Legislating comprehensive sex education curricula has long been believed to be essential to aligning education about sex, sexuality and human relationships with the values of equality, inclusivity and autonomy. Defences of the need for ‘good’ sex education in public schools are contingent upon arguments about whose experiences ought to guide us in determining what sufficient alignment with such values might look like. The aim of this paper is to explore the assumptions underlying one prevailing norm in such defences: what I (...) call parental deference or the practice of heeding to the rights of parents in debates about sex education. The question at the heart of this paper is, then, who in our communities does this deference exclude? I begin with a brief consideration of the appeal of parental deference within theories of education in general, and sex education in particular, before problematising its normalisation through a consideration of the exclusions such deference creates. In the process, I aim to explore the limits of parental deference for addressing the intersection of sexuality, sex, gender and race with violence in curricula and argue instead that one way of mitigating the consequences of these limits is to take seriously what I call sex education's community problem: If schools are to serve communities, why are so many community members’ experiences excluded? (shrink)

Facts often acquire a life of their own; the stories in this book explain why.

Philosophers of science are well aware that theories are underdetermined by data. But what about the data? Scientific data are selected and processed representations or pieces of nature. What is useless context and what is valuable specimen, as well as how specimens are processed for study, are not obvious or predetermined givens. Instead, they are decisions made by scientists and other research workers, such as technicians, that produce different outcomes for the data. Vertebrate fossils provide a revealing case of this (...) data-processing, because they are embedded in rock that often matches the fossils’ color and texture, requiring an expert eye to judge where the fossil/context interface is. Fossil preparators then permanently define this interface by chiseling away the material they identify as rock. As a result, fossil specimens can emerge in multiple possible forms depending on the preparator’s judgment, skill, and chosen tools. A prepared fossil then is not yet data but potential data, following Leonelli’s relational framework in which data are defined as evidence that scientists have used to support a proposed theory. This paper draws on ethnographic evidence to assess how scientists overcome this underdetermination of specimens, as potential data, in addition to the underdetermination of theories and of data, to successfully construct specimen-based knowledge. Among other strategies, paleontology maintains a division of labor between data-makers and theory-makers. This distinction serves to justify the omission of preparators’ nonstandard, individualized techniques from scientific publications. This separation has benefits for both scientists and technicians; however, it restricts knowledge production by preventing scientists from understanding how the pieces of nature they study were processed into researchable specimens. (shrink)

A major challenge in neuroscience is to understand what happens to a brain as it ages. Such insights could make it possible to distinguish between individuals who will undergo typical aging and those at risk for neurodegenerative disease. Over the last quarter century, thousands of human brain imaging studies have probed the neural basis of age-related cognitive decline. “Aging” studies generally enroll adults over the age of 65, a historical precedent rooted in the average retirement age of U.S. wage-earners. A (...) consequence of this research tradition is that it overlooks one of the most significant neuroendocrine changes in a woman’s life: the transition to menopause. The menopausal transition is marked by an overall decline in ovarian sex steroid production – up to 90% in the case of estradiol – a dramatic endocrine change that impacts multiple biological systems, including the brain. Despite sex differences in the risk for dementia, the influence that biological sex and sex hormones have on the aging brain is historically understudied, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of the aging process. In this Perspective, we highlight the influence that endocrine factors have on the aging brain. We devote particular attention to the neural and cognitive changes that unfold in the middle decade of life, as a function of reproductive aging. Next, we consider emerging evidence from animal and human studies that other endocrine factors occurring earlier in life (e.g. pregnancy, hormonal birth control use) also shape the aging process. Applying a women’s health lens to. (shrink)

Detailed and in-depth investigation of the important but often unappreciated work done by science technicians, in this case in the context of paleontology.

Few studies have examined the influence of the food environment on obesity rates among very young, low-income consumers. This research contributes to this growing literature by examining the relationship between modifications to the retail environment and obesity rates for low-income, preschool-aged children. Based on data combined from various secondary sources, this study finds that changes in the retail environment are significantly related to obesity rates. More specifically, the authors find a positive relationship between the number of convenience stores in the (...) retail environment and obesity rates among low-income, preschool-aged children. Results also show that the percent change in grocery stores and supercenters and club stores in the retail environment is negatively related to the obesity rates of low-income, preschool-aged children [i.e., as grocery stores and supercenters/club stores increase, obesity decreases ].Further, the percent change in supercenters and club stores mediates the positive relationship between participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and obesity rates. (shrink)

BackgroundReturning neuroimaging incidental findings may create a challenge to research participants’ health literacy skills as they must interpret and make appropriate healthcare decisions based on complex radiology jargon. Disclosing IF can therefore present difficulties for participants, research institutions and the healthcare system. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent of the health literacy challenges encountered when returning neuroimaging IF. We report on findings from a retrospective survey and focus group sessions with major stakeholders involved in disclosing IF.MethodsWe (...) surveyed participants who had received a radiology report from a research study and conducted focus groups with participants, parents of child participants, Institutional Review Board members, investigators and physicians. Qualitative thematic analyses were conducted using standard group-coding procedures and descriptive summaries of health literacy scores and radiology report outcomes are examined.ResultsAlthough participants reported high health literacy skills, 67 % did not seek medical care when recommended to do so; and many participants in the focus groups disclosed they could not understand the findings described in their report. Despite their lack of understanding, participants desire to have information about their radiology results, and the investigators feel ethically inclined to return findings.ConclusionsThe language in clinically useful radiology reports can create a challenge for participants’ health literacy skills and has the potential to negatively impact the healthcare system and investigators conducting imaging research. Radiology reports need accompanying resources that explain findings in lay language, which can help reduce the challenge caused by the need to communicate incidental findings. (shrink)

How do children acquire beliefs from testimony? In this chapter, we discuss children's trust in testimony, their sensitivity to and use of defeaters, and their appeals to positive reasons for trusting what other people tell them. Empirical evidence shows that, from an early age, children have a tendency to trust testimony. However, this tendency to trust is accompanied by sensitivity to cues that suggest unreliability, including inaccuracy of the message and characteristics of the speaker. Not only are children sensitive to (...) evidence of unreliability, but they are also sensitive to the positive reasons a speaker may have for the reliability of their testimony. This evidence is discussed in relation to reductivist and non-reductivist viewpoints. (shrink)

One of the key criticisms of the ethical review process is the time taken to decision, and associated resource use. A key source of delay is that most submissions are required to respond to at leas...

Human development takes place in a social context. Two pervasive sources of social information are faces and hands. Here, we provide the first report of the visual frequency of faces and hands in the everyday scenes available to infants. These scenes were collected by having infants wear head cameras during unconstrained everyday activities. Our corpus of 143 hours of infant-perspective scenes, collected from 34 infants aged 1 month to 2 years, was sampled for analysis at 1/5 Hz. The major finding (...) from this corpus is that the faces and hands of social partners are not equally available throughout the first two years of life. Instead, there is an earlier period of dense face input and a later period of dense hand input. At all ages, hands in these scenes were primarily in contact with objects and the spatio-temporal co-occurrence of hands and faces was greater than expected by chance. The orderliness of the shift from faces to hands suggests a principled transition in the contents of visual experiences and is discussed in terms of the role of developmental gates on the timing and statistics of visual experiences. (shrink)

Over the past decade, Canadian media coverage of street sex work has steadily increased. The majority of this interest pertains to graphic violence against street sex workers, most notably from Vancouver, British Columbia. In this article, the authors analyze newspaper coverage that appeared in western Canadian publications between 2006 and 2009. In theorizing the violence both depicted and perpetrated by newspapers, the authors propose an analytic framework capable of attending to the process of othering in all of its complexity. To (...) this end, the authors supplement a Foucauldian analysis of abjection by considering the work of Judith Butler along with Julia Kristeva's conceptualization of abjection. Using excerpts from western Canadian newspapers, the authors illustrate how the media's discursive practices function as triggers for the process of cultural abjection by inscribing street sex workers with images of defilement. The authors argue that newspaper coverage of street sex workers reinforces the inviolability of normalized life by constantly reiterating the horror reserved for abjected bodies. (shrink)

Globally, one in eight people lacks access to potable water; more people die from unsafe drinking water than from all forms of violence, including war. A substantial body of research documents that the privatization of water – led by global financial institutions working in collusion with governments and corporations – does not lead to more people gaining access to safe water. In fact, the opposite is true: privatization leads to both higher cost and lower quality water. For the past century, (...) the dominant focus of transnational organizing has been “from the West to the rest,” and the frequent attention to movements in the global North has led to the neglect of transnational linkages between movements. Drawing on fieldwork conducted on three right to water movements that span three continents, this paper examines effortsto reclaim the water commons,and how struggles have been driven by grassroots movements demanding that democracy, transparency, and the human right to water are prioritized over corporate profit. As feminist scholars have pointed out, the “standpoint” offered by marginalized actors offers important insights into the operation of systems of power and the strategies of survival and resistance that less powerful actors adopt in order to survive and thrive. This paper explores how transnational movements around water and other basic rights engage with and learn from each other. (shrink)

PurposeBeginning with the initial premise that the internet has a global character, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the normative evaluation of digital information on the internet necessitates an evaluative model that is itself universal and global in character. To this end, the paper aims to demonstrate and support a universal model for the normative evaluation of information on the internet.Design/methodology/approachThe design and application of a dual normative model of information show how such a model commits all (...) disseminators of information to universal epistemological and ethical norms.FindingsBased on the dual normative characterization of information, the paper demonstrates that information and internet information specifically, have an inherent normative structure that commits its disseminators to certain mandatory epistemological and ethical commitments; and that the negligent or purposeful abuse of information in violation of those commitments is also a violation of universal rights to freedom and wellbeing to which all agents are entitled by virtue of being agents, and in particular informational agents.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to space constraints it is impractical to provide in this paper a detailed account of how the argument for informational universal rights can deal with other competing moral obligations.Originality/valueThe findings based on an innovative dual normative model of information demonstrate and support the initial thesis of the paper, namely, that the dissemination of internet information due to its global nature commits all informational agents to universal epistemological and ethical principles. (shrink)

BackgroundUniversal standards for bioethics, including the tenet of informed consent, should be upheld in the setting of humanitarian medical missions. The obstacles to obtaining informed consent in the global health setting have been thoroughly discussed in the literature, but no studies have investigated these issues from the patient’s perspective. We sought to understand the patient’s experience of the consent process during a four-week surgical mission to Haiti.MethodsAll patients selected for surgery during a mission to Hinche, Haiti, were invited to participate (...) in a survey assessing communication between them and their physicians, their understanding of the surgical procedure, and their desire for information during the consent process. Complete data were collected from 55 patients.ResultsUnderstanding a basic explanation of surgery and the associated risks was important to 98% of Haitian surgical patients, and 96% reported the desire for extensive risk communication. All patients felt that they sho... (shrink)

The authors of the articles in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy address a wide variety of topics, from definitions of disease to bioenhancement. Each author, however, draws out the importance of careful use of language. Over the years, philosophers of medicine and bioethicists have debated questions such as what qualifies something as a disease, whether disease language is evaluative, whether the term “person” encompasses more than just human beings, and what language ought to be used to (...) best convey complex information to patients. Among a great deal of disagreement on these topics, one thing emerges distinctly: that clarity and careful attention to language is paramount in medicine. The articles in this issue contribute to that conversation, presenting complex arguments and illustrative examples of why it is so important to use clear and well-defined terms in medicine, and of the reality-altering power that our language carries. (shrink)

New technologies can upset scientific workplaces’ established practices and social order. Scientists may therefore prefer preserving skilled manual work and the social status quo to revolutionary technological change. For example, digital imaging of rock-encased fossils is a valuable way for scientists to “see” a specimen without traditional rock removal. However, interviews in vertebrate paleontology laboratories reveal workers’ skepticism toward computed tomography imaging. Scientists criticize replacing physical fossils with digital images because, they say, images are more subjective than the “real thing.” (...) I argue that these scientists are also implicitly supporting rock-removal technicians, who are skilled and trusted experts whose work would be made obsolete by widespread implementation of CT scanning. Scientists’ view of CT as a sometimes useful tool rather than a universal new approach to accessing fossils preserves the laboratory community’s social structure. Specifically, by privileging “real” specimens and trusted specimen-processing technicians over images and imaging experts, scientists preserve the lab community’s division of labor and skill, hierarchy between scientists and technicians, and these groups’ identity and mutual trust. (shrink)

This paper defines and analyzes the processes of “othering” as they manifest in the practice and praxis of nursing education. Othering is bound up in the establishment and reinforcement of norms, and shores up power inequities that negatively impact faculty, students, and patients. While previous analyses have addressed othering in nursing more broadly, this paper adds a consideration of the multiple processes of othering that operate within the context of nursing education spaces. Cases from recent nursing education literature are interpreted (...) through the frameworks of exclusionary, inclusionary, and structural othering, and provide specific illustrations of the concepts described. The paper concludes by arguing for an application of norm‐critical pedagogical practice to counteract, disrupt and dismantle othering processes within nursing education. (shrink)

Background Over the last decade, the return of results (ROR) in precision medicine research (PMR) has become increasingly routine. Calls for individual rights to research results have extended the “duty to report” from clinically useful genetic information to traits and ancestry results. ROR has thus been reframed as inherently beneficial to research participants, without a needed focus on who benefits and how. This paper addresses this gap, particularly in the context of PMR aimed at increasing participant diversity, by providing investigator (...) and researcher perspectives on and questions about the assumed value of ROR in PMR.Methods Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of investigators and researchers across federally funded PMR studies in three national consortia, as well as observations of study activities, focused on how PM researchers conceptualize diversity and implement inclusive practices across research stages, including navigating ROR.Results Interviewees (1) validated the value of ROR as a benefit of PMR, while others (2) questioned the benefit of clinically actionable results to individuals in the absence of sufficient resources for translating findings into health care for diverse and disadvantaged populations; (3) expressed uncertainties in applying the presumed value of ROR as a benefit for non-clinical results; and (4) and debated when the promise of the value of ROR may undermine trust in PMR, and divert efforts to return value beyond ROR.Conclusions Conceptualizations of diversity and inclusion among PM researchers and investigators raise unique ethical questions where unexamined assumptions of the value of ROR inform study recruitment efforts to enroll minoritized and under-represented populations. A lack of consideration for resources and infrastructure necessary to translate ROR into actionable information may hinder trustworthy community-research relationships. Thus, we argue for a more intentional interrogation of ROR practices as an offer of benefit and for whom. (shrink)

The search for meaningful work has been of interest to researchers from a variety of disciplines for decades and seems to have grown even more recently. Much of the literature assumes that employees share a sense of what is meaningful in work and there isn’t much attention given to how and why meanings might differ. Researchers have not only called for more research studying demographic differences in definitions of meaning :77–90, 2014), but also more research utilizing mixed methods to study (...) psychological concepts like meaningful work Handbook of multimethod measurement in psychology, American Psychological Association, Washington, 2006). This study specifically examines differences across generational cohorts on their prioritization of sources of meaningful work through qualitative, in-depth interviews followed by a more generalizable, quantitative survey. Findings from the qualitative study show that generational cohorts define the meaning in their jobs differently, and they hold negative perceptions about the lack of desire for meaning in each of the other cohorts. Study 2 maps generational cohorts on the comprehensive model of meaningful work designed by Lips-Wiersma and Morris :491–511, 2009) to reveal that although there are some differences in prioritization of sources of meaningful work, all generational cohorts share similar desire to “develop and become themselves” when asked about their definitions of meaningful work. Implications and future research are discussed. (shrink)

PurposeThe ability to hear ourselves speak has been shown to play an important role in the development and maintenance of fluent and coherent speech. Despite this, little is known about the developing speech motor control system throughout childhood, in particular if and how vocal and articulatory control may differ throughout development. A scoping review was undertaken to identify and describe the full range of studies investigating responses to frequency altered auditory feedback in pediatric populations and their contributions to our understanding (...) of the development of auditory feedback control and sensorimotor learning in childhood and adolescence.MethodRelevant studies were identified through a comprehensive search strategy of six academic databases for studies that included real-time perturbation of frequency in auditory input, an analysis of immediate effects on speech, and participants aged 18 years or younger.ResultsTwenty-three articles met inclusion criteria. Across studies, there was a wide variety of designs, outcomes and measures used. Manipulations included fundamental frequency, formant frequency, frequency centroid of fricatives, and both fundamental and formant frequencies. Study designs included contrasts across childhood, between children and adults, and between typical, pediatric clinical and adult populations. Measures primarily explored acoustic properties of speech responses. Some studies additionally examined the association of these acoustic responses with clinical measures, and neural measures using electrophysiology and magnetic resonance imaging.ConclusionFindings indicated that children above 4 years generally compensated in the opposite direction of the manipulation, however, in several cases not as effectively as adults. Overall, results varied greatly due to the broad range of manipulations and designs used, making generalization challenging. Differences found between age groups in the features of the compensatory vocal responses, latency of responses, vocal variability and perceptual abilities, suggest that maturational changes may be occurring in the speech motor control system, affecting the extent to which auditory feedback is used to modify internal sensorimotor representations. Varied findings suggest vocal control develops prior to articulatory control. Future studies with multiple outcome measures, manipulations, and more expansive age ranges are needed to elucidate findings. (shrink)

Museum displays tend to black-box science, by displaying scientific facts without explanations of how those facts were made. A recent trend in exhibit design upends this omission by putting scientists, technicians, and volunteers to work in glass-walled laboratories, just a window away from visitors. How is science conceived, portrayed, and performed in glass-walled laboratories? Interviews and participant observation in several “fishbowl” paleontology laboratories reveal that glass walls alter lab workers’ typical tasks and behavior. However, despite glass-walled labs’ incomplete and edited (...) enactment of scientific work, displaying an active workplace valuably challenges visitors’ assumptions that science is passive and that museums are home only to facts and dead things. Thus, glass-walled labs do not destroy the black box that obscures scientific practice for nonscientists. Instead, they exemplify a glass box, a kind of black box that contains a performance of scientific work. Glass-boxing describes a common way in which museums present scientific practice—that is, by making it observable but incompletely so—by inviting the public to construct a rich understanding of science as human work. (shrink)

A research community must share assumptions, such as about accepted knowledge, appropriate research practices, and good evidence. However, community members also hold some divergent assumptions, which they—and we, as analysts of science—tend to overlook. Communities with different assumed values, knowledge, and goals must negotiate to achieve compromises that make their conflicting goals complementary. This negotiation guards against the extremes of each group’s desired outcomes, which, if achieved, would make other groups’ goals impossible. I argue that this diversity, as a form (...) of value pluralism, regularly influences scientific practice and can make scientific evidence and knowledge more useful and more reliable. As an example, I examine vertebrate paleontology laboratories, which house a variety of workers with different training and priorities, particularly about the meaning of time. Specifically, scientists want to study fully prepared fossils immediately, conservators want to preserve fossils for future use, and preparators mediate between the other groups’ conflicting goals. After all, one cannot study a fossil encased in rock, and one cannot remove that rock without removing information from that specimen. In response, these coworkers articulate their assumptions in everyday deliberations about how scientific evidence should be made and used. I argue that this exchange of assumptions is crucial for a research community to achieve mutually beneficial compromises that benefit current and future knowledge construction. (shrink)

Across the globe, our work and social lives are increasingly integrated with Information and Communication Technologies, yet massive disparities in the values, uses and benefits of ICT exist. New methods are needed to shed light on unique and integrative concepts of ICT across cultures. This paper explores the use of visual methods to facilitate critical engagement with ICT—defined as situational awareness, reflexive ICT practice and power and control over ICT. This definition of critical ICT engagement is informed by a cultural (...) identity lens, and intends to improve participatory methods in ICT for Development and community technology design and application. Our notion of critical ICT engagement is developed through an analysis of three case studies, each employing visual methods to shed light on concepts and practices of ICT cross-culturally. This paper makes three contributions to the ICT4D literature. First, it establishes a cultural identity lens to chart out cultural differences between researchers and participants, and to develop situational awareness of ICT in context. Second, it defines the conceptual domain of reflexive ICT practice and establishes the key role of researchers in facilitating it. Third, it argues for the need to support participants to develop capacity to engage critically with ICT as a means to influence social and organizational structures. This paper offers a way for researchers and practitioners to engage with cultural issues in community-based research and design using visual methodologies. (shrink)

In this paper, Caitlin Murphy Brust and Rebecca Taylor examine the responsibilities of college educators to resist conditions of epistemic injustice within their institutions. Pedagogy alone cannot bring about epistemic justice in higher education, for no individual epistemic agent can single-handedly transform their epistemic environment. The roots of such injustices are structural and thus require structural interventions. However, college educators do retain some agency to engage in epistemic resistance. Brust and Taylor argue that they can and should take steps (...) to foster just relations within the epistemic communities of their classrooms — calling for pedagogy that both recognizes the unjust features of the broader epistemic environment and responds to the unique forms of epistemic injustice that manifest in the classroom, with particular attention to seminar-style courses. (shrink)

The disciplines of ethics, science, and the law often conflict when it comes to determining the limits and boundaries of embryo research. Under current Australian law and regulations, and in various other jurisdictions, research conducted on the embryo in vitro is permitted up until day fourteen, after which, the embryo must be destroyed. Reproductive technology and associated research is rapidly advancing at a rate that contests current societal and ethical limits surrounding the treatment of the embryo. This has brought about (...) the question of the adequacy of the fourteen-day rule and whether it is necessary for it be reconsidered and reformed. This paper will highlight some of the tensions that exist in ethics, science, and the law in relation to the extension of the rule. It will be concluded that any move to extend the rule must be accompanied by close consultation with the public as the ultimate stakeholders in how the future of reproductive technology is created, constructed, and contested. (shrink)

The desire to maintain current beliefs can lead individuals to evaluate contrary evidence more critically than consistent evidence. We test whether priming individuals’ scientific reasoning...

Osteoporosis, a disease of bone loss associated with aging and estrogen loss, can be crippling but is ‘silent’ prior to bone fracture. Despite its disastrous health effects, high prevalence, and enormous associated health care costs, osteoporosis lacked a universally accepted definition until 1992. In the 1980s, the development of more accurate medical imaging technologies to measure bone density spurred the medical community’s need and demand for a common definition. The medical community tried, and failed, to resolve these differing definitions several (...) times at consensus conferences and through published articles. These experts finally accepted a standard definition at an international consensus conference convened by the World Health Organization in 1992. The construction of osteoporosis as a disease of quantifiable risk diagnosed by medical imaging machines reflects contemporary trends in medicine, including the quantification of disease, the risk factor model, medical disciplinary boundaries, and global standardization of medical knowledge. (shrink)

This multi-authored volume presents the findings and conclusions drawn from a large-scale funded project exploring elite schools within various global settings including those in Hong Kong, India,...

Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a School Inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today. Working as Chief Inspector, Holmes scorned mechanical obedience in the classroom and was appalled by the (...) inability of teachers to allow pupils to express themselves freely and imaginatively. His seminal publications positioned him at the vanguard of educational reforms and he became a notable contributor to the New Education Fellowship. His work, however, was not exclusively educational, and in later life Holmes published on religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, subsuming his educational viewpoint into a much wider ‘philosophy of life’. His spiritual leanings and call for an improved education system which would draw out the potential for development already within the child inspired successive generations of progressive educators. Combining biographical detail and key critical analysis, this book will contribute to current debates surrounding creativity and the curriculum, along with the need for alternative educational voices within the state system of regulation. (shrink)

Although his work and life have been well documented, John Dewey's role in the postwar peace movement has been generally overlooked. In America's Peace-Minded Educator, the authors take a close look at John Dewey's many undertakings on behalf of world peace.

How and why we should educate children has always been a central concern for governments around the world, and there have long been those who have opposed orthodoxy, challenged perception and called for a radicalization of youth. Progressive Education draws together Continental Romantics, Utopian dreamers, radical feminists, pioneering psychologists and social agitators to explore the history of the progressive education movement. Beginning with Jean Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise Emile and closing with the Critical Pedagogy movement, this book draws on the (...) latest scholarship to cover the key thinkers, movements and areas where schooling has been more than just a didactic pupil-teacher relationship. Blending narrative flair with thematic detail, this important work seeks to chart ideas which, whether accepted or not, continue to challenge and shape our understanding of education today. (shrink)

This book offers a re-evaluation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the prominent Italian Renaissance philosopher and prince of Concord. It argues that Pico is part of a history of attempted concordance between philosophy and theology, reason and faith. His contribution is a syncretist theological philosophy based on Christianity, Platonism, Aristotelianism and Jewish Kabbalism. After an introduction, Chapter 2 discusses Pico’s career, his power-relations and his work, Chapters 3 and 4 place his three pillars of Platonism, Aristotelianism and Kabbalism in their (...) historical context, examines shared histories, and introduces the scholars around Pico who contributed so much in each of these traditions (introducing, for example, Christian Kabbalism), including exploring Pico's complex relationship with Marsilio Ficino. Chapter 5 examines the problems of concordance within Pico’s cosmology and metaphysics, including the question of God and the role of the Intellect. Chapter 6 describes Pico’s ‘exceptionalist’ version of the mystical ascent as an individualized ascetic experience. Pico eschews the contemporary desire to use a renewed christian thinking or christian-classical metaphysics to change the world (towards a Golden Age or a 'second coming') to present a personal path to God, with no return to the world. (shrink)