Addresses the nature of human religious belief in a series of vignettes and questions that explore humankind's relationship to the divine, from ancient times to the present, in the context of a taxi ride.

This essay proposes that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe serves a primary function other than its eponymous one. Using a site-specific, local historical context rather than memorial or Holocaust discourse, it presents the Memorial as a spot of psychic unity for once-divided Berlin and as a physically appropriate heir to the land upon which it was built. This approach is motivated by the apparent incongruity of local response to an explicitly somber structure: Why did the public react (...) not only positively but even joyfully to the Memorial after its dedication? And why were behaviors such as playing.. (shrink)

Few philosophers endorse a virtue theory of praiseworthiness. The widespread aversion to any virtue theory of moral worth rests chiefly on a skeptical argument that emphasizes the fact that praiseworthy acts can be performed by people who lack the relevant virtue. This chapter studies this skeptical argument closely. It concludes that the skeptical argument's core premise has been misleadingly characterized. Once the core premise has been clarified, the virtue theory appears to escape the grip of the skeptical argument.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, is considered by many to be the most significant healthcare overhaul since the 1960s, but part of its promise — improvement of population health through requirements for non-profit hospitals to provide “community benefit” — has not been met. This paper examines the history of community benefit legislation, how community benefit dollars are allocated, and innovative practices by a few hospitals and communities that are addressing primarily non-medical factors that influence health (...) such as social disadvantage, attitudes, beliefs, risk exposure, and social inequalities. (shrink)

The rotating spot method of timing subjective events involves the subject’s watching a rotating spot on a computer and reporting the position of the spot at the instant when the subjective event of interest occurs. We conducted an experiment to investigate factors that may impact on the results produced by this method, using the subject’s perception of when they made a simple finger movement as the subjective event to be timed. Seven aspects of the rotating spot method were investigated, using (...) a factorial experiment. Four of these aspects altered the physical characteristics of the computer generated spot or clock face and the remaining three altered the instructions given to the participant. We found compelling evidence that one factor, whether the subject was instructed to report the instant when the finger movement was initiated or the instant when it was completed, resulted in a systematic shift in the response. Evidence that three other factors affect the observed variability in the response was also found. In addition, we observed that there are substantial systematic differences in the responses made by different subjects. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations about the optimal way of conducting future experiments using the rotating spot method. Our overall conclusion is that our results strongly validate the rotating spot method of timing at least the studied variety of subjective event. (shrink)

This is an intriguing volume for anyone interested in the underpinnings of consciousness, from psychologists and philosophers to laypeople interested in ...

The idMirror project consists of a tablet computer, specially equipped with a small mirror and a newly developed android app. The Android application uses face recognition to detect the location of the user’s face in relation to the device and based on this renders a computer graphic at the location of his or her reflection. The goal of the idMirror project setting as a research tool was to make an exploratory study on cultural differences at exhibition venues. For this study, (...) we have analyzed 150 participants’ face images aged between 18 and 75; among them, 50 participants’ face images collected in Europe, 50 participants’ face images collected in the USA, and 50 participants’ face images collected in Japan. We found global exhibitions a good research platform for random sampling of the subjects. For the study, we examined the first 50 participants at each exhibition and we found some significant differences. Through the explanatory study in the form of an art installation, we wanted to learn if the facial expression upon one’s own self-observation is a function of gender and place of exhibition setting origin. (shrink)

Engages and extends the feminist philosopher Lorraine Code's groundbreaking work on epistemology and ethics.

This volume is an indispensable resource for philosophers, students, and Women's Studies faculties as well as anyone with an interest in feminist philosophy.".

We have identified a sample of 53 societies outside of the classical Himalayan and Marquesean area that permit polyandrous unions. Our goal is to broadly describe the demographic, social, marital, and economic characteristics of these societies and to evaluate some hypotheses of the causes of polyandry. We demonstrate that although polyandry is rare it is not as rare as commonly believed, is found worldwide, and is most common in egalitarian societies. We also argue that polyandry likely existed during early human (...) history and should be examined from an evolutionary perspective. Our analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males and may also be a response to high rates of male mortality and, possibly, male absenteeism. Other factors may contribute, but our within-polyandry sample limits analysis. (shrink)

Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree (...) or disagree with what others have said. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore how nurses perceive patient participations of patients over 75 years old undergoing hemodialysis treatment in dialysis units, and of their next of kin. Ten nurses told stories about what happened in the dialysis units. These stories were analyzed with critical discourse analysis. Three discursive practices are found: (1) the nurses’ power and control; (2) sharing power with the patient; and (3) transferring power to the next of kin. The first and the predominant (...) discursive practice can be explained with an ideology of paternalism, in which the nurses used biomedical explanations and the ethical principle of benefice to justify their actions. The second can be explained with an ideology of participation, in which the nurses used ethical narratives as a way to let the patients participate in the treatment. The third seemed to involve autonomous decision-making and the ethical principle of autonomy for the next of kin in the difficult end-of-life decisions. (shrink)

Most behavioural genetic studies focus on genetic and environmental influences on inter-individual phenotypic differences at the population level. The growing collection of intensive longitudinal data in social and behavioural science offers a unique opportunity to examine genetic and environmental influences on intra-individual phenotypic variability at the individual level. The current study introduces a novel idiographic approach and one novel method to investigate genetic and environmental influences on intra-individual variability by a simple empirical demonstration. Person-specific non-shared environmental influences on intra-individual variability (...) of daily school feelings were estimated using time series data from twenty-one pairs of monozygotic twins over two consecutive weeks. Results showed substantial inter-individual heterogeneity in person- specific non-shared environmental influences. The current study represents a first step in investigating environmental influences on intra-individual variability with an idiographic approach, and provides implications for future behavioural genetic studies to examine developmental processes from a microscopic angle. (shrink)

В статье философия характеризуется на основе дискурсной парадигмы анализа: как текст, интеллектуальная деятельность и коммуникация. Характеризуются два равнозначных аспекта философского дискурса - когнитивный и коммуникативный. Обсуждается феномен философских контроверз, специфика философского спора, выразительные (знаковые) средства философского дискурса, роль мировоззренческого дискурса в современной общественно-политической ситуации в стране.