This paper presents an analysis and discussion of the opinions of two generations of Asian parents with regard to their young children's education. A large number of parents were interviewed during 1970-1974 and a smaller number during 1995 to ascertain their views on a variety of topics relating to their children's early education. The findings are discussed in a qualitative way and reveal the increasing satisfaction of Asian parents with their children's education. A higher proportion of the mothers of the (...) 1990s help their children with homework, read them stories and are generally more participatory in their children's education compared with the 1970s group. The second generations are concerned with the lack of facilities for the teaching of mother tongues in schools. These and other findings are discussed within the changing lifestyles of second-generation Asians. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents an analysis and discussion of the opinions of two generations of Asian parents with regard to their young children's education. A large number of parents (n = 200) were interviewed during 1970-1974 and a smaller number (n = 40) during 1995 to ascertain their views on a variety of topics relating to their children's early education. The findings are discussed in a qualitative way and reveal the increasing satisfaction of Asian parents with their children's education. A (...) higher proportion of the mothers of the 1990s help their children with homework, read them stories and are generally more participatory in their children's education compared with the 1970s group. The second generations are concerned with the lack of facilities for the teaching of mother tongues in schools. These and other findings are discussed within the changing lifestyles of second-generation Asians. (shrink)

We applaud Norris et al.'s critical review of the literature on lexical effects in phoneme decision making, and we sympathize with their attempt to reconcile autonomous models of word recognition with current research. However, we suggest that adaptive resonance theory (ART) may provide a coherent account of the data while preserving limited inhibitory feedback among certain lexical and sublexical representations.

Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medical personnel in four hospitals in Amman, the capital of Jordan. (...) Data were analysed thematically in relation to a pre-existing set of ethical categories. Interviews were conducted with thirty-eight doctors covering most medical specialities. Five major themes emerged from the interviews: ethical awareness, ethical issues, the impact of religion on ethical decision-making, practical and theoretical resources for ethical decision-making, and challenges. While uncertainty was expressed about some aspects of Western approaches to ethics, participants strongly supported adoption of a range of Western bioethical principles, including cultural and ethical diversity, along with adherence to Islamic religious norms. A range of serious ethical challenges facing the Jordanian health system were identified, covering social, legal, managerial, and technical issues. Ethical decision-making in Jordan is complex, having to accommodate the needs of patients, the opinions of doctors and their families, the views of religious authorities, managerial considerations, and both local norms and international standards. Health professionals struggle with three sets of tensions that emerge out of the struggle between traditional, community-embedded forms of social organization and the demands generated by globalization and the influence of Western culture: the tensions between tradition and modernity, conservatism and pragmatism, and religion and secularism. Doctors in Jordan prefer approaches to ethical decision-making that realize a balance between the extremes, although the exact nature of where that balance should lie remains uncertain. (shrink)

High-spin states have been studied in Pr-135(59), populated through the Cd-116(Na-23,4n) reaction at 115 MeV, using the Gammasphere gamma-ray spectrometer. The negative-parity yrast band has been significantly extended to spin similar to 45 (h) over bar and excitation energy 21.5 MeV, showing evidence for several rotational alignments. The positive-parity yrast band of Ce-135(58), populated through the p4n channel of this reaction, was also populated to spin similar to 38 (h) over bar and excitation energy 18 MeV. Cranking calculations indicate that (...) these nuclei are soft with respect to the triaxiality parameter gamma and that several competing nuclear shapes occur at high spin. (shrink)

Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medical personnel in four hospitals in Amman, the capital of Jordan. (...) Data were analysed thematically in relation to a pre-existing set of ethical categories. Interviews were conducted with thirty-eight doctors covering most medical specialities. Five major themes emerged from the interviews: ethical awareness, ethical issues, the impact of religion on ethical decision-making, practical and theoretical resources for ethical decision-making, and challenges. While uncertainty was expressed about some aspects of Western approaches to ethics, participants strongly supported adoption of a range of Western bioethical principles, including cultural and ethical diversity, along with adherence to Islamic religious norms. A range of serious ethical challenges facing the Jordanian health system were identified, covering social, legal, managerial, and technical issues. Ethical decision-making in Jordan is complex, having to accommodate the needs of patients, the opinions of doctors and their families, the views of religious authorities, managerial considerations, and both local norms and international standards. Health professionals struggle with three sets of tensions that emerge out of the struggle between traditional, community-embedded forms of social organization and the demands generated by globalization and the influence of Western culture: the tensions between tradition and modernity, conservatism and pragmatism, and religion and secularism. Doctors in Jordan prefer approaches to ethical decision-making that realize a balance between the extremes, although the exact nature of where that balance should lie remains uncertain. (shrink)

Samuelson's text was first published in 1948, and it immediately became the authority for the principles of economics courses. The book continues to be the standard-bearer for principles courses, and this revision continues to be a clear, accurate, and interesting introduction to modern economics principles. Bill Nordhaus is now the primary author of this text, and he has revised the book to be as current and relevant as ever.

© Copyright 2015, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc..Signal transducer and activator of transcription factor 3 is hyperactivated in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. Cumulative evidence indicates that IL-6 production by HNSCC cells and/or stromal cells in the tumor microenvironment activates STAT3 and contributes to tumor progression and drug resistance. A library of 94,491 compounds from the Molecular Library Screening Center Network was screened for the ability to inhibit interleukin-6 -induced pSTAT3 activation. For contractual reasons, the primary high-content screening campaign was (...) conducted over several months in 3 distinct phases; 1,068 primary HCS actives remained after cytotoxic or fluorescent outliers were eliminated. One thousand one hundred eighty-seven compounds were cherry-picked for confirmation; actives identified in the primary HCS and compounds selected by a structural similarity search of the remaining MLSCN library using hits identified in phases I and II of the screen. Actives were confirmed in pSTAT3 IC50 assays, and an IFNγ-induced pSTAT1 activation assay was used to prioritize selective inhibitors of STAT3 activation that would not inhibit STAT1 tumor suppressor functions. Two hundred three concentration-dependent inhibitors of IL-6-induced pSTAT3 activation were identified and 89 of these also produced IC50s against IFN-γ-induced pSTAT1 activation. Forty-nine compounds met our hit criteria: they reproducibly inhibited IL-6-induced pSTAT3 activation by ≥70% at 20 μM; their pSTAT3 activation IC50s were ≤25 μM; they were ≥2-fold selective for pSTAT3 inhibition over pSTAT1 inhibition; a cross target query of PubChem indicated that they were not biologically promiscuous; and they were ≥90% pure. Twenty-six chemically tractable hits that passed filters for nuisance compounds and had acceptable drug-like and ADME-Tox properties by computational evaluation were purchased for characterization. The hit structures were distributed among 5 clusters and 8 singletons. Twenty-four compounds inhibited IL-6-induced pSTAT3 activation with IC50s ≤20 μM and 13 were ≥3-fold selective versus inhibition of pSTAT1 activation. Eighteen hits inhibited the growth of HNSCC cell lines with average IC50s ≤ 20 μM. Four chemical series were progressed into lead optimization: the guanidinoquinazolines, the triazolothiadiazines, the amino alcohols, and an oxazole-piperazine singleton. (shrink)

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

It is very common these days to come across the claim that the notions of mental content and linguistic meaning are normative notions. In the work of many philosophers, it plays a pivotal role. Saul Kripke made it the centerpiece of his influential discussion of Wittgenstein’s treatment of rulefollowing and private language; he used it to argue that the notions of meaning and content cannot be understood in naturalistic terms. Kripke’s formulations tend to be in terms of the notion of (...) linguistic meaning, but his argumentative strategy makes it clear that he holds both versions of the claim.... (shrink)

In this article, I show how traditional Thomistic claims about the creation and fall of the first human beings—or “Adam”—are compatible with the claims of evolutionary science concerning human origins. Aquinas claims that God created Adam in a state or condition of original justice, wholly subject to God and so fully virtuous, as well as internally immune to bodily corruption, suffering, and natural death. In defense of “Aquinas's Adam,” I first argue that affirming that the prelapsarian Adam was internally immune (...) to suffering and death does not require denying that these things predated his emergence within evolutionary history, or that he would have faced real challenges posed to him by his natural environment. Next, I rebut the claim that Adam must have been spiritually and morally fragile, given the traits he inherited from his evolutionary ancestors. Finally, I dispute the claim that Adam only could have fallen if he existed in a spiritually and morally fragile state. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the twentieth century and a major impetus for the recent resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. His views, however, have not been well understood. Critics charge that Quine’s naturalized epistemology is circular and that it cannot be normative. Yet, such criticisms stem from a cluster of fundamental traditional assumptions regarding language, theory, and the knowing subject – the very presuppositions that Quine is at (...) pains to reject. Through investigation of Quine’s views regarding language, knowledge, and reality, the author offers a new interpretation of Quine’s naturalism. The naturalism/antinaturalism debate can be advanced only by acknowledging and critiquing the substantial theoretical commitments implicit in the traditional view. Gregory argues that the responses to the circularity and non-normativity objections do just that. His analysis further reveals that Quine’s departure from the tradition penetrates the conception of the knowing subject, and he thus offers a new and engaging defence of Quine’s naturalism. (shrink)

The very idea of narrative explanation invites two objections: a methodological objection, stating that narrative structure is too far from the form of a scientific explanation to count as an explanation, and a metaphysical objection, stating that narrative structure situates historical practice too close to the writing of fiction. Both of these objections, however, are illfounded. The methodological objection and the dispute regarding the status of historical explanation can be disposed of by revealing their motivating presupposition: the plausibility of an (...) exclusivist explication of explanation which appeals either to the unity-of-method thesis or some implicit notion of analytic equivalence, both problematic philosophical doctrines. The metaphysical objection fails with the rejection of the idea, in Mink's phrase, of an "untold story." The argument against history as an "untold story" develops from Danto's image of an Ideal Chronicler recording ideal events. A consequence of rejecting this view is that it no longer makes sense to speak of historical narratives as true or false. However, this failure engenders no special problem for assessing the objectivity or explanatory utility of narratives qua explanations. (shrink)

Rhodopsin, upon activation by light, transduces the photon signal by activation of the G‐protein, transducin. The well‐studied rhodopsin/transducin system serves as a model for the understanding of signal transduction by the large class of G‐protein‐coupled receptors. The interactive form of rhodopsin, R*, is conformationally similar or identical to rhodopsin's photolysis intermediate Metarhodopsin II (MII). Formation of MII requires deprotonation of rhodopsin's protonated Schiff base which appears to facilitate some opening of the rhodopsin structure. This allows a change in conformation at (...) rhodopsin's cytoplasmic surface that provides binding sites for transducin. Rhodopsin's 2nd, 3rd and putative 4th cytoplasmic loops bind transducin at sites including transducin's 5 kDa carboxyl‐terminal region. Site‐specific mutagenesis of rhodopsin is being used to distinguish sites on rhodopsin's surface that are important in binding transducin from those that function in activating transducin. These observations are consistent with and extend studies on the action of other G‐protein‐coupled receptors and their interactions with their respective G proteins. (shrink)

Preface: The dog's bollocks-- at the media dinner party -- Introduction: "The Marx brothers", "The Elvis of cultural theory", and other media clichés -- The mediated imp of the perverse -- Žižek's tickling shtick -- Big (Br)other : psychoanalysing the media -- Understanding the media : the sublime objectification of ideology -- The media's violence -- The joker's little shop of ideological horrors -- Conclusion: Don't just do it : negative dialectics in the age of Nike.

We live and thrive in a global society and economy where education and training is essential to a nation’s competitiveness and to the standard of living of its people. Opening the doors of higher or further education beyond the enrollments in elite or select universities has become a greater necessity. This has spawned a movement to develop or expand institutions that are more affordable, accessible, flexible, and tied to business and industry. Take a look at the systems that have been (...) developed in 20 countries worldwide that were designed to meet these needs. Historical development of each system, as well as the strategies for addressing national mandates for preparing a workforce for the global economy, are described throughout each chapter. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the epistemological positions of evolution theories. A sharp distinction is made between the theory that species evolved from common ancestors along specified lines of descent (here called the theory of common descent), and the theories intended as causal explanations of evolution (e.g. Lamarck's and Darwin's theory). The theory of common descent permits a large number of predictions of new results that would be improbable without evolution. For instance, (a) phylogenetic trees have been validated now; (b) (...) the observed order in fossils of new species discovered since Darwin's time could be predicted from the theory of common descent; (c) owing to the theory of common descent, the degrees of similarity and difference in newly discovered properties of more or less related species could be predicted. Such observations can be regarded as attempts to falsify the theory of common descent. We conclude that the theory of common descent is an easily-falsifiable & often-tested & still-not-falsified theory, which is the strongest predicate a theory in an empirical science can obtain. Theories intended as causal explanations of evolution can be falsified essentially, and Lamarck's theory has been falsified actually. Several elements of Darwin's theory have been modified or falsified: new versions of a theory of evolution by natural selection are now the leading scientific theories on evolution. We have argued that the theory of common descent and Darwinism are ordinary, falsifiable scientific theories. (shrink)

A remarkable but little studied aspect of current evolutionary theory is the use by many biologists and philosophers of theological arguments for evolution. These can be classed under two heads: imperfection arguments, in which some organic design is held to be inconsistent with God's perfection and wisdom, and homology arguments, in which some pattern of similarity is held to be inconsistent with God's freedom as an artificer. Evolutionists have long contended that the organic world falls short of what one might (...) expect from an omnipotent and benevolent creator. Yet many of the same scientists who argue theologically for evolution are committed to the philosophical doctrine of methodological naturalism, which maintains that theology has no place in science. Furthermore, the arguments themselves are problematical, employing concepts that cannot perform the work required of them, or resting on unsupported conjectures about suboptimality. Evolutionary theorists should reconsider both the arguments and the influence of Darwinian theological metaphysics on their understanding of evolution. (shrink)

For nearly a century, and until very recently, the majority of U.S. states required a blood test for marriage license applicants. The tests identified people with conditions formerly designated as "venereal diseases," most importantly gonorrhea and syphilis. Those who tested positive were barred from civil marriage. Although the premarital testing requirement is no longer a feature of state law, numerous related enactments are common features of law in most states.The historical literature describing the rise and fall of laws prescribing marriage (...) restrictions related to VD has treated those enactments as public health measures, meant primarily to forestall the spread of disease to intimate partners. But laws to... (shrink)

Animal rights campaigners and scientists working with animals completed anonymous questionnaires in which they were asked to report, not only on their own beliefs and ideas about the animal experimentation debate, but also on those they perceived the opposing group to hold. Both groups of participants tended to have a negative and somewhat extreme view of the other. But they did have an accurate grasp of the arguments and defenses commonly offered on both sides of the debate, and showed some (...) agreement concerning the relative capacity of different animals to suffer. Differences appeared in the level of the phylogenetic hierarchy at which participants thought animals might be capable of suffering, and in their decision-making processes regarding the admissibility of animal experiments. (shrink)

What is the relation of epistemology, understood as the study of the evaluation of knowledge claims, and empirical psychology, understood as the study of the causal generation of a person's beliefs? Quine maintains that the relation is one of “mutual containment”.Epistemology in its new setting, conversely, is contained in natural science, as a chapter of psychology. … We are studying how the human subject of our study posits bodies and projects his physics from his data, and we appreciate that our (...) position in the world is just like his. Our very epistemological enterprise, therefore, and the psychology wherein it is a component chapter, and the whole of natural science wherein psychology is a component book—all this is our own construction or projection from stimulations like those we were meting out to our epistemological subject. There is thus reciprocal containment, though containment in different senses: epistemology in natural science and natural science in epistemology. (shrink)

The challenge of pursuing sustainability in agriculture is often viewed as mainly or wholly technical in nature, requiring the reform of farming methods and the development and adoption of alternative technologies. Likewise, the purpose of sustainability is frequently cast in utilitarian terms, as a means of protecting a valuable resource (i.e., soil) and of satisfying market demands for healthy, tasty food. Paul B. Thompson has argued that the embrace of these views by many in the consumer/environmental movement enables easy (...) co-optation by agribusiness. It also reflects a critical weakness in this movement: a lack of commitment to philosophical principles that depart from the utilitarian premises of the industrial model of agriculture. This paper draws on the writings of Thomas Berry and Liberty Hyde Bailey to identify the philosophical principles of what we call planetary agrarianism. From the perspective of planetary agrarianism, the pursuit of sustainability is a broad and challenging moral, educational, and political task. Berry helps us see that it is fundamentally a project of worldview transition, which requires a new cultural narrative that must rival, in form and appeal, the mythic power of the utilitarian industrial vision. Liberty Hyde Bailey, author of The Holy Earth (1915) and a leader in the land-grant education and nature-study movements, took up the project of worldview transition in his life work. While in some ways dated and flawed, Bailey’s writings are a valuable source of guidance for developing and pursuing a viable philosophy of agriculture for the 21st century. (shrink)

Only in recent years have developmental psychologists begun advocating and exploring dual-process theories and their applicability to cognitive development. In this paper, a dual-process model of developments in two processing systems—an “analytic” and an “experiential” system—is discussed. We emphasise the importance of “metacognitive intercession” and developments in this ability to override experiential processing. In each of two studies of sunk cost decisions, age-related developments in normative decisions were observed, as were declines in the use of a “waste not” heuristic. In (...) the second study, children and adolescents were presented with arguments for normative and non-normative sunk cost decisions. Following argument evaluation, participants were re-presented the original problems and a set of novel, transfer problems. Results indicated that post-argument improvements were most apparent during adolescence. Age-related improvements were most noticeable on the transfer problems. In general, the findings suggest that the ability to metacognitively intercede (i.e., reflect on arguments; inhibit experientially produced responses) emerges towards middle adolescence. However, even by the end of adolescence, in the absence of significant contextual cues and motivation, this ability is infrequently utilised. (shrink)

The Supreme Court decided Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky in 2019. Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in the case claimed there was a direct connection between the legalization of abortion, in the late 20th Century, and the beginnings of the birth control movement a full three quarters of a century earlier. “Many eugenicists,” Thomas argued, “supported legalizing abortion.”Justice Samuel Alito highlighted similar claims in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, citing a brief entitled “The Eugenic Era Lives on through (...) the Abortion Movement.” That brief was an echo of Justice Thomas’ misguided attempt at history in the Box opinion. Similar claims reoccur in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion in the Texas mifepristone case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.These false claims are the focus of this article. There is no evidence that early leaders of the eugenics movement supported abortion as part of the movement for birth control. It is accurate to describe those leaders as anti-abortion, and their followers as people who condemned abortion for moral, legal, and medical reasons. (shrink)

There has been a distinct trend in modern thought to be deeply suspicious and critical of the human mind's ability to gain genuine access to any reality that transcends the world or the mind. As such, much modern reflection on the mind's relationship to a transcendent God has either banished God from the realm of the cognitively accessible or found ways to evacuate God of his transcendence, and reduce God to a concept or idea in the mind. In this book, (...) I directly challenge negative modern understandings of the mind's relationship to God, and advance the provocative claim that the human mind is not "bounded" on the outside but actually remains "open" to the world and to God. As such, the mind is able to know the world and God with varying degrees of objectivity. I turn to Thomas Aquinas in order to explicate as well as defend important claims that Aquinas makes about human cognition as well as our knowledge of God. (shrink)

This article explores and attempts to resolve some issues that arise when psychoanalytic explanations are construed as a type of historical or narrative explanation. The chief problem is this: If one rejects the claim of narratives to verisimilitude, this appears to divorce the notion of explanation from that of truth. The author examines, in particular, Donald Spence's attempt to deal with the relation of narrative explanations and truth. In his critique of Spence's distinction between narrative truth and historical truth, the (...) author develops some suggestions regarding the role of truth in narrative explanations. (shrink)

Recently O'Grady argued that Quine's "Two Dogmas" misses its mark when Carnap's use of the analyticity distinction is understood in the light of his deflationism. While in substantial agreement with the stress on Carnap's deflationism, I argue that O'Grady is not sufficiently sensitive to the difference between using the analyticity distinction to support deflationism, and taking a deflationary attitude towards the distinction itself; the latter being much more controversial. Being sensitive to this difference, and viewing Quine as having reason to (...) insist on a nonarbitrary analyticity distinction, we see that "Two Dogmas" makes direct contact with Carnap's deflationism. We must look beyond "Two Dogmas" to Quine's other critiques of analyticity to understand why the arbitrariness of the distinction threatens to undermine or overextend Carnap's deflationism. (edited). (shrink)

There is at this point no shortage of testimonials regarding the practice of philosophy for children. In addition, there have been a number of studies which give further support to the claim that philosophy for children is a valuable classroom practice. The idea that pre-college instruction in philosophy is beneficial is no longer in doubt, nor is there a significant lack of materials for use in philosophy for children programs. From Lewis Carroll to Matthew Lipman authors constructed texts that go (...) far in engaging children's philosophical inclinations. If there is any weakness in the practice of philosophy for children it is usually found in the individual classroom. (shrink)

In Houston several projects in philosophy for children are in process or are about to be initiated. To begin with, I am continuing the work in philosophy for children which I began at the Laboratory School of the University of Missouri in 1976. My earlier work in Missouri focused primarily on the effect of philosophy for children as adjunct in developing children's syntactic skills and their understanding of science. Since arriving here in Houston, I have operated philosophy for children classes (...) for gifted students in the Clear Creek Independent School District of Houston. My interest in philosophy as an adjunct to science education continues and is now accompanied by an additional concern: the use of philosophy to increase student appreciation and understanding of mathematics. (shrink)

I argue that when we interpret a literary work, we engage with at least two different kinds of meaning, each requiring a distinct mode of interpretation. These kinds of meaning are literary varieties of what Paul Grice called nonnatural and natural meaning. The long-standing debate that began with Beardsley and Wimsatt's attack on the intentional fallacy is, I argue, really a debate about nonnatural meaning in literature. I contend that natural meaning has been largely neglected in our theorizing about (...) literary interpretation and that this comes at a serious cost, resulting in an inadequate account of what interpretation involves. I argue, first, that by recognizing that literary meaning includes both nonnatural and natural meaning, we are better placed to understand the interpreter's relationship with the author, and, second, that recognition of the distinction between nonnatural and natural meaning advances the established debate about literary meaning, offering support for actual intentionalism. The more inclusive view of literary meaning helps resolve an apparent difficulty raised by Noël Carroll. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors explore the question of whether cognitive enhancement via direct neurostimulation, such as through deep brain stimulation, could be reasonably characterized as a form of transformative experience. This question is inspired by a qualitative study being conducted with people at risk of developing dementia and in intimate relationships with people living with dementia (PLWD). They apply L.A. Paul’s work on transformative experience to the question of cognitive enhancement and explore potential limitations on the kind of (...) claims that can legitimately be made about individual well-being and flourishing, as well as limit the kind of empirical work—including the authors’ own—that can hope to enlighten ethical discourse. In this paper, the authors advance the following theses: (1) it is sometimes reasonable to characterize cognitive enhancement as a transformative experience; (2) the testimonies of people intimately acquainted with dementia may still be relevant to evaluating cognitive enhancement even though cognitive enhancement may be a transformative experience; and (3) qualitative studies may still be useful in the ethical analysis of cognitive enhancement, but special attention may need to be given to how these are conducted and what kind of insights can be drawn from them. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine how a manifest disagreement between Richard Rorty and Alasdair MacIntyre concerning the history of philosophy is but one of a series of deep and interrelated disagreements concerning, in addition, the history of science, the good life for human beings, and, ultimately, the character of and prospects for humankind as well. I shall argue that at the heart of this series of disagreements rests a dispute with regard to the nature of rationality. And this disagreement concerning (...) the norms of rationality, despite its theoretical and practical importance, is one which is, or so I argue, irresolvable. Moreover, the series of disagreements which I examine in the context of the debate between Rorty and MacIntyre is not peculiar or idiosyncratic to them. Their dispute reflects presumptions common to contemporary analytical philosophy. And while analytical philosophers have not made discussions of human nature one of their characteristic concerns, I indicate that such concerns do play a central role in the controversy which I examine. Differences of opinion concerning the political and social nature of human beings are reflected up and down the philosophical line. My argument is in no way concerned with issues of psychological priority or causality (e.g. whether having certain views disposes one psychologically to accepting other views). What I establish are the logical relations, and the points of philosophical contention, among certain epistemo logical and political theses. In Part I, I rehearse Rorty's epistemological views and examine how these views are connected to his views on morality and human nature. In Part II, I begin with MacIntyre's position concerning the virtues and modern moral philosophy and then reconstruct, ex pede Herculem, his views on rationality. Part III examines the prospects of reconciling the perspectives discussed in the first two sections. (shrink)

Becoming Nietzsche is an essential book for understanding Nietzsche's philosophical genealogy from 1866D1868, a phase that is punctuated by the influence of Friedrich Lange and a surprising rejection of Schopenhauer's theory of the will. During this phase, Nietzsche focuses on the scientific and artistic status of teleological judgments and their relevance for thinking about organic life and representation.

In the decade that followed 1972, the journal _boundary 2_ consistently published many of the most distinguished and most influential statements of an emerging literary postmodernism. Recognizing postmodernism as a dominant force in culture, particularly in the literary and narrative imagination, the journal appeared when literary critical study in the United States was in a period of theory-induced ferment. The fundamental relations between postmodernism and poststructuralism were being initially examined and the effort to formulate a critical sense of the postmodern (...) was underway. In this volume, Paul A. Bové, the current editor of _boundary 2_, has gathered many of those foundational essays and, as such, has assembled a basic text in the history of postmodernism. Essays by noted cultural and literary theorists join with Bové’s contemporary preface to represent the important and unique moment in recent intellectual history when postmodernism was no longer seen primarily as an architectural term, had not yet come to describe the wide range of culture it does now, but was finding power and place in the literary realm. These essays show that the history of postmodernism and its attendant critical theories are both more complex and more deeply bound with literary criticism than often is acknowledged today. _Early Postmodernism_ demonstrates not only the significance of these literary studies, but also the role played by literary critical postmodernism in making possible newer forms of critical and cultural studies. _Contributors_. Barry Alpert, Charles Altieri, David Antin, Harold Bloom, Paul A. Bové, Hélène Cixous, Gerald Gillespie, Ihab Hassan, Joseph N. Riddel, William, V. Spanos, Catharine R. Stimpson, Cornel West. (shrink)

This review essay examines the emergence of the patient narrative or “pathography” in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in relation to the great cultural, epistemological, and ethical transformations that enabled the formation of modern medicine. John Wiltshire’s book provides an historical overview of this complex process, as well as laying the basis for a contemporary critique of some of its key assumptions.

In this paper, I analyse and interpret Thomas Aquinas's account of faith in order to show how Thomistic faith is a veridical cognitive state that directs the mind to God, and consequently constitutes a distinct form of knowledge of God. By assenting to the revealed propositions of faith, and thereby forming true beliefs about God under the authority and guidance of God's grace, the possessor of faith comes to know or apprehend truly something about God, even if she fails to (...) ‘see’ or know fully the truth that she believes. A further task of the paper is to show how Thomistic faith qualifies as knowledge from a contemporary epistemological standpoint, insofar as it consists of true belief that is appropriately justified and warranted, by virtue of being supernaturally informed and generated. By expositing and defending this central claim – focusing specifically on faith as a form of knowledge – I show how Aquinas offers an epistemologically realist account of faith. (shrink)

ABSTRACTJohn Searle's most recent effort to account for human social institutions claims to provide a synthesis of the explanatory and the normative while simultaneously dismissing as confused and wrongheaded theorists who held otherwise. Searle, although doubtless alert to the usual considerations for separating the normative and the explanatory projects, announces at the outset that he conceives of matters quite differently. Searle's reason for reconceiving the field rests on his claim that both ends can be achieved by a single “underlying principle (...) of social ontology”. This principle, he maintains, proves basic both to any explanation of how the social arises and sustains itself as well as to all justifications of core common norms, for example, human rights. His approach transforms what previously appeared to be ontological/explanatory questions completely into semantic/conceptual issues. By situating language as constitutive of the social, and intentionality as a necessary conceptual precursor to language, Searle claims to join by semantic necessity philosophical projects that the philosophical tradition that he rejects held distinct. Searle's notion of the social comes for free once one has language as a conventional cloak for prelinguistic, semantically well‐formed intentional contents, individual and collective. But upon examination, Searle's key argument for displacement of the tradition depends upon the viability of his linguistic mechanism, and that in turn requires prelinguistic necessity for all forms of intentionality. But he can produce no compelling connection, conceptual or empirical, to establish the role that collective intentionality supposedly must play. (shrink)