In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eve W. Stoddard REASON ON TRIAL: LEGAL METAPHORS IN THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON 6 6 r I 1WO things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admi_I_ ration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." ' These are perhaps Kant's most well-known and oft-repeated words. They reflect not only the profound (...) feeling that underlies his technical and abstruse treatises, but also his characteristic preoccupation with law. The "starry heavens" are a synecdoche both for the wonder of nature as we perceive it in all its multiplicity, and for the marvel of science's ability to reduce, order, and subdue that infinite multiplicity into a few elegant laws. These two types of law, natural and moral, define the focus of Kant's critical philosophy, and metaphors drawn from jurisprudence pervade all three critiques. In the context of controversial statements on the role of metaphor in philosophical texts by Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricoeur, and Richard Rorty, I will analyze the legal metaphors in the prefaces and Transcendental Deductions of the Critique ofPure Reason. My goal in engaging Kant's texts in this controversy over metaphor is twofold: on the one hand to assess experimentally the value of these positions on metaphor in the history of philosophy, and, on the other hand, to examine the relations between critical conceptualization and insurgent metaphoricity in Kant's carefully elaborated and systematized text. In a textwhose key words are "universal and necessary for all possible experience," contingentand ambiguous metaphors might be expected to cause problematic unravelings. Richard Rorty has argued recently that "the history ofscience, culture and politics" should be viewed "as a history of metaphor rather than of discovery." 2 He compares the creations of new vocabularies to the 245 246Philosophy and Literature invention of "new tools" ("CL," p. 5), alluding to "Nietzsche's definition of truth as a mobile army of metaphors" (p. 6). From Plato's figures of the world as cave and the mind as charioteer with unruly horses, we shift to Locke's view of mind as tahda rasa and Descartes's description of the world as a machine. Rorty's paradigm of cultural history as a history of metaphor enters into an earlier, unresolved debate between Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur over the relationship between metaphor and philosophical discourse. Like Derrida, Rorty follows Nietzsche's claims about metaphor in the history of philosophy, a view Ricoeur wants to disprove so that he can recover the privileged univocity of speculative discourse. However Rorty has nothing in common with die complexity and "invaginated" ambiguities, the dazzling multivocity of Derrida's writing on the economics of metaphor. Although Rorty appears at first to agree with Derrida that there is no truth or reality apart from the linguistic tropes which dominate different epochs and cultures, he retains a metaphysical distinction between literal reference and figurative play. Rorty adopts Donald Davidson's theory that metaphors do not have "meaning" precisely because diey have no place in the language game into which they are inserted. They produce an effect, but it is not meaning: "One can only savour it or spit it out"; it is not a " 'truth-value candidate' " ("CL," p. 6). However, through repeated use, the metaphor will find a role in the language game; dying as a metaphor, it will live as a literal statement. Therefore Rorty agrees with Ricoeur that a moribund metaphor is no longer a metaphor, but a literally functioning segment of discourse. Thus despite his initial move toward a Derridean, or atleast Nietzschean, position, Rorty ultimately takes a stand consonant with Ricoeur's desire to rescue speculative discourse from the unruliness of metaphor. Considering Rorty's celebration of Freud in an article on "The Contingency of Selfhood," 3 his failure to consider the role of unconscious associations and overdetermination in the writing and reading of texts is surprising. Dead or alive, a metaphor brings with it a host ofpersonal and public, conscious and unconscious, new and traditional associations that become juxtaposed against a similar number of associations connected with the signifying chain into which the metaphor has been inserted. In... (shrink)

Participants struck 500 golf balls to a concealed target. Outcome feedback was presented at the subjective or objective threshold of awareness of each participant or at a supraliminal threshold. Participants who received fully perceptible feedback learned to strike the ball onto the target, as did participants who received feedback that was only marginally perceptible . Participants who received feedback that was not perceptible showed no learning. Upon transfer to a condition in which the target was unconcealed, performance increased in both (...) the subjective and the objective threshold condition, but decreased in the supraliminal condition. In all three conditions, participants reported minimal declarative knowledge of their movements, suggesting that deliberate hypothesis testing about how best to move in order to perform the motor task successfully was disrupted by the impoverished disposition of the visual outcome feedback. It was concluded that sub-optimally perceptible visual feedback evokes implicit processes. (shrink)

Multiple Originals: New Approaches to Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism. By Gary D. Martin. SBL Text-Critical Studies, vol. 7. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010. Pp. xiv + 341. $42.95.

Three experiments explore the role of working memory in motor skill acquisition and performance. Traditional theories postulate that skill acquisition proceeds through stages of knowing, which are initially declarative but later procedural. The reported experiments challenge that view and support an independent, parallel processing model, which predicts that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired separately and that the former does not depend on the availability of working memory, whereas, the latter does. The behaviour of these two processes was manipulated (...) by providing or withholding visual (and auditory) appraisal of outcome feedback. Withholding feedback was predicted to inhibit the use of working memory to appraise success and, thus, prevent the formation of declarative knowledge without affecting the accumulation of procedural knowledge. While the first experiment failed to support these predictions, the second and third experiments demonstrated that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired independently. It is suggested that the availability of working memory is crucial to motor performance only when the learner has come to rely on its use. (shrink)

This dissertation intends to contribute to the discussion about the asymmetry W. V. Quine sees between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. Quine often formulates the asymmetry by saying that there is a fact of the matter to physics but none to translation. The first chapters of the dissertation constitute an attempt of clarification of that notion of fact of the matter. They contain an analysis of the relations between Quine's notion of fact of the matter, his physicalism, and (...) his conception of truth. The main conclusion of those chapters is that the notion of fact of the matter is physicalistic, which means that it is what, according to Quine, embodied the nature of extralinguistic reality that determines truth. The next chapters contain an analysis of Quine's indeterminacy of translation thesis and underdetermination of theory. The main conclusions of those chapters are the following: indeterminacy of translation is an ontological thesis, and its content has not changed through Quine's writings, although the formulations of the thesis have varied; Quine's definitive arguments for indeterminacy of translation are not to be found in his physicalism, but in his behaviorism; underdetermination of theory is a methodological doctrine, for it concerns the evidential link between observation and theory; there is an asymmetry between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. The remaining chapters of the dissertation constitute a review of the main texts by other authors addressing Quine's claim that there is an asymmetry between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. The positions of Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, and Micheal Friedman are analyzed and criticized. The positions of Dagfinn Follesdal and Roger Gibson have appeared to our lights as the ones that should be taken most seriously. Follesdal is the one who seems to have accomplished the last progresses in the discussion over the asymmetry between underdetermination of theory and indeterminacy of translation by distinguishing clearly Quine's epistemological arguments for indeterminacy of translation thesis from the ontological content of that thesis. (shrink)

In Out of Eden, Paul W. Kahn offers a philosophical meditation on the problem of evil. He uses the Genesis story of the Fall as the starting point for a profound articulation of the human condition.

Catholic evolutionists have proposed to reconcile evolutionary anthropogenesis with Catholic doctrine by suggesting that a created soul could be infused into a body produced by evolution from an animal body. Could such an infusion yield not just a Platonic composite but a being with the unity of substance required by a Thomistic philosophy of nature? How could such a soul be the form of the body into which it was infused? This paper suggests that animals seem to have sense-powers with (...) a level of complexity, if not sufficient to underlie the abstraction of concepts in a being that also has a rational soul, then at least nearly so. The burden of proof lies rather on those who think that evolutionary development of such powers is not possible. In its final section, the paper argues that the existence of Eve as a second, and the only additional, initial rational being does not create special problems for the view here articulated. (shrink)

We hypothesize that aspects of animal multicellularity originated before the divergence of metazoans from fungi and social amoebae. Polarized epithelial tissues are a defining feature of metazoans and contribute to the diversity of animal body plans. The recent finding of a polarized epithelium in the non‐metazoan social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum demonstrates that epithelial tissue is not a unique feature of metazoans, and challenges the traditional paradigm that multicellularity evolved independently in social amoebae and metazoans. An alternative view, presented here, is (...) that the common ancestor of social amoebae, fungi, and animals spent a portion of its life cycle in a multicellular state and possessed molecular machinery necessary for forming an epithelial tissue. Some descendants of this ancestor retained multicellularity, while others reverted to unicellularity. This hypothesis makes testable predictions regarding tissue organization in close relatives of metazoans and provides a novel conceptual framework for studies of early animal evolution.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Searching for Eve: Basal metazoans and the evolution of multicellular complexity Abstract. (shrink)

Theophrastus of Eresus was Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Peripatetic School. He is best known as the author of the amusing Characters and two ground-breaking works in botany, but his writings extend over the entire range of Hellenistic philosophic studies. Volume 5 of Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities focuses on his scientific work. The volume contains new editions of two brief scientific essays-On Fish and Afeteoro/o^y-accompanied by translations and commentary. Among the contributions are: "Peripatetic Dialectic in (...) the De sensibus," Han Baltussen; "Empedocles" Theory of Vision and Theophrastus' De sensibus," David N. Sedley; "Theophrastus on the Intellect," Daniel Devereux; "Theophrastus and Aristotle on Animal Intelligence," Eve Browning Cole; "Physikai doxai and Problemata physika from Aristotle to Agtius," Jap Mansfield; "Xenophanes or Theophrastus? An Aetian Doxographicum on the Sun," David Runia; "Place1 in Context: On Theophrastus, Fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer," Keimpe Algra; "The Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation," Hans Daiber; "Theophrastus' Meteorology, Aristotle and Posidonius," Ian G. Kidd; "The Authorship and Sources of the Peri Semeion Ascribed to Theophrastus," Patrick Cronin; "Theophrastus, On Fish" Robert W. Sharpies. (shrink)

Despite the apparent contemporary irrelevance of the Old Testament, the Adam and Eve narrative in Genesis 2–3 is a deeply engrained element within Western cultural mythology. As such it virtually demands a feminist critique, because its common interpretation as a narrative demonstrating women's inferiority and legitimizing their subordination has a mutually reinforcing relationship with the patriarchal world-view that still pervades much of Western culture. A feminist reading of Genesis 2–3 highlights the difficulties with the traditional subordinationist reading, and suggests other (...) possibilities for interpretation that relativize the absolutism of patriarchal authority claims, thereby making it possible to envisage, and work towards, a different world-order. (shrink)

This book offers a new approach to the analysis of the multiple meanings of English modals, conjunctions, conditionals, and perception verbs. Although such ambiguities cannot easily be accounted for by feature-analyses of word meaning, Eve Sweetser's argument shows that they can be analyzed both readily and systematically. Meaning relationships in general cannot be understood independently of human cognitive structure, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of that structure. Sweetser shows that both lexical polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity are shaped by our (...) metaphorical folk understanding of epistemic processes and of speech interaction. Similar regularities can be shown to structure the contrast among root, epistemic and speech act uses of modal verbs, multiple uses of conjunctions and conditionals, and certain processes of historical change observed in Indo-European languages. Since polysemy is typically the intermediate step in semantic change, the same regularities observable in polysemy can be extended to an analysis of semantic change. (shrink)

This essay focuses on conceptual engineers who aim to improve other people's patterns of inference and attention by shaping their concepts. Such conceptual engineers sometimes engage in a form of epistemic paternalism that I call paternalistic cognitive engineering: instead of explicitly persuading, informing and educating others, the engineers non-consultatively rely on assumptions about the target agents’ cognitive systems to improve their belief forming. The target agents could reasonably regard such benevolent exercises of control as violating their sovereignty over their own (...) belief formation. This is a pro tanto reason against such engineering. In addition to the relevant projects of conceptual engineering, paternalistic cognitive engineering plausibly includes certain kinds of nudging and evidence suppression. I distinguish the sovereignty-based concern from other ethical worries about conceptual engineering and discuss how one might justify the relevant conceptual engineering projects despite the sovereignty-based reason against them. (shrink)

The book contains twelve chapters, prefaced by acknowledg­ments, and followed by a short index. It derives from the author's doctoral dissertation in philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, and thanks are offered to committee members Robert B. Barrett, Joseph Ullian and Roger Gibson. The reader who is not inclined to review the large related literature on Quine's view of cognitive meaning and translation may also be attracted to this book for concise summaries and treatment of the Quinean view from (...) St. Louis. -/- . (shrink)

I will defend explication, in a Carnapian sense, as a strategy for revisionary ontologists and radical sceptics. The idea is that these revisionary philosophers should explicitly commit to using expressions like “S knows that p” and “Fs exist” differently from how these expressions are used in everyday contexts. I will first motivate this commitment for these revisionary philosophers. Then, I will address the main worries that arise for this strategy: the unintelligibility worry and the topic shift worry. I will focus (...) on the latter worry and provide a solution that makes use of a distinction between practically and theoretically oriented beliefs. On my view, the revisionary philosophers who admit to departing from the everyday language can still criticize everyday knowledge and existence claims, by arguing that while the language embedded in these claims is suitable for beliefs-1, it is not suitable for beliefs-2. (shrink)

In this paper, the principal objections to unconditional forgiveness are canvassed, primarily that it fails to take wrongdoing seriously enough, and that it displays a lack of self-respect. It is argued that these objections stem from a mistaken understanding of what forgiveness actually involves, including the erroneous view that forgiveness involves some degree of condoning of the offence, and is incompatible with blaming the offender or punishing him. Two positive reasons for endorsing unconditional forgiveness are considered: respect for persons and (...) human solidarity; and it is argued that the latter provides more plausible grounds for it than the former. (shrink)

Abstract“Science Is Politics By Other Means” (SIPBOM) was coined in The Pasteurization of France, Latour’s 1984 empirical study of the birth of microbiology. Yet, it encapsulates an outstanding political theory of science that Latour has never formalized and that has remained unnoticed to this day. The theory is comprised of two dimensions. The first one is the ontological labor performed by science, that is, the laboratory production of new nonhumans. The second one is the ability of science to devise and (...) implement novel policies targeted at the new beings it produces. These “other means” are incorporated in political projects and contribute to the shaping of society. Fifteen years later, Latour published Politics of Nature ([1999] 2004), a full-blown political treatise equally devoted to the political character of science. It would be mistaken, however, to assume that it falls in the same SIPBOM paradigm as the Pasteur study. The compositionist theory it offers redefines politics as the institution of the nonhumans that make up external reality, a task that has traditionally been monopolized by Science. In this sense, “science is politics by other means” has become “politics is science by other means,” these “other means” now referring to “cosmopolitics,” that is, the due process advocated by compositionism. The first claim of the present paper is that the respective weight ascribed to politics and ontology is different in The Pasteurization of France and in Politics of Nature. The second claim is that compositionism is not as successful as Latour’s early theory to account for the politicity of science. (shrink)

Assessing mastery of bioethics in a graduate program requires careful attention not simply to the content knowledge and skill development of students but also to the principles of sound assessment processes. In this article, we describe the rationale, development process, and features of the comprehensive exam we created as a culminating experience of a master’s program in bioethics. The exam became the students’ opportunity to demonstrate the way they were able to integrate course, textual, and practical knowledge gained throughout the (...) experience of the program. Additionally, the exam assessed students’ proficiency in the field of bioethics and their ability to critically and constructively analyze bioethical issues. In this article, we offer tips to other exam creators regarding our experiences with question and answer development, scoring of the exam, and relationships between coursework and exam preparation and completion. We also include a sample rubric for others to see how we determined which student answers were satisfactory. (shrink)

This article analyzes the institutionalization of the global organic agriculture field and sheds new light on the conventionalization debate. The institutions that shape the field form a tripartite standards regime of governance that links standard-setting, certification, and accreditation activities, in a layering of markets for services that are additional to the market for certified organic products. At each of the three poles of the TSR, i.e., for standard-setting, certification, and accreditation, we describe how the corresponding markets were constructed over time (...) and the role of the different actors in their evolution. We analyze the politics at stake among the actors at each pole, their competing or cooperative interests and visions, and the tensions between them in the promotion of markets. Through the lens of the TSR heuristic, we show that the institutionalization of the organic field beginning in the 1990s and its de facto inclusion in the broader sustainability field beginning in the 2000s contribute to a progressive distancing between the organic movement and its initial political project of alterity, to which public and private actors both contribute actively. As a set of interlinked market institutions, the TSR orients and narrows the scope of debate, which becomes restricted to “market-compatible” dimensions and objects. We conclude that the TSR is a promising heuristic for analyzing contemporary global regulation. (shrink)

The jury remains out about the bottom-line relevance of organisational spirituality. This article reviews the arguments made thus far, using those sources most commonly cited as providing ‹evidence’ that organisational spirituality adds value to the bottom line. Having collated the evidence, this article offers some observation about the robustness of this existing ‹business case’. It then offers some preliminary conclusions on the literature review, examining the merits of pursuing a ‹business case’ in this field and identifying some specific questions for (...) future research. (shrink)

Forgiveness usually gets a very good press in our culture: we are deluged with self-help books and television shows all delivering the same message, that forgiveness is good for everyone, and is always the right thing to do. But those who have suffered seriously at the hands of others often and rightly feel that this boosterism about forgiveness is glib and facile. Perhaps forgiveness is not always desirable, especially where the wrongdoing is terrible or the wrongdoer unrepentant. In this book, (...) Garrard and McNaughton suggest that the whole debate suffers from a crippling lack of clarity about what forgiveness really amounts to. They argue that it is more difficult, complex and troubling than many of its advocates suppose. Nevertheless, they conclude, a proper understanding of forgiveness allows us to avoid cheap and shallow forms of it, and enables us to see why it is right and admirable to forgive even unrepentant wrongdoers. (shrink)

We readily claim that great moral catastrophes such as the Holocaust involve evil in some way, although it' not clear what this amounts to in a secular context. This paper seeks to provide a secular account of what evil is. It examines what is intuitively the most plausible account, namely that the evil act involves the production of great suffering (or other disvalue), and argues that such outcomes are neither necessary nor sufficient for an act to be evil. Only an (...) appeal to distinctive patterns of motivation, so it is argued, will allow us to accommodate our intuitionsabout which acts are evil, and hence will provide an adequate account of the nature of evil. (shrink)