While offering a public welcome of communicative participation, a communicative dark side of the moderate Enlightenment project emerged. Moderate Enlightenmentrsquo;s corollary companion to wresting power from a limited few is the staggering sense of confidence in the universal ground of assurance that is ldquo;bad faithrdquo; mdash;we fib to ourselves that we can stand above history and affect the future. Absolute conviction of universal access to truth propels through methodological confidence, undergirding the era of ldquo;the rationalrdquo; pursuit of truth, transporting the (...) individual into an ethereal delusionmdash;that one can stand above the historical moment of engagement and cast judgment. This essay calls into question the common assumption that communication begins with the individual. We offer a critique of this assumption in accordance with radical enlightenment scholarship, calling forth a return to Otherness that renders the construct of individual secondary to that which is met.br /. (shrink)

Communicative Understandings of Women's Leadership Development: From Ceilings of Glass to Labyrinth Paths, edited by Elesha L. Ruminski and Annette M. Holba, weaves the disciplines of communication studies, leadership studies, and women's studies to offer theoretical and practical reflection about women's leadership development in academic, organizational, and political contexts. This work claims a space for women's leadership studies and acknowledges the paradigmatic shift from discussing women's leadership using the glass ceiling to what Eagly and Carli identify as the (...) labyrinth of leadership. (shrink)

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and "the other.".

Early settlers, many seeking freedom of thought and religious ideology, left England and traveled across the Atlantic to seek their own version of Utopia. Some of the transatlantic travelers brought Ralph Robinson’s 1551 translation of Sir Thomas More to America. Following the early sixteenth-century migration, hundreds of Utopia-seeking individuals embraced, predominantly, the Robinson translation, and later, in the late seventeenth century, various individuals looked to Gilbert Burnet’s translation. A third translation by G. C. Richard was done in the early twentieth (...) century. One other translation that should be mentioned is that of F. S. Ellis, whose translation was... (shrink)

_Sanctification: Seeing Life Through a Sacred Lens_ suggests that sacred matters represent a vital interest for the psychology of religion. The articles throughout this special issue propose that individuals can perceive virtually any aspect of their lives as having divine character and significance. Several implications of sanctification for human functioning are discussed: people invest a great deal of time and energy in sacred matters; people go to great lengths to preserve and protect what they perceive to be sacred; sacred aspects (...) of life elicit spiritual emotions; sanctification offers a powerful personal and social resource individuals can tap throughout their lives; and the loss of the sacred can have devastating effects. The articles illustrate initial findings in this area of theory and research, and generate questions to stimulate further explorations into this relatively uncharted area of study. (shrink)

Tool making has been proposed as a key force in driving the complexity of human material culture. The ontogeny of tool‐related behaviors hinges on social, representational, and creative factors. In this study, we test the associations between these factors in development across two different cultures. Results of Study 1 with 5‐to‐6‐year‐old Turkish children in dyadic or individual settings show that tool making is facilitated by social interaction, hierarchical representation, and creative abilities. Results of a second explorative study comparing the Turkish (...) sample with a sample of 5‐to‐6‐year‐old children in New Zealand suggest that tool innovation might be affected by culture, and that the role of cognitive and creative factors diminishes through social interaction in tool making. (shrink)

The essays in this volume consider, in multiple ways, how philosophies of communication and communication ethics can shape and enhance human communication.

Verschwindet die Religiosität in der Moderne oder ist im Gegenteil eine Rückkehr der Religionen zu verzeichnen? Das Handbuch beleuchtet die Dialektik von Säkularisierung und Revitalisierung der Religionen aus philosophischer, soziologischer und religionswissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Vorgestellt werden grundlegende Konzepte, z. B. von Durkheim, Weber, Habermas, Blumenberg und Luhmann. Der zweite Teil untersucht Begriffe wie das Böse, das Heilige, Pluralismus etc. in ihrer Bedeutung im Kontext der Säkularisierung. Abschließend geht es um Konflikte wie Glauben und Wissen, Religion und Menschenrechte oder Säkularisierung und die (...) Weltreligionen. (shrink)

Cultural safety is a relatively new concept that has emerged in the New Zealand nursing context and is being taken up in various ways in Canadian health care discourses. Our research team has been exploring the relevance of cultural safety in the Canadian context, most recently in relation to a knowledge-translation study conducted with nurses practising in a large tertiary hospital. We were drawn to using cultural safety because we conceptualized it as being compatible with critical theoretical perspectives that foster (...) a focus on power imbalances and inequitable social relationships in health care; the interrelated problems of culturalism and racialization; and a commitment to social justice as central to the social mandate of nursing. Engaging in this knowledge-translation study has provided new perspectives on the complexities, ambiguities and tensions that need to be considered when using the concept of cultural safety to draw attention to racialization, culturalism, and health and health care inequities. The philosophic analysis discussed in this paper represents an epistemological grounding for the concept of cultural safety that links directly to particular moral ends with social justice implications. Although cultural safety is a concept that we have firmly positioned within the paradigm of critical inquiry, ambiguities associated with the notions of 'culture', 'safety', and 'cultural safety' need to be anticipated and addressed if they are to be effectively used to draw attention to critical social justice issues in practice settings. Using cultural safety in practice settings to draw attention to and prompt critical reflection on politicized knowledge, therefore, brings an added layer of complexity. To address these complexities, we propose that what may be required to effectively use cultural safety in the knowledge-translation process is a 'social justice curriculum for practice' that would foster a philosophical stance of critical inquiry at both the individual and institutional levels. (shrink)

: This essay begins with a Native American women's perspective on Early Feminism which came about as a result of Euroamerican patriarchy in U. S. society. It is followed by the myth of "tribalism," regarding the language and laws of U. S. colonialism imposed upon Native American peoples and their respective cultures. This colonialism is well documented in Federal Indian law and public policy by the U.S. government, which includes the state as well as federal level. The paper proceeds to (...) compare and contrast these Native American women's experiences with pre-patriarchal and pre-colonialist times, in what can be conceptualized as "indigenous kinship" in traditional communalism; today, these Native American societies are called "tribal nations" in contrast to the Supreme Court Marshall Decision (The Cherokee Cases, 1831-1882) which labeled them "domestic dependent nations." This history up to the present state of affairs as it affects Native American women is contextualized as "patriarchal colonialism"and biocolonialism in genome research of indigenous peoples, since these marginalized women have had to contend with both hegemonies resulting in a sexualized and racialized mindset. The conclusion makes a statement on Native American women and Indigensim, both in theory and practice, which includes a native Feminist Spirituality in a transnational movement in these globalizing times. The term Indigensim is conceptualized in a postcolonialist context, as well as a perspective on Ecofeminism to challenge what can be called a "trickle down patriarchy" that marks male dominance in tribal politics. A final statement calls for "Native Womanism" in the context of sacred kinship traditions that gave women respect and authority in matrilineal descendency and matrifocal decision making for traditional gender egalitarianism. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

The hymns of Callimachus are generally divided into two groups: the ‘mimetic’ hymns , which seem to be enactments of ritual scenes, and the ‘nonmimetic’ hymns , which seem to follow the pattern of the Homeric hymns. Occasionally this distinction has been challenged, for instance by pointing to an' element of mimesis in H. 1, but on the whole the division into two groups has been 1 adhered to rather rigidly. A drawback of this distinction is that it seems to (...) prevent further insight into an important aspect of Callimachus' poetic technique. I think that there is in fact a subtle play with various aspects of diegesis and mimesis which pervades the whole collection of hymns and gives it a certain unity, because it draws attention to the way in which narratives or descriptions are presented in the hymns. Although the emphasis on mimesis or diegesis may vary, none of the hymns can be regarded as diegetic in all its aspects and there is a great deal of fluctuation between, the two modes of presentation both within the collection and within the individual hymns. (shrink)

The hymns of Callimachus are generally divided into two groups: the ‘mimetic’ hymns, which seem to be enactments of ritual scenes, and the ‘nonmimetic’ hymns, which seem to follow the pattern of the Homeric hymns. Occasionally this distinction has been challenged, for instance by pointing to an' element of mimesis inH. 1, but on the whole the division into two groups has been 1 adhered to rather rigidly. A drawback of this distinction is that it seems to prevent further insight (...) into an important aspect of Callimachus' poetic technique. I think that there is in fact a subtle play with various aspects of diegesis and mimesis which pervades the whole collection of hymns and gives it a certain unity, because it draws attention to the way in which narratives or descriptions are presented in the hymns. Although the emphasis on mimesis or diegesis may vary, none of the hymns can be regarded as diegetic in all its aspects and there is a great deal of fluctuation between, the two modes of presentation both within the collection and within the individual hymns. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 20th century, the shorter Greek version of the book of Tobit, GI, which is included in the Catholic Bible, was thought to be the oldest version. It was defined as ‘a lesson on almsgiving and its redeeming powers’. As the discoveries of the Semitic copies of Tobit at Qumran, GI is recognised to be a reworking of the longer version GII, most probably originally written in Aramaic, between 225 and 175 BCE. In all versions of (...) Tobit, the theme of almsgiving is introduced as specifically directed to Jewish kinsmen, but towards the end, is to be directed to all poor, suggesting that it may have been written by a Hellenistic Jew. Although the surface context of the narrative of Tobit is the Jewish tradition of proper observation of mitzvot and sacrifice and eventual reward, the various versions contain varying degrees of ancient Near Eastern wisdom, and an ironic, subversive reflection of hypocritical righteousness. This article questioned why the endings differ markedly in different versions. To try to find answers, a semantic comparison was made between GI and the most complete Aramaic version 4Q196. Contribution: This article considered the implications of source criticism in the reception of the various versions of Tobit. The possibility was examined that the pre-Christian, Aramaic version 4Q196Tobit does not confirm the excessive focus on almsgiving as righteousness apparent in the GI version of LXX Tobit. (shrink)

This book is concerned with how we should think and act in our work, leisure activities, and time utilization in order to achieve flourishing lives. The scope papers range from general theoretical considerations of the value, e.g. 'What is a balanced life?', to specific types of considerations, e.g. 'How should we cope with the effects of work on moral decision-making?'.

ABSTRACTIn this article we investigate structural differences between “literary” metaphors created by renowned poets and “nonliterary” ones imagined by non-professional authors from Katz et al.’s 1988 corpus. We provide data from quantitative narrative analyses of the altogether 464 metaphors on over 70 variables, including surface features like metaphor length, phonological features like sonority score, or syntactic-semantic features like sentence similarity. In a first computational study using machine learning tools we show that Katz et al.’s literary metaphors can be successfully discriminated (...) from their nonliterary ones on the basis of response measures, in particular the ratings for familiarity, ease of interpretation, semantic relatedness, and comprehensibility. A second computational study then shows that the classifier can reliably detect and predict between-group differences on the basis of five QNA features generalizing from a... (shrink)

Two main goals of the emerging field of neurocognitive poetics are the use of more natural and ecologically valid stimuli, tasks and contexts and providing methods and models allowing to quantify distinctive features of verbal materials used in such tasks and contexts and their effects on readers responses. A natural key element of poetic language, metaphor, still is understudied insofar as relatively little empirical research looked at literary or poetic metaphors. An exception is Katz et al.’s corpus of 204 literary (...) metaphors by authors such as Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas, for which various rating data are available. We reanalyzed their corpus using a combination of quantitative narrative analysis, latent semantic analysis, and machine learning in order to identify relevant features of the metaphors that influenced the ratings. The combined application of computational tools sheds light on surface and affective-semantic features that co-determine the reception of poetic metaphors and successfully predicted the period of origin, authorship and goodness ratings of the metaphors. The present results can be used for generating quantitative hypotheses or selecting and matching verbal stimuli in empirical studies of literature and neurocognitive poetics. (shrink)

Background Outbreaks of infectious disease cause serious and costly health and social problems. Two new technologies – pathogen whole genome sequencing and Big Data analytics – promise to improve our capacity to detect and control outbreaks earlier, saving lives and resources. However, routinely using these technologies to capture more detailed and specific personal information could be perceived as intrusive and a threat to privacy. Method Four community juries were convened in two demographically different Sydney municipalities and two regional cities in (...) New South Wales, Australia to elicit the views of well-informed community members on the acceptability and legitimacy of: making pathogen WGS and linked administrative data available for public health researchusing this information in concert with data linkage and machine learning to enhance communicable disease surveillance systems Fifty participants of diverse backgrounds, mixed genders and ages were recruited by random-digit-dialling and topic-blinded social-media advertising. Each jury was presented with balanced factual evidence supporting different expert perspectives on the potential benefits and costs of technologically enhanced public health research and communicable disease surveillance and given the opportunity to question experts. Results Almost all jurors supported data linkage and WGS on routinely collected patient isolates for the purposes of public health research, provided standard de-identification practices were applied. However, allowing this information to be operationalised as a syndromic surveillance system was highly contentious with three juries voting in favour, and one against by narrow margins. For those in favour, support depended on several conditions related to system oversight and security being met. Those against were concerned about loss of privacy and did not trust Australian governments to run secure and effective systems. Conclusions Participants across all four events strongly supported the introduction of data linkage and pathogenomics to public health research under current research governance structures. Combining pathogen WGS with event-based data surveillance systems, however, is likely to be controversial because of a lack of public trust, even when the potential public health benefits are clear. Any suggestion of private sector involvement or commercialisation of WGS or surveillance data was unanimously rejected. (shrink)

Although it is rarely named, the majority of societies in the ethnographic record demarcate a period between early childhood and adolescence. Prominent signs of demarcation are, for the first time, pronounced gender separation in fact and in role definition; increased freedom of movement for boys, while girls may be bound more tightly to their mothers; and heightened expectations for socially responsible behavior. But above all, middle childhood is about coming out of the shadows of community life and assuming a distinct, (...) lifetime character. Naming and other rites of passage sometimes acknowledge this transition, but it is, reliably, marked by the assumption or assignment of specific chores or duties. Because the physiological changes at puberty are so much more dramatic, the transition from middle childhood is more often marked by a rite of passage than the entrance into this period. There is also an acknowledgment at the exit from middle childhood of near-adult levels of competence—as a herdsman or hunter or as gardener or infant-caretaker. (shrink)

Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women (...) who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice. (shrink)

How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple language input from birth and when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for (...) cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science. (shrink)

The compelling case that Anderson makes for neural reuse and against modularity as organizing principle of the brain is further supported by evidence from developmental disorders. However, to provide a full evolutionary-developmental theory of neural reuse that encompasses both typical and atypical development, Anderson's (MRH) could be further constrained by considering brain development across ontogeny.

Introduction No consent for health and medical research is appropriate when the criteria for a waiver of consent are met, yet some ethics committees and data custodians still require informed consent. Methods A single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled trial: 1129 families of children born at a South Australian hospital were sent information explaining data linkage of childhood immunisation and hospital records for vaccine safety surveillance with 4 weeks to opt in or opt out by reply form, telephone or email. A subsequent (...) telephone interview gauged the intent of 1026 parents (91%) in relation to their actions and the sociodemographic differences between participants and non-participants in each arm. Results The participation rate was 21% (n=120/564) in the opt-in arm and 96% (n=540/565) in the opt-out arm (χ2 (1 df) = 567.7, p<0.001). Participants in the opt-in arm were more likely than non-participants to be older, married/de facto, university educated and of higher socioeconomic status. Participants in the opt-out arm were similar to non-participants, except men were more likely to opt out. Substantial proportions did not receive, understand or properly consider study invitations, and opting in or opting out behaviour was often at odds with parents' stated underlying intentions. Conclusions The opt-in approach resulted in low participation and a biased sample that would render any subsequent data linkage unfeasible, while the opt-out approach achieved high participation and a representative sample. The waiver of consent afforded under current privacy regulations for data linkage studies meeting all appropriate criteria should be granted by ethics committees, and supported by data custodians. Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12610000332022. (shrink)

Background:Homeless persons in the United States have disproportionately high rates of illness, injury, and mortality and tend to believe that the quality of their end-of-life care will be poor. No studies were found as to whether nurses or nursing students require moral courage to help homeless persons or members of any other demographic complete advance directives.Research hypothesis:We hypothesized that baccalaureate nursing students require moral courage to help homeless persons complete advance directives. Moral courage was defined as a trait of a (...) person or an action that overcomes fears or other challenges to achieve something of great moral worth.Research design:The hypothesis was investigated through a qualitative descriptive study. Aside from the pre-selection of a single variable to study (i.e. moral courage), our investigation was a naturalistic inquiry with narrative hues insofar as it attended to specific words and phrases in the data that were associated with that variable.Participants and research context:A total of 15 baccalaureate nursing students at a public university in the United States responded to questionnaires that sought to elicit fears and other challenges that they both expected to experience and actually experienced while helping homeless persons complete advance directives at a local, non-profit service agency.Ethical considerations:The study was approved by the Internal Review Board of the authors’ university, and each participant signed an informed consent form, which stated that the study involved no reasonably foreseeable risks and that participation was voluntary.Findings:Before meeting with homeless persons, participants reported that they expected to experience two fears and a challenge: fear of behaving in ways that a homeless person would deem inappropriate, fear of discussing a homeless person’s dying and death, and the challenge of adequately conveying the advance directive’s meaning and accurately recording a homeless person’s end-of-life wishes. In contrast, after their meetings with homeless persons, relatively few participants reported having encountered those obstacles. So, while participants required moral courage to assist homeless persons with advance directives, they required greater moral courage as they anticipated their meetings than during those meetings.Discussion:Our study breaks new ground at the intersection of nursing, moral courage, and advance directives. It might also have important implications for how to improve the training that US nursing students receive before they provide this service.Conclusion:Our results cannot be generalized, but portions of our approach are likely to be transferable to similar social contexts. For example, because homeless persons are misunderstood and marginalized throughout the United States, our design for training nursing students to provide this service is also likely to be useful across the United States. Internationally, however, it is not yet known whether our participants’ fears and the challenge they faced are also experienced by those who assist homeless persons or members of other vulnerable populations in documenting healthcare wishes. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is a growing concern about artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare that can disadvantage already under-represented and marginalised groups (eg, based on gender or race).ObjectivesOur objectives are to canvas the range of strategies stakeholders endorse in attempting to mitigate algorithmic bias, and to consider the ethical question of responsibility for algorithmic bias.MethodologyThe study involves in-depth, semistructured interviews with healthcare workers, screening programme managers, consumer health representatives, regulators, data scientists and developers.ResultsFindings reveal considerable divergent views on three key issues. First, (...) views on whether bias is a problem in healthcare AI varied, with most participants agreeing bias is a problem (which we call the bias-critical view), a small number believing the opposite (the bias-denial view), and some arguing that the benefits of AI outweigh any harms or wrongs arising from the bias problem (the bias-apologist view). Second, there was a disagreement on the strategies to mitigate bias, and who is responsible for such strategies. Finally, there were divergent views on whether to include or exclude sociocultural identifiers (eg, race, ethnicity or gender-diverse identities) in the development of AI as a way to mitigate bias.Conclusion/significanceBased on the views of participants, we set out responses that stakeholders might pursue, including greater interdisciplinary collaboration, tailored stakeholder engagement activities, empirical studies to understand algorithmic bias and strategies to modify dominant approaches in AI development such as the use of participatory methods, and increased diversity and inclusion in research teams and research participant recruitment and selection. (shrink)

At almost every election, Americans are inclined to say that this is the most consequential election in American history. 2020 is no exception. However, what is particularly remarkable about the No...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Life is GoodAnnette ChacosI live in Hervey Bay. I’m a member of several social groups. I have adult children and grandchildren, and many lovely friends. I love to write. Most importantly I love The Lord Jesus Who has been my strength, bringing me through the good times, the not so good times, and the, ‘I’m throwing in the towel’ times.I was first diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1997. (...) Prior to knowing about the tumour and for some time after its removal I had little or no memory of events. The tumour was a left Frontal Meningioma (benign). For some time afterward I was partially [End Page 189] paralyzed. Now there is only some weakness on the right side of my body. Epilepsy too became part of my life. There are different types of seizures, which are rarely, if ever, amusing.Humour is very important. If you can’t laugh at the things that happen life would be a constant tale of woe. I’m very blessed. There are so many people who are much worse off than myself.My storyIn July 1997 my husband went to see if everything was okay because I wasn’t up out of bed yet. I was lying across the bed in a disheveled state. After being cleaned up I was taken to the local hospital. The duty doctor, who hadn’t even seen me, told my son that he didn’t think there was much wrong and to take me home. My sons refused and insisted that the doctor admit me. He did.I was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. My memories of this are scattered. I learned some time later that I had had a Tonic Clonic seizure (formerly known as “grand mal” seizures which are commonly associated with epilepsy). After I came out of hospital I saw my general practitioner (GP). She sent me for an x–ray, and then to see a Neurosurgeon. An MRI was taken and there was a large tumour in my brain.My memory of this time is poor. I do recall a friend phoning and I told her I was going into hospital to have a brain tumour removed. After fifteen years she is still saying I was so matter of fact about it. I now know that my emotions, like my memory, was at a very low ebb due to the tumour. There was no caring or worrying. If there was, in the next minute, probably second, it was forgotten.Before going into hospital my late husband said to the kids “better take a photograph of your mother in case she dies.” I was told about that comment some time later. What a comfort! Then one day the photo turned up. It was so ugly I tore it up. You’ll note I said the photo was ugly!The operation took place in Canberra hospital, at the end of August. It was to be earlier but they deferred it because an emergency came in. They were going to defer it again, by which time I was mute and non–responsive. My daughter Maria arrived from Melbourne and my daughter Katrina and her husband Kevin came from America with their 3–month–old baby. My son Libe arrived from Sydney. Marcus, my youngest, lived locally, as did my daughter Tania. On hearing the operation was to be deferred again they took action informing hospital staff they were going to the local MP and the A Current Affair television show. So l had the operation—it was much easier to put me under the scalpel than battle the bureaucracy!I have only one film from that MRI. Where the others are I don’t know. According to Dr C, the tumour was very large. But to me, what does size matter—it was no longer there. Most importantly, I survived. The ten days I was in hospital are mostly forgotten. The few people I remember are like snapshots. No one moved, or so it seemed to me.In 2006, the second tumour was removed. It was discovered by the same lovely GP, who found the first one. I was... (shrink)

The Ahhiyawa Texts. By Gary M. Beckman; Trevor R. Bryce; and Eric H. Cline. Writings from the Ancient World, vol. 28. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Pp. xvi + 302. $34.95.

At almost every election, Americans are inclined to say that this is the most consequential election in American history. 2020 is no exception. However, what is particularly remarkable about the No...

The present study aimed to examine the relations between physical self-concept, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as physical performance of 1,082 children aged 7–8 years. The central objective of this study was to contrast a mediation model assuming physical self-concept as a mediator of the relations between both types of motivation and physical performance to a mediation model assuming both types of motivation as mediators of the relations between physical self-concept and physical performance. Physical self-concept and both types of (...) motivation were measured by using self-reported questionnaires, while physical performance was measured with 10 motor skill tests. All tests were carried out during regular school hours (8–12 A.M.) by qualified test personnel. Beyond correlation analyses, structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to find evidence for the predictive relations between the variables under study. Results showed that physical self-concept was significantly positively related to both types of motivation and physical performance (allp< 0.001). In contrast, results of SEM revealed that only physical self-concept (p< 0.001) and intrinsic motivation (p< 0.05) were significantly positively linked to physical performance. Furthermore, physical self-concept proved to significantly mediate the relations of both types of motivation to physical performance (p< 0.001), while only intrinsic motivation, but not extrinsic motivation, proved to significantly mediate the relation between physical self-concept and physical performance (p< 0.05). These results suggest that school-based or extracurricular interventions targeted at improving younger children's physical performance only by means of an increased level of physical activity or by external factors without supporting children's physical self-concept and intrinsic motivation may have less or no effects on their physical performance. (shrink)

This is an essay at the intersection of metaethics and the history of contemporary analytic philosophy. It explores the relationships between Allan Gibbard’s mature quasi-realist expressivism and (i) three non-naturalistic varieties of what I call “non-inflationary realism” and (ii) moral fictionalism. Moral or normative realism is frequently (if mistakenly) taken to involve certain existence-affirming external assumptions about the metaphysical status of substantive normative thought and discourse. The non-inflationary realists seek to embrace moral or normative objectivity and truth without any distinctly—as (...) they see it, “inflated”—moral or normative ontology. This position, along with a shared emphasis on the primacy of substantive moral or normative thought and discourse, brings them very close to Gibbard, and so to what it is tempting to treat as a strikingly different metaethical account. Focusing on the non-inflationary realists Ronald Dworkin, T.M. Scanlon, and Derek Parfit, I examine similarities among their views, and between each of these views and Gibbard’s. I argue that the non-inflationary realist project should be understood as including the work not only of these figures, characteristically seen as among its paradigmatic representatives, but also, crucially, that of Gibbard. They all agree that our moral or normative claims purport to state normative truths and that such claims are capable of being true or false and that when true they do not depend on the particular standpoint anyone happens to take. Our moral or normative thoughts can be characterized as beliefs. We can have moral knowledge. There are substantive moral and normative facts. These facts are not reducible to non-normative facts. Normative concepts cannot be analyzed in purely naturalistic terms; and normative facts do not depend on any robustly existent truth-makers. Focusing on these shared commitments enables me to home in on the apparent differences that nonetheless remain. They differ in significant respects, for instance, about whether—and, if so, to what extent—we can make any meaningful external (non-substantive) judgments about the moral or normative and about whether there is a role for property-based explanations that minimalism about the normative fails to capture. By investigating these and other differences, I shed light on what is at stake in giving an adequate account of our moral and normative thought and talk. I pursue this aim further by considering why it might seem that quasi-realist expressivism was a form of normative fictionalism or error theory—though it is not. I attempt here to clear up confusions stemming from common assumptions associated with terms like “realism,” “cognitivism,” or “fictionalism” with respect to morality or normativity. I distinguish some differences in the ways in which normative properties can be understood by non-inflationary realists and the roles they can play in explaining normativity. I underscore the implausibility of treating the moral domain as completely autonomous. And I attempt to offer suggestions regarding some conceptual options that remain to be further explored. I maintain that Gibbard makes explicit otherwise unacknowledged implications of Scanlon’s or Dworkin’s accounts, implications regarding deep differences between normative or moral and other domains, implications which might help explain the uneasiness that prompts Scanlon and Dworkin to resist Gibbard’s account and that pushes Parfit toward what seems to be a sort of intermediate position between non-inflationary and more ontologically committed realism. Non-inflationary realism forces us to rethink metaethics in interesting and promising ways. (shrink)