Experimental radiobiology represented a long-standing priority for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, but organizational issues initially impeded the laboratory progress of this government-funded work: who would direct such interdisciplinary investigations and how? And should the AEC support basic research or only mission-oriented projects? Alexander Hollaender's vision for biology in the post-war world guided AEC initiatives at Oak Ridge, where he created and presided over the Division of Biology for nearly two decades. Hollaender's scheme, at once entrepreneurial and system-oriented, made good (...) use of the unique resources provided by the AEC and by Oak Ridge's national laboratory setting, while at the same time it restructured wartime research practices to better reflect biologists' own priorities. Because Hollaender offered many academic experimental biologists a way of envisioning military-related patronage as integral - rather than antithetical - to their professional identities, his work provides an important lens through which to examine the early post-war intellectual and institutional development of radiobiology. (shrink)

Policy officials often assert that the U.S. has the best health care system in the world, but a recent scorecard on U.S. health system performance finds that the U.S. achieves a score of only 65 out of a possible 100 points on key indicators of performance in five key domains: healthy lives, access, quality, equity, and efficiency, where 100 represents the best achieved performance in other countries or within the U.S. The U.S. should aim higher by adopting a set of (...) policies that will extend affordable health insurance to all; align financial incentives for health care providers to enhance value and achieve savings; organize the health care system around the patient to ensure that care is accessible and coordinated; meet and raise benchmarks for high-quality, efficient care; and ensure accountable national leadership and public-private collaboration. The incoming president and Congress should aspire to have the best health system in the world — not just assert it — and can do so by learning from examples of excellence within the U.S. and abroad. (shrink)

High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves--inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters. At once silly and serious, Karen Beaumont's joyous rhyming text and David Catrow's wild illustrations unite in a book that is sassy, soulful--and straight from the heart.

In the superannuation/pension industry, ordinary investors entrust their retirement savings to the trustees of the superannuation plan. Investors rely on the trustees to ensure that ethical business and risk management practices are implemented to protect their retirement savings. Governance practices ensure the monitoring of ethical risk management (Drennan, L. T.: 2004, Journal of Business Ethics 52, 257-266). The Australian superannuation industry presents a unique scenario. Legislation requires employers to contribute a minimum of 9% of the employees wage to retirement savings. (...) However, there are no legislated governance standards, although there are standards of recommended governance practices. In this article, we examine the level of voluntary adoption of governance practices by the trustees of Australian public sector and industry superannuation funds. We also assess whether superannuation governance practices are associated with performance and volatility /riskiness of returns. Survey results show that the majority of superannuation plans adopt recommended governance practices supporting the concept of ethical management of the member's retirement savings. The examination of governance principles that impact returns and risk shows that board size and regular review of conflicts are positively associated with return. Superannuation plans with higher volatility in returns meet more frequently. (shrink)

This article investigates the work of mourning following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Combining discussions of mourning, kitsch and sentimentality, I examine the perverse transformation of grief into patriotic nationalism. Linking Freud’s description of mourning as work with Derrida’s articulation of grief as ‘a work working at its own unproductivity’, I explore how grief has been paired with icons of American nostalgia, such as Norman Rockwell, as well as kitschy souvenirs from Ground Zero (...) vendors, and, through this pairing, been transformed into a motive force for war. A central part of this operation, I argue, is the process of identification with the traumatic event. Identification, what Freud describes as a ‘binding force’, takes place across diverse fields - from White House speeches, to kitsch memorabilia made available immediately following the attacks. Identification with the event enables identification with the nation - an operation immediately reifying the official rhetoric of ‘Us against Them’ propounded by President Bush and his advisers. As grief over 9/11 is transformed into a perpetual rationale for war, that day becomes a new origin conveniently obliterating all that came before regarding the history of US nation-building and its own brand of terrorism. (shrink)

The United Nations deemed internet access to be of critical importance for human rights in 2016. In 2020, schools around the world closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools were closed, inequities in internet access gained widespread public attention as many educational opportunities shifted online. Amidst this shift, this paper analyzes an Ontario provincial announcement to provide 21,000 iPads and free data for young people, during the pandemic. The closure of schools in Ontario, Canada, meant that young people and families (...) who faced technological challenges, such as a lack of devices, stable and affordable internet connections, or sufficient data allowances, could experience barriers to their right to an education. This paper revisits a community informatics model of internet access, the Access Rainbow, to analyze attempts to operationalize the right to an education through technology in Ontario. In parallel to rights, however, the field of CI faces the ongoing presence of profit-oriented corporations within universal access efforts. This paper argues that socio-technical infrastructural elements of access to the internet became visible through the breakdown of the pandemic. Furthermore, it considers the multi-stakeholder efforts required to implement useful and effective access, where school boards responded in varied ways locally. The paper contributes the concept of refraction to offer continued theorization of a distributive paradigm and a rights-informed approach in community informatics against the backdrop of the pandemic, which could also act as an opening for privatization and disaster capitalism. (shrink)

In 1892, Eliakim Hastings Moore accepted the task of building a mathematics department at the University of Chicago. Working in close conjuction with the other original department members, Oskar Bolza and Heinrich Maschke, Moore established a stimulating mathematical environment not only at the University of Chicago, but also in the Midwest region and in the United States in general. In 1893, he helped organize an international congress of mathematicians. He followed this in 1896 with the organization of the Midwest Section (...) of the New York City-based American Mathematical Society. He became the first editor-in-chief of the Society's Transactions in 1899, and rose to the presidency of the Society in 1901. (shrink)

Experimental radiobiology represented a long-standing priority for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), but organizational issues initially impeded the laboratory progress of this government-funded work: who would direct such interdisciplinary investigations and how? And should the AEC support basic research or only mission-oriented projects? Alexander Hollaender's vision for biology in the post-war world guided AEC initiatives at Oak Ridge, where he created and presided over the Division of Biology for nearly two decades (1947-1966). Hollaender's scheme, at once entrepreneurial and system-oriented, (...) made good use of the unique resources provided by the AEC and by Oak Ridge's national laboratory setting, while at the same time it restructured wartime research practices to better reflect biologists' own priorities. Because Hollaender offered many academic experimental biologists a way of envisioning military-related patronage as integral - rather than antithetical - to their professional identities, his work provides an important lens through which to examine the early post-war intellectual and institutional development of radiobiology. (shrink)

A high level of citizen involvement in civic life is presumed crucial to the well-being of democracy, but the actual discourse of citizen involvement has rarely been analyzed. This article analyzes citizen participation in the school board meetings of one US community that was in the midst of conflict. After providing background on education governance practices and the community that was studied, citizen participation is examined. Citizen commentaries at school board meetings are shown to be a distinct speech (...) genre and the genre is described. Then, we characterize the discourse practices used to express negative sentiment. Feeling-limned description, avowal of feelings, rhetorical questions, reported speech, use of god and devil terms, and using meeting rules as weapons were the main negative sentiment strategies. In the conclusion we suggest when low levels of citizen involvement should be acceptable, and why `reasonable hostility' is a desirable form of citizen expression. (shrink)

Science inevitably involves ethical discussions about how research should be implemented. However such discussions often neglect the potential unethical treatment of a third party: the research assistant. Extensive anecdotal evidence suggests that research assistants can experience unique physical, psychological, and social risks when implementing their typical responsibilities. Moreover, these research assistants, who perhaps engage in research experience to bolster their curricula vitae, may feel coerced to continue to work in unsafe environments out of fear of losing rapport with the research (...) supervisor or letters of recommendation for their future endeavors. In the present article, we address two important issues regarding the ethical treatment of research assistants. First, we present evidence suggesting that research assistants may experience substantive risk when implementing their assigned responsibilities. Second, we propose a document, the "Research Assistant's Bill of Rights," as a possible ethics code for people supervising research assistants. This document is independent from typical institutional review board processes, and it has the potential to maximize benefits to research supervisors and research assistants. (shrink)

D’ALONZO KT. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 282–288 Getting started in CBPR: lessons in building community partnerships for new researchersThere is a growing interest in community‐based participatory research (CBPR) methods to address issues of health disparities. Although the success of CBPR is dependent upon the formation of community‐researcher partnerships, new researchers as well as seasoned investigators who are transitioning to CBPR often lack the skills needed to develop and maintain these partnerships. The purpose of the article is to discuss the competencies (...) needed by new researchers to form successful CBPR partnerships. The author presents a series of strategic steps that are useful in establishing academic–community partnerships and in initiating, maintaining and sustaining CBPR projects. These steps include suggestions regarding community engagement, selection of community advisory board members, outreach, the community’s role in problem identification, selection of research methodologies, considerations related to the community setting, need for flexibility and patience, ‘insider vs. outsider’ conflicts, commitment and training issues, timing concerns for tenure‐track faculty and the process of community empowerment. Community‐based participatory research is both rewarding and time consuming, for both the researcher and members of the community. Given its promise to address health disparities, it is imperative that researchers acquire the skills needed to develop and cultivate durable community‐researcher partnerships. (shrink)

Knowing the factors that executives deem critical to governance change can improve our understanding of how such changes come about and can help us evaluate those changes. Interviews with business and finance executives at 11 colleges reveal the importance to governance change of chief executive and board member leadership and interactions, as well as executive communication style. Costs are clear constraints to action, particularly since benefits are not quantified and are difficult to describe. Efforts to discuss governance with internal (...) stakeholders require persistence to overcome narrow, individualized concerns. Communication about governance to external stakeholders is rare and represents a missed opportunity for stakeholder feedback and the development of trust. Executives appear willing to adopt governance forms without considering the idiosyncrasies of their institutional field, limiting the working definition of governance and its potential. For corporations and not‐for‐profit enterprises these findings hold implications for the context in which leadership is exercised and the shape of governance structures. They also pose a fundamental ethical dilemma for leaders to address. (shrink)

The proliferation of violations within industry sectors (e.g., banking, doping in sport, abuse in religious organizations) highlights how trust violations can thrive in particular sectors. However, scant research examines how macro institutional factors influence micro level trustworthy conduct. To shed light on how sectoral features may influence trust violations in organizations, we adopt a multilevel perspective to investigate the perceived causes of trust violations within the not-for-profit (NFP) sector, a sector that has witnessed a number of high-profile trust breaches. Drawing (...) on interviews with board members and senior executives of NFPs with cross-sectoral experience, we analyze the causes of trust violations to inductively develop a conceptual model of the multilevel factors contributing to trust violations in NFPs. Our model highlights how trust violations have their roots in sectoral-level factors, which trickle-down to influence the ethical infrastructure at the organizational-level, and in turn individual-level factors and violations. We identify how three NFP sectoral features influence trustworthy behavior: corporatization, resource scarcity, and assumed moral integrity. Our findings speak to the importance of looking beyond the organization to understand both the causes and prevention of trust violations and developing the concept of sector-level ethical infrastructure. (shrink)

BackgroundThe amount of research utilizing health information has increased dramatically over the last ten years. Many institutions have extensive biobank holdings collected over a number of years for clinical and teaching purposes, but are uncertain as to the proper circumstances in which to permit research uses of these samples. Research Ethics Boards (REBs) in Canada and elsewhere in the world are grappling with these issues, but lack clear guidance regarding their role in the creation of and access to registries and (...) biobanks.MethodsChairs of 34 REBS and/or REB Administrators affiliated with Faculties of Medicine in Canadian universities were interviewed. Interviews consisted of structured questions dealing with diabetes-related scenarios, with open-ended responses and probing for rationales. The two scenarios involved the development of a diabetes registry using clinical encounter data across several physicians' practices, and the addition of biological samples to the registry to create a biobank.ResultsThere was a wide range of responses given for the questions raised in the scenarios, indicating a lack of clarity about the role of REBs in registries and biobanks. With respect to the creation of a registry, a minority of sites felt that consent was not required for the information to be entered into the registry. Whether patient consent was required for information to be entered into the registry and the duration for which the consent would be operative differed across sites. With respect to the creation of a biobank linked to the registry, a majority of sites viewed biobank information as qualitatively different from other types of personal health information. All respondents agreed that patient consent was needed for blood samples to be placed in the biobank but the duration of consent again varied.ConclusionParticipants were more attuned to issues surrounding biobanks as compared to registries and demonstrated a higher level of concern regarding biobanks. As registries and biobanks expand, there is a need for critical analysis of suitable roles for REBs and subsequent guidance on these topics. The authors conclude by recommending REB participation in the creation of registries and biobanks and the eventual drafting of comprehensive legislation. (shrink)

Very little has been done to find out what corporations have done to build ethical values into their organizations. In this report on a survey of 1984 Fortune 1000 industrial and service companies the Center for Business Ethics reveals some facts regarding codes of ethics, ethics committees, social audits, ethics training programs, boards of directors, and other areas where corporations might institutionalize ethics. Based on the survey, the Center for Business Ethics is convinced that corporations are beginning to take steps (...) to institutionalize ethics, while recognizing that in most cases more specific mechanisms and strategies need to be implemented to make their ethics efforts truly effective. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Coping with Genetic Disorders. By John C. Fletcher. Genetics, Ethics and Parenthood. Edited by Karen Lebacqz. Screening and Counseling for Genetic Conditions: The Ethical, Social, and Legal Implications of Genetic Screening, Counseling, and Education Programs. A report of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

Background: The parent of a child with profound cognitive disability will have complex decisions to consider throughout the life of their child. An especially complex decision is whether to place a tracheotomy to support the child’s airway. The decision may involve the parent wanting a tracheotomy and the clinician advising against this intervention or the clinician recommending a tracheotomy while the parent is opposed to the intervention. This conflict over what is best for the child may lead to a bioethics (...) consult. Objective: The study explores the conflicts that may arise around tracheotomy placements. Research design: This study is a retrospective cohort study of pediatric patients for whom a tracheotomy decision required a bioethics consult. Participants and research context: Pediatric patients aged birth to 18 years old with a bioethics consult for a tracheotomy decision conflict between April 2010 and December 2016. A standardized data collection tool was used to review notes entered by the palliative care team, social workers, primary clinical team interim summaries, and the bioethics consult service. Ethical considerations: The study was reviewed and approved by the medical center’s institutional review board. Results: There were 248 clinical bioethics consults during the identified study period. There were 31 consults involving 21 children where the word tracheotomy was mentioned in the consult, and 13 of the 21 consults were for children with profound cognitive disability. Discussion and conclusion: Clinicians need to be aware of their own biases when discussing a child’s prognosis and treatment options while also understanding the parents’ values and what the parent might consider to be burdensome in the care of their child and the acceptable burden for the child to experience. (shrink)

With increasing calls for global health research there is growing concern regarding the ethical challenges encountered by researchers from high-income countries (HICs) working in low or middle-income countries (LMICs). There is a dearth of literature on how to address these challenges in practice. In this article, we conduct a critical analysis of three case studies of research conducted in LMICs. We apply emerging ethical guidelines and principles specific to global health research and offer practical strategies that researchers ought to consider. (...) We present case studies in which Canadian health professional students conducted a health promotion project in a community in Honduras; a research capacity-building program in South Africa, in which Canadian students also worked alongside LMIC partners; and a community-university partnered research capacity-building program in which Ecuadorean graduate students, some working alongside Canadian students, conducted community-based health research projects in Ecuadorean communities. We examine each case, identifying ethical issues that emerged and how new ethical paradigms being promoted could be concretely applied. We conclude that research ethics boards should focus not only on protecting individual integrity and human dignity in health studies but also on beneficence and non-maleficence at the community level, explicitly considering social justice issues and local capacity-building imperatives. We conclude that researchers from HICs interested in global health research must work with LMIC partners to implement collaborative processes for assuring ethical research that respects local knowledge, cultural factors, the social determination of health, community participation and partnership, and making social accountability a paramount concern. (shrink)

This study aims to increase insight into the uses of experts’ references to physically absent technology users in government-funded plant science. A discursive psychological analysis of expert board meetings shows that experts invoke various forms of reported dialogue/thoughts and dispositional statements when problems with technology and with program funding are discussed. Forms of reported dialogue serve to demonstrate that experts engage in dialogue with users, understand and are reasonable about users’ concerns, and that the content of user concerns does (...) not agree with expert views. Dispositional statements allow users’ feelings rather than users’ knowledge to be acknowledged as relevant. By establishing that user concerns contrast with expert concerns in type and content and by not discussing how users’ feelings may be incorporated into technology, experts shelve user concerns. This practice may hinder the development of user-friendly technologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Annual Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesSan Diego, California, USA November 21–23, 2014Sandra Costen Kunz, SBCS Secretary and Jonathan A. Seitz, Newsletter EditorThe annual meeting is an opportunity to meet, to reconnect, and to share our work. As a “Related Scholarly Organization” of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies holds its meetings concurrently with the AAR’s national conference. The SBCS normally organizes two (...) panels and holds board and members meetings. This year’s panels were “Liberation Theology and Engaged Buddhism: Challenging Each Other, Learning from Each Other,” and “Old Buddhist Texts: New Womanist Thought.” The papers from panels are often published in this journal.board meetings (officer and committee reports)The society’s annual board meeting was held on Friday, November 21, and its members meeting Sunday, Nov. 23. The board approved officer reports submitted by the treasurer, Denise Yarbrough, the interim journal editors, Terry Muck and Rita Gross, and the newsletter editor, Jonathan Seitz and the minutes submitted by secretary Sandra Kunz. An extended discussion treated the history of the relationship between the society, the journal, and the University of Hawai’i Press. The board voted to continue publishing with UHP while working out a new memorandum of understanding.We reviewed reports from the Nominating Committee, Streng Book Award Committee, Graduate Student Award Committee, Membership Committee, Social Media and Website Committee, and Program Committee.Nominating CommitteeThe Nominating Committee reported that the governing board terms of Yifa and John Makransky end with this board meeting. John remains on the board as vice president. We discussed nominees for these two board positions.Streng Book Award CommitteeThe Streng Book Award Committee noted that it would be helpful to receive nominations. Thomas Hastings joined the committee and J. Abraham Vélez de Cea was elected to another term. [End Page 207]Graduate Student Award CommitteeKaren Enriquez reported for the Graduate Student Award Committee, noting that although a good paper was selected this year, the problem of paper quality remains. Rita Gross suggested that members with students working in Buddhist-Christian studies should encourage them to present papers at regional AAR meetings and submit these to the award committee. Judith Simmer-Brown suggested we start a subsidiary online journal that would publish, among other things, commentaries on BCS articles, including grad student commentaries. John Makransky suggested that we also post important articles from past issues we see as classics in the field. In light of the board’s enthusiasm about this idea for publishing grad student papers online, and in light of the difficulties of scheduling graduate student award papers within our sessions, John moved that we discontinue the oral presentation of graduate student award papers. Judith seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. John later moved, and Judith seconded the motion, that the board charge Karen, Glenn Willis, and Sarah Swenson to develop a proposal by March for a website that would host a subsidiary peer-reviewed online journal, being sure to articulate how this could promote the society among younger scholars. It passed unanimously.Membership CommitteeReminding us of Jonathan Seitz’s list of past members, John Makransky suggested we send out a membership mailing to them. Sarah Swenson and Alice Keefe were charged with creating a comprehensive distribution list and sending out a mailing asking everyone to join, rejoin, or renew their membership.Social Media and Website CommitteeIn light of our proposal to start a subsidiary online journal, Judith Simmer-Brown was gratefully charged with chairing a new committee with David Gardiner and Glenn Willis, who has been handling Facebook publicity. They will get bids for hiring a professional website designer who can configure it in such a way that we could maintain it ourselves.Program CommitteeJohn Makransky reported briefly on the potential session topics suggested at the lunch meeting. We discussed pros and cons of forming panels of known experts and using AAR’s blind submission process. The discussion ended with general exhortation to scout out scholars with pertinent work to enlarge our pool of presenters.We briefly discussed the pros and cons of organizing an international conference and reviving and regularizing the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rudolf A. Makkreel 1936-2021Jack Zupko, Former Editor, Journal of the History of PhilosophyRudi Makkreel, longtime editor (1983–98) of the Journal of the History of Philosophy and President of its Board of Directors (1998–2018), died October 2021 in Atlanta, GA, of complications from ALS.Rudi was one of the foremost Kant scholars of his generation, helping to bring the Critique of Judgment into the broader currency it enjoys among (...) philosophers today. He also made important contributions to the fields of aesthetics, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of history. His Dilthey, Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton, 1975; 2nd edition, 1992), nominated for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, introduced the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey to the anglophone world, explaining the significance of Dilthey’s work on the social and cultural dimensions of human experience as well as its influence on early analytic philosophers such as Carnap. With Frithjof Rodi, he completed the six-volume Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works (Princeton, 1985–2019), an enduring legacy for students and historians of German philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Rudi was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1939. He immigrated to the United States in 1951 and completed his graduate studies in philosophy at Columbia University in 1966. He taught at the University of California, San Diego until 1973, after which he joined the faculty at Emory University, his academic home as Charles Howard Candler Professor of Philosophy for almost half a century. He was a native Dutch speaker, but equally at home in both English and German, always exemplifying for his students the importance of knowing the original languages of the philosophers one is researching.Rudi was not just a scholar’s scholar but a perceptive critic and outstanding teacher, as his many students in academic positions around the world can attest. As a colleague he was unfailingly supportive, in his gentle and softly spoken way, quietly putting opportunities in the path of younger historians of philosophy. He was committed to ensuring the Emory philosophy program remained solidly grounded in the history of philosophy, with faculty expertise in all of its canonical areas. He was dedicated to his students and to serving the profession through the JHP, guiding the work of its Board of Directors and providing invaluable advice (though only when asked) to later Editors.Rudi took over editorship of the JHP at a tumultuous time in its history; he brought stability to its operations and ensured that the JHP remained a “big tent” in the field, publishing research on all figures, movements, and periods in the history of western philosophy, by scholars with a variety of philosophical styles and research methods. This meant making room for original papers on understudied figures and topics, despite the pressure to publish the best work on better-known figures and more traditional or popular topics, with which he could have easily filled each issue.He leaves behind his wife, Frances, a daughter, Karen, and a grandchild, as well as many former students and colleagues, who miss his gentle demeanor, wry sense of humor, and penetrating intellect.Jack Zupko, Former Editor, Journal of the History of PhilosophyUniversity of AlbertaCopyright © 2023 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Annual Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies:San Francisco, California, USA, 19-22 November 2011Sandra Costen Kunz, SBCS SecretaryThe SBCS is one of thirty-two scholarly societies formally recognized by the American Academy of Religion as "Related Scholarly Organizations." The pattern for many years has been for the SBCS to hold its annual meeting in conjunction with the annual meeting of the AAR. On the Friday before the AAR's annual (...) meeting begins, the board meets in the morning and early afternoon, followed by an AAR-advertised session late that afternoon and then a field trip that evening. On Saturday, another paper session or panel is followed by the Society's annual members' meeting.Friday afternoon's 4:00-6:30 session, titled "Constructing Buddhist Identities in the West," was standing room only. The four papers presented at that panel are included in this volume.On Saturday morning, then SBCS president Miriam Levering presided at a well-attended session from 9:00 to 11:30. The topic was "Christian Readings of Buddhist Texts." Catherine Cornille (Boston College), editor of the Christian Commentaries on Non-Christian Sacred Texts series, gave the first presentation, titled "Reading the Religious Other." She discussed the origin and nature of the series and gave examples of the methodologies used in various volumes they had published. Francis X. Clooney (Harvard University) presented "Reading Inter-religiously as a Theologically Necessary Act." Insisting that "reading well has a lot of common factors whether or not a text is from one's own or another tradition," he noted that "saying you read both the same doesn't mean you put them on same doctrinal level.... We defer the apologetics not just to be polite, but because there are many other things to do first." Leo Lefebure (Georgetown University) spoke about "Reading the Dhammapada" in light of his work with Peter Feldmeier in writing The Path of Wisdom: A Christian Commentary on the Dhammapada, published within the Christian Commentaries on Non-Christian Sacred Texts series. The volume was the winner of this year's Frederick J. Streng Book Award, which was presented by Amos Yong (Regent University). Lefebure pointed out that biblical wisdom literature and the Dhammapada both insist [End Page 129] that how we view the world largely shapes our happiness or unhappiness, and that both describe "decidedly unskillful and skillful ways to live."Between the Saturday morning session and the members' meeting that followed, Karen Enriquez presented the graduate student award to Kyeongil Jung, a student of Paul Knitter's at Columbia University-Union Theological Seminary. He gave a brief synopsis of his award-winning paper, "A Buddhist-Christian Story of Peace and Justice," also included in this volume. [End Page 130]Copyright © 2012 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

According to Margaret Cavendish the entire natural world is essentially rational such that everything thinks in some way or another. In this paper, I examine why Cavendish would believe that the natural world is ubiquitously rational, arguing against the usual account, which holds that she does so in order to account for the orderly production of very complex phenomena (e.g. living beings) given the limits of the mechanical philosophy. Rather, I argue, she attributes ubiquitous rationality to the natural world in (...) order to ground a theory of the ubiquitous freedom of nature, which in turn accounts for both the world's orderly and disorderly behavior. (shrink)

Over 700,000 copies of the original hardcover and paperback editions of this stunningly popular book have been sold. Karen Armstrong's superbly readable exploration of how the three dominant monotheistic religions of the world—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—have shaped and altered the conception of God is a tour de force. One of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, Armstrong traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical (...) philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one compelling volume. (shrink)

A theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, Karen Barad elaborates her theory of agential realism, a schema that is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics.

Between 1653 and 1655 Margaret Cavendish makes a radical transition in her theory of matter, rejecting her earlier atomism in favour of an infinitely-extended and infinitely-divisible material plenum, with matter being ubiquitously self-moving, sensing, and rational. It is unclear, however, if Cavendish can actually dispense of atomism. One of her arguments against atomism, for example, depends upon the created world being harmonious and orderly, a premise Cavendish herself repeatedly undermines by noting nature’s many disorders. I argue that her supposed difficulties (...) with atomism expose a deeper tension in her work between two fundamental metaphysical commitments each of which has substantial philosophical support: her monist theory of the material world (which maintains that there exists just one natural substance which is the single principal cause) and her occasional theory of causation (which requires multiple finite principal causes in nature -- causes that might be considered individual substances). Her monism undermines atomism while her theory of occasional cause seems to rest on a conception of nature that would be especially friendly to atomism. I argue further that we can solve this tension within a Cavendishian framework in such a way as to preserve her theory of causation and her monism, but that this solution depends upon our taking her monism in a particular (and weak) form. I finally note that we can best make sense of her unique and interesting form of monism by acknowledging her social-political motivations in addition to her motivations in natural philosophy. (shrink)

We frequently speak of certain things or phenomena being built out of or based in others. Making Things Up concerns these relations, which connect more fundamental things to less fundamental things: Karen Bennett calls these 'building relations'. She aims to illuminate what it means to say that one thing is more fundamental than another.

Recently much has been made of the grounding relation, and of the idea that it is intimately tied to fundamentality. If A grounds B, then A is more fundamental than B (though not vice versa ), and A is ungrounded if and only if it is fundamental full stop—absolutely fundamental. But here is a puzzle: is grounding itself absolutely fundamental?

In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, were all secondary flowerings of the original Israelite vision. Now, in (...) The Great Transformation , Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal “Axial Age” can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times. Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action. In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change. (shrink)

A variety of relations widely invoked by philosophers—composition, constitution, realization, micro-basing, emergence, and many others—are species of what I call ‘building relations’. I argue that they are conceptually intertwined, articulate what it takes for a relation to count as a building relation, and argue that—contra appearances—it is an open possibility that these relations are all determinates of a common determinable, or even that there is really only one building relation.

In this paper I describe and defend an account of virtuous motivation that differs from what we might call ordinary moral motivation. It is possible to be morally motivated without being virtuously motivated. In the first half of the essay, I explore different senses of moral motivation and the philosophical puzzles and problems it poses. In the second half, I give an account of virtuous motivation that, unlike ordinary moral motivation, requires the motivational structure characteristic of a fully virtuous person. (...) I draw on Aristotle's account of virtuous action to argue that a fully virtuous agent's judgment reflects a robust form of moral knowledge about what features of an action render it virtuous and hence, choiceworthy. Virtuously motivated actions are chosen in light of those features and are accompanied by the affective state appropriate to the overall moral landscape in which the judgment is made. (shrink)

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop (...) quantum gravity. (shrink)

Dummett's output has been prolific and highly influential, but not always as accessible as it deserves to be. This book sets out to rectify this situation.

The basic form of the exclusion problem is by now very, very familiar. 2 Start with the claim that the physical realm is causally complete: every physical thing that happens has a sufficient physical cause. Add in the claim that the mental and the physical are distinct. Toss in some claims about overdetermination, give it a stir, and voilá—suddenly it looks as though the mental never causes anything, at least nothing physical. As it is often put, the physical does all (...) the work, and there is nothing left for the mental to do. (shrink)

A lot of people believe that distinct objects can occupy precisely the same place for the entire time during which they exist. Such people have to provide an answer to the 'grounding problem' – they have to explain how such things, alike in so many ways, nonetheless manage to fall under different sortals, or have different modal properties. I argue in detail that they cannot say that there is anything in virtue of which spatio-temporally coincident things have those properties. However, (...) I also argue that this may not be as bad as it looks, and that there is a way to make sense of the claim that such properties are primitive. (shrink)

The paper is an extended discussion of what I call the ‘dismissive attitude’ towards metaphysical questions. It has three parts. In the first part, I distinguish three quite different versions of dismissivism. I also argue that there is little reason to think that any of these positions is correct about the discipline of metaphysics as a whole; it is entirely possible that some metaphysical disputes should be dismissed and others should not be. Doing metametaphysics properly requires doing metaphysics first. I (...) then put two particular disputes on the table to be examined in the rest of the paper: the dispute over whether composite objects exist, and the dispute about whether distinct objects can be colocated. In the second part of the paper, I argue against the claim that these disputes are purely verbal disputes. In the third part of the paper, I present a new version of dismissivism, and argue that it is probably the correct view about the two disputes in question. They are not verbal disputes, and the discussion about them to date has not remotely been a waste of time. At this stage, however, our evidence has run out. I argue that neither side of either dispute is simpler than the other, and that the same objections in fact arise against both sides. (For example, the compositional nihilist does not in fact escape the problem of the many, and the one-thinger does not in fact escape the grounding problem.). (shrink)