Contribution to a symposium on Kostas Gavroglu and Ana Simões, Neither Physics nor Chemistry, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

BackgroundPlagiarism is common and threatens the integrity of the scientific literature. However, its detection is time consuming and difficult, presenting challenges to editors and publishers who are entrusted with ensuring the integrity of published literature.MethodsIn this study, the extent of plagiarism in manuscripts submitted to a major specialty medical journal was documented. We manually curated submitted manuscripts and deemed an article contained plagiarism if one sentence had 80 % of the words copied from another published paper. Commercial plagiarism detection software (...) was utilized and its use was optimized.ResultsIn 400 consecutively submitted manuscripts, 17 % of submissions contained unacceptable levels of plagiarized material with 82 % of plagiarized manuscripts submitted from countries where English was not an official language. Using the most commonly employed commercial plagiarism detection software, sensitivity and specificity were studied with regard to the generated plagiarism score. The cutoff score maximizing both sensitivity and specificity was 15 % (sensitivity 84.8 % and specificity 80.5 %).ConclusionsPlagiarism was a common occurrence among manuscripts submitted for publication to a major American specialty medical journal and most manuscripts with plagiarized material were submitted from countries in which English was not an official language. The use of commercial plagiarism detection software can be optimized by selecting a cutoff score that reflects desired sensitivity and specificity. (shrink)

Humans can attribute beliefs to others. However, it is unknown to what extent this ability results from an innate biological endowment or from experience accrued through child development, particularly exposure to language describing others' mental states. We test the viability of the language exposure hypothesis by assessing whether models exposed to large quantities of human language display sensitivity to the implied knowledge states of characters in written passages. In pre‐registered analyses, we present a linguistic version of the False Belief Task (...) to both human participants and a large language model, GPT‐3. Both are sensitive to others' beliefs, but while the language model significantly exceeds chance behavior, it does not perform as well as the humans nor does it explain the full extent of their behavior—despite being exposed to more language than a human would in a lifetime. This suggests that while statistical learning from language exposure may in part explain how humans develop the ability to reason about the mental states of others, other mechanisms are also responsible. (shrink)

This paper examines the institutional mechanisms supporting the ethical oversight of human participant research conducted by the United Nations (UN). The UN has served an instrumental role in shaping international standards on research ethics, which invariably require ethical oversight of all research studies with human participants. The authors’ experiences of conducting research collaboratively with UN agencies, in contrast, have led to concern that the UN frequently sponsors, or participates in, studies with human participants that have not received appropriate ethical oversight. (...) It is argued that the institutional mechanisms in place to prevent research with human participants from being undertaken by the UN without ethical oversight do not, at present, extend substantively beyond the provision of guidelines and online training offered by a minority of UN bodies. The WHO and UNICEF are identified as notable exceptions, having implemented various measures to prevent health research with human participants from being undertaken without ethical oversight. Yet, it is highlighted that the WHO and UNICEF are not the only UN bodies that undertake health research with human participants and there are countless actors under the umbrella of the UN system that are regularly involved in non-health research with human participants. Arguments for the pursuit of the highest standard of ethical oversight by UN bodies are presented. Moving forward, the paper asks the question: is it time for the UN to set the standards for the oversight of ethical oversight? (shrink)

From the older handbooks to the more recent scholarly literature, Gorgias's professions about his art are taken literally at their word: conjured up in all of these accounts is the image of a hearer irresistibly overwhelmed by Gorgias's apagogic and psychagogic persuasions. Gorgias's own description of his art, in effect, replaces our description of it. "His proofs... give the impression of ineluctability" . "Thus logos is almost an independent external power which forces the hearer to do its will" . "Incurably (...) deceptive," logos has an "enormous power" that acts upon opinion, which is "easy to change" . Surprisingly, the urge to describe or paraphrase Gorgias's art has caused commentators to overlook the very best witness of it that we have: its enactment, which is to say the performative value of Gorgias's writings, especially the speeches. For if Gorgias's literary remains do nothing else, they demonstrate how one can do things with words without being explicit about what is being done, even if this means contradicting, performatively, what is being said-as for instance in his statements, so unconvincingly made, about the ostensible aims of rhetoric. Was Gorgias persuasive in practice? Was persuasion even the goal? Is logos the solitary arbiter of reality that it is so often made out to be? Through close examination of Gorgias's Helen and parts of On Not-Being, I attempt to show that persuasion is manifestly not the goal of his arguments, which in the first instance are aporetic paradoxes that expose the difficulties of defining the nature of either language or reality, and which in the last instance are instruments of cultural demystification. The only deception at work in Gorgias's writings is that of the self-deception of their audience. It is this that gives these curiously revealing documents of fifth-century Greek culture their "dissuasive," not persuasive, character. (shrink)

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

According to James M. Kauffman, too much of what is said today about educational reform is nonsense that shortchanges students, parents, and taxpayers. This deforms education rather than reforming it. The primary objective of this book is to help teachers, teacher educators, policy makers, and parents think more critically about current rhetoric about education. Reason and science in the enlightenment tradition are more helpful in reforming and improving education than political agendas. Reform should focus on instruction. Education must address (...) the full range of learners, from those who are mentally retarded to those who are intellectually gifted. Special education, multicultural education, and standardized testing are among the controversial issues explored. Extremes of both left and right ideologies are rejected in favor of careful thinking and sound judgment. (shrink)

Axel Honneth has been instrumental in advancing the work of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists, rebuilding their effort to combine radical social and political analysis with rigorous philosophical inquiry. These eleven essays published over the past five years reclaim the relevant themes of the Frankfurt School, which counted Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Franz Neumann, and Albrecht Wellmer as members. They also engage with Kant, Freud, Alexander Mitscherlich, and Michael Walzer, whose work on morality, history, (...) democracy, and individuality intersects with the Frankfurt School's core concerns. Collected here for the first time in English, Honneth's essays pursue the unifying themes and theses that support the methodologies and thematics of critical social theory, and they address the possibilities of continuing this tradition through radically changed theoretical and social conditions. According to Honneth, there is a unity that underlies critical theory's multiple approaches: the way in which reason is both distorted and furthered in contemporary capitalist society. And while much is dead in the social and psychological doctrines of critical social theory, its central inquiries remain vitally relevant. Is social progress still possible after the horrors of the twentieth century? Does capitalism deform reason and, if so, in what respects? Can we justify the relationship between law and violence in secular terms, or is it inextricably bound to divine justice? How can we be free when we're subject to socialization in a highly complex and in many respects unfree society? For Honneth, suffering and moral struggle are departure points for a new "reconstructive" form of social criticism, one that is based solidly in the empirically grounded, interdisciplinary approach of the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

Based on the author's more than 50 years of experience as a professional historian in academic and other capacities, Being a Historian is addressed to both aspiring and mature historians. It offers an overview of the state of the discipline of history today and the problems that confront it and its practitioners in many professions. James M. Banner, Jr. argues that historians remain inadequately prepared for their rapidly changing professional world and that the discipline as a whole has yet (...) to confront many of its deficiencies. He also argues that, no longer needing to conform automatically to the academic ideal, historians can now more safely and productively than ever before adapt to their own visions, temperaments, and goals as they take up their responsibilities as scholars, teachers, and public practitioners. Critical while also optimistic, this work suggests many topics for further scholarly and professional exploration, research, and debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Inner Citadel. The Meditations of Marcus AureliusJames KerPierre Hadot. The Inner Citadel. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 351. Cloth, $45.00Marcus Aurelius has sometimes been viewed as a Stoic "half-way to Platonism," so overawed by the brevity of human life within the infinite procession of eternity that he "almost lost faith in his own existence" (J. (...) M. Rist). Hadot's book, however, in this excellent English translation (first published as La Citadelle Intérieure: Introduction aux "Pensées" de Marc Aurèle, Paris, 1992), argues not only that the Meditations are thoroughly Stoic in their doctrine, but that to call Marcus a Platonist (or a pessimist) is to misinterpret the techniques by which he seeks to live a Stoic life. For Hadot it is the teachings of the philosopher-slave Epictetus that explain the Meditations, and the bulk of the book is concerned with demonstrating that Marcus's writings are spiritual exercises by which the author seeks to instill in himself three basic Epictetan disciplines corresponding to the tripartite Stoic system of logic, physics, and ethics. Readers of Hadot's other works will already recognize his concern with the ancient conception of philosophy as a way of life [3]. This study aims to show how Marcus's self-therapy relates to specific elements of Stoic doctrine and to redefine our understanding of the Meditations as a literary work.The book begins by tracing Marcus's initiation into the philosophic life, with special emphasis on the role of statesman-philosopher Junius Rusticus, who introduced Marcus to the writings of his influential teacher, Epictetus. In Chapter Two Hadot approaches the text which we refer to as the Meditations and argues that they are better referred to as Marcus's "personal notes" (hypomnêmata): their characteristic features (discontinuity, repetition, self-address, and refined literary form) are due to their being the product of day-by-day exercises in which Marcus, focussed upon the definitiveness of the present moment, strove to keep the essential rules of life ever present in his mind. Marcus's constant repetition of familiar doctrine indicates that for him "the [End Page 116] essential thing was not to invent or to compose, but to influence himself and produce an effect upon himself" (244).Hadot is at pains in Chapter Three, however, to reveal that these exercises derive from the "highly rigorous conceptual system" which he calls "the true key to the Meditations," namely, a set of three dogmas that require (a) the regulation of judgment to assent only to what is objectively true; (b) the restriction of the desires to that which is in accordance with universal Nature and Destiny; and (c) the disciplining of one's impulse toward action to be just and altruistic, in agreement with one's human nature. According to Hadot, this systematic distinction between the disciplines of judgement, desire, and impulse, and the three dogmas on which they depend, is "a doctrine which is peculiar to Epictetus and which is not found in Stoicism prior to him" (70). Marcus, then, in organizing his spiritual exercises around these three disciplines, "was working with pre-existing materials" (52). Thus Chapter Five is dedicated entirely to explaining how the practical disciplines of judgment, desire, and impulse to action, which Hadot argues correspond respectively to logic, physics, and ethics, operate within "the Stoicism of Epictetus."There is a certain apparent tension generated by Hadot's argument concerning the Stoicism of Epictetus. Although he depicts him as a distinctive innovator, Hadot also states that Epictetus does not change the system of Zeno and Chrysippus but simply adds "color and tonality" (73)—a statement that allows him to classify both Epictetus and Marcus as authentic Stoics but thereby risks undermining his argument about Epictetus's distinctiveness. This real ambiguity could be explained by reference to the emphasis on originality in Stoicism, in which the embodiment of philosophy in each new Stoic establishes him as an independent authority. (As Seneca says to Lucilius, "Zeno said this. But what do you say?" Epistulae Morales 33.7.) Indeed Hadot illustrates how didactic procedures in particular were... (shrink)

_Technology and Society_ provides an up-to-date introduction to the basic issues that have come to define the philosophy of technology: What is “technology”? Does technology control our lives? What is technology’s relation to ethics? How does technology influence us? Is the widespread belief in technological progress justified? Later sections of the book examine the application of philosophy of technology to social issues such as climate change, urban sprawl, and automation. Major issues and arguments are presented in an accessible and non-technical (...) fashion, giving the reader a firm foundation in the field. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

The Scottish Common Sense School of philosophy emerged during the Scottish Enlightenment of the second half of the eighteenth century. The School’s principal proponents were Thomas Reid, James Oswald, James Beattie and Dugald Stewart. They believed that we are all naturally implanted with an array of common sense intuitions and these intuitions are in fact the foundation of truth. Their approach dominated philosophical thought in Great Britain and the United States until the mid nineteenth century. In recent years (...) philosophers have renewed their appreciation of the notion of common sense. In particular, discussions of common sense intuitions are integral to contemporary epistemological foundationalism. Scottish Common Sense Philosophy: Sources and Origins is a 5-volume collection of writings by and about philosophers in the eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense School. The writings by Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart are readily available in recent editions and facsimile reprints so this series focuses on less accessible and less well-known items. Oswald’s Appeal appears here in print for the first time in any form since 1772. Volume 2 is the first reset printing of Beattie’s Essay in over 100 years, and is the only edition to contain annotations that trace the major changes that he made to the text. Almost all of the responses in volumes 3 and 4 appear here in print for the first time since their original publication. These include reviews, pamphlets and excerpts from books. Also included is previously unpublished discussion of Beattie’s Essay by Dugald Stewart. The final volume is a bibliography of around 80 Scottish philosophers from the early eighteenth century to the close of the nineteenth century. Unlike the 1932 bibliography of Scottish philosophers offered by T. E. Jessop, which selectively presents only the philosophical writings by the various Scottish philosophers, this volume attempts to catalogue all of the writings by these philosophers in all of their editions. (shrink)

This chapter argues that ZHU Xi was influenced by Daoism. His philosophy begins with the Diagram of the Great Polarity or Taijitu 太極圖 which has Daoist origins. Later in life he studied two Daoist texts, namely, The Seal of the Unity of the Three in the Zhou Book of Changes or the Zhouyi Cantongqi 周易參同契, and The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of the Secret Talisman or the Huangdi Yinfujing 黃帝陰符經. The chapter begins with a discussion about the nature of Daoism and (...) inner meditative alchemy. Then I discuss the Diagram of the Great Polarity. Finally, ZHU Xi’s study of the above two texts is analyzed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty, and the Foundations of Modern Politics by Paul SagarJames A. HarrisPaul Sagar. Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty, and the Foundations of Modern Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. Pp. xii + 229. Hardback, $37.00.Paul Sagar's invigorating book is a reconsideration of Adam Smith in the sense that it challenges much that is received wisdom in current scholarship. First and foremost, it rejects (...) the idea that Smith was preeminently a moral philosopher concerned with the threat to civic virtue posed by commercial society, and yet intent on giving commercial society a moral vindication nevertheless. Sagar—rightly, in my view—wants us to recognize Smith as having been a political thinker. Too much work on Smith still assumes that there is not much to say [End Page 323] about his political thought because he regarded all but the most minimal government as an obstacle to the proper functioning of markets. Smith is supposed to be a "classical liberal" bent on preserving as much natural liberty as possible in the face of government's relentless overextension of its powers of regulation. In Adam Smith's Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), Donald Winch rejected that approach to Smith in favor of a portrait of the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations as an eighteenth-century thinker with an eighteenth-century thinker's concerns. Sagar's project is quite different. This is a book on Smith's political thought that does not once deploy the term 'Whig.' Sagar's Smith does not wholly float free of his historical situation—the questions he addresses are those posed by the end of feudalism and the advent of modernity—but situating him in the particular circumstances of Britain in the age of revolutions is not Sagar's concern. As Sagar sees it, the fundamental issues addressed by Smith's political thought concern the distinctive form taken by commercial society in the modern era. Smith, according to Sagar, held that all advanced societies are commercial societies. Commercial society as such needed no vindication. The question, rather, was what kind of commercial society a modern state wanted to be. That was a political question insofar as it was a question about the kind of freedom that mattered and about the kind of institutions needed to make that freedom a reality.Defined in maximally general terms, freedom for Smith was the absence of domination, where domination is understood as a lack of security in respect of one's physical safety and possessions. The condition of the poor and powerless had always been one of subjection to the will of the rich and powerful. What changed that, according to Smith, was implementation of the rule of law. This is in itself not a new reading of Smith, but what distinguishes Sagar's version of it is the care with which he examines both the place of the rule of law in Smith's historical account of the emergence of liberty in modern Europe and the precise nature of the connection between the rule of law and freedom. First, on Sagar's view, there needed to be a comprehensive picture of domination and slavery, which had been the normal condition of almost everyone for almost all of human history. Then there needed to be an explanation of how it was that, at one particular historical moment, domination was slowly but surely challenged by the emergence of law and law courts considered as independent of political power. In England, this was the story of the common law and of judges who held office for life, rather than at the pleasure of traditional possessors of power. It was the story of security in property, of the backing of property by law, and it was a largely urban story, of burghers who managed to enlist monarchs on their side in the battle against the barons. It was, in other words, in large part a medieval story, and one consequence is that there was more to say about the rise of liberty in the modern age than that it was caused inadvertently by... (shrink)

Anthropology is a complex, wide-ranging, and ever-changing field. This clear, coherent, and well-crafted book is a revised version of a very successful text first published in 1986, designed to supplement standard textbooks and monographs. It covers the central concepts, distinctive methodologies, and philosophical as well as practical issues of cultural anthropology, and it is accessible to the anthropological novice, and of value to the professional. The updated version covers current issues in cultural anthropology, and includes topics such as globalization, gender, (...) post-modernism and public issues, and reflects changes in perspective and language. (shrink)

Every year in this country, some 10,000 college and university courses are taught in applied ethics. And many professional organizations now have their own codes of ethics. Yet social science has had little impact upon applied ethics. This book promises to change that trend by illustrating how social science can make a contribution to applied ethics. The text reports psychological studies relevant to applied ethics for many professionals, including accountants, college students and teachers, counselors, dentists, doctors, journalists, nurses, school teachers, (...) athletes, and veterinarians. Each chapter begins with the research base of the cognitive-developmental approach--especially linked to Kohlberg and Rest's Defining Issues Test. Finally, the book summarizes recent research on the following issues: * moral judgment scores within and between professions, * pre- and post-test evaluations of ethics education programs, * moral judgment and moral behavior, * models of professional ethicseducation, and * models for developing new assessment tools. Researchers in different professional fields investigate different questions, develop different research strategies, and report different findings. Typically researchers of one professional field are not aware of research in other fields. An important aim of the present book is to bring this diverse research together so that cross-fertilization can occur and ideas from one field can transfer to another. (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice (2009), Amartya Sen advocates democracy defined as ‘public reasoning’ and ‘government by discussion’. Sen’s discursive approach facilitates the exercise of political freedom and development of one’s public capacities, and enables victims of injustice to give public voice and discussion to specific injustice. It also responds to the contested nature of ‘universal human rights’ and the need to clarify and defend them via public reasoning. However, Sen’s approach leaves intact the hegemony of a liberal form of (...) democracy that prioritizes political and civil rights over social and economic rights and thus precludes alternative democratic forms, most notably a form of cooperative democracy that politicizes social and economic activities in the pursuit of local and global justice. Sen’s ‘government by discus- sion’ must combine with cooperative democracy and a global ethos emphasizing cooperation (and action) over privatization in order to address our most serious global injustices, including exploitation, inequality and poverty in the Global South, accelerating destruction of the environment and biodiversity, and global warming and climate change. (shrink)

This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes (...) up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

Animal behaviour and welfare research are part of a wider endeavour to optimize the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems. As such, it is part of the One Health research agenda. This article applies ethical principles described by the One Health High Level Expert Panel to animal behaviour and welfare research. These principles entail that animal behaviour and welfare research should be valued equitably alongside other research in transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration. It should include and promote a multiplicity (...) of marginalized voices, including those of animals, and it should apply and describe a harmonious balance between human—animal-environment interactions. Lastly, it should describe how humans need to change behaviour, adopt sustainable solutions and recognize the importance of animal welfare and the integrity of the whole ecosystem. (shrink)

The Predicament of Culture is a critical ethnography of the West in its changing relations with other societies. Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in postcolonial contexts. In discussions of ethnography, surrealism, museums, and emergent tribal arts, Clifford probes the late twentieth-century predicament of living simultaneously within, between, and after culture.

Natural language contains many examples of sound-symbolism, where the form of the word carries information about its meaning. Such systematicity is more prevalent in the words children acquire first, but arbitrariness dominates during later vocabulary development. Furthermore, systematicity appears to promote learning category distinctions, which may become more important as the vocabulary grows. In this study, we tested the relative costs and benefits of sound-symbolism for word learning as vocabulary size varies. Participants learned form-meaning mappings for words which were either (...) congruent or incongruent with regard to sound-symbolic relations. For the smaller vocabulary, sound-symbolism facilitated learning individual words, whereas for larger vocabularies sound-symbolism supported learning category distinctions. The changing properties of form-meaning mappings according to vocabulary size may reflect the different ways in which language is learned at different stages of development. (shrink)

This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes (...) up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a role in (...) generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science. (shrink)

This book briefly outlines the evolution of general philosophical ideas since 1900, emphasizing how the concept of philosophy itself has changed.

The practice of paying research subjects for participating inclinical trials has yet to receive an adequate moral analysis.Dickert and Grady argue for a wage payment model in whichresearch subjects are paid an hourly wage based on that ofunskilled laborers. If we accept this approach, what follows?Norms for just working conditions emerge from workplacelegislation and political theory. All workers, includingpaid research subjects under Dickert and Grady''s analysis,have a right to at least minimum wage, a standard work week,extra pay for overtime hours, (...) a safe workplace, no faultcompensation for work-related injury, and union organization.If we accept that paid research subjects are wage earners likeany other, then the implications for changes to current practiceare substantial. (shrink)

The chapter highlights four themes within the psychology of climate change that illustrate how psychological findings bear on the philosophy of climate change. The chapter first considers how psychological research has explored the ways in which individuals think about the ethics of the relationship between humans and the environment, developing new constructs capturing various ways of thinking about that relationship and developing tools with which to measure the extent to which participants think about the relationship in the relevant ways. The (...) remaining sections look at why people might find it difficult to act ethically in relation to the environment, the psychological impacts of the climate crisis, and at what psychology can teach us about developing effective interventions to practically respond to the climate crisis. (shrink)

It has been argued that geoengineering research should not be pursued because of a slippery slope from research to problematic deployment. These arguments have been thought weak or defective on the basis of interpretations that treat the arguments as relying on dubious premises. The paper urges a new interpretation of these arguments as precautionary arguments, i.e. as relying on a precautionary principle. This interpretation helps us better appreciate the potential normative force of the worries, their potential policy relevance, and the (...) kind of evidence required by slippery slope arguments. Understood as precautionary arguments, it is clear that slippery slope arguments against geoengineering capture concerns that are worth taking seriously. (shrink)

The Renaissance was a period of great intellectual change and innovation as philosophers rediscovered the philosophy of classical antiquity and passed it on to the modern age. Renaissance philosophy is distinct both from the medieval scholasticism, based on revelation and authority, and from philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who transformed it into new philosophical systems. Despite the importance of the Renaissance to the development of philosophy over time, it has remained largely understudied by historians of philosophy and professional (...) philosophers. This anthology aims to correct this by providing scholars and students of philosophy with representative translations of the most important philosophers of the Renaissance. Its purpose is to help readers appreciate philosophy in the Renaissance and its importance in the history of philosophy. The anthology includes translations from philosophers from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and it ranges from works on moral and political philosophy, to metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy, thereby providing historians and students of philosophy with a sense for the nature, breadth, and complexity of philosophy in the Renaissance. Each translation is accompanied by an introduction by a historian of Renaissance philosophy, as well as select secondary sources, in order to encourage further study. (shrink)

This volume is one of the most remarkable works in the history of economic thought. First published in 1893, its principal significance rests in its argument that economic theory, however technical or pragmatic, is necessarily formed by and derives its meaning from larger moral and philosophical systems and assumptions. Bonar traces the inexorable presence of this moral and philosophical element in a vast, though highly nuanced, survey of the economic aspect of major thinkers from Plato to Darwin and demonstrates how (...) modern economic thought, in turn, grew out of one or another branch of philosophy. Bonar begins with a consideration of Plato and Aristotle, examining their conceptions of wealth, production and distribution, and civil society. Discussions of the Stoics, Epicurians, and early Christianity explore complications introduced by these bodies of thought. His analysis of the classical and medieval world is followed by an extensive treatment of the concept of natural law, from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, describing its influence and its relation to ideas of natural rights. The book's later sections concentrate on the dominant modes of ninteenth-cen-tury thought: utilitarianism, idealism, and materialism. Bonar identifies and explores the philosophical topics on which the conduct of technical economic analysis makes assumptions: human nature and human wants, the nature and role of the state, the relation of the individual to society, the nature and origin of property, and the role of ideals in socioeconomic life. He concludes by examining the implications for economics of the theory of evolution arising from the work of Darwin and others. The continuing interest of this volume for economists, philosophers, and sociologists lies in Bonar's contention that at the heart of the relationship of philosophy to economics is the problem of order: the ongoing need to reconcile conflicts between freedom and control, continuity and change, hierarchy and equality. In his reading, the fundamental question to which philosophy and economics are both brought to bear is that of changing the structure of power and opportunity in the social economy. This is, in short, a classic in the history of economics as well as the economic element in intellectual history. (shrink)

There are two general approaches to Hegel’s theoretical philosophy which are broadly popular in recent work. Debate between them is often characterized, by both sides, as a dispute between those favoring a more traditional “metaphysical” approach and those favoring a newer “nonmetaphysical” approach. But I argue that the most important and compelling points made by both sides are actually independent of the idea of a “nonmetaphysical” interpretation of Hegel, which is itself simply unconvincing. The most promising directions for future research, (...) for those on both sides of recent debates, will require recognizing that Hegel’s theoretical philosophy includes a metaphysics, and engaging new debates about the specific character of that metaphysics. (shrink)

Few can imagine a world without telephones or televisions; many depend on computers and the Internet as part of daily life. Without scientific theory, these developments would not have been possible. In this exceptionally clear and engaging introduction to philosophy of science, James Ladyman explores the philosophical questions that arise when we reflect on the nature of the scientific method and the knowledge it produces. He discusses whether fundamental philosophical questions about knowledge and reality might be answered by science, (...) and considers in detail the debate between realists and antirealists about the extent of scientific knowledge. Along the way, central topics in philosophy of science, such as the demarcation of science from non-science, induction, confirmation and falsification, the relationship between theory and observation and relativism are all addressed. Important and complex current debates over underdetermination, inference to the best explaination and the implications of radical theory change are clarified and clearly explained for those new to the subject. (shrink)

One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information. This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios. We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal (...) fashion to assimilate exactly the new information. In this form of belief change, when the reasoner revises by new information p ∨ q their belief corpus is modified so that p∨q is believed but stronger propositions like p∧q are not, no matter what beliefs are in the reasoner's initial corpus. We term this conservative belief change since the revised belief corpus is a conservative extension of the original belief corpus given the new information. (shrink)

Is it worse to kill someone than to let someone die? It seems obvious to common sense that it is worse. We allow people to die, for example, when we fail to contribute money to famine-relief efforts; but even if we feel somewhat guilty, we do not consider ourselves murderers. Nor do we feel like accessories to murder when we fail to give blood, sign an organ-donor card, or do any of the other things that could save lives. Common sense (...) tells us that, while we may not kill people, our duty to give them aid is much more limited. Some philosophers, however, have argued that common sense is wrong about this. They have defended the Equivalence Thesis, which says that killing and letting die are equally bad. This is a more specific version of the idea that there is no moral difference between making something happen and allowing it to happen. The Equivalence Thesis is a radical conception that would require changes in our ordinary moral beliefs. If it is true, then obviously our duty to give aid is much stronger than we commonly assume. But our views about other matters, such as euthanasia, will also be affected. Many people believe that “passive euthanasia”--allowing terminal patients to die, rather than pointlessly prolonging their lives--is sometimes permissible; but they also believe that killing patients is always wrong. If the Equivalence Thesis is true, this combination of beliefs is inconsistent. The idea behind the Equivalence Thesis is not that every individual case of letting die is equally as bad as every individual case of killing. Obviously, if we compare an ordinary murder--say, a man killing his wife out of jealousy--with the actions of a physician who humanely permits a suffering patient to die, the murder is much worse. Rather, the idea is that the difference between killing and letting die does not itself make a difference to the moral assessment of the actions. Other factors may still be important. (shrink)

The future of higher education is in question as universities struggle to remain relevant to the present and future needs of society. The context in which learning occurs is rapidly changing and those engaged and interested in the place and position of university education need to figure out to adapt. This book embodies a vision for higher education where graduate attributes and proficiencies are at the core of the academic project, where degree programs move beyond disciplinary content and where students (...) are encouraged to be Citizen Scholars. Through a series of cross-disciplinary and contextual cases, the contributors to this book articulate how this vision can be achieved in our pedagogical environments, future proofing higher education. (shrink)

Political liberals now defend what Rawls calls the "inclusive view" of public reason with the appropriate ideal of reasonable pluralism. Against the application of such a liberal conception of toleration to deliberative democracy "the open view of toleration is with no constraints" is the only regime of toleration that can be democratically justified. Recent debates about the public or nonpublic character of religious reasons provide a good test case and show why liberal deliberative theories are intolerant and fail to live (...) up to democratic obligations to provide justifications to all members of the deliberative community. In a deliberative democracy, accommodations to religious minorities must be based on transformations in the current reflective equilibrium among the norms that make up the complex democratic ideal. This is not merely a conceptual enterprise of commensuration, since the need for any such transformation in standards of justification is due to changes in the nature of the polity itself, changes that in turn modify its regime of toleration. (shrink)

Civic media literacy entails understanding complex topics and events that are increasingly mediated by digital sources of information and where it can be challenging to evaluate the reliability merits of these sources. The goal of this study was to discern the ways undergraduate preservice social studies teachers with different climate change beliefs read and evaluated the reliability of four diverse Web sources about the complex socioscientific topic of climate change. Findings highlight clear alignment between most participants with climate change beliefs (...) at either end of a beliefs continuum with less alignment for participants with climate change beliefs toward the middle of a continuum. Findings also point to the benefits of whole group deliberation to help participants more critically evaluate a Web source that opposed the scientific consensus about climate change. In an age of “alternative facts,” this study points to the importance of students and educators having opportunities to evaluate, discuss, and determine the credibility of a range of online sources. (shrink)

While most scholarship in religious studies focuses on the past and present, the study of what the future may hold in store for religion deserves attention. Studying the treatment of religious themes and characters in science fiction provides one way of accomplishing this objective. From the possibility of time travel to key events in the history of religion, to the possibility of acquiring godlike attributes by technological or other futuristic means, science fiction regularly touches on topics such as the nature (...) and universality of truth or the nature of personhood and of divinity in ways that can be deeply theological, even if the authors of the tales are not theologians or even religiously inclined. In stories about contact with extraterrestrial sentient life forms, sci-fi tales can explore questions about diversity in the values and ideas we hold, but on a much larger scale than that provided by our own planet. Yet these stories reflect the convictions and concerns human beings currently have about our ability to understand one another and our sometimes seemingly incommensurable commitments. Such stories provide natural conversation partners for present-day religious communities. The study of such literature and film provides insight into how major conceptual and ethical questions are being explored and wrestled with even today. (shrink)

One of the several good questions asked by Robin Mills in this short but rich book concerns the explanation of change in the intellectual climate of a particular time and place. In mid-seventeenth-...

This paper is a critique of a project, outlined by Laudan et al. (1986) recently in this journal, for empirically testing philosophical models of change in science by comparing them against the historical record of actual scientific practice. While the basic idea of testing such models of change in the arena of science is itself an appealing one, serious questions can be raised about the suitability of seeking confirmation or disconfirmation for large numbers of specific theses drawn from a massive (...) list of claims abstracted from the writings of a few philosophers of science. The present paper discusses what one might reasonably expect from a model of change in science and then compares some clusters of theses from Laudan et al. with developments in recent theoretical physics. The results suggest that such straightforward testing of theses may be largely inconclusive. (shrink)