8 For pragmatic reasons I tend to utilize David Tracy’s mutual critical (or revised) correlational method,9 and in the dialectic between understanding human experience and responding to it, I privilege liberationist theologies and religio-ethical norms of justice, love, and wisdom. My practice as a spiritual director and pastoral counselor seeks to promote practices of freedom for all people.10As a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) I am accountable to the Reformed tradition of Christian theology. My formal theological education occurred in the ecumenical context of a divinity school affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and at a diocesan seminary affiliated with the contemplative Anglican tradition. My informal training in Buddhist philosophy and practice occurred in the Theravada traditions of Southeast Asia, primarily through five years of participation in an immigrant congregation and weekly study with Thich Phap Nhan, a Vietnamese monk... (shrink)

This essay argues that Heidegger’s theological thinking, best expressed by his “last god” from his 1930s Contributions to Philosophy, is a radicalization of his early Pauline phenomenology from the 1920s. I claim that Heidegger’s theological thinking, including his onto-theological critique, is in no way incompatible with Christian philosophy, but in fact furthers the Christian philosophical endeavor. The tenability of this thesis rests on disputing three critiques of Heidegger’s theology put forth by John D. Caputo, Richard Kearney, and Jean-Luc Marion, all (...) of whom argue that Heidegger and Christianity are incompatible. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the themes of the 2018 CSSP Conference: understanding the legacy of the Scottish tradition. In doing so I suggest that we find some Scottish heirlooms in early American education. To make this case I will start with a text that has been largely refuted and establish a starting point for a legacy of the Scottish tradition with what I believe to be the weakest case: the almost unknown Glaswegian philosopher George Jardine.

This essay examines the peritrope argument within the history of philosophy and discusses its various permutations, beginning with Plato and eventually mathematized with Gödel, each of which presents a philosophical system that either stands or collapses with this “peritropic” insight. I argue that the peritrope or self-reference argument itself presupposes a certain anti-reductionism, in terms of both anthropology and metaphysics, and is ultimately grounded in Aristotle’s anthropological insight that the human being is the “rational animal”. Thus the root of the (...) anti-reductionist, peritropic argument belongs to the self-transcendent nature of rationality itself. After discussing Aristotle’s anthropology in terms of this rational transcendence, I trace the history of the self-reference argument from Plato to Gödel and discuss its various implications as applied to any and every form of reductionism. My hope is that engagement with this most basic and often overlooked philosophic insight can counter certain reductionist trends in modernity. (shrink)

This essay argues that Heidegger’s theological thinking, best expressed by his “last god” from his 1930s Contributions to Philosophy, is a radicalization of his early Pauline phenomenology from the 1920s. I claim that Heidegger’s theological thinking, including his onto-theological critique, is in no way incompatible with Christian philosophy, but in fact furthers the Christian philosophical endeavor. The tenability of this thesis rests on disputing three critiques of Heidegger’s theology put forth by John D. Caputo, Richard Kearney, and Jean-Luc Marion, all (...) of whom argue that Heidegger and Christianity are incompatible. (shrink)

This essay attempts to further the Heideggerian reading of the transcendental imagination in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, by substantiating Heidegger’s contested claims, that the imagination is identical to “original time,” the imagination generates secondary, successive time, and therefore categories of the understanding are formal abstractions from a more primordial temporal horizon. I argue that Heidegger’s reading of Kant remains completely tenable based on A 142-143, by first examining Heidegger's thesis, and then defending it by analyzing the above-mentioned section. Finally, (...) I comment on the implications of the Heideggerian reading, in terms of both the role of the transcendental imagination in the Kantian system, as well as the implications of Heidegger’s overall deconstruction of reason itself. (shrink)

Engineered microbes are of great potential utility in biotechnology and basic research. In principle, a cell can be built from scratch by assembling small molecule sets with auto‐catalytic properties. Alternatively, DNA can be isolated or directly synthesized and molded into a synthetic genome using existing genomic blueprints and molecular biology tools. Activating such a synthetic genome will yield a synthetic cell. Here we examine obstacles associated with this latter approach using a model system whereby a donor genome from H. influenzae (...) is fragmented, and the pieces are then modified and reassembled stepwise in an E. coli host cell. There are obstacles associated with this strategy related to DNA transfer, DNA replication, cross‐talk in gene regulation and compatibility of gene products between donor and host. Encouragingly, analysis of gene expression indicates widespread transcription of H. influenzae genes in E. coli, and analysis of gap locations in H. influenzae and other microbial genome assemblies reveals few genes routinely incompatible with E. coli. In conclusion, rebuilding and booting a genome remains a feasible and pragmatic approach to creating a synthetic microbial cell. BioEssays 29:580–590, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Anyone even vaguely familiar with Plato’s Republic “knows” that it embodies Plato’s vision of the ideal society, a vision remarkably like the Brave New World. A vast tradition of scholarship reinforces this view of Plato. In what follows I will offer an alternative reading of the Republic. Rather than criticizing proponents of the more traditional view, objections to the tradition will be made by implication from defending what I take to be a most reasonable interpretation of the Republic: far from (...) trying to show an ideal society which is the means to the good life, Plato’s point in the Republic is to establish that the good life rests on our intrinsic nature. In other words, the dialogue is not Plato’s blueprint for the perfect government. Quite to the contrary, it is a masterfully cohesive argument establishing the intrinsic goodness of individual self-rule guided by the love of wisdom. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 152–154 Levi R. Bryant. The Democracy of Objects . Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities Press. 2011. 316 pp. | ISBN 9781607852049. | $23.99 For two decades post-anarchism has adopted an epistemological point of departure for its critique of the representative ontologies of classical anarchism. This critique focused on the classical anarchist conceptualization of power as a unitary phenomenon that operated unidirectionally to repress an otherwise creative and benign human essence. Andrew Koch may have inaugurated this trend in (...) 1993 when he wrote his influential paper entitled “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism.” Koch’s paper certainly laid some of the important groundwork for post-anarchism’s continual subsumption of ontology beneath the a priori of an epistemological orientation, and his work continues to be cited as an early and important venture into post-anarchist philosophy. The problem is that Koch could not conceive of an anti-essentialist and autonomous ontological system, one not subject to regulation or representation by the human mind. Consequently, he was forced to assert a subjectivist claims-making ego as the foundation of a post-structuralist anarchist politics. Saul Newman was indebted to this heritage insofar as he also posited the ego (extrapolated from the writings of Max Stirner) and the subject (extrapolated from Jacques Lacan’s oeuvre ) as the paradoxical ‘outside’ to power and representation. Todd May fell into a similar trap in his book The Political Philosophy of Post-structuralist Anarchism when he wrote that “[m]etaphysics [...] partakes of the normativity inhabiting the epistemology that provides its foundations.” 1 Whereas Newman’s approach did not necessarily foreclose the possibility of metaphysics—at least to the extent that he began with the subject of the Lacanian tradition (wherein the subject is believed to be radically split between thinking and being)—May completely foreclosed the possibility of any escape from the reign of the epistemological. There laid the impasse of yesterday’s post-anarchism. This impasse at the heart of the project of post-anarchism has forced Koch, Newman, May, and many others, to come to similar conclusions about the place of ontology in post-anarchist scholarship. The post-anarchists have all formulated a response strikingly similar to Koch’s argument that any representative ontology ought to be dismantled and dethroned in favour of “a conceptualization of knowledge that is contingent on a plurality of internally consistent episteme .” 2 By dismissing all ontologies as suspiciously representative and as incessantly harbouring a dangerous form of essentialism, post-anarchists have overlooked the privilege that they have placed on the human subject, language, and discourse, at the expense of the democracy that the human subject shares with other animals, objects, and beings in the world. This epistemological characterization of post-anarchism has held sway for far too long. It is not by chance that post-anarchism, as a concept, was first formulated by Hakim Bey as an “ontological anarchism,” 3 and subsequently repressed by the canon of post-anarchist authors. Perhaps Bey’s ontological anarchism also lacked the ‘rigour’ required of today’s scholarly audience and for these two reasons (at least) he has received very little credit for his inaugurating efforts into post-anarchism. In any case, I want to challenge this reluctance and revive the roots of post-anarchism. Levi Bryant gives us a reason to believe that we can achieve the promise of Bey’s ontological anarchism without sacrificing the scholarly standard of rigour. Levi Bryant’s newest open-access book, The Democracy of Objects , is a tour de force . His book challenges post-anarchists to take their radical critique of representation a step further by questioning the “hegemony that epistemology currently enjoys in philosophy.” Bryant maintains that post-structuralism, and radical anti-humanisms, only appear to reject the subject as the locus of political agency. Their rejection is actually more of a disavowal, a replacement of the human subject with the equally human order of language or discourse. What post-structuralism attempts to elucidate is the manner in which the subject is colonized by the Other of language, discourse and social relations. What here appears as a movement away from the determining subject of humanism and existentialism is only replaced with the determining apparatuses of structures as they are conceived by astute analysts of political culture. Post-structuralism thus re-enters the anthropocentric discourse to the extent that the cultural analyst believes himself capable of conceiving the determinative structures of society. In contradistinction to the claims of post-structuralism and post-anarchism, the role of the ontologist is not to suture the gap between epistemology and the real but to de-suture it, as Bryant puts it: “[o]ntology does not tell us what objects exist, but that objects exist, that they are generative mechanisms.” Above all else, the role of ontology, for post-anarchists, ought to be a real de-centering of the subject in relation to other objects in the non-human world such that the subject becomes conceived as one object among others within a living democracy of equality. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that objects exist whether or not the subject or analyst is there to represent them: they represent themselves and are autonomous from our dictation, just as each object finds its autonomy in relation to other objects. Ontology must now be distinguished from representation. We must shift the terms of the debate and interrogate the hegemony that epistemology has been afforded within post-anarchist philosophy. At least two possibilities are now permitted. On the one hand, one could intervene into the reigning mode of philosophy, namely epistemology, by latching onto concepts from meta-ethical philosophy. Meta-ethics allows one to easily separate the ontological from the epistemological and to answer very particular questions about each in order to formulate an overarching meta-ethical position. 4 Post-anarchism is particularly adept at this task because of its resounding ability to frame itself as an ethical political philosophy in relation to the strategic political philosophy of classical Marxism. On the other hand, Bryant argues that “[p]erhaps the best way to defeat [the privilege currently held by epistemology] is to shift the terms of debate.” Shifting the terms of debate is also something that post-anarchists have been very good at doing. Thus, instead of asking the question ‘how do representative ontological systems harbour concealed epistemological orientations toward the political?’ one might ask ‘ do epistemological orientations toward the political always harbour representative and subject-centred ontological systems?” The genius of Bryant’s book rests in its ability to convincingly argue for the radical autonomy of being and of objects. This claim speaks to some of the most compelling theories of the political in anarchist and marxist political philosophy (for instance, hegemony, representation, democracy, and so on) and it re-stages the political drama of our times across a much wider terrain. The fallacy of strategic political philosophy in the Marxist tradition, as Todd May quite correctly points out, is that it remains committed to a concept of power that is unitary in its analysis, unidirectional in its influence, and utterly repressive in its effect. Similarly, Bryant’s ontology allows one to argue that there is a fallacy that occurs “whenever one type of entity is treated as the ground or explains all other entities.” Whereas May’s post-structuralist anarchism moved away from the fallacy of the unitary analysis of power, whereby subjects are constituted by the influence of a single site of power, it nonetheless remained committed to a tactical political philosophy which is monarchical in the final analysis . It remains monarchical to the extent that the human world, the world of epistemology, is treated as the yardstick of democracy. Bryant’s argument is quite instructive: “[w]hat we thus get is not a democracy of objects or actants where all objects are on equal ontological footing [...] but instead a monarchy of the human in relation to all other beings.” The real fallacy is thus not against strategic political philosophy but philosophy itself and the way it has played out over so many centuries. “The epistemic fallacy,” writes Bryant, “consists in the thesis that proper ontological questions can be fully transposed into epistemological questions.” The point that Bryant is making relates to the way ontology is today always reduced to an epistemology and thereby loses its significance as a philosophical question. This book should be applauded for its novelty and its thesis ought to be taken seriously by post-anarchists today. Because of this book, and the attendant post-continental movement that is being called ‘speculative realism,’ we can now distinguish three stages in the life of post-anarchism. First, we can deduce what Süreyya Evren has described as its ‘introductory period.’ The introductory period of post-anarchism is defined by its inability to side-step the ontological problem in the literature of classical anarchism. During this period, post-anarchism needed to distinguish itself from classical anarchism while nonetheless remaining committed to its ethical project. The second period overcomes the problem of the separation of post-anarchism from classical anarchism by re-reading the classical tradition as essentially post-anarchistic. Some of the critiques of post-anarchism—especially that from Cohn & Wilbur 5 —are included into this period insofar as post-anarchism, for them, was always already anarchism. Whereas the first and second phases have included only explicitly anarchist literature under their rubric of worthwhile investigation, in the third period this no longer holds true. To be certain, the second period permitted the incorporation of post-structuralist literature into post-anarchist discussions (but always with a certain amount of reservation). This third period, the one that is to come—the one that is already here if only we would heed its call—will not take such care with attempts at identification or canonization. Indeed, post-anarchism is already here, like a seed beneath the snow, waiting to be discovered. Levi Bryant teaches us that the third period is already here: and yet where is it? NOTES 1) Todd May. The Political Philosophy of Post-Structuralist Anarchism . University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1997. 2. 2) Andrew Koch. “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism” [1993] in Post-Anarchism: A Reader . Eds. Duane Rousselle & Sureyyya Evren. London: Pluto Press. 2011. pp. 23-40. 3) Bey, Hakim. “ Post-Anarchism Anarchy .” 1987. 4) I have attempted to do this in my paper on Bataille’s post-anarchism; see Duane Rousselle. “Georges Bataille’s Post-anarchism.” Journal of Political Ideologies . 17(3): in press. 5) Jesse Cohn & Shawn Wilbur. “ What’s Wrong with Post-anarchism? ” 2010. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Research on the Transformation of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction by Zhan LingShaoming DuanZhan Ling. Research on the Transformation of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2022, 324 pages, softcover, ¥ 118.00 ISBN: 978-7-5203-9465-9.Research on the Transformation of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction is a laudable scholarly endeavor that provides reader with a unique interpretation of the representative works in contemporary China science fiction. Taking "transformation" as (...) the key word, this book outlines the development process and transformation features of science fiction since the founding of the People's Republic of China (i.e., new China). Starting with the investigation of the reasons for each transformation, this book combs the changes in the creative values, scientific views, and aesthetics of science fiction in more than seventy years. The book also aims to show the literary achievements of contemporary Chinese science fiction, affirm the academic values of "transformation" from the perspective of literary development history, and points out the existing shortcomings. This book will interest global scholars in literary studies, especially those in the field of Chinese science fiction studies. The detailed studies of contemporary Chinese science fiction by Zhan Ling connect her primary sources with wider temporal and spatial contexts. Zhan Ling approaches contemporary Chinese science fiction that was mostly unknown to the scholars of the twenty-first century, some of which were underestimated and even ignored for a long time.The book has an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction briefly introduces the origin of Chinese science fiction. There was no category of "science fiction" in ancient Chinese literary tradition; it actually appeared in the late Qing dynasty. At that time, the Qing government was defeated miserably by Western powers in the two [End Page 521] "Opium Wars" and was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties with Western powers, which greatly damaged China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.In order to achieve the goals of "enriching the country and strengthening the army" and "learning foreign technology to counter foreigners," the Qing government decided to carry out the "Westernization Movement" (1861–95), calling on Qing officials to learn and use Western advanced science and technology and set up modern military, industry, and civilian enterprises. Science fiction, as a kind of literature directly linked with Western science and technology, had been introduced into China. In 1872 the Chinese version of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle was published in Shanghai Shen Daily, which opened the exploration of science fiction in Chinese literature. In 1904 Huang Jiangdiaosou (pen name) wrote the first Chinese science fiction, The Moon Colony. The intellectuals in the late Qing dynasty regarded science fiction as the literary practice of "saving the country through science" (6). Science fiction had contributed to the establishment of modern scientific consciousness for the pedantic people in the late Qing dynasty. The decline of the Qing dynasty was marked by the invasion and encroachment of the Western powers, which marked the formation of Chinese semicolonial and semifeudal society; This, in turn, contributed to the development of science fiction in China.The main body consists of seven chapters. Zhan Ling discusses the changes and transformations in the development of science fiction in contemporary China. The founding of new China marked the full rule of the Communist Party of China. In order to distinguish from the Kuomintang rule, the Communist Party called it "contemporary" after 1949. According to this "division," "contemporary science fiction" of the title refers to the science fiction published in mainland China after 1949. Compared with the past, science fiction in contemporary China has made great progress in quality and quantity (12).Zhan Ling divides the development of science fiction in contemporary China into four stages. The first phase was from 1949 to 1966. The second phase is from 1978 to 1984. The third phase is from 1985 to 1999. The fourth phase is the twenty-first century. The book tries to integrate the development history of contemporary Chinese science fiction into the development history of Chinese science fiction for research, and even puts contemporary Chinese science fiction into the development history of world science fiction [End Page 522... (shrink)

The scope of Platonism is extended by introducing the concept of a “Platonic computer” which is incorporated in metacomputics. The theoretical framework of metacomputics postulates that a Platonic computer exists in the realm of Forms and is made by, of, with, and from metaconsciousness. Metaconsciousness is defined as the “power to conceive, to perceive, and to be self-aware” and is the formless, con-tentless infinite potentiality. Metacomputics models how metaconsciousness generates the perceived actualities including abstract entities and physical and nonphysical realities. (...) It is postulated that this is achieved via digital computation using the Platonic computer. The introduction of a Platonic computer into the realm of Forms thus bridges the “inverse explanatory gap” and therefore solves the “inverse hard problem of consciousness” in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

While Merleau-Ponty’s political positions evolved over the course of his career, they are grounded in and guided by a remarkably consistent account of historicity. Praxis requires authentic historical engagement; and Merleau-Ponty was critical of inauthentic a-historical approaches throughout his career. I chart a trajectory of Merleau-Ponty’s position from The War Has Taken Place (1945), through some of the newly published material from the mid to late 1940’s Michel Dalissier’s monumental two volume collection of inédits, and the Introduction to Signs (1960). (...) This results in two surprising and admittedly controversial observations that contradict dominant narratives. I argue that: (1) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity precludes the claim that he abandoned Marxism altogether with the writing of Adventures of the Dialectic (1955); and (2) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity reveals the dominant Western narrative about the war in Ukraine to be inauthentic. (shrink)

In a realistic steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interface (BCI) application like driving a car or controlling a quadrotor, observing the surrounding environment while simultaneously gazing at the stimulus is necessary. This kind of application inevitably could cause head movements and variation of the accompanying gaze fixation point, which might affect the SSVEP and BCI’s performance. However, few papers studied the effects of head movements and gaze fixation switch on SSVEP response, and the corresponding BCI performance. This study (...) aimed to explore these effects by designing a new ball tracking paradigm in a virtual reality (VR) environment with two different moving tasks, i.e., the following and free moving tasks, and three moving patterns, pitch, yaw, and static. Sixteen subjects were recruited to conduct a BCI VR experiment. The offline data analysis showed that head moving patterns [F(2, 30) = 9.369, p = 0.001, effect size = 0.384] resulted in significantly different BCI decoding performance but the moving tasks had no effect on the results [F(1, 15) = 3.484, p = 0.082, effect size = 0.188]. Besides, the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA) accuracy were better than the PSDA and MEC methods in all of the conditions. These results implied that head movement could significantly affect the SSVEP performance but it was possible to switch gaze fixation to interact with the surroundings in a realistic BCI application. (shrink)

As a general concept, aesthetic education and art education are connected; to a certain extent, the two can be taken as one or two sides of the same coin. However, the specific questions involved are how they are connected and how to connect them in teaching practice. To answer these questions, I define aesthetic education as more general and theoretical and define art education as less general and more practical, that is, teaching students to read art works. Exploring the answers (...) to the first question, this essay offers an examination of an important aesthetic concept in Chinese art theory, inscape, and relates it to the teaching of how to read Chinese landscape painting. On the one hand, this aesthetic concept... (shrink)

The scope of Platonism is extended by introducing the concept of a “Platonic computer” which is incorporated in metacomputics. The theoretical framework of metacomputics postulates that a Platonic computer exists in the realm of Forms and is made by, of, with, and from metaconsciousness. Metaconsciousness is defined as the “power to conceive, to perceive, and to be self-aware” and is the formless, con-tentless infinite potentiality. Metacomputics models how metaconsciousness generates the perceived actualities including abstract entities and physical and nonphysical realities. (...) It is postulated that this is achieved via digital computation using the Platonic computer. The introduction of a Platonic computer into the realm of Forms thus bridges the “inverse explanatory gap” and therefore solves the “inverse hard problem of consciousness” in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

My purpose is to present a thesis concerning the nature of philosophical argument. I shall present it by way of examining a number of philosophical disputes. Whether all philosophical disputes resemble the ones I examine is an empirical question. However, I suspect they do. My thesis concerns the nature of the process involved in the adopting or abandoning of ‘basic assumptions’ or ‘presuppositions’..

The dispute between determinists and libertarians often fails to distinguish two issues: Is a man responsible for his behavior?; and Is man to be considered an integral part of the natural order, or something transcendently related to it? I wish to argue both that man is responsible and that there is nothing about him which transcends the natural causal order.

The dispute between determinists and libertarians often fails to distinguish two issues: Is a man responsible for his behavior?; and Is man to be considered an integral part of the natural order, or something transcendently related to it? I wish to argue both that man is responsible and that there is nothing about him which transcends the natural causal order.

This paper assesses Milton Friedman’s (1962, 1970) strongly negative view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and his influence among managers and academics. The subtitle reflects the theme of the IABS 2007 conference: advising practitioners, illustrated by Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513). The paper develops two general arguments. The first argument is that Professor Friedman was a highly academic theoretician arguing the general merits of basically simple theoretical ideas. The second argument concerns advising practitioners. While Friedman’s advice is theoretical (i.e., abstract) rather (...) than practical (i.e., pragmatic), this very characteristic may have increased his influence. There are important lessons to study concerning academic influence among practitioners. Simple ideas may facilitate dissemination and persuasiveness. It is thus worth studying Friedman’s approach to controversy. (shrink)