Book reviewed in this article: Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry. By James Turner Johnson.

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

The discipline of philosophy has been critiqued from both within and outside itself. One brand of external critique is associated with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), the view that human cognition is partially structured by pervasive and automatic mappings between conceptual domains. Most notably, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) claimed that many central philosophical concepts and arguments rely on an unacknowledged metaphorical substructure, and that this structure has sometimes led philosophy astray. The purpose of this paper is to argue that Lakoff (...) and Johnson's critique is anticipated by the work of post‐Tractarian Wittgenstein and his student, Margaret MacDonald. In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein outlines a method for identifying and resolving philosophical puzzles generated by misused grammatical analogies, although his discussion lacks a precise characterization of exactly how and why such analogies lead to trouble. In a 1938 paper, MacDonald offers such a characterization, which I outline and then connect back to Wittgenstein. In addition to this interpretive work, I supplement Wittgenstein and MacDonald's diagnosis using evidence from CMT which suggests that linguistic metaphors and analogies often originate in or are motivated by more fundamental analogical mappings in cognition. The supplemented account carries implications for how philosophical arguments ought to be formulated and critiqued. (shrink)

For Emily Dickinson, perhaps no more so than for the rest of us, there was a powerful discrepancy between what was "inner than the Bone"1 and what could be acknowledged. To the extent that her poems are a response to that discrepancy—are, on one hand, a defiant attempt to deny that the discrepancy poses a problem and, on the other, an admission of defeat at the problem's enormity—they have much to teach us about the way in which language articulates our (...) life. There is indeed a sense in which these poems test the limits of what we might reveal if we tried and also of what, despite our exertions, will not give itself over to utterance. The question of the visibility of interior experience is one that will concern me in this essay, for it lies at the heart of what Dickinson makes present to us. In "The Dream of Communication," Geoffrey Hartman writes: "Art represents a self which is either insufficiently present or feels itself as not presentable."2 On both counts one thinks of Dickinson, for her poems disassemble the body in order to penetrate to the places where the feelings lie as if hidden, and they tell us that bodies are not barriers the way we sometimes think they are. Despite the staggering sophistication with which we discuss complex issues, like Dickinson we have few words, if any, for what happens inside us. Perhaps this is because we have been taught to conceive of ourselves as perfectly inexplicable or, if explicable, then requiring the aid of someone else to scrutinize what we are explicating to validate it. We have been taught that we cannot see for ourselves—this despite the current emphasis on our proprioceptive functions. But Dickinson tells us that we can see. More important, she tells us how to name what we see. · 1. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson , n. 321.· 2. Geoffrey Hartman, "The Dream of Communication," in I. A. Richards: Essays in His Honor, ed. Reuben Brower et al. , p. 173. Sharon Cameron, associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University, is currently preparing a theoretical study of the lyric and is examining the relationship between obsession and lyrical structures. The present essay is part of her Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre. (shrink)

The development of atomic bombs under the auspices of the U. S. Army's Manhattan Project during World War II is considered to be the outstanding news story of the twentieth century. In this book, a physicist and expert on the history of the Project presents a comprehensive overview of this momentous achievement. The first three chapters cover the history of nuclear physics from the discovery of radioactivity to the discovery of fission, and would be ideal for instructors of a sophomore-level (...) "Modern Physics" course. Student-level exercises at the ends of the chapters are accompanied by answers. Chapter 7 covers the physics of first-generation fission weapons at a similar level, again accompanied by exercises and answers. For the interested layman and for non-science students and instructors, the book includes extensive qualitative material on the history, organization, implementation, and results of the Manhattan Project and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. The reader also learns about the legacy of the Project as reflected in the current world stockpiles of nuclear weapons.. (shrink)

Hay antecedentes del giro afectivo en los desarrollos fenomenológicos tempranos del siglo pasado. Particularmente, investigaciones genéticas llevadas a cabo por Husserl se adentran en la naturaleza del fenómeno afectivo. No obstante, esto se enmarca en un proyecto epistemológico más amplio, que tiene como consecuencia el hecho de que la afección no sea investigada a profundidad. El propósito de este artículo es retomar los descubrimientos de Husserl e ir más allá y aproximarse a una fenomenología sistemática del fenómeno afectivo. Para eso, (...) se evalúan los alcances y las limitaciones del análisis husserliano y se muestra en qué sentido está fundado en un prejuicio cognoscitivo. Sobre esto, se revelará el carácter fundamentalmente valorativo y corporal de la experiencia afectiva, carácter que encuentra evidencia empírica en avances recientes enmarcados en las ciencias cognitivas. (shrink)

As a critique of a certain Western conception of the nature of signification, deconstruction focuses on the functioning of claim-making and claim-subverting structures within texts. A deconstructive reading is an attempt to show how the conspicuously foregrounded statements in a text are systematically related to discordant signifying elements that the text has thrown into its shadows or margins; it is an attempt both to recover what is lost and to analyze what happens when a text is read solely in function (...) of intentionality, meaningfulness, and representativity. Deconstruction thus confers a new kind of readability on those elements in a text that readers have traditionally been trained to disregard, overcome, explain away, or edit out—contradictions, obscurities, ambiguities, incoherencies, discontinuities, ellipses, interruptions, repetitions, and plays of the signifier. In this sense it involves a reversal of values, a revaluation of the signifying function of everything that, in a signified-based theory of meaning, would constitute “noise.” Jacques Derrida has chosen to speak of the values involved in this reversal in terms of “speech” and “writing,” in which “speech” stands for the privilege accorded to meaning as immediacy, unity, identity, truth, and presence, while “writing” stands for the devalued functions of distance, difference, dissimulation, and deferment.This transvaluation has a number of consequences for the appreciation of literature. By shifting the attention from intentional meaning to writing as such, deconstruction has enabled readers to become sensitive to a number of recurrent literary topoi in a new way. Texts have been seen as commentaries on their own production or reception through their pervasive thematizations of textuality—the myriad letters, books, tombstones, wills, inscriptions, road signs, maps, birthmarks, tracks, footprints, textiles, tapestries, veils, sheets, brown stockings, and self-abolishing laces that serve in one way or another as figures for the text to be deciphered or unraveled or embroidered upon. Thus, a deconstructor finds new delight in a Shakespearean character named Sir Oliver Martext or in Herman Melville’s catalog of whales as books in Moby Dick, or she makes jokes about the opposition between speech and writing by citing the encounter between Little Red Riding Hood and the phony granny. Barbara Johnson is professor of Romance languages and literatures at Harvard University. She is the author of Défigurations du langage poétique and The Critical Difference, translator of Jacques Derrida’s Dissemination, and editor of The Pedagogical Imperative: Teaching as a literary Genre. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Resilience and the Narratives of Parents of Adults with Autism Spectrum DisordersNabil Hassan El-GhorouryThe prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is on the rise; the most recent report from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (2012) indicated a prevalence of ASDs of one in 88 children. This was a 78% increase from reported prevalence rates in 2002, when the rate was one in 150. Major health organizations have (...) been emphasizing the importance of early identification (Johnson, Myers, & Council on Children with Disabilities, 2007) to increase access to early intervention services, which are most effective when implemented before age three (Rogers & Vismara, 2008).The bulk of autism research has been focused on children, particularly young children. Given the growing identification and prevalence of ASDs, there will be more and more adolescents and adults with ASDs in the near and long term future. This issue of Narrative Inquiries in Bioethics is important because of its focus on an underrepresented area in the literature. The constraints of current health care delivery systems do not allow for providers to spend significant amounts of time with their patients. Furthermore, hearing first person narratives can be valuable by informing health care professionals about the experiences that parents (and by extension, the individual with an ASD) have experienced.As a licensed clinical psychologist with over two decades of experience with children, adolescents, and adults with ASDs in a variety of settings, I have a professional perspective on autism. As the older brother of Omar, a 38–year–old adult male with autistic disorder, I also have a lifetime of personal experiences of autism. As long as I can remember, I have had a brother with autism. I hope this unique perspective as both a behavioral health care provider and a family member of an adult with an ASD allows me to comment on these narratives in a thoughtful manner.Seeing Beyond Autism: Multiple IdentitiesMany parents commented on how their child was more than just autism or Asperger’s; they reflected on the strengths, unique experiences, and perspectives of their child. The narratives are rich in their desire to see the whole being of their children. Anonymous One writes:Another thing, and I think every parent will agree with this—teachers, school staff, health care industry staff, doctors and every one that comes into contact with an ASD individual—take the time to get to know them. It may be difficult and some may appear non–caring and rude. You must overlook this and look to the person underneath. They are great people. They have been through stuff and it means so much to them. Like I said—parents, you know this. Please remember it when times get tough. [End Page 189]Mark Osteen wrote about his son Cameron as they were making the decision to place their son in a residential placement: “I felt proud. It was like he was being recruited for college. And I am just as proud of him, and love him just as much, as if he were. What I hate is talking only about his ‘disability.’ I hope they see his good qualities. How smart he is. How funny he is. How charming he is. How strong he is.”Understanding the multiple identities of individuals with ASDs is important for parents so that they are not solely focused on the autism diagnosis. The talents and skills of the young adults described are remarkable. Anonymous One’s son David became a computer engineer at 13, reportedly “he was the youngest person in the United States to do so at such a young age.” Lori Centineo’s son Nathaniel is a poet, a rock climber, and skilled at sailing. Virginia Clapp’s son Nathaniel is a “chess genius”, a talented juggler “with the ability to juggle seven balls, which he told me is ‘insanity in a nutshell’,” and an origami expert. David McDonald’s nephew grew from a teenager who spoke only 30 words to speaking thousands of words and ultimately becoming a world traveler. Anonymous Four’s son Sam is “practically an expert” in earth sciences.Seeing beyond the autism is not always easy. Given the serious challenges... (shrink)

Context: Few professional philosophers have addressed in any detail radical constructivism, but have focused instead on the related assumptions and limitations of postmodern epistemology, various anti-realisms, and subjective relativism. Problem: In an attempt to supply a philosophical answer to the guest editors’ question, “Why isn’t everyone a radical constructivist?” I address the realist (hence non-radical) implications of the theory’s invocation of “others” as an invariable, observer-independent, “external” constraint. Results: I argue that constructivists cannot consistently defend a radically subjectivist theory of (...) knowing while remaining entirely agnostic about the nature and existence of the larger world (including independent others). That is, any non-solipsistic account of human experience must explicitly acknowledge its extra-subjective, ontological dimension. Implications: It follows that no pedagogical, social, philosophical, or commonsensical insight associated with so-called “trivial” or “social” constructivism survives or receives any support from the move to radical constructivism. (shrink)

This gives Montessori teachers the knowledge, skills, and confidence to get their children independently reading, writing, playing, researching, and composing music.

Early in my college career, I was perusing the science section of my favorite bookstore in Albuquerque —the Living Batch, where the really smart hippies hung out—when my eye was caught by the spine of a little paperback called The Universe and Dr. Einstein. Priced at ninetyfive cents, it promised to be “the clearest, most readable book on Einstein’s theories ever published.” On the cover was a tantalizing portrait of a well-tanned Einstein, his wild shock of hair blowing in the (...) cosmic wind. Behind him loomed the night sky, shining with constellations and mathematics. This was clearly the man who knew the answers and they would be imparted to me, a mere humanities major, in a book that was only 118 pages long. I bought it on the spot. (shrink)

To explore the realm of creativity, we will make use of the concept of instauration as articulated in the work of Étienne Souriau. Although infrequently used, the word remains extant in English, with agreement among dictionaries that the primary definition is the action of restoring or renewing, with a secondary meaning of instituting or founding. While both senses are at play in Souriau’s thought, it is perhaps the tension between the two that is predominantly in question, akin to what we (...) describe as open containment. We think instauration, as institutive renewal, in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty’s late use of the term aesthesiology to further elaborate the process of creating as a return to the wonder that is aesthesis, the affectively and sensually apprehended opening onto and entanglement with what is. Merleau-Ponty extends aesthesiology as the science of the sense organs themselves into a philosophical organology for ontology. His use of aesthesiology and Souriau’s use of instauration constitute efforts to offer sufficient conceptual containment to be able to say the contingent and ambiguous open of ongoing originating, even while both thinkers strive not to institute any final closure by this very act of naming. This is the inevitable tension of writing philosophic creation.Pour explorer le royaume de la créativité, nous utilisons ici le concept d’instauration tel qu’il a été articulé dans l’oeuvre d’Étienne Souriau. Quoique utilisé rarement, ce terme est attesté dans la langue anglaise. Les dictionnaires anglais accordent que sa définition principale désigne une action de rétablissement ou de renouvellement, avec un sens secondaire d’institution ou fondation. Si les deux sens sont à l’oeuvre chez Souriau, c’est peut-être la tension entre eux qui y est surtout patente. Nous pensons ici l’instauration, entendue comme renouvellement instituant, en dialogue avec l’idée d’esthésiologie telle que Merleau-Ponty la comprend à la fin de son oeuvre. Il utilise cette notion pour développer sa conception du processus de création comme retour à l’étonnement que produit l’áisthesis. L’áisthesis est en effet l’ouverture, affective et sensible, et l’entrelacs, affectif et sensible, à ce qui est. Merleau-Ponty prolonge ainsi l’esthésiologie entendue comme science des organes sensibles, vers une organologie philosophique à visée ontologique. L’usage de l’esthésiologie chez Merleau-Ponty et l’usage de l’instauration chez Souriau constituent des efforts vers une maîtrise conceptuelle suffisante pour pouvoir dire l’ouverture continue, contingente et ambiguë de l’originaire – bien que les deux penseurs ne visent pas à instaurer une clôture finale à partir de l’acte nominatif. Telle est la tension inévitable qu’on rencontre lorsqu’on cherche à écrire la création philosophique.Utilizzeremo in queste pagine per esplorare il regno della creatività il concetto di “instaurazione” così come si trova articolato nell’opera di Étienne Souriau. Benché impiegato raramente, questo termine è attestato anche nella lingua inglese. I dizionari inglesi danno come significato principale quello di un’azione di ristabilimento o rinnovamento, a cui si aggiunge un significato secondario di istituzione o fondazione. Se è vero che entrambi i significati sono all’opera in Souriau, è d’altra parte ancor più evidente la loro tensione. Proporremo qui di pensare l’instaurazione, intesa come rinnovamento istituente, in dialogo con l’idea di estesiologia così come la intende Merleau-Ponty alla fine del suo percorso. Egli usa questa nozione per sviluppare la sua concezione del processo creativo come ritorno allo stupore dell’áisthesis, cioè dell’apertura affettiva e sensibile, e dell’intreccio affettivo e sensibile, a ciò che è. Merleau-Ponty prolunga così l’estesiologia come scienza degli organi di senso in direzione di un’organologia filosofica orientata ontologicamente. L’indagine sull’estesiologia condotta da Merleau-Ponty e l’uso del concetto di instaurazione in Souriau costituiscono così altrettanti sforzi di dire concettualmente l’apertura continua, contingente e ambigua dell’originario – benché sia chiaro che i due pensatori non intendono raggiungere in alcun modo, con questo dire concettuale e con questa scelta lessicale, una qualsiasi “chiusura” della questione. Tale è infatti la tensione inevitabile cui ci si ritrova esposti quando si tenta di scrivere la creazione. (shrink)