IntroductionCerebral visual impairment results from damage to cerebral visual processing structures. It is the most common cause of pediatric visual impairment in developed countries and rising in prevalence in developing nations. There is currently limited understanding on how neurologic, developmental, and ophthalmic factors predict outcome for pediatric CVI.MethodA retrospective manual chart review of pediatric CVI patients seen at the tertiary pediatric hospital neurology and neuro-ophthalmology service between 2010 and 2019 was conducted. Patients were stratified into severity groups, and followed over (...) time to identify outcome predictors. Collected baseline characteristics included perinatal, genetic, developmental, and neurologic history, along with neuroimaging and fundoscopic findings on examination. Longitudinal data collected included age, seizure control, and type of therapy received. Linear mixed-effect models were used for longitudinal CVI grade outcome analysis.ResultsA total of 249 individuals spanning 779 patient visits were identified. Mean age at diagnosis was 18.8 ± 16.8 months. About 64.3% were born at term age. Perinatal history revealed hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy in 16.5%, intraventricular hemorrhage in 11.6%, and seizures in 21.7%. At presentation, 60.3% had a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and 84.7% had developmental delay. Among all subjects, 78.6% had epilepsy; 33.8% had an epileptic encephalopathy, with spasms/hypsarrhythmia being most common. Abnormal neuroimaging was present in 93.8%. Genetic anomalies were present in 26.9%. Baseline visual examination revealed no blink-to-light in 24.5%; only BTL in 34.5%, fixation/tracking in 26.5%, and optokinetic drum follow in 14.4%. Longitudinal data analysis showed that perinatal history of HIE, a positive epilepsy history, using multiple epilepsy medications, cerebral palsy, and abnormal fundoscopic findings were all negatively associated with CVI grade change over time. After controlling for significant confounders, receiving any type of therapy [early childhood intervention, physical and occupational therapy, refractive error correction or glasses] was significantly associated with longitudinal improvement in CVI grade compared to patients who did not receive any therapy, with glasses yielding the largest benefit.ConclusionThis study offers extensive insights into neurologic, developmental and ophthalmologic features in patients with moderate to severe CVI. In concordance with previous findings, aspects of perinatal history and epilepsy/seizure control may help inform severity and prognosis in the general neurology or ophthalmology clinic. Conversely, these aspects, as well as genetic and specific epilepsy traits may alert vision health care providers in the clinic to pursue visual evaluation in at-risk individuals. Longitudinal follow-up of CVI patients showed that interventional therapies demonstrated vision function improvement greater than no therapy and maturational development. (shrink)

We conjecture that corporate social responsibility can be indicative of managerial ethics and integrity and examine whether equity investors and financial analysts consider CSR performance when they assess firms’ disclosures of actual and forecasted earnings. We find that only adverse CSR performance affects investors’ assessments of these disclosures. In contrast, we find that both positive and adverse CSR performance affect analysts’ forecast revisions in response to firms’ disclosures. We also find that firms with adverse CSR performance exhibit lower disclosure quality (...) and earnings persistence, but do not find that firms with positive CSR performance exhibit higher levels of both measures. This asymmetric result is consistent with investors’, but not analysts’, assessments of the effect of CSR performance on corporate disclosures. Our results are robust to using a three-stage least squares approach to address endogeneity concerns and to a battery of robustness and sensitivity analyses. Overall, our findings suggest that investors and analysts consider CSR when assessing the information in earnings-related corporate disclosures. (shrink)

This study examined L1 and L2 English speakers’ sensitivity to constructional meaning by investigating their categorization of Noun1 of Noun2 constructions (e.g., results of studies) and argument structure constructions (e.g., Tom cut the bread). Participants were 40 L1 English speakers and 44 intermediate proficiency Chinese-speaking learners of L2 English, who completed two online sorting experiments. In each experiment, participants were instructed to (i) sort the stimuli according to their overall meaning and (ii) provide explanations for their sorting decisions. Results showed (...) that EFL users preferred construction-based sorting for the argument structure stimuli but not the Noun1 of Noun2 stimuli. However, L1 English speakers showed a preference toward word-based sorting for both construction types. Participants’ self-reported explanations for their sorts nonetheless indicated sensitivity to the constructional meanings of argument structure constructions and Noun1 of Noun2 constructions. Additionally, language users were found more likely to produce construction-based sorts with more time spent on the task. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Human Rights, China, and Cross-Cultural Inquiry:Philosophy, History, and Power PoliticsRandall PeerenboomStephen Angle's Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) is a wonderful book that combines philosophically sophisticated discussions of controversial human-rights issues with a detailed intellectual history of the evolution of human-rights discourse in China over the last several hundred years. I will use Angle's book as a platform for consideration of a (...) number of issues regarding the role of philosophy, history, and power politics in relation to human rights in China and elsewhere.Angle focuses his discussion on two claims: first, that countries have different concepts of human rights, and second, that we ought not demand that countries comply with human-rights concepts different from their own.1 These two claims (or something similar) are central to China's official position on rights and to humanrights debates more generally, including the debate about values in Asia.2Angle's response, in short, is that there are distinctive concepts of human rights in China, and that "there have been both continuities and changes in the ways that rights have been conceptualized over the course of China's rich and distinctive rights discourse" (p. 250). However, the only way a community can unilaterally declare its values and practices immune from the scrutiny of others is through "parochialism," which, according to Angle, cuts off that community from making legitimate demands on others. Rather, he suggests, we "should seek an accommodation of differences with one another in the spirit of toleration, and on that basis engage one another on as many levels as possible" (pp. 250-251).One of the many great strengths of this book is that Angle grounds his responses in an interesting and insightful discussion of contemporary philosophers, assessing along the way the contributions and limits of MacIntrye, Rawls, Dworkin, Raz, Walzer, and especially Brandom, among others, to this cross-cultural inquiry of human rights. It might seem, given this list of luminaries, Angle's own training in Western analytic philosophy, and his position in the philosophy department of an American university, that Western philosophy is driving the debate and dictating the fundamental terms and parameters of the inquiry.3 This, of course, is precisely one of the complaints of non-Westerners such as Liu Huaqiu, who argue that they are being measured by Western standards, that rights are concepts grounded in historically contingent modern Western philosophical traditions, and that the rights movement is biased in favor of secular liberalism, which is at odds with and may preclude states based on religious worldviews and communitarian or collectivist [End Page 283] points of view that do not privilege autonomy, choice, and individual interests to the extent that liberals do.Angle's response is twofold. First, he argues, sensibly enough, that we cannot and need not set aside or escape our traditions and value systems. Cross-cultural inquiry must begin from somewhere. But we must remain open-minded and willing to continue the conversation, at least for a considerable while and in most cases indefinitely, even if in some cases we simultaneously must rely on coercion and repression.4 As discussed below, Angle endorses a limited moral pluralism that tolerates some differences while not providing an excuse for appeasing dictators or turning a blind eye to genocide and other atrocities.Second, Angle is not out simply to measure China by the standards of contemporary Western philosophers. Rather, he wants to show that China has its own distinctive discourse on rights, and that this discourse is multifaceted and constantly evolving. According to Angle, "Chinese rights discourse should be seen as an ongoing creative achievement, rather than a reaction to or misunderstanding of Western ideas and institutions" (p. 2).5 He shows this by providing a detailed intellectual history of Chinese rights discourse, another great strength of the book. His primary focus is on several prominent Neo-Confucians and pre-1949 debates, although he also considers some contemporary debates.6 Angle is clearly successful at demonstrating that Chinese thinkers have advanced a number of different views and that rights discourse over the last century and a half has been... (shrink)

Just as with the riots of 1981, the riots of summer 2012 will play a key role in the reshaping of British society. Most analyses frame these events as pathologies of the poor or as contemporary expressions of Mertonian anomie. Drawing on the work of Randall Collins, this article explores the riot as a form of collective action, considers the role of looting and arson within it, and the extent to which the actors involved find themselves part of multiple (...) logics that mutually undermine each other. The analysis highlights the importance of the embodied, mobile, temporal and visual dimensions of the riot, and argues that the social sciences need to develop conceptual tools and methods to both engage with such embodied events and to be part of the social debate about their meaning. (shrink)

This document is a synopsis of discussions at the workshop prepared by Nicholaos Jones and Kevin Coffey, with remarks added by by Chuang Liu, John D. Norton, John Earman, Gordon Belot, Mark Wilson, Bob Batterman and Margie Morrison. The program is included in an appendix.

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

In the popular misconception fostered by blockbuster action movies and best-selling thrillers--not to mention conventional explanations by social scientists--violence is easy under certain conditions, like poverty, racial or ideological hatreds, or family pathologies. Randall Collins challenges this view in Violence, arguing that violent confrontation goes against human physiological hardwiring. It is the exception, not the rule--regardless of the underlying conditions or motivations. -/- Collins gives a comprehensive explanation of violence and its dynamics, drawing upon video footage, cutting-edge forensics, and (...) ethnography to examine violent situations up close as they actually happen--and his conclusions will surprise you. Violence comes neither easily nor automatically. Antagonists are by nature tense and fearful, and their confrontational anxieties put up a powerful emotional barrier against violence. Collins guides readers into the very real and disturbing worlds of human discord--from domestic abuse and schoolyard bullying to muggings, violent sports, and armed conflicts. He reveals how the fog of war pervades all violent encounters, limiting people mostly to bluster and bluff, and making violence, when it does occur, largely incompetent, often injuring someone other than its intended target. Collins shows how violence can be triggered only when pathways around this emotional barrier are presented. He explains why violence typically comes in the form of atrocities against the weak, ritualized exhibitions before audiences, or clandestine acts of terrorism and murder--and why a small number of individuals are competent at violence. (shrink)

The surface grammar of reports such as ‘I have a pain in my leg’ suggests that pains are objects which are spatially located in parts of the body. We show that the parallel construction is not available in Mandarin. Further, four philosophically important grammatical features of such reports cannot be reproduced. This suggests that arguments and puzzles surrounding such reports may be tracking artefacts of English, rather than philosophically significant features of the world.

本书从教师职业素质和专业发展的角度出发,参考借鉴了网络上颇为流行的《做教师的22条军规》的部分条款,分成运筹职业:三尺讲台与你一生有约;决胜课堂:让你的教学充满激情与诗意;倾情心田:让爱做主,剑指未来 :让你的教师生涯洒满阳光四个部分。.

本书主要对东西文化和中西印哲学作了相当广泛的讨论,涵摄科学哲学、文化哲学、人生哲学、宗教哲学、历史哲学、比较哲学等方面的内容,表现出超越式的融合趋向。.

Taking the possibility of visual argumentation seriously, this essay explores how refutation might proceed. We posit three ways in which images can refute and be refuted in a mixed-media environment: (1) dissection, in which an image is broken down discursively; (2) substitution, in which one image is replaced within a larger visual frame by a different image; and (3) transformation, in which an image is recontextualized in a new visual frame. These strategies are illustrated in an analysis of three American (...) documentary films on abortion. (shrink)

There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists. This paper illustrates the need for this division of labor through a historical example, and a formal model is presented to better analyze situations of this type. Analysis of this model reveals that a division of labor can be maintained in two different ways: by limiting information or by endowing the scientists with extreme beliefs. If both features are present however, cognitive diversity is maintained indefinitely, (...) and as a result agents fail to converge to the truth. Beyond the mechanisms for creating diversity suggested here, this shows that the real epistemic goal is not diversity but transient diversity. (shrink)

Whole brain emulation aims to re-implement functions of a mind in another computational substrate with the precision needed to predict the natural development of active states in as much as the influence of random processes allows. Furthermore, brain emulation does not present a possible model of a function, but rather presents the actual implementation of that function, based on the details of the circuitry of a specific brain. We introduce a notation for the representations of mind state, mind transition functions (...) and transition update functions, for which elements and their relations must be quantified in accordance with measurements in the biological substrate. To discover the limits of significance in terms of the temporal and spatial resolution of measurements, we point out the importance of brain region and task specific constraints, as well as the importance of in-vivo measurements. We summarize further problems that need to be addressed. (shrink)

The main focus of this book is the normative or ethical aspects of sustainability, including matters of justice in governance that is important to sustainability. The idea of sustainability is widely perceived as having a normative dimension, often referred to as equity, but the character of this normative dimension is seldom explored. The book aims to fill this gap in the literature of sustainability. It proposes a conceptualization of sustainability that is geared to clarifying its essential ethical structure. It frames (...) sustainability in terms of the capacity of natural systems to provide opportunities to live well, as well as the conduciveness of human practices and systems to preserving such opportunity into the distant future. It develops the idea of sustainability as an art of preserving opportunity to live well – an ethically and scientifically grounded political art of living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. (shrink)

In _Marx at the Margins_, Kevin Anderson uncovers a variety of extensive but neglected texts by the well-known political economist which cast what we thought we knew about his work in a startlingly different light. Analyzing a variety of Marx’s writings, including journalistic work written for the _New York Tribune_, Anderson presents us with a Marx quite at odds with our conventional interpretations. Rather than providing us with an account of Marx as an exclusively class-based thinker, Anderson here offers (...) a portrait of Marx for the twenty-first century: a global theorist whose social critique was sensitive to the varieties of human social and historical development, including not just class, but nationalism, race, and ethnicity, as well. _Marx at the Margins _ultimately argues that alongside his overarching critique of capital, Marx created a theory of history that was multi-layered and not easily reduced to a single model of development or revolution. Through highly-informed readings on work ranging from Marx’s unpublished 1879–82 notebooks to his passionate writings about the antislavery cause in the United States, this volume delivers a groundbreaking and canon-changing vision of Karl Marx that is sure to provoke lively debate in Marxist scholarship and beyond. (shrink)

This paper advances the conception of social entrepreneurs as caring entrepreneurs. We argue that the care ethics of social entrepreneurs, implying the pursuit of caring goals through caring processes, can be challenged when they engage in the process of scaling up their ventures. We propose that social entrepreneurs can sustain their care ethics as the essential dimension of their venture only if they are able to build a caring enterprise. Organizational care designates the set of organizing principles that facilitate the (...) embedding of care ethics at an organizational level, beyond the imprinting induced by social entrepreneurs’ personal ethics. (shrink)

Aristotle regarded law and education as the two fundamental and deeply interdependent tools of political art, making the use of education by the statesman a topic of the first importance in his practical philosophy. The present work develops the first comprehensive treatment of this neglected topic, and assesses the importance of Aristotle's defense of public education for current debates about school choice and privatization, and educational equality.

This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of Heidegger’s account of “the uncanny” as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. It explores how the pandemic has disrupted Dasein’s sense of “homelike” familiarity and how this disruption has undermined our ability to be, that is, to understand or make sense of things. By examining our experience of temporality, lived-space, and intersubjectivity, the paper illuminates different ways in which the pandemic has left us confused and anxious about our self-interpretations and future projects. The (...) paper concludes by showing how the uncanny is not simply something we feel in times of crisis; it is, for Heidegger, who we are. This means the secure feeling of familiarity that we embodied prior to the pandemic was an illusion all along, that we are not and never have been at-home in the world. (shrink)

Increasingly, epistemologists are becoming interested in social structures and their effect on epistemic enterprises, but little attention has been paid to the proper distribution of experimental results among scientists. This paper will analyze a model first suggested by two economists, which nicely captures one type of learning situation faced by scientists. The results of a computer simulation study of this model provide two interesting conclusions. First, in some contexts, a community of scientists is, as a whole, more reliable when its (...) members are less aware of their colleagues' experimental results. Second, there is a robust tradeoff between the reliability of a community and the speed with which it reaches a correct conclusion. ‡The author would like to thank Brian Skyrms, Kyle Stanford, Jeffrey Barrett, Bruce Glymour, and the participants in the Social Dynamics Seminar at University of California–Irvine for their helpful comments. Generous financial support was provided by the School of Social Science and Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at UCI. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Baker Hall 135, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This book offers cutting edge research on the modifications and disruptions of bodily experience in the context of anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and aging. It presents original contributions in applied phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and the use of medical technologies.

Whole brain emulation aims to re-implement functions of a mind in another computational substrate with the precision needed to predict the natural development of active states in as much as the influence of random processes allows. Furthermore, brain emulation does not present a possible model of a function, but rather presents the actual implementation of that function, based on the details of the circuitry of a specific brain. We introduce a notation for the representations of mind state, mind transition functions (...) and transition update functions, for which elements and their relations must be quantified in accordance with measurements in the biological substrate. To discover the limits of significance in terms of the temporal and spatial resolution of measurements, we point out the importance of brain region and task specific constraints, as well as the importance of in-vivo measurements. We summarize further problems that need to be addressed. (shrink)

Wie in anderen Ländern, so galt Einstein auch in China als einer der berühmtesten Wissenschaftler schlechthin. In den siebziger Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts wurden drei Bände Einstein’scher Schriften zusammengestellt, übersetzt und als Einsteins gesammelte Werke veröffentlicht. Diese Bände dienten lange Zeit vielen Chinesen als Hauptwissensquelle über Einstein; sie übten sogar einen bedeutenden ideologischen Einfluss aus. Im Hintergrund dieses herausgeberischen Projekts standen in der Zeit nach 1949 einflussreiche politische Bewegungen im Zusammenwirken mit wissenschaftskritischen Ansätzen, die ein solches Projekt erst möglich machten (...) und die Textauswahl sowie die Herangehensweise bei der Übersetzung und den Druckvorbereitungen beeinflussten. Unter den Herausgebern und Übersetzern kommt Xu Liangying eine besondere und wichtige Rolle zu, denn er war ursprünglich, vor der Gründung der Republik China, ein Untergrundrevolutionär gewesen. Später wurde er Wissenschaftshistoriker. Es vergingen fast 10 Jahre, bis er die Übersetzung der Einstein’schen Schriften fertigstellen konnte, da er gleichzeitig als Bauer auf dem Lande arbeiten musste und während der „Anti-Rechts-Bewegung” „rechts” stand. Die Übersetzung und Veröffentlichung von Einsteins gesammelten Werken in diesem besonderen soziologischen, kulturellen und politischen Kontext bietet viel Stoff für Rückblicke und Aufarbeitungen aus historischer Perspektive. Vor allem die ideologischen, symbolischen Implikationen in Zusammenhang mit Einstein waren ein dominantes Merkmal jener Zeit. (shrink)

Comme dans les autres pays, Einstein a été l’un des scientifiques les plus célèbres en Chine. Dans les années soixante-dix du 20e siècle, trois volumes des OEuvres complètes d’Einstein ont été traduits et publiés en Chine. Pour de nombreux Chinois ces volumes représentaient une source d’informations sur Einstein et une influence idéologique importante. Le contexte politique en est le suivant: après l’an 1949 des mouvements politiques très influents sont nés en Chine, ayant pour objectif la critique des sciences. Ces mouvements (...) ont beaucoup influencé les décisions, la sélection, le progrès ainsi que la manière de traduire et de publier les oeuvres d’Einstein. Parmi les éditeurs et les traducteurs excellait Xu Liangying. Révolutionnaire clandestin avant la mise en place de la République, il est devenu par la suite historien de la science. Il a investi presque dix ans pour terminer la traduction des oeuvres d’Einstein parce qu’ à l’époque il travaillait comme agriculteur pour ses idées de droite pendant la Révolution culturelle. Dans ce contexte sociologique, culturel et politique, la traduction et la publication des OEuvres complètes d’Einstein offre beaucoup de points qui méritent d’être examinés et analysés dans une perspective historique. Surtout, par exemple, les implications idéologiques, symboliques reliés à Einstein et qui ont été les caractéristiques dominantes de cette époque historique. (shrink)

As in other countries, Einstein has been one of the most famous scientists in China. In 1970’s, the three volumes Collection of Einstein in Chinese have been selected, translated and published, which was the main sources for Chinese people knowing Einstein for long time, and even had important ideological influence. However, as the background of it, in China, there were very influential political movements related to criticism of science after 1949, which also influenced the decision, selection, progress and the way (...) of the translating and publishing of Einstein’s works. Among the editors and translators, XU Liangying was a special and important person, who was originally a underground revolutionist before establishment of the Republic, and latterly became a historian of science. He spent nearly ten years to finish the most translation when he was a real peasant in countryside and a “righty” because of the “anti-righty“ movement. During the translating work and the publication of Collection of Einstein in that special social, cultural and political context then, there were many things worth to look back and analyze their meanings by a historical perspective reflection. Especially, the ideological symbolic implication related to the Einstein has been a very dominant characteristic in the history mentioned here. (shrink)

John Calvin claims that the foundation of Scripture is the oracles and visions revealed to the patriarchs, transmitted through countless generations by an oral tradition that faithfully preserved these oracles. The oral tradition of the patriarchs also contains practices not found in written Scripture that are applicable to the church of Calvin day.

In God, Morality, and Beauty, Randall B. Bush argues that a Trinitarian vision of reality, combined with the disciplines of aesthetics and ethics, is the most satisfactory way to address questions pertaining to the philosophy of value that are currently being debated in the social sciences and humanities.

In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger introduces a unique interpretation of death as a kind of world-collapse or breakdown of meaning that strips away our ability to understand and make sense of who we are. This is an ‘ontological death’ in the sense that we cannot be anything because the intelligible world that we draw on to fashion our identities and sustain our sense of self has lost all significance. On this account, death is not only an event that we (...) can physiologically live through; it can happen numerous times throughout the finite span of our lives. This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s (At the will of the body: reflections on illness. Houghton, Boston, 1991) narrative of critical illness to concretize the experience of ‘ontological death’ and illuminate the unique challenges it poses for health care professionals. I turn to Heidegger’s conception of ‘resoluteness’ (Entschlossenheit) to address these challenges, arguing for the need of health care professionals to help establish a discursive context whereby the critically ill can begin to meaningfully express and interpret their experience of self-loss in a way that acknowledges the structural vulnerability of their own identities and is flexible enough to let go of those that have lost their significance or viability. (shrink)

Colonial encounters in the 1850s: the European impact on India, Indonesia, and China -- Russia and Poland: the relationship of national emancipation to revolution -- Race, class, and slavery: the Civil War as a second American revolution -- Ireland: nationalism, class, and the labor movement -- From the Grundrisse to Capital: multilinear themes -- Late writings on non-western and precapitalist societies -- Conclusion -- Appendix: the vicissitudes of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe from the 1920s to today.

In this paper, I draw on Heidegger’s phenomenology of “moods” (_Stimmungen_) to interpret loneliness as a diffused and atmospheric feeling-state that often undergirds the lives of older adults, shaping the ways in which they are attuned to and make sense of the world. I focus specifically on residents in long-term care facilities to show how the social isolation and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically intensified the mood. The aim is to shed light on how profound and totalizing the (...) experience has been for residents. Making use of Heidegger’s account of the affective “collapse” or “breakdown” (_Zusammenbruch_) of meaning, I argue that when older adults are functionally locked in their rooms for months at a time and cut off from the orienting routines and rhythms of the relational world, the result is a crumbling of the fundamental meaning-structures that constitute subjectivity. The global sense of abandonment and disconnection strips away the possibility for self-understanding, and residents are often left confused and abandoned to an existence that has been drained of meaning and significance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 41-57 [Access article in PDF] The Subordination of Aesthetic Fundamentals in College Art Instruction Randall Lavender we smile at a hasty philosopher who assures his disciples that art is about to be replaced with philosophy. 1Opportunities for college students of art and design to study fundamentals of visual aesthetics, integrity of form, and principles of composition are limited today by a (...) number of factors. With the well-documented prominence of postmodern critical theory in the world of contemporary art (and itsquestionable effects on higher education in art and design), the study of aesthetic fundamentals is largely subordinated to a multitude of conceptual, theoretical, and expressive priorities recycled from the art world. 2 Contemporary idea-based priorities tend to obviate, in the minds of many artists who teach, the "need" for aesthetic fundamentals in college art curricula. But as Rudolph Arnheim suggests, art is not easily replaced by ideas alone. For no matter how interested artists, instructors, or students may be in ideas, theory, or self-expression, today's college art/design students need to gain a solid grounding in aesthetic fundamentals early in their college art educations in order to become adept and well-informed makers of art and/or design.In this essay I argue for the value of aesthetic fundamentals in the education of artists and designers, and outline a series of factors that contribute to the subordination of aesthetics in college art instruction. I examine introductory-level college art/design curricula, including a pair of courses that are intended to provide students with visual, compositional, and/or aesthetic fundamentals, and explore why instructors, even in these courses, too often bypass such fundamentals in their teaching. Specifically, I discuss the ways in which traditions of art education, mixed with artist/teachers' own art training, lead to a virtual dismissal of aesthetic fundamentals. Certain assumptions that professional artists often bring to their teaching and how these contribute to the problem are examined. I identify a historical phenomenon [End Page 41] that plays a key role in the subordination of aesthetic fundamentals — the schism between "art" and "design." I suggest an approach for embracing aesthetic fundamentals in college art instruction that preserves students' individual and cultural differences, while at the same time enabling them to make aesthetic decisions in their work, and to discern aesthetic quality in each other's work. Finally, I conclude that students can fully succeed in more advanced explorations of the complex and controversial realm of contemporary art issues, and certainly in the applied arts, only after receiving a solid, balanced, and inclusive grounding in the profound aesthetic power of clear organizing principles of visual information. The Value of Aesthetic Fundamentals Why are aesthetic fundamentals — that is, principles and elements of visual organization — actually important to the education of college art students? Among other reasons, they are important because professional artists do somehow have to learn to make their work aesthetically convincing, even if they must manage other challenges as well, including "newness," historical relevance, and significance of idea. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design shares this reasoning, as evidenced by their requirement that B.F.A. students acquire "essential competencies," including becoming "visually literate," developing an "understanding of basic design principles, concepts, media, and formats," and "mastery of basic foundation techniques." 3 The problem we face in educating artists today is that the range of challenges inherent to a career in the art world often results in aesthetic considerations being assigned a low priority in visual arts curricula. Many contemporary artists teaching in college art programs see themselves as all but immune to the realm of visual aesthetics; they subscribe instead to the prevalent postmodern dictum that aesthetics are superfluous. As this way of thinking permeates college art instructors' thinking to an ever-greater extent, students of art and design find themselves increasingly distanced from aesthetic training, and from the aesthetic experience. This distancing is a loss to students.Students lose when aesthetic fundamentals are neglected because for all the effort they might make... (shrink)

Theories of scientific rationality typically pertain to belief. In this paper, the author argues that we should expand our focus to include motivations as well as belief. An economic model is used to evaluate whether science is best served by scientists motivated only by truth, only by credit, or by both truth and credit. In many, but not all, situations, scientists motivated by both truth and credit should be judged as the most rational scientists.

This is the first philosophical study of artifacts that is book length. In it Randall Dipert develops a theory of what artifacts are and applies it extensively to one of the most complex and intriguing kind of artifacts, art works. He presents his own account of what agents, intentions, and actions are, then uses these notions to clarify what it is for an agent to "make" something. From this starting point, he develops a full theory of artifacts and other (...) artificial things - and, especially, a theory of art works and performances of art works as artifacts. He proposes a theory of nature and of the value of nature as what is essentially nonartificial. Two chapters are devoted to value considerations: merit in artifacts generally, and the evaluation of art works and performance art as artifacts or intentional gestures. Believing that a developed theory of action and philosophy of mind is necessary for a developed aesthetics and philosophy of art, Dipert relies on classical and contemporary research on agency, actions, and intentions, and on the intentionalist theory of mental objects of Brentano and Meinong. Dipert considers artifacts to be physical entities, but he also includes in the definition thoughts, utterances, and performances. This vast category encompasses everyday household objects and tools, streets and edifices, as well as communicative and artistic artifacts. Especially with regard to artistic artifacts, Dipert proposes a theory of expression and communication as actions and extensively discusses the problems of interpreting and recognizing actions, artifacts, and art works. (shrink)

Shuford, Albert and Massengill proved, a half century ago, that the logarithmic scoring rule is the only proper measure of inaccuracy determined by a differentiable function of probability assigned the actual cell of a scored partition. In spite of this, the log rule has gained less traction in applied disciplines and among formal epistemologists that one might expect. In this paper we show that the differentiability criterion in the Shuford et. al. result is unnecessary and use the resulting simplified characterization (...) of the logarithmic rule to give novel arguments in favor of it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 41-57 [Access article in PDF] The Subordination of Aesthetic Fundamentals in College Art Instruction Randall Lavender we smile at a hasty philosopher who assures his disciples that art is about to be replaced with philosophy. 1Opportunities for college students of art and design to study fundamentals of visual aesthetics, integrity of form, and principles of composition are limited today by a (...) number of factors. With the well-documented prominence of postmodern critical theory in the world of contemporary art (and itsquestionable effects on higher education in art and design), the study of aesthetic fundamentals is largely subordinated to a multitude of conceptual, theoretical, and expressive priorities recycled from the art world. 2 Contemporary idea-based priorities tend to obviate, in the minds of many artists who teach, the "need" for aesthetic fundamentals in college art curricula. But as Rudolph Arnheim suggests, art is not easily replaced by ideas alone. For no matter how interested artists, instructors, or students may be in ideas, theory, or self-expression, today's college art/design students need to gain a solid grounding in aesthetic fundamentals early in their college art educations in order to become adept and well-informed makers of art and/or design.In this essay I argue for the value of aesthetic fundamentals in the education of artists and designers, and outline a series of factors that contribute to the subordination of aesthetics in college art instruction. I examine introductory-level college art/design curricula, including a pair of courses that are intended to provide students with visual, compositional, and/or aesthetic fundamentals, and explore why instructors, even in these courses, too often bypass such fundamentals in their teaching. Specifically, I discuss the ways in which traditions of art education, mixed with artist/teachers' own art training, lead to a virtual dismissal of aesthetic fundamentals. Certain assumptions that professional artists often bring to their teaching and how these contribute to the problem are examined. I identify a historical phenomenon [End Page 41] that plays a key role in the subordination of aesthetic fundamentals — the schism between "art" and "design." I suggest an approach for embracing aesthetic fundamentals in college art instruction that preserves students' individual and cultural differences, while at the same time enabling them to make aesthetic decisions in their work, and to discern aesthetic quality in each other's work. Finally, I conclude that students can fully succeed in more advanced explorations of the complex and controversial realm of contemporary art issues, and certainly in the applied arts, only after receiving a solid, balanced, and inclusive grounding in the profound aesthetic power of clear organizing principles of visual information. The Value of Aesthetic Fundamentals Why are aesthetic fundamentals — that is, principles and elements of visual organization — actually important to the education of college art students? Among other reasons, they are important because professional artists do somehow have to learn to make their work aesthetically convincing, even if they must manage other challenges as well, including "newness," historical relevance, and significance of idea. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design shares this reasoning, as evidenced by their requirement that B.F.A. students acquire "essential competencies," including becoming "visually literate," developing an "understanding of basic design principles, concepts, media, and formats," and "mastery of basic foundation techniques." 3 The problem we face in educating artists today is that the range of challenges inherent to a career in the art world often results in aesthetic considerations being assigned a low priority in visual arts curricula. Many contemporary artists teaching in college art programs see themselves as all but immune to the realm of visual aesthetics; they subscribe instead to the prevalent postmodern dictum that aesthetics are superfluous. As this way of thinking permeates college art instructors' thinking to an ever-greater extent, students of art and design find themselves increasingly distanced from aesthetic training, and from the aesthetic experience. This distancing is a loss to students.Students lose when aesthetic fundamentals are neglected because for all the effort they might make... (shrink)

Let Λ be a singular cardinal of uncountable confinality ψ. Under various assumptions about the sizes of covering families for cardinals below Λ, we prove upper bounds for the covering number cov(Λ, Λ, v⁺, 2). This covering number is closely related to the cofinality of the partial order ([Λ]", ⊆).