In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines how (...) philosophers such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world. (shrink)

Indexicality, the ability of language to evoke the context in which it usually occurs, is a concept commonly drawn upon in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. This article applies the framework of orders of indexicality to political discourse about a controversial topic in Pittsburgh, United States, the construction of bike lanes. A concordance analysis of the term bike lanes in news media, blogs and online news comments helps to explain the variation in the indexical meanings of bike lanes between those who (...) oppose and those who support bike lanes. We argue that the orders of indexicality approach helps explain how groups with different interests can reinforce or challenge the possible discursive associations of a loaded political term. (shrink)

Establishing territorial control was one of the primary activities of colonial presence on Timor from the late nineteenth century. In Portuguese Timor as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the colonial s...

People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence. The current study examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence, and determining the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions. Participants reported their moral convictions about a variety of sociopolitical issues prior to undergoing functional (...) MRI scanning. During scanning, they were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of violent protests that were ostensibly congruent or incongruent with their views about sociopolitical issues. Complementary univariate and multivariate analytical strategies comparing neural responses to congruent and incongruent violence identified neural mechanisms implicated in processing salience and in the encoding of subjective value. As predicted, neuro-hemodynamic response was modulated parametrically by individuals’ beliefs about the appropriateness of congruent relative to incongruent sociopolitical violence in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and by moral conviction in ventral striatum. Overall moral conviction was predicted by neural response to congruent relative to incongruent violence in amygdala. Together, these findings indicate that moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm. (shrink)

Health policy sometimes hinges on claims about the responsibility borne by people or corporations for health outcomes. We don't want these claims to be arbitrary, so we construe them as discoveries of plain fact. But we're mistaken. They are interwoven with our values and social institutions. Recognizing that they are allows us to debate them more honestly and thoroughly.

The purpose of this article is to assess Rosabeth Moss Kanter's work on tokenism in light of more than a decade of research and discussion. While Kanter argued that performance pressures, social isolation, and role encapsulation were the consequences of disproportionate numbers of women and men in a workplace, a review of empirical data concludes that these outcomes occur only for token women in gender-inappropriate occupations. Furthermore, Kanter's emphasis on number balancing as a social-change strategy failed to anticipate backlash from (...) dominants. Blalock's theory of intrusiveness suggests that surges in the number of lower-status members threaten dominants, thereby increasing gender discrimination in the forms of sexual harassment, wage inequities, and limited opportunities for promotion. Although Kanter's analysis of the individual consequences of tokenism was compelling to researchers and organizational change agents, continued reliance on numbers as the theoretical cause of, and as the solution to, gender discrimination in the workplace neglects the complexities of gender integration. (shrink)

In this article the authors examine the ways in which the definition of work as paid employment has affected women's health research, the knowledge and understanding of the relationships between women's work and health, and health and social policies. The authors argue for research and public policy based on an expanded definition of women's work, a redefinition that goes beyond employment to reflect the multiple contexts and dimensions of women's work as well as the diversity and differences among women.

From the perspective of African American women firefighters, the authors examine the social interactions that make them excluded “outsiders within” their firehouses and different from not only dominant white men but also other subordinated groups of Black men and white women firefighters. Drawing on extensive survey data from 24 Black women career firefighters nationwide and detailed interviews with 22 of these, the authors found persistent and pervasive patterns of subordination through the exclusion of Black women, reflected in insufficient instruction, coworker (...) hostility, silence, close supervision, lack of support, and stereotyping. Perceived differences of Black women from white and Black men as well as white women created strained relations, especially when Black men and white women gained some acceptance by virtue of their gender and race, respectively, and thus reportedly distanced themselves from Black women. The experiences of African American women firefighters highlight the omnirelevance and intertwining of race and gender. (shrink)

On e recent change in the Society of Professional journalists Code of Ethics emphasizes that journalists should consider minimizing harm to society. This emphnsis follows more than a decade of thinking by educators who have called for teaching journalism students moral philosophy and moral reasoning decision making models-models that generally examine potential harm that surrounds newsroom decisions. This study, a quasi-experiment, examines pretest and posttest results of 210 students in 9 sections of n mass media ethics class taught over 6 (...) different semesters. After taking the course, which emphasized moral reasoning, students were more likely to make decisions that minimized harm, while gaining certainty in their answers. Diflerences between news-editorial and public relntions students are noted. Essays written by the students support the finding that education in moral reasoning can be effective in the development ofstudent journalists and their sense ofresponsibility to society. (shrink)

In this article, the authors examine how the debate over women's executions during the nineteenth and early twentieth century funneled and in various ways processed the contrary demands of gender and capital justice. They show how encounters with capital punishment both reflected and reinforced dominant interpretations of womanhood and as such contributed to the intricate web of normative strictures that affected all women at the time. At the same time, however, the often heated debates that accompanied such cases pried open (...) some of the contradictions inherent in the dominant interpretations and, as a result, came to challenge the boundaries that separated not only women from men but also women from each other. Rather than viewing gender as a unidirectional influence on capital punishment, the authors argue that gender is best approached as an evolving social category that gets reconstructed, modified, and transformed whenever it is implicated in social practices and public debates. (shrink)

This study examined the historical perspectives of eleven emergent bilingual and bilingual students at two middle schools. Data analysis revealed that the participants’ perspectives on U.S. history reflected three schematic narrative templates focused on nation-building, equality, and discrimination. The participants primarily employed the (in)equality narratives when discussing aspects of U.S. history directly linked to their identities. The findings add to the extant research on student historical perspectives and use of schematic narrative templates. The findings further suggest that engaging (emergent) bilingual (...) students in examining multiple perspectives and conducting critical history inquiry can contribute to notions of culturally and linguistically responsive social studies instruction. (shrink)

A common strategy in philosophical debate is to limit the alternative positions available in order to increase the appeal of one's own position. Unfortunately, this has too often been true in debates regarding the justification of religious faith. Both defenders and critics of religious faith have tried to rule out agnosticism as a viable alternative in order to support their own arguments for or against religious faith. Unfortunately, this strategy only encourages what is already the problematic polarization of religious discourse. (...) My goal in writing this paper is to lessen this polarization by making space for agnosticism between atheism and religious faith. I do this by critiquing two arguments against .. (shrink)

The principal critical objective of this dissertation is to examine three contemporary theories about the mind-body problem: dualism, anomalous monism, and functionalism. The dualism examined is closely linked to Cartesian dualism, while functionalism is a form of materialism. Anomalous monism is a kind of dual aspect view. All these theories have a long tradition with different formulations and exponents. I examine three contemporary exponents of these views: Saul Kripke, a dualist, Donald Davidson, an anomalous monist, and Daniel Dennett, a functionalist. (...) ;I argue that each of these theories is incorrect or has serious difficulties. The chief difficulty for dualism is in giving an account of mind-body interaction. The chief difficulty for anomalous monism is that internal tensions within the theory relating to Davidson's conception of physical events and scientific laws have the consequence that anomalous monism applies to the entities of physics and chemistry but not to events in the brain. The most serious difficulty for functionalism is in accounting for the qualities of subjective experience. ;I then discuss two criteria for identifying mental phenomena: incorrigibility and intentionality. I consider the problem of mind-body interaction as a problem for dualism. I argue that the mind-body problem is misconceived in that it is supposed that a univocal definition of 'physical' can be given. I state three different definitions of this term: one containing a scientific conception, one an objective conception, and one a personal conception. ;In my final chapter, I formulate a plural aspect view that accounts for mind-body interaction. On this view, mind is an aspect of body and body is an aspect of mind. This plural aspect view can be derived from a more general theory I call Viewpoint Pluralism. (shrink)

Some early work in economics built on the assumption that people are mostly motivated by self-interest. However, there is much converging evidence from behavioural economics, anthropology, and psyc...

While the topics of emergentism and religious naturalism have both received renewed attention in the past two decades, the recent publication of several books and numerous articles arguing for emergentism and its religious significance suggests that they are converging in interesting ways. Indeed, religious naturalists such as cell biologist Ursula Goodenough, complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman, and philosopher Loyal Rue have been important voices in this conversation. While they cannot be easily classified as religious naturalists, biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon and theologian (...) and philosopher Philip Clayton have also made significant contributions. (shrink)

In Black Lives and Sacred Humanity: Toward an African American Religious Naturalism, Carol Wayne White sets out to develop a new religious ideal for African American culture by bringing two unlikely partners, African American religiosity and religious naturalism, into conversation. This is an ambitious project given the prominent role that supernaturalistic theism plays in African American religiosity and the paucity of attention that contemporary religious naturalism has given to cultural issues such as race. She attempts to bridge the two through (...) the concept of “sacred humanity,” a radical version of religious humanism, which, she argues, is foreshadowed in African American religious tradition on the one hand... (shrink)

Throughout the Homo Sacer series, Giorgio Agamben takes seriously the political and philosophical significance of Christian ritual in his archaeology of Western political discourse. In Opus Dei, Agamben argues for the sacrifice of the Mass as the paradigm for the ontology of effectivity, an ontology he sees as still regnant in the West. This ontology depends on the discourse of duty or office, and it begins with the priestly office. The priest’s duty is to be an “animate instrument” in the (...) Mass. However, Agamben’s archaeology contains a massive gap between scholastic theology and Enlightenment political theory—the Protestant Reformation. I argue that Agamben’s hypothesis requires attending to the reformation of the Mass. Examining the works of Luther and Zwingli, I show that in spite of their rejection of the priesthood, the discourse of duty and operativity not only persists but expands through their respective sacramental theologies. (shrink)

Nature as Sacred Ground: A Metaphysics for Religious Naturalism is the fifth book on religious naturalism that Donald Crosby has published since 2002, and it must be seen in that context. Religion of Nature makes the claim for the religious and metaphysical ultimacy of nature, Living with Ambiguity: Religious Naturalism and the Menace of Evil explores possible responses of religious naturalism's to natural and human evil, The Thou of Nature: Religious Naturalism and Reverence for Sentient Beings argues for giving moral (...) consideration to all sentient beings, and More Than Discourse: Symbolic Expressions of Naturalistic Faith discusses the role of nondiscursive symbols... (shrink)

The placement of the sayings of Agur (Prov 30) between instructions for an implied reader who is poised to assume leadership (Prov 28–29) and instructions to the implied reader as king (Prov 31:1–9) prompts this exploration of what role the unknown, arguably foreign and feeble sage Agur plays in the book of Proverbs.

Perhaps the best way to understand this book is to see it as the first installment on a larger project. Woell’s ultimate goal is to write a pragmatic philosophy of religion, but this work is not it. This preliminary project attempts to clear the way for the larger project by reclaiming pragmatism in such a way that it can provide an adequate framework for doing the philosophy of religion. In other words, this is a book about pragmatism that serves as (...) a “prolegomena to a pragmatic philosophy of religion”. In this sense, the title is somewhat misleading. Nevertheless, it is meticulously argued and stands independently as an important contribution to our understanding of pragmatism. Why a.. (shrink)