Community based research is conducted by, for, and with the participation of community members, and aims to ensure that knowledge contributes to making a concrete and constructive difference in the world (The Loka Institute 2002). Yet decisions about research ethics are often controlled outside the research community itself. In this analysis we grapple with the imposition of a community confidentiality clause and the implications it had for consent, confidentiality, and capacity in a province-wide community based research project. Through untangling these (...) implications we provide recommendations for reframing how to think about research ethics and strategies for enabling research ethics’ processes to be more responsive to and respectful of community-based research. (shrink)

The research reported in this paper set out to investigate ethics in the initial stages of construction projects. Briefing is the first real contact stage between the commissioner (client/employer) of a project — at this stage a potential project — and those involved in project realization — the designers and, subsequently, the constructors. It is well known that early decisions are of greatest impact and so, the importance of the initial contacts, communications and consequent decisions are paramount. Different (...) project participants are known to pursue individual objectives to varying degrees as well as possessing different perspectives and perceptions and operating/behaving in different ways. Hence, determination of the appropriate form, content etc. of a project is, inevitably, a matter of exercising value judgements and compromises and so, involves ethical considerations. A case study of a project through the briefing stage is reported and analysed, from initial contacts to scheme approval. It is apparent that a number of ethical concerns are manifest through the various actions of the major participants. (shrink)

Writing for a wide audience, Harvey here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. He constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for more socially just alternatives.

This brief article is intended to introduce the reader to the field of algebraic set theory, in which models of set theory of a new and fascinating kind are determined algebraically. The method is quite robust, applying to various classical, intuitionistic, and constructive set theories. Under this scheme some familiar set theoretic properties are related to algebraic ones, while others result from logical constraints. Conventional elementary set theories are complete with respect to algebraic models, which arise in a variety of (...) ways, including topologically, type-theoretically, and through variation. Many previous results from topos theory involving realizability, permutation, and sheaf models of set theory are subsumed, and the prospects for further such unification seem bright. (shrink)

In the past several years, observational entropy has been developed as both a quantum generalization of Boltzmann entropy, and as a rather general framework to encompass classical and quantum equilibrium and non-equilibrium coarse-grained entropy. In this paper we review the construction, interpretation, most important properties, and some applications of this framework. The treatment is self-contained and relatively pedagogical, aimed at a broad class of researchers.

The existence of objective knowledge and the possibility of communicating it by means of language have traditionally been taken for granted by educators. Recent developments in the philosophy of science and the historical study of scientific accomplishments have deprived these presuppositions of their former plausibility. Sooner or later, this must have an effect on the teaching of science. In this paper I am presenting a brief outline of an alternative theory of knowing that takes into account the thinking organism''s cognitive (...) isolation from reality. This orientation was proposed by Vico at the beginning of the 18th century, disregarded for two hundred years, and then propounded independently by Piaget as a developmentally grounded constructivist epistemology. The paper focuses specifically on the adaptive function of cognition, Piaget''s scheme theory, the process of communication, and the subjective perspective on social interaction. In the concluding section it then suggests some of the consequences the shift of epistemological presuppositions might have for the practice of teaching. (shrink)

Julian Cole argues that mathematical domains are the products of social construction. This view has an initial appeal in that it seems to salvage much that is good about traditional platonistic realism without taking on the ontological baggage. However, it also has problems. After a brief sketch of social constructivist theories and Cole’s philosophy of mathematics, I evaluate the arguments in favor of social constructivism. I also discuss two substantial problems with the theory. I argue that unless and until (...) social constructivists can address the two concerns, we have reason to be skeptical about social constructivism in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Work in the field of health has been distorted over the years, with the emergence of new health systems that have made the delivery of services a real business. As a result, the field has lost not only the motivation with which it originated, but also the human quality of providing health care. It is not new to say that exercise of the medical profession is in crisis. The causes of this predicament can be found in policies and health systems (...) that are poorly imitated, poorly administered, mismanaged, and poorly regulated. However, there is no denying the crisis is also due to the loss of the Hippocratic spirit that gave force and vitality to the medical profession from its beginning. Several aspects of work in health and health care, namely, scientific and technical competence (knowledge and knowhow) and human skills (knowing “how to be”), are examined in this chapter, based on a brief look at the patients and the professionals who serve them. The author goes on to discuss three fields of professional activity where these competencies play out: the Hippocratic tradition, social responsibility, and constructive dialogue. In conclusion, and in light of the above, several initiatives and strategies to humanize health services are suggested. They involve example, communication, accompaniment, correction, purpose, and professionalism. (shrink)

The existence of objective knowledge and the possibility of communicating it by means of language have traditionally been taken for granted by educators. Recent developments in the philosophy of science and the historical study of scientific accomplishments have deprived these presuppositions of their former plausibility. Sooner or later, this must have an effect on the teaching of science. In this paper I am presenting a brief outline of an alternative theory of knowing that takes into account the thinking organism's cognitive (...) isolation from 'reality'. This orientation was proposed by Vico at the beginning of the 18th century, disregarded for two hundred years, and then propounded independently by Piaget as a developmentally grounded constructivist epistemology. The paper focuses specifically on the adaptive function of cognition, Piaget's scheme theory, the process of communication, and the subjective perspective on social interaction. In the concluding section it then suggests some of the consequences the shift of epistemological presuppositions might have for the practice of teaching. (shrink)

Hypercomputation—the hypothesis that Turing-incomputable objects can be computed through infinitary means—is ineffective, as the unsolvability of the halting problem for Turing machines depends just on the absence of a definite value for some paradoxical construction; nature and quantity of computing resources are immaterial. The assumption that the halting problem is solved by oracles of higher Turing degree amounts just to postulation; infinite-time oracles are not actually solving paradoxes, but simply assigning them conventional values. Special values for non-terminating processes are (...) likewise irrelevant, since diagonalization can cover any amount of value assignments. This should not be construed as a restriction of computing power: Turing’s uncomputability is not a ‘barrier’ to be broken, but simply an effect of the expressive power of consistent programming systems. (shrink)

In recent years, the research of wavelet frames on the graph has become a hot topic in harmonic analysis. In this paper, we mainly introduce the relevant knowledge of the wavelet frames on the graph, including relevant concepts, construction methods, and related theory. Meanwhile, because the construction of graph tight framelets is closely related to the classical wavelet framelets on ℝ, we give a new construction of tight frames on ℝ. Based on the pseudosplines of type II, (...) we derive an MRA tight wavelet frame with three generators ψ 1, ψ 2, and ψ 3 using the oblique extension principle, which generate a tight wavelet frame in L 2 ℝ. We analyze that three wavelet functions have the highest possible order of vanishing moments, which matches the order of the approximation order of the framelet system provided by the refinable function. Moreover, we introduce the construction of the Haar basis for a chain and analyze the global orthogonal bases on a graph G. Based on the sequence of framelet generators in L 2 ℝ and the Haar basis for a coarse-grained chain, the decimated tight framelets on graphs can be constructed. Finally, we analyze the detailed construction process of the wavelet frame on a graph. (shrink)

Since Kenneth Arrow showed the general possibility theorem, a number of social choice theorists have provided alternative proofs of it. In a recent article, Geanakoplos (Econ Theory 26:211–215, 2005) has constructed a new proof of the theorem. The present article provides alternative proofs of various Arrovian impossibility results from the 1960s to the 1970s by utilizing Geanakoplos’s method. We prove semi-order impossibility theorems, the quasi-transitive veto theorem, the quasi-transitive dictatorship theorem, the triple acyclic veto theorem, and the impossibility theorem without (...) the Pareto principle. (shrink)

For Sergey Khoruzhy, Russian philosophy, which is characterized by religiosity, takes the perfect expression of the Orthodox truth as the ultimate pursuit. He believes that the Russian philosophy that truly embodies the “Russian mind” is hidden in the practice of the Russian Orthodox ascetic tradition, which contains not only the image of an ascetic Christian but also reflects the ontological state of being and the ontological intuition of being human in a universal sense. On the basis of the ascetic practice, (...) Khoruzhy constructs three anthropological forms shaped by different forces at different levels: 1) the person who unfolds to another being (God), the ascetic, 2) the “average” person who unfolds in the unconsciousness (the Freudian person), 3) the person who is shaped by modern technological trends such as computer technology, genetic engineering, and other technologies. Such a unique anthropological framework also offers the possibility of reinterpreting and analyzing the role of Elder Zossima, a typical figure in Dostoevsky’s masterpiece “The Brothers Karamazov”. (shrink)

Stefan Jonsson uses three monumental works of art to build a provocative history of popular revolt: Jacques-Louis David's _The Tennis Court Oath_ (1791), James Ensor's _Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889_ (1888), and Alfredo Jaar's _They Loved It So Much, the Revolution_ (1989). Addressing, respectively, the French Revolution of 1789, Belgium's proletarian messianism in the 1880s, and the worldwide rebellions and revolutions of 1968, these canonical images not only depict an alternative view of history but offer a new understanding of (...) the relationship between art and politics and the revolutionary nature of true democracy. Drawing on examples from literature, politics, philosophy, and other works of art, Jonsson carefully constructs his portrait, revealing surprising parallels between the political representation of "the people" in government and their aesthetic representation in painting. Both essentially "frame" the people, Jonsson argues, defining them as elites or masses, responsible citizens or angry mobs. Yet in the aesthetic fantasies of David, Ensor, and Jaar, Jonsson finds a different understanding of democracy-one in which human collectives break the frame and enter the picture. Connecting the achievements and failures of past revolutions to current political issues, Jonsson then situates our present moment in a long historical drama of popular unrest, making his book both a cultural history and a contemporary discussion about the fate of democracy in our globalized world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 157-159 [Access article in PDF] Constructing Persons:The Psychopathology of Identity Stephen R. L. Clark Keywords identity, legal fictions, materialism, psychopathology. Steve Matthews argues that the criteria proposed by Stephen Behnke and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong for establishing personal identity in cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) are flawed. Neither brain identity nor memory convergence are adequate grounds for ascribing identity, even in the absence of (...) DID. Someone suffering from DID is no less responsible than a drunkard for the crimes she commits when not in her right—or at least her usual—mind, and perhaps no more responsible than someone suffering from some other mental disorder. We may decide to punish someone suffering from DID for her crimes only when she and her presumed alter both share a brain (as obviously they do) and might—at least after therapy—have memories in common, and only when the alternate personality that led to the crime is herself sane. But we should not pretend to ourselves that this judgment rests upon a clear and uncontentious notion of identity.It may be that Matthews still shares too much of his opponents' attitude: namely, that there is some matter of fact about identity, or at least some fact about the central principles by which we ascribe or recognize identity. This, at first sight, is the force of his counterexamples: that the Behnke/Sinnott-Armstrong criteria give counterintuitive results and so cannot exactly map the notion that we have in mind. Just so Socrates was able to prove that Justice did not consist in Paying One's Debts, because we would all at once acknowledge that it was not Just (or Right) to restore his sword to a homicidal maniac (or at least that there were real doubts about who it was that really owned the sword). But neither Socrates' nor Matthews' conclusion need be referred to any simple fact. It would not be sensible to say that the maniac had a right to have his sword, or that its keeper had a duty to return it, because we recognize implicitly that the very point of Justice is to do Good. Correspondingly, maybe the real effect of Matthews's counterexamples is to remind us what the point of Judgment is. Is there any matter of fact about identity, or is identity simply a way of saying who it is that should now be held responsible? Joe is not to be held responsible because he is the same person as the one who committed the crime: he is reckoned the same person because he is the one who is here now to be held responsible. That is what it is to be the same person: to be held responsible for what is personally done. [End Page 157]Someone who is not a person at all is not the same person as anyone (although they may be the same creature). And a person is a creature who holds herself responsible, or can do so: who has memories and anticipations to which she lays claim, appropriates as her own. This in turn is possible because (or so it seems) she has acquired the necessary words and customs: because she sees people being held responsible she can also hold herself responsible—or sometimes disclaim all responsibility. She will not always be allowed to escape all blame or credit, merely because her memories are of a self that no longer makes much sense to her, nor even because she has no memories at all of what was done. But this need not be because she is objectively the very same person as the sometime agent; rather, the person she is taken to be is constructed by the legal and moral attitudes of those who judge her. Those attitudes are not necessarily determinate: how exactly the ordinary rules apply in novel cases may be a matter of decision rather than discovery. The connections that ordinarily ground or specify identity are not robust enough to rely upon in DID patients (that, after all, is the trouble). We have to make... (shrink)

This paper attempts to construct a short epistemology of economic models by using as a benchmark a comparison between the methodological issues of contemporary physics and of economics. In particular, the paper focuses on the role of indeterminacy in either sciences. Herein the general claim is that the models of economics fail at dealing with uncertainty as effectively as the models of natural sciences because economists did not manage to overcome the identification problem that is peculiar to economics. In this (...) respect, the paper shows that the models of economics assume an untenable determinism that derives from the notion of rationality of agents. The paper is divided in three sections: the first section deals with the issues related to assumptions in the models of physics and economics; the second section deals with the problem of uncertainty in quantum mechanics and in economics; the third section deals with the problem of causality in both sciences. Eventually, the paper concludes that several methodological problems affect the efficiency of economic models. Most importantly, the paper finds that economic models abstract too much from the reality and, thus, do not provide deep investigations of agents’ discrete choices. This is shown to affect the consistency of models and their explanatory power. Keywords: economics; philosophy of science, epistemology, rationality, uncertainty,. (shrink)

This paper attempts to construct a short epistemology of economic models by using as a benchmark a comparison between the methodological issues of contemporary physics and of economics. In particular, the paper focuses on the role of indeterminacy in either sciences. Herein the general claim is that the models of economics fail at dealing with uncertainty as effectively as the models of natural sciences because economists did not manage to overcome the identification problem that is peculiar to economics. In this (...) respect, the paper shows that the models of economics assume an untenable determinism that derives from the notion of rationality of agents. The paper is divided in three sections: the first section deals with the issues related to assumptions in the models of physics and economics; the second section deals with the problem of uncertainty in quantum mechanics and in economics; the third section deals with the problem of causality in both sciences. Eventually, the paper concludes that several methodological problems affect the efficiency of economic models. Most importantly, the paper finds that economic models abstract too much from the reality and, thus, do not provide deep investigations of agents’ discrete choices. This is shown to affect the consistency of models and their explanatory power. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nonviolence—A Brief History: The Warsaw Lectures by John Howard YoderCarter AikinNonviolence—A Brief History: The Warsaw Lectures John Howard Yoder Edited By Paul Martens, Matthew Porter, and Myles Werntz Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2010. 150 pp. $29.95This helpful collection of lectures, delivered during a 1983 Polish Ecumenical Council (PEC) conference in Warsaw, displays John Howard Yoder’s emerging conviction that nonviolent action is not only a faithful response but (...) also an anthropologically natural and effective instrument of social change. Yoder constructively narrates the joining of theological and philosophical clarity about the importance of nonviolence with realizations of its social effectiveness as this connection blossomed in the turmoil of the twentieth century.The introduction nicely situates these lectures in their original social and ecumenical contexts, both of which turn out to be tremendously important. Yoder gave these lectures just weeks before Pope John Paul II met with the PEC for the first time and during the period when the US Catholic Bishop’s letter, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response” was being formed. Additionally, in 1983 the vulnerable Polish Communist Party was trying to suppress the rising Solidarity Movement, the country’s first noncommunist trade union. The movement’s protests and strikes had only recently gained media attention [End Page 216] and had, thus far, stopped short of violence. In its setting alone, the collection offers a Yoder rarely seen through his modern interpreters: Yoder is socially relevant in the highest degree, concerned with the effectiveness of non-violence as a means of change, more than willing to incorporate the wisdom of non-Christian masters, and attentive to the response of the entire church catholic. Here Yoder is no more the resident alien than Martin Luther King Jr. was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.Yoder begins with a three-lecture equation: Tolstoy + Gandhi = MLK. Tolstoy’s corrective interpretations of the Gospels—emphasizing the personhood of Jesus and “the ‘key’ to the Scripture message: the cure for evil is suffering” (21)—used nonviolence and the suffering of the persecuted as the fabric of moral progress. Gandhi “moves with Tolstoy, but beyond him” (24); he sees the power of truth and suffering as a natural force of good. Martin Luther King Jr. becomes Tolstoy + Gandhi, championing the power of love and non-violence as faithful but also practical and metaphysically natural. Much of the book provides theological, scriptural, socioanthropological, and historical arguments for why this is the case. Yoder’s treatments of the “powers” (chap. 8), just war (chap. 4), and the political nature of Jesus (chap. 7) are all paralleled elsewhere, but their inclusion is important to the modern reader who wishes to trace the logic of Yoder’s present argument and the evolution of his overall thought.In the closing chapters Yoder turns to flourishing nonviolence movements in Roman Catholicism that exhibit a “restoration of original Christianity” (120). He highlights several facets of Catholic nonviolent spirituality including the valuing of the cultivation of virtues (and the people who best exhibit them), the growth of the nonviolence movement among American Catholics, and the emergence of the Catholic Worker movement. In the final two chapters, Yoder brings into conversation a few Western theologians, the “increasingly important” products of American bishops (especially in their argument for the limits of just war thinking in the nuclear age), and two prophetic Latin American theologians: Dom Hélder Câmara and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. Together this assembled chorus expresses the unique and hope-giving character of modern Catholic theologies of nonviolence: “love, not violence... will have the last word in history” (145).As a collection these lectures represent a part of Yoder’s emerging hope in the natural logic of nonviolence and its potential for effective social change. The fact that these lectures were delivered in such a highly charged setting provides a courageous and pastoral backdrop for what amounts to a rich metaphysics of nonviolence. [End Page 217]Carter AikinHastings CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The Body Image Questionnaire-20 (FKB-20) is one of the most applied self-report measures in the context of body image assessment in German-speaking regions. A version of the FKB-20 capturing an ideal concept of body image is also available. A special property of the scale is its high sensitivity for individuals suffering from anorexia nervosa. The present research provided a short version of this scale (for both variants) and examined its validity in a representative sample (N= 2,347) of the German population. (...) We utilized factor analysis methods to identify the optimal short scale of the measure, finding excellent model fit and reliability for a two-factor model (FKB-6) for both real and ideal body image. Both versions of the FKB-6 can be considered invariant across sex and age groups. Good reliability indices were shown for both versions of the FKB-6. The reliability indices were similar to those mentioned in previous studies. Our study also revealed, that large discrepancies between the real and an ideal body image are correlated with somatic and body dysmorphic symptoms. Finally, we provided norm values for comparisons of individual scores with the general population. The FKB-6 is a valid and a reliable measure that economizes assessments by clinicians and researchers. (shrink)

This paper aims at a logico-mathematical analysis of the concept of chaos from the point of view of a constructivist philosophy of physics. The idea of an internal logic of chaos theory is meant as an alternative to a realist conception of chaos. A brief historical overview of the theory of dynamical systems is provided in order to situate the philosophical problem in the context of probability theory. A finitary probabilistic account of chaos amounts to the theory of measurement in (...) the line of a quantum-theoretical foundational perspective and the paper concludes on the non-classical internal logic of chaos theory. Finally, deterministic chaos points to a philosophy which asserts that chaotic systems are no less measurable than other physical systems where predictable and non–predictable phenomena intermingle in a constructive theory of measurement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Constructive Postmodernism: Toward Renewal in Cultural and Literary StudiesDavid CarrierConstructive Postmodernism: Toward Renewal in Cultural and Literary Studies, by Martin Schiralli. Westport, CT, and London: Bergin and Garvey, 1999, 165pp., $55 cloth.Concerned with the consequences of Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction for cultural and literary studies, Martin Schiralli's elegantly written book offers, first, a critique of these claims and, then, a constructive alternative analysis. He admires Derrida's brilliantly (...) innovative writing, which as he rightly notes is "serious and philosophical" even if "the most patient reader can easily become disoriented and confused" (24). But even if, as Derrida argues, Ferdinard de Saussure's theory of meaning is flawed, we need not—he urges—become deconstructionists. Looking to the work of Stephen Toulmin, John Dewey, and late Wittgenstein, Schiralli finds suggestive ways of identifying concerns with cognitive value in literary texts. It then is possible, he argues, to offer a more reasonable perspective on recent debates about culture and politics than the recent academic arguments between "postmodern revisionists... [and] often hostile and defensive traditionalists" (73).In the second part of his book Schiralli illustrates the value of this perspective by offering a great deal of productive positive discussion. He discusses how "theoretically pertinent knowledge" (95) may be found in the novels of Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, and Anita Brookner. Appealing to Michael Polanyi's conception of tacit knowledge, he argues that Austen's ability to intuit "the rules governing social meaning... represents the tacit emergence of insight, just as her ability to use those insights explicitly in her fiction marks the emergence of more focal knowledge" (123). In analyzing an emotional response, he claims, we can ask whether it is "warranted or unwarranted in a given circumstance" (31). Using E. M. Forster's Howards End as his model, he develops this claim in an analysis that is brief, clear, and convincing. Finally, in his concluding pages he looks at the studies of character provided by Henry James and Marcel Proust. A proper theory of literary intelligence, he argues, should "treat those forms of cognitive acuity involved imaginatively in miming and representing verbally the intricacies and particularities of all aspects of human sensibility" (150).This bold, far-reaching book avoids the fanaticism that, as Schiralli notes, has marred all too much recent debate in the humanities. At this time, when the influence of Derrida has faded, I think this argumentation about his philosophical position is of less value than the constructive parts of the analysis. Treating Derrida as a theorist whose arguments tell us how to analyze literature is an unpromising project, as Schiralli well shows. Once that point is acknowledged, then we are ready to look seriously at literature as a form of social knowledge. Humanists teaching literature will find much of value in this graceful volume—and along with their colleagues in philosophy, these scholars will benefit from study of this well-argued analysis. [End Page 122]David CarrierCase Western Reserve University and Cleveland Institute of ArtCopyright © 2008 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 194-199 [Access article in PDF] June Boyce-Tillman, Constructing Musical Healing. (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2000) June Boyce-Tillman has written a wonderfully stimulating book. Her writing style is eminently readable and the flow of ideas can be readily absorbed. Her forays across many different areas of musical ideation and the various oppositions that exist in and among different cultures reveal that we still (...) have much to learn about the true nature of music. We also have much to change to reach the necessary levels of enlightenment that would be universally beneficial to human life. This book offers some enlightenment. Enlightenment, as the Buddha says, is a process, not a thing, so my purpose here is to give enough of an overview so that you may experience reading the book, the author's cogent insights, posing your own questions about music as a human endeavor, and to consider some of my criticisms.Her primary thesis is spelled out succinctly: My aim in this book is to examine how these polarities are associated with the healing/therapeutic properties of music and how they are reflected in different musical traditions (32). [End Page 194]The emphasis on the healing/therapeutic properties of music is well taken and she pursues these to glorious ends. In examining these properties, one becomes completely engrossed in thinking about music per se, raising both answers and puzzles. Boyce-Tillman effectively plants the seeds for inquiry that remain long after the reading is complete.Chapter 1, "Setting the Scene," is insightful in laying the ground for examining several distinct areas: ways of knowing, notions of well-being, healing as process, models of health, creativity and well-being, and musical development. She then comes to the task prepared to battle with a difficult subject, difficult because of the elusive nature of the subject, by reporting on her own musical and contemplative experiences. It is important to know her own path so that we can examine her conclusions from a deeper perspective.Next she establishes the polarities on which the rest of the book rests, and the framework on which each chapter is built: community/individualism; containment/freedom; expression/confidentiality; unity/diversity; challenge/nurture; excitement/relaxation; and embodiment/transcendence. These are explored after setting forth "A model of the self" and "Music and the model of the self."Two features are helpful to understanding the thesis and keeping track of the narrative. One is the case studies she includes to further explain the specific polarity, and the other is the summary at the end of each chapter which assists greatly in retaining cogent contact with the discourse.Chapter 2, "Of Philosophers and Thinkers," an examination of the Western outlook, although viewed from Boyce-Tillman's healing-therapeutic perspective, is a worthwhile read for even the casual reader. It spans the philosophical/aesthetic area sufficiently so that I will assign the reading of this particular chapter to my graduate students where that subject is appropriate. Here again, the six polarities come into play through an explication of each from the point of view of philosophers, aestheticians, and other writers on music.Having dealt with the Western view, she turns to shamanistic practice in Chapter 3, "Of Shamans and Healers." Intentional or not, these two chapters form a metapolarity for this is where the contrasts are at their widest points. The various dimensions and uses of music as they exist in cultures based on metaphysical beliefs are detailed and revealed through extensive and representative examples.Chapter 4, "Of a New Consciousness," explores the New Age view. She states: [t]he New Age is a many-faceted collection of traditions that has drawn on a variety of sources—both ancient and modern—to balance contemporary trends such as elitism, commercialism, materialism, racism and sexism. It has produced a variety of musical practices, many of the syntheses of ancient traditions and contemporary ideas. Communal music making can represent healing at a personal, ecological and cosmic level. The interconnectedness of the cosmos can be accessed and expressed in music (199). [End Page... (shrink)

The paper shares the principal emphases to date in an attempt to begin a contemporary systematic theology and invites the collaboration of others in the development of that theology. Lonergan’s understanding of systematics as the imperfect and analogical understanding of the mysteries of faith is adopted from the outset, but so is his insistence (1) that a contemporary systematic theology must be grounded in interiorly and religiously differentiated consciousnessand (2) that such a theology will be a theology of history. The (...) dogmatic-theological context of such a development is found in a hypothesis that links the four relations in the Trinity to four distinct created supernatural participations and imitations. A brief outline of the author’s work on the theology of history is presented, and then central elements in the ‘four-point hypothesis’ are discussed, especially the relation between sanctifying grace and charity. Thepaper concludes with a suggestion regarding the theological importance of the mimetic theory of René Girard. (shrink)

Introduction:The concept of mentalizing is nowadays widely used in research as well as in clinical practice. Despite its popularity, the development of an economic assessment is still challenging. The Mentalization Scale appears to be a promising measurement with good psychometric properties but lacking convergent validity with the Reflective Functioning Scale.Objective:This study aims to test the construct validity of the Mentalization Scale through correlations with the gold standard, the Reflective Functioning Scale, within a clinical sample. Furthermore, it was of interest to (...) replicate its internal consistency.Methods:Twenty-six inpatients of an acute psychiatric ward in Vienna were given the Mentalization Scale (MentS). They were interviewed with the Brief Reflective Function Interview, which was coded with the Reflective Functioning Scale. Correlations and internal consistency were calculated.Results:Concerning the primary aim of this study, the validity was satisfactory for the MentS whole-scale mentalizing as well as for the subscales self- and other-oriented mentalizing. Internal consistency was lower to the findings of the developer and close to the 0.70 threshold.Conclusion:Our findings could foster the psychometric properties of the MentS. Furthermore, the MentS seems to be a promising measurement tool for detecting different dimensions of reflective functioning. Limitations and further research are discussed. (shrink)

One of the main results of Gödel [4] and [5] is that, if M is a transitive set such that $\langle M, \epsilon \rangle$ is a model of ZF (Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory) and α is the least ordinal not in M, then $\langle L_\alpha, \epsilon \rangle$ is also a model of ZF. In this note we shall use the Jensen uniformisation theorem to show that results analogous to the above hold for certain subsystems of ZF. The subsystems we have in (...) mind are those that are formed by restricting the formulas in the separation and replacement axioms to various levels of the Levy hierarchy. This is all done in § 1. In § 2 we proceed to establish the exact order relationships which hold among the ordinals of the minimal models of some of the systems discussed in § 1. Although the proofs of these latter results will not require any use of the uniformisation theorem, we will find it convenient to use some of the more elementary results and techniques from Jensen's fine-structural theory of L. We thus provide a brief review of the pertinent parts of Jensen's works in § 0, where a list of general preliminaries is also furnished. We remark that some of the techniques which we use in the present paper have been used by us previously in [6] to prove various results about β-models of analysis. Since β-models for analysis are analogous to transitive models for set theory, this is not surprising. (shrink)

In _Aims: A Brief Metaphysics for Today_, James W. Felt turns his attention to combining elements of Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics, especially its deep ontology, with Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy to arrive at a new possibility for metaphysics. In his distinctive style, Felt conciselypulls together the strands of epistemology, ontology, and teleology, synthesizing these elements into his own “process-enriched Thomism.” _Aims_ does not simply discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each philosopher’s position, but blends the two into a cohesive argument (...) based on principles derived from immediate experience. Felt arrives at what he calls a “Whiteheadian-type solution,” appealing to his original concept of the “essential aim” as necessary for understanding our existence in a coherent yet unique world. This concise, finely crafted discussion provides a thoroughly teleological, value-centered approach to metaphysics. _Aims_, an experiment in constructive metaphysics, is a thorough and insightful project in modern philosophy. It will appeal to philosophers and students of philosophy interested in enriching their knowledge of contemporary conceptions of metaphysics. “James Felt's _Aims: A Brief Metaphysics for Today _is an excellent book. It is engagingly written with exemplary clarity, compactness of expression, and admirable thoughtfulness. It is a work in constructive metaphysics that offers a marvelous introduction to the beginner, as well as being engaging to the advanced student. While _Aims_ shows the main influences of Aquinas and Whitehead, with Bergson and Merleau-Ponty also important, more importantly it gives expression to the singular appropriation of some of the basic metaphysical issues by James Felt himself. It develops a view of relational realism, with lucid expositions of themes such as the nature of primary being, the act of existing, freedom, participation and God, and the nature of self-knowledge. It distills the author's long reflection on these issues and communicates his considered insights with measured lucidity.” —_William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium _ “There is a welcome freshness and easy-access approach in this creative presentation of the central philosophical discipline, metaphysics. It starts firmly anchored in our human experience, then moves easily into deeper waters of a proposed Aquinas-Whitehead synthesis.” —_W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Fordham University_ “With modifications to both Aquinas and Whitehead and their complementary interplay, and in contrast to the priority usually given to effective or originating causality, the author argues for the interactive pre-eminence of teleology and existence in the promotion and enhancement of cosmic and interpersonal value. In so doing he seeks to restore to the transcendental Good its appropriate place and role.” —_Kenneth Schmitz, University of Toronto_. (shrink)

Scientists and engineers seek to understand how real-world systems work and could work better. Any modeling method devised for such purposes must simplify reality. Ideally, however, the modeling method should be flexible as well as logically rigorous; it should permit model simplifications to be appropriately tailored for the specific purpose at hand. Flexibility and logical rigor have been the two key goals motivating the development of Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), a completely agent-based modeling method characterized by seven specific modeling principles. (...) This perspective provides an overview of ACE, a brief history of its development, and its role within a broader spectrum of experiment-based modeling methods. (shrink)

This paper defends a constructive interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason, which is built in analogy with an experimental construction that Kant believes to characteristic of chemistry. I also argue for a way to reconcile the methodological perspective of the constructivist method with that of transcendental reflection. I therefore provide a constructive explanation for what Kant describes as being pure reason and the argument of the transcendental deduction. I propose to frame the different perspectives in such a way (...) that the experimental construction is the ratio cognoscendi of pure reason, while pure reason is the ratio essendi of the experimental construction. O’Neill (1989, 2015) is one of the most important scholars that have argued for a constructivist reading of the Critique of pure reason (CPR). In this paper I develop and explore new aspects of this line of interpretation. One of the main criticisms raised against constructivist readings of Kant’s philosophy is an alleged commitment to subjectivism or voluntarism (cf. Kleingeld & Willaschek 2019). This concern led some scholars to rename their position as constitutivist instead (Korsgaard 2009; Sensen 2013, 2017; Formosa 2011). Constitutivism, is intended to be a sort of constructivism capable of avoiding voluntarism. However, it becomes difficult, sometimes, to differentiate between the constitutivist and foundationalist positions, which are based on transcendental reflection and imply a sort of realist perspective on reason. The same preoccupation applies to the constructivist interpretation of the CPR. In order to deal with this issue, the following questions must be addressed: how can constructivism justify the necessity and universality of transcendental principles of pure reason without compromising the normative and procedural aspects of the construction? How to reconcile arguments based on the analysis of representations and faculties with a constructivist procedure? Or even, how may transcendental reflection, as a view of the possibility of a priori cognition, be rendered compatible with a constructive procedure? This paper is divided into three sections, followed by brief final remarks. The first section outlines the main characteristics of constructivism and relates them to Kant’s positions about the nature of philosophy and its method. The second part argues for a type of experimental constructivism that might serve as a guiding analogy to understand the method underlying the CPR. Thirdly, I will show how the transcendental subject and pure reason are derived from this experimental construction. The conclusion briefly points out some advantages of this position. (shrink)

Already at a relatively early stage, modern sign language linguistics focused on the representation of (actions, locations, and motions of) referents (1) through the use of the body and its different articulators and (2) through the use of particular handshapes (in combination with an orientation, location, and/or movement). Early terminology for (1) includesrole playing, role shifting, androle takingand for (2)classifier constructions/predicatesandverbs of motion and location. More recently, however, new terms, includingenactmentandconstructed actionfor (1) anddepicting signsfor (2) have been introduced. This article (...) provides a brief overview of the history of enactment and depiction in the sign linguistic literature but mainly focuses on issues related to terminology (and terminology shifts). First, we consider the relation between role shifting and constructed action. We question the idea that these terms can be used interchangeably and rather suggest that they capture different, but related functions. Subsequently, we zoom in on the conceptualization of depicting signs, indicating verbs, pointing signs and fully lexical signs and the relation between these signs and the method of depicting. Where earlier research often associates depicting with the use of specific types of structures, we promote the idea that depicting is a semiotic diverse practice. In doing so, we show that the conceptualization of the different sign types and the terms that are used to refer to these phenomena do not accurately capture the way these signs are used in actual signed discourse and propose a reconceptualization of the different sign types in the lexico-grammar of Flemish Sign Language (VGT) as composite signs that can describe, depict and indicate meaning in various ways. In this way, this article illustrates (1) the risks that may come with the execution of terminology shifts and (2) the importance of making a clear distinction between form and function, i.e., we show that it is important to be careful with assuming a (too) exclusive relation between a certain function and one or more particular forms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism by Alan W. RichardsonRolf GeorgeAlan W. Richardson. Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. x + 242. Cloth, $49.95.According to the author, the “received view” of Carnap’s Kantian treatise of 1928, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, promulgated mostly by Quine (10), (...) takes it to be a continuation of Russell’s “external world program,” an attempt at “providing a systematic reduction of empirical discourse generally to discourse involving only sense data” (21). One of Richardson’s aims is to show that this is wrong: while Carnap holds that our knowledge begins in sensation, our “elementary experiences” are not conscious and thus do not obey Russell’s “principle of acquaintance.” While we have no conscious access to the first elements of cognition, logical constructions based on them lead to sense qualities, phenomenal items, and eventually to physical and even cultural objects.These constructions are also meant to solve the problem of objectivity. According to Carnap, individual streams of experience are not comparable at all, but “certain structural properties agree for all streams of experience” (Aufbau §66, 32), a point that Kant had also made: “In the relation between sensations lies something that is generally valid, even though each sensation has only private validity” (Reflection 653).Richardson describes Carnap’s constructions in a couple of well written and accessible chapters (31–91), one of them an overview, the other a discussion of the problem of objectivity. Then comes the “Kantian Problematic,” (92–116), centered on the synthetic a priori. He repeats Michael Friedman’s now familiar but mistaken point that, due to the limitations of Aristotelian logic, Kant could not have formulated simple statements about order structures: “between any two points there lies another” could not be formulated in any logic he knew, and he therefore had to call in pure intuition to handle mathematical constructions. But he could, and in fact did, make just such claims in the vernacular, which was the sole vehicle for the pellucid formulations of the classical theory of the continuum, from Bolzano to Weyerstrass.The next chapter brings us the heart of Richardson’s concerns, which is to establish neo-Kantian antecedents of the Aufbau. There are some biographical details of doubtful merit. The neo-Kantian Bauch is identified as Carnap’s “dissertation director,” and, in a perhaps unconscious slight to Carnap’s intelligence, as “the philosopher from whom Carnap learned what he knew about Kant” (116). Ten years before Carnap had indeed taken a seminar in the Critique of Pure Reason from Bauch, but perusal of the latter’s work does not encourage the thought that he had much to do with the thesis “Der Raum” (1922). In the event, a German ordinarius did not usually have a hand in the construction of a thesis, and often did not even read it. His job was to accept it on behalf of the university. We now know, for example, that Bauch’s teacher Rickert had an assistant evaluate Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift never reading it himself. (It passed.)Richardson’s reflection on the neo-Kantian project relies mostly on Cassirer. This points to another problem with the Bauch connection. Bauch was a zealous anti-Semite, and did not think much of Cassirer and the Marburg school in general. He gave up the editorship of Kantstudien in 1916 because of the Jewish presence in the Kant Society, and [End Page 179] founded his own group and journal. Carnap nonetheless chose Kantstudien to publish his dissertation, perhaps to put more distance between himself and Bauch. Space does not permit me to cite Bauch’s vicious remarks about Einstein; he could not have guided Carnap through the discussion of physical space in “Der Raum.”I return to Richardson’s reconstruction. According to the neo-Kantian, objective knowledge is found in mathematical physics, not in uninformed experience. He acknowledges that theoretical physics relies on conventions, and that these conventions go beyond mere experience to provide the mathematical structure necessary for objectivity (131). The responses to the problem this poses... (shrink)

The article intends to retrace, from a historical-philological point of view, the main steps of Walter Benjamin’s unfinished research and works, conducted during his later years, dedicated to Charles Baudelaire. Setting Benjamin’s translation of the Ta-bleaux parisiens as the first result of his interest for the poet, the text delves into the composition process of The Arcades Project, from which the idea of a book on Baudelaire then takes shape. The article examines the crucial stages of this second project’s development (...) through the correspondence between Benjamin and Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer especially: from the 1935 exposé for The Arcades Project to The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, to the 1939 essay On some Motifs in Baudelaire. The focus is set, in particular, on the dialectical-constructive method that guides Benjamin in the composition both of the Passagen-Werk as of the Baudelaire-Buch and the essays. Finally, the article looks back over the transmission history of the project on Baudelaire, intimately bound to the one of the Passagenarbeit: the vicissitudes and findings of various manuscripts, of which the complete restitution of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe is soon expected. Therefore, the peculiar relationship between philology and philosophy of Benjamin’s experimental method is then examined further in depth; the configuration of the research object’s monadic structure according to a historical perspective, albeit in the context of a work that remained unfinished. (shrink)

This essay looks at Norplant qua technology and uses analytic frameworks from the social construction of technology to explain the trajectory of its brief history. The author contend that there were multiple uses of Norplant, in terms of rhetorical strategies, symbolic representations, and contraceptive intentions, constructed by reproductive scientists, population control advocates, pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, birth control clinic staffers, government regulators, legislators, judges, women’s health activists, potential users, and actual users. However, while relevant social groups shaped the discourse surrounding (...) Norplant in the 1990s, its ultimate fate was determined by choices made by potential users. At the ‘‘consumption junction’’ of the late twentieth-century contraceptive marketplace, American women ignored the meanings constructed for Norplant by developers, producers, providers, and policy makers and made their decisions based on what Norplant meant to them. Individuals’ decisions to choose other methods of preventing pregnancy coalesced into a collective rejection of this contraceptive technology. (shrink)

This study evaluated the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) using a sample of university students in mainland China. Nine hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in this study. The internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scale were examined. The Chinese versions of the BSCS demonstrated good internal consistency. The BSCS also showed significant moderate correlations with other construct-related scales. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that (...) only a modified 11-item BSCS with a four-factor structure was a good model fit in the sample of Chinese university students. The implications for research and theoretical development are discussed. (shrink)

The article is a brief analysis of Cornell’s Imaginary Domain (1995) as an intervention into decolonizing intersecting systems of oppression. Cornell’s Imaginary Domain forces us to think of the intersecting factors that retain systems of power. It isn’t just about one form of oppression but all systems of oppression that separate us. However, creating a shared struggle to find and embody wholeness in response to the historical traumas of slavery, segregation, and systems of anti-Black oppression is fraught with tensions.

We have been invited to contribute a short assessment of Levine's response to Siderits’ position in the emerging debate between "fusion philosophy" and "comparative philosophy." Perhaps a brief word is in order regarding our backgrounds: Michael Nylan is a student of early China, with strong inter-disciplinary training and interests, who has attempted work in both philosophy and translation. Martin Verhoeven is a historian by training, a translator by avocation, and a Buddhist practitioner. Both of us have committed ourselves for decades (...) to past traditions that can only be accessed through classical Chinese language, and that surely colors our views. At the same time, those views are not identical, but stereophonic. (shrink)

Racism is again a burning issue in our country. One may define racism as the conviction that not all humans are equal, but that some are ‘worthier’ than others. Usually those who are regarded as ‘unworthy humans’ are not treated on par with the rest. The ‘othering’ of humans in the Western world did not commence in the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. It is argued that the roots of racism in the Western world date back to the 1st (...) century CE when the early Christians severed their ties with the Jewish people and their religion, and started humiliating and denigrating them. Traces of this can be found in the New Testament in inter alia John 8:44, Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. The Jewish people and their synagogues were associated with the Devil. However, Paul also contributed to the anti-Judaism sentiments of early Christians. He argued that the gospel superseded the law. This eventually led to the conviction that Christianity superseded Judaism, and that Jews and Judaism ranked lower than Christians and Christianity. These beliefs created fertile soil for the development of racism in the Western world. The article presents a brief overview of the history of Christianity, how it developed, how it became the state religion of the Roman Empire and the dominant religion in the Western world, and how the religious convictions fed into the sociopolitical and economic policies of the Western world. The article delivers a plea for accepting the view that all religions are human constructs and that their adherents need to meet the ‘other’ on an equal footing. The Western world especially needs to look at how Christianity contributed to the way it treated other people during the course of history. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research by Kurt Danziger . Kurt Danziger's Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research is a book of singular importance because it provides such a penetrating analysis, and does so in a manner that is cause for considerable reflection. In brief, Danziger provides a history lesson that not only situates the names and the projects of experimental psychology in the first part of this century, but also aims to clarify (...) the project of knowledge generation both past and present. Indeed, shades of Quine, Kuhn, and Hesse permeate this book in a way that demands psychologists examine their own investigative practices and logics of justification. Through Wundt, through Galton, through Ebbinghaus and others, Danziger illuminates the development of experimental psychology along with the historical and philosophical vicissitudes that have given rise to numerous psychological knowledge claims. If it is true that we must understand our history in order to understand our present, then Danziger's book should be required reading in all research laboratories. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Fé e crime na “quebrada”: pentecostais e PCC na construção da sociabilidade nas periferias de São Paulo (Faith and crime in the "quebrada": Pentecostalism and PCC in the construction of sociability in the outskirts of São Paulo). DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2014v12n33p99 Tratamos, neste texto, da convivência em um mesmo ambiente urbano de fenômenos aparentemente díspares como é o caso do pentecostalismo de um lado e, de outro, o crime organizado e a violência como seu modus operandi , ambos representando expressões de (...) sociabilidade e formação identitária nas periferias das metrópoles. Nesse contexto, o conceito de conversão precisa ser revisto dada a sua ineficácia para se compreender os processos sociais experimentados pelas populações dos bairros periféricos. Nesses bairros, ser pentecostal não é necessariamente uma opção de vida que exclui a participação na organização criminosa do Primeiro Comando da Capital - PCC. O artigo está dividido em dois tópicos: no primeiro, fazemos um breve levantamento dos estudos que trabalham com as diferentes formas em que a religião e a violência criam interfaces de contato. No segundo tópico procuramos apresentar nossas observações empíricas de uma comunidade pentecostal da qual faz parte um dos líderes locais do PCC. As conclusões são apontamentos que procuram manter abertas as portas para outras reflexões e dar continuidade à pesquisa mais do que para encerrar o debate. Palavras chaves : Pentecostalismo. PCC. Crime organizado. Conversão.In this paper we look at the coexistence, in the same urban environment, of seemingly disparate phenomena such as Pentecostalism on one side, and on the other the organized crime and violence as its modus operandi , two of the expressions of sociability and identity in the outskirts of the metropolis. In this context the concept of conversion needs to be revised given its ineffectiveness to understanding social and religious processes experienced by the populations of the suburbs. In these neighborhoods, be Pentecostal is not necessarily a lifestyle choice that precludes participation in a criminal organization like the Primeiro Comando da Capital, PCC. The article is divided into two topics: first, we made a brief survey of studies that work with the different ways in which religion and violence make some interfaces. After we tried to present our empirical observations about a Pentecostal community in which a PCC local leader is part of. The notes of the conclusion are looking to keep the doors open to other ideas and to continue the research more than to wind up the debate. Keywords : Pentecostalism. PCC. Organized crime. Conversion. (shrink)

The increasing number of companies providing internet services and auction tools helped popularize the online reverse auction trend for purchasing commodities and services in the last decade. As a result, a number of owners, both public and private, accepted the online reverse auctions as the bidding technique for their construction projects. Owners, while trying to minimize their costs for construction projects, are also required to address their ethical responsibilities to the shareholders. In the case of online reverse auctions (...) for construction projects, the ethical issues involved in the bidding technique directly reflects on the owner’s ethical and social responsibilities to their shareholders. The goal of this paper is to identify the shareholder ethics and responsibilities in online reverse auctions for construction projects by analyzing the ethical issues for the parties involved in the process. The identification of the ethical issues and responsibilities requires clear definition and understanding of professional ethics and the roles of the involved parties. In this paper, first, the concept of professional ethics and social responsibility is described in a general form. To illustrate the ethical issues and responsibilities, a sample case of bidding for a construction project using online reverse auction techniques is presented in which the shareholders were actively involved in questioning the ethical issues. The issues involved in the bidding process and their reflection on the shareholder responsibilities are described and analyzed for each stage of the process. A brief discussion of the overall process is also included to address the general ethical issues involved in online reverse auctions. (shrink)

In this article I critique F. R. S. Lawson's evolutionary theorising about music that appeared in a recent issue of Ethnomusicology Forum. Moreover, I argue that asking whether music is an adaptation or technology, as Lawson does, artificially splits the interwoven, dynamic co-evolutionary forces at work. In my view, in cases of complex, dynamic co-evolution, the distinction between the ‘biological’ and the ‘cultural’ is undermined. I suggest that human musicality is one such example, calling into question the adaptation/technology distinction that (...) frames Lawson's theorising about music. In place of that research framework, I offer a niche construction perspective, with reference to several brief ethnographic examples, and a ‘socio-cognitive niche’ picture of the evolution of music that takes seriously co-evolution and the project of developing empirically constrained, phylogenetically plausible scenarios for the evolution of music, in a general context of hominin evolution. I identify areas of research where ethnomusicology can weigh in on debates concerning the evolutionary career of music, including, importantly, data for phylogenetic modelling and analysis. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of what the self is by reviewing neuropsychological research,which converges on the idea that the self may be more complex and differentiated than previous treatments of the topic have suggested. Although some aspects of self-knowledge such as episodic recollection may be compromised in individuals, other aspects—for instance, semantic trait summaries—appear largely intact. Taken together, these findings support the idea that the self is not a single, unified entity. Rather, it is a set of interrelated, functionally (...) independent systems. Implications for understanding the self in various areas of psychological research—e.g., neuroimaging, autism, amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and mirror self-recognition—are discussed in brief. (shrink)

This paper has two central purposes: the first is to survey some of the more important examples of fallacious argument, and the second is to examine the frequent use of these fallacies in support of the psychological construct: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The paper divides 12 familiar fallacies into three different categories—material, psychological and logical—and contends that advocates of ADHD often seem to employ these fallacies to support their position. It is suggested that all researchers, whether into ADHD or otherwise, (...) need to pay much closer attention to the construction of their arguments if they are not to make truth claims unsupported by satisfactory evidence, form or logic. (shrink)

Tirana, immediately after it was declared the capital of Albania on 11 February 1920, has undergone many changes in its morphology and city context. The capital is located in the heart of the country. During its lifespan, Tirana has adopted four important regulatory plans starting from 1923. The Western ideologies of the time influenced drastically the city development. The influence of such ideologies was stopped immediately though the imposition of communist ideas, after the Second World War. Rational building forms were (...) created which could be standardized in order to reduce construction costs. Meanwhile, in Western Europe, this current was implemented during the 1920s, as a response to social problems. The communist regime established strict anti-urbanization policy that aims to foster the development of rural areas and the suburban industrial districts in order to control urban growth and demographic mobility. All the regulatory master plans of Tirana, climate data of the city, the actual situation of the specific neighborhood, its orientation toward north, are considered in order to gather information and to implement the correct bioclimatic eco-renovation in the area. A special attention will be given to the underground tunnels which were constructed during the communist regime all over the city (1945–1983) as a response to a hypothetic nuclear attack, in order to shelter the inhabitance against bombing. These reinforced concrete tunnels will serve not only as an area for water collection and recycling strategies but also for cooling with zero energy expenditure for the inhabitants as a consequence of differences in temperature and air pressure. This strategy benefits from the underground air temperature in both seasons (winter and summer). It envisages the handover of these tunnels by the community. Nowadays, such structures are abandoned and denigrated. The realization of these structures required large amounts of money from the state budget. Considering that fact they need to be vitalized and reused, using different methodologies and strategies as part of the city. After the communist regime in the city of Tirana, two other regulatory plans were implemented which observe the city from another perspective, determining and evaluating Tirana’s real values as a city of the future, but not defining yet Tirana as an Ecocity. The ecological potential of Tirana including its outskirts is to be considered. Its flora and fauna are very rich, containing a mixt of species and plants. Regardless, the city of Tirana is suffering from different kinds of pollution such as air and noise pollution which are above EU and WHO norms. Tirana benefits from a Temperate Mediterranean climate. Furthermore, the benefits of the solar radiation are enormous. Unfortunately, nowadays, the city of Tirana is not profiting much from it. This chapter is in search of an overall view of the city of Tirana, and its great potential discovering its underground and upper ground historical secrets. (shrink)

The idea of presenting the correspondence between Ioan Petru Culianu and Ugo Bianchi involves reviewing the topics specific to Bianchi’s school of History of Religion for a period of more than a decade and the manner in which the Romanian-born historian of religions builds his academic career. The academic relation between Bianchi and Culianu has a major common point: an acute preoccupation with the epistemological construction of the HR discipline. What is it that separates Culianu from Bianchi and even (...) from a large majority of the academic community in his ultimate view on religion and the religious phenomena? From a historical and religious point of view, the answer is very simple: Culianu developed a holistic theory about religion whose conceptual directions led to what Bianchi called reductio ad unum. This article focuses on presenting the biographical data correlated to the most solid scholarly education that Culianu ever had in Italy. I will also reiterate the idea that the centre of gravity of Culianu’s ultimate concerns does not necessarily fall on the methodological disputes of HR, but especially on a new understanding of cognitive sciences in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Constructive Criticism: The Human Sciences in the Age of TheoryWilliam BywaterConstructive Criticism: The Human Sciences in the Age of Theory, by Martin Kreiswirth and Thomas Carmichael; 223 pp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, $45.00 cloth, $17.95 paper.This book contains twelve essays based on papers presented at “The Human Sciences in the Age of Theory” conference sponsored by the Center for the Study of Theory and Criticism at (...) the University of Western Ontario and held at the University in 1993. Versions of six of the essays are published elsewhere.In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre offers the choice of Nietzsche or Aristotle. Authors in these essays offer a far greater variety. For Christopher Norris it’s Nietzsche or (late) Foucault, for Tilottama Rajan its Nietzsche and Lacan or Hegel, for Martin Kreiswirth and Gary Wihl (in separate essays) its Nietzsche or narrative, and for L. M. Findlay its Nietzsche or Ricoeur and narrative. This range of options reveals the extent to which these authors are attempting to escape the cul-de-sac created by the skeptical and nihilistic dimensions of Nietzsche which appear in deconstruction and postmodernism. “Constructive criticism” is an apt title for these essays. As a group they struggle to offer a way of understanding the complexities involved in resisting dominating discourses, while not giving in to despair or skepticism or nihilism.Diane Elam observes that “the age of theory begins when theories fail, when no single theoretical discourse is possible any longer.” The variety of alternatives to Nietzsche listed above is one manifestation of the truth of Elam’s claim. A second is the fact that none of these authors proposes wholesale adoption of the thinker who is being contrasted with Nietzsche. Each is selecting certain specific dimensions of the thinker’s position to be used to maintain contact with the complexity which they sense in the world around them.A third and more profound recognition is that these authors are not proposing their choices in the same spirit as MacIntyre [End Page 268] proposed his. The meaning of “either/or” is shifting. MacIntyre’s opposition between Nietzsche and Aristotle opposes two systems the latter of which represents a way to keep safe from the danger of moral chaos contained in the former. MacIntyre’s either/or contains this sense of opposition which is also a sense of salvation, of protection from having to grapple with things that are confusing, messy, dangerous. In the age of theory when theoretical discourse becomes impossible we can no longer be protected. “Either/or” shifts polarity. It no longer means my position will trump yours: it now means “either closed theoretical discourse or complexity and multiplicity.” The authors in Constructive Criticism choose complexity and multiplicity because to choose closed theoretical discourse is to choose insensitivity to all sorts of injustice.Heterogeneity is the watchword of all the authors in this volume and many of them see narrative as the mode of access to multiplicity. Kreiswirth argues that the meaningfulness of narrative depends on overdetermination and “complex accumulations and conjunctions of desire.” Little narratives, not master ones, are best able to show complexity. Findlay urges the use of metaphor to keep us in a place between the center and the margin. Wihl uses Rorty, Kundera and Nussbaum to underline “the moral significance of detailed, richly descriptive vocabularies” in contrast to the ascetic language of philosophy which does not permit the irony required for “perspicuity in the areas of ethical conflict and competing social agendas.” However, Victor Li is not at all happy about Rorty (or Habermas) both of whom, in criticizing others, appeal to “modernity’s own totalizing view of itself” instead of possessing, as they should, a sense of “the complex cultural logic of the in-between, of cultural hybridity and exchange.”However, there are two authors who—happily, I must say—make it clear that they do not want to throw theory out with the bath water. They are willing, it seems, to take the risk of both preserving what they do (theory) and maintaining a sense of the complexity of competing social agendas, overdetermination and cultural “hybridity.” John Fekete advocates both “utopia (radical... (shrink)

As a full-time foreign faculty member in the Chinese Normal university system for the past five years, I analyze the contested terrain of being a critical, Freirean educator/researcher as an insider and outsider of Chinese and Western academic systems and societies overall. This autobiographical analysis is within the contexts of China’s academic focus on raising their global higher education rankings, along with self-reflectivity of my own multiple, often-conflicting identities and Western-centric Orientalism, theorized by Edward Said, in my legitimization of academic (...) work. The following themes are analyzed through critical and Freirean frameworks: pursuit for top rankings coinciding and conflicting with scholarship breadth and depth, academic freedom, and politics of education; constructs of “harmony” that grounds teaching and research; and select pedagogical commonalities and differences between the East, the Global South, and the West. The article delves into preconceptions, including my own,... (shrink)

Starting from the hunting treatise Cynegeticus, assigned to Xenophon, this article seeks to reflect on the way in which the construction of the ideal hunter of the polis described by the Attic author. This aim will aboard both practical terms - equipment, prey, methods of hunting conducting etc - and moral terms, taking in account the numerous attacks made against the sophists throughout the booklet. To accomplish this aim, the present text includes a brief recapitulation of Xenophon's life, the (...) most important historiographical interpretations on the Cynegeticus and its dating, and, finally, the way in which the Attic author describes his ideal Greek hunter. (shrink)

The modern conception of race is often thought by philosophers to have developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in response to a unique confluence of scientific, philosophical, and imperial forces; and in recent decades some impressive work has been done to excavate the details of its construction during this period. . . . I will argue, however, that an analysis of the visual images created by Europeans during the first half-century after 1492 reveals that the essential elements of (...) the late modern conception of race are put into place during that period. In brief, the tremendous social, economic, and political pressures that culminate in this comparatively brief moment yield the modern notion of "the savage." I will suggest that from its inception this notion is an inherently radicalized one, and that it is the nodal point for the more familiar eighteenth- and nineteenth-century understandings of non-European races. Moreover, I will argue that the modern notion of the savage is synthesized, not directly from the Noachic legends, but from images drawn, sometimes literally, on the margins of medieval understandings of humanity: powerful and deeply entrenched images of the Wild Man and the monstrous races. (shrink)