In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

Self‐renewal and differentiation of stem cells are tightly regulated processes subject to intrinsic and extrinsic signals. Molecular chaperones and co‐chaperones, especially heat shock proteins (Hsp), are ubiquitous molecules involved in the modulation of protein conformational and complexation states. The function of Hsp, which are typically associated with stress response and tolerance, is well characterized in differentiated cells, while their role in stem cells remains unclear. It appears that embryonic stem cells exhibit increased stress tolerance and concomitant high levels of chaperone (...) expression. This review critically evaluates stem cell research from a molecular chaperone perspective. Furthermore, we propose a model of chaperone‐modulated self‐renewal in mouse embryonic stem cells. (shrink)

Between 1998 and 2006, a new style of television news consumption was born: “news grazing.” With remote control devices in hand, “grazers” flip through TV news channels in order to find interesting news stories. Approximately three‐fifths of the public graze, and this group tends to be younger than non‐grazers. Grazers are less likely than the rest of the public to follow “hard” news about politics and economics, and, not surprisingly, they are even less knowledgeable about public affairs than most people (...) are. (shrink)

Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb, whereas changing the verb had little impact on noun recognition. Experiment 2 revealed that verbs exhibited context effects more similar to those shown by superordinate nouns rather (...) than basic-level nouns. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the degree of meaning change in a target word resulting from changes in semantic context influenced the magnitude of context effects, but context effects remained larger for verbs than for nouns even when the degree of meaning change was similar for nouns and verbs. These results are discussed with respect to the imageability and grammatical roles played by nouns and verbs in a sentence. (shrink)

Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb, whereas changing the verb had little impact on noun recognition. Experiment 2 revealed that verbs exhibited context effects more similar to those shown by superordinate nouns rather (...) than basic‐level nouns. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the degree of meaning change in a target word resulting from changes in semantic context influenced the magnitude of context effects, but context effects remained larger for verbs than for nouns even when the degree of meaning change was similar for nouns and verbs. These results are discussed with respect to the imageability and grammatical roles played by nouns and verbs in a sentence. (shrink)

Preparing the Next Generation of Oral Historians is an invaluable resource to educators seeking to bring history alive for students at all levels. Filled with insightful reflections on teaching oral history, it offers practical suggestions for educators seeking to create curricula, engage students, gather community support, and meet educational standards. By the close of the book, readers will be able to successfully incorporate oral history projects in their own classrooms.

Eyal et al have recently argued that researchers should consider conducting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) human challenge studies to hasten vaccine development. We have conducted (J. L.) and overseen (L. D.) human challenge studies and agree that they can be useful in developing anti-infective agents. We also agree that adults can autonomously choose to undergo risks with no prospect of direct benefit to themselves. However, we disagree that SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies are ethically appropriate at this time, for (...) 3 reasons: (1) current scientific knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 infection is insufficient to manage risks; (2) autonomous decision making, while necessary, does not override concerns about risk; and (3) undertaking challenge studies now would imperil confidence in the research enterprise, potentially undermining the global response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. (shrink)

Revelations of personal matters often have negative consequences for social-media users. These consequences trigger frequent warnings, practical rather than moral in nature, that social-media users should consider carefully what they reveal about themselves since their revelations might cause them various difficulties in the future. I set aside such practical considerations and argue that social-media users have a moral obligation to maintain their own privacy that is rooted in the duty to self-censor. Although Anita L. Allen provides a paternalist justification of (...) the duty that supports my position that social-media users are obligated to self-censor what they reveal about themselves, I justify the obligation through considerations that are more palatable to liberals than is paternalism. I accomplish this by arguing that the failure to self-censor often creates for others undue burdens that individuals are obligated morally not to create. In particular, social-media revelations often create undue burdens for those, such as employers and university personnel, who are obligated morally to respect individuals’ privacy in their decision-making processes. I also demonstrate that this argument is not for a broad duty to self-censor, but, rather, for a narrow duty that applies to particular circumstances such as certain uses of social media. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous offrons un large aperçu des interactions entre cognition, systèmes de croyances et institutions, et comment elles affectent la performance économique. Nous estimons qu'une meilleure compréhension de l’émergence des institutions, de leurs propriétés de fonctionnement et de leurs effets sur les résultats politiques et économiques doit commencer par une analyse des processus cognitifs. Nous explorons la nature de l'apprentissage individuel et collectif, en soulignant que la question n'est pas de savoir si les agents ont une rationalité parfaite (...) ou limitée, mais plutôt de savoir comment les êtres humains raisonnent ou choisissent réellement, individuellement et collectivement. Nous avons ensuite lié les processus d'apprentissage à l'analyse institutionnelle, fournissant des arguments en faveur de ce qui peut être qualifiée d’« institutionnalisme cognitif ». En outre, nous montrons qu’un traitement complet du phénomène de sentier de dépendance devrait commencer au niveau cognitif, se poursuivre au niveau institutionnel, et aboutir au niveau économique. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

L'article-recension s'efforce de mettre en lumière certains problèmes méthodologiques qui invalident le livre de Catherine LaCugna : God For Us. The Trinity and Christian Life . La doctrine de la Trinité qu'elle y présente, en effet, oscille entre modalisme et arianisme à cause de sa méthode historiciste. Son refus de la doctrine thomiste l'a contrainte à faire du Dieu in se un appendice théologique.

The third Earl of Shaftesbury had generally been known as the forerunner of the Moral Sense school of philosophers in the eighteenth century. Surprisingly little attention had been paid to his importance for literature and yet undoubtedly this had been very great. Originally published in 1951, this study gives an account of Shaftesbury's aesthetic and literary theory; his discussion of the imagination, ridicule, the aesthetic judgment and the sublime; and his anticipation of later writers such as Burke, Coleridge and (...) Kant. It also considers Shaftesbury's thought as part of the background of ideas in the Augustan period and his influence in such fields as literature, architecture and landscape gardening. In addition, the author assesses in more general terms Shaftesbury's attempt to maintain a Platonic viewpoint that would be more congenial to poetry than Locke's "new way of ideas". (shrink)

The third Earl of Shaftesbury had generally been known as the forerunner of the Moral Sense school of philosophers in the eighteenth century. Surprisingly little attention had been paid to his importance for literature and yet undoubtedly this had been very great. Originally published in 1951, this study gives an account of Shaftesbury's aesthetic and literary theory; his discussion of the imagination, ridicule, the aesthetic judgment and the sublime; and his anticipation of later writers such as Burke, Coleridge and (...) Kant. It also considers Shaftesbury's thought as part of the background of ideas in the Augustan period and his influence in such fields as literature, architecture and landscape gardening. In addition, the author assesses in more general terms Shaftesbury's attempt to maintain a Platonic viewpoint that would be more congenial to poetry than Locke's "new way of ideas". (shrink)

Hobbes's experience with patronage, as the servant and client of the Earls of Devonshire and Newcastle, influenced the concepts of human nature and human action found in his major political works. The desire for honour, which he emphasized in Leviathan, constitutes one of the major motivations of behaviour both in the state of nature and the state, as it did in the status-driven society Hobbes knew from his own experiences as a client. Hobbes's concepts of free gift and gratitude reflect (...) the dynamic interchanges which propelled and cemented the societal bonds created through patronage. Patronage also helps explain Hobbes's actions in presenting a copy of Leviathan to the uncrowned king, Charles II, and his subsequent return to England in 1652. (shrink)

Amateur scientists were important in the science of the eighteenth century as patrons, investors in talent and new equipment, as the maintainers of gardens and libraries, and, occasionally, as men who could and did make discoveries or significant innovations. The article shows that the 3rd Duke of Argyll was one of these men. He was also much more. Ilay's interests in science, because of his important political position in Scotland, touched not only his immediate friends but helped to reshape Scottish (...) culture itself. This essay looks at his scientific interests, his political career, and his patronage to argue that the results of his long career in politics were to institutionalize a new set of modern values in most Scottish institutions. (shrink)

Most contributors approach the secularization question out of concern with intolerance and repression. But a peculiar kind of religion may impinge upon secular life in a different way: a prophetic religion may generate the solidarity and will-to-sacrifice that oppressed peoples need to fight for freedom and equality. The tradition of the Hebrew Prophets played a key role in the American civil rights struggle. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and other exponents of the tradition rejected the idea that minority rights (...) could ever be secured automatically or predictably. They viewed their fellow Americans' faith in progress with severe skepticism. The distinction between prophetic religion and normal religion will clarify the secularization debate, because it helps us see that some forms of religion are skeptical of official and/or popular beliefs. A prophet may reject the prevailing religion as strongly as an atheist does. Members of the prevailing religion will often call the prophet irreligious. Pagan Romans, for example, called the early Christians "atheists," since they believed in a mere man. There are sometimes religions that foster skepticism and critical thinking, that is. These Prophetic religions may at times be more effective against repression than secular efforts to organize opinion. (shrink)

The story of the end of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783, is linked with that of the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh , both of which were given Royal Charters sealed on 6 May 1783. It is a story which has been admirably told by Steven Shapin. He persuasively argued that the P.S.E. was a casualty of bitter quarrels rooted in local Edinburgh politics, in personal animosities and in disputes (...) about the control of cultural property and intellectual leadership. In all this he was surely correct just as he was in finding the principal actors in this controversy to be: David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan; the Reverend Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh University; Dr William Cullen, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice-President of the P.S.E.; Mr William Smellie, Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; Henry Home, Lord Kames, S.C.J. and President of the P.S.E.; Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Vice-President of the P.S.E.; John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Secretary to the P.S.E.; Edinburgh University's Principal, William Robertson; the Curators of the Advocates Library: Ilay Campbell, Robert Blair, Alexander Abercromby, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Public Law; Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate and M.P. for Midlothian. In a peripheral way, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons were probably also involved; so too were Lord Buchan's brothers, Henry and Thomas Erskine, Foxite Whigs who opposed Dundas politically. Henry Erskine displaced Dundas as Lord Advocate in August 1783. After the change of ministry on 18 December 1783 he was ousted, but became Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1785. National as well as burgh politics touched these disputes and gave the parties of the Erskines and Dundas and his friends some leverage in London. (shrink)

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Throughout the years 1768–1783 looked to the outside world like a flourishing and important body. By 1771 it had sponsored the publication of five volumes of papers which had gone through several printings and translations. It had a distinguished foreign membership which assured its recognition abroad as one of the important academic bodies in the cosmopolitan Republic of Letters. From its foundation in 1737 until his death in 1768, its President had been the Earl (...) of Morton, better known as the President of the Royal Society of London and as an astronomer who had been active in the practical work of the London society. Another member, Sir John Pringle, became President of the Royal Society in 1772. It was also known abroad that among the Edinburgh philosophers were to be found the most important professors of the town's university, not only those of its distinguished medical faculty but also men like William Robertson, Adam Ferguson and later John Robison. David Hume had been at one time a Secretary of the Society and probably remained a member to the end of his life in 1776. In the British colonies, the Society could point to members in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Jamaica and other West Indian islands and it had contacts in a far-flung network reaching from China and Siberia in the east to places less remote in Europe and America. Within Britain, the Society had members in London and in provincial towns of whom William Brownrigg was the most important. From these men and from others scattered in Scotland, the Society drew information and projected its image as a successful learned society. These appearances, however, are far clearer than the Society's record of accomplishment during its last years. It is not accidental that so little pertaining to its work survives. The Society in reality had a career far from brilliant and by 1778 hardly deserved the reputation it had acquired. During its last five years it revived but even then it probably did not reach the level of activity seen in the early and mid 1750s. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the development of what I call “the problem of partiality” through the work of certain key figures in the British Moralist tradition: John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury), Francis Hutcheson, John Gay, David Hume, Joseph Butler, and Adam Smith. On the one hand, we are committed to impartiality as a constitutive norm of moral judgment and conduct. On the other hand, we are committed to the idea that it is (...) permissible, or even obligatory, to expend disproportionate resources promoting the good of our loved ones over the good of strangers. However, these two commitments conflict with one another. This problem challenges us to provide an account of the scope and limits of reasonable partiality that does justice to both commitments. I argue that confronting this tension is a central project of early modern ethics. I offer a rereading of the British Moralist tradition, centered on debates about partiality, and thereby shift discussion of the tradition away from concerns about meta-ethics and moral epistemology, to issues of practical ethics. The topic of partiality remains central in contemporary ethics, as is evident in ongoing debates about the place of empathy in moral judgment, and the role of love in shaping our moral commitments. Though the aim of the dissertation is not to settle questions about the scope and limits of reasonable partiality, the focus here remains fixed on how the concept of partiality was problematized in our ethical thought, and how it informs our discussions in normative ethics and moral psychology. Alongside building a bridge between early modern scholarship and recent work in ethics, the dissertation casts light on two understudied figures in the British Moralist tradition – Cockburn and Gay – who contributed greatly to debates about partiality. By examining their contributions, I reconsider their place in the history of modern ethics and therefore provide a more contextualized account of philosophical thought in the period. (shrink)

In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and developing an alternative account of the planet’s future. By reading a range of critical race theorists, from Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois to Octavia Butler and (...) Ta-Nehisi Coates, we propose a rethinking of the climate apocalypse. The African American theoretical and cultural tradition elaborates an image of the end of the world that emphasises the non-revelatory nature of climate catastrophe, warns against associating collapse with rebirth, and articulates a mode of maroon survivalism in which the apocalypse is an event to be endured and escaped rather than fatalistically expected or infinitely delayed. (shrink)

Earl R. MacCormick provides his readers with a survey of recent studies in the languages of science and religion arguing that both science and religion employ metaphors and that the one is as vulnerable as the other to attacks of meaninglessness on the grounds of verifiability and falsifiability criteria of meaning. While acknowledging that the contents and intentions of metaphors in science and religion differ, MacCormick argues that science and religion use metaphors for similar purposes and that both create (...) myths when they falsely attribute reality to what are in fact tentative explanations. His conclusion is that one cannot legitimately reject religious language as meaningless on the grounds that its language is metaphorical without recognizing that the language of science is subject to the same criticism. (shrink)

In this powerful volume, 15 leading American philosophers examine and critically reassess Douglass's significance for contemporary social and political thought. Philosophically, Douglass's work sought to establish better ways of thinking, especially in the light of his convictions about our humanity and democratic legitimacy - convictions that were culturally and historically shaped by his experience of, and struggle against, the institution of American slavery. Contributors include Bernard R. Boxill, Angela Y. Davis, Lewis R. Gordon, Leonard Harris, Tommy L. Lott, (...) Howard McGary, and John P. Pittman. (shrink)

This book is vintage North."--Barry Weingast, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University "In this book Douglass North once again opens new frontiers in economic research.

Communism lost the Cold War, not to pure free market capitalism, but to a range of diverse economic systems based onvarying degrees and forms of social regulation of the market. Such social regulation was possible because both polities and economies were primarily national. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been rapid globalization of the economy, but not of effective social regulation. Incipient global political institutions are too weak to regulate global corporate power, while national governments no longer (...) have sufficient reach to regulate large multinationals. Corporate self-regulation has begun, but only haltingly and mostly ineffectively.While global prosperity has risen dramatically in recent decades, not everyone has progressed since the end of the Cold War. Since 1990 some 55 countries have had declining per capita incomes, while inequality has risen within and between countries. It is too soon to say whether global capitalism will be saved from itself by regulation, just as American national capitalism may have been saved by the New Deal reforms it opposed. As Pope John Paul II has warned, the world must not succumb to a "radical capitalist ideology" which "blindly entrusts" social problems to market forces. (shrink)