Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published in 1961 and is now generally considered one of the most important books ever written on cities and city life. At a time when suburbia appeared to be human destiny, and architectural and urban theorists questioned whether the city should survive, Jacobs taught people to see, understand, and love cities again. The book continues to be widely studied and discussed but is seldom read and understood in its entirety (...) – this guidebook will help readers both pull the text apart and tie it up together. This guidebook includes: a chapter by chapter exploration of the key arguments and ideas in the text a brief biography of Jane Jacobs examining her influences and the context in which The Death and Life was produced an outline of the book’s critical reception over the past fifty years and its contemporary relevance a comprehensive bibliography of both Jacobs’ writing and works written about her. (shrink)

This is the first volume of a projected three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The extent to which the mind is innate is one of the central questions in the human sciences, with important implications for many surrounding debates. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Structure and Content, concerns the fundamental architecture (...) of the mind, addressing such question as: What capacities, processes, representations, biases, and connections are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, and which of them are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? The editors have provided an introduction giving some of the background to debates about innateness and introducing each of the subsequent essays, as well as a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the fundamental nature and powers of the human mind. Together, the three volumes in the series will provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a new understanding of our minds and their place in the natural order. (shrink)

This is the first of three volumes on the subject of innateness. The extent to which the mind is innate is one of the central questions in the human sciences, with important implications for many surrounding debates. This book along with the following two volumes provide assess of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. This book is concerned with the fundamental architecture of the mind, addressing such question as: what capacities, processes, representations, biases, and connections (...) are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, and which of them are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? The book includes an introduction giving some of the background to debates about innateness and introducing each of the subsequent chapters, as well as a consolidated bibliography. (shrink)

This book is the second of a three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The book is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: to what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds?Concerned with the fundamental architecture of the mind, this text (...) addresses questions about the existence & extent of human innate abilities, how these inate abilities affect the development of the mature mind, & which of them is shared with other species. (shrink)

This book is the second of a three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The book is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: to what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds?

This book is the third of a three-volume set on the innate mind. It provides an assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Nativists have long been interested in a variety of foundational topics relating to the study of cognitive development and the historical opposition between nativism and empiricism. Among the issues here are questions about what it is for something to be innate in the first place; how innateness is related to such things as heritability, (...) genetic information, and theories of cognitive development; the status of arguments both for and against nativism; and how best to understand the role of genes in development and inheritance. These issues are all explored in one way or another in this book. But the book also looks to the future. Alongside state-of-the-art discussions of such established nativist concerns as language, number, spatial cognition, and social cognition, this book examines nativist work in a variety of areas where detailed nativist exploration is relatively new, including cultural learning, creativity, economic choice, culture, and morality. The expansion of nativist theorizing into all these new areas shows both the power and the promise of nativist approaches, and points the way to the future. (shrink)

This book is the third of a three-volume set on the innate mind. It provides an assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Nativists have long been interested in a variety of foundational topics relating to the study of cognitive development and the historical opposition between nativism and empiricism. Among the issues here are questions about what it is for something to be innate in the first place; how innateness is related to such things as heritability, (...) genetic information, and theories of cognitive development; the status of arguments both for and against nativism; and how best to understand the role of genes in development and inheritance. These issues are all explored in one way or another in this book. But the book also looks to the future. Alongside state-of-the-art discussions of such established nativist concerns as language, number, spatial cognition, and social cognition, this book examines nativist work in a variety of areas where detailed nativist exploration is relatively new, including cultural learning, creativity, economic choice, culture, and morality. The expansion of nativist theorizing into all these new areas shows both the power and the promise of nativist approaches, and points the way to the future. (shrink)

This book is the second of a three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The book is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: to what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds?

This book is the third of a three-volume set on the innate mind. It provides an assessment of nativist thought and definitive reference point for future inquiry. Nativists have long been interested in a variety of foundational topics relating to the study of cognitive development and the historical opposition between nativism and empiricism. Among the issues here are questions about what it is for something to be innate in the first place; how innateness is related to such things as heritability, (...) genetic information, and theories of cognitive development; the status of arguments both for and against nativism; and how best to understand the role of genes in development and inheritance. These issues are all explored in one way or another in this book. But the book also looks to the future. Alongside state-of-the-art discussions of such established nativist concerns as language, number, spatial cognition, and social cognition, this book examines nativist work in a variety of areas where detailed nativist exploration is relatively new, including cultural learning, creativity, economic choice, culture, and morality. The expansion of nativist theorizing into all these new areas shows both the power and the promise of nativist approaches, and points the way to the future. (shrink)

The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, (...) international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years. (shrink)

Elaborates some of the background assumptions made by the chapters that follow and situates the theory that the author espouses within a wider context and range of alternatives. More specifically, it distinguishes between creature consciousness and state consciousness, and between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. And it defends representationalist accounts of consciousness against brute physicalist accounts. The chapter also introduces the remaining 11 chapters.

This is the third volume of a three-volume set on The Innate Mind. The extent to which cognitive structures, processes, and contents are innate is one of the central questions concerning the nature of the mind, with important implications for debates throughout the human sciences. By bringing together the top nativist scholars in philosophy, psychology, and allied disciplines these volumes provide a comprehensive assessment of nativist thought and a definitive reference point for future nativist inquiry. The Innate Mind: Volume 3: (...) Foundations and the Future, concerns a variety of foundational issues, as well as questions about the direction of future nativist research. It addresses such questions as: What is innateness? Is it a confused notion? What is at stake in debates between nativists and empiricists? What is the relationship between genes and innateness? How do innate structures and learned information interact to produce adult forms of cognition, e.g. about number, and how does such learning take place? What innate abilities underlie the creative aspect of language use, and of creative cognition generally? What are the innate foundations of human motivation, and of human moral cognition? In the course of their discussions, many of the contributors pose the question : Where next for nativist research? Together, these three volumes provide the most intensive and richly cross-disciplinary investigation of nativism ever undertaken. They point the way toward a synthesis of nativist work that promises to provide a powerful picture of our minds and their place in the natural order. (shrink)

The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, (...) international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years. (shrink)

Elaborates some of the background assumptions made by the chapters that follow and situates the theory that the author espouses within a wider context and range of alternatives. More specifically, it distinguishes between creature consciousness and state consciousness, and between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. And it defends representationalist accounts of consciousness against brute physicalist accounts. The chapter also introduces the remaining 11 chapters.

The three puzzles here considered are shown to have a common structure. And in each, an agent is thrust into a cleverly contrived deliberatively unstable situation. The paper advocates a resolutely Pyrrhonian abandonment of the futile reasoning in which the agent is trapped and advocates an alternative strategy for escape.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 2 Seiten: 943-994.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

This is a review of Laurence Houlgate's "Family and State: the Philosophy of Family Law. It takes a look at the moral theory from which Houlgate begins and raises questions about is correctness and appropriateness, but it finds more to agree with with respect to his middle-level principles. It considers his definition of "family" in the context of contemporary political controversy over such definitions. It looks at his consequentialist justification for the family, agrees with it, and suggests additional supplementary (...) arguments, primarily from Brigitte and Peter Berger, to give additional support for Houlgate's argument. It looks at his justification for family law and agrees with his principle of optimum communal benefit. It seeks to place Houlgate's views within the context of contemporary political debate about being "pro-family" or "anti-family". It then goes on to look briefly at some of the specific issues of family law that Houlgate considers, taking time to raise a few questions about some of them, and concludes by dealing in a more extensive way with the question of what the extent and limits of state interference in the family should be, agreeing with Houlgate's basic position, but considering further its application to specific issues. (shrink)

An Introduction to Buddhism. Teaching, history and practices. Peter Harvey. Cambridge University Press, 1990. xxii, 374 pp. Hbk £35, pbk £10.95. An Introduction to Buddhism. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Tharpa Publications, London 1992. x, 150 pp. Hbk £8.95. pbk £5.95.

Two works are attributed to Peter the Philosopher in the manuscripts, an author active in the reign of Manuel I Comnenos. The first, a letter condemning Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges' practice of astrology, highlights the author's attachment to medical knowledge. The second is a peculiar astronomical treatise that mixes Antiochene descriptions of a hemispherical universe with notions of spherical astronomy. Together these works emphasise Peter the Philosopher's attempt at defining boundaries within which one could study the stars. This article offers an (...) analysis of Peter the Philosopher's works in the context of twelfth-century Byzantine scholarship, an edition and translation of the treatise, as well as a translation of the letter. (shrink)

Susan Haack has always maintained that her unquestionably important foundherentist theory of epistemic justification is not a foundationalism. In a 1997 Synthese exchange, Laurence BonJour questioned her right to this claim, and she dug in and defended it. What was at stake is of timeless importance to epistemology: it goes directly to the question, “What is foundationalism?” I inquire with greater care than either Haack or BonJour took in 1997, and I find decisively in favor of the view that (...) foundherentism is a foundationalism. In the process, I explore the outer limits of foundationalism: I examine just how far a foundationalism can go in allowing the relevance of coherence to epistemic justification. (shrink)

Susan Haack has always maintained that her unquestionably important foundherentist theory of epistemic justification is not a foundationalism. In a 1997 "Synthese" exchange, Laurence BonJour questioned her right to this claim, and she dug in and defended it. What was at stake is of timeless importance to epistemology: it goes directly to the question, "What is foundationalism?" I inquire with greater care than either Haack or BonJour took in 1997, and I find decisively in favor of the view that (...) foundherentism is a foundationalism. In the process, I explore the outer limits of foundationalism: I examine just how far a foundationalism can go in allowing the relevance of coherence to epistemic justification. (shrink)

Slavoj Zizek is regarded as one of the pre-eminent European cultural theorists of the last decade. His growing body of work has generated considerable controversy and transformed the way we think about issues of popular culture and politics. This volume provides a critical reflection on Zizek's ideas and his intellectual itinerary. As well as bringing a Zizekian analysis to a discussion of the cultural and social aspects of nationhood in New Zealand and the Southern hemisphere, it will provide readers with (...) new material and fresh perspectives on Zizek's thinking on psychoanalysis, multiculturalism, television and the new media, ethics and politics. It is proposed that Zizek's arresting, and at times scandalous, re-elaboration of psychoanalytical theory and his critique of ideology will open the way for a new understanding of social conflict. FROM Z TO A contains approaches that are challenging and fascinating: What really happened when Paul Holmes interviewed Dennis Connor? Why do we watch reality TV? Is the Treaty of Waitangi a fraud? Why has Peter Ellis come to represent par excellence the figure of sexual threat to children? Why does Ada in Jane Campion's 'The Piano' send a love letter to Baines who cannot read? What psychic mechanisms of nationalism are displayed in British football hooliganism? How did Western orientalism shape Japanese national identity? Why is the discourse of nationhood in the United States always structured around a central void or impossibility? The range of topics demonstrates both the power of Zizek's formulations and the light they can shed on our world. (shrink)

_Parallax_ is an international, peer-reviewed journal that aims towards a critical engagement with the production of culture and knowledge. The journal explores a wide range of cultural practices, reconfiguring the production and understanding of culture as well as the relation between theory and practice itself. This text brings together scholars from a number of different theoretical backgrounds to consider the ethical and political processes involved in witnessing, and the possible limits of theory in some situations. Contributors include J.M. Bernstein, Kelly (...) Oliver, Griselda Pollock, Laurence Rickels, Avital Ronell and Hayden White. (shrink)

One of the many problems that would have t o be solved by a satisfactory theory of empirical knowledge, perhaps the most central is a general structural problem which I shall call the epistemic regress problem: the problem of how to avoid an in- finite and presumably vicious regress of justification in ones account of the justifica- tion of empirical beliefs. Foundationalist theories of empirical knowledge, as we shall see further below, attempt t o avoid the regress by locating a (...) class of empirical beliefs whose justification does not depend on that of other empirical beliefs. Extemalist theories, the topic of the present paper, represent one species of foundationalism. (shrink)

Introduction: there is no justice in Heidegger or for Marx -- Interpretations of Heidegger and Marx -- The history of Marx and Heidegger -- The history and negation of metaphysics -- Logic and dialectic -- Metaphysics of the human state -- The situation of Germany -- The ideology of Germany -- Nazism, liberalism, humanism -- The Jewish question -- Speaking of the essence of man -- Production-previously this was called God -- The end of humanism -- Between men and gods (...) -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Research to improve the health of pregnant and fetal patients presents ethical challenges to clinical investigators, institutional review boards, funding agencies, and data safety and monitoring boards. The Common Rule sets out requirements that such research must satisfy but no ethical framework to guide their application. We provide such an ethical framework, based on the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient. We offer criteria for innovation and for Phase I and II and then for Phase III clinical trials (...) to improve the health of pregnant patients and of fetal patients and also criteria to responsibly manage the transition from investigation to clinical practice. Basing ethical criteria for research involving pregnant women on the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient insulates the proposed ethical framework and therefore research on pregnant women from the divisive and politicized concepts and discourses of personhood, fetal rights, and unborn child. (shrink)

In this paper I present a novel account of achievement and I argue that, all other things being equal, the presence of this particular type of achievement in a person’s life makes that life more meaningful. In arguing for this conclusion, I explore the connections between m-achievements and a person’s self-conception and especially the idea that m-achievements provide a reason for the revision of one’s self-conception.

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

La philosophie cartésienne se décline en un refrain tranquille : « je pense, donc je suis », la méthode, le doute, le triomphe de la raison, Dieu lui-même soumis à la logique de l’entendement et toutes les passions domestiquées. Ce refrain semble même être devenu celui de la nation française toute entière : y a-t-il un autre philosophe auquel il soit fait aussi couramment référence? Mais ce « cartésianisme » que la tradition a retenu n’est justement pas cartésien. A rebours (...) de nos a priori sur Descartes, Laurence Devillairs souligne le caractère inclassable de sa philosophie : Descartes revendique le droit de la raison à s’exercer librement mais il se définit aussi comme « philosophe chrétien » ; il déclare l’homme capable de connaître l’essence même de Dieu mais en affirme l’irréductible incompréhensibilité ; il rétablit les droits de l’âme contre toute confusion avec le corporel mais fait de l’homme l’union intime d’un corps et d’un esprit. Ainsi se fait jour le portrait d’un maître à penser sans réel disciple, critique de la philosophie de l’École, désireux de voir le cartésianisme enseigné au titre de philosophie officielle, premier philosophe de la modernité et meilleur théologien de son siècle. Descartes n’a d’autre école que la sienne. (shrink)

Against the “universal consent of the people” and “the crowd of philosophers”, Pascal proves the existence of the void, thus re-establishing the truth where only the force and falsity of opinions had prevailed. Nature “has no repugnance for the void”, it “makes no effort to avoid it” but “admits it without difficulty or resistance”. Pascal defines the void as neither matter nor nothingness. Can this definition be found in Philosophy, in the Anthropology of the Pensées? We would like to show (...) the importance of the notion of the capacity of empty nature, which is decisive when it comes to describing the condition of man, troubled by a desire for truth and happiness that he cannot satisfy. Nature is thus, for him, what is “most contrary” to him, depriving him of what is rightfully his. The void has a cardinal function in Physics, but also in Philosophy. (shrink)

The Minos is one of thirty-five dialogues that ancient editors and commentators regarded as one of the authentic works of Plato. Although it is now regarded as spurious, in both the classical and modern eras, the Minos was treated as a suitable problematic introduction to Plato's Laws. The co-authors (Houlgate and Hathaway) believe that it is still an excellent introduction to the Laws. It has philosophical significance whether or not it is authentic. It is the philosophical significance that is discussed (...) in this article. (shrink)

The essays in Politics, Nature, and Piety take up the central question of political philosophy: What is the good life, and what place do nature, politics, and piety have in that life? 'The unity of the essays,' Alex Priou writes in his introduction, 'lies in the various tensions explored: between ancients and moderns, religion and philosophy, magnanimity and prudence, justice and friendship, and, most fundamentally, spiritedness and the intellect.' Laurence Berns proves an excellent guide for beginning one's study of (...) the great books of political philosophy, from Plato to the present." --Publisher's description. (shrink)