In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

The life of Henry Margenau offers a case study in the complexity of the science‐religion relation. As a physicist‐philosopher at Yale University, he pursued a public program of “amalgamating religion with science.” He drew upon his authority as a physicist and a tradition of philosophical idealism to advocate a “reciprocity” between the two spheres. He argued that a “new modesty” and “metaphysical attitude” among scientists created new opportunities for collaboration. At the same time, his view of faith and his sense (...) of the religiousness of science created troubling ambiguities. In the end, Margenau embodied the ambivalent relation between science and religion while revealing the limits of renegotiating the boundaries. (shrink)

In the early 1950s, astronomer Allan Sandage inherited from Edwin Hubble the task of determining whether expansion was real. In the succeeding forty years, Sandage “established the discipline of observational cosmology” (Overbye 1991, 188). At the same time, he encountered the limits of science to address the full mystery of existence. In seeking an answer to the question of purpose, in particular, Sandage came to the “abyss of reason” and made the “leap of faith.” This conversion, however, involved, and continues (...) to involve, an ongoing process of balancing two avenues to the truth, drawing upon resources from both scientific and religious traditions. Reason and faith seem reconcilable in life lived as an experiment and in “bowing before the mystery” (Sandage 1990). Ultimately, Sandage suggests that religious conversion comes not so much through reasoned pursuit as in the realization of being pursued. (shrink)

The life of Henry Margenau (1901–1997) offers a case study in the complexity of the science‐religion relation. As a physicist‐philosopher at Yale University, he pursued a public program of “amalgamating religion with science.” He drew upon his authority as a physicist and a tradition of philosophical idealism to advocate a “reciprocity” between the two spheres. He argued that a “new modesty” and “metaphysical attitude” among scientists created new opportunities for collaboration. At the same time, his view of faith and his (...) sense of the religiousness of science created troubling ambiguities. In the end, Margenau embodied the ambivalent relation between science and religion while revealing the limits of renegotiating the boundaries. (shrink)

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference "Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium" held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

Durbin, history and philosophy of science scholar and writer, has created a volume that includes about 100 terms from the natural and social sciences. For each term there is an extended definition and discussion of related philosophic issues. Each entry, about three and one-half pages, also provides a bibliography of some six to a dozen sources. A thorough index includes all terms and people discussed in the entries. This is an excellent source for an entree to the scholarly literature (...) on basic topics such as chance, gender, history, indeterminism, instrumentalism, paradigm, scientific method, and vitalism. Choice This new reference, designed for both students and general readers, provides concise essays on more than one hundred basic core ideas or concepts in the natural and social sciences, supplemented by carefully selected bibliographic listings. Written with a minimum of technical jargon, the essays explore such issues as what it means to be scientific, how theories related to facts in science, and how science compares with other intellectual disciplines. After presenting a clear explanation of the concept, each entry discusses the historical and intellectual context that gave rise to theoretical controversy and assesses the significance of the idea for both the particular discipline and science as a whole. The individual bibliographies will guide the student in tracing the historical development of each subject and investigating its scientific and philosophical aspects in greater detail. Cross referencing and subject indexing are supplied. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

In this short paper—little more than a note, even a short “contrarian” sermon for this anniversary volume—what I do is argue that even the allegedly most “revolutionary” inventions of our computer-driven age are not revolutionary in the sense that their impacts are “driving” society. Some of them are genuinely revolutionary, I admit, but in the reverse direction. The inventions don’t “impact societies”; rather, particular communities within society use the technical languages that are at their core, invent them, embed them in (...) machines, and so on. It is not inventions but particular groups within modern—and so-called postmodern—societies that have invented and use technical languages which are embedded in gadgets that are said to “drive” modern or postmodern societies. And they do so only in one sense: they were invented and are used by various communities in our kinds of societies for a variety of ends. And if this is so, and if we feel those ends are undemocratic or positively anti-democratic, I conclude that we should resist them any way we can, even politically. (shrink)

A number of themes have been on my mind in recent months, and I have made them centerpieces of a number of things I have written lately. In a Ubiquity essay Durbin (ACM Ubiquity 8(45):26, 2007a), I said that I am happy that there are computer professionals who are activists, joining with others to solve the technosocial problems that vex our society, including problems of the computer and information professions. I here moved beyond that to make a new claim (...) about needed changes. (shrink)

The corps of philosophers who make up the Society for Philosophy & Technology has now been collaborating, in one fashion or another, for almost fifteen years. In addition, the number of philosophers, world-wide, who have begun to focus their analytical skills on technology and related social problems grows increasingly every year. {It would certainly swell the ranks if all of them joined the Society!) It seems more than ap propriate, in this context, to publish a miscellaneous volume that em phasizes (...) the extraordinary range and diversity of contemporary contribu tions to the philosophical understanding of the exceedingly complex phenomenon that is modern technology. My thanks, once again, to the anonymous referees who do so much to maintain standards for the series. And thanks also to the secretaries - Mary Imperatore and Dorothy Milsom - in the Philosophy Department at the University of Delaware; their typing and retyping of the MSS, and especially notes and references, also contributes to keeping our standards high. PAUL T. DURBIN vii Paul T. Durbin, Philosophy ofT echnology, p. vii. (shrink)

Since it may seem strange for a new series to begin with volume 3, a word of explanation is in order. The series, Philosophy and Technology, inaugurated in this form with this volume, is the official publication of the Society for Philosophy & Technology. Approximately one volume each year is tobe published, alternating between proceedings volumes - taken from contributions to biennial international conferences of the Society - and miscellaneous volumes, with roughly the character of a professional society journal. The (...) forerunners of the series in its present form were two proceedings volumes: Philosophy and Technology (1983), edited by Paul T. Durbin and Friedrich Rapp, and Philosophy and Technology //: Information Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice (1986), edited by Carl Mitcham and Alois Huning - both published (as volumes 80 and 90, respectively) in the series, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. The Society for Philosophy & Technology, now more than ten years old, is devoted to the promotion of philosophical schalarship that deals in one way or another with technology and technological society. "Philosophical scholarship" is interpreted broadly as including contribu tions from any and all perspectives; the one requirement is that the schalarship be sound, and all contributions to the series are subject to rigorous blind refereeing. "Technology," the other half of the philos ophy-and-technology pairing, is also construed broadly. (shrink)

Method descriptive frameworks, and a practical program for philosophy of technology; The University of Delaware Conference, 1975; Review and bibliography; European contributions; Conference Papers, 1976-1977; Historico-philosophical studies.

BACKGROUND: DEPARTMENTS, SPECIALIZATION, AND PROFESSIONALIZATION IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION For over half of its history, U.S. higher education turned out mostly cler gymen and lawyers. Looking back on that period, we might be tempted to think that this meant specialized training for the ministry or the practice of law. That, however, was not the case. What a college education in the U.S. prepared young men (almost exclusively) for, from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 through the founding of hundreds (...) of denominational colleges in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, was leadership in the community. Professionalization and specialization only began to take root, and then became the dominant mode in U.S. higher education, in the period roughly from 1860--1920. In subsequent decades, that seemed to many critics to signal the end of what might be called "education in wisdom," the preparation of leaders for a broad range of responsibilities. Professionalization, specialization, and departmentalization of higher education in the U.S. began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections with the help of 81 percent of self-identified white evangelicals, liberal commentators, relying on folk-conceptions of religion that privileged concepts like morality and belief, struggled to understand how someone who seemed to lack both could garner such support. Since then scholars have provided various explanations, relating to Christian nationalism evangelical appeals to authoritarianism, and straightforward racism. This article aims to expand this discussion by analyzing the way that evangelical Christian Zionists have supported (...) Trump by rhetorically identifying him as God’s instrument on account of his support for Israel and withdrawal of the United States from the Iran Nuclear Deal. In addition to analyzing the process by which Trump is constituted as God’s instrument, the article also demonstrates more generally how religious discourse functions as a legitimating discourse for those who seek to gain, or maintain, positions of power. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that Professor William J Morgan is one of the most important figures in the philosophy of sport, or sports philosophy as it is also known. Not only has he offered a...

Nearly everyone agrees that life has changed in our technological society, whether the contrast is with earlier stages in Western culture or with non-Western cultures. "Modernization" is just one of various terms that have been applied to the process by which we have arrived at the peculiar lifestyle typical of our age; whatever the term for the process, almost all analysts agree in finding technology to be one of its key ingredients. This is the judgment of critics of all sorts (...) - anthropologists, historians, literary figures, sociologists, theologians. Volume 4 in the Philosophy and Technology series brings the perspectives of philosophers to bear on the issue of characterizing contemporary life, mainly in high-technology societies. Some of the philosophers look at the issue directly. Others focus on work life - or on the living arrangements that surround or condition or offer refuge from work life in technological society. Still others reflect on particular technologies, especially biotechnology and computer technology, that are increasingly affecting both work and family life. There is also a paper on the nature of thinking in technologi cal praxis, along with two papers on whether it is appropriate to export this sort of thinking to Third World countries, and another paper on the issue of responsibility in technology - which would have fit better in volume 3 of the series, entitled Technology and Responsibility (1987). Finally, volume 4 closes with a broad-ranging bibliography that takes work and technology as its focus. (shrink)

En este artículo se defiende la «acción social democrática progresista» como método idóneo para enfrentarse a los problemas relacionados con nuestra sociedad tecnológica. Se repasan otros enfoques ensayados, como la evaluación de tecnologías, la propuesta de reglas éticas para la ciencia y la tecnología, o el control político de la tecnología. El autor argumenta a favor del activismo social centrado en casos concretos y emplazamientos locales como la forma más eficaz de resolver los problemas tecnosociales.

BACKGROUND: Serotonin transporter promoter genotype appears to increase risk for depression in the context of stressful life events. However, the effects of this genotype on measures of stress sensitivity are poorly understood. Therefore, this study examined whether 5-HTTLPR genotype was associated with negative information processing biases in early childhood. METHOD: Thirty-nine unselected seven-year-old children completed a negative mood induction procedure and a Self-Referent Encoding Task designed to measure positive and negative schematic processing. Children were also genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR gene. (...) RESULTS: Children who were homozygous for the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR gene showed greater negative schematic processing following a negative mood prime than those with other genotypes. 5-HTTLPR genotype was not significantly associated with positive schematic processing. LIMITATIONS: The sample size for this study was small. We did not analyze more recently reported variants of the 5-HTTLPR long alleles. CONCLUSIONS: 5-HTTLPR genotype is associated with negative information processing styles following a negative mood prime in a non-clinical sample of young children. Such cognitive styles are thought to be activated in response to stressful life events, leading to depressive symptoms; thus, cognitive styles may index the "stress-sensitivity" conferred by this genotype. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: Early-emerging, temperamental differences in fear-related traits may be a heritable vulnerability factor for anxiety disorders. Previous research indicates that the serotonin transporter promoter region polymorphism is a candidate gene for such traits. METHODS: Associations between 5-HTTLPR genotype and indices of fearful child temperament, derived from maternal report and standardized laboratory observations, were examined in a community sample of 95 preschool-aged children. RESULTS: Children with one or more long alleles of the 5-HTTLPR gene were rated as significantly more nervous during (...) standardized laboratory tasks than children who were homozygous for the short alleles. Children homozygous for the short alleles were also rated as significantly shyer, by maternal report, than those with at least one copy of the long allele of the 5-HTTLPR gene. CONCLUSIONS: This study extends the literature linking the short alleles of the serotonin transporter promoter region polymorphism to fear and anxiety-related traits in early childhood and adulthood, and is one of very few studies to examine the molecular genetics of preschoolers' temperament using multiple measures of traits in a normative sample. (shrink)

In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points (...) that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms. (shrink)

Schlagel begins with the claim: "Ever since Galileo, our beliefs about the world have been influenced, in the main, by the results of scientific inquiry." This is still true, he says, in a sense: "Prominent contemporary philosophers such as Popper, Nagel, Hempel, Grünbaum, Toulmin, and Feyerabend have also taken scientific developments as their main focus of interest." But Schlagel thinks analytical philosophers, by contrast with philosophers of earlier periods, are peculiarly academic--out of touch with the general contemporary intellectual community. Though (...) writing for academic philosophers, Schlagel wants to reach a "wider audience comprised of scholars of diverse backgrounds." To achieve this aim, he says he will diverge from the current analytical paradigm in the following three respects: " [The book] does not focus on language as the primary datum for philosophical investigation, but the results of empirical inquiry...; it does not rely on logic as the tool for clarifying concepts and arguments; and it is systematic, in that it attempts to show that the various facets of the problem of knowledge... are interrelated and imply a new framework of interpretation". (shrink)

As the era or racial and ethnic separateness (apartheid) in South Africa moves further into the annals of history, the new era of integration is being steadily entrenched. While apartheid was internationally condemned and popularly opposed inside the country, a laissez faire type of integration is gradually replacing this system of social rigidity. Apartheid was an exaggerated form of political, economic and social insulation that forbade racial intermingling and sanctioned the existence of separate amenities and living spaces through legislation (Group (...) Areas Act of 1950). However abhorrent apartheid was, it should not be construed that the majority of people had a natural aversion for maintaining social boundaries and a natural inclination to intermingle. In reality, people in all kinds of heterogeneous situations have a proclivity towards demonstrating bonds that emerge out of a sense of “sameness”, as demonstrated in a wide range of literature. (shrink)

Based on the perspective of the regional innovation system, this study constructs an analytical framework for the influence of government R&D funding on regional innovation quality and uses 283 Chinese cities as research samples to empirically test the influence of government R&D funding methods such as subsidies and tax preferences on regional innovation quality by the spatial Durbin model. According to the study, China’s regional innovation quality has a positive spatial correlation. Subsidies can improve regional innovation quality, which is (...) mainly realized by increasing the input of innovation resources from local direct innovation subjects, attracting the inflow of innovation resources from neighboring areas, and increasing the innovation support from local indirect innovation subjects. Besides, spatial competition for subsidies makes it beneficial to improve the regional innovation quality in neighboring regions, while the promotion effect of tax preferences is not significant. When considering the heterogeneity of the city location and administrative hierarchy, it shows that the government R&D funding cannot improve the innovation quality of the Eastern cities and higher-administrative-hierarchy cities, while it can improve that of the Middle and Western cities and general-administrative-hierarchy cities. Furthermore, government R&D funding widens the gap of regional innovation quality, which may be related to the existing “insufficient intervention” and “excessive intervention” of government R&D funding. This study provides insights into the implementation of R&D funding by the government to promote the development of regional innovation quality. (shrink)