For each of the N-values 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1,024, 50,000 samples of size N were drawn from an L-shaped population, and for each sample the Z and t statistics were calculated. The resulting distributions of 50,000 Z or t values at each sample size were then used to study the robustness of left-tailed, right-tailed, and two-tailed Z and t tests at α levels of.05,.01, and.001 (and, for Z only,.0001). The actually obtained proportion, ρ, (...) of Type I errors was often far greater or far smaller than the nominal proportion, α. Furthermore, although α is the expected value of ρ at infinite N, no N-value below 512 ever brought the deviation of p from α to within 10% of α for any t tests or one-tailed Z tests. (shrink)

L-shaped distributions are not rare and are probably far more prevalent than is generally realized. They are highly conducive to nonrobustness of normality-assuming statistical tests, and they strongly resist transformation to normality. The thinner the tail of the distribution, the more unlikely it is that its L-shapedness will be detected by inspecting a sample drawn from it. Yet, as the tail of an L-shaped distribution becomes increasingly shallow, its skewness and kurtosis depart increasingly from their “normal-distribution” values, and the distribution (...) becomes increasingly conducive to drastic nonrobustness. Worse, a fairly common type of experimental situation in psychological research produces shallow-tailed L-shaped distributions. (shrink)

The robustness of the classical tests on means (Z, t, and F) and variances (chi square and F) was investigated by obtaining 30,000 (or, sometimes, 10,000 or 150,000) values of the test statistic under assumption-violating conditions and comparing the actual proportion of Type I errors with the proportion expected when all assumptions are met. The sampling and testing conditions investigated were: population shape (L-shape or bell-shape), relative population variance (1 or 4), sample size (8, 16, or 24), nominal significance level (...) (.05,.01, or.001), and location of rejection region (left-tailed, right-tailed, or two-tailed). All tests on means were nonrobust under most of the investigated conditions, and one was nonrobust under all of them. Both tests on variances were extremely nonrobust under virtually all conditions. The worst nonrobustness of the one- and two-independent-sample Z and t tests rivaled or exceeded that of the notoriously nonrobust chi-square and F tests on variances. (shrink)

The alleged robustness of Z, t, and F tests against nonnormality and, when sample sizes are equal, of t and F tests against heterogeneity as well was investigated in a large-scale sampling study under conditions realistic to experimentation and testing in the behavioral sciences. Factors varied were: population shape (L or bell), σ1/σ2 (1/2, 1, or 2), size N of smallest sample (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, or 1,024), N1/N2 (1/3,1/2,1, 2, or 3), α (.05,.01, or.001), (...) and test tailedness (left, right, or two). In about 25% of the situations investigated, the test failed to meet a very lax criterion for robustness at every examined N value less than 100, and in 8% at every value less than 1,000; no test met the criterion in all of the situations studied before N=512. Robustness was strongly influenced by all of the factors investigated, and interactions among the influencing factors were often strong and complex. (shrink)

A quarter-century ago, during a period when belief in the robustness of classical tests on means was practically a professional shibboleth, a series of large, carefully controlled, and well-validated experiments and sampling studies (supplemented and supported by extensive mathematical derivations) dramatically showed that highly publicized claims of robustness were insufficiently qualified and that extreme nonrobustness could occur under perfectly reasonable experimental and testing conditions. When these findings were published in technical reports, they tended either to be ignored or to be (...) so misrepresented and distorted by those who cited them as to make them appear to support, rather than question, the very claims of robustness they tended to refute. Attempts to publish these iconoclastic results in many of the most renowned professional journals were met with rejection based upon reviewer comments so illogical or fatuous as to be interpreted only as an indication of either contrived obstructionism or pathetic professional incompetence. Eventual acceptance by a few refereed journals could, in every case, be interpreted as a political-type fluke. (shrink)

The optimal-pessimal paradox (Bradley, 1975) has been criticized on bizarre grounds by Childs (1980). Assumptions that it never made were attributed to it and attacked. Empirical evidence for its existence (which occupied a large portion of the criticized article) was totally ignored, and it was treated as a mere theoretically based conjecture. Originally proposed solutions to the problems it presents were dismissed and replaced by ineffectual alternatives. In spite of Childs’ claim that “the paradox, although theoretically sound, is grounded (...) upon assumptions that are empirically untenable,” the paradox makes no such assumptions and is an empirical fact. (shrink)

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

Freedom and the Rule of Law takes a critical look at the historical beginnings of law in the United States, and how that history has influenced current trends regarding law and freedom. Anthony Peacock has compiled articles that examine the relationship between freedom and the rule of law in America. The rule of law is fundamental to all liberal constitutional regimes whose political orders recognize the equal natural rights of all.

Eusebius of Caesarea drew heavily on pagan philosophy in developing the first Christian political theology. His quotations from Plato’s most political work, the Laws, are so extensive that they are treated as a manuscript authority by modern editors. Yet Eusebius’s actual use of the Laws is oddly detached from Plato’s own political intentions in that work, adapting it to a model of philosophical kingship closer to the Republic and applied to the emperor Constantine. For Eusebius the Laws mainly shows the (...) agreement of Christian and pagan morality, while his political theory centers on the establishment and maintenance of a Christian empire under a Christian emperor who is a philosopher-king. His view represents one of the fundamental political options in ancient Christianity, one that influenced later Byzantine political theology, but was largely rejected in the west. (shrink)

The idea of the common good has been a signature feature of Catholic social teaching and so of modern Catholic engagement in public affairs. It has recently been suggested that the notion is now obsolete due to changes in the culture and politics of the West. In keeping with this suggestion, some argue that Catholics should abandon it in favor of an appeal based on lower intermediate goods in a manner more related to Augustine’s engagement with the largely pagan culture (...) of his time than to Aquinas’s categories tailored to an integrally Christian society. I argue that such a solution misreads aspects of the tradition and of the present political and cultural situation and I suggest some alternative grounds on which Catholic engagement with contemporary public life should proceed and that thinking again about the common good is a necessary part of such engagement. (shrink)

This paper suggests an alternative account of the political character of Plato’s political philosophy. After pointing toward some problems of the common developmental paradigm, which emphasizes discontinuities between Plato’s Socratic early writings, the mature utopianism of the Republic, and the late pessimism of the Laws, it proposes that Plato’s two large constructive works, the Republic and Laws, are related to two actual historical events in which Plato played a role, the trial of Socrates and Plato’s failed intervention in Sicilian politics. (...) On this view, the Republic is to the Apology of Socrates as the Laws is to the Seventh Letter. The Republic is an imaginative reconstruction of the sort of defense of philosophy under more favorable conditions than obtained in the actual trial; the Laws is an imaginative reconstruction of the sort of political reform that Plato advocated under more favorable conditions than obtained in Syracuse under Dionysius II. The paper suggests this as the basis of a unified interpretation of Plato’s political philosophy. (shrink)

While the notion of the common good figures frequently in both rhetoric and the inquiries of academic political theory, it is often neither closely examined nor precisely defined. This article examines Aristotle’s use of the idea, focusing primarily on two sets of key texts: first, Politics 1.1–2 and Nicomachean Ethics 1.2; and second, Nic. Ethics 8.9 and Politics 3.7. The first set of texts emphasizes the common good as flourishing and the city as its necessary condition; the second emphasizes the (...) common good as the good of all citizens as distinct from that of the rulers alone and leads to Aristotle’s notion of the generic political regime with its focus on the middle class and the rule of law. The conclusion notes both continuities and discontinuities with and challenges to contemporary politics posed by Aristotle’s view, which is neither as readily supportive of modern political programs nor as opposed to modern practices as is sometimes thought. (shrink)

The first part of the paper discusses the origins and meaning of democracy relative to the development of Christian political thought through the modern period; it is important here that democracy means something different in the ancient world than it does in the modern. The second part discusses the view of democracy proposed in the formative period of modern Catholic social doctrine in especially from the pontificate of Leo XIII to the Second Vatican Council. The third part analyzes the political (...) thought of St. John Paul II which seems to be the apogee of Catholic thinking about democracy. The fourth part discusses some remaining tensions and problems related to democracy that are articulated partly also in John Paul II’s thought, but in a sharper way in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI and one quite prominent challenge to the Catholic view of democracy in the phenomenon of pluralism. One can see in this history that the Church has gradually come to appreciate democracy not simply as an acceptable form of government, one that is not intrinsically at odds with Christianity, but in a positive sense, as an opportunity for human beings to achieve a level of moral development not available in other regimes. But there remain challenges associated with democracy to government and social life consistent with the natural moral law and to Christian faith. (shrink)

Religious freedom is included among the basic liberties to which persons are entitled in John Rawls’s account of Justice as Fairness. Rawls’s revised presentation of this as a political conception of justice in Political Liberalism aims to show how it can be (along with the other parts of Justice as Fairness) the focus of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. As an example, Rawls contends that his understanding of religious freedom is consistent with that of the Roman Catholic Church, (...) at least since the Second Vatican Council. I argue that he was mistaken in this in so far as other aspects of his political conception, especially its characterization of citizens as normatively having the power to form their own conceptions of the good, puts it at odds with the teaching of the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis humanae. This suggests more generally that the limits of consensus in modern pluralist societies are greater than Rawls’s theory holds. (shrink)

The Thomistic revival initiated by Leo XIII was late in having an effect on political philosophy. Many have charged Thomism with being inapt to contribute to political philosophy, either because it is at odds with modern political institutions and practices or because it is inflexibly moralistic. I address the former issue by way of an examination of Jacques Maritain’s Thomistic personalism, which provides distinctive and valuable resources for understanding modern politics. This requires examining the development of Maritain’s political thought in (...) reaction to controversies over integralism in the 1920s and the rise of totalitarianism in the 1930s and ’40s. Throughout this period, Maritain was clear about the theological aspects of his personalism, and so I conclude by discussing contemporary pluralism as a challenge to Maritain’s project. (shrink)

Original and penetrating, this book investigates of the notion of inference from signs, which played a central role in ancient philosophical and scientific method. It examines an important chapter in ancient epistemology: the debates about the nature of evidence and of the inferences based on it--or signs and sign-inferences as they were called in antiquity. As the first comprehensive treatment of this topic, it fills an important gap in the histories of science and philosophy.

While the notion of the common good figures frequently in both rhetoric and the inquiries of academic political theory, it is often neither closely examined nor precisely defined. This article examines Aristotle’s use of the idea, focusing primarily on two sets of key texts: first, Politics 1.1–2 and Nicomachean Ethics 1.2; and second, Nic. Ethics 8.9 and Politics 3.7. The first set of texts emphasizes the common good as flourishing and the city as its necessary condition; the second emphasizes the (...) common good as the good of all citizens as distinct from that of the rulers alone and leads to Aristotle’s notion of the generic political regime with its focus on the middle class and the rule of law. The conclusion notes both continuities and discontinuities with and challenges to contemporary politics posed by Aristotle’s view, which is neither as readily supportive of modern political programs nor as opposed to modern practices as is sometimes thought. (shrink)

When William James spoke about belief to the philosophy clubs of Yale and Brown in 1896, he forewarned his audience of the nature of his comments by describing them as a “sermon on justification by faith” (James 13), titling the talk “The Will to Believe.” Although there is disagreement about the substance of James’s remarks, it is fairly innocuous to assert that James thought they were appropriate because of the prevalence of the “logical spirit” of many (...) of those who practiced academic philosophy that led them to the conclusion that religious faith was untenable. Aware of his audience, James presents his view on the permissibility of religious faith on the terms and grounds familiar to professional philosophers. .. (shrink)

No other volume has this scope. Students in bioethics, public and international health, and ethics will find this book particularly useful.

Face perception plays a central role in social communication and is, arguably, one of the most sophisticated visual perceptual skills in humans. The organization of neural systems for face perception has stimulated intense debate. This article presents an updated model of distributed human neural systems for face perception. It opens up with a discussion of the Core System for visual analysis of faces with an emphasis on the distinction between perception of invariant features for identity recognition and changeable features for (...) recognition of facial gestures such as expression and eye gaze. The study analyses the roles of systems for the representation of emotion, for person knowledge, and for action understanding in face recognition and perception of expression and gaze. It presents systems that are of particular relevance for social communication and that are illustrative of how distributed systems are engaged by face perception. It concludes with a discussion of modularity and distributed processing in neural representation. (shrink)

James V. Schall presents, in a convincing and articulate manner, the revelational contribution to political philosophy, particularly that which comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition.

The rejection of a “characterless” moral self is central to some of Bernard Williams’ most important contributions to philosophy. By the time of Truth and Truthfulness, he works instead with a model of the self constituted and stabilized out of more primitive materials through deliberation and in concert with others that takes inspiration from Diderot. Although this view of the self raises some difficult questions, it serves as a useful starting point for thinking about the process of developing an authentic (...) moral point of view in the context of contemporary living. In what follows, I begin to fill out and extend this picture of the self and its related notion of authenticity by exploring some of the “technologies of the self” at play in Rachel Cusk’s recent work (primarily, the Outline trilogy, Coventry, Second Place, and “The Stuntman”) that ask us to rethink the possibility and importance of stability; seek a way of constituting oneself and one’s values outside the confining structures of traditional narrative (focusing instead on a framework that might be provided by the visual arts); and give a different role to the sort of internalized other Williams sees as being at work in the mechanisms of shame. (shrink)

In 1973, Rittel and Webber coined the term ‘wicked problems’, which they viewed as pervasive in the context of social and policy planning.1 Wicked problems have 10 defining characteristics: they are not amenable to definitive formulation; it is not obvious when they have been solved; solutions are not true or false, but good or bad; there is no immediate, or ultimate, test of a solution; every implemented solution is consequential, it leaves traces that cannot be undone; there are no criteria (...) to prove that all potential solutions have been identified and considered; every wicked problem is essentially unique; every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem; a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways and the choice of explanation determines what will count as a solution and the actors are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate.1 One needs only a passing familiarity with the history of HIV prevention research, and with the intellectual traditions of research ethics, to appreciate that the perils and opportunities arising from proposals to conduct research with people who inject drugs in some of the most precarious social and political circumstances around the world and the challenges associated with implementing the findings satisfy Rittel's and Webber's criteria for ‘wicked problems’. HIV prevention research has contributed important new knowledge about the feasibility, efficacy or relative efficacy of various prevention strategies in a variety of contexts around the world. But the pathways and timelines for how this knowledge has contributed to improvements in public health practice and/or the establishment of policies that ensure unfettered access to appropriate healthcare services for PWID are less clear and decidedly non-linear. One account of the transition from trial to policy …. (shrink)

In 1973, Rittel and Webber coined the term ‘wicked problems’, which they viewed as pervasive in the context of social and policy planning. 1 Wicked problems have 10 defining characteristics: they are not amenable to definitive formulation; it is not obvious when they have been solved; solutions are not true or false, but good or bad; there is no immediate, or ultimate, test of a solution; every implemented solution is consequential, it leaves traces that cannot be undone; there are no (...) criteria to prove that all potential solutions have been identified and considered; every wicked problem is essentially unique; every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem; a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways and the choice of explanation determines what will count as a solution and the actors are liable... (shrink)

Far from being unwelcome or impossible in a mathematical setting, indeterminacy in various forms can be seen as playing an important role in driving mathematical research forward by providing “sources of newness” in the sense of Hutter and Farías :434–449, 2017). I argue here that mathematical coincidences, phenomena recently under discussion in the philosophy of mathematics, are usefully seen as inducers of indeterminacy and as put to work in guiding mathematical research. I suggest that to call a pair of mathematical (...) facts a coincidence is roughly to suggest that the investigation of connections between these facts isn’t worthwhile. To say of this pair, “That’s no coincidence!” is to suggest just the opposite. I further argue that this perspective on mathematical coincidence, which pays special attention to what mathematical coincidences do, may provide us with a better view of what mathematical coincidences are than extant accounts. I close by reflecting on how understanding mathematical coincidences as generating indeterminacy accords with a conception of mathematical research as ultimately aiming to reduce indeterminacy and complexity to triviality as proposed in Rota Indiscrete thoughts, Birkhäuser, 1997). (shrink)