Mere physical experiences of warmth, distance, hardness, and roughness are found to activate the more abstract psychological concepts that are analogically related to them, such as interpersonal warmth and emotional distance, thereby influencing social judgments and interpersonal behavior without the individual's awareness. These findings further support the principle of neural reuse in the development and operation of higher mental processes.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 817-827, July 2022.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 817-827, July 2022.

Prominent defenders of the extended cognition thesis have looked to evolutionary theory for support. Roughly, the idea is that natural selection leads one to expect that cognitive strategies should exploit the environment, and exploitation of the right sort results in a cognitive system that extends beyond the head of the organism. I argue that proper appreciation of evolutionary theory should create no such expectation. This leaves open whether cognitive systems might in fact bear a relationship to the environment that leads (...) to their extension. *Received July 2009; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In the wake of two recent developments in stem cell research, it is a fitting time to reassess the claim that stem cells will radically transform the concept and function of medicine. The first is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision in January 2009 to approve Geron Corporation’s Phase I clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells for patients with spinal cord injuries. The second is the National Institutes of Health’s decision to permit federal funding of research using donated (...) IVF human embryos in their July 2009 Guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research. We are now poised to see whether stem cell research can deliver on what it promises. However, what exactly does it promise and how? Moreover, who is doing the promising? Turning to the use of metaphor can help us to answer these questions and enable us to develop a better appreciation of the unique features of promised stem cell therapies. Indeed, metaphors have exerted profound influence in medicine, and it is fitting that we seek new metaphors for new therapies where appropriate. In this case, other metaphors such as magic bullets or the Holy Grail cannot capture what is unique about stem cells. Accordingly, I propose a new metaphor: the stem cell superhero. Stem cell superheroes are characterized by the following traits: they are seemingly capable of fighting the evil of virtually all disease and they seem to be our only hope of doing so, although to summon them we must make difficult moral choices. In the course of assessing the merits of three recent yet covert references to the superhero metaphor, I conclude that this powerful new paradigm employs a problematic logic, but that the aspiration as such is a good one. (shrink)

In July of 1809, Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring constructed the first electric telegraph. We know that Hegel had carefully read Sömmerring’s work on human anatomy, and although we have no evidence that Hegel concerned himself with Sömmerring’s venture into electronic telegraphy, we cannot but think that he would have happily accepted new technical forms of communication — Hegel is not Heidegger. In any case, later in the century, the Hegelian Ernst Kapp did indeed attempt to grasp the complex relationship between (...) the advance of communications technology and the growth of global self-consciousness. Kapp’s pioneering work on Organprojektion is all but forgotten today, and given the rudimentary state of applied science at the time, and the dated romantic vision which inspired it, perhaps it appears not such a great loss. Still, he did try to cope philosophically with the new means of communication and to see in it something more than just a “practical” event. Well, the editor of the Owl, just as all editors, is prone to seeking out the pedestrian and practical side of matters, and to see what can be done with the latest in “electronic telegraphy.” If it so happens that such a practical effort supports Kapp’s thesis that communications technology and phenomenology are related, so much the better. (shrink)

The Second Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at Hotel Mt. Fuji, near Lake Yamanaka, Japan, on July I to 7,1973. The present volume is the proceedings at that Con ference and constitutes the second volume in The Study of Time series. * At the closing session of our First Conference in Oberwolfach, Germany, in 1969, I was honored by being elected to the Presidency of the Society, following Dr. J. G. Whitrow, our fIrst (...) President. My mandate was to organize a Second Conference, consistent with the aim of the Society, which is the holding of interdisciplinary conferences for the presentation and discussion of papers on various as pects of time. Several participants expressed to me their wish to have a second conference held in Japan so as to emphasize the international and intercultural dedication of this Society. Dr. Fraser carefully evaluated this and many other suggestions, weighed the possible conference sites and our chances of raising the necessary funds to convene a meeting at such sites, and concurred with my conclusions that we should go ahead with the plans for a Japanese meeting. For the difficult and complicated task of raising funds and organizing a conference in Japan, I had to select and rely heavily on somebody both capable and reliable and also living in Japan. Thus, I asked the Reverend Michael Mutsuo Yanase, S. J. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 14-30 [Access article in PDF] Mallarmé Contra Wagner Eric Gans I In early 1885, Edouard Dujardin wrote to Stéphane Mallarmé for a contribution to his newly founded Revue wagnérienne. Mallarmé, admitting that he had never seen--and perhaps never heard--anything of Wagner, replied to Dujardin in July that he was working on a "half article, half prose poem," and that "never has anything seemed to (...) me more difficult." 1 A month later, the Revue published a text, more prose poem than article, entitled "Richard Wagner, rêverie d'un poète français." 2Wagner was an increasingly obligatory reference for the French avant-garde after his death in 1883. But as far back as 1862, the 20-year-old Mallarmé, no doubt influenced by Baudelaire's enthusiastic groundbreaking article "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris" of the year before, had included Wagner along with Mozart and Beethoven in a group of three creators of the "mystery" of music, in a brief article entitled "Artistic Heresies: Art for Everyone." Characteristically enough, what fascinated the young Mallarmé was not music itself so much as the "signes sévères, chastes, inconnus" ("severe, chaste, unknown signs") (OC, p. 257) with which it was written, which give music the advantage over poetry--written in the universally understood alphabet--of being inaccessible to the uninitiated. This characteristic emphasis on writing over sound reappears in the "Hommage" sonnet for Wagner published in Dujardin's journal in January 1886, where Wagner's music is described as "mal tu par l'encre même en sanglots sibyllins" ("badly silenced by the ink itself in Sibylline sobs") (OC, p. 71). As we shall see, however, the relation between music and poetry suggested in "Art for Everyone" had by then been reversed. [End Page 14]Unlike most of his circle, Mallarmé was no Wagnerite; his "Rêverie," like his sonnet, expresses reluctant praise and reflects a certain professional jealousy. The theater had long been Mallarmé's chief preoccupation, as it had been for so many nineteenth-century writers who would be forced to make their reputation in other genres. The unfinished poem "Hérodiade," which occupied him throughout his life, took the form of a drama, and an early version of the "Après-midi d'un faune" had actually been presented to a theater director. References to music in Mallarmé's writings increase in number and specificity after 1885, and it is not unreasonable to assume that for him the prime representative of "music" in this period was Wagner. However much Mallarmé's own theater had become internalized and idealized, Wagner's theatrical success, as well as his near-deification by friends and disciples like Dujardin or Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, could not leave the poet indifferent. II What I would like to explore, however, is something more fundamental than the personal equation. Mallarmé's rivalry with Wagner over the theatrical center of culture is the rivalry of two arts and their respective means. What makes Mallarmé's critique of Wagner of particular interest is the exemplary rigor of the former's artistic intentions. Mallarmé's poems are a series of attempts to produce literary form with a minimum of figural content. Each poem has been submitted, so to speak, to Ockham's razor. The ultimate aim of this labor may be described as the discovery of the originary scene of poetry itself, the minimal sine qua non of representation, and therefore of humanity. 3 On the contrary, Wagner did not shrink from saturating the figural imagination in the pursuit of his totalizing aims. The confrontation reveals that musical maximalism in the service of national myth becomes a threat to what we may call, from Mallarmé's minimalist perspective, the anthropological mission of true art.Mallarmé held no particular brief for the theater of words; his tastes in performance went rather to the ballet, or to the mime-show, the subject of one of his most aesthetically interesting reflections. 4 Mallarmé anticipated 20th-century dramaturgy in seeing the theater not as a place for ratiocination and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 14-30 [Access article in PDF] Mallarmé Contra Wagner Eric Gans I In early 1885, Edouard Dujardin wrote to Stéphane Mallarmé for a contribution to his newly founded Revue wagnérienne. Mallarmé, admitting that he had never seen--and perhaps never heard--anything of Wagner, replied to Dujardin in July that he was working on a "half article, half prose poem," and that "never has anything seemed to (...) me more difficult." 1 A month later, the Revue published a text, more prose poem than article, entitled "Richard Wagner, rêverie d'un poète français." 2Wagner was an increasingly obligatory reference for the French avant-garde after his death in 1883. But as far back as 1862, the 20-year-old Mallarmé, no doubt influenced by Baudelaire's enthusiastic groundbreaking article "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris" of the year before, had included Wagner along with Mozart and Beethoven in a group of three creators of the "mystery" of music, in a brief article entitled "Artistic Heresies: Art for Everyone." Characteristically enough, what fascinated the young Mallarmé was not music itself so much as the "signes sévères, chastes, inconnus" ("severe, chaste, unknown signs") (OC, p. 257) with which it was written, which give music the advantage over poetry--written in the universally understood alphabet--of being inaccessible to the uninitiated. This characteristic emphasis on writing over sound reappears in the "Hommage" sonnet for Wagner published in Dujardin's journal in January 1886, where Wagner's music is described as "mal tu par l'encre même en sanglots sibyllins" ("badly silenced by the ink itself in Sibylline sobs") (OC, p. 71). As we shall see, however, the relation between music and poetry suggested in "Art for Everyone" had by then been reversed. [End Page 14]Unlike most of his circle, Mallarmé was no Wagnerite; his "Rêverie," like his sonnet, expresses reluctant praise and reflects a certain professional jealousy. The theater had long been Mallarmé's chief preoccupation, as it had been for so many nineteenth-century writers who would be forced to make their reputation in other genres. The unfinished poem "Hérodiade," which occupied him throughout his life, took the form of a drama, and an early version of the "Après-midi d'un faune" had actually been presented to a theater director. References to music in Mallarmé's writings increase in number and specificity after 1885, and it is not unreasonable to assume that for him the prime representative of "music" in this period was Wagner. However much Mallarmé's own theater had become internalized and idealized, Wagner's theatrical success, as well as his near-deification by friends and disciples like Dujardin or Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, could not leave the poet indifferent. II What I would like to explore, however, is something more fundamental than the personal equation. Mallarmé's rivalry with Wagner over the theatrical center of culture is the rivalry of two arts and their respective means. What makes Mallarmé's critique of Wagner of particular interest is the exemplary rigor of the former's artistic intentions. Mallarmé's poems are a series of attempts to produce literary form with a minimum of figural content. Each poem has been submitted, so to speak, to Ockham's razor. The ultimate aim of this labor may be described as the discovery of the originary scene of poetry itself, the minimal sine qua non of representation, and therefore of humanity. 3 On the contrary, Wagner did not shrink from saturating the figural imagination in the pursuit of his totalizing aims. The confrontation reveals that musical maximalism in the service of national myth becomes a threat to what we may call, from Mallarmé's minimalist perspective, the anthropological mission of true art.Mallarmé held no particular brief for the theater of words; his tastes in performance went rather to the ballet, or to the mime-show, the subject of one of his most aesthetically interesting reflections. 4 Mallarmé anticipated 20th-century dramaturgy in seeing the theater not as a place for ratiocination and... (shrink)

BackgroundEthics consult services are well established, but often remain underutilized. Our aim was to identify the barriers and perceptions of the Ethics consult service for physicians, advance practice providers (APPs), and nurses at our urban academic medical center which might contribute to underutilization.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional single-health system, anonymous written online survey, which was developed by the UCSD Health Clinical Ethics Committee and distributed by Survey Monkey. We compare responses between physicians, APPs, and nurses using standard parametric and non-parametric statistical (...) methods. Satisfaction with ethics consult and likelihood of calling Ethics service again were assessed using a 0–100 scale using a 5-likert response structured (0 being “not helpful at all” to 100 being “extremely helpful”) and results presented using box plots and interquartile ranges (IQR).ResultsFrom January to July 2019, approximately 3800 surveys were sent to all physicians, APPs and nurses with a return rate of 5.5—10%. Although the majority of respondents had encountered an ethical dilemma (85–92.1%) only approximately half had ever requested an Ethics consult. The primary reason for physicians never having requested a consult was that they never felt the need for help (41%). For APPs the primary reasons were not knowing an Ethics consult service was available (33.3%) or not knowing how to contact Ethics (27.8%). For nurses, it was not knowing how to contact the Ethics consult service (30.8%) or not feeling the need for help (26.2%). The median satisfaction score (IQR) for Ethics consult services rated on a 0–100 scale, from physicians was 76 (29), for AAPs 89 (49), and nurses 70 (40) (p = 0.62). The median (IQR) of likelihood of consulting Ethics in the future also on a 0–100 scale was 71 (47) for physicians, 69 (45) for APPs, and 61 (45) for nurses (p = 0.79). APP’s and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to believe that the team did not act on the Ethics consult’s recommendations.ConclusionsBased on the results presented, we were able to identify actionable steps to better engage healthcare providers—and in particular APPs and nurses—and scale up institutional educational efforts to increase awareness of the role of the Ethics consult service at our institution. Actionable steps included implementing a system of ongoing feedback that is critical for the sustainability of the Ethics service role. We hope this project can serve as a blueprint for other hospital-based Ethics consult services to improve the quality of their programs. (shrink)

Some recent commentators have acquiesced in the efforts of some religious groups to co-opt concepts of morality, thus leading many—inappropriately, I believe—to think we must keep all morality out of our civic life and especially out of the reasoning in our legal system. I review examples of the confusion in characterizing the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision as a conflict between constitutional rights and religious moral precepts. I argue that this approach capitulates to particular views of morality as religious (...) morality. I consider the appeals to morality in the dissent and the ensuing confusion among commentators about the significance ofthis opinion. I review alternate readings of the Lawrence majority opinion, including proposals that it be considered from the perspectives of the ethicalframeworks of Locke, Mill, or Kant. (shrink)

Some recent commentators have acquiesced in the efforts of some religious groups to co-opt concepts of morality, thus leading many—inappropriately, I believe—to think we must keep all morality out of our civic life and especially out of the reasoning in our legal system. I review examples of the confusion in characterizing the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision as a conflict between constitutional rights and religious moral precepts. I argue that this approach capitulates to particular views of morality as religious (...) morality. I consider the appeals to morality in the dissent and the ensuing confusion among commentators about the significance ofthis opinion. I review alternate readings of the Lawrence majority opinion, including proposals that it be considered from the perspectives of the ethicalframeworks of Locke, Mill, or Kant. (shrink)

Some recent commentators have acquiesced in the efforts of some religious groups to co-opt concepts of morality, thus leading many—inappropriately, I believe—to think we must keep all morality out of our civic life and especially out of the reasoning in our legal system. I review examples of the confusion in characterizing the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision as a conflict between constitutional rights and religious moral precepts. I argue that this approach capitulates to particular views of morality as religious (...) morality. I consider the appeals to morality in the dissent and the ensuing confusion among commentators about the significance ofthis opinion. I review alternate readings of the Lawrence majority opinion, including proposals that it be considered from the perspectives of the ethicalframeworks of Locke, Mill, or Kant. (shrink)

Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 22nd Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation, WoLLIC 2015, held in the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA in July 2015. The 14 contributed papers, presented together with 8 invited lectures and 4 tutorials, were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The focus of the workshop was on interdisciplinary research involving formal logic, computing and programming theory, and (...) natural language and reasoning. (shrink)

Stereotypes are false or misleading generalizations about groups, generally widely shared in a society, and held in a manner resistant, but not totally, to counterevidence. Stereotypes shape the stereotyper’s perception of stereotyped groups, seeing the stereotypic characteristics when they are not present, and generally homogenizing the group. The association between the group and the given characteristic involved in a stereotype often involves a cognitive investment weaker than that of belief. The cognitive distortions involved in stereotyping lead to various forms of (...) moral distortion, to which moral philosophers have paid insufficient attention. Some of these are common to all stereotypes—failing to see members of the stereotyped groups as individuals, moral distancing, failing to see subgroup diversity within the group. Other moral distortions vary with the stereotype. Some attribute a much more damaging or stigmatizing characteristic (e.g. being violent) than others (e.g. being good at basketball). But the characteristic in question must also be viewed in its wider historical and social context to appreciate its overall negative and positive dimensions. (shrink)

Embodied cognition is one of the foremost areas of study and research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and debates in this exciting subject and essential reading for any student and scholar of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts: Historical Underpinnings Perspectives (...) on Embodied Cognition Applied Embodied Cognition: Perception, Language and Reasoning Applied Embodied Cognition: Social and Moral Cognition and Emotion Applied Embodied Cognition: Memory, Attention and Group Cognition Meta-Topics. The early chapters of the Handbook cover empirical and philosophical foundations of embodied cognition, focusing on Gibsonian, phenomenological and cybernetic approaches. Subsequent chapters cover additional, important themes common to work in embodied cognition, incuding embedded , extended and enactive cognition as well as chapters on embodied cognition and empirical research in perception, language, reasoning, social and moral cognition, emotion, consciousness, memory and learning and development. (shrink)

I argue that physicians can save women from life-threatening pregnancies by performing a craniotomy, placentectomy, or salpingotomy without intending death or harm. To support this conclusion, I defend the relevance thesis about intentions (a person intends X only if X explains the action). I then criticize the identity thesis (if a person intends X and knows X is Y then the person intends Y) and three mistakenly strict moral principles: (1) one may not intend something that is a serious harm (...) for an innocent person, (2) one may not intend to terminate pregnancy before viability, which would prohibit, and (3) one may not act on a person’s body in a harmful way in order to benefit another person. (1) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors, (2) would prohibit treating hepatic pregnancies and other ectopic pregnancies, and (3) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors and performing many prenatal surgeries. (shrink)

Fourteen newly commissioned essays trace the historical development of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which lies at the intersection of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of perception. 'Primary and Secondary Qualities' focuses on the age of the Scientific Revolution, the 'locus classicus' of the distinction, but begins with chapters on ancient Greek and Scholastic accounts of qualities in an effort to identify its origins. The remainder of the volume is devoted to philosophical reflections on qualities from the (...) seventeenth century to the present day. Virtualliy every major figure is represented from Gassendi to Kant, and special attention is paid to Locke, Descartes, and Hume. The essays collected here cover a wide range of topics, including the foundation for the distinction, the question of whether it is lmetaphysical or merely epistemic, the status of secondary qualities, the nature of sensoriy representation, the relation between philosophy and science, the status of dispositions, and the semantics of sensible-quality terms"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of dust jacket. (shrink)

The dispute about the role of class in understanding the life situations of people of color has tended to be overpolarized, between a class reductionism and an “it's only race” position. Class processes shape racial groups’ life situations. Race and class are also distinct axes of injustice; but class injustice informs racial injustice. Some aspects of racial injustice can be expressed only in concepts associated with class (e.g., material deprivation, inferior education). But other aspects of racial injustice or other harms, (...) such as racial discrimination or stigma, are not reducible to class concepts and cannot be fully addressed through class-focused policies. Overall, any attempt to fully secure racial justice for a racial group will require a combination of race-focused and class-focused policies. Anti-racist outlooks often neglect or downplay either the normative or the explanatory significance of class, or both—for example, by overlooking or downplaying the dignitary harms of class and the material harms of race; missing the historical dimension of class injustice; masking class by a narrowing of the complex normative structure of racial disparities; or not recognizing that a class-focused initiative (like raising the minimum wage) can address substantial racial justice concerns, even though not all of them. “Systemic racism” terminology recognizes class explanatorily but suppresses it normatively. Charles Mills's influential notion of “white supremacy,” while a powerful tool for conceptualizing and illuminating racial injustice, can also contribute to minimizing or masking the justice-related impact of class, as do some of Mills's specific discussions of class in various writings. (shrink)

Julie Houts has cultivated a devoted following as "Instagram's favourite illustrator" (Vogue) by lampooning the conflicting messages and images women consume and share with the world every day. A collection of darkly comic illustrated essays, Literally Me chronicles the daily exploits of "slightly antisocial heroines" (Refinery29) in vivid, excruciatingly funny detail, including: -The beauty routine of a deranged bride who aspires to be "truly without flaws" on her wedding day -What happens when Kylie Jenner has an existential crisis and (...) can no longer "step out" -A journey to Coachella by the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse -The true dating confessions of a fembot -The terrifying description for Alice Staunch's book How to be the Perfect Feminist -The diary of Fiddle Ficus, a tree that lives inside a CÉLINE store, and much more. Literally Me marks the launch of a brilliant new social satirist. Julie's singular voice and beautiful illustrations reveal the truth about the absurdity of life in the social media age: the line between becoming a total `Girlboss' and a 21st-century American Psycho is razor-thin."--Dust jacket. (shrink)

In the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant endorses both a Moral Belief in God as well as what he there calls Doctrinal Belief. The former mode of belief is well known and can be found throughout the Kantian Corpus. The latter, however, is far more obscure and thus far has not been carefully studied. Doctrinal Belief only appears explicitly in the Canon, but is related to a number of issues in the Transcendental Dialectic as well as the (...) Critique of Judgment. This paper will provide an account of the Doctrinal Belief in God and consider its compatibility with Kant’s other discussions of the projected ground of the principle of purposiveness. (shrink)

In this close analysis of Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics in his Critique of Judgment, Dr. Julie N. Books, explains why Kant fails to provide a convincing basis for his desired necessity and universality of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. Drawing upon her extensive background in the visual arts, art history, and philosophy, Dr. Books provides a unique discussion of Kant’s supersensible, illuminating how it cannot justify his a priori nature of our aesthetic judgments about beauty. She uses examples from the (...) history of art, including paintings by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Constable, to support her views. This book will make a significant addition to courses on the philosophy of Kant, aesthetics, philosophy of art, metaphysics, the history of Western philosophy, ethics, psychology, and art history. (shrink)

Het christendom zit in de verdrukking. De kerken lopen leeg. Wie leest er nog de Bijbel? Toch is er in deze verweesde postmoderne samenleving een grote hang naar zingeving. Velen zoeken het ver weg, in bijvoorbeeld het boeddhisme of zij kiezen voor zweverige esoterie. In 2018 wandelde God het leven van Lawrence Urbain binnen. De grote levensvragen kwamen op de voorgrond en de auteur van 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' zocht de antwoorden in het christendom, meer bepaald bij het protestantisme. (...) 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' bevat een verzameling essays over het christelijke geloof. Hoe verhoudt de christenheid zich tot de wetenschap? Bestaat er zoiets als een christelijke ethiek? En wat is de toekomst van het protestants-evangelisch onderwijs in Vlaanderen? Aan de hand van zeven essays geeft de auteur een inkijk in zijn opvattingen aangaande het christelijk-protestantse geloof. Tal van denkers en schrijvers passeren hierbij de revue. Veel aandacht gaat naar de protestantse theoloog Karl Barth, maar evenzeer komen de antieke bijbelwetenschapper Origenes, de liberale protestant Friedrich Schleiermacher en de psychoanalyticus Carl Gustav Jung voorbij. Lawrence Urbain (°1990) is Master in de Internationale Betrekkingen en Diplomatie (Universiteit Antwerpen). Hij is werkzaam als economisch adviseur en is daarnaast freelance-journalist. In 2017 publiceerde hij bij uitgeverij Polemos 'De Chrono-crisis'. Hij studeert momenteel theologie aan de Faculteit voor Protestantse Theologie en Religiestudies (FPTR) te Brussel. (shrink)

Observers have noted a decline (in the US) in attributions of genetically-based inferiority (e.g. in intelligence) to Blacks, and a rise in attributions of culturally-based inferiority. Is this "culturalism" merely warmed-over racism ("cultural racism") or a genuinely distinct way of thinking about racial groups? The question raises a larger one about the relative place of biology and culture in racist thought. I develop a typology of culturalisms as applied to race: (1) inherentist or essentialist culturalism (inferiorizing cultural characteristics wrongly but (...) intelligibly regarded as inhering in the nature of racial groups). This view has an historical pedigree in the work of J.G. von Herder, and the tradition of "national racism." (2) non-inherentist culturalism (groups regarded as possessing changeable, malleable inferiorizing cultural characteristics). (3) colonalist culturalism (colonial subjects regarded as uncivilized but capable of becoming civilized under European tutelage). (4) neo-racism (cultures of former colonial subjects in or potentially immigrating to European countries are regarded in an inherentist manner and incompatible with but not inferior to European cultures). Non-inherentist culturalism (#2) can be put to either a racist or an anti-racist use. (shrink)

God -- God is holy -- Sin -- God's holiness is important -- Sin brings separation -- Confession -- Forgiveness -- Special God -- Salvation -- Consequences -- Jesus -- Punishments -- Jesus instead of you -- Jesus was crucified -- Jesus was resurrected -- Jesus is really God's son -- God can really forgive sin -- Jesus defeated death -- Physical and spiritual -- Mystery -- Eternal life -- Heaven -- Grace and faith -- Becoming a Christian -- Following (...) Jesus. (shrink)

"J’étais morte, mais pas enterrée, et c’est la philosophie qui m’a ramenée à la vie. Comme une mère, elle m’a non seulement donné la vie en me donnant accès à ma vie intérieure par l’élargissement de ma conscience, mais elle m’a également appris à vivre, c’est-à-dire comment agir au mieux dans la vie quotidienne. Tout au long de ses réflexions et de son témoignage, l’auteure affirme haut et fort que la philosophie peut sauver des vies, car elle rend possibles la (...) conversion du regard et la prise en charge de sa propre liberté."--Résumé de l'éditeur. (shrink)

Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of 'automatic deliberation'. Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, paedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and effortful, displaying a combination of habituated understandings and conscious deliberation. Advancing a blended view of (...) cognition by which individuals draw on schemas and frames to think through complex topics, this volume will appeal to sociologists and psychologists with interests in cognition and the ways in which we make decisions. (shrink)

Frege famously held that numbers play the role of objects in our language and thought, and that this role is on display when we use sentences like "The number of Jupiter's moons is four". I argue that this role is an example of a general pattern that also encompasses persons, times, locations, reasons, causes, and ways of appearing or acting. These things are 'objects' simply in the sense that they are answers to questions: they are the sort of thing we (...) search for and specify during investigation or inquiry. I support this epistemological conception of objects by studying specificational sentences, a class of sentences which includes Frege's original example. I defend an analysis of such sentences as question-answer pairs, and show how to formally represent this analysis using game-theoretical semantics. (shrink)

Logic and Computation is concerned with techniques for formal theorem-proving, with particular reference to Cambridge LCF (Logic for Computable Functions). Cambridge LCF is a computer program for reasoning about computation. It combines methods of mathematical logic with domain theory, the basis of the denotational approach to specifying the meaning of statements in a programming language. This book consists of two parts. Part I outlines the mathematical preliminaries: elementary logic and domain theory. They are explained at an intuitive level, giving references (...) to more advanced reading. Part II provides enough detail to serve as a reference manual for Cambridge LCF. It will also be a useful guide for implementors of other programs based on the LCF approach. (shrink)

Drawing on the thought of Heidegger, this book puts forward a new conception of attention as human presence, showing how its state determines the efficacy of public spaces in articulating and achieving visions of the common good. A valuable resource for scholars of philosophy of mind, political philosophy, phenomenology, and cognitive science.

"This volume provides a long-needed anthology of major writings related to the subject of violence.

Commençant par une revue sommaire des types de questions qu’une fondation des mathématiques devrait poser, cet article présente premièrement une critique des fondements basés sur la théorie des ensembles, puis propose l’idée que plusieurs fondements catégoriques, reliés les uns aux autres, seraient plus avantageux, et finalement indique une méthode pour retrouver la théorie des ensembles à travers une approche catégorique.

Et si les scientifiques avaient trop compliqué leur processus de démonstration, la fameuse "démonstration"? Et si la démonstration, peu concluante, s'embourbait simplement parce qu'elle relève en vrai d'un raisonnement paralogique psychiatrique tel que celui que l'on rencontre dans le discours du paranoïaque, discours logique certes mais qui part d'un postulat faux? Nous sous-entendons ici que cette hypothèse est fort probable. Et par suite, l'inquiétude et la confusion seront au rendez-vous de cette démarche, de même que cette impression de ne jamais (...) arriver au bout de la description du phénomène de la vie et de la physique. Bien que la totalité des pièces du puzzle semblent présentes, comment procéder pour les assembler? La science s'est séparée depuis belle lurette de la philosophie, et c'est ainsi qu'elle a pu se targuer de porter la dénomination de "science"! Osera-t-elle recevoir des leçons de la philosophie dès lors qu'elle s'est érigée en son exacte contraposée? (shrink)

In High Schools, Race, and America’s Future, Lawrence Blum offers a lively account of a rigorous high school course on race and racism. Set in a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse high school, the book chronicles students’ engagement with one another, with a rich and challenging academic curriculum, and with questions that relate powerfully to their daily lives. Blum, an acclaimed moral philosopher whose work focuses on issues of race, reflects with candor, insight, and humor on the challenges and (...) surprises encountered in teaching—the unexpected turns in conversation, the refreshing directness of students’ questions, the “aha” moments and the awkward ones, and the paradoxes of his own role as a white college professor teaching in a multiracial high school classroom. High Schools, Race, and America’s Future provides an invaluable resource for those who want to teach students to think deeply and talk productively about race. (shrink)