In this empirical paper, Jay, Stone, Meksin, Merck, Gordon and Hirst examine whether jury deliberations, in which individuals collaboratively recall and discuss evidence of a trial, shape the jurors’ memories. In doing so, Jay and colleagues provide a highly ecologically valid baseline for future investigation into why, how and when selective recall either facilitates remembering or leads to forgetting during jury deliberations. In particular, Jay et al. explore the specific social and cognitive mechanisms that might lead to either memory (...) facilitation (RIFA – Retrieval Induced Facilitation) and forgetting (RIF ‐ Retrieval Induced Forgetting) during jury deliberation. (shrink)

This book provides a reconstructive and critical interpretation of Sartre’s mature dialectical ethics. Taken together, as Sartre intended, the posthumously published key texts demonstrate that the ultimate goal of praxis is “integral humanity” and that “making the human” is always possible because the means to humanity can always be invented.

Simple hypotheses are intrinsically attractive, and, for this reason, need to be formulated with utmost precision if they are to be testable. Unfortunately, it is hard to see how Phillips & Singer's hypothesis might be unambiguously refuted. Despite this, the authors have provided much evidence consistent with the hypothesis, and have proposed a natural and powerful extension for information theoretic approaches to learning.

In B. Repacholi and V. Slaughter (eds), _Individual Differences in Theory of Mind: Implications for Typical and Atypical_ _Development_. Macquarie Monographs in Cognitive Science. Hove, E. Sussex: Psychology Press, 2003..

This collection reflects the extraordinary career of the man it honors in its variety of subjects and range of scholarship. Mortimer Adler proposes six amendments to the Constitution. Paul Eidelberg surveys the rise of secularism from Socrates to Machiavelli. Hellmut Fritzsche, a physicist, catalogs some famous scientific mistakes. David Grene (Anastaplo's dissertation advisor) looks at Shakespeare's Measure for Measure as "mythological history." Harry V. Jaffa continues a running debate with Anastaplo on how to read the Constitution, James Lehrberger examines Aquinas's (...) views on natural law, Harry Newman argues "The Case Against Politics." Studs Terkel interviews Anastaplo on his encounter with the Illinois bar, and John Van Doren and others contribute a selection of poems. George Anastaplo turned to an academic career when he was denied admission to the bar in 1950 because, on principle, he affirmed the right of revolution and refused to say whether he was a Communist. In this age of academic specialization, Anastaplo's career has been distinguished by a remarkable versatility of thought. Author of five books, including The Artist as Thinker: From Shakespeare to Joyce (Swallow Press, 1983), Human Being and Citizen: Essays on Virtue, Freedom and the Common Good (Swallow Press, 1986), The Constitution of 1787: A Commentary (1989), and The American Moralist: On Law, Ethics, and Government (Ohio University Press, 1992), Anastaplo has also, for the past three decades, produced a steady stream of essays, articles, and papers on subjects from baseball to the Koran, from Socrates to Freud. Volume 2 of Law and Philosophy includes a complete bibliography of his works. (shrink)

Suppose that reality consists of parallel universes of every variety imaginable. No path through space and time leads from one to another, and each universe is causally isolated from the rest. Some physicists believe a ‘multiverse’ hypothesis not terribly distant from this one simplifies quantum mechanics and provides an elegant explanation of why our universe has its particular laws. Suppose as science advances we come to accept the multiverse hypothesis, so construed.

Until recently, there has been relatively little self-conscious reflection - from either environmental or continental philosophers - on the specific contributions which continental philosophy, insofar as it is a distinctive tradition, might make to environmental thought. This situation has begun to change with several recent publications, such as Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine's edited collection Ecophenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, and Bruce V. Foltz and Robert Frodeman's collection Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. This special issue aims to (...) continue the discussion of how the continental tradition might advance or transform environmental thinking, both by reconsidering authors such as Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and by considering how themes and concepts from continental philosophy and social theory - including Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh, Foucault's notion of discipline, and Bourdieu's social critique of taste - bear on environmental practice and theory. (shrink)

Lo studio esamina il tema della legge umana e dell'equità , che risulta di notevole importanza per la comprensione della filosofia pratica aristotelica, in Roberto Grossatesta, Alberto Magno e Tommaso d'Aquino a partire da Ethica Nicomachea V. 10. Dopo una breve premessa in cui si espongono le linee guida del saggio, l'A. si sofferma sul capitolo aristotelico, per poi esporre lo status questionis nei canonisti medievali e nei testi pastorali prima della ricezione dell'Etica; l'ultima parte è dedicata al significativo apporto (...) che questa ha dato alla discussione medievale. Se Grossatesta fa ampio ricorso a tale nozione nella discussione del rapporto tra diritto naturale e diritto positivo, Alberto riafferma l'importanza di tale concetto e l'opportunità di utilizzarlo quando la legge, per il suo carattere di universalità, risulti inadeguata e sia necessario ripristinare la giustizia. La trattazione più sistematica è comunque offerta da Tommaso d'Aquino, in particolare nel commento all'Ethica Nicomachea e nella Summa theologiae, che impiega la nozione di aequitas in un senso più vicino a quello aristotelico che a quello dei canonisti o alla tradizione del diritto romano. La filosofia aristotelica è così all'origine di un rinvigorimento della discussione sull'aequitas canonica che offrirà nuovi sviluppi nel campo della filosofia morale e del diritto in epoca tardomedievale. (shrink)

Although its subject is the relationship between philosophy and comedy, this essay is neither flippant nor nihilistic. It instead approaches philosophy through themes borrowed from comedy, including chapters on inversion, paradox, madness, nonsense, and the distinction between appearance and reality. Beyond his authorship of two previous books on theories of comedy (Madness, Masks, and Laughter and Split Down the Sides), Glasgow's credentials are not stated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

We report evidence further supporting homology between proteins in the F1FO‐ATP synthetase and the bacterial flagellar motor (BFM). BFM proteins FliH, FliI, and FliJ have been hypothesized to be homologous to FO‐b + F1‐δ, F1‐α/β, and F1‐γ, with similar structure and interactions. We conduct a further test by constructing a gene order dataset, examining the order offliH,fliI, andfliJgenes across the phylogenetic breadth of flagellar and nonflagellar type 3 secretion systems, and comparing this to published surveys of gene order in the (...) F1FO‐ATP synthetase, its N‐ATPase relatives, and the bacterial/archaeal V‐ and A‐type ATPases. Strikingly, thefliHIJgene order was deeply conserved, with the few exceptions appearing derived, and exactly matching the widely conserved F‐ATPase gene orderatpFHAG, coding for subunits b‐δ‐α‐γ. The V/A‐type ATPases have a similar conserved gene order. Our results confirm homology between these systems, and suggest a rare case of synteny conserved over billions of years, predating the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). (shrink)

The study of mediated action focuses on how humans use cultural tools, or mediational means (terms used interchangeably), when engaging in various forms of action. The cultural tools involved may range from simple mnemonic devices, such as marks on a stone, to natural language and computers, and the kind of action involved may be socially distributed or carried out by individuals.

Lofts’s purpose is to interpret Cassirer in the light of francophone post-structuralist thought, particularly that of Jacques Lacan. Portraying a cautious neo-Kantian as a proto-post-structuralist may seem almost perverse, but the notion has potential. Unfortunately, the book reads as if it were still in rough draft. Its sections are disconnected, its arguments and insights are truncated or aphoristic, its style is careless, and it is poorly edited. Orthographical and typographical errors abound, even to the point of printing Lofts’s own name (...) wrong once. The long note about Hegel repeats previous text. Lofts’s analysis does not flow with the stream of the history of philosophy, but rather leaps from stone to stone in that stream, lingering too long on some stones and avoiding others. Dilthey, Gadamer, and Habermas, for example, are conspicuously absent from the discussion. Originally presented as Lofts’s dissertation, this book seems not yet to have proceeded far enough beyond that phase to warrant wider distribution. (shrink)

The problem of how certain structure–function composites of high complexity could have evolved gradually and by natural selection has been with us at least since Charles Darwin admitted how difficult it was to explain, “his” theory, the origins of “organs of extreme perfection and complication” – such as the eyes of higher animals. Human language capacity is another evolutionary achievement of extraordinary perfection and complexity. Like other skilled human activities, it involves both central (neural) and peripheral (vocal and respiratory) complexes. (...) The reduction of these to simpler building stones to which evolutionary principles may be applied is staggeringly difficult. (shrink)

The problem of religious tolerance is of supreme importance in the contemporary world. Just as, a few centuries ago, many wars were provoked by religious motifs, so today clashes on religious grounds provoke military conflicts that have long overgrown the walls of churches and mosques and keep growing in spite of the sacred traditions of the religions themselves. Orientation to love fails to work, and the ìneighborî becomes an enemy if he does not confess the same religion. Where shall we (...) search for the reason behind religious hostility? What is the history of intolerance? Who was the first to throw the stone that shook the foundations of peaceful coexistence of particular families and whole states? We propose to turn to the following themes: 1. World religions and relations between them (on the question of Christian- Judeo-Islamic dialogue) 2. Relations inside world religions (on the example of Christian confessions) 3. Interrelations between world religions and new religious movements. (shrink)

In Kant on Practical Life: From Duty to History, Kristi E. Sweet accepts Allen Wood’s challenge to present in a single book the entire arc of Kant’s practical philosophy, including both its a priori and empirical aspects, literally from duty to history. Others have successfully undertaken a similar task, notably Robert Louden in Kant’s Impure Ethics, but Sweet succeeds in fulfilling three further distinctive aims: settling persistent but outdated contentions that Kant’s ‘deontological’ and ‘teleological’ commitments are inconsistent by tracing duty (...) through to the ends it entails, especially the communal ends “in which reason finds its satisfaction” (10); addressing the problem of human finitude by explicating and resolving the dialectic between reason and nature in its various moments; and leaving virtually no philosophical stone unturned along the way, from the fact of reason to international disarmament. (shrink)

Lofts’s purpose is to interpret Cassirer in the light of francophone post-structuralist thought, particularly that of Jacques Lacan. Portraying a cautious neo-Kantian as a proto-post-structuralist may seem almost perverse, but the notion has potential. Unfortunately, the book reads as if it were still in rough draft. Its sections are disconnected, its arguments and insights are truncated or aphoristic, its style is careless, and it is poorly edited. Orthographical and typographical errors abound, even to the point of printing Lofts’s own name (...) wrong once. The long note about Hegel repeats previous text. Lofts’s analysis does not flow with the stream of the history of philosophy, but rather leaps from stone to stone in that stream, lingering too long on some stones and avoiding others. Dilthey, Gadamer, and Habermas, for example, are conspicuously absent from the discussion. Originally presented as Lofts’s dissertation, this book seems not yet to have proceeded far enough beyond that phase to warrant wider distribution. (shrink)

In this, his first book, originally published in 1926, Henry Nelson Wieman sets forth a view on the relationship of religious experience and scientific method which in substance he has maintained ever since. According to Wieman, our knowledge of the concrete world consists of immediate sensuous experience as interpreted through some set of concepts. Religious experience is the richest form of immediate sensuous experience. It is our awareness of God, who is as much an object of experience as are tree (...) and hill and stone. And scientific method is the systematic procedure by which the conceptual network for interpreting immediate sensuous experience is clarified and corrected, with the experience-concept compound thus becoming "science." Religious experience, therefore, receives its most adequate interpretation in science; while science, in turn, receives its most stimulating input from religious experience. In principle, the highest of the individual sciences is theology; in fact, however, the very complexity of religious experience and the difficulty of distinguishing it clearly from other types of immediate sensuous experience have prevented more than merely minimal progress in achieving a truly scientific theology. On the whole our ideas about God are marked by confusion and controversy, therefore, despite the fact that some of these notions probably are true. Wieman’s book serves as an excellent example of the liberal thought which dominated much of theology and philosophy-of-religion during the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth. The religious thinker with a liberal perspective conceives his primary challenge as developing a scientifically acceptable interpretation of religious experience, taking that experience itself as being obvious and almost universally recognized. One need not be particularly well read to know that current judgments regarding the obviousness of religious experience are hardly so sanguine, however, and that the religious thinker typical of our own age therefore conceives his primary challenge quite differently.—J. M. V. (shrink)

The paper explores the role of good faith within the traditional theory of fiduciary duty in the lead-up of the Delaware Supreme Court’s Stone ex-rel. AmSouth Bancorporation v. Ritter decision. The enforcement of the director’s liability is discussed concerning the doctrinal controversies concerning inter alia, the reach of the exculpation statute passed after the Smith v Van Gorkon holding. The paper also analyzes the conditions that a Plaintiff must survive a motion to dismiss a claim of director liability; the (...) appropriate standard of review for alleged duty of liability breaches, and the role of good faith within the overall triad of traditional fiduciary responsibilities. Over a decade after this landmark case was decided, there is value in reconsidering whether the Stone judgment lived up to the promise of the Caremark holding and its reformulation of good faith as a judicial device for evaluating director liability in contexts that not do easily fit with the traditional doctrines of duty of care and loyalty. (shrink)

Explains how yoga practitioners can deepen and enrich their relationships with family and friends, as well as become more engaged with their communities.

'Middle' Platonism has some claim to be the single most influential philosophical movement of the last two thousand years, as the common background to 'Neoplatonism' and the early development of Christian theology. This book breaks with the tradition of considering it primarily in terms of its sources, instead putting its contemporary philosophical engagements front and centre to reconstruct its philosophical motivations and activity across the full range of its interests. The volume explores the ideas at the heart of Platonist philosophy (...) in this period and includes a comprehensive selection of primary sources, a significant number of which appear in English translation for the first time, along with dedicated guides to the questions that have been, and might be, asked about the movement. The result is a tool intended to help bring the study of Middle Platonism into mainstream discussions of ancient philosophy. (shrink)