This paper is an extended discussion of Robert Ulanowicz’s critique of mechanistic and reductionistic metaphysics of science. He proposes “process ecology” as an alternative. In this paper I discuss four sets of question coming out of Ulanowicz’s proposal. First, I argue that universality remains one of the hallmarks of the scientific enterprise even with his new process metaphysics. I then discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the interpretation of the history of the universe. I question Ulanowicz’s use of the (...) terms “random” and “chance” in his definition of process. Finally, I discuss what difference a relational and process metaphysics might make in addressing the political and practical problems in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This article is a close reading of two essays by Donna Haraway on feminist philosophy, the biophysical sciences, and critical social theory. Haraway's strong social constructionist approach to science is criticized by colleague Sandra Harding, resulting in an epistemological reconceptualization of objectivity by Haraway. Haraway's notion of “situated knowledges” provides a workable epistemology for all social and biophysical sciences, while inviting the reintegration of religions as critical conversation partners in an emancipatory hermeneutics of nature, culture, and technology.

While previous research has suggested that adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse may be more prone to produce false memories, little is known about the consequences of childhood neglect on basic memory processes. For this reason, the authors investigated how a group of women with a history of childhood emotional neglect and diagnosed with recurrent Major Depressive Disorder performed on the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm in comparison to control groups. The results indicated that women with MDD and CEN were actually (...) less prone to produce false memories relative to both women with MDD but no CEN and healthy women without MDD and any form of childhood maltreatment. These findings were explained in terms of the inability to extract/retrieve gist memories that support false recognition of critical lures, an explanation that seems to fit well with emerging MRI findings linking childhood neglect to reduced volume of brain regions associated to memory function. (shrink)

This essay is an introduction to postmodernism and deconstruction as they relate to the special challenges of scholarship and teaching in the science and religion multidiscipline.

This essay is William Grassie's valedictory remarks at the Metanexus Institute's 2007 Annual Conference. Grassie asks what is wrong with religion, what is wrong with science, and why the constructive engagement of the two holds the key to setting things right. He cites Sir John Templeton and others to make his case and proposes a new curriculum for general science education that uses the history of nature as a mnemonic and context for promoting better science literacy and the incorporation of (...) science into our cultural traditions. (shrink)

Abstract.In this essay I examine the new sciences of religion, spanning the traditional fields such as the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of religion to new fields such as the economics, neurosciences, epidemiology, and evolutionary psychology of religion. The purpose is to welcome these approaches but also delineate some of their philosophical and theological limitations. I argue for pluralistic methodologies in the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena. I argue that religious persons and institutions should welcome these investigations, because science (...) affects only interpretative strategies and does not present a fundamental challenge to core religious commitments. Indeed, the new sciences of religion can help religions in becoming more effective and wholesome. I am critical of confusing the scientific study of religion with scientism and trace this ideological project back to August Comte. In the end I deconstruct the metaphoric boundary that places religion on the inside as the object and science as the subject on the outside looking in. (shrink)

Abstract.In this essay I examine the new sciences of religion, spanning the traditional fields such as the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of religion to new fields such as the economics, neurosciences, epidemiology, and evolutionary psychology of religion. The purpose is to welcome these approaches but also delineate some of their philosophical and theological limitations. I argue for pluralistic methodologies in the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena. I argue that religious persons and institutions should welcome these investigations, because science (...) affects only interpretative strategies and does not present a fundamental challenge to core religious commitments. Indeed, the new sciences of religion can help religions in becoming more effective and wholesome. I am critical of confusing the scientific study of religion with scientism and trace this ideological project back to August Comte. In the end I deconstruct the metaphoric boundary that places religion on the inside as the object and science as the subject on the outside looking in. (shrink)

This essay is a discussion of effective teaching in the science‐and‐religion classroom. I begin by introducing Alfred North Whitehead's three stages of learning—romance, discipline, and generalization—and consider their implications for powerful pedagogy in science and religion. Following Whitehead's three principles, I develop a number of additional heuristics that deal with active, visual, narrative, cooperative, and dialogical learning styles. Finally, I present twelve guidelines for how to use e‐mail and class‐based listserves to achieve some of these outcomes.

This essay is an introduction to postmodernism and deconstruction as they relate to the special challenges of scholarship and teaching in the science and religion multidiscipline.

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) adaptation is an ideal model for investigating how the neurosteroid 17 beta-estradiol (E2) contributes to the modification of behavior by regulating synaptic activities. We hypothesized that E2 impacts VOR adaptation by affecting cerebellar synaptic plasticity at the parallel fiber–Purkinje cell (PF) synapse. To verify this hypothesis, we investigated the acute effect of blocking E2 synthesis on gain increases and decreases in adaptation of the VOR in male rats using an oral dose (2.5 mg/kg) of the aromatase (...) inhibitor letrozole. We also assessed the effect of letrozole on synaptic plasticity at the PF synapse in vitro, using cerebellar slices from male rats. We found that letrozole acutely impaired both gain increases and decreases adaptation of the VOR without altering basal ocular-motor performance. Moreover, letrozole prevented long-term potentiation at the PF synapse (PF-LTP) without affecting long-term depression (PF-LTD). Thus, in male rats neurosteroid E2 has a relevant impact on VOR adaptation and affects exclusively PF-LTP. These findings suggest that E2 might regulate changes in VOR adaptation by acting locally on cerebellar and extra-cerebellar synaptic plasticity sites. (shrink)

Considerando a importância das Habilidades Sociais no desenvolvimento acadêmico e profissional dos estudantes, esta pesquisa tem por objetivo verificar a existência de relações entre Habilidades Sociais e desempenho acadêmico. Este estudo caracteriza-se por uma pesquisa descritiva correlacional quantitativa, na qual participaram 628 estudantes universitários das áreas de saúde e humanas e exatas e sociais aplicadas que responderam ao Inventário de Habilidades Sociais – IHS (Del Prette & Del Prette, 2014). Para o tratamento dos dados, foi utilizado o Statistical Package for (...) the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) 21.0 para Windows, valendo-se de testes correlacionais. Foi possível verificar a correlação entre Habilidades Sociais e desempenho acadêmico nos cursos de saúde e humanas, em contrapartida, não há correlação estatisticamente significativa entre ambos nos cursos das áreas de exatas e sociais aplicadas. Encontra-se respaldo teórico nestas verificações, sendo possível analisá-las neste artigo. (shrink)

Ernesto Grassi (1902-1991) was one of the most ambivalent and at the same time most influential professors of philosophy in Western Germany after World War II. Not only his philosophical works on humanism but also his role as a university teacher and editor of the first paperback textbooks on philosophy and theory in general made him to leading figure in post-war academic debates. Mit Ernesto Grassi widmet sich der Band einem schillernden Gelehrten der Nachkriegszeit, der als bedeutender Stichwortgeber (...) in den intellektuellen Debatten der jungen Bundesrepublik gelten darf. Die Beiträge leuchten verschiedene Aspekte seines Werkes, aber auch Grassis Rolle als akademischer Lehrer und Herausgeber aus. Der Philosoph Ernesto Grassi (1902-1991) gehörte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zu den bekanntesten und einflussreichsten Professoren der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Der Band arbeitet verschiedene Aspekte seiner intellektuellen Biographie heraus und leistet damit einen Beitrag zum akademischen Selbstverständnis der jungen Bundesrepublik. Im Vordergrund stehen Grassis Wirken in München, seine Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Philosophie, seine Versuche zur Neukonstituierung einer bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit im Nachkriegsdeutschland und seine internationale Ausstrahlung. (shrink)

Filozofija danas, kao i posljednjih desetljeća, u različitim varijantama raspravlja o utemeljenju i širini pojma pluralizma, multikulturalizma/transkulturalizma, mogućeg prihvaćanja drugačijeg i uopće o načinima posredovanja. Tim se povodom u tekstu želi skrenuti pažnja na tek djelomično recipirano djelo Ernesta Grassija. Prije svega riječ je o njegovom drugačijem tumačenju povijesti novovjekovne filozofije, raspravljanju o odnosu filozofije i kulture i trajnom naporu u premošćivanju i međusobnom upućivanju talijanske i njemačke filozofije, te otvorenosti prema drugim kulturama.Grassi je zastupao stajalište da susret sa (...) stranim i drugačijim traži situaciji primjerene teorijske i praktičke odgovore, otvaranje izvornosti onoga što nam pridolazi kao novo. Teorijska otvorenost iskustvu drugačijih svjetova, provlačenje kroz doživljaj drugačijeg što posebno iskazuje u svojim «južnoameričkim meditacijama», ujedno je za njega propitivanje samorazumljivosti europskog iskustva i europskog tumačenja prostora, vremena, umjetnosti…Pitanje je stoga koliko Grassi, koji je kao metodu spoznaje zastupao znanstvene razgovore što uključuju individualnu, historijsku situaciju i interakciju sudionika u aktualnoj govornoj situaciji, i danas može biti zanimljiv sugovornik. Takav njegov pristup utemeljen je na tumačenju zbiljnosti polazeći od jezika, što uključuje kritiku metafizike.For several decades now, philosophy has and is attempting various approaches to the foundationand scope of pluralism, multiculturalism/transculturalism, possible ways to accepting the different,and general means of mediation. In response, this article deals with the partially received work ofErnesto Grassi – in particular, his singular interpretation of the history of modern age philosophy,his discussion on relations between philosophy and culture, his ongoing effort to bridge the differencesand refer to each other the German and the Italian philosophy, his receptiveness to othercultures.Ernesto Grassi supported the view that encounters with the strange and the different call for appropriatetheoretical and practical responses, a receptiveness to genuineness of what one approaches asnew. For him, the theoretical receptiveness to experiencing different worlds, the involvement in thedifferent that he particularly expresses in his »South American meditations«, is also the means ofquestioning the taking for granted of the European experience and its interpretation of essentialssuch as space, time, and art.It remains a question to what extend is Grassi, who viewed a scientific exchange – with its individual,historical context and the interaction of the participants in the current conversational act – asa cognitive method, still an interesting conversationalist today. He builds this approach upon interpretationof reality from the point of language, which includes a criticism of metaphysics. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta la genealogía del interés de E. Grassi por el pensamiento de Vico, y traza las líneas esenciales que han definido la interpretación grassiana del napolitano. Además, el trabajo contiene también la Bibliografía de Grassi sobre Vico, y un elenco de bibliografía secundaria.This paper deals with the genealogy of E. Grassi's interest for Vico's thought, it draws also the essential lines which have so far shaped the Neapolitan's Grassian interpretation, finally it includes as well (...) class='Hi'>Grassi's Bibliography on Vico and a great deal of secondary bibliography. (shrink)

A partir de la noción grassiana de humanismo y del renovador concepto de éste, el autor propone una diferenciada visión de los "distintos" humanismos, así como del papel desempeñado por Vico en esta tradición.Through Grassi's innovator idea of humanism, the author proposes a distinguished vision of the "different" humanisms, as well as of the role accomplished by Vico in this tradition.

Estudio bibliográfico de: / A bibliographical study of: Ernesto Grassi, Vico y el humanismo. Ensayos sobre Vico, Heidegger y la retórica, Editorial Anthropos, Barcelona, 1999, pp. 237. Serie Humanismo, 1.

Exposición crítica de la evolución de la trayectoria viquiana de E. Grassi al hilo del problema fundamental de la metáfora, cuyo valor ontológico reivindicó. Grassi se interesó por este problema desde su juventud cuando, como discípulo heideggeriano que busca alternativas a la Seinsvergessenheit, estudió la epistemología tópica del De nostri. Pero sólo en la madurez extendió su interés metafórico a la entera obra viquiana, justo al concebir plenamente la filosofía como retórica.Critical exposition of E. Grassi’s Vichian trajectory (...) through the fundamental problem of metaphor whose ontological value he vindicated. In his youth Grassi was already interested in such a problem. Indeed, just from the perspective of a Heideggerian scholar looking for an alternative to the Seinsvergessenheit, he studied the topical epistemology of De nostri. But it was only in his mature age that he spread his metaphorical interest to Vico’s whole work, just when he conceived plainly Philosophy as Rhetoric. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humanism as Philosophia (Perennis):Grassi's Platonic Rhetoric between Gadamer and KristellerRocco RubiniToday's situation is such that in our desacralized and demythologized world we believe in no annunciations, in no purely directive statements, in no evangelist, be it a God or a prophet. We turn to rational thought, to proofs and reasons in order to free ourselves from the subjectivity and relativity of appearances.... Thus not only is every access (...) to religious sacred texts closed to us but so also is the possibility of a metaphysics, a science that tells us about the "essence of man" (Humanism).—Ernesto Grassi, Rhetoric as PhilosophyDonald P. Verene commemorated Ernesto Grassi by recognizing that his work allows for a fresh approach to Vico, Heidegger, Renaissance, and rhetorical studies (1996, 295–303). While Grassi's authority on Vico remains undisputed, examination of his relevance to other fields of study is still wanting. As for Martin Heidegger, his students have been too numerous and successful for Grassi to easily claim pride of place among them. In turn, as Verene notes, American Renaissance scholarship has failed to realize that Grassi's work represents a direct alternative to that of Paul Oskar Kristeller, another student of Heidegger. Kristeller's influential characterization of Renaissance [End Page 242] humanism as a rhetorical and thus, in his view, nonphilosophical tradition often causes Grassi to be simply dismissed.1 Finally, his reception in rhetorical studies remains problematic and limited in its own right.In his Foreword to the reprint of Grassi's Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980), Timothy W. Crusius clearly expresses the confused deference that has caused rhetoricians to steer clear of the "anomaly" Grassi represents. Crusius laments that scholars have not attempted to bring Grassi into conversation with partisans of rhetoric like Hans-Georg Gadamer and that very little attention has been paid to works such as The Primordial Metaphor (1994) or to the overall religious dimension of his thought. Crusius attributes this general neglect to the American rhetoricians' unfamiliarity with the Latin-humanist rhetorical tradition: Grassi, in direct opposition to Heidegger, would have fashioned his philosophy from Roman rather than Greek sources (2001, xiii–xviii).This essay closely narrates2 how Grassi's notions of metaphysics and "rhetoric" developed in his early writings in order to dispel some of the misconceptions that have prevented readers from entering what Grassi himself defines as the "originary tension" awakening his own and, indeed, any philosopher's concerns, interests, and pathos (1994, 5–6). For if Grassi often lamented Heidegger's philhellenism—an aversion to romanitas at which he and other "Latin" students such as José Ortega y Gasset took personal offense (1988, 347)—we shall see that his philosophy was originally grounded on a nontraditional reading of Greek sources. Indeed, a reader would be at pains to recover a sustained reading of Cicero or Quintilian in his entire corpus, while between 1932 and 1946 Grassi published three volumes dedicated to an original interpretation of Plato.3Whereas the following account might make Grassi's notion of "rhetoric as philosophy" even more idiosyncratic—originally founded neither on a recovery of Roman eloquence nor, as we shall see, on a rehabilitation of the Sophists—his early Platonism makes him conversant with Gadamer and provides insight into his religiosity. Grassi's distinctive Platonism also spurs consideration of his missed confrontation with Kristeller and of the mutual disregard between American Renaissance scholars and rhetoricians in the latter part of the twentieth century. The following pages place the reader in a position to appreciate the relevance of Grassi's work to current scholarship.Heidegger's Anti-Platonism and Recent Plato StudiesThe belated and ongoing publication of Heidegger's lectures prior to Being and Time (1927) has led us closer to the experience of his students and offered [End Page 243] clear insight into his preference for Aristotle over Plato. The WS 1924–25 lecture course on the Sophist—one of Heidegger's most sustained confrontations with Plato before his Plato's Doctrine of Truth (1942)—begins with the assertion "What Aristotle said is what Plato placed at his disposal, only it is said more radically and developed more scientifically" (1997, 8). By developing... (shrink)