This collection of essays examines the ways in which disputes and controversies about the application of scientific knowledge are resolved. Four concrete examples of public controversy are considered in detail: the efficacy of Laetrile, the classification of homosexuality as a disease, the setting of safety standards in the workplace, and the utility of nuclear energy as a source of power. The essays in this volume show that debates about these cases are not confined to matters of empirical fact. Rather, (...) as is seen with most scientific and technical controversies, they focus on and are structured by complex ethical, economic, and political interests. Drs. Engelhardt and Caplan have brought together a distinguished group of scholars from the sciences and humanities, who sketch a theory of scientific controversy and attempt to provide recommendations about the ways in which both scientists and the public ought to seek more informed resolutions of highly contentious issues in science and technology. Scientific Controversies is offered as a contribution to the better understanding of the roles of both science and nonscientific interests in disputes and controversies pertaining to science and technology. (shrink)

Schmitt has equivocated about the underlying psychology of sociosexuality, but from the data presented in the target article, it would appear that he has drawn out the underlying cognitive architecture. In this commentary, I describe this architecture and discuss two emerging hypotheses about heterosexual and homosexual male sociosexuality.

Dr. Vukov analyzing patients with disorders of consciousness, proposed that medical well-regarded policy recommendations cannot be justified by looking solely to patients’ actual levels of consciousness (minimally conscious state – MCS versus vegetative state – VS), but that they can be justified by looking to patients’ potential for consciousness. One objective way to estimate this potential (actual physical possibility) is to consider a neurophysiologically informed strategy. Ideally such strategy would utilize objective brain activity markers of consciousness/unconsciousness. The Operational Architectonics (OA) (...) theory of brain-mind functioning is an example of such a strategy. Besides being mathematically simple, neurophysiologically accurate, and compatible with the cognitive/phenomenal perspectives on consciousness, application of OA strategy to quantitative EEG analysis of patients in VS and MCS revealed that the absence of consciousness in VS is paralleled by impairment of overall EEG operational architecture. Specifically, neuronal assemblies become smaller, their life span shortened, and they became highly unstable and functionally disconnected (desynchronized). At the same time, fluctuating (minimal) awareness in patients in MCS was paralleled by partial restoration of EEG operational architecture (increased size, life span, and stability of neuronal assemblies, together with an increased number and strength of functional connections among them), approaching the level found in healthy fully conscious participants. Moreover OA strategy to EEG analysis allowed predicting the emergence of consciousness in VS patients after six years following the brain trauma. Therefore, the OA methodology could reliably predict which patients may regain consciousness, and thus determine which patients may have the potential for consciousness. (shrink)

That a homosexual -- man or woman -- is neither a sinner nor a sick person is the thesis of this paper by an authority on sexual deviation. Therefore, such a man or woman neither needs penance and pardon nor cure in the medical sense. Nevertheless such individuals sometimes need the help of doctors and must be treated with understanding. The medical profession also has, in the view of the behaviourist school of psychiatrists, of which Dr Bancroft is a member, (...) the duty of influencing social attitudes towards homosexuals. Obviously homosexuals who come into conflict with the law are special cases, and must be treated as such but this is not 'medical' treatment so much as social control even if drugs and other forms of therapy are used. (shrink)

Contents: PART I: AESTHETICS OF ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONS. Francis SPARSHOTT: The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space. Arnold BERLEANT: Architecture and the Aesthetics of Continuity. Stephen DAVIES: Is Architecture Art? PART II: NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE. B.R. TILGHMAN: Architecture, Expression, and the Understanding of a Culture. David NOVITZ: Architectural Brilliance and the Constraints of Time. Michael H. MITIAS: Expression in Architecture. Ralf WEBER: The Myth of Meaningful Forms. Michael H. MITIAS: Is Meaning in Architecture a Myth? A Response to Ralf (...) Weber. PART III: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE. Allen CARLSON: Existence, Location, and Function: The Appreciation of Architecture. Martin DONOUGHO: Spaced Out or Folded In? Trends in Architectural Choreography. Tom LEDDY: Dialogical Architecture. Roy T. DECKER: Tactility and Imagination: Considerations of Aesthetic Experience in Architecture. Robert GINSBERG: Aesthetics in Hiroshima. The Architecture of Remembrance. (shrink)

Collectively, Atkins examines their pursuit of sexual justice, the ideologies of manhood they challenged, the different types of gay spaces they created (geographic, architectural, online), and political obstacles they have encountered.

Since the late 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church and several mainline Western Protestant churches have been at odds over homosexuality to such an extent that it has turned into a church-dividing issue. This article aims to find new openings for the ecumenical dialogue by examining how the ROC’s negative attitude toward same-sex relations has been influenced by cultural and historic factors. The analysis focuses on the affective dimension of the ROC’s discourse on homosexuality in important social documents and (...) public speeches. The methodology applied is taken from affect studies. The rhetoric of the ecclesial texts recalls ‘shadows from the gulag’ and frightening memories of the chaos of the 1990s, and functions to create an imagined national, moral and religious community – the ‘Russian Christian civilization’ – which is characterized by masculine heterosexuality. Religious concepts tend to become subordinate to the affective politics of the discourse. In conclusion, the author proposes that ecumenical partners continue with a profound theological discussion on human sexuality in all its diversity and complexity, and clarify to each other how understandings of basic theological notions such as human dignity and freedom have also been shaped by formative historic experiences. Furthermore, ecclesiological debates should address, at a fundamental level, the relationship between Christian community and the freedom ‘to be different.’. (shrink)

I examine the new analysis of gay community and liberation offered by Dennis Altman in The Homosexualization of America. Three distinctive theoretical constructs are analyzed and criticized: (1) a new view of psychosocial development; (2) a new concept of gay identity; and (3) A set of causal hypotheses designed to explain the new direction of the gay subculture.

The attraction of a wink, a nod, a discarded snapshot-such feelings permeate our lives, yet we usually dismiss them as insubstantial or meaningless. With The Logic of the Lure, John Paul Ricco argues that it is precisely such fleeting, erotic, and even perverse experiences that will help us create a truly queer notion of ethics and aesthetics, one that recasts sociality and sexuality, place and finitude in ways suggested by the anonymity and itinerant lures of cruising. Shifting our attention from (...) artworks to the work that art does, from subjectivity to becoming, and from static space to taking place, Ricco considers a variety of issues, including the work of Doug Ischar, Tom Burr, and Derek Jarman and the minor architecture of sex clubs, public restrooms, and alleyways. (shrink)

이 논문은 최근 한국 사회의 ‘뜨거운 감자(hot potato)’가 된 차별금지법안 찬반을 통해 논의되는 동성애 관련 내용에 관해 경제사와 성서해석학, 그리고 종교 신학의 관점에서 분석하려는 것이다. 이것은 인간 공동체의 새로운 지평에 관한 논의이다. 곧 주체의 변화를 통해 재구성되는 주체에 관한 탐구이다. 따라서 먼저 경제사의 관점에서 동성애라는 표현의 시작이 어떠한 시대 경제 상황에서 시작되었는지를 밝히고, 또 성경이 말하는 동성애금지 구절이 본질적으로 무엇을 의미하는지를 성서해석학을 통해 밝히고자 한다. 특히 논문의 본론에서 동성애 관계를 영적 우정의 관계로 승화시킨 웨슬리 힐의 윤리적 입장을 살펴볼 것이다. 힐은 (...) 동성에 끌리는 현상의 심리적 뿌리에 집착하면서 그 근원을 찾으려고 하는 것보다, 자신이 속한 교회공동체에 무엇을 기여할 수 있는가에 초점을 맞추라고 권면한다. 곧, 동성애 성향이 ‘유혹’이건 ‘연약함’이건 ‘타락’이건, 그것을 어떻게 사랑의 소명을 발견하는 기회 혹은 상황으로 이해할 수 있는가를 물어야 한다는 것이다. 물론 힐에 대한 반론도 있다. 따라서 이 논문은 힐의 주장과 반론을 소개함으로, 한국 사회에 동성애 관련 논쟁에 있어서 윤리적으로 좀 더 풍성한 논의를 할 수 있는 마중물이 될 것이며 동시에 변화되는 인간 주체성에 관한 좀 더 깊은 논의의 장으로 이끌 것이다. (shrink)

Rymarz, Richard Review of: Homosexuality and following Jesus, by Paul Flaman,, ISBN 9781926645780, pp.181, pb; The plot to kill god: Findings from the soviet experiment in secularization, by Paul Froese, ISBN 9780520255289, pp.248, pb.

ABSTRACT In this essay the argument set forth by Michael Levin regarding the abnormality of homosexual behaviour is reviewed and criticized. Against his argument which holds that homosexual behaviour is abnormal because it constitutes an evolutionary aberration, I argue that Levin's and all similarly constructed arguments fail to show that evolutionary origins of sexual behaviour have any significant normative force. I contend that his notion of homosexuality is confused and that he fails to consider alternative methods of how (...) class='Hi'>homosexuality might have indeed served evolutionary adaptive purposes or been the result of surplus adaptations. I argue, too, that Levin's linking of unhappiness with homosexual behaviour is spurious and ill‐supported. Consequently, I reject Levin's claims that public policy ought to do what it can to minimize the incidence of such behaviour. I argue by contrast that if happiness is the end of public policy decisions, then society ought to take what measures it can to protect persons in respect of their homosexual behaviour and identities. (shrink)

In the 1990s, Building Information Modeling (BIM) software significantly altered architectural approaches to planning and building. Based on parametric methods, BIM technologies sought to simulate the construction process prior to a building’s realisation. These computer simulations challenged the existing practice of representing a building through plan, section and elevation, proposing that one computational model could create a more efficient way of building. The history of BIM explorations and applications, while hardly linear, can be traced back to developments in computing since (...) the post-war period. This article maps some of these histories by examining how the computational model became an organisational infrastructure, collecting data about design and building parameters, and facilitating knowledge transfer across industries. Special attention will be given to the foundational role of Charles Eastman’s work on a Building Description System (BDS) in the 1970s, as well as Robert Aish’s contribution to RUCAPS, one of the earliest applications of Building Modeling for the design of parametric structures. I will further address research on interface technologies and computational curve modelling as well as the popularisation of Building Information systems through the office of Gehry Partners. By highlighting the interrelated nature of technology and cultural shifts in the making of BIM, this contribution sheds light on the epistemic status of computer simulations in architecture, and the dynamics of the design and building processes in which they are used. (shrink)

The argument presented here explores homosexuality within the context of applied Christian ethics. The argument works by asking students to grapple with and define the common characteristics of all eros relationships. Once the students analytically break down eros relationships, and wrestle with defining concepts such as “love,” “sex,” and “desires,” basic biblical moral precepts are applied. After this biblical application it can be shown that there is latitude enough in Christian morality to openly permit homosexuality that iscompatible with (...) biblically stated ethical dictums. The argument is pedagogical in nature, and is a challenging, engaging, and accessible argument that avoids the educational pitfalls that entangle other arguments of this nature. (shrink)

Even today, apologists for modernist and post-modernist architecture frequently appeal to what, following Sir Karl Popper, I will call historicist arguments. Such arguments have a particular poignancy when they are used to justify the replacement of some familiar part of an ancient city with some intentionally untraditional structure; as, for example, when a familiar nineteenth century block of offices in a prime city site is swept away to make room for something supposedly more fitting to the ‘new millennium’, a ‘twentieth (...) century contribution to monumental architecture’, a building ‘of substantial importance to the present age’. Similarly, those architects or consumers of architecture who fail to conform to whatever stylistic demands the age is held to demand are marginalized in many supposedly serious discussions of architecture, and made to feel out of place and out of time. (shrink)

This edited collection provides insight into understanding architecture and urban design as technology. In order to understand how and why we live in built environments, we are in need of a conceptual framework that takes into account what role architecture as technology plays in our being and becoming in the world.

In this paper, I claim there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuals adopting children. It is often argued that even if we ought to tolerate homosexuals in society, we must nevertheless forbid them from raising children. This is simply preposterous. There is no good argument for maintaining it, as I hope to demonstrate here.

One. Hundred. Years. of. Homosexuality. I. In 1992, when the patriots among us will be celebrating the fivehundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, our cultural historians may wish to mark the centenary of  ...

L'auteur accepte la position d'auteurs comme Germain Grisez et John Finnis selon laquelle l'immoralité de l'homosexualité est connectée en quelque manière au dualisme esprit-corps de la recherche du plaisir. Il s'efforce pourtant, par une analyse de ce que Platon et Aristote disent au sujet du plaisir dans le Philebus et l'Ethique de Nichomaque, de décrire le genre - ou, plutôt, les genres - de dualisme dont il s'agit. Le résultat, pense-t-il, est une analyse qui évite la position insoutenable selon laquelle (...) le plaisir n'est en aucune manière à être poursuivi pour lui-même. Il est d'accord avec Aristote et Thomas d'Aquin que le plaisir est «une sorte de fin», qui reçoit son intelligibilité complète seulement lorsqu'elle accompagne des pratiques humaines pleinement intelligibles de façon isomorphique. (shrink)

Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and the vestigal traces (...) of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire. Begining with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecuture, urban planning and geography. In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices." Grosz's Space, Time and Perversity is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher. (shrink)

: Jean-Paul Sartre's questions about anti-Semitism in Anti-Semite and Jew are ones we should want asked about heteronormativity—what causes it, what sustains it, why is so little being done about it, what should be done. Although the parallels between anti-Semitism and heteronormativity are not exact, relevant Sartrian ideas include nationalism, choosing to reason falsely, living in the future, and authenticity. Foremost is Sartre's claim that bigotry is not about ideas but a certain type of personality.

Jean-Paul Sartre's questions about anti-Semitism in Anti-Semite and Jew are ones we should want asked about heteronormativity—what causes it, what sustains it, why is so little being done about it, what should be done. Although the parallels between anti-Semitism and heteronormativity are not exact, relevant Sartrian ideas include nationalism, choosing to reason falsely, living in the future, and authenticity. Foremost is Sartre's claim that bigotry is not about ideas but a certain type of personality.

People who notice details might have observed I would like to take this point further to suggest that the description of this panel that appears on the that the terms communities of faith and people of Ten Percent Society literature is different than the faith are inapplicable in the Christian or any other one included on the Philosophy and Religion religious context as well. One does not have faith in Colloquium announcements. This is intentional; I..

ExcerptFollowing the heated architectural debates in the 1990s about how to rebuild Berlin Mitte, there emerged a more general discussion that moved beyond the confines of the new capital to include not just other German cities but most of the European Union as well. The question of how to build in Berlin was transformed into a discussion of “the European city.”1 This innocuous phrase has become a source of considerable concern among urban planners, architects, and sociologists because “the European city” (...) is consistently described as under siege—by a great variety of forces, globalization, the decline of municipal funding, leading to…. (shrink)

Those who are optimistic about the prospects of a science of consciousness, and those who believe that it lies beyond the reach of standard scientific methods, have something in common: both groups view consciousness as posing a special challenge for science. In this paper, we take a close look at the nature of this challenge. We show that popular conceptions of the problem of consciousness, epitomized by David Chalmers’ formulation of the ‘hard problem’, can be best explained as a cognitive (...) illusion, which arises as a by-product of our cognitive architecture. We present evidence from numerous sources to support our claim that we have a specialized system for thinking about phenomenal states, and that an inhibitory relationship exists between this system and the system we use to think about physical mechanisms. Even though the ‘hard problem’ is an illusion, unfortunately it appears that our cognitive architecture forces a closely related problem upon us. The ‘genuine problem’ of consciousness shares many features with the hard problem, and it also represents a special challenge for psychology. Nonetheless, researchers should be careful not to mistake the hard problem for the genuine problem, since the strategies appropriate for dealing with these problems differ in important respects. (shrink)

The article devoted to one of the lesser-known monasteries of our country, the Saint-Dormition Cosmas male monastery located in the Alexandrovsky district of Vladimir region. On the basis of archival and published materials, the author considers the founding date of the monastery that varies in different lists of life of St. Cosmas of Yakhromsk. In addition, the author concludes that the miraculous finding of the Yakhromsk icon of the Blessed Virgin by St. Cosmas could happened twenty years earlier than it (...) is considered. That can also change the date of the founding of the monastery. In the article, the author studies the question of the origin of the St. Cosmas of Yakhromsk and concludes that St. Cosmas could be a relative of the Gur’evs-Sekerins, the famous Russian boyar family, which is among the ancestors of A. S. Pushkin. The author of the article also tells about the shrines of the Cosmas monastery and their fate nowadays. It is suggested that the Yakhromsk icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary that is currently kept in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin could be the icon that was revealed to the St. Cosmas, with which he went to the Kiev-Pechersk monastery, where he was tonsured. If this assumption is true, the Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Yakhromsk described by the famous Russian art historian N.P. Kondakov in 1912 is a more recent copy of this icon. The author also gives a brief outline of the history of the monastery in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times and tells about Vladimir restorers, who saved the monastery from destruction in the 1960-1980s. At the end of the article, the author raises the question about the possibility of new archaeological study and scientific-based restoration of the Dormition Cathedral of the monastery including the restoration of its historical five-headed shape, which is typical to such monuments of the 17th century. (shrink)

This book engages with the writings of W.G. Sebald, mediated by perspectives drawn from curriculum and architecture, to explore the theme of unsettling complacency and confront difficult knowledge around trauma, discrimination and destruction. Moving beyond overly instrumentalist and reductive approaches, the authors combine disciplines in a scholarly fashion to encourage readers to stretch their understandings of currere. The chapters exemplify important, timely and complicated conversations centred on ethical response and responsibility, in order to imagine a more just and aesthetically experienced (...) world. In the analysis of bildung as human formation, the book illuminates the pertinent lessons to be learned from the works of Sebald and provokes further investigations into the questions of memory, grief, and limits of language. Through its juxtaposition of curriculum and architecture, and using the prose of Sebald as a prism, the book revitalizes questions about education and ethics, probes the unsettling of complacency, and enables conversation around difficult knowledge and ethical responsibility, as well as offering hope and resolve. An important intervention in standard approaches to understanding currere, this book provides essential context for scholars and educators with interests in the history of education, curriculum studies, cultural studies, memory studies, narrative research, Sebaldian studies, and educational philosophy. (shrink)

The ideological interface between Muslims and liberal educators undoubtedly is strained in the realm of sex education, and perhaps on no topic more so than homosexuality. Some argue that schools should not try to ‘undermine the faith’ of Muslims, who object to teaching homosexuality as an ‘acceptable alternative lifestyle’. In this article, I will argue against this monolithic presentation of Islam. Furthermore, I will argue that a narrow view of Islam is neglectful of gay and lesbian Muslims who (...) are particularly vulnerable to the unrepentant hostilities of their own communities. (shrink)

Spinoza did not write a treatise on architecture, but I would like to consider what he might have said in it if he did. Spinoza makes few remarks about architecture, and these remarks do not appear...