Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but these are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask them. These (...) scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than a socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In this widely hailed and long out of print classic of twentieth-century philo-sophic commentary, Farber explains the origin, development, and function of ...

Evolutionary theory tells us about our biological past; can it also guide us to a moral future? Paul Farber's compelling book describes a century-old philosophical hope held by many biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and social thinkers: that universal ethical and social imperatives are built into human nature and can be discovered through knowledge of evolutionary theory. Farber describes three upsurges of enthusiasm for evolutionary ethics. The first came in the early years of mid-nineteenth century evolutionary theories; the second in (...) the 1920s and '30s, in the years after the cultural catastrophe of World War I; and the third arrived with the recent grand claims of sociobiology to offer a sound biological basis for a theory of human culture. Unlike many who have written on evolutionary ethics, Farber considers the responses made by philosophers over the years. He maintains that their devastating criticisms have been forgotten--thus the history of evolutionary ethics is essentially one of oft-repeated philosophical mistakes. (shrink)

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but there are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask such questions. (...) These scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

An approach to phenomenology, by D. Cairns.--Husserl's critique of psychologism: its historic roots and contemporary relevance, by J. Wild.--The ideal of a presuppositionless philosophy, by M. Farber.--On the intentionality of consciousness, by A. Gurwitsch.--The "reality-phenomenon" and reality, by H. Spiegelberg.--The phenomenological concept of "horizon", by H. Kuhn.--Phenomenology and logical empiricism, by F. Kaufmann.--Phenomenology and the history of science, by J. Klein.--Phenomenology and the social sciences, by A. Schuetz.--Art and phenomenology, by F. Kaufmann.--The relation of science to philosophy in the (...) light of Husserl's thought, by L. O. Kattsoff.--Husserl and the social structure of immediacy, by C. Hartshorne.--A materialist approach to Husserl's philosophy, by V. J. McGill.--Outline-sketch of a system of metaphysics, by W. E. Hocking.--Men and the law, by G. Husserl.--The ghost of modality, by H. Weyl.--Supplement: Grundlegende untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen ursprung der räumlichkeit der natur, by E. Husserl. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Is Literature? What Is Art?Integrating Essence and HistoryJerry Farber (bio)I. Aesthetic ExperienceThere remains a widespread belief among literature professors that literature doesn't exist; that is, that it has no stable, transhistorical identity. The very term "literature," we are reminded, shifts its meaning from one century to another. And even if someone should insist that, when they talk about literature, they're not talking about writings in general or (...) a familiarity with books or whatever else the term "literature" may have signified in the past, but only about those texts that one might consider aesthetic, what has this person gained? Not much—since a literature professor who, in recent decades, has turned for answers to the philosophical study of aesthetics will have been likely to confront either a Wittgensteinian dismantling of "art" or, more commonly these days, an institutional theory that defines "art" not on the basis of any properties that it might possess or of any function that it might serve, but solely on the basis of its relation to a cultural institution that, in return, is identified in relation to "art." One might be forgiven for concluding that to follow this quest for essence from "literature" to "aesthetic" or "art" is to go from one sinking ship to another.So literature—as Terry Eagleton, for example, has continued to insist through two editions of his widely read Literary Theory: An Introduction1 —doesn't exist. Which makes it awkward to be a literature professor and helps to explain why so many of us have tried to reinvent ourselves as professors of something else. But this is by no means a mere problem of academic nomenclature, since more than a few of us continue to believe on some level (a level obviously below the graduate level) that there is something there all the same, something that is more stable and less culturally contingent than our theories tell us it is. We just don't know how to legitimize that belief. This dilemma tends to be reflected one way or another in [End Page 1] our teaching. We may repress any essentialist qualms and seek a lofty theoretical consistency as cultural historians for whom aesthetics is merely one more thing to situate—and we pass this disbelief in literature on to our students. Or we may learn to live with cognitive dissonance and pass that on to our students. Literature is hardly alone among the arts in its identity problem, but it does seem to have a more advanced case.Someone came for a job interview on my campus a few years ago, fresh out of a fairly prestigious doctoral program. He made his presentation and then mentioned during the question period afterward that, in his classes, he did make an effort not to ignore a text's aesthetic qualities. He stopped, looked around apprehensively, and said, "I know the term's problematic, of course...""So how do you resolve that?" I asked.He shrugged. "I don't know really."Nonetheless, just as there has been a "return of the aesthetic" in broader terms, books and articles have been appearing from the mid-90s on, arguing for or heralding a reemergence of the aesthetic in literary study.2 Certainly this makes sense, if only as a way of trying to shore up our precarious position in the academy, since, as has been repeatedly observed, literary study, in the absence of any delimiting aesthetic criterion, simply dissolves into other disciplines. And if literature doesn't exist, why spend money on literature professors? Why not hire real historians, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, etc., to do those more respectable and definable things we keep claiming we do? But still, practical motives aside, what is to be the theoretical basis for any return to literary aesthetics? Can this merely be a matter of fashion? Will "the return of the repressed" do as a justification?The time has come, I think, not to revert to a simple, blind faith in "literature" and "art," but to find a way of reconciling our stubborn essentialist belief, on one hand, and our constructionist perspective, on the other—a way of understanding and teaching literature... (shrink)

Health care decision making has changed profoundly during the past several decades. Advances in scientific knowledge, technology, and professional skill enable medical providers to extend and enhance life by increasing the ability to cure disease, manage disability, and palliate suffering. Ironically, the same interventions can prolong painful existence and protract the dying process. Recognizing that medical interventions, especially lifesustaining measures, are not always medically appropriate or even desired by a patient or family, health care professionals endeavor to determine who should (...) make health care decisions and according to what standards. The importance that Western culture places on individual rights and self-determination is reflected in the growing advocacy for patient autonomy and the discrediting of physician paternalism. However, the question of autonomy becomes more complex when patients lack the capacity to decide for themselves.Advance directives represent one response to the dilemma of decision making for incapacitated patients. The original advance directive, the living will, is a written list of instructions reflecting the individual's wishes about care, usually at the end of life. (shrink)

Health care decision making has changed profoundly during the past several decades. Advances in scientific knowledge, technology, and professional skill enable medical providers to extend and enhance life by increasing the ability to cure disease, manage disability, and palliate suffering. Ironically, the same interventions can prolong painful existence and protract the dying process. Recognizing that medical interventions, especially lifesustaining measures, are not always medically appropriate or even desired by a patient or family, health care professionals endeavor to determine who should (...) make health care decisions and according to what standards. The importance that Western culture places on individual rights and self-determination is reflected in the growing advocacy for patient autonomy and the discrediting of physician paternalism. However, the question of autonomy becomes more complex when patients lack the capacity to decide for themselves.Advance directives represent one response to the dilemma of decision making for incapacitated patients. The original advance directive, the living will, is a written list of instructions reflecting the individual's wishes about care, usually at the end of life. (shrink)

In this widely hailed and long out of print classic of twentieth century philosophic commentary, Professor Farber explains the origin, development, and function of phenomenology with a view towards its significance for philosophy in general. The book offers a general account of Husserl and the background of his philosophy. The early chapters are devoted to his mathematical-philosophical and psychological studies. The refutation of psychologism is present in detail, together with the critical reaction to it. The development of his logical (...) theories in the light of contemporary literature at the close of the 19th century is next considered. The main content of the six Logical Investigations follows, which contribute to the phenomenological elucidation of experience and knowledge. The phenomenological philosophy of logic as developed in Husserl's later writings is then introduced, followed by a discussion of the phenomenological method and its proper function. Farber makes clear his preference for phenomenology as a purely descriptive method and his opposition to have it serve as a last stronghold of metaphysics. Indispensable as groundwork for descriptive philosophical study, this book will deeply interest not only serious students of philosophy and psychology, but also those who are concerned with the philosophical aspects of mathematics, social and natural sciences, law and psychiatry. (shrink)

The article analyzes how American philosopher Charles Peirce understands the concept of reality. He identifies the real as that which is independent of what any individual thinks about it and as a type of cognition and as the object of inquiry. Obtrusive realism and projective realism are the two central elements in Peirce's thoughts on reality. A set of problems relating to Peirce's assumption that inquiry must ultimately focus on true beliefs about reality is also presented.

I argue in this essay that the phenomena we classify as "mental illness" result largely from the refusal of socially authorized "experts" to recognize - and thus to constitute - the Other as a subject. I suggest that Institutional Mental Health refuses to do this not merely because it seeks to aggrandize its own power but also because it fears to acknowledge that we are all participants in a process of historical development. It denies this because it is historically conditioned (...) by its own moment of origin in the project of the Enlightenment, It is conseqently wed to an ethos of rationalized order that does not accomodate, much less support, the unpredictable creative power of the Other and that sustains instead the project of mastery, of domination, of disovering eternal laws that will enable Reason to master history and to master the Other. For this reason Institutional Mental Health and its diverse ideologies, ranging from the pyschoanalytic to genetic defect models, constitute a major obstacle to the evolution of humanity. (shrink)

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) requires as a condition of accreditation that every health care institution -- hospital, nursing home, or home care agency -- have a standing mechanism to address ethical issues. Most organizations have chosen to fulfill this requirement with an interdisciplinary ethics committee. The best of these committees are knowledgeable, creative, and effective resources in their institutions. Many are wellmeaning but lack the information, experience, and skills to negotiate adequately the complex ethical (...) issues that arise in clinical and organizational settings. Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees is the first resource designed to address the range of work performed by ethics committees as part of their multiple responsibilities, including education, case consultation, and policy development. It features an eight-chapter curriculum reviewing the content of contemporary health care bioethics and discussing the ethical foundations of clinical practice, with each subsequent section focusing on a set of ethical issues that commonly arise in the clinical setting. Through case studies, the authors explore issues such as informed consent and refusal, decision making and decisional capacity, truth telling, decision-making concerns of minors, end-of-life issues, palliation, justice in and access to health care services, and organizational ethics. They offer sample policies and procedures, draft guidelines and protocols, and key legal cases. Providing both a strong theoretical foundation and practical applications, this handbook will be essential reading for every member of a health care ethics committee. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Humor in Literature and the Other ArtsJerry Farber (bio)With a clearer understanding of the way humor works, we might be better able to give it the attention it deserves when we study and teach the arts. But where do we turn to find a theoretical framework for the study of humor—one that will help to clarify the role that humor (...) plays in the arts and that will help us as well to understand differences in the way individual perceivers respond to humor in art?A superiority theory of humor emerged in classical times and more or less held the stage through the seventeenth century; now, however, though an occasional attempt to revive it is still made,1 superiority theory is usually regarded as far too narrow in scope to be useful as a general account of humor. What are commonly referred to as "release" (or, occasionally, "relief") theories— and associated with Spencer and Freud—were for a time very influential, but are somewhat narrow too in their own way, and furthermore, as Noël Carroll puts it, "have the liability of presupposing hydraulic views of the mind that are highly dubious."2 Incongruity theory, which has been around in one form or another since at least the eighteenth century, dominates contemporary humor theory but is still widely regarded as not quite there yet. And so humor remains somewhat mysterious and elusive. Or not even that. It may be that most people, even teachers in the arts, bypass theory entirely and simply accept humor as a given: an unanalyzable fact of human life. I've sometimes wondered if it may be that we don't want to understand humor, either because we're afraid that this understanding will spoil the game or, just possibly, because we sense that, as a consequence of it, we may discover things about ourselves that we would prefer not to know.Is a well-founded, broadly inclusive theoretical framework for the study and teaching of humor in the arts achievable? I want to propose that it is if [End Page 67] we take incongruity theory a few steps further, integrating an analysis of the humorous situation (that is, what we perceive: the caricature, the witty dialogue, the bit of stage business) with an analysis of what goes on in the perceiver (the humor experience itself).A General Theory of HumorIncongruity theory, though clearly the front-runner these days, continues to be problematic, making too much sense for us to discard it, but not quite enough sense to get us where we need to go. Thus, Carroll concludes his recent overview of this theoretical tradition: "Though promising, the Incongruity Theory of Humor remains a project in need of further research."3 Reading this we may find ourselves wondering, just as we might about some writer or performer who's been on the scene for a good long time, how much longer this centuries-old theoretical approach gets to remain "promising."What have been the major problems associated with incongruity theory? For one thing, it doesn't tell us much about the affective dimension of humor.4 Neither does it satisfactorily explain differences in the way individual perceivers respond. The major weakness of incongruity theory, however, has been a failure to account adequately for all of those instances of incongruity that are not funny: for example, brainteasers, logic problems, and puzzles. One way of dealing with this problem has been to keep adding on exclusionary clauses until the category has been pared down satisfactorily. In other words, humor is based on incongruity, provided that we exclude situations that inspire fear, or are disgusting, or are perceived instrumentally, or are regarded primarily as a puzzle, and so on. But, of course, this is patchwork. What we need is a humor theory where stipulations such as these don't have to be added on, because they follow logically from the theory itself.It's been proposed repeatedly that the incongruous elements in humor are likely to be connected in some way, though some of the terms that have been advanced to identify this connection are unnecessarily limiting if... (shrink)

As medical technology becomes more sophisticate the ability to manipulate nature and manage disease forces the dilemma of when can becomes ought. Indeed, most bioethical discourse is framed in terms of balancing the values and interests and the benefits and burdens that inform principled decisions about how, when, and whether interventions should occur. Yet, despite advances in science and technology, one caregiver mandate remains as constant and compelling as it was for the earliest shaman—the relief of pain. Even when cure (...) is impossible, the physician's duty of care includes palliation. Moreover, the centrality of this obligation is both unquestioned and universal, transcending time and cultural boundaries.Although universally acknowledged, pain is a complex phenomenon for both the patient and the caregiver, influenced as much by personal values and cultural traditions as by physiological injury and disease. (shrink)

A frequent criticism of the neuroscientific approach to consciousness is that its theories describe only 'correlates' or 'analogues' of consciousness, and so fail to address the nature of consciousness itself. Despite its apparent logical simplicity, this criticism in fact relies on some substantive assumptions about the nature and evolution of scientific explanations. In particular, it is usually assumed that, in expressing correlations, neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) theories must fail to capture the causal structure relating brain and mind. Drawing on (...) work in the history and philosophy of science, I argue that this assumption - along with the related claim that even a correct NCC theory would fail to explain consciousness - is grounded in an inadequate conception of the way in which scientific explanations develop. Examination of parallel developments in 20th century biology reveals that, under the right circumstances, seemingly crude correspondences can play an essential role in scientific discovery and can sometimes become central to our everyday understanding of the phenomena in question. A proper understanding of this process clarifies the value of NCC theories and sheds light on the standards by which they should be evaluated. In closing, I describe two specific criteria for evaluating NCC proposals: intertheoretic bridge potential and detailed mapping. (shrink)

In Social Decay and Transformation social and political critic Samuel Farber presents an analysis of social decline that has been missing from the contemporary scene: a view from the Left, one which draws from the ideas and traditions of the Enlightenment's left wing. Using a comparative approach to situate his theoretical conclusions in historical circumstances, Farber looks at the working class and temperance movements, civil rights rebellions and the Black Panthers, and the cultural revolutions of 1920s Russia and (...) the Bolsheviks. Providing carefully reasoned interrogations of contemporary thinkers such as James C. Scott and Robin D. G. Kelley, Farber clarifies the discussions on social decay currently taking place, adding an important voice of the Left to the current debate. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory tells us about our biological past; can it also guide us to a moral future? Paul Farber's compelling book describes a century-old philosophical hope held by many biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and social thinkers: that universal ethical and social imperatives are built into human nature and can be discovered through knowledge of evolutionary theory. Farber describes three upsurges of enthusiasm for evolutionary ethics. The first came in the early years of mid-nineteenth century evolutionary theories; the second in (...) the 1920s and '30s, in the years after the cultural catastrophe of World War I; and the third arrived with the recent grand claims of sociobiology to offer a sound biological basis for a theory of human culture. Unlike many who have written on evolutionary ethics, Farber considers the responses made by philosophers over the years. He maintains that their devastating criticisms have been forgotten—thus the history of evolutionary ethics is essentially one of oft-repeated philosophical mistakes. Historians, scientists, social scientists, and anyone concerned about the elusive basis of selflessness, altruism, and morality will welcome Farber's enlightening book. (shrink)

The psychologist Leslie Farber, who died in 1981, has been revered as one of the most astute observers of the human condition and a writer of penetrating wisdom. His essays, on topics as diverse as the pornographic anguish of jealousy and the despair of psychotherapy, were collected in 1966 (The Ways of the Will) and 1976 (Lying, Despair, Jealousy, Envy, Sex, Suicide, Drugs, and the Good Life) and have been out of print for nearly twenty years. Based partly on (...) his experiences as a therapist, but more importantly on his special insight, Dr. Farber's observations provide us with a unique glimpse into ourselves that is frequently startling, but in the end always consoling. (shrink)