We hypothesise that some influenza virus adaptations to poultry may explain why the barrier for human‐to‐human transmission is not easily overcome once the virus has crossed from wild birds to chickens. Since the cluster of human infections with H5N1 influenza in Hong Kong in 1997, chickens have been recognized as the major source of avian influenza virus infection in humans. Although often severe, these infections have been limited in their subsequent human‐to‐human transmission, and the feared H5N1 pandemic has not yet (...) occurred. Here we examine virus adaptations selected for during replication in chickens and other gallinaceous poultry. These include altered receptor binding and increased pH of fusion of the haemagglutinin as well as stalk deletions of the neuraminidase protein. This knowledge could aid the delivery of vaccines and increase our ability to prioritize research efforts on those viruses from the diverse array of avian influenza viruses that have greatest human pandemic potential. (shrink)

Over-the-counter drugs are ubiquitous in the US. Policymakers have long debated how to modernize the system for making determinations of safety and effectiveness and addressing safety issues with OTC drugs.

We review recent anticipatory looking and violation-of-expectancy studies suggesting that infants and young preschoolers have spontaneous (implicit) understanding of mind despite their known problems until later in life on elicited (explicit) tests of false-belief reasoning. Straightforwardly differentiating spontaneous and elicited expressions of complex mental state understanding in relation to an implicit-explicit knowledge framework may be challenging; early action predictions may be based on behavior rules that are complementary to the mentalistic attributions under consideration. We discuss that the way forward for (...) diagnosing early mentalism is to analyze whether young candidate mind-readers’ visual orienting cohere across different belief-formation by belief-use combinations. Adopting this formal cognitive analysis, we conclude that whilst some studies come tantalizingly close to sign-posting mentalism in infants and young children’s spontaneous responses, the bulk of evidence for early mentalism grades into behaviorism. (shrink)

Problem one: why, if God designed the human mind, did it take so long for humans to develop theistic concepts and beliefs? Problem two: why would God use evolution to design the living world when the discovery of evolution would predictably contribute to so much nonbelief in God? Darwin was aware of such questions but failed to see their evidential significance for theism. This paper explores this significance. Problem one introduces something I call natural nonbelief, which is significant because (...) it parallels and corroborates well-known worries about natural evil. Problems one and two, especially when combined, support naturalism over theism, intensify the problem of divine hiddenness, challenge Alvin Plantinga’s views about the naturalness of theism, and advance the discussion about whether the conflict between science and religion is genuine or superficial. (shrink)

Our decision-making is often subject to framing effects: alternative but equally informative descriptions of the same options elicit different choices. When a decision-maker is vulnerable to framing, she may consent under one description of the act, which suggests that she has waived her right, yet be disposed to dissent under an equally informative description of the act, which suggests that she has not waived her right. I argue that in such a case the decision-maker’s consent is simply irrelevant to the (...) permissibility of proceeding. I then consider two alternative views. According to the first, people susceptible to framing are able to give valid consent so long as they are sufficiently informed. This suggestion, I argue, maintains an overly narrow focus on mere quantity of information to the exclusion of other choice-affecting factors. A second response, which appeals to hypothetical consent, is likewise of little use in resolving the moral problem posed by framing effects. I conclude that if susceptibility to framing undermines the validity of consent, we may have good reason to reconsider whether consent has the rights-waiving function commonly attributed to it. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, they are (...) involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

A surgical head-transplant technique, HEAVEN, promises to offer significantly improved quality of life for quadriplegics and others whose minds are functional, but whose bodies require artificial support to continue living. HEAVEN putatively actualizes a thought-experiment long debated by philosophers concerning the definition of personhood and criterion of personal identity through time and change. HEAVEN’s advocates presume to preserve the identity of the person whose head is transplanted onto another’s living body, leaving one’s previous body behind as one would their (...) corpse. Various classical and contemporary theories of personhood and personal identity would support this presumption, while others would contest it as providing an accurate or complete view of what is essential for a human person to persist through this procedure. This paper brings such theories to bear in analyzing whether HEAVEN can indeed deliver on its promise of complete ontological survival for the person whose head is transplanted. (shrink)

An examination of new forms of alienation in our never-off, plugged-in culture—and a clarion call for a “conspiracy of estranged people.” We can reach every point in the world but, more importantly, we can be reached from any point in the world. Privacy and its possibilities are abolished. Attention is under siege everywhere. Not silence but uninterrupted noise, not the red desert, but a cognitive space overcharged with nervous incentives to act: this is the alienation of our times... —from The (...) Soul at Work Capital has managed to overcome the dualism of body and soul by establishing a workforce in which everything we mean by the Soul—language, creativity, affects—is mobilized for its own benefit. Industrial production put to work bodies, muscles, and arms. Now, in the sphere of digital technology and cyberculture, exploitation involves the mind, language, and emotions in order to generate value—while our bodies disappear in front of our computer screens. In this, his newest book, Franco “Bifo” Berardi—key member of the Italian Autonomist movement and a close associate of Félix Guattari—addresses these new forms of estrangement. In the philosophical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hegelian concept of alienation was used to define the harnessing of subjectivity. The estrangement of workers from their labor, the feeling of alienation they experienced, and their refusal to submit to it became the bases for a human community that remained autonomous from capital. But today a new condition of alienation has taken root in which workers commonly and voluntarily work overtime, the population is tethered to cell phones and Blackberries, debt has become a postmodern form of slavery, and antidepressants are commonly used to meet the unending pressure of production. As a result, the conditions for community have run aground and new philosophical categories are needed. The Soul at Work is a clarion call for a new collective effort to reclaim happiness. The Soul at Work is Bifo's long overdue introduction to English-speaking readers. This Semiotext edition is also the book's first appearance in any language. (shrink)

This collection of fifteen newly commissioned essays has a dual purpose. Through an emphasis on the reception of Spinoza in German nineteenth-century thought, the volume seeks to shed new light on his work. Likewise, the focus on Spinoza’s influence in the long nineteenth century illuminates novel aspects of the philosophical lineage from idealism to Marxism, psychoanalysis, and beyond. The contributions are at the cutting edge of research on modern German thought, not only when it comes to canonical figures like (...) Herder, Kant, and Marx, but also thinkers whose importance has since been neglected such as Salomon Maimon and Lou Salomé. The volume will be of interest to, among others, scholars working in the history of philosophy, in intellectual history, and in Jewish, religious, and German studies. (shrink)

Repositions Bachelard as a critical and integral part of contemporary continental philosophy. Like Schelling before him and Deleuze and Guattari after him, Gaston Bachelard made major philosophical contributions to the advancement of science and the arts. In addition to being a mathematician and epistemologist whose influential work in the philosophy of science is still being absorbed, Bachelard was also one of the most innovative thinkers on poetic creativity and its ethical implications. His approaches to literature and the arts by way (...) of elemental reverie awakened long-buried modes of thinking that have inspired literary critics, depth psychologists, poets, and artists alike. Bachelard’s extraordinary body of work, unduly neglected by the English-language reception of continental philosophy in recent decades, exhibits a capacity to speak to the full complexity and wider reaches of human thinking. The essays in this volume analyze Bachelard as a phenomenological thinker and situate his thought within the Western tradition. Considering his work alongside that of Schelling, Husserl, Bergson, Buber, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Deleuze, and Nancy, this collection highlights some of Bachelard’s most provocative proposals on questions of ontology, hermeneutics, ethics, environmental politics, spirituality, and the possibilities they offer for productive transformations of self and world. (shrink)

Most politically minded Kurds agree that their people need liberty. Moreover, they agree they need liberation from the domination they suffer from the four states that divide them: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. What is less certain is the precise nature of this liberty. A key debate that characterizes Kurdish political discourse is over whether the liberty they seek requires the existence of an independent Kurdish nation-state. Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed intellectual leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has argued that (...) Kurdish liberty can only be achieved through liberation from the nation-state model itself. Instead of founding an independent Kurdistan, Öcalan proposes regional autonomy for the Kurds through a strictly egalitarian and directly democratic confederalism reminiscent of Murray Bookchin’s anarchist-inspired libertarian municipalism. We argue, in response to Öcalan’s approach, that employing an anarchist rejection of the state is largely mistaken. We diagnose certain historical and conceptual problems with the anarchist understanding of the state and develop the admission made in passing by certain anarchists, including Öcalan, that anarchist liberty could only be achieved after a long period of statist existence. Mostly counter to the anarchist model of non-domination, we propose a republican model of liberty and liberation, also as non-domination, that necessitates the formation of an independent state, at least in this historical period, for Kurds and hence any dominated people to count as truly free. We conclude by attempting to combine certain elements of the anarchist and republican conceptions and offer a synthetic communitarian view that could serve as a better foundation for Kurdish aspirations for liberty. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 8, Page 1174-1196, October 2022. Most politically minded Kurds agree that their people need liberty. Moreover, they agree they need liberation from the domination they suffer from the four states that divide them: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. What is less certain is the precise nature of this liberty. A key debate that characterizes Kurdish political discourse is over whether the liberty they seek requires the existence of an independent Kurdish nation-state. Abdullah Öcalan, (...) the jailed intellectual leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has argued that Kurdish liberty can only be achieved through liberation from the nation-state model itself. Instead of founding an independent Kurdistan, Öcalan proposes regional autonomy for the Kurds through a strictly egalitarian and directly democratic confederalism reminiscent of Murray Bookchin’s anarchist-inspired libertarian municipalism. We argue, in response to Öcalan’s approach, that employing an anarchist rejection of the state is largely mistaken. We diagnose certain historical and conceptual problems with the anarchist understanding of the state and develop the admission made in passing by certain anarchists, including Öcalan, that anarchist liberty could only be achieved after a long period of statist existence. Mostly counter to the anarchist model of non-domination, we propose a republican model of liberty and liberation, also as non-domination, that necessitates the formation of an independent state, at least in this historical period, for Kurds and hence any dominated people to count as truly free. We conclude by attempting to combine certain elements of the anarchist and republican conceptions and offer a synthetic communitarian view that could serve as a better foundation for Kurdish aspirations for liberty. (shrink)

This article seeks to find attitudes and judgments elite Romans made based on a person’s bed. It culls written sources from a diverse range of genres to argue that elite Roman men saw beds as transformative and reflective items. Through long-lasting and frequent contact, a bed’s qualities seeped into bodies and characters. Consequently, as a powerful part of the built environment, beds could strengthen or weaken soldiers as well as help or harm a person’s health. Furthermore, beds’ transformative power (...) meant elite Romans thought where a man slept revealed who he was: his social status, moral fiber, and civilization. In short, beds marked a person’s identity. Examining how Roman elites conceptualized beds informs us on the larger issue of the history of the body, in general, and the sense of touch, in particular. Scholarship on the history of touch tends not analyze the effects of sustained and repetitive contact with a mundane object. (shrink)

Why is it good to be less, rather than more incoherent? Julia Staffel, in her excellent book “Unsettled Thoughts,” answers this question by showing that if your credences are incoherent, then there is some way of nudging them toward coherence that is guaranteed to make them more accurate and reduce the extent to which they are Dutch-bookable. This seems to show that such a nudge toward coherence makes them better fit to play their key epistemic and practical roles: representing the (...) world and guiding action. In this paper, I argue that Staffel’s strategy needs a small tweak. While she identifies appropriate measures of epistemic value, she does not identify appropriate measures of practical value. Staffel measures practical value using Dutchbookability scores. But credences have practical value in virtue of recommending actions that produce as much utility as possible. And while susceptibility to a Dutch book is a surefire sign that one’s credences are needlessly bad at this task, one’s degree of Dutch-bookability is not itself a good measure of how well they recommend practically valuable actions. Strictly proper scoring rules, I argue, are the right tools for measuring both epistemic and practical value. I show that we can rerun Staffel’s strategy swapping in strictly proper scoring rules for Dutch-bookability measures. So long as one’s epistemic scoring rule and practical scoring rule are “sufficiently similar,” there is some way of nudging incoherent credences toward coherence that is guaranteed to yield more of both types of value. (shrink)

This essay responds to four critical essays by Rosemary Kellison, Ebrahim Moosa, Joseph Winters, and Martin Kavka on the author’s recent book, Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society: From Enemy to Adversary (Cambridge, 2018). Parts I and II work in tandem to further develop my accounts of strategic empathy and agonistic political friendship. I defend against criticisms that my argument for moral imagination obligates oppressed people to empathize with their oppressors. I argue, further, that healthy conflict can be motivated by (...) a kind of “secular” love. This enables my position to immanently criticize and mediate the claims that one must either love (agapically) one’s opponent in order to engage them in “healthy conflict,” on one hand, or that one must vanquish, exclude, or “cancel” one’s opponent, on the other. In Part III, I demonstrate how my account mediates the challenge of an alleged standing opposition between moral imagination and socio-theoretical critique. I defend a methodologically pragmatist account of immanent prophetic criticism, resistance, and conflict transformation. Finally, I respond to one critic’s vindication of a strong enemy/adversary opposition that takes up the case of white supremacist violence in the U.S. I argue that the time horizon for healthy conflict must be simultaneously immediate and also long-term, provided that such engagements remain socio-critically self-reflexive and seek to cultivate transformational responses. (shrink)

This paper explores the “cultural-linguistic” dimensions of Hans Frei’s theology. I make the case that several of the pragmatic and sociological concerns usually identified as distinctive marks of Frei’s later theology of the 1980s are, in fact, central to his work as far back as the early 1960s. Moreover, I demonstrate that such “cultural-linguistic” insights present important continuous threads in the development of his theology from early to late. Attending to this dimension illuminates the trajectory of Frei’s thinking as consistently (...) Wittgensteinian in sensibility, and deeply indebted to his career-long conversation with Karl Barth’s theology. If successful, this reading should clarify the ways in which Frei’s early work is more innovative, and his later work less derivative, than is often recognized. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore, in some cases for the first time, the significance of the ethical, liberatory dimension of Spinoza’s thought among a number of women philosophers across the long nineteenth century’s German tradition. I begin with brief discussions of Elise Reimarus and Charlotte von Stein. I then proceed to more in-depth treatments of Caroline Michaelis- Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Karoline von Günderrode, stressing not only that we may learn about both in drawing out a link to Spinoza or Spinozism, (...) but likewise that we can deepen our understanding of Spinoza in bringing him into dialogue with each (in particular regarding, respectively, the importance of others for self-expression, as well as the metaphysical and ethical status of death, especially suicide). I conclude with a discussion of the turn-of-the-century thinkers Lou Salomé as well as Resa von Schirnhofer, Anna Tumarkin, and especially Elisabeth Schmitt—some of the first academic women philosophers in the German-language context, all closely engaged with Spinoza’s writings—before presenting final remarks concerning the status of Spinoza’s thought in the present context. (shrink)

Nocebo effects occur when an adverse effect on the patient arises from the patient's own negative expectations. In accordance with informed consent, providers often disclose information that results in unintended adverse outcomes for the patient. While this may adhere to the principle of autonomy, it violates the doctrine of “primum non nocere,” given that side-effect disclosure may cause those side effects. In this article we build off previous work, particularly by Wells and Kaptchuk and by Cohen :3–11.[Taylor & Francis Online], (...) [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]), to suggest ethical guidelines that permit nondisclosure in the case when a nocebo effect is likely to occur on of the basis of nonmaleficence. We accept that that autonomy vis-à-vis informed consent must be forestalled, but salvage much of its role by elaborating a practical clinical approach to postencounter follow-up. In doing so, we reconcile a clinically practicable process of determining conditions of disclosure with long-standing ethical commitments to patients. (shrink)

Two years ago, like many of my peers, the years of preparation to become a medical student culminated in one single act: the white coat ceremony. After awkwardly lowering myself before my dean with arms extended behind me, my ephemeral initiation into medicine passed as we both wrestled the coat on. I did not think much about the white coat after the white coat ceremony, but something began to itch my neck every time I wore my coat. It was not (...) the tag, but the words printed on it; ‘Made In Pakistan’. The tag was not bothersome because of a jingoistic need for American-made goods, but instead because of the incongruity between the Oath of Geneva’s pledge to ‘maintain the utmost respect of human life’ and the known human rights transgressions of the Pakistani garment industry. In 2012, a factory fire in Karachi claimed the lives of nearly 300 workers.1 Nearly 3 years after the fire, many families are still awaiting long-term compensation for their losses.2 Unfortunately, these poor standards are globally pervasive in the garment industry. The garment supply chain is so convoluted by subcontracting that production may …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Task of the Name: A Reply to Carol PosterJason HelmsIn the fields with which we are concerned, knowledge comes only in lightning flashes. The text is the long roll of thunder that follows.—Walter Benjamin, Arcades N1, 1 (1999)Logos, in whose lighting they come and go, remains concealed from them, and forgotten.—Martin Heidegger, “Aletheia” (1975, 122)One of the first things learned in the most rudimentary attempt at stargazing (...) is that the utmost effort must be paid in neglecting to gaze at stars. Instead, one must gaze near them. Owing to the physiological organization of the eye, night vision is enhanced toward the periphery of vision rather than the center. Consequently, one can actually perceive one’s own lack of perception by staring at a star, finding it disappear, and then staring near the star only to see it reappear. What follows, in this light or darkness or tension of these two extremes, is not empirical in any sense of the word, which is given to its own extremes. Rather, I hope through various a/(i)llusions and sidelong tangents to glance offthe surface of my target. As you may guess, superficial puns—like star(e)—provide one of the most reflective surfaces offof which to bounce/riff. [End Page 278]Carol Poster’s recent article, “The Task of the Bow: Heraclitus’ Rhetorical Critique of Epic Language” (2006), provides much fruitful ground for a rhetorical critique of Heraclitus and a Heraclitean critique of rhetoric—many surfaces offof which to glance. However, her analysis is often in a decidedly unharmonious tension with itself. Accordingly, this essay constitutes an attempt to tune by ear. In the course of this response I will outline at which points I diverge from her argument, offering my own listening relation to, and consequently my own reading of, Heraclitus, and propose alternative, but perhaps corrective, views of Heraclitus’s relation to the Logos and his practiced rhetorics. Let us first start at the end before proceeding through Poster’s argument.Poster’s ConclusionsAt the end of her article, Poster offers five conclusions that afford us now an ingress for her essay. For the sake of brevity (and, of course, clarity and sincerity) I have shortened them and added a sixth with which she concludes the article:1. Heraclitus focuses on the problem of correctness of names substantially before Prodicus and Protagoras.... Heraclitus thus prefigures two themes discussed more extensively by later writers. First, Heraclitus seems concerned with the art of what came to be called “orthoepeia” (the study of correctness of names) for which the sophists Prodicus and Protagoras later became famous. Second, he at least considers the possibility that one can learn something about the nature of things by examining the nonliteral senses of their names, a position that is articulated in its most extreme form by the Heraclitean Cratylus in Plato’s dialogue of that name.2. Heraclitus is an early example of logos philosopher, in the Gadamerian sense, in that he believes that investigation of language can provide information that is not exclusively or trivially linguistic. He is an early example of the “linguistic turn” in Greek thought.3. For Heraclitus, the instability of language is part of a radical instability of the world. Since things change too quickly to be examined, their stable names are all that is available for investigation. While surfaces change, hidden harmonies, which are both concealed and revealed in words, remain. And yet even names themselves, if temporally fixed, are still interpretively unstable. [End Page 279]4. Each positively attributed name or statement should be read two ways simultaneously in a sustained and irresolvable tension, literally and nonliterally, with the opposing figurative statement both contradicting and yet sustaining the literal one.5. These considerations lead Heraclitus, in his own prose, to a constant tension between rejection of epic vocabulary and ideas as inaccurate and frequent use of them; even when Homer and Hesiod are partially rejected, inquiry into them remains a valid means of investigation. Heraclitus does not simply suggest that epic should be entirely ignored in favor, for example, of direct examination of or experimentation on physical objects, nor purely internal (Cartesian... (shrink)

Galen designed the Death Star's primary weapon with knowledge of how to manipulate kyber crystals to enhance energy output. Utilitarian ethics would likely conclude that Galen did the right thing, ultimately saving many more lives than those lost and helping to free the galaxy from the Empire's tyranny. This chapter examines how a utilitarian – concerned with the best overall outcome – and a deontologist – concerned with our fundamental moral duties – would evaluate Galen's choice to cooperate with the (...) Empire. It also examines a potential justification for his serving both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance that may help us to navigate such complex moral dilemmas. Careful analysis of the conditions of moral complicity justifies Galen's collusion so long as he had a reasonable expectation that the Death Star would've been completed anyway, and that there was a reasonable hope of success in its ultimate destruction. (shrink)

Abstract:This symposium includes thirteen personal narratives from people who have received at least one organ transplant from a living or deceased donor. These narratives foster better understanding of the experiences of life-saving organ recipients and their families, including post-transplant difficulties experienced—sometimes requiring multiple transplants. This issue also includes three commentaries by Macey L. Levan, Heather Lannon, and Vidya Fleetwood, Roslyn B. Mannon & Krista L. Lentine. Dr. Levan is a living kidney donor and associate professor of surgery and population health. (...) She writes and teaches on organ transplant and has expertise and experience in governance at the federal level as a member of the board of directors for the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Dr. Lannon is a social worker and transplant advocate. Her work and interest in the topic were inspired by her husband who needed a heart transplant. Dr. Fleetwood is a surgeon specializing in liver transplantation, pancreas transplantation, kidney transplantation, as well as living donor nephrectomy. Dr. Mannon is a nephrologist and professor of medicine, pathology and microbiology. Her work focuses on understanding and improving long-term kidney transplant outcomes for patients, donors, and caregivers. Dr. Lentine is a nephrologist specializing in treatment of adult patients with kidney disease. She is a researcher and co-chaired the international work group that developed guidelines for living donor kidney transplantation. (shrink)

Homer’s Odyssey has long served as a touchstone for environmental writers, but is this text itself a work of environmental ethics? Homer portrays, as a major and consistent purpose, the environmentally destructive consequences of hedonism, and the environmentally beneficent consequences of conservation and sustainable agriculture. The evidence of The Odyssey suggests that public critical dialectic about the treatment of animals, soil, and forests was not unknown to the ancient Greek world. Further, The Odyssey can have relevance to modern environmental (...) ethics, especially in Homer’s study of the relation between religion (especially its eating rituals) and the health of the natural environment. Finally, Homer teaches that it is not only possible but also worthwhile to code the arguments of environmental ethics in poetic/fictional terms. (shrink)

The history of the encounters between pragmatism and phenomenology is long, fruitful, yet also tormented. From the time of the 19th century American phenomenology of Josiah Royce up to the arrival of Husserl’s phenomenology in North America, pragmatism was always one of the leading American philosophical movements that actively contributed to the re-elaboration of the issues and strategies of phenomenology in order to make them comply and adjust to the new context. This was possible, in the f...

The Amaraughaprabodha is a Sanskrit Śaiva yoga text attributed by its colophons to Gorakṣanātha. It was first published by Kalyani Devi Mallik in 1954 and has been discussed in various secondary sources. Most notably, Christian Bouy identified this work as a source text for the Haṭhapradīpikā of Svātmārāma. This article presents new manuscript evidence for a shorter recension of the Amaraughaprabodha than the one published by Mallik. Comparing the differences between the short and long recensions reveals that the structure (...) of the shorter one is more cohesive and closer to the original design of the work. The close relationship of the Amaraughaprabodha's short recension with an eleventh-century Vajrayāna work on yoga called the Amṛtasiddhi provides unique insights into how early teachings on Haṭhayoga were formulated. Although the practice of the physical techniques is largely the same in both texts, the author of the Amaraughaprabodha removed or obscured Vajrayāna terminology, added Śaiva metaphysics and framed Haṭhayoga as subordinate to a Śaiva yoga known as Rājayoga. This article proposes that the Amaraughaprabodha's short recension is probably the earliest known work to combine Haṭha- with Rājayoga, on the basis of this recension’s close relationship with the Amṛtasiddhi, its rudimentary nature and the likelihood that Svātmārāma used it, and not the long recension, for composing the Haṭhapradīpikā. (shrink)

Hommel et al. emphasize that the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s utility is not its ability to be a new theory of cognition, but its ability to engender new thinking about new and old problems. In this commentary we use the TEC to re-examine a long-standing discrepancy in the attention literature.

Mainstream environmental groups have long been criticized by more radical activists as being too willing to compromise with industry and development interests. Radical groups such as Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front were formed as a reaction explicitly against perceived failures of mainstream groups. Although the radical activism employed varied from direct action in the form of aggressive civil disobedience coupled with eco sabotage, the tactics of the radical groups suggest two strands of movement. For example, the actions and (...) demands of Earth First! seemingly fit their conviction that compromise is a betrayal of their moral convictions and results only in further deterioration of environmental protection, and the radical activism of this group can be seen to fit well within historically accepted norms of protest movements within constitutional democracies. In contrast, Earth Liberation Front does engage in what might be called ecoterrorism, a form of political violence. This article addresses the following emerging questions: Is an uncompromising approach an effective strategy for radical environmental activism in fostering positive environmental change? What is required of constructive democratic action? Can radical environmental activism be a resource for cooperative practices and coalition building? These questions relate to ecological justice, which is growing in importance as a paradigm that combines social concerns about the environment with issues of nature protection, thereby underlying the need for coordination of strategies and cooperation in order to bring about a positive change In this paper, we examine the positions and arguments of some radical environmental activists and their detractors, and analyse their moral beliefs and political attitudes. We claim that “No Compromise” is not an acceptable strategy for environmental activism. In the analysis that follows, we are not suggesting naively that only warm fellow-feelings, congeniality, and an overt willingness to compromise are reasonable responses to powerful contravening force. We argue instead that when used, strong - and even perhaps sometimes illegal - direct action can be conceptualized and carried out in a way that does not hinder all opportunities for effective compromise, coalition building, and the like, that are ultimately essential elements of most successful protest movements. We build on Martin Benjamin’s claim that compromise need not always involve moral capitulation or failure, but can be integrity-preserving. It can, we believe, be an effective means of moving a pro-environmental agenda forward. Key to our argument are the distinctions between moral and political compromise, and the interrelations between moral and political community. Seeing oneself as a part of a larger community in which decisions must be made, and recognizing responsibility towards the members of a moral community is essential to a full appreciation and effective use of compromise. These considerations are anchored in an approach that constructively links participatory democracy and radical activism. (shrink)

This book is the first systematic treatment of 'responsibilist' or character-based virtue epistemology, an approach to epistemology that focuses on intellectual ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 211-222 [Access article in PDF] Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness C. Jason Lee DESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the (...) magic works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind."This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations.Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal.After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things... (shrink)

Previously diagnosed by symptoms alone, Alzheimer's disease is now also defined by measures of amyloid and tau, referred to as “biomarkers.” Biomarkers are detectible up to twenty years before symptoms present and open the door to predicting the risk of Alzheimer's disease. While these biomarkers provide information that can help individuals and families plan for long-term care services and supports, insurers could also use this information to discriminate against those who are more likely to need such services. In this (...) article, we evaluate whether state laws prohibit long-term care insurers from making discriminatory or unfair underwriting and coverage decisions based Alzheimer's disease biomarkers status. We report data demonstrating that current state laws do not provide meaningful protections from discrimination by long-term care insurers based on biomarker information. (shrink)

After a long period of neglect that began in his lifetime, why has Schelling reemerged as an important philosopher, germane to contemporary concerns? In the first part of this essay I offer a brief history of Schelling’s early descent into obscurity and gradual ascent back into the light of philosophical relevance. In the second and final part of the essay, I offer a brief survey of the current Schelling resurgence in the English speaking reception of Continental philosophy.

In philosophy of religion, there are few more frequently visited topics than the problem of evil, which has attracted considerable interest since the time of Epicurus. It is well known that the problem of evil involves responding to the apparent tension between 1) belief in the existence of a good, all powerful, all knowing God and 2) the existence of evil—such as personal suffering embodied in the experience of cancer. While a great deal has been written concerning abstract philosophical theories (...) that academics use to explain the existence of evil, much less has been written about how religious lay people make sense of evil and suffering. What explanations, meanings, and perceptions do they hold concerning the religious significance of evil? What can theologians and philosophers learn from these lay experiences? Our interdisciplinary team designed an experiment to identify the religious significance that personal suffering held for a group of religious cancer sufferers. We interviewed twenty-nine self-identified evangelical Christians who had received a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lives for our experiment. Since all interviewees identified as Christians, it was expected that they would assent to belief in a theistic God. It was also expected that each interviewee would assent the existence of evil and see their cancer experience as a dramatic and personal instance of an evil event. The explicit existential threat of cancer guarantees that the individual has much at stake in the experience. Furthermore, the pain and suffering that typically accompanies either the cancer itself or cancer treatments make it a compelling example of evil experienced in a very personal way. Finally, even when successfully treated, the ongoing threat of potentially fatal recurrence looms over the sufferer for years to come. We asked 17 questions related to the religious significance of their cancer experience in each interview and coded these interviews looking for five distinct types of explanations for/meaning of evil: trusting God in mystery, free will, moral development, spiritual growth, and growth in human relationships/community. These categories were meant to correspond loosely to five philosophical responses to the existence of evil.Our interviews included several important results. First, 79% of interviewees had at least one answer that fit into the ‘trust God in mystery’ category of responses with 48% using this category of responses as their most frequently cited theme. This result could be interpreted as a kind of generic theodical response: God has a good, but unknown reason for allowing evil/suffering. Alternatively, another possible interpretation is that at least some of these interviewees intuited something similar to skeptical theism, since it claims that if one understands the type of God proposed by theism and possesses an accurate view of human cognitive capacities, it is apparent that there is no real tension to be resolved between theism and the existence of evil. Some of our interviewees seemed to believe not only that the answer to why evil exists is mysterious, but that they simply could not have the necessary perspective to judge what kinds of purposes God might have for allowing this painful episode in their lives.While it was unsurprising that religious sufferers would find it important to trust God in ambiguous difficult circumstances, more surprisingly, we found that 52% of our respondents did not judge that their cancer experience was at all in tension with their religious beliefs. Whereas a broad range of philosophers and theologians acknowledge that there is at least an apparent conflict between the existence of a good, all-powerful God and the existence of evil, most of our interviewees did not even perceive an apparent tension between theistic beliefs and their painful cancer experiences that would be in need of additional reconciliation.There are at least two ways this result might be interpreted. First, our interviewees might hold additional beliefs that make the existence of evil easier for them to accept. After all, these interviewees were not ‘bare theists’ who held only to the existence of God, but presumably held a broad range of religious beliefs which may already serve to reconcile the existence of evil: that growing closer to God is more important than earthly life itself, that in evil in this life allows us a greater appreciation of a blessed eternity, or simply that ‘God works for our good in mysterious ways.’ Thus, a fully developed Christian worldview may already accommodate the existence of evil in a way not fully appreciated by philosophers.Another possible interpretation is that at least some of our interviewees were not adequately reflective to perceive the tension between their religious beliefs and their experience of suffering. There is at least some reason to doubt this explanation as an overarching interpretation of this result since our interviewees were generally well educated with the median participant holding at least a Bachelor’s degree, and most were ongoing participants in a cancer support group ensuring long-term ongoing engagement with their cancer experience.A final significant finding is that a high portion of our interviewees, 83% reported specific examples of beneficial personal growth—moral, spiritual, or relational— that resulted from their cancer experience. When asked about their cancer experience’s broad effect upon their lives in these areas they volunteered at least one example of a benefit they received in these areas. Depending on one’s accompanying value theory and whether such benefits might have been otherwise achieved, they might provide a morally sufficient reason for the existence of suffering. Our interviewees frequently described experiencing the kind of benefits at the heart of John Hick’s soul making theodicy and Eleonore Stump’s ‘spiritual growth’ theodicy, providing at least some corroborating evidence for such views. Experiences common to our interviewees were similar to what such theodicies would predict. (shrink)

The Pulse Program at Boston College is a community service learning program that combines academic study of philosophy and theology with a year-long community service project. An analysis of the Pulse Pro­gram during the 2008–09 academic year revealed that participating students demonstrated a significant increase in their interest in philosophy; a greater likelihood of enrolling in additional philosophy coursework; and a deeper interest in philosophy than classmates not participating in service-learning. Interviews with participating students revealed that the Pulse Program (...) highlighted philosophy’s relevance to the “real world” as well as the useful role that philosophy can play in reflecting upon the social issues raised by students’ community service experiences. (shrink)

Writings by Negri on the brief thaw in the cold winter of neoliberalism, Thatcherism, Reaganomics, and counterrevolution. Automation and information technology have transformed the organization of labor to such an extent that the processes of exploitation have moved beyond the labor class and now work upon society as a whole. If this displacement has destroyed the political primacy of the labor class, it has not, however, eliminated exploitation; rather, it has broadened it, implanting it within the given conditions of the (...) most diverse spheres of society. —from The Winter Is Over In late 1995, in opposition to the conservative agenda of Jacques Chirac and his prime minister Alain Juppé and their proposed widespread welfare cuts, French students rose up against their government; public sector workers, together with all the major trade unions, went on strike. When railway workers and Paris Metro personnel joined in the protests, France's public transportation system came to a halt. These extensive social upheavals, the likes of which had not been seen in France since 1968, found widespread public support and fuelled the creation of many political organizations. Chirac backed down from restructuring the public retirement system. Antonio Negri's The Winter is Over comes out of the glimmer of optimism created by the events of 1995, when the long, cold season of neoliberalism, Thatcherism, Reaganomics, reaction, and counterrevolution appeared to have run its course. Published in Italian in 1996, The Winter is Over brings together a series of articles, speeches, and other documents written by Negri between 1989 and 1995 at the threshold of this thaw. It offers a revealing and wide-reaching account of those years of change and brink-of-change, focusing on such topics as the networks of social production, the decline of “limp thought,” the end of applied socialism, the Gulf War, and, finally, Italy's transition to its so-called “Second Republic,” as seen by an exile. (shrink)

With its focus on intellectual virtues and their role in the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and related epistemic goods, virtue epistemology provides a rich set of tools for educational theory and practice. In particular, characteristics under the rubric of "responsibilist" virtue epistemology, like curiosity, open-mindedness, attentiveness, intellectual courage, and intellectual tenacity, can help educators and students define and attain certain worthy but nebulous educational goals like a love of learning, lifelong learning, and critical thinking. This volume is devoted to (...) exploring the intersection between virtue epistemology and education. It assembles leading virtue epistemologists and philosophers of education to address such questions as: Which virtues are most essential to education? How exactly should these virtues be understood? How is the goal of intellectual character growth related to other educational goals, for example, to critical thinking and knowledge-acquisition? What are the "best practices" for achieving this goal? Can growth in intellectual virtues be measured? The chapters are a prime example of "applied epistemology" and promise to be a seminal contribution to an area of research that is rapidly gaining attention within epistemology and beyond. (shrink)

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking of public health infrastructure for reproductive (...) health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary situates Dobbs in the context of a long historical shift in public health that increasingly places burdens on individuals for their own reproductive health care, moving away from the possibility of a robust state public health infrastructure. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology Virtue epistemology is a collection of recent approaches to epistemology that give epistemic or intellectual virtue concepts an important and fundamental role. Virtue epistemologists can be divided into two groups, each accepting a different conception of what an intellectual virtue is. Virtue reliabilists conceive of intellectual virtues as stable, reliable and truth-conducive cognitive … Continue reading Virtue Epistemology →.

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" refer primarily to how or on what basis a proposition might be known. A proposition is knowable a priori if it is knowable independently of experience. A proposition is knowable a posteriori if it is knowable on the basis of experience. The a priori/a posteriori distinction is epistemological and should not be confused with the metaphysical distinction between the necessary and the contingent or the semantical or logical distinction between the analytic and the (...) synthetic. Two aspects of the a priori/a posteriori distinction require clarification: the conception of experience on which the distinction turns; and the sense in which a priori knowledge is independent of such experience. The latter gives rise to important questions regarding the positive basis of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

Then newly elected Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made a historic statement of “Sorry” for past injustices to Australian Indigenous peoples at the opening of the 2008 federal parliament. In the long-standing absence of a constitutional ‘foundational principle’ to shape positive federal initiatives in this context, there has been speculation that the emphatic Sorry Statement may presage formal constitutional recognition. The debate is long overdue in a nation that only overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius and recognised (...) native title to lan with the High Court’s decision in Mabo in 1992. This article explores the implications of the Sorry Statement in the context of reparations for the generations removed from their families under assimilation policies (known since the Bringing Them Home Inquiry as the Stolen Generations). We draw out the utility of recent human rights statutes—such as the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT)—as a mechanism for facilitating justice, including compensation for past wrongs. Our primary concern here is whether existing legal processes in Australia hold further capacity to provide reparation for Australian Indigenous peoples or whether their potential in that regard is already exhausted. We compare common law and statutory developments in other international jurisdictions, such as Canada, as an indication of what can be achieved by the law to facilitate better legal, economic and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples. The year 2008 also saw Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper express his apology to residential school victims in the Canadian Parliament, providing thematic and symbolic echoes across these two former colonies, which, despite remaining under the British monarchy, both forge their own path into the future, while confronting their own unique colonial past. We suggest that the momentum provided by the recent public apology and statement of “Sorry” by the newly elected Australian Prime Minister must not be lost. This symbolic utterance as a first act of the 2008 parliamentary year stood in stark contrast to the long-standing recalcitrance of the former Prime Minister John Howard on the matter of a formal apology. Rather than a return to a law enforcement-inspired “three strikes and you’re out” approach, Australia stands poised for an overdue constitutional and human rights-inspired “three ‘sorries’ and you’re in”. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for people living with dementia (PLWD) and their caregivers. While prior research has documented these effects, it has not delved into their specific causes or how they are modified by contextual variation in caregiving circumstances.

My concern is with the epistemological role of traits like inquisitiveness, attentiveness, fair-mindedness, open-mindedness, intellectual carefulness, thoroughness, tenacity, and caution. I argue for two main claims, one negative and the other positive. ;Negatively, I argue that considerations of intellectual virtue do not have an important role to play in connection with any of the more traditional epistemological problems. I show that if considerations of intellectual virtue were to play such a role, it would have to be in connection with the (...) analysis of knowledge, but that any view which makes an exercise of intellectual virtue a necessary condition for knowledge is bound to fail. ;Positively, I argue that there nevertheless remain a number of interesting and important philosophical questions and issues concerning the nature and value of virtuous intellectual character which are of considerable importance to epistemology. I defend this claim in two steps. First, I argue that virtuous intellectual character is both a constituent of and a highly important means to intellectual flourishing. It follows from this that since epistemology is concerned broadly with the more important or valuable philosophical dimensions of the intellectual life, insofar as there are philosophical questions and issues to be pursued in connection with the intellectual virtues, these have an important role to play in epistemology. Second, I go on to elucidate and discuss a number of these questions and issues, most of which are concerned with the nature and value of virtuous intellectual character as such. ;I conclude, then, that considerations of intellectual virtue do have an important role to play in epistemology, even if not in connection with any of the more traditional epistemological projects. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the education sector. Rather than the impact of COVID-19, many higher education institutions are on the verge of insolvency due to a lack of digital transformation readiness and poor business models. The bleak financial future many HEIs will face while others may be forced to close their doors completely will erode HEIs’ ability to fulfil their societal responsibilities. However, HEIs that have survived and maintained their operations anticipate the transition to online learning or the (...) effects of any economic crisis, including university closures in the short, medium, or long term. The entire educational ecosystem was forced to transform its operations quickly and entirely to an online teaching-learning scenario in just a few weeks. Notably, HEIs that have long offered online courses worldwide can easily transition to digital teaching and learning when necessary. The second roundtable session’s result of the International Higher Education Conference, organized by INTI International University on March 31 2022, was used to organize a Delphi method to identify further factors that positively impact HEIs by COVID-19. The importance of these factors was then determined using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance. Recommendations on how HEIs should move towards institutional sustainability during the endemic phase are presented accordingly. (shrink)

This paper examines the claim made by certain virtue epistemologists that intellectual character virtues like fair-mindedness, open-mindedness and intellectual courage merit an important and fundamental role in epistemology. I begin by considering whether these traits merit an important role in the analysis of knowledge. I argue that they do not and that in fact they are unlikely to be of much relevance to any of the traditional problems in epistemology. This presents a serious challenge for virtue epistemology. I go on (...) to examine the work of two other virtue epistemologists in light of this challenge and then sketch an alternative approach that reveals how the intellectual virtues might merit a substantial role in epistemology even if not a role in connection with more traditional epistemological projects. (shrink)

An important disagreement in contemporary debates about free will hinges on whether an agent must have alternative possibilities to be morally responsible. Many assume that notions of alternative possibilities are ubiquitous and reflected in everyday intuitions about moral responsibility: if one lacks alternatives, then one cannot be morally responsible. We explore this issue empirically. In two studies, we find evidence that folk judgments about moral responsibility call into question two popular principles that require some form of alternative possibilities for moral (...) responsibility. Survey participants given scenarios involving agents that fail to satisfy these principles nonetheless found these agents to be morally responsible, blameworthy, deserving of blame, and at fault for morally bad actions and consequences. We defend our interpretation of this evidence against objections and explore some implications of these findings for the free will debate. (shrink)

The new field of sustainability science that has arisen over the past three decades, largely oriented toward cities, under closer examination may prove to be wholly inadequate to deal with the issues it was initially designed to address. Built largely upon modernist value assumptions, its entire range of outlooks has failed to account for the character virtues needed to realize sustainable approaches for the future, which are better found working within different religious traditions’ theologies and ethical outlooks. In light of (...) this, the present article takes up a replicable agenda for analyzing how these particular character virtues—with special focus on parsimony and futuremindedness—work with regard to visions of sustainability that promise to bring about a more just transition in cities. (shrink)

Nursing is frequently described as practical or pragmatic and there are many parallels between nursing and pragmatism, the school of thought. Pragmatism is often glancingly referenced by nursing authors, but few have conducted in-depth discussions about its applicability to nursing; and few have identified it as a significant theoretical basis for nursing research. William James's pragmatism has not been discussed substantially in the nursing context, despite obvious complementarities. James's theme of pluralism fits with nursing's diversity and plurality; his emphasis on (...) social conscience in our actions matches nursing's fundamental purpose of improving the lives of others; his continuous testing of pluralistic truths in critically reflective practice pairs well with nursing's focus on developing best-available, holistic evidence; and his conceptualization of truth as being born in practice and becoming an instrument in practice is entirely compatible with nursing's theory–practice identity. The oft-discussed theory–practice gap is seen to hinder the development of nursing knowledge. If nursing is to find its identity in knowledge development and potentiate the knowledge developed, it is imperative to identify and address that which is impeding progress. By way of the pragmatic tenets of William James, I will argue that a significant part of the theory–practice gap lies in how nursing knowledge development is operationalized, creating a false dichotomy between practice and research. I will also argue that the research–practice schism has been widened by continued philosophical and methodological infighting in the research community. I will describe how Jamesian pragmatism can be 'what works' for rebuilding relationships and supporting an engaged plurality within nursing research and bring research and practice together into a collaborative and iterative process of developing nursing knowledge. (shrink)

Given that Lucretius offers a systematic and cohesive explanation of the workings of nature, we should not expect inconsistencies in his poem. The explanation presented by Lucretius emphatically rejects any interventionist divine machinery of the cosmos, offering in its place the eminently regular dynamics of atomic configuration and dissolution, which can explain everything that pertains to natural philosophy without necessitating the activity of any divinity. The reader who understands the basics of Lucretius’ philosophy, therefore, should be surprised that theDRNbegins with (...) an anthropomorphic description of the goddess Venus, whom the poet petitions to intervene actively in human affairs. Lucretius gradually refines this initial presentation of the goddess’ essence throughout the poem, suggesting that the Venus who inaugurates the poem must be nuanced once one has learned the basic principles of Epicurean philosophy. At the end ofDRN4, Venus is presented not as a divine being but as nothing more than the sexual drive shared by all creatures in nature (haec Venus est nobis, 4.1058). Historically scholars have been keen to ‘correct’ perceived inconsistencies such as this, either by arguing that such imperfections derive from later interpolators or by appealing to the incomplete nature of the text as we possess it. Of course, no one has suggested that Lucretius would have changed or removed the proem, so the Venus problem remains an issue. One major aim of this article is to show that the process we witness with Lucretius’ Venus is not inconsistent but programmatic, a point grasped by many with regard to Venus herself but not in respect to theDRNas a whole. In other words, this article extends this insight about Lucretius’ Venus, whose providential attributes are only provisionally attached to her at the outset of the poem and, in due course, are completely removed. In fact, I will argue that the technique of gradually redefining initial propositions—a process I will refer to as provisional argumentation—fundamentally informs Lucretius’ famous metaphor of the honeyed cup, and I will suggest that we ought to recognize this technique as a major aspect of Lucretius’ discursive method throughout theDRN. (shrink)