Liberal political theory is widely believed to be an inadequate source of civic commitment and thus of civic education primarily because of its commitment to what is perceived as a pervasive individualism. In this paper, I explore the possibility that John Rawls’s later political philosophy may provide a response to this belief. I first articulate a conception of liberal politics derived from Rawls’s idea of reflective equilibrium that generates an overlapping consensus about political principles among those who hold a (...) wide variety of cultural and personal conceptions of the good. Next I develop the aims for civic education in a society that employs such a politics. Then I suggest the elements of the public school curriculum appropriate for such a civic education, including a robust multicultural education, intellectual reflection on the society’s history, and philosophical training that enables children to understand the events and policies of their nation as following from general political principles. I also consider the kinds of classroom practice that seem necessary to provide the motivation to engage in the process of the emergence of an overlapping consensus, including opportunities to develop and to reflect on the principles that may be included in the current consensus and to understand the way in which those principles relate to children’s developing conceptions of the good. Finally, I compare this conception of civic education to those of other liberal theorists. (shrink)

I argue that the standard way of formalizing the fine-tuning argument for design is flawed, and I present an alternative formalization. On the alternative formalization, the existence of life is not treated as the evidence that confirms design; instead it is treated as part of the background knowledge, while the fact that fine tuning is required for life serves as the evidence. I argue that the alternative better captures the informal line of thought that gives the fine-tuning argument its intuitive (...) plausibility, and I show that the alternative formalization avoids all of the most prominent objections to the fine-tuning argument, including the objection from observation selection effects, the problem of old evidence, the problem of non-normalizable probability measures and a further objection due to Monton. I conclude that the alternative formalization is the one that attention should be focused on. (shrink)

This article analyzes the implications of a particular conception of social justice in education for the policies that have led to significant political controversies in contemporary communities in the United States. Many of these controversies have arisen from the collision between the increasingly multicultural reality in those communities and the accountability system that has during the past decade or so been imposed on the schools by standards-based reformers in the federal and state governments. For this task, the article considers the (...) schools in a hypothetical community in which significant immigration of Latino citizens has occurred. It proposes a theory of social justice in education that uses John Rawls's ideas about political liberalism and an overlapping political consensus in a pluralistic society as a basis for analyzing the normative and factual disagreements in that community. Employing the principles of that theory, the article considers whether the system of accountability that has led to the disagreements is normatively justified and concludes in particular that that system violates both the principles of personal liberty and of equality of educational opportunity in education. It also concludes that a dramatically different system of accountability is required, one in which central political authorities have a responsibility to hold localities accountable for the social justice purposes of education and in which local authorities have a responsibility to design the school curriculum to be genuinely responsive to the diverse cultural interests that children have in their local communities. (shrink)

In a number of membrane-bound viruses, ion channels are formed by integral membrane proteins. These channel proteins include M2 from influenza A, NB from influenza B, and, possibly, Vpu from HIV-1. M2 is important in facilitating uncoating of the influenza A viral genome and is the target of amantadine, an anti-influenza drug. The biological roles of NB and Vpu are less certain. In all cases, the protein contains a single transmembrane α-helix close to its N-terminus. Channels can be formed by (...) homo-oligomerization of these proteins, yielding bundles of transmembrane helices that span the membrane and surround a central ion-permeable pore. Molecular modeling may be used to integrate and interpret available experimental data concerning the structure of such transmembrane pores. This has proved successful for the M2 channel domain, where two independently derived models are in agreement with one another, and with solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data. Simulations based on channel models may yield insights into possible ion conduction and selectivity mechanisms. BioEssays 20:992–1000, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 562-564 [Access article in PDF] Louis E. Loeb. Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 280. Cloth, $42.50. As is well known, in the last year of his life, Hume repudiated his Treatise of Human Nature in an Advertisement that he had placed at the front of the volume of his writings containing (...) his mature philosophical works. He asked that only the two Enquiries and other later philosophical writings be regarded as the source of "his philosophical sentiments and principles." But not leaving it at that, he admitted that there were "negligences in his... reasoning" and in his manner of expressing himself in the Treatise. More than twenty years earlier, Hume had admitted that publishing the Treatise in its imperfect state in his youth constituted "a very great Mistake in Conduct." But he did not have sufficient foresight to see that the admission he made in his old age constituted at least as bad an indiscretion of the same kind. Acknowledging mistakes in reasoning and in expression for a philosopher [End Page 562] is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Two bulls in fact: the philosopher and the "reconstructive" historian of philosophy. The former is given ample work in correcting the older philosopher's mistakes; the latter in devising an interpretation of a text that apparently leaves itself open to many. Hence the immense popularity that Hume's Treatise of Human Nature has enjoyed in the two and a half centuries since he asked that it be disregarded. Who cares about "his philosophical sentiments and principles" anyway?Louis Loeb's study of epistemology in Hume's Treatise is both an exercise in "reconstructive history of philosophy" and a philosophical emendation of Hume's (reconstructed) "philosophical system." The first task is pursued in the first five chapters of the book; the second in the last two. "Reconstructive history" as practiced by Loeb does not try to provide "a balanced commentary" but rather "an illuminating and fruitful interpretive perspective" (viii) on what a philosopher has written. Loeb's perspective on Hume's epistemology is derived from details of Hume's psychology of the imagination developed mainly in sections 9-13 of part 3 of book 1, details which Hume himself considered "unnecessary" to the exposition of his mature epistemology in the first Enquiry. Loeb's philosophical emendations derive from his claim that Hume made certain mistakes which led him to despair of the success of his project and settle for sceptical conclusions in part 4. In the last two chapters of the book Loeb seeks to save Hume from his own sceptical conclusions.Loeb regards his account as a development and correction of the kind of naturalistic interpretation of Hume's epistemology that was originally developed by Norman Kemp Smith (21). A naturalistic theory of justification, according to Loeb, is one that grounds beliefs that one already considers to be justified in the psychological mechanisms that generate them. Whereas Kemp Smith argued that justification depends on the "irresistibility" or "inevitability" of the beliefs, Loeb holds that justification depends upon what he calls the "stability" of the belief generating mechanisms. A belief forming mechanism is stable just in case it produces a consistent set of beliefs that will stand up even under "reflection." For example, in part 3 of book 1 (81, 159, 238), Hume presents beliefs based on cause and effect as stable in this sense, and contrasts them with "unphilosophical" belief forming mechanisms such as indoctrination (education). Unlike the former, the latter mechanism generates beliefs that "are frequently contrary... to themselves in different times and places and is never on that account recognized by philosophers" (Treatise117). Furthermore, we have a positive motivation to accept stable mechanisms in that they produce ease or relief from psychological tension. Loeb links this goal both with the ancient Pyrrhonian quest for ataraxia (6-9) and with Hume's moral theory, where he seeks a general point of view as a relief from... (shrink)

As the essays in this book attest, in a time of specialization John McCormick chose diversification, a choice determined by a life spent in many occupations and many countries. After his five years in the U. S. Navy in the Second World War, the academy beckoned by way of the G. I. Bill, graduate training, and a career in teaching. Prosperity in the American university at the time meant setting up as a "Wordsworth man," a "Keats man," or a (...) "Dr. Johnson man": all chilling to the author. He chose self-exile in which he disguised himself as an "Americanist" saleable in Europe, and lectured happily in comparative studies: literature, history, and philosophy. Thus the broad range of this volume, both in subject matter and in the span of time it covers. The essays are divided into three sections. First are general and personal essays on a variety of topics, followed by work on individual writers, and third, writings on criticism and theory. A section on Santayana reflects his eight years of research for Santayana's biography. The writings on Spain and toreo result from another long-held interest, together with the author's attempt to alter some of the romantic nonsense about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, too often the entire substance of what the general public knows about Spain. McCormick has long been convinced that without knowledge of bullfighting, the foreigner cannot comprehend arcane and wonderful aspects of the Spanish character. The coda, "Another Music," is an old man's attempt to solve the mysterious algebra of how the world turns now, and how the young appear to the aged. While the volume is diverse in its range of writers--from Whitman in America to Santayana in Europe, taken as a collectivity, these essays provide a sense of the grandeur as well as the decadent in twentieth century politics and aesthetics alike. Written with the literary taste and political non-conformity that still characterizes McCormick, the volume is a treat for the specialist and for the generalist. John McCormick was professor of American Studies in the Free University, Berlin, and is at present professor emeritus of comparative literature at Rutgers University. He is the author of Bullfighting, American and European Literary Imagination, Catastrophe and Imagination, Fiction as Knowledge, George Santayana and Seagoing. (shrink)

Sympathy for animals is regarded by many thinkers as theoretically disreputable. Against this I argue that sympathy appropriately underlies moral concern for animals. I offer an account of sympathy that distinguishes sympathy with from sympathy for fellow creatures, and I argue that both can be placed on an objective basis, if we differentiate enlightened from folk sympathy. Moreover, I suggest that sympathy for animals is not, as some have claimed, incompatible with environmentalism; on the contrary, it can ground environmental concern. (...) Finally, I show that the traditional concept of anthropomorphism has no coherent basis, and I argue that the attempt to prove that animals lack thoughts is both unsuccessful and irrelevant to sympathy for languageless creatures. (shrink)

A Humean Critique of David Hume's Theory of Knowledge provides the first full-length Aristotilian-Thomistic critique of Hume's most mature and familiar work. While giving Hume proper respect and appreciation for his achievement, Jeremy White engages in a thoughtful critique through an approach based in Hume's own method.

Does ethical content in organizational mission statements make a difference? Research regarding the effectiveness and results of mission statements is mixed. Krohe concluded that much of the good results do not come from the mission statements themselves but from the strategic re-education that happens in producing one. We attempted to discover whether universities that explicitly state their ethical orientation and vision in their mission statements had students with higher perceived character trait importance and activities that reinforce character than universities that (...) did not. While the faculty and administration may receive benefits from mission statement development through strategic re-education as Krohe suggested, do the statements influence the students at the university who may have had no role in its creation? Using a sample of senior business students at 16 universities we found that students at universities with ethical statements in their mission statements had significantly higher perceived character trait importance and character reinforcement than those at universities whose missions lacked ethical statements. This research suggests that schools that explicitly stated ethical content in their mission statements do influence student ethical orientation. (shrink)

The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights institution in shaping (...) these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate peasants into a variety of new class positions. Market-based stratification: producers in capitalist agriculture are primarily stratified by their positions in labor and land markets; their socioeconomic statuses are linked with their varying degrees of proletarianization. Institutional mediation: rural China’s dual-track land system plays a crucial role in shaping the diverse and unique forms of capitalist production. (shrink)

This book is written primarily for psychology and education students whose programs include a course in child psychology, child development, or theories of development. The text may also be used to supplement courses on child development organized thematically or chronologically. Instructors of graduate courses in child development may wish to consider this text as a primary synthesis containing more source material and source citations than others of its kind. The primary aim of the book is to describe what developmental theories (...) are, what they can do, where they come from, how they work, and how they can be used to explain human nature. (shrink)

This book is a selection of papers from a conference which took place at the University of Keele in July 1982. The conference was an extraordinarily enjoyable one, and we would like to take this opportunity of thanking all participants for helping to make it so. The conference was intended to allow scholars working on different aspects of symbolic behaviour to compare findings, to look for common ground, and to identify differences between the various areas. We hope that it was (...) successful in these aims: the assiduous reader may judge for himself. Several themes emerged during the course of the conference. Some of these were: 1. There is a distinction to be made between those symbol systems which attempt, more or less directly, to represent a state of affairs in the world (e. g. language, drawing, map and navigational skill) and those in which the representational function is complemented, if not overshadowed, by properties of the symbol system itself, and the systematic inter-relations that symbols can have to one another (e. g. music, mathematics). The distinction is not absolute, for the nature of all symbolic skills is, in part, a function of the structure of the symbolic system employed. Nonetheless, this distinction helps us to understand some common acquisition difficulties, such as that experienced in mathematics, where mental manipulation of symbols can go awry if a child assumes too close a correspondence between mathematical symbols and the world they represent. 2. (shrink)

A. Fyrigos, professor of Patristic and Byzantine Philosophy at the «Universitas Gregoriana» and specialist on Barlaam the Calabrian (ca. 1290–1348), has recently edited B.'s anti-Latin works —twenty one works in number—written on the occasion of the ecclesiastical-political negotiations he held in Constantinople with the legates Francesco da Camerino and Richard of England during 1334 and 1335, focused on the Filioque and intended to promote some sort of union between the Eastern and Western Church. This edition, which is prefaced by a (...) highly erudite philological and historical «Introduction», has been unanimously received by the scientific community as «an excellent, exemplary work» and «un contributo so stanziale alla storia degli studi barlaamiti» and the study of the first half of the Byzantine 14th century in general; and rightly so, because, at long last, due to the la borious and succes sful efforts of its author —who devotedly concentrated himself during the past three decades upon the famous Calabrian—, it enables us to approach and appraise B.'s Orthodox thought through his own writings, by putting aside the distorting exposition of it by Gregory Palamas. As far as I know, F.'s masterpiece has been reviewed no fewer than eight times. On my own part, I shall try to shed more light on B.'s texts by focus ing my attention on an aspect of great interest to philologists as well as historians of theological and philosophical ideas, namely, the question of the sources and literary patterns of B.'s Κατά Λατίνων. F. prudently notes (vol. I, p. VII) that in editing the texts «ha volutamente con centrato la sua attenzione sull'aspetto filologico e storico di essi», by putting aside the philoso phicotheological one, which, albeit closely related with the former, represents a clearly distinct aspect of any text. The parallels (marked by «cf.») as well as the cases of dependence (noted by «see») and imitations of various ancient, Patristic and Byzantine Greek texts noted here have primarily to do with the latter aspects, although it goes without saying that they often reveal hidden sides of the former. Let it be said in advance that B.'s texts are so rich in explicit or implicit encapsulations of ancient Greek as well as Patristic expression modes and ideas that a reader who is eager to scrutinize them more than F. and I have will certainly find many others. (shrink)

A recent consensus statement claimed that double effect can justify induction of labor before viability when life-threatening pathological complications arise from the interaction of a normally functioning placenta with the diseased heart of the mother. The authors of this essay agree. They analyze two pieces published in response, using the framework of the first and fourth criteria of double effect; identify and attempt to clarify inaccuracies and other sources of ambiguity in the discussion; and acknowledge practical implications for other scenarios (...) previously considered illicit. They conclude that more thorough medical and moral discussion is needed regarding the fourth criterion, even if the act itself is not intrinsically evil. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 15.2 : 251–261. (shrink)

Judith Thomson argues that a fetus may have a right to life yet lack the right to use its mother's body to stay alive. According to Kenneth Einar Himma, Thomson's argument applies only to cases where the parties meet two conditions. First, they must “have a history of physical independence” and, second, they must be “autonomous moral agents, capable of incurring obligations.” Himma devises a case involving conjoined twins to show why the mother–fetus case does not meet these conditions.

This is a report of the progress and activities of the project Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus during the last two years, with an emphasis on the Thomism of Bessarion and Scholarios and the transmission of some of Averroes’ doctrines in late Byzantium via the translation of some of Aquinas’ writings into Greek.

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason (...) against every for of relativism. (shrink)

. I sketch a synthetic integration of several levels of explanation in addressing how myths, narratives, and stories engage human beings, produce their sense of identity and self‐understanding, and shape their intellectual, emotional, and embodied lives. Ultimately it is our engagement with the metanarratives of religious imagination by which we address a set of existentially necessary but ontologically unanswerable metaphysical questions that form the basis of religious belief. I show how a multileveled understanding of evolutionary biology, history, neuroscience, psychology, narrative, (...) and mythology may form a coherent picture of the human spirit. Neuropsychological functions involved in constructing and responding to the narratives by which we form our identities and build meaningful lives include memory, attention, emotional marking, and temporal sequencing. It is the neural substrate, the emotional shaping, and the narrative structuring of higher cognitive function that provide the sine qua non for the construction of meaning, relationship, morality, and purpose that extend beyond our personal boundaries, both spatial and temporal. This includes a neural affect system shaped by our developmental dependency, the dynamic narratives of self formed in the development of identity and reconstructed over the life span, drawing on culturally available mythic and storied forms. Narrative constitutes our movement in moral space and may have the potential both for healing and for disruption for us as individuals and as a species, providing a contingent solution to the alienation and fragmentation of personhood, relationship, and community. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with (...) substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

Shibusawa Eiichi, widely known as the father of Japanese capitalism, was also one of the more outspoken advocates of Confucius’ learning in modern Japan. This paper examines Shibusawa's The Analects and the Abacus in relation to Max Weber's assessment of Confucian cultures and their inability to develop, early on, capitalism. Without making grand claims about Confucianism and capitalism, the paper suggests that Weber's life and thought constitute considerable counterevidence vis‐à‐vis Weber's thesis. The paper also examines Shibusawa's thoughts about China in (...) an effort to offer a historical contextualization of Shibusawa's promotion of Confucius’ thought. (shrink)

[Edited from Conclusion section:] We have looked at various challenging issues to do with getting connectionism to cope with high-level cognitive activities such a reasoning and natural language understanding. The issues are to do with various facets of generalization that are not commonly noted. We have been concerned in particular with the special forms these issues take in the arena of propositional attitude processing. The main problems we have looked at are: (1) The need to construct explicit representations of generalizations, (...) not just generalize correctly to individual cases; (2) The need to be able to match two or more complex short-term information structures, to enable rapid generalization from recent examples rather than from long-term memories; (3) The need to represent and reason with anomalous combinations of concepts; (4) The need to perform embedded reasoning. This presents special problems for systems using non-concatenative representations (as in mainstream connectionist approaches). We also touched on vague quantification in attitude report complements. Neither this topic nor that of analogies between short-term structures (point 2) has been adequately addressed in the symbolic framework, let alone in connectionism. -/- The opportunities and problems covered are put forward as things worth being optimistic about or pessimistic about, respectively. They are not put forward as decisive arguments for or against connectionism. The hope is that this chapter contributes to a greater understanding of the connectionist/symbolist gap by presenting some unusual issues and by throwing new light on some well known ones. (shrink)