Here, a distinguished group of international contributors examines what we know about, feel, and hope to accomplish in real-world environments.

In The Ethics of Postmodernity, Gary B. Madison and Marty Fairbairn have collected instructive and illuminating essays that address the dilemmas left in the wake of the postmodern attack on foundationalism. This collection is a powerful statement on the many directions a postmetaphysical ethics might take. Contributors include Barry Allen, Caroline Bayard, Robert Bernasconi, Thomas W. Busch, M.C. Dillon, Marty Fairbairn, Paul Fairfield, Morny Joy, Richard Kearney, Gary B. Madison, Joseph Margolis, Tom Rockmore, Charles E. Scott, Evan Simpson, (...) and Mark Williams. (shrink)

Purely parallel neural networks can model object recognition in brief displays – the same conditions under which illusory conjunctions have been demonstrated empirically. Correcting errors of illusory conjunction is the “tag-assignment” problem for a purely parallel processor: the problem of assigning a spatial tag to nonspatial features, feature combinations, and objects. This problem must be solved to model human object recognition over a longer time scale. Our model simulates both the parallel processes that may underlie illusory conjunctions and the serial (...) processes that may solve the tag-assignment problem in normal perception. One component of the model extracts pooled features and another provides attentional tags that correct illusory conjunctions. Our approach addresses two questions: How can objects be identified from simultaneously attended features in a parallel, distributed representation? How can the spatial selectional requirements of such an attentional process be met by a separation of pathways for spatial and nonspatial processing? Our analysis of these questions yields a neurally plausible simulation of tag assignment based on synchronizing feature processing activity in a spatial focus of attention. (shrink)

Drawing deeply from Wittgenstein's later works, Thomas Morawetz has articulated a vision of legal decision making according to which it is not a defect, but inherent in the very nature of law, for there to be disagreement among judges regarding their legal decision‐making strategies. Central to Morawetz's account is the notion of a legal grammatical proposition. This essay argues that because legal grammatical remarks lack any truth‐value, they cannot play a justificatory role. This would imply that the rule of law (...) is no more justifiable than the violent alternatives used by anarchists and religious fanatics. (shrink)

David Pears's contention that the Tractatus is to be understood as advancing a form of metaphysical realism is defended against McGuinness's view that Tractatus 1-2.063 is to be treated just as introducing a metaphysical myth that may be employed to bring into prominence salient features of propositions. Starting with a discussion of the involved difficulties, e.g., determining (1) whether Wittgenstein does in fact provide an argument for the existence of simple objects (2) what this object is and (3) what role (...) the existence of simple objects plays within the Picture Theory of the Proposition, Wittgenstein's argument for the existence of simple objects is reconstructed, augmenting Pears's existing account by providing further details of why Wittgenstein held that determinacy of sense requiresthe existence of simple objects. (shrink)

David Pears's contention that the Tractatus is to be understood as advancing a form of metaphysical realism is defended against McGuinness's view that Tractatus 1-2.063 is to be treated just as introducing a metaphysical myth that may be employed to bring into prominence salient features of propositions. Starting with a discussion of the involved difficulties, e.g., determining (1) whether Wittgenstein does in fact provide an argument for the existence of simple objects (2) what this object is and (3) what role (...) the existence of simple objects plays within the Picture Theory of the Proposition, Wittgenstein's argument for the existence of simple objects is reconstructed, augmenting Pears's existing account by providing further details of why Wittgenstein held that determinacy of sense requiresthe existence of simple objects. (shrink)

Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. In Gary W. Moon’s candid and inspiring biography, we read about the development of Willard's personal character, philosophical writing, and spiritual teaching, and how he has inspired some of the most influential books on spirituality of the last generation.

What is encoded in working memory may be a content-addressable pointer, but a critical portion of the information that is addressed includes the motor information to achieve deictic reference in the environment. Additionally, the same strategy that is used to access environment information just in time for its use may also be used to access long-term memory via the pre-frontal cortex.

Professor Engelhardt’s After God sets out in fine detail a “j’accuse” of the Western project from the medieval Scholastic doctors, through the Enlightenment, to Kant and Hegel, and finally to its telos in postmodernity, which in fact was the logical outcome of what Professor Engelhardt sees as the abuse of reason, for reason could never endure the demands made of it. I propose that Professor Engelhardt is correct in his description of our present epoch, though partially but critically misguided in (...) his diagnosis of why, and thus falls short in a prescription for the restoration of salus. (shrink)

Derrida and Phenomenology is a collection of essays by various authors, entirely devoted to Jacques Derrida's writing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. It gives a wide range of reactions to those writings, both critical and supportive, and contains many in-depth studies. Audience: Communicates new evaluations of Derrida's critique of Husserl to those familiar with the issues: specialists in phenomenology, deconstruction, the philosophies of Derrida and Husserl. Also contains a bibliography of recent relevant literature.

In this paper we provide evidence from Japan that bears on a general theory of agenda power in legislatures. By agenda power we mean the power to determine: (a) which bills are considered in the plenary session of the legislature and (b) restrictions on debate and amendment to these bills, when they are considered. While a substantial amount of work has focused on the second category of agenda power, including studies of special rules in the US House (e.g., Sinclair forthcoming), (...) closure in the UK House of Commons (e.g., Cox, 1987; Dion, 1997), and the guillotine in the French National Assembly (e.g., Huber, 1996), there is very little on the first and arguably more fundamental sort of agenda power. This agenda power is our focus here, and henceforth when we refer to we shall mean this narrower conception. (shrink)

As an aspect of civic humanism, the liberal arts comprehended the skills necessary to realize the common good of free citizens within a free society, the mental habits basic to citizenship as preached and taught in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance worlds. The liberal arts formed people with the virtues proper to civic life. The Church has never been quiet about these issues. In every age Christians have addressed themselves to what the human animal is that such a being can (...) be trained in civic virtue, and how this can best be done, why Christians should care, and what Faith has to say on such matters as profane learning. This book's essays explore how the various Christian Traditions have taken up the question of liberal learning by setting it within the context of their own peculiar idioms and histories."--from back book cover. (shrink)