This article looks at two sorts of conceptual work in Cristina Rocha’s John of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing : theoretical appliqué and comparative contextualization. The first involves using an ad hoc set of concepts to set out series of partial interpretations. Despite not offering one unified interpretation, this approach has the advantages of respecting the complexity of the case and indicating a range of relevant interpretative pathways. The second involves the standard work, in the study of religion, (...) of placing the religious movement or other object of study in relation to its religious landscape, influences and competitors, by comparing and contrasting beliefs and practices. Though the book would be better if both of these dimensions of conceptual work had been pushed further, Rocha’s theoretical appliqué is worth considering for its value as a model for other work. The goal of this article is to highlight the value of theoretical appliqué and to suggest how it could be done effectively. (shrink)

Editorial - Dossiê: Teorias da Religião.

Este artigo discute formas de analisar criticamente o conceito de _tradição_. _Tradição_ é frequentemente sinônimo de _religião_. Isto aponta para dimensões ideológicas da suposta relação entre a religião e o passado. Uma discussão sobre “a invenção da tradição” leva a três recomendações metodológicas para o estudo crítico da tradição: _tradição_ é relacional, enquadrada com pares de conceitos opostos; é vista como independente de ações intencionais; e sua relação com o passado é uma reivindicação estratégica e ideológica, não como uma característica (...) inerente das religiões. Dois exemplos, o Candomblé e o pereneismo, explicam o contraste entre perspectivas religiosas/essencialistas e críticas/históricas. As visões essencialistas veem a tradição como algo fora da história, enquanto a Ciência da Religião tem a visão oposta, investigando processos de concepção, transmissão, recepção, reconfiguração e (re)invenção de tradições em contextos específicos. O estudo crítico de _tradição _não analisa a tradição em si, mas os discursos sobre ela. (shrink)

This article illustrates some implications of the view that data, theory and methods should be treated as a matched set. They are inseparable companions, equally essential parts of processes of scholarly research and dissemination. When we focus on one of these dimensions, the others are always implicit. When focus on all of them, our work is more complete, consistent and defensible. This contribution to this special issue highlights the value of focusing more explicitly on the inter-relations between all four levels (...) of scholarly work. (shrink)

Este artigo oferece um breve panorama da jurisprudência canadense desde a promulgação da Carta Canadense dos Direitos e Liberdades, em 1982. Ao mesmo tempo em que busca consolidar mais firmemente a liberdade religiosa, a Carta também tem colocado limites explícitos sobre o direito dessa mesma liberdade. Os Tribunais canadenses se mostram dispostos a intervir no funcionamento interno das instituições religiosas. A proteção legal foi ampliada no sentido de incluir não apenas as religiões não cristãs, mas também as crenças não religiosas (...) em geral. O efeito cumulativo dessas decisões tem corroído efetivamente a separação de fato entre a Igreja e o Estado que tem se desenvolvido no Canadá. O valor relativo a um crescente respeito ao pluralismo religioso é potencialmente compensado pelo aumento de intervenção judicial e pela imposição de valores seculares. Os tribunais têm definido "religião" e "pluralismo religioso" em termos cada vez mais seculares. Palavras-chave: Lei; Pluralismo Religioso; Tribunais Canadenses.This paper offers a brief overview of Canadian case law since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982. At the same time that it has more firmly entrenched religious freedom, the Charter has placed explicit limits on the right of religious freedom. Canadian courts have shown themselves willing to intervene in the internal workings of religious institutions. Legal protection has been extended to include not only non-Christian religions but also non-religious beliefs more generally. The cumulative effect of these decisions has been to effectively erode the de facto separation between Church and State that has developed in Canada. The value of increased respect for religious pluralism is potentially offset by increasing judicial intervention and by the correlated effective imposition of secular values. The courts have been defining "religion" and "religious pluralism" in increasingly secular terms. Keywords : law; Religious Pluralism; Canadian Courts. (shrink)

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is (...) substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is (...) substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religions is a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the academic study of religions. Written by leading experts in the field, the volume offers an interdisciplinary survey of religious studies. Presented in seven parts, the Handbook examines conceptual issues of religion, theoretical approaches, modes, environments, topics, and an overview of the history of the discipline. Each chapter references at least two different religions, often providing fresh and innovative perspectives on key issues.

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame to move (...) these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

Several recent systematic and targeted reviews have highlighted limitations in our understanding of talent in sport. However, a comprehensive profile of where the scientific research has focused would help identify gaps in current knowledge. Our goal in this scoping review was to better understand what others have done in the field of research, to summarize the constituent areas of research in a meaningful way, to help identify gaps in the research, and to encourage future research to address these gaps. Peer-reviewed (...) articles written in English that met several inclusion criteria were analyzed. A total of 1,899 articles were identified, and the descriptive findings revealed a relatively narrow focus of research on talent in sport. Specifically, the majority of examined articles focused on males only, the sport of soccer, perceptual cognitive variables, developing athletes, adult samples, and cross-sectional designs. For better or worse, the concept of talent remains a central element of how coaches, practitioners, and scientists think about athlete development. Findings from this scoping review highlight the continued need to explore issues related to talent identification, selection, and development in more diverse samples and contexts. There is also a clear necessity to focus on under-researched areas using alternative methodologies. (shrink)

This article argues that — despite the value of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders in a contingent and relative sense — there is no fundamental insider—outsider problem. We distinguish weak and strong versions of 'insiderism' (privileged versus monopolistic access to knowledge) and then sociological and religious versions of the latter. After reviewing critiques of the sociological version, we offer a holistic semantic critique of the religious version (i.e. the view that religious experience and/or language offers sui generis access to knowledge). (...) We argue that all evidence for mental states is overt, public, and observable, and, hence, that there can be no significant difference in the access to knowledge of insiders and outsiders. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 57-59, December 2011.

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 requires audit committees of public companies’ boards of directors to install an anonymous reporting channel to assist in deterring and detecting accounting fraud and control weaknesses. While it is generally accepted that the availability of such a reporting channel may reduce the reporting cost of the observer of a questionable act, there is concern that the addition of such a channel may decrease the overall effectiveness compared to a system employing only non-anonymous reporting options. The (...) rationale underlying this concern involves the would-be reporter’s likelihood of reporting, the seriousness with which the organization treats an anonymous report, and the organization’s ability to thoroughly follow-up the report. Thus, we explore the extent to which the availability of an anonymous reporting channel influences intended use of non-anonymous reporting channels. Further, in response to Sarbanes–Oxley and the environment of financial scandals that led to its passage, many firms are strengthening their internal audit departments, and providing them with greater independence from upper management’s direct control. Accordingly, our examination tests whether the intended use of the internal audit department as an internal reporting channel is greater when the internal audit department is of “high” versus “low” quality. Finally, the study investigates intended reporting behavior across three different cases (e.g., settings). Results show that the existence of an anonymous channel does reduce the likelihood of reporting to non-anonymous channels, that generally the internal audit department quality does not affect reporting to non-anonymous channels, and that case-setting affects the type of channel to be used. Implications from the study are discussed. (shrink)

This volume investigates how the phenomenology of religion was accepted and developed in different national contexts. It consists of interviews with senior scholars, who are experts on the development of the phenomenology of religion in their countries, along with commentary and analysis.

Most evidence for the role of regular inflection as a default operation comes from languages that confound the morphological properties of regular and irregular forms with their phonological characteristics. For instance, regular plurals tend to faithfully preserve the base’s phonology, whereas irregular nouns tend to alter it. The distinction between regular and irregular inflection may thus be an epiphenomenon of phonological faithfulness. In Hebrew noun inflection, however, morphological regularity and phonological faithfulness can be distinguished: Nouns whose stems change in the (...) plural may take either a regular or an irregular suffix, and nouns whose stems are preserved in the plural may take either a regular or an irregular suffix. We use this dissociation to examine two hallmarks of default inflection: its lack of dependence on analogies from similar regular nouns, and its application to nonroots such as names. We show that these hallmarks of regularity may be found whether or not the plural form preserves the stem faithfully: People apply the regular suffix to novel nouns that don’t resemble existing nouns, and to names that sound like irregular nouns, regardless of whether the stem is ordinarily preserved in the plural of that family of nouns. Moreover, when they pluralize names, they do not apply the stem changes that are found in their homophonous nouns, replicating an effect found in English and German. These findings show that the distinction between regular and irregular phenomena cannot be reduced to differences in the kinds of phonological changes associated with those phenomena in English. Instead, regularity and irregularity must be distinguished in terms of the kinds of mental computations that effect them: symbolic operations versus memorized idiosyncrasies. A corollary is that complex words are not generally dichotomizable as “regular” or “irregular”; different aspects of a word may be regular or irregular depending on whether they violate the rule for that aspect and hence must be stored in memory.. (shrink)

Since 2000, research within positive psychology has exploded, as reflected in dozens of meta-analyses of different interventions and targeted processes, including strength spotting, positive affect, meaning in life, mindfulness, gratitude, hope, and passion. Frequently, researchers treat positive psychology processes of change as distinct from each other and unrelated to processes in clinical psychology. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for positive psychology processes that crosses theoretical orientation, links coherently to clinical psychology and its more dominantly “negative” processes, and supports practitioners (...) in their efforts to personalize positive psychological interventions. We argue that a multi-dimensional and multi-level extended evolutionary approach can organize effective processes of change in psychosocial interventions, by focusing interventions on context-appropriate variation, selection, and retention of processes, arranged in terms of key biopsychosocial dimensions across psychological, biophysiological, and sociocultural levels of analysis. We review widely studied positive psychology constructs and programs and show how this evolutionary approach can readily accommodate them and provide a common language and framework for improving human and community flourishing. We conclude that Interventions should start with the person, not the protocol. (shrink)

Jon Robson and Aaron Meskin have argued that the insights obtained through the philosophical analysis of video games is not specific to video games, but to a larger class of artistic creations they term Self-Involving Interactive Fictions, or SIIFs. But there is at least one aspect of SIIF video games that is philosophically interesting and does not apply to the class of SIIFs as a whole, the ability to represent non-classical time. If SIIF video games are considered to be an (...) extension of the art form of graphic narrative story-telling, the art form dominated by film, then the ability to represent time in in this fashion represents a revolution akin to that of vanishing point perspective in painting. This makes SIIF video games philosophically interesting for both philosophers of film and philosophers of video games. (shrink)

The National Football League, the premier professional organization for American football, developed a policy concerning the protocol in cases where players contract COVID-19. This policy includes elements such as collective punishment that appear, at first glance, to be morally problematic. To the contrary, the policy is indeed morally acceptable as we should not think of organizations such as the NFL in the same way we think of governments in stable nations, but rather in the same way that we think of (...) hybrid justice systems in countries where because of histories of colonialism, the identity of citizens is divided, with tribal identities being more important than national citizenship. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame to move (...) these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

The arts of rule cover the exercise of power by princes and popular sovereigns, but they range beyond the domain of government itself, extending to civil associations, political parties, and religious institutions. Making full use of political philosophy from a range of backgrounds, this festschrift for Harvey Mansfield recognizes that although the arts of rule are comprehensive, the best government is a limited one.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

The scientific, ethical, and policy issues raised by research involving the engraftment of human neural stem cells into the brains of nonhuman primates are explored by an interdisciplinary working group in this Policy Forum. The authors consider the possibility that this research might alter the cognitive capacities of recipient great apes and monkeys, with potential significance for their moral status.