According to legal tradition, the ideal judge is entirely dispassionate. Affective science calls into question the legitimacy of this ideal; further, it suggests that no judge could ever meet this standard, even if it were the correct one. What judges can and should do is to learn to effectively manage—rather than eliminate—emotion. Specifically, an emotion regulation perspective suggests that judicial emotion is best managed by cognitive reappraisal and, often, disclosure; behavioral suppression should be used sparingly; and suppression of emotional experience (...) is rarely helpful. We argue that the dispassionate-judge ideal presents a barrier to achieving the flexibility necessary for adaptive judicial emotion regulation. We suggest a new ideal, that of the emotionally well-regulated judge, and propose several directions for future research to strengthen ties between law and psychology, with particular attention to the study of emotion. (shrink)

Law and emotion has evolved into a vibrant and diverse field, drawing in legal scholars and interdisciplinary partners from across the social sciences, hard sciences, and humanities. This introduction to the special section on law and emotion traces the history and theoretical underpinnings of this movement and situates the special section within it. The insights of emotion research can help legal scholars and practitioners to better calibrate law to human realities and to foster a desired set of emotional experiences among (...) law’s subjects. Law, in turn, offers to researchers a forum within which to explore emotion in a dynamic and influential real-world setting. The introduction ends with a call to disciplined interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

If the density matrix is treated as an objective description of individual systems, it may become possible to attribute the same objective significance to statistical mechanical properties, such as entropy or temperature, as to properties such as mass or energy. It is shown that the de Broglie--Bohm interpretation of quantum theory can be consistently applied to density matrices as a description of individual systems. The resultant trajectories are examined for the case of the delayed choice interferometer, for which Bell [Int. (...) J. Quantum chem. 155--159, (1980)] appears to suggest that such an interpretation is not possible. Bell’s argument is shown to be based upon a different understanding of the density matrix to that proposed here. (shrink)

Quantum state teleportation has focused attention on the role of quantum information. Here we examine quantum teleportation through the Bohm interpretation. This interpretation introduced the notion of active information and we show that it is this information that is exchanged during teleportation. We discuss the relation between our notion of active information and the notion of quantum information introduced by Schumacher.

It has often been thought that our knowledge of ourselves is _different_ from, perhaps in some sense _better_ than, our knowledge of things other than ourselves. Indeed, there is a thriving research area in epistemology dedicated to seeking an account of self-knowledge that would articulate and explain its difference from, and superiority over, other knowledge. Such an account would thus illuminate the descriptive and normative difference between self-knowledge and other knowledge.¹ At the same time, self- knowledge has also encountered its (...) share of skeptics – philosophers who refuse to accord it any descriptive, let alone normative, distinction. In this paper, we argue that there is at least one _species_ of self-knowledge that is different from, and better than, other knowledge. It is a specific kind of knowledge of one’s concurrent phenomenal experiences. Call knowledge of one’s own phenomenal experiences _phenomenal knowledge_. Our claim is that some (though not all) phenomenal knowledge is different from, and better than, non-phenomenal knowledge. In other. (shrink)

Are principles of information processing necessary to demonstrate the consistency of statistical mechanics? Does the physical implementation of a computational operation have a fundamental thermodynamic cost, purely by virtue of its logical properties? These two questions lie at the centre of a large body of literature concerned with the Szilard engine (a variant of the Maxwell's demon thought experiment), Landauer's principle (supposed to embody the fundamental principle of the thermodynamics of computation) and possible connections between the two. A variety of (...) attempts to answer these questions have illustrated many open questions in the foundations of statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Few scholars have investigated the considerations of over-empowered teams from a non-consequential ethics approach. Leveraging a virtue-based ethics lens of team empowerment, we provide a framework of team ethical orientation and over-empowerment using highly influential market research teams as a basis for our analysis. The purpose of this research is to contrast how teams founded on virtue-based ethics can attenuate ethical dilemmas and negative organizational outcomes from team over-empowerment. We provide a framework of four conditions that include Sophisticated, Suppressed, Contagion, (...) and Impeded to discuss alignment between team ethical orientation and team empowerment. Through this framework, we aim to further our understanding of empowered team behavior between action that is virtuous, moral, and ethical and activity that threatens organizational values and goals. (shrink)

Understanding Computers and Cognition presents an important and controversial new approach to understanding what computers do and how their functioning is related to human language, thought, and action. While it is a book about computers, Understanding Computers and Cognition goes beyond the specific issues of what computers can or can't do. It is a broad-ranging discussion exploring the background of understanding in which the discourse about computers and technology takes place. Understanding Computers and Cognition is written for a wide audience, (...) not just those professionals involved in computer design or artificial intelligence. It represents an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about what it means to be a machine, and what it means to be human. Book jacket. (shrink)

The phrase "the meaning of life" for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited Very Short Introduction, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer. Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it is only (...) in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, "New Age softheadedness," or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life. Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind. (shrink)

By reflecting on a variety of cartoon representations of teachers and their work, this paper outlines a semiotic approach to undertaking research on teachers' professional cultures.

Little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in lesser developed countries. In order to address this knowledge gap, we used Chile as a test case and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of CSR initiatives. We also did an Internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data. We discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of CSR in developed countries, there are distinct differences (...) as well. In particular, we found that different sectors drive CSR in Chile. In contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for CSR efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key actors in Chile. MNCs imported their CSR beliefs, skills, and processes into Chile. Their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle. Once large domestic firms felt pressured by their MNC rivals, they too adopted CSR initiatives. The ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of CSR in Chile. Using network theory as a lens, we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether CSR efforts will be authentic. Based on these contentions, we suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

America is driven by vengeance in Terry Aladjem's provocative account – a reactive, public anger that is a threat to democratic justice itself. From the return of the death penalty to the wars on terror and in Iraq, Americans demand retribution and moral certainty; they assert the 'rights of victims' and make pronouncements against 'evil'. Yet for Aladjem this dangerously authoritarian turn has its origins in the tradition of liberal justice itself – in theories of punishment that justify inflicting (...) pain and in the punitive practices that result. Exploring vengeance as the defining problem of our time, Aladjem returns to the theories of Locke, Hegel and Mill. He engages the ancient Greeks, Nietzsche, Paine and Foucault to challenge liberal assumptions about punishment. He interrogates American law, capital punishment and images of justice in the media. He envisions a democratic justice that is better able to contain its vengeance. (shrink)

Dynamical collapse models embody the idea of a physical collapse of the wave function in a mathematically well-defined way. They involve modifications to the standard rules of quantum theory in order to describe collapse as a physical process. This appears to introduce a time reversal asymmetry into the dynamics since the state at any given time depends on collapses in the past but not in the future. Here we challenge this conclusion by demonstrating that, subject to specified model constraints, collapse (...) models can be given a structurally time symmetric formulation in which the collapse events are the primitive objects of the theory. Three different examples of time asymmetries associated with collapse models are then examined and in each case it is shown that the same dynamical rule determining the collapse events works in both the forward and backward in time directions. Any physically observed time asymmetries that arise in such models are due to the asymmetric imposition of initial or final time boundary conditions, rather than from an inherent asymmetry in the dynamical law. This is the standard explanation of time asymmetric behaviour resulting from time symmetric laws. (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the observation that neoliberalism is a concept that is ‘oft-invoked but ill-defined’. It provides a taxonomy of uses of the term neoliberalism to include: an all-purpose denunciatory category; ‘the way things are’; an institutional framework characterizing particular forms of national capitalism, most notably the Anglo-American ones; a dominant ideology of global capitalism; a form of governmentality and hegemony; and a variant within the broad framework of liberalism as both theory and policy discourse. It (...) is argued that this sprawling set of definitions are not mutually compatible, and that uses of the term need to be dramatically narrowed from its current association with anything and everything that a particular author may find objectionable. In particular, it is argued that the uses of the term by Michel Foucault in his 1978–9 lectures, found in The Birth of Biopolitics, are not particularly compatible with its more recent status as a variant of dominant ideology or hegemony theories. It instead proposes understanding neoliberalism in terms of historical institutionalism, with Foucault’s account of historical change complementing Max Weber’s work identifying the distinctive economic sociology of national capitalisms. (shrink)

The analysis of legal communication has almost exclusively been the domain of discourse analysts focusing on the ways that the linguistic system is used to realise legal meanings. Multimodal discourse analysis, where visual forms in combination with traditional linguistic expressions co-occur, is now also an area of expanding interest. Taking a Systemic Functional Linguistics “social semiotic” perspective, this paper applies and critiques an analytical framework that has been used for examining intersemiotic complementarity in various types of page-based multimodal texts by (...) analysing a cartoon satirizing the demands that verdict deliberations can make on a citizen jury seated in a Crown Court. While the multimodal analysis reveals that a straightforward application of this analytical framework is useful in and of itself, it is argued that the framework needs to be extended to also account for further and more complex layers of represented meaning. The analysis is also situated in the wider legal social semiotic, and draws attention to international debates on the efficacy of the jury system itself. (shrink)

Tesón's “humanitarian rationales” for the war in Iraq strain the traditional understanding of humanitarian intervention: The first, that the war was fought to overthrow a tyrant. The second, that it was a defense strategy establishing democratic regimes peacefully, but by force if necessary.

In this book Macdonald elaborates a democratic framework based on the new theoretical concepts of 'public power', 'stakeholder communities' and 'non-electoral representation', and illustrates the practical implications of these proposals for projects of global institutional reform.

It is a mixed pleasure to see F. Matthias Alexander acknowledged in the fall 2007 issue of Education and Culture ("Dewey, women, and weirdoes: Or, the potential rewards for scholars who dialog across difference," 23[2], 27-62). As a professional descendant of Alexander who has been teaching the Alexander Technique (AT) for 30 years, I am glad to see Cunningham et al. including him in the list of positive influences in John Dewey's life. However, I believe Cunningham's contribution to this article, (...) "Shared explorations of body-mind: The reciprocal influences of Dewey and F. M. Alexander," falls short in its acknowledgement of Alexander and in one important aspect is incorrect. In this response, I hope to set the .. (shrink)

_Wild/lives_ draws on myth, popular culture and analytical psychology to trace the machinations of 'trickster' in contemporary film and television. This archetypal energy traditionally gravitates toward liminal spaces – physical locations and shifting states of mind. By focusing on productions set in remote or isolated spaces, Terrie Waddell explores how key trickster-infused sites of transition reflect the psychological fragility of their willing and unwilling occupants. In differing ways, the selected texts – _Deadwood, Grizzly Man, Lost, Solaris, The Biggest Loser, Amores (...) Perros and Repulsion_ – all play with inner and outer marginality. As this study demonstrates, the dramatic potential of transition is not always geared toward resolution. Prolonging the anxiety of change is an increasingly popular option. Trickster moves within this wildness and instability to agitate a form of dialogue between conscious and unconscious processes. Waddell's imaginative interpretation of screen material and her original positioning of trickster will inspire students of media, cinema, gender and Jungian studies, as well as academics with an interest in the application of Post-Jungian ideas to screen culture. (shrink)

The works of Emmanuel Levinas, a survivor of the Nazi horror, are striking in the constancy of their thought and the strength of their appeal. We are not condemned to evil and hatred; rather, we are called to be-for-each-other. For You Alone explores the relational and religious quality of Levinas' work. Our lives are always twofold rather than "one and the same." A relational life is dependent on encounters that are revelatory. Revelation means that life is no mere sameness but (...) is tied to the revelation of the other, to you. Here is transcendence par excellence. Here is what the name of God signifies, the relational and ethical bond that takes us outside ourselves toward the other in our midst. What could be more natural, more human, or more divine than to speak of the relational quality of life? An answerable life means that we are asked after, called, required. "Here I am under your gaze," Levinas writes, "obliged to you, your servant. In the name of God.". (shrink)

This is a fascinating study of the a-temporal nature of evil in the West. The international authors who have contributed to this text not only concentrate on political, social and legally sanctioned cruelty from the past and present, but also explore the nature of moral transgression in contemporary art, media and literature. Although many forms and practices of what might be called evil' are analysed, all are bound by violence and/or the sexually perverse.

The Phenomenology of Spirit is both one of Hegel's most widely read books and one of his most obscure. The book is the most detailed commentary on Hegel's work available. It develops an independent philosophical account of the general theory of knowledge, culture, and history presented in the Phenomenology. In a clear and straightforward style, Terry Pinkard reconstructs Hegel's theoretical philosophy and shows its connection to ethical and political theory. He sets the work in a historical context and shows (...) the contemporary relevance of Hegel's thought for European and Anglo-American philosophers. The principal audience for the book is teachers and students of philosophy, but the great interest in Hegel's work and the clarity of Pinkard's exposition ensure that historians of ideas, political scientists, and literary theorists will also read it. (shrink)

It is suggested that a connection between neurogenesis and brain part size is unsurprising. It is argued that neurogenesis cannot, however, be the only factor contributing to brain size. Highly individual post-natal experience radically shapes individual brains, leading to dramatic increases in brain size. The role of comparatively coarse statistical techniques in addressing these subtle biological issues is questioned.

"Making Sense of Nonsense: Trivial Remarks on the Nature of Language" is an inquiry into the nature and significance of nonsense for philosophers and other human beings. Philosophers have been accused of indulging in nonsense. Wittgenstein complains that philosophers take language on holiday. If an utterance is nonsense in virtue of being on holiday, we might expect meaningful utterances to be meaningful in virtue of their being at work, at home. When we look at language at home, we find that, (...) despite the tribute philosophers of language ordinarily pay to the a priori, meaning is a most contingent and subjective family of phenomena. On the rough ground of everyday discourse, we find language stamped with the desires and agendas of certain groups of mammals. Language shows us its rough edges when we clear away the unarticulated presuppositions smuggled in by dominant philosophical methodology. There are a number of strategies for attaining an unclouded vantage point on language. One is to imagine oneself into the position of someone to whom our language and way of life is unfamiliar. Another is to actually occupy a point of view from which the language and way of life we take for granted begins to seem strange. ;The theory of meaning that emerges from the kind of attention to language here described can be stated thus: meaning is grounded in concernful engagement with the world. Or, to put it another way: we talk about what we care about. As a result, language can serve as a deep reserve of human history. What it tells us about ourselves is not always pleasant. As the language reveals the concerns and agendas of speakers, it reveals the imbalances and abuses of power among those speakers. Insofar as language constructs the worlds we inhabit, the injustices and prejudices we find in language are mirror images of reality as we know it. The good news is the liberatory potential of our realization of the extent to which meaning, and hence reality, are "man-made." This potential is realized in the work of many radical lesbian feminist philosophers. (shrink)

In three elegant and important essays, originally published as pamphlets by Field Day Theatre Company, Terry Eagleton analyzes nationalism, identifying the radical contradictions that necessarily beset it; Fredric Jameson pursues the contradiction between the limited experience of the individual and the dispersed conditions that govern it; and Edward Said explores the work of Yeats as an exemplary and early instance of the process of decolonization. The introduction is by Seamus Deane. Paper edition (1863-1), $9.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, (...) Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence (...) Horgan and Matjaz Potrc argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. (shrink)