When people rely on the web to gather and distribute information, they can build a sense of trust in the websites with which they interact. Understanding the correlates of trust in most websites (general website trust) and trust in websites that one frequently visits (familiar website trust) is crucial for constructing better models of risk perception and online behavior. We conducted an online survey of active Internet users and examined the associations between the two types of web trust and several (...) independent factors: information technology competence, adverse online events, and general dispositions to be trusting or cautious of others. Using a series of nested ordered logistic regression models, we find positive associations between general trust, general caution, and the two types of web trust. The positive effect of information technology competence erases the effect of general caution for general website trust but not for familiar website trust, providing evidence that general trust and self-reported competence are stronger associates of general website trust than broad attitudes about prudence. Finally, the experience of an adverse online event has a strong, negative association with general website trust, but not with familiar website trust. We discuss several implications for online behavior and suggest website policies that can help users make informed decisions about interacting with potentially risky websites. (shrink)

This book puts a creative new reading of Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics and literary genre theory to work on the problem of Scripture. Reading texts as Scripture brings two hermeneutical assumptions into tension: that the text will continually say something new and relevant into the present situation, and that the text has stability and authority over readers. Given how contested the Bible's meaning is, how is it possible to 'read Scripture' as authoritative and relevant? Rather than anchor meaning in author, (...) text or reader, Gadamer's phenomenological model of hermeneutical experience as Spiel ('play') offers a dynamic, intersubjective account of how understanding happens, avoiding the dead end of the subjective-objective dichotomy. Modern genre theory addresses some of the criticisms of Gadamer, accounting for the different roles played by readers in different genres using the new term Lesespiel ('reading game'). This is tested in three case studies of contested texts: the recontextualization of psalms in the book of Acts, the use of Hagar's story (Genesis 16) in nineteenth-century debates over slavery and the troubling reception history of the rape and murder in Gibeah (Judges 19). In each study, the application of ancient text to contemporary situation is neither arbitrary, nor slavishly bound to tradition, but playful. (shrink)

This original book makes a moral case for play as an essential role for character development, sparking curiosity, wonder, imagination, and teamwork beyond recess and throughout academia based on both library and school centered research in non-sectarian and faith-based K-12 institutions.

Francis Bacon : a new interpretation of nature -- Thomas Hobbes' scientific approach to politics -- John Locke and the origins of political resistance -- The ethic and practice of modern natural science -- Critical theory and the critique of modernity -- Michel Foucault and the postmodern reaction.

ABSTRACTGraeme Wood’s The Way of the Strangers suggests that many scholars have denied or downplayed the Islamic State’s own account of its emphatically religious foundation. This tendency is heir to the Enlightenment strategy of defanging illiberal religion by claiming that only religions conforming to liberal principles are genuinely religious—raising anew questions that arose at the dawn of liberalism, in the wake of the Wars of Religion.

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 35-37.

Does the toleration of liberal democratic society mean that religious faiths are left substantively intact, so long as they respect the rights of others? Or do liberal principles presuppose a deeper transformation of religion? Does life in democratic society itself transform religion? In Making Religion Safe for Democracy, J. Judd Owen explores these questions by tracing a neglected strand of Enlightenment political thought that presents a surprisingly unified reinterpretation of Christianity by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. Owen (...) then turns to Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of the effects of democracy on religion in the early United States. Tocqueville finds a religion transformed by democracy in a way that bears a striking resemblance to what the Enlightenment thinkers sought, while offering a fundamentally different interpretation of what is at stake in that transformation. Making Religion Safe for Democracy offers a novel framework for understanding the ambiguous status of religion in modern democratic society. (shrink)

Acknowledgments1. If Liberalism is a Faith, What Becomes of the Separation of Church and State?2. Pragmatism, Liberalism, and the Quarrel between Science and Religion3. Rorty's Repudiation of Epistemology4. Rortian Irony and the "De-divinization" of Liberalism5. Religion and Rawls's Freestanding Liberalism6. Stanley Fish and the Demise of the Separation of Church and State7. Fish, Locke, and Religious Neutrality8. Reason, Indifference, and the Aim of Religious FreedomAppendix: A Reply to Stanley FishNotesBibliographyIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The explosive growth in computational power over the past several decades offers new tools and opportunities for economists. This handbook volume surveys recent research on Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), the computational study of economic processes modeled as open-ended dynamic systems of interacting agents. Empirical referents for “agents” in ACE models can range from individuals or social groups with learning capabilities to physical world features with no cognitive function. Topics covered include: learning; empirical validation; network economics; social dynamics; financial markets; innovation (...) and technological change; organizations; market design; automated markets and trading agents; political economy; social-ecological systems; computational laboratory development; and general methodological issues. (shrink)

Although the Essay Concerning Human Understanding is considered Locke's magnum opus, its relation to his political philosophy has been a perennial puzzle for scholars. Scholars have typically focused on the question of Locke's natural law doctrine in the Essay and the Two Treatises. This article takes a different approach to uncovering the political significance of the Essay by relating the theological importance of its epistemology to Locke's doctrine of religious toleration as found in the Letter Concerning Toleration. Crucial arguments supporting (...) Locke's case for religious toleration are to be found, not in the Letter, but in the Essay, which seeks to elevate a limited but relatively uncontroversial natural theology above the disputed uncertainties inherent to revealed theology. Though not on the surface a political work, the Essay is fundamental to Locke's political theology of toleration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Bettina Judd 13 mitochondrial eve brainstorming the archive Bettina Judd what if we were to recover the first utterance of our selves? before black (but happen to be, in this moment of looking back, black.) before african (or african descended. from a place that would be called africa. from the first large place surrounded by waters.) before woman (and (...) all of the lies told therein.) what would we be? would we able to utter our own names? would i hear myself when called if i ever recovered me? -*the archive would be my dreams the intensity of elders’ eyes things that could not be said lest we all fall apart where shattered in the first place, the first time. uncover what? my marrow? this pelvic bone you once called home? you a child of children, a memory-premonition 14 Bettina Judd why you want so bad to remember all the things i’ve willfully forgotten? the hungers i’ve stuffed with human flesh? the joys i’ve chosen to live and in living would not write them down? uncover what? go. live. be a forest of your own dreams. be a mystery for your own children... (shrink)

Water has been a critical resource for Anangu peoples across the remote inland for millennia, underpinning their ability to live in low rainfall environments. Anangu biocultural knowledge of kapi developed in complex ways that enabled this resource to be found. Such biocultural knowledge included deep understandings of weather patterns and of species behavior. Kapi and its significance to desert-dwelling peoples can be seen in ancient mapping practices, whether embedded in stone as petroglyphs or in ceremonial song and dance practices associated (...) with the Tjukurpa. While in the past the sustainability of kapi was facilitated by mobility that spread human dependence on this resource across multiple sites, since the 1940s Anangu have been coerced by the settler-colonial state to live a sedentary lifestyle in remote communities such as Haasts Bluff, Papunya and Yuendemu. In many of these communities the supply of kapi is becoming increasingly insecure in terms of viability of supply, cost, quality and threats from mining. This paper provides a brief insight into how kapi has become devalued in the context of contemporary remote communities with particular reference to my area of expertise – Aboriginal identity, well-being and Australian sports. (shrink)