Psychological studies have long demonstrated effects of expectations on judgment, whereby the provision of information, either implicitly or explicitly, prior to an experience or decision can exert a substantial influence on the observed behavior. This study extended these expectation effects to the domain of interactive economic decision-making. Prior to playing a commonly-used bargaining task, the Ultimatum Game, participants were primed to expect offers that would be either relatively fair or unfair. A third group played the Game without receiving any prior (...) information about expected offers. As predicted, these expectations had a large effect on decisions made by participants in the Ultimatum Game, with those with expectations of fairness rejecting significantly more unfair offers than those participants who expected low offers. Implications for models of fairness and equity are discussed. (shrink)

Interest in the neural processes underlying decision making has led to a flurry of recent research in the fields of both moral psychology and neuroeconomics. In this paper, we first review some important findings from both disciplines, and then argue that the two fields can mutually benefit each other. A more explicit recognition of the role of values and norms will likely lead to more accurate models of decision making for neuroeconomists, whereas the tasks, insights into neural mechanisms, and mathematical (...) modeling common in neuroeconomic research offer moral psychologists the opportunity to expand their field and move beyond methodological limitations that may have hindered the field’s progress to this point. We conclude by highlighting an exciting group of recent studies that illustrate the potential of research that embraces the integrated moral/neuroeconomic approach that we suggest here. (shrink)

Although the role of emotion in socioeconomic decision making is increasingly recognised, the impact of specific emotional disorders, such as anxiety disorders, on these decisions has been surprisingly neglected. Twenty anxious patients and twenty matched controls completed a commonly used socioeconomic task (the Ultimatum Game), in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Anxious patients accepted significantly more unfair offers than controls. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent models of anxiety, (...) in particular the importance of interpersonal factors and assertiveness in an integrated model of decision making. Finally, we were able to show that pharmacological serotonin used to treat anxious symptomatology tended to normalise decision making, further confirming and extending the role of serotonin in co-operation, prosocial behaviour, and social decision making. These results show, for the first time, a different pattern of socioeconomic behaviour in anxiety disordered patients, in addition to the known memory, attentional and emotional biases that are part of this pathological condition. (shrink)

The relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior at work has remained elusive. In fact, inconsistent results in observed magnitudes and direction led Hood et al. (The psychology of religion: An empirical approach, 1996 ) to describe the relationship between religiosity and ethics as “something of a roller coaster ride.” Weaver and Agle (Acad Manage Rev 27(1):77–97, 2002 ) utilizing social structural versions of symbolic interactionism theory reasoned that we should not expect religion to affect ethical outcomes for all religious individuals; (...) rather, such a relationship likely depends on specific religious attitudes including religious motivation orientation (intrinsic RMO vs. extrinsic RMO), perceived sacred qualities of work (job sanctification), and views of God (VOG, loving vs. punishing). We examined the effects of these three religious attitudes on participants’ judgments of 29 ethically questionable vignettes. Consistent with symbolic interactionism theory, intrinsic RMO and having a loving view of God were both negatively related to endorsing ethically questionable vignettes, whereas extrinsic RMO was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. Unexpectedly, job sanctification was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic RMO moderated this relationship such that sanctifying one’s job was related to ethical judgments only for those who were: (a) low in intrinsic RMO or (b) high in extrinsic RMO. We reasoned based on symbolic interactionism theory that intrinsically motivated participants, in contrast to extrinsically motivated participants, may have utilized their religious beliefs as a guiding framework in making ethical judgments. (shrink)

Alan Gross applies the principles of rhetoric to the interpretation of classical and contemporary scientific texts to show how they persuade both author and audience. This invigorating consideration of the ways in which scientists--from Copernicus to Darwin to Newton to James Watson--establish authority and convince one another and us of the truth they describe may very well lead to a remodeling of our understanding of science and its place in society.

This accessible book examines the philosophical foundations of Chaim Perelman's rhetorical theory. In addition to offering a brief biography, it explores Perelman's deep philosophical commitments and his concern for the ways in which the details of actual texts realize those commitments. The authors show that Perelman still reigns supreme when it comes to the elucidation of actual texts. His is a microanalysis of arguments, one that is endlessly suggestive of ways of analyzing texts at the level of the word and (...) phrase, the arrangement of parts, and the structure of arguments. Book jacket. (shrink)

Examines the nature of rhetorical theory and criticism, the rhetoric of science, and the impact of poststructuralism and postmodernism on contemporary accounts of rhetoric.

In this essay I wish to defend the intuition that God transcends time, of which he is the Creator. To do this, I will develop a new understanding of the term ‘timeless eternity’ as it applies to God. This assumes the inadequacy of the traditional notion of divine eternity, as it is found in Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas. Very briefly, the reasons for this inadequacy are as follows. God sustains the universe, which means in part that he is responsible for (...) the fundamental ontological status of things. Because the universe is an everchanging reality, things do change in their fundamental ontological status at different times – a change we must ascribe to God, and cannot ascribe to the objects themselves, since this has to do with their very existence. God himself, therefore, does different things at different times. This implies change in God. Whenever a change occurs, a duration occurs. Therefore, God is in time. But I do not think it is proper to say that God is in our time. God transcends time, and he is the Creator of our space-time. It is theologically more proper to say that we are in God's time, and I will adopt this language here. (shrink)

The ArgumentConflicts between scientists over credit for their discoveries are conflicts, not merely in, but of science because discovery is not a historical event, but a retrospective social judgment. There is no objective moment of discovery; rather, discovery is established by means of a hermeneutics, a way of reading scientific articles. The priority conflict between Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally over the discovery of the brain hormone, TRF, serves as an example. The work of Robert Merton, Thomas Kuhn, Augustine Brannigan, (...) and Grygory Markus shows that scientists read scientific articles by means of the application of a set of pragmatic rules that subtend the normative requirements of what counts as a scientific discovery. In other words, there is a hermeneutics of science, but it is internal to that form of life. Recategorization of priority conflicts has an impact on our view of scientific controversy generally. The impact is the revision of the boundary lines of scientific controversy and the further specification of its fine-structure. (shrink)

In this collection edited by Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer, scholars in communication, rhetoric and composition, and philosophy seek to “reread” Aristotle’s Rhetoric from a purely rhetorical perspective.

I am grateful to Dr William L. Craig for his reply to an earlier article of mine in this journal, on the relationship between God and time. Craig and I agree on most points with respect to the relationship between God and time. What then is there for us to disagree about? The point Craig argues for is, eternity is ‘coincident’ with our history, i.e. the duration of our space–time is simultaneous with some duration of eternity. But I already agree (...) to this point. In fact, I argued that if God sustains the universe, and if the universe and God are temporal, then God's time must be related to our time. We are in God's time, and God's time is our time, when by time we mean ‘ontological time’ or what I call duration, rather than Measured Time. If this is so, where is our disagreement? Our disagreement turns on this question: does history measure eternity? Does the ‘cosmic time’ of our universe give a proper measure to the same duration of God's time in eternity? I say it does not, while Craig says that it does. (shrink)

This paper examines Ian Hacking's arguments in favor of entity realism. It shows that his examples from science do not support his realism. Furthermore, his proposed criterion of experimental use is neither sufficient nor necessary for conferring a privileged status on his preferred unobservables. Nonetheless his insight is genuine; it may be most profitably seen as part of a more general effort to create a space for a new form of scientific and philosophical certainty, one that does not require foundations.

Richard Swinburne is one of the most distinguished philosophers of religion of our day. In this volume, many notable philosophers in Britain and america unite to honour him and to discuss various topics to which he has contributed significantly. These include general topics in the philosophy of religion such as revelation, and faith and reason, and the specifically Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and atonement. In the spirit of the movement which Richard Swinburned has spearheaded, the essays in (...) this collection use analytic philosophical methods to examine doctrines in particular religious traditions, expanding upon traditional discussions of theism. As such, this volume represents a field-report on the interaction of philosophy and Christian thought in the English-speaking world: a fitting tribute to the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. Richard Swinburne has himself contributed and individual and personal Intellectural Autobiography.Contributors: William P. Alston, David Brown, Richard M. Gale, Rom Harré, Brian Hebblethwaite, John Hick, Peter van Inwagen, J. R. Lucas, David McNaughton, Philip L. Quinn, Eleonore Stump, William J. Wainwright, C. J. F. Williams. (shrink)

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa (...) Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life? (shrink)

In debate with John Caiazza, we clarify the meaning of the terms technology and secular, arguing that technology is not really secular. Only when combined with antireligious secularism do we get the modern techno‐secular worldview. Science is not secular in the strong sense, nor does its practice automatically lead to the techno‐secular. As a complete worldview, techno‐secularism is antireligious, but it also is dehumanizing and destructive of our environment. Religion may provide a transcendent source for a humanizing morality that might (...) move technology in a more ecofriendly, humane direction. The alternative is not a happy one for our posthuman technological future. (shrink)

Intended for logicians and mathematicians, this text is based on Dr. Hamilton's lectures to third and fourth year undergraduates in mathematics at the ...

Gallup surveys consistently show that nine in 10 Americans express a belief in God (Nash, Business, religion, and spirituality: A new synthesis, 2003 ), while more than 45 % claim to have some awareness of God on the job (Nash and McLellan, Church on Sunday, Work on Monday: The Challenges of Fusing Christian Values with Business Life, 2001 ). Recently, Lynn et al. (Journal of Business Ethics 85:227–243, 2009 ) argued that the ability to integrate the specific beliefs and practices (...) of one’s faith with the work one does represent an important although neglected area of research. As such, they developed and demonstrated convergent validity for the faith at work scale, designed to measure the extent to which individuals believe they are able to integrate their Judaeo-Christian beliefs and practices and their work. In a subsequent study, Lynn et al. (Human Relations 64:675–701, 2010 ) demonstrated that the faith at work scale was related to faith maturity, church attendance, age, and denominational strictness, and negatively associated with organizational size. No research, however, has examined the possible positive benefits of integrating faith and work. I therefore developed and tested hypotheses concerning the relationship between the faith at work scale and seven important life and work outcomes (satisfaction with life, intent to leave one’s job, self-rated job performance, job satisfaction, and three forms of organizational commitment). In all, four of seven hypotheses were confirmed. (shrink)

In a detailed and spirited critique, Professor James M. Humber has found my defence of the ontological argument unconvincing. Humber's case rests upon his claim that my ‘error’ is due to my ‘having accepted an incorrect definition of “physically necessary being” … ’. Now I do indeed claim that God must be conceived as a factuall necessary being, i.e. as eternally independent. I take the notion of God's aseity or eternal independence to be relatively straightforward and uncontroversial; it is accepted (...) as an essential component of the concept God by many philosophers who also insist that there is no acceptable form of demonstrative theism. Thus, it is widely held that ‘God is a factually necessary being’ does not imply ‘God is a logically necessary being’; that God is eternally independent does not imply that he exists in all possible worlds. But it is precisely this view that I have argued is incorrect. While I concur that there is an intelligible concept of God as factually necessary, I deny that the existence of such a being is logically contingent, a mere matter of empirical fact. Indeed, a rigorous inspection of the concept of an eternally independent being reveals that whether that concept is instantiated, i.e. whether there exists a being exemplifying that concept, is knowable a priori . My claim is in fact stronger than this. I argue that the existence of an eternal, independent, omniscient and omnipotent being is demonstrable by conceptual analysis. It is Humber's contention that my alleged demonstration of God's existence crumbles upon the discovery of the unacceptability of my definition of ‘factually necessary being’. Let us see. (shrink)

The advent of new forestry in the United States represents a traumatic shift in the philosophy of national forestry praxis, a broadening of values to include aesthetics and sustainability of natural ecological process. The ethics of traditional forestry are shown to be 'Stoic utilitarian' and positivist, while the ethics of new forestry adhere closely to the 'land ethic' of Aldo Leopold. Aesthetics in traditional forestry are shown to be modernist, and to have developed from, and in opposition to a Romantic (...) aesthetic of the late nineteenth century. This transition is traced from the first U.S. landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., to the first U.S.-born forester, Gifford Pinchot. The language and precepts of new forestry are shown to parallel those of postmodernism, and the possibility of a broadened aesthetics of forestry, developed through postmodernist criticism, is outlined. The language of gardening is used as a model of forestry praxis, with traditional forestry adhering to the principles of vegetable gardening, while new forestry offers an opportunity to flesh out an entire spectrum of gardening genres. (shrink)

A distinct group of receptors including DCC, UNC5, RET and Ptc1 is known to function in ligand‐dependent neuronal growth and differentiation or axon guidance. Acting as “dependence receptors”, they may also regulate neuronal cell survival by inducing apoptosis in the absence of cognate ligand. Receptor‐initiated apoptosis requires proteolytic (caspase) cleavage and exposure of a pro‐apoptotic region in the cytoplasmic domains of the receptors. In contrast, classical apoptosis induced by growth factor or cytokine deprivation involves loss of survival signaling without receptor (...) cleavage. DCC, UNC5, RET and Ptc1 are downregulated or mutated in diverse cancers, and show properties characteristic of tumor suppressors, consistent with their ability to promote neuronal cell death. Dysfunctional dependence receptors have been linked to the loss of specific neurons in certain inherited and neurodegenerative diseases. Dependence receptor‐initiated apoptosis represents a novel paradigm for the controlled removal of specific cells during neural development and elimination of malignant cells that have strayed beyond regions of ligand availability. BioEssays 26:656–664, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Apoptosis‐inducing factor (AIF) is expelled from mitochondria after some apoptotic stimuli and translocates to the nucleus, which may contribute to DNA and nuclear fragmentation in some non‐physiological mammalian cell deaths. Conversely, the requirement for mitochondrial AIF in oxidative phosphorylation and energy generation provides a plausible explanation for the embryonic lethality or neurodegeneration that has been found in different AIF‐deficient mouse models. These findings may help illuminate the ability of mitochondrial AIF to suppress cytoplasmic stress granule formation and to promote the (...) tumorigenic growth of cancer cells. AIF is ideally located in the mitochondrion to perform a vital normal function in energy production. Once it translocates to the nucleus, however, the cell might die either of energy failure or nuclear fragmentation (or both). We propose that the main function of AIF is to support energy production in both normal and transformed cell physiology, whereas nuclear‐translocated AIF might contribute to stress‐induced or pathological cell death in certain scenarios. BioEssays 28: 834–843, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A reading of a sample of taxonomical papers leads to the conclusion that new species identification is both taxonomically plausible and philosophically incoherent. As a result, taxonomy becomes a science that apparently violates a necessary condition of its rationality. It is this apparent violation that is the focus of the philosophical debate, a debate whose goal for taxonomy is theoretical coherence at a global level. In this paper, I assess the appropriateness of this goal.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.4 (2001) 275-291 [Access article in PDF] The Conceptual Unity of Aristotle's Rhetoric 1 - [PDF] Alan G. Gross and Marcelo Dascal The standard view--that the Rhetoric lacks conceptual unity--has strong and prestigious support, stretching over most of the century. To David Ross in 1923 the unity of the Rhetoric was practical, not theoretical; to misunderstand this fact was to see this work, mistakenly, as (...) "a curious jumble of literary criticism with second-rate logic, ethics, and politics, and jurisprudence, mixed with the cunning of one who knows well how the weaknesses of the human heart are to be played upon" (285). So unaltered has been this view over the years that, in 1995, Jonathan Barnes could turn Ross's metaphor into an argument concerning the Rhetoric's lack of intellectual focus: it presents, not one art, but fragments of three arts, and of three arts that exist quite independently of rhetoric. The sections on logic have the closest connections with dialectic and in part overlap with what Aristotle says in the Topics; the sections on the emotions are linked to the ethical and psychological writings; Book III... shares its subject matter with the Poetics. Rhetoric... is a magpie, thieving a piece of one art and a piece of another, and then botching a nest of its own. (Companion 263-64) To Ross and Barnes, while logos, êthos, and pathos are essential to rhetorical invention, and style and arrangement are essential to rhetorical performance, they have nothing conceptually in common. Insofar as disciplinary identity depends on such conceptual unity, rhetorical studies lack such identity.William Grimaldi offers an alternate view; beneath Ross's jumble, he sees as the work's fundamental unifying principle, the enthymeme, which serves both as a form of argument and as a source for arguments about fact, character, and emotion. On this view, the factual content of a rhetorical argument is structured logically, a structure that is then molded linguistically [End Page 275] by means of êthos and pathos to suit the requirements of the particular case: "The content of... statements, the manner in which propositions will be expressed, the language, and images in casting the statements will be determined by the topical examination of the ethos and pathos of [a] particular speaker-auditor's situation" (Commentary I, 335n). Grimaldi convinced no one that this was the case; as Jakob Wisse has pointed out, Grimaldi's interpretation takes unacceptable hermeneutic liberties (27-28); nothing in the Rhetoric supports his view of the enthymeme as the central organizing principle of the work.Although we agree that Grimaldi was mistaken, we would like to argue that he was correct in seeing inferential processes as the key to the Rhetoric's conceptual unity. We would like to claim, however, that, contrary to Grimaldi's view, each of the three pisteis is inference-based, as is the canon of style. Moreover, the canon of arrangement, while not inference-based for Aristotle, plays a vital role in strengthening the patterns of inference that speakers prefer; in addition, it can be inference-based, as Perleman and Olbrechts-Tyteca have shown. So much conceptual unity seems to us consistent with Aristotle's definition of rhetoric; if such unity exists, it would mean that Aristotle was correct in calling rhetoric a tekhnê, which was, like dialectic or medicine, a unified body of knowledge (1.1.2-1354a1-14)We are not going to argue that the text as we have it is conceptually unified; obviously, no text that contains inconsistent views and serious ambiguities can be unified and there is little doubt that the Rhetoric contains such inconsistencies and ambiguities. With the aid of current scholarship, however, we intend to construct from the text a consistent theory of persuasion with inference as its base. In our construction, we will add nothing to Aristotle. But we will omit some passages--especially, a crucial one in which he seems clearly to spurn emotional and ethical means of persuasion (1.1.3-1354a16-45). We will also prefer some interpretations--especially an... (shrink)

The practice of clinical medicine is inextricably linked with the need for moral values and ethical principles. The study of medical ethics is, therefore, rightly assuming an increasingly significant place in undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses and in allied health curricula. Making Sense of Medical Ethics offers a no-nonsense introduction to the principles of medical ethics, as applied to the everyday care of patients, the development of novel therapies and the undertaking of pioneering basic medical research. Written from a practical (...) rather than a philosophical perspective, the authors call upon their extensive experience of clinical practice, research and teaching to illustrate how ethical principles can be applied in different "real-life" situations. Making Sense of Medical Ethics encourages readers to understand the principles of medical ethics as they apply to clinical practice; explore and evaluate common misconceptions; consider the ethics underlying any medical decision; and as a result, to realize that a good appreciation of medical ethics will help them to practice more effectively in the future. (shrink)

ArgumentA growing cross-disciplinary literature has acknowledged the importance of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of scientific texts. I contend that the proper understanding of these texts must flow from a hermeneutic model that takes verbal-visual interaction seriously, one that is firmly grounded in cognitive constraints and affordances. The model I propose has two modules, one for perception, derived from Gestalt psychology, the other for cognition, derived from Peirce's semiotics. I apply this model to an important but largely neglected (...) text in the history of nineteenth-century science, Charles Lyell'sThe Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, and to two accounts by well-respected historians of science, both of the same key discovery in quantum physics. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate the advisability of incorporating the exegetical practices my model entails into the everyday practices of historians of science. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} I define and refine Habermas’s notion of systematically distorted communication by means of focused, structured comparison among three of its instances. Next, I show that its critique is possible within the confines of his theory by recourse to (...) a minimalist concept of rationality and a version of the truth that avoids the unwelcome metaphysical baggage of truth with a capital T. For critique to be complete, however, it must be supplemented by the full range of rhetorical proofs. Even so, there are limits to the power of critique. In the end, only social and political action can alter oppressive institutional arrangements. (shrink)

Explanations of the cause of the Challenger disaster by the Presidential Commission and by communication scholars are flawed. These explanations are characterized by a common tendency to emphasize the technical and procedural aspects of organizational life at the expense of the cognitive and ethical. Rightly construed, the Challenger disaster illustrates both the need for a revived art of rhetoric and the importance of putting in place the political and social conditions that make this art efficacious in furthering cognitive understanding and (...) ethical conduct. (shrink)