This editorial introduces a revised set of publication requirements for papers, submitted to Homeopathy, that involve animal experimentation. Journals that publish studies involving animal experimentation have a major role to play in the maintenance of ethical standards because researchers are reliant upon them for publication of their findings. With an increasing global trend towards greater transparency and accountability in animal experimentation, many academic journals, such as the British Journal of Pharmacology, 1 and 2 are taking action to improve reporting standards. (...) In recognition of this need, members of Homeopathy's Editorial Board have been working together to examine the scientific rationale and the most relevant ethical guidelines for the use of animals in research. In addition, they have examined existing published studies in homeopathy research and current practice within the broad domain of medical research. Each of these aspects has informed the revised publication policy, whose overarching objectives are to maximise the ethical standards and scientific quality of animal research in homeopathy, and thereby ultimately to avoid any unnecessary suffering of animals used in such research. The following description details the background that was considered, the rationale for this development, and the steps that will be taken. (shrink)

The state, by V.I. Lenin.--The revolutionary part played by law and the state; a general doctrine of law, by P.I. Stuchka.--The theory of Petrazhitskii: Marxism and social ideology. Law, our law, foreign law, general law, by M.A. Reisner.--The general theory of law and Marxism, by E.B. Pashukanis.--The right deviation in the Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Political report of the Central (Party) Committee to the XVI Congress, 1930, by J.V. Stalin.-- The Soviet state and the revolution in law, by E.B. Pashukanis.--Socialism (...) and law, by P. Yudin.--The fundamental tasks of the science of Soviet socialist law, by A.Y. Vyshinsky.--Report to the XVIII Party Congress, by J.V. Stalin.--The theory of the state and law, by S.A. Golunskii and M.S. Strogovich.--The Soviet state in the war for the fatherland, by A.Y. Vyshinsky.--The relationship between state and law, by I.P. Trainin. (shrink)

The post-Civil War American natural history craze spawned a new institution -- the natural history dealer -- that has failed to receive the historical attention it deserves. The individuals who created these enterprises simultaneously helped to promote and hoped to profit from the burgeoning interest in both scientific and popular specimen collecting. At a time when other employment and educational prospects in natural history were severely limited, hundreds of dealers across the nation provided encouragement, specimens, publication outlets, training opportunities, and (...) jobs for naturalists of all motivations and levels of expertise. This paper explores the crucial role that specimen dealers played in the larger natural history community. After briefly examining the development of local taxidermy shops in the mid-nineteenth century, it then traces the history of four large natural history dealerships established in the United States during the latter half of the century: Ward's Natural History Establishment, Frank Blake Webster's Naturalists' Supply Depot, Southwick & Jencks' Natural History Store, and Frank H. Lattin & Co. By the early twentieth century, changing tastes in interior design, the growth of the Audubon movement, and the dramatic expansion of alternate training and job opportunities for naturalists led many specimen dealers either to shift their emphasis or to shut their doors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this wide-ranging interview Professor Douglas V. Porpora discusses a number of issues. First, how he became a Critical Realist through his early work on the concept of structure. Second, drawing on his Reconstructing Sociology, his take on the current state of American sociology. This leads to discussion of the broader range of his work as part of Margaret Archer’s various Centre for Social Ontology projects, and on moral-macro reasoning and the concept of truth in political discourse.

Several states in the United States of America and countries in Europe punish parents when their minor child commits a crime. When parents are being punished for the crimes committed by their children, it should be presumed that parents might be held responsible for the deeds of their children. This article addresses the question whether or not this presumption can be sustained. We argue that parents can be blamed for the crimes of their children, not because they have the duty (...) to control their children as is often maintained, but because they have the duty to assist their child to develop in such a way that s/he becomes a morally competent agent. (shrink)

The so-called geek-culture becomes increasingly more mainstream, and its social and economic impact is growing. In contrast, there is very little quantitative psychological research on this subculture and the people immersed in it. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are differences in the Big Five personality factors between Dungeons & Dragons players and non-players. Within a sample of 801 individuals – 399 Dungeons & Dragon players and 402 non-players - the results indicated that Dungeons & Dragons (...) players show statistically significant higher scores in extraversion as well as in openness to new experiences. Furthermore, we found a statistically significant correlation between Dungeons & Dragons players’ scores in extraversion and their character’s charisma. The results are in line with more recent findings from Big Five research in the geek-culture and contradict older findings regarding a low extraversion and high neuroticism of Dungeons & Dragon players. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorised power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats–whether drawing on Hobbes's 'sleeping sovereign' or on Spinoza's 'multitude'–understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as for instance popular plebsites or mass movements. However, the book argues that these (...) understandings reflect a residual scholasticism which Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book's revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity), and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism, or Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power. Three minute video summary available via HPBin3. Extended discussion on The Political Theory Review podcast. First chapter open access available via Oxford Scholarship Online. Videos of book talks at National University of Singapore (Centre for Legal Theory) and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani) available via YouTube. (See links below.). (shrink)

In seeking an answer to the question, How can the church speak from Christian warrants on any of the fateful choices we face in our common life, Paul Ramsey argued that, when it speaks, the voice of the church ought to be instructional rather than advocatory. An investigation of what the Episcopal Church has said over the past 20 years about abortion provides strong support for Ramsey's argument. This history suggests also that additional questions need to be asked if that (...) church and others are to address adequately the issues raised by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The most important of these questions are: (a) on what sorts of issues are the churches obliged to speak, (b) are these issues ones that call for agreement, (c) to whom are the churches obliged to speak, (d) in what vocabulary ought they to speak, (e) who ought to speak, and (f ) under what circumstances is anyone obliged to listen. At a minimum, an adequate ethic for ecclesiastical pronouncements requires that these questions be asked and answered. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped differently by their various embodied social contexts. Furthermore, we can use the resources of the imagination to bring this ethos about. In my response, (...) I offer a friendly challenge to Lloyd’s characterisation of the lessons of Spinoza’s philosophy. I argue that Lloyd’s Spinoza remains excessively unpolitical, even in the moment that he is brought to bear on contemporary politics. An unpluralistic attitude may well be rationally inferior, but is it really explained by insufficient or inappropriate imagination? To the contrary, a properly Spinozist account of reason must include an account of the concrete determinants of reason’s imperfect realisation in the world. In Spinoza’s own oeuvre, this is carried out through an ever-increasing—and ever more sociological—interest in the political structures within which individual reason flourishes or withers. (shrink)

According to a recent interpretive orthodoxy, Spinoza is a profoundly democratic theorist of state authority. I reject this orthodoxy. To be sure, for Spinoza, a political order succeeds in proportion as it harnesses the power of the people within it. However, Spinoza shows that political inclusion is only one possible strategy to this end; equally if not more useful is political exclusion, so long as it maintains what I call the depoliticised acquiescence of those excluded.

English summary: It seems that reason is less a universal principle than something inherently bound to the contexts in which it appears. These contributions to a conference held on the occasion of Christoph Schwobel's 60th birthday explore the character of reason's manifold contexts: the grounding of reason in the inner word of God 's Trinitarian life as well as the disclosure of reason and and its limits in human conversation. German description: Vernunft scheint in der Gegenwart weniger ein allgemeines Prinzip (...) als eine in Kontexte eingebundene Grosse zu sein. Die Beitrage einer Tagung anlasslich von Christoph Schwobels 60. Geburtstag, gehen der Frage nach dem Charakter dieser Kontextbindung nach: der Begrundung der Vernunft im trinitarischen Gesprach wie der Erschliessung und Problematisierung der Vernunft im menschlichen Gesprach. Mit Beitragen von V. Brummer, G. van den Brink, C. Drobe, H. J. Eckstein, D.-M. Grube, J. Halfwassen, S. Heine, F. Hermanni, E. Herms, W. Harle, W. Homolka, W. Jeanrond, R. W. Jenson, D. Kelsey, A. F. Koch, A. Kupsch, V. Leppin, P.-C. Lai, P. Lo, A. Min, J. Moltmann, M. Muhling, P. Peterson, M. Sarot, F. Schweitzer, A. Torrance, J. Webster, M. Welker, M. Wendte, M. Wisse, H. Wisskirchen und L. Zak. (shrink)

This article argues that assessment is a central feature of teaching, particularly as a means to determine whether what has been taught has been learnt. However, I take issue with the current trend in education which places a significant amount of emphasis upon large-scale public testing, which in turn has exacerbated the ‘teaching-to-the-test’ syndrome, not to mention distorting teaching decisions that are detrimental to the overall development of student knowledge and understanding. Part of the problem with assessment in education seems (...) to revolve around the nature of knowledge and how best to assess human knowledge and understanding. Although much philosophical uncertainty and disagreement exists surrounding the nature of knowledge, I argue that coming to know something is a sine qua non of any education. In saying this, I highlight the limits of assessment by demonstrating how certain activities are resistant to large-scale public testing because they are not easily reducible to facts which can be tested for, or at least in the same way as propositional forms of knowledge. Consequently, my argument is a philosophical one to the effect that assessment, particularly large-scale public testing is incapable of assessing all forms of learning, or even the quality of student understanding because the instruments available are both too blunt and tend to capture a certain kind of knowledge that privileges theory over practice, and mental skills over physical skills. (shrink)