This study examined the effects of emotional subject matter and descriptive style in short story excerpts on text (e.g. rich in meaning) and reader response-oriented (e.g. liking) ratings. Forty-eight subjects, including equal numbers of trained and novice male and female students, read two examples of each text twice and either generated or received interpretations between readings in a within-subjects design. In general, intellectual challenge slowed the pace of reading, whereas suspense-based arousal increased it. Emotional subject matter had a more powerful (...) effect than descriptive style on both cognitive (challenging, rich in meaning) and affective (expressive, personally relevant) scales and were read more quickly. Generating interpretations fostered subjective reactions to the Emotional excerpts (images), whereas Descriptive texts were less amenable to subjective responses. Consistent effects were also found for background and gender. As in everyday life, subject matter had a dominant effect in engaging a person's involvement. (shrink)

This study investigates the ability of individuals with psychopathy to perform passive avoidance learning and whether this ability is modulated by level of reinforcement/punishment. Nineteen psychopathic and 21 comparison individuals, as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (Hare, 1991), were given a passive avoidance task with a graded reinforcement schedule. Response to each rewarding number gained a point reward specific to that number (i.e., 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). Response to each punishing number lost a point punishment specific (...) to that number (i.e., the loss of 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). In line with predictions, individuals with psychopathy made more passive avoidance errors than the comparison individuals. In addition, while the performance of both groups was modulated by level of reward, only the performance of the comparison population was modulated by level of punishment. The results are interpreted with reference to a computational account of the emotional learning impairment in individuals with psychopathy. (shrink)

Critics of commodification object to sales but not gifts of some goods, such as human blood or human organs, on grounds that such trade wrongly coerces, morally corrupts, and crowds out altruism. This essay takes issues with each of these claims. It disputes Micheal Sandel’s claim that voluntary exchange coerces, arguing that he confuses what is unfair with what is unfree. It argues, where trade does create moral costs, that these costs should be weighed against the moral costs of trade (...) bans, such as the loss of human life, and the harms endemic to illegal markets. The essay also quarrels with Richard Titmuss’s The Gift Relationship, arguing that compensation for blood need not crowd out blood donation, that compensation does not preclude a charitable impulse, and that some important gift relationship posses elements of altruism and exchange.Ceux qui critiquent la marchandisation sont contre la vente mais pas contre le don de certains biens comme le sang ou les organes humains parce qu’un tel commerce exercerait une contrainte, corromprait morallement, et ne laisserait pas de place à l’altruisme. Ce papier traite de chacune de ces affirmations. Il consteste l’affirmation de Micheal Sandel selon laquelle l’échange volontaire exerce une contrainte, en suggérant qu’il confond ce qui injuste avec ce qui n’est pas libre. Si le commerce entraîne des coûts moraux, cet essai suggère que ces coûts devraient être comparés avec les coûts moraux associés aux interdictions de commerce tels que la perte de la vie humaine et ceux associés aux maux endémiques des marchés illégaux. Il critique aussi l’ouvrage de Richard Titmuss, “The Gift Relationship” en suggérant que les compensations monétaires en échange d’un don de sang n’évincent pas nécessairement le don de sang, qu’elles n’empêchent pas les impulsions charitables, et que d’importants actes de don comportent des éléments d’altruisme et d’échange. (shrink)

Cet essai qui porte uniquement sur Politiques de l’amitié de Derrida soutient une thèse à la fois anti-kantienne et hyper-kantienne. D’une part, je montre que l’amitié ou l’amour véritable rompt avec la téléologie d’une « humanisation de l’être humain » qui conçoit l’amitié comme une fin morale. L’amour doit rompre avec la fin morale, car l’amour qui poursuit une fin morale utilise l’aimé comme un moyen en vue d’une fin. Cela rompt avec l’impératif moral de Kant. C’est hyper-kantien et en (...) fait nietzschéen, car la seule voie pour rompre avec les relations de moyens à fins est de tenir l’aimé le plus possible à distance de moi. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Requiem for a Garden:Terraces of the Shrine of the Báb or Revisiting Alain Locke's "Impressions of Haifa" 1923 (Palestine) in 2023 (Israel)Leonard HarrisLouis Gregory, who first introduced Alain Locke to the Bahá'í faith in 1912, succeeded in convincing him to chair the first racial Amity Convention in 1921 in Washington, DC. Locke published annual reports of this committee in the Bahá'í News Letter until late in his life. (...) The Racial Amity Committee, of which Locke was a lifelong member, promoted racial amity and racial eliminativism through dialogue, personal example, interracial marriage, and cultural exchange. In 1924, Locke's "Impressions of Haifa" described his 1923 visit to Haifa and meeting—via an invitation likely arranged by Louis Gregory—the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, the great-grandson of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the faith, who received revelations from God.1Why would a 38-year-old African American Harvard PhD in Philosophy (1918), former Oxford University Rhodes Scholar (1907–1910), University of Berlin student (1911), and English- and French-speaking scholar versed in Romance language literature and Greek philosophy seek the grace of the Guardian of the Faith? Why would he travel to Haifa, a place that required a circuitous route to reach, and meet, in 1923, a little-known shy Guardian of the Faith? He traveled from Vienna by train on 4 October to Trieste, then Greece, and then took a steamer to Alexandria, Egypt, for a few days before taking off on another steamer to the islands of Piraeus, Lesbos, and Chanak, and arrived in the ancient Byzantine capital of Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey, on 14 October. After two days in the ancient capital, he was off again by steamer and train to Haifa, remaining there as a guest of the Guardian of the Faith until early November.Christopher Buck has consistently argued that Locke was a faithful Bahá'í, meaning that Locke was a doctrinaire believer that Bahá'u'lláh was the last messenger of God, as foretold by the Báb, Ali Muhammad. Buck has effectively described Locke's views via re-published core articles by Locke on [End Page 97] democracy, commentaries on Bahá'í ideas, and pictures of Locke with Bahá'í members at Bahá'í events. Buck has authored, among other works, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (2005); "Alain Locke in His Own Words" (2005); "Alain Locke: Race Leader, Social Philosopher, Bahá'í Pluralist" (2005); "Alain Locke: Dean of the Harlem Renaissance and Bahá'í Race-Amity Leader" (2005); and "Alain Locke: Four Talks Redefining Democracy, Education, and World Citizenship" (2006/2007). Buck contends that a "Bahá'í Historical Record"—which Locke completed and signed in 1935—proves that Locke was a Bahá'í. Note Item #13: "Date of acceptance of the Bahá'í Faith": Locke answered: "1918." Under Item #14: "Place of acceptance of the Bahá'í Faith": Locke wrote: "Washington, D.C." (Buck, "Race Amity & the Bahai Faith" 5).2 At the January 1927 National Spiritual Assembly, Locke—along with Agnes Parsons, Louis Gregory, and others—was appointed to the membership committee.I have argued that Locke was a participant in the Bahá'í community, but evidence that he was a doctrinaire religious believer is lacking. As a pragmatist, Locke was steadfastly against metaphysical absolutism (that a particular belief is true beyond reasonable doubt) and foundationalism (that a First principle is the basis of truth); he favored "truth" as a sort of value, and thereby, a plurality of possible "faiths" could make sense. Locke authored critical pragmatism because he promoted the value of aesthetic virtues and rejected the classical pragmatist reliance on the scientific method to guide our preferences. That is, Locke cannot be a fallibilist and a value relativist while (at the same time) committing himself to one true approach to salvation, one true value ultimate, or one true/foundational divinity. I have co-authored Alain L. Locke: Biography of a Philosopher (2010), one anthology of Locke's philosophic works (1999), and two anthologies of articles about Locke's philosophy (1989, 2010). In each publication, I have assumed that philosophic commitments define what type of faith is acceptable. Are Locke's philosophic commitments and his commitments to Bahá'í principles or faith incompatible? Buck and... (shrink)

It has often been claimed that Priestley was a skilful experimenter who lacked the capacities to analyze his own experiments and bring them to a theoretical closure. In attempts to revise this view some scholars have alluded to Priestley’s ‘synoptic’ powers while others stressed the contextual role of British Enlightenment in understanding his chemical research. A careful analysis of his pneumatic reports, privileging the dynamics of his experimental practice, uncovers significant yet neglected aspects of Priestley’s science. By (...) focusing on his early experimental conduct and writing on nitrous air, I demonstrate how his methodological and rhetorical devices, far from being consequences of compulsive writing or theoretical naïveté, were deeply entwined with his chemical research. I employ the notion of ‘style of experimental reasoning’ —derived from A. C. Crombie and I. Hacking—to shed light on the intersection at which Priestley’s unique method, literary style, and epistemology converged to generate scientific knowledge. Establishing Priestley’s SER advances a finer understanding of the interactive character of his pneumatic experimentalism, peculiar dimensions of which have evaded both traditional as well as revisionist scholarship, thus infusing the longstanding historiographic debate over his scientific merits.Keywords: Joseph Priestley; Eighteenth-century chemistry; Pneumatic research; Style of reasoning; Epistemology. (shrink)

We argue that the epistemic functions of replication in science are best understood by their role in assessing kinds of experimental error. Direct replications serve to assess the reliability of an experiment through its precision: the presence and degree of random error. Conceptual replications serve to assess the validity of an experiment through its accuracy: the presence and degree of systematic errors. To illustrate the aptness of this view, we examine the Hubble constant controversy in astronomy, showing how astronomers have (...) responded to the concordances and discordances in their results by carrying out the different kinds of replication that we identify, with the aim of establishing a precise, accurate value for the Hubble constant. We contrast our view with Machery’s “re-sampling” account of replicability, which maintains that replications only assess reliability. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934, this book presents the content of an inaugural lecture delivered by the British philosopher Charles Dunbar Broad (1887-1971), upon taking up the position of Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge University. The text presents a discussion of the relationship between determinism, indeterminism and libertarianism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Broad and the history of philosophy.

This paper is about a general methodology for pattern transformation. Patterns are network representations of the relations among structures and functions within an organism. Transformation refers to any realistic or abstract transformation relevant to biology, e.g. ontogeny, evolution and phenotypic clines. The main aim of the paper is a methodology for analyzing the range of effects on a pattern due to perturbing one or more of its structures and/or functions (transformation morphology). Concepts relevant to such an analysis of pattern transformation (...) are reviewed and several new ones introduced: pattern unit; direct and indirect functional demands; compatibility and trade-off; integrating, adding and decoupling; functional effectiveness; spatial, profile and other architectonic constraints; domains of structure-function relations; goal and process adaptability; multiple pathways. The paper is written from the the perspective of architectonic morphology, viz. functional morphology focusing on the relation between anatomical coherence and the compatibility of functions. The advantages and disadvantages of inductive and deductive approaches are discussed. (shrink)

In the previous lecture Professor Swinburne discussed arguments for the existence of God. I do not propose to put forward arguments for the non-existence of God, precisely. Rather I want to discuss the view that the whole enterprise of putting forward arguments for the existence of God is misguided. Moreover, I hold that it distorts the nature of religious belief. This in turn raises the question of the rationality of religious belief. A belief that cannot be based on argument, however (...) broadly understood, does not seem to be a rational belief. Is religious belief, therefore, irrational, contrary to reason? We shall see. This, at least, is my programme. (shrink)

In the previous lecture Professor Swinburne discussed arguments for the existence of God. I do not propose to put forward arguments for the non-existence of God, precisely. Rather I want to discuss the view that the whole enterprise of putting forward arguments for the existence of God is misguided. Moreover, I hold that it distorts the nature of religious belief. This in turn raises the question of the rationality of religious belief. A belief that cannot be based on argument, however (...) broadly understood, does not seem to be a rational belief. Is religious belief, therefore, irrational, contrary to reason? We shall see. This, at least, is my programme. (shrink)

Reeve's classic work provides an interpretation of Republic that makes a case for the coherence of Plato's argument.