How the new conspiracists are undermining democracy—and what can be done about it Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, how it undermines democracy, and what needs to be (...) done to resist it. (shrink)

In recent years, membership has dropped in traditional voluntary associations such as Rotary Clubs, Jaycees, and bowling leagues. At the same time, concern is rising about the growth of paramilitary and hate groups. Scholars have warned that these trends are undermining civic society by creating a dangerous number of isolated, mistrustful individuals and organized, antisocial renegades. In this provocative book, however, Nancy Rosenblum takes a new, less narrowly political approach to the study of groups. And she reaches more optimistic (...) conclusions about the state of civil society. Rosenblum argues that we should judge associations not only by what they do for civic virtue, but also by what they do for individual members. She shows that groups of all kinds--among them religious groups, corporations, homeowner associations, secret societies, racial and cultural identity groups, prayer groups, and even paramilitary groups--fill deep psychological and moral needs. And she contends that the failure to recognize this has contributed to an alarmist view of their social impact. For example, she argues that, although extremist groups have obvious antisocial aims, they constrain individuals who would be even more dangerous as maladjusted loners. And she examines the rapid growth of small "support groups"--which are usually dismissed as politically irrelevant--and shows that the moral support people find in such places as prayer groups and self-help groups helps to cultivate the social trust some scholars say is disappearing. Rosenblum concludes that, for practical and principled reasons, American democracy should permit expansive freedom of association, illustrating her case with discussion of specific cases in law. Rosenblum recognizes, however, that freedom has a price. She reminds us that some groups have oppressive and even criminal tendencies, and she explores what liberal democracy should do to ensure that individuals also have freedom within associations and freedom to exit. Throughout, Rosenblum writes eloquently and with a powerful moral voice, drawing on law, practical politics, and psychology to produce an original political theory of the moral uses of pluralism. The book adds remarkable depth and subtlety to one of the leading subjects in contemporary social and political debate. (shrink)

Rosenblum argues that we should judge associations not only by what they do for civic virtue, but also by what they do for individual members.

Introduction [Nancy L. Rosenblum] I. Varieties of Liberalism Today 1. The Liberalism of Fear [Judith N. Shklar] 2. Humanist Liberalism [Susan Moller Okin] 3. Liberal Democracy and the Costs of Consent [Benjamin R. Barber] II. Education and the Moral Life 4. Undemocratic Education [Amy Gutmann] 5. Civic Education in the Liberal State [William Galston] III. Moral Conflict 6. Class Conflict and Constitutionalism in J. S. Mill’s Thought [Richard Ashcraft] 7. Making Sense of Moral Conflict [Steven Lukes] 8. Liberal Dialogue (...) Versus a Critical Theory of Discursive Legitimation [Seyla Benhabib] IV. Repairing Individualist and Communitarian Failings 9. Cross-Purposes: The Liberal--Communitarian Debate [Charles Taylor] 10. Democratic Individuality and the Meaning of Rights [George Kateb] 11. Pluralism and Self-Defense [Nancy L. Rosenblum] 12. The Permanent Structure of Antiliberal Thought [Stephen Holmes]. (shrink)

How the new conspiracists are undermining democracy—and what can be done about it Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and (...) what needs to be done to resist it. Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence—especially facts ominously withheld by official sources—to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition and bare assertion. The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations—political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy. Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today's politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat. (shrink)

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories. Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores (...) what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrodinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrodinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves. (shrink)

How our everyday interactions as neighbors shape—and sometimes undermine—democracy "Love thy neighbor" is an impossible exhortation. Good neighbors greet us on the street and do small favors, but neighbors also startle us with sounds at night and unleash their demons on us, they monitor and reproach us, and betray us to authorities. The moral principles prescribed for friendship, civil society, and democratic public life apply imperfectly to life around home, where we interact day to day without the formal institutions, rules (...) of conduct, and means of enforcement that guide us in other settings. In Good Neighbors, Nancy Rosenblum explores how encounters among neighbors create a democracy of everyday life, which has been with us since the beginning of American history and is expressed in settler, immigrant, and suburban narratives and in novels, poetry, and popular culture. During disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, the democracy of everyday life is a resource for neighbors who improvise rescue and care. Degraded, this framework can give way to betrayal by neighbors, as faced by the Japanese Americans interned during World War II, or to terrible violence such as the lynching of African Americans. Under extreme conditions the barest act of neighborliness is a bulwark against total ethical breakdown. The elements of the democracy of everyday life—reciprocity, speaking out, and "live and let live"—comprise a democratic ideal not reducible to public principles of justice or civic virtue, but it is no less important. The democracy of everyday life, Rosenblum argues, is the deep substrate of democracy in America and can be its saving remnant. (shrink)

In Religious Experience and the Knowledge of God, Harold Netland advances a critical-trust approach to religious experience. This approach raises important questions about what Michael Martin has called “negative religious experiences.” Netland responds by attacking Martin’s “negative principle of credulity,” but I argue that Netland’s response can be undermined if we take negative religious experiences not as experiences of God as absent, but as experiences of the world as godless. On this understanding, there is no need for a negative principle (...) of credulity; the ordinary principle still applies and puts pressure on Netland’s response. I then raise concerns with Netland’s “argument from fulfilled expectations,” even as part of a cumulative case argument. Ultimately, I propose that careful attention to the impact of Christ on our Western moral framework might help to resolve both concerns. (shrink)

Mathematics educators suggest that students of all ages need to participate in productive forms of mathematical argument (NCTM, 2000). Accordingly, we developed two complementary frameworks for analyzing the emergence of mathematical argumentation in one second‐grade classroom. Children attempted to resolve contesting claims about the “space covered” by three different‐looking rectangles of equal area measure. Our first analysis renders the topology of the semantic structure of the classroom conversation as a directed graph. The graph affords clear “at a glance” visualization of (...) how various senses of mathematics—as imagined, as performed, and as historically rooted—were interrelated. The graph represents the emergence and intercoordination between conceptual and procedural knowledge in the ebb and flow of classroom conversation. The graph has not just descriptive, but also predictive power: Interconnectedness among the nodes of the graph representing the first 40 min of conversation predicted the structure of recall in the final ten minutes by children who had played little overt role in the conversation up to that point. The second, complementary framework draws upon Goffman's expanded repertoire of roles in speech to demonstrate how the teacher orchestrated this classroom conversation to establish coherent argument. In this second analysis, we establish how the teacher mediated between the everyday talk of her students and the discourse of mathematics. Her revoicing of student talk created interstices for identity and participation in the formation of the argument. Together, the two forms of analysis illuminate the emergence of mathematical argument at two levels: as collective structure and concurrently, as individual activity. (shrink)

Biobanking in Europe has made major steps towards harmonization and shared standards for the collection and processing of data and samples stored in biobanks. Still, biobanks and researchers face substantial legal difficulties in the field of data protection and sample management. Data protection law was harmonized almost 15 years ago while rights in samples fall under the competence of the Member States of the EU. Despite the Data Protection Directive the field of data protection shows a substantial degree of deviation (...) as public health was excluded from the harmonization. Biobanks seem to have substantially fewer difficulties to cope with in terms of the legal requirements in the field of sample management. This paper discusses the legal framework, experiences of different biobanks in Europe and potential ways forward. It also highlights the need for a health economic analysis of the costs and benefits of privacy protection in Europe. At the moment, policymakers seem to build their decisions on an insufficient evidence base which underestimates the potential value of biobanks for European public health. Within the past few years little progress has been achieved with regards to the development of a unified legal framework in Europe, The diversity in the legal system is also reflected in the different approaches of ethics committees towards biobanking. To secure the responsible and effective use of data and samples, more efforts are needed to come up with pathways for a solution. (shrink)

The authoress questions the historiographic dogma that, tracing back to F.W. Maitland, gave the pure «Englishry» of English law for granted, thus building its history on its exceptionality with respect to European tradition, from which it would not have been contaminated at all. The Anglo-Saxon historiographical analysis of the most important English constitutional document aims at answering to the provocative question: how English is Magna Carta? What role did jus commune play in its drafting? What is its relationship with contemporary (...) Roman Canon law? Through the examination of its cultural roots, the essay shows not only the substantial influence of Roman Canon law on Magna Carta, but also, more generally, the affinities and the common elements that characterize in principle the relationship between English juridical tradition and the continental one. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhat we call the “partisan connection”—the bridge parties build between the people and the formal polity—entails sympathizing with citizens’ suspicions and fears. However, loosening the partisan connection and “speaking truth to conspiracy” is sometimes a moral and political imperative when conspiracy charges come from party leaders’ constituents and fellow partisans. We consider epistemological challenges that make it difficult to assess whether conspiracy claims are warranted, and we consider political challenges to assessing the validity of conspiracy claims that are posed by (...) the secrecy, misleading partial truths, obscurantism, and lying that are endemic to politics. Finally, we propose three standards for responsible party officials to use when judging whether to oppose conspiratorial claims: when they are fueled by hatred of certain groups; when they represent the opposition as treasonous and illegitimate; and when conspiracism extends to authority generally, especially expert authority, thereby undermining the basic work of government decision making. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractThe culture of chefs from the world's best restaurants is substituted by new trends paradigmatically epitomized by the TV program Masterchef. The authors feel that a similar transformation affects modern research. Recent scientific policies constrict the design of research grants with the aim of short-term maximization of the monetary value generated by the researcher.

O artigo ten como obxectivo facer un percorrido por tres momentos da escritura filosófica no que o fenómeno do límite ou fronteira do pensamento se pon claramente de manifesto no discurso. En primeiro lugar, Kant, como artífice da produtiva noción dunha “fronteira [Grenze]” da razón como condición e límite do pensamento; en segundo lugar, Hegel, como o seu máximo crítico na “asunción [Aufhebung]” da negación da fronteira kantiana; e, finalmente, Kierkegaard, cuxa contribución á discusión dos seus predecesores consiste no “pathos (...) [Lidenskab]” do límite que Kant demarca e Hegel supera, pois no caso do pensador dinamarqués o límite da filosofía é ao mesmo tempo paradoxo, é dicir, algo que non pode ser coñecido senón tan só re-coñecido pola razón e que pon xustamente a razón no seu límite. (shrink)

Among the most enduring taboos, those related to the human body are the most enduring, throughout history. Be it its re/presentation of exploration, it constituted for most cultures and epochs a very sensitive subject, ever evolving and changing, but perennially raw and open to debate and discussion. With the advent of new technologies sustaining and infiltrating society, the body is seen, explored and represented in new ways that can be, simultaneously, interpreted either as transgressive or respectful of taboos, depending on (...) the point of view or the current social norms. The question is: are we able to transcend transgression of taboos through our work or are we still far from achieving it? Our tools are computer-generated simulations based on patient-collected data. Building our arguments on Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic (1973) analysis, we approach the evolution of our own research as a ‘case study’. In the age of the life-support, stem-cell therapy and 3D organ printing, is computer simulation mimicking or mirroring organic life and phenomena, or is it creating a debatable simulacrum? From reducing the human body to a series of equations that lead to depersonalization and loss of self, to tailored modelling based on patient-collected biological data, the computer simulations took a variety of guises. At each point of the way, confronting the taboos, conventions and through controlled transgressions of established rules, we strived to transcend all historic limitations and update, adjust and fine-tune the technology and its uses to better suit the clinicians’ pursuits. (shrink)

Erik Wielenberg recently invoked the parent-child analogy in an argument against Christian theism. The argument relies on the claim that a loving parent would never allow her child to feel abandoned in the midst of what feels like gratuitous suffering. In this paper, I offer three clear counterexamples to Wielenberg’s central premise. At the same time, a successful counterexample does not a robust theology of suffering make. To that end, and with a careful eye towards anti-theodical concerns, I defend the (...) need for a more proactive Christian philosophical examination of the role of suffering in a meaningful life. (shrink)

Research traditions on cognition and depression focus on relatively unconnected aspects of cognitive functioning. On one hand, the neuropsychological perspective has concentrated on cognitive control difficulties as a prominent feature of this condition. On the other hand, the clinical psychology perspective has focused on cognitive biases and repetitive negative patterns of thinking for emotional information. A review of the literature from both fields reveals that difficulties are more evident for mood-congruent materials, suggesting that cognitive control difficulties interact with cognitive biases (...) to hinder cognitive switching, working memory updating, and inhibition of irrelevant information. Connecting research from these two traditions, we propose a novel integrative cognitive model of depression in which the interplay between mood-congruent cognitive control difficulties, cognitive biases, and rumination may ultimately lead to ineffective emotion-regulation strategies to downregulate negative mood and upregulate positive mood. (shrink)

This article provides a discussion of the concepts of politics, sovereignty and man in the thinking of CARL SCHMITT and THOMAS HOBBES, clarifying certain similarities and differences between the two authors. It attempts to understand the well-known theory of the German author concerning that which is political, as drawn from the struggle and distinction between friend/foe in light of the threat posed by the Hobbesian state of nature and the meaning of war. These ideas call for a State that does (...) not arise as the result of a contract, but from unity based on exclusions, according to SCHMITT. The Acerca de los conceptos de política Dolores Marcos y soberanía en Carl Schmitt y Thomas Hobbes need for an absolute power that can protect and coerce connects with certain features of HOBBES´ Leviathan. Finally, the conflictive dimension of man is understood as essential for the political realm, which is based, precisely, on egotistical and dange rous features in human beings. Understanding this sphere turns out to be essential for developing an approach to the resolution of conflicts. (shrink)

We describe what seems to be the only objective evidence for the existence of consciousness as an entity beyond its neural correlates. We display this evidence, the nature of observation in quantum mechanics, with a theory-neutral version of the archetypal demonstration of quantum phenomena, the two-slit experiment. This undisputed empirical result provides objective evidence for consciousness, the straightforward alternative being the assumption of not only a completely deterministic world, but a conspiratorial one as well. The objection to this evidence for (...) consciousness, that a not-conscious robot could be the observer, is examined. (shrink)

These are the challenges taken up in Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith, an exploration of the place of religion in contemporary public life.

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' mental state words used in mother-child picture-book reading is linked with children's theory of mind skills. Furthermore, mothers' use of cognitive terms is more strongly related to children's theory of mind performances than the (...) mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Rollo and Buttiglieri, 2009 ). Current literature has established that early maternal input is related to later child mental state understanding; however it has not yet clarified which maternal terms are most useful for the socio-emotional and cognitive development of the child, and which aspect of the cognitive development benefits from the mother-child interaction. The present study addresses this issue and focuses on the relationship between mothers' mental state talk and children's behavior in conceptual and semantic tasks, and in a theory of mind task. In this study fifty pairs consisting of mothers and their 3 to 6-year-old children participated in two sessions: (1) The mothers read a picture book to their children. To assess the maternal psychological lexicon, their narrative was codified according to the categories of mental state references used in literature: perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral, and communicative. (2) After a few days, the conceptual and semantic skills of the children (tasks of contextualization and classification, memory, and definition of words) and their psychological lexicon were assessed. The results suggest close links between the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words and some semantic and conceptual skills of children. (shrink)

Elements of the relation between religion and politics are standard themes in political theory: toleration and free exercise rights; the parameters of separation of church and state; arguments for and against constraints imposed on religious discourse by philosophic norms of public reason. But religious parties and partisanship are no part of political theory, despite contemporary interest in value pluralism and in liberal democratic theory's capacity to address multicultural, religious, and ethnic group claims. This essay argues that religious parties are missing (...) elements in discussions of identity politics. They play an important role not just in expressing but also in constructing and mobilizing religious political identity. Political activity linked to parties is a principal way of bringing diffuse, politically unorganized groups, whose leaders are self-appointed and not regularly accountable for the way they represent co-religionists in political life, into the democratic mainstream. With political organization and especially partisanship, the fact of pluralism is made concrete for democratic purposes. (shrink)

In 2022, at an interdisciplinary conference on Creation and the Imago Dei, Biola psychologist Liz Hall posed a powerful challenge to the philosophers and theologians in the room. In the face of the “already and not yet” nature of Christian theology, she put forth the need for a “theology of tension.” Over and over again, while reading Biblical Philosophy, I was reminded of this challenge. The features Johnson puts forth as emblematic of Hebraic Philosophy can help in this respect, in (...) two clear ways: First, retrospectively, Johnson’s categories are useful for diagnosing both the philosophical missteps targeted by critiques of theodicy and the features held in common by some of the more successful accounts. Second, going forward, the convictions and modes of argument central to Hebraic philosophy may help guide future philosophical responses to suffering. In general, I believe that the philosophical problems related to suffering are especially well-suited to responses that are pixelated, networked, mysterianist, creationist, transdemographic, and ritualist. Perhaps Hebraic philosophy can succeed where Hellenist philosophy has struggled: in addressing the tension that arises from the experience of suffering in a world governed by a loving, providential, sovereign God. While I am largely in favor of Johnson’s Hebraic philosophy, I will conclude by breaking from his view in one important respect. Johnson presents the Biblical view as substantially contrasting with the correspondence theory affirmed by many contemporary philosophers. I will end by pushing back on this claim. On Johnson’s own account, the Hebraic notion of truth is determined with reference to the divinely designed order. I propose that we understand the Hebraic notion of truth as degrees of correspondence to this divinely ordered, absolute reality. (shrink)

This article explores André-Marie Ampère's autobiography in order to analyse the dynamics of science in early 19th century French institutions. According to recent works that have emphasised the value of biographies in the history of science, this study examines Ampère's public self-representation to show the cultural transformations of a life dedicated to science in post-revolutionary French society. With this aim, I have interpreted this manuscript as an outstanding example of the scientific rhetoric flourishing in early 19th century French Romanticism, which (...) celebrated the life and works of men of science by means of biographies. Following this approach, Ampère's account has been analysed in relation to certain commonplaces shared with other autobiographies of that time, such as his traumatic experience linked to the French Revolution. Finally, this article discusses Ampère's autobiography as revealing an emerging model of scientific personae, i.e. a new collective way of thinking, feeling and perceiving, which announced the category of the modern scientist. (shrink)