Polls show that 45% of the American public believes that humans were created about 10,000 years ago and that evolution is a fictitious myth. Another 25% believes that changes in the natural world are directed by a supernatural being with a particular goal in mind. This thinking clashes head on with scientific findings from the past 150 years, and there is a dearth of public critical thinking about the natural world within a scientific framework. Evolution and Religious Creation Myths seeks (...) to educate and arm the public on the differences between myth and science, fiction and theory. The book begins with a whirlwind tour of creation stories from several religions. The authors then explore how certain forms of religious fundamentalism clash with the science of evolution. They review how creationists and intelligent design proponents misuse and misrepresent scientific terminology and conclusions to further their own agendas. How do scientists respond to this threat? Modern science, which includes a level of indeterminacy, or chance, cannot support the premise that a supernatural designer engineered nature for a particular purpose in a deterministic fashion. This holds true for the creation of the universe, the appearance of the first biological molecules, chemical evolution, and the evolution of life forms through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. Instead, human biological and cultural evolution is described within a genetic framework. Scientists use a barrage of genetic tests and DNA phylogenies to support the scientific basis for evolution. For anyone who has ever needed to argue why evolution and creationism are not both valid theories that deserve equal attention, this book clearly defines the difference between theory and myth. Scientists, teachers, and defenders of the truth should read this book in preparation for when they are called upon to respond. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at the Marshall family home, often attending dinn...

Drawing on the work of Enrique Dussel, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and other scholars of colonialism, this essay traces colonialist legacies in the popular global-ethics literature. I argue that colonialist elements implicit in prominent global-ethics anthologies can foster attitudes of superiority over and aloofness toward economically struggling communities, even when the texts argue for aid to “the global poor.” Finally, I offer suggestions for how those of us who study and teach global ethics in the affluent world might begin to (...) unsettle colonialist baggage and cultivate skills more conducive to democratic global communities. (shrink)

In recent decades, the literature of global ethics has promoted greater and more rigorous attention to transnational moral responsibilities. This essay argues, however, that prominent global-ethics anthologies remain burdened by Eurocentric/colonialist elements that contradict efforts to build more ethical transnational communities. Drawing on scholars of coloniality, including Enrique Dussel, Anibal Quijano, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, the essay traces colonialist elements in deep structures of prominent global ethics texts. It examines how, even when texts argue for aid to the poor, (...) these elements foster tendencies in the affluent world to detach from and dehumanize people on the other side of global hierarchies. They also deprive academic readers of the insights of grassroots global-justice struggles. The essay concludes by sketching some directions that those of us who study and teach global ethics might pursue in order to unsettle colonialist baggage and cultivate skills and relationships more conducive to ethical global communities. (shrink)

Introduction Introduction / Jan de Vries 1 Art in History / Gary Schwartz 7 History in Art / J. W. Smit 17 Pt. I Art and Reality Market Scenes As Viewed by an Art Historian / Linda Stone-Ferrier 29 Market Scenes As Viewed by a Plant Biologist / Willem A. Brandenburg 59 Marine Paintings and the History of Shipbuilding / Richard W. Unger 75 Skies and Reality in Dutch Landscape / John Walsh 95 Some Notes on Interpretation / (...) E. de Jongh 119 Are These Girls Really So Neat? On Kitchen Scenes and Method / Jochen Becker 139 Didactic and Disguised Meanings? Several Seventeenth-Century Texts on Painting and the Iconological Approach to Northern Dutch Paintings of This Period / Eric J. Sluijter 175 The Changing Face of Realism / Lyckle de Vries 209 Pt. II Art, Economy, and Society Art History / Jan de Vries 249 The Volume and Value of Paintings in Holland at the Time of the Dutch Republic / Ad van der Woude 285 Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions / John Michael Montias 331 Conclusion Science, Commerce, and Art: Neglected Topics at the Junction of History and Art History / David Freedberg 377 Biographical Notes on the Authors 429 Index. (shrink)

This was published in Cultural Critique (Winter 1991-92), pp. 5-32; revised and reprinted in Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity edited by Judith Roof and Robyn Wiegman, University of Illinois Press, 1996; and in Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds edited by Susan Weisser and Jennifer Fleischner, (New York: New York University Press, 1994); and also in Racism and Sexism: Differences and Connections eds. David Blumenfeld and Linda Bell, Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

This is the first book to offer a systematic account of feminist philosophy as a distinctive field of philosophy. The book introduces key issues and debates in feminist philosophy including: the nature of sex, gender, and the body; the relation between gender, sexuality, and sexual difference; whether there is anything that all women have in common; and the nature of birth and its centrality to human existence. An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy shows how feminist thinking on these and related topics (...) has developed since the 1960s. The book also explains how feminist philosophy relates to the many forms of feminist politics. The book provides clear, succinct and readable accounts of key feminist thinkers including de Beauvoir, Butler, Gilligan, Irigaray, and MacKinnon. The book also introduces other thinkers who have influenced feminist philosophy including Arendt, Foucault, Freud, and Lacan. Accessible in approach, this book is ideal for students and researchers interested in feminist philosophy, feminist theory, womens studies, and political theory. It will also appeal to the general reader. (shrink)

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants belonging to one of four groups were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual-task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non-musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual-task performance, musicians also (...) outperformed non-musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long-term musical training is associated with improvements in task switching and dual-task performance. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I argue that to understand the ethics of belief we need to put it in a context of what we care about. Epistemic values always arise from something we care about and they arise only from something we care about. It is caring that gives rise to the demand to be epistemically conscientious. The reason morality puts epistemic demands on us is that we care about morality. But there may be a (small) class of beliefs which (...) it is not wrong to hold unconscientiously. I also argue that epistemic values enjoy a privileged place in the panorama of what we care about because they are entailed by anything we care about. That means that when there is a conflict between caring about knowledge or true belief and caring about something else, that conflict cannot be resolved simply by following the one we care about the most because caring about knowledge in any domain is entailed by caring about that domain. Finally, I argue that whereas caring demands different degrees of conscientiousness in different contexts, contextualism about knowledge is less plausible. (shrink)

The attention for Moral case deliberation has increased over the past years. Previous research on MCD is often written from the perspective of MCD experts or MCD participants and we lack a more distant view to the role of MCD in Dutch health care institutions in general. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the state of the art concerning MCD in the Netherlands. As part of a larger national study on clinical ethics support in the (...) Netherlands, we will focus on the prevalence and characteristics of MCD in Dutch health. A mixed methods design was used in which we combined two survey questionnaires, two focus groups and 17 individual interviews with top managers or ethics support staff. The findings demonstrate that the prevalence of MCD is relatively high in Dutch health care, especially in mental health care. Institutions with MCD differ from institutions without MCD concerning size, kind of problems and importance of ideological background. Characteristic of MCD is that it often exists for 3 years or more, has a high participation of health professionals and middle managers and is both organized scheduled as unscheduled. As well integration in existing policy as key persons emerge as important issues in relation to the positioning of MCD. We conclude that MCD is a part of an integrated ethics policy and serves as a catalyst for such an integrated ethics policy. (shrink)

In this paper I explore white attempts to move toward a proactive position against racism that will amount to more than self-criticism in the following three ways: by assessing the debate within feminism over white women's relation to whiteness; by exploring "white awareness training" methods developed by Judith Katz and the "race traitor" politics developed by Ignatiev and Garvey, and; a case study of white revisionism being currently attempted at the University of Mississippi.

Ethics support is called for to improve the quality of care in elderly institutions. Various forms of ethics support are presented, but the needs for ethics support remain unknown. Using a mixed-methods design, this article systematically investigates the specific needs for ethics support in elderly care. The findings of two surveys, two focus groups and 17 interviews demonstrate that the availability of ethics support is limited. There is a need for ethics support, albeit not unconditionally. Advice-based forms of ethics support (...) are less appropriate as they are removed from practice. Ethics support should be tailored to the often mundane and easily overlooked moral issues that arise in long-term care. Attention should also be given to the learning styles of nurses who favour experiential learning. Raising awareness and developing a climate of openness and dialogue are the most suitable ways to deal with the mundane moral issues in elderly care. (shrink)

The book is designed to be of interest to women's studies students wishing an introduction to a specifically philosophical analysis of the problem of sex objectification, as well as to philosophers interested in the contemporary moral issues of sexism and sex stereotyping.

Both experimental and ethnographic studies show that reciprocal exchanges (in which actors unilaterally provide benefits to each other without formal agreements) produce stronger trust than negotiated exchanges secured by binding agreements. We develop the theoretical role of risk and uncertainty as causal mechanisms that potentially explain these results, and then test their effects in two laboratory experiments that vary risk and uncertainty within negotiated and reciprocal forms of exchange. We increase risk in negotiated exchanges by making agreements nonbinding and decrease (...) uncertainty in reciprocal exchanges by having actors communicate their intentions. Our findings support three main theoretical conclusions. (1) Increasing risk in negotiated exchange produces levels of trust comparable to those in reciprocal exchange only if the partner's trustworthiness is near-absolute. (2) Decreasing uncertainty in reciprocal exchange either increases or decreases trust, depending on network structure. (3) Even when reciprocal and negotiated exchanges produce comparable levels of trust, their trust differs in kind, with reciprocal exchange partners developing trust that is more resilient and affect-based. (shrink)

As hospital ethics committees become more common in American hospitals, their degree of success should be measured. Just as new technological procedures are evaluated, institutional innovations should also be evaluated. Currently, little is known about the success of HECs, and some authors have wondered whether these committees serve any useful purpose at all. This article reviews the descriptive results of a 1990 study on HEC success as they pertain to the question of how to measure committee success.

Using an interdisciplinary approach to reading Plato's Apology of Socrates, I argue that the counter penalty offered by Socrates, what is commonly translated as maintenance in the Prytaneion, was a literary addition from Plato, resembling comic topoi from Aristophanes. I begin with the accounts we have from Plato and Xenophon, then analyze the culture and context of the Prytaneion. Given the evidence, I provide arguments for why the historical Socrates wouldn't respond with sitēsis in the Prytaneion. I suggest that Plato (...) borrows the grammatical phrase from Aristophanes' Knights. (shrink)

In abductive planning, plans are constructed as reasons for an agent to act: plans are demonstrations in logical theory of action that a goal will result assuming that given actions occur successfully. This paper shows how to construct plans abductively for an agent that can sense the world to augment its partial information. We use a formalism that explicitly refers not only to time but also to the information on which the agent deliberates. Goals are reformulated to represent the successive (...) stages of deliberation and action the agent follows in carrying out a course of action, while constraints on assumed actions ensure that an agent at each step performs a specific action selected for its known effects. The result is a simple formalism that can directly inform extensions to implemented planners. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:2005 International Lotus Sutra ConferenceLeo D. LefebureIn May 2005 Rissho Kosei-kai sponsored its annual conference on the Lotus Sutra for the first time in China, at the new conference center of Beijing Normal University. Chinese Buddhist scholars Zhang Fenglei and Wei Dedong of Renmin University participated, offering discussions of "Earthly Orientation of Tiantai Buddhist Doctrine" and "Zhanran's Doctrine about the Nature of Insentient Beings and Its Ecological Implications," respectively. (...) While the main focus of the discussions at the conference was on Buddhist interpretations of the Lotus Sutra in the T'ien T'ai and Tendai traditions, the organizers invited two Christian theologians, Ruben Habito and Leo Lefebure, to participate, thereby adding an interreligious dimension. An illness in his family prevented Habito from attending, but the paper he had prepared, "Ultimate Reality and Religious Praxis: The Lotus Sutra, T'ien T'ai, and Nichiren," was presented and discussed. On the morning of the first full day, Lefebure presented the paper "Wisdom, Compassion, and Charity: The Lotus Sutra and Augustine." In it he compared the rhetorical strategies of the Lotus Sutra and Augustine. The Lotus Sutra and Augustine articulate a dilemma of communication: the Sutra notes that only another Buddha can understand the wisdom of Shakyamuni Buddha, and Augustine warns that no human understanding is adequate to comprehend the mystery of God. According to the Lotus Sutra, the resolution of this difficulty comes through the use of upaya or, more specifically, upaya-kausalya, variously translated as "expedient" or "skillful" or "appropriate" means, including similes and parables. The wisdom of the Buddha that cannot be captured conceptually through pondering or analysis may nonetheless be conveyed in nonliteral form through concrete narratives, and the Lotus Sutra presents a number of celebrated examples. These narratives promise to transform human existence decisively, freeing humans from attachments and awakening them to wisdom (prajna) and compassion (karuna). Through [End Page 195] wisdom and compassion the Buddha establishes skillful means in order heal the suffering of human beings and to lead them into these virtues.During the same time that Kumarajiva and his companions were translating the Lotus Sutra into Chinese, Augustine of Hippo proclaimed that the gospel of Jesus Christ offered humans the possibility of victory over ignorance, sin, and death and supreme bliss in union with God in heaven. But he also insisted that God is strictly incomprehensible and the divine reality cannot be captured in any concept or image. Pondering and analysis cannot grasp the meaning of God, and so Augustine warned his congregation, "If you have comprehended, what you have comprehended is not God." Despite the inadequacy of all human thought and language to comprehend God, Augustine trusted that God has used finite signs, like the narratives of the Bible, to communicate the saving knowledge of God's love. Signs point to realities; even though the signs posited by God never express the divine reality adequately and literally, they can nonetheless reorient human life away from untrammeled, self-destructive desire (cupiditas) and toward the self-giving love that Augustine calls charity (caritas). The wisdom and charity of God are the origin and content of the salvific signs, whose goal is to lead humans into the wisdom and charity of God.Other papers explored the journey of the Lotus Sutra on the Silk Road (Mariko Walter), Mind/Nature in Zhanran and Zhili (Brook Ziporyn), relative and absolute subtlety in Zhiyi and Jizang (Kanno Hiroshi), interpretations of the theory of Buddha-nature (Linda Penkower and Sandra Wawrytko), later Japanese Tendai interpretations (Paul Groner and Jacqueline Stone), and the making of vows in the Lotus Sutra (Shinozaki Michio). While Lefebure's paper was the only explicitly Buddhist-Christian discussion, comparisons between the traditions ran throughout many of the conversations.On the morning of the last day of the conference, Lefebure responded to Shinozaki's paper and to many of the themes that had been circulating throughout the week. He agreed strongly with Shinozaki's insistence that "how we read the sutra, where we read it, when we read it, and for whom we read it are quite important." There is no view from nowhere or from everywhere. Our contemporary horizon increasingly includes the situation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:To Recognize the Person: Learning from Narratives of Psychiatric TreatmentLinda J. MorrisonTo know what patients endure at the hands of illness and therefore to be of clinical help requires that doctors enter the worlds of their patients, if only imaginatively, and to see and interpret these worlds from the patient’s point of view(Charon, 2006, p. 9).These narratives of psychiatric hospitalization are rich and evocative. We are fortunate to have (...) twelve descriptions appearing side-by-side, each unique in its focus, outlook, detail and narrative tone. Together their interwoven contexts describe personal and work relationships, internal and external help-seeking, encounters in community and hospital settings, and experiences of the psychiatric (psychiatrized) self as supplicant, victim, recipient, participant, product, and active agent over time (Morrison, 2005).Through their collected narratives, the authors create a distinct counterpoint to the more familiar clinical narratives of psychiatric encounters. Ordinarily the professional narrative drives interpretation of a clinical experience, whether medical or psychiatric. The caregivers populating these narratives would probably tell different stories, and the hospital notes and treatment records yet another (Hinsby & Baker, 2004; VanDerNagel et al., 2009). The disjunction between professional and patient narrative is especially true for psychiatric hospitalizations, in which the inpatient’s active narrative becomes a part of the diagnostic and treatment process (Steslow, 2010).In this symposium, the patient’s narrative is a window for interpretive insights into personal experience of the process. Each is a situated retrospective, in which added dimensions of feeling, thought and interaction provide the reader a fuller and more complex awareness of the experience of psychiatric hospitalization. The narratives provide insights about choice and agency, control and harm, safety and strength, hope and frustration, resilience and recovery, empathy and humanity; they also reveal various ethical issues related to the experience of help-seeking and treatment.It is vital to consider what each person wrote: what choices they made in representing their experience; what aspects they focused on, and what they (we imagine) left out. The authors used their own voices to create their own representations. In each narrative, “the person” provides an important standpoint. Who is this person, what is his or her experience? Where is the person in the situation; in what way does he or she appear to those who provide treatment or care? How, if at all, is the treatment pertinent to the person’s concerns? Does it feel helpful or harmful? How does the person find a way to continue, to push through, with the help of (or in spite of) those we hope are providing care? This is the first sign of agency, of choice, of “dreaming.” [End Page 35]As V. Barnard writes in Dreaming: A Recovery Story, “to make a film, one has to dream it first.” All of the authors in this symposium took the risk and the opportunity to create their own stories: what to include, what to leave out, how to tell what they wanted to say. These choices gave them the power to dream: how it was, how it might have been; how it felt, good and bad; the chance to represent their own reality—to themselves, and to unknown others (Morrison, 2006).Dreaming, Choice and Agency“My psychiatric illness is only one part of me. I am a person with hopes, dreams, love, an artist and a fellow helper of my peers.” V. BarnardV.’s narrative describes the potential for positive action, of dreaming herself as a whole into existence. Her themes of choice and agency emphasize the importance of autonomy and the capacity for autonomous action. On the farm, V. was free to choose and take risks, to take on responsibilities, to be “treated with respect as a human being trying to get better rather than a criminal suffering from something that was optional.” From disconnection, she was able to find connection, on her own terms.The support of peers adds a valuable dimension. Being recognized as a peer, a person who shares similar psychiatric experiences and respects the challenge of everyday life, brings another level to supportive relationships. Negative judgments and stigma are reduced by mutual support and acknowledgement of common goals. Mental health... (shrink)

Traditional views separate cognitive processes from sensory–motor processes, seeing cognition as amodal, propositional, and compositional, and thus fundamentally different from the processes that underlie perceiving and acting. These were the ideas on which cognitive science was founded 30 years ago. However, advancing discoveries in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and psychology suggests that cognition may be inseparable from processes of perceiving and acting. From this perspective, this study considers the future of cognitive science with respect to the study of cognitive development.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Will to Power in Nietzsche’s Published Works and the NachlassLinda L. WilliamsIt is universally acknowledged by scholars of Nietzsche’s work that will to power is one of the most important notions in Nietzsche’s writings, but strangely, like the other “central” notions of eternal recurrence and the Übermensch, there are relatively few aphorisms in either the published or unpublished material that include the term. In the case of will to (...) power, however, Nietzsche promises in a footnote in On the Genealogy of Morals to discuss and explore the notion of will to power in a book entitled The Will to Power. 1 Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, among others, have argued persuasively that Nietzsche abandoned this project. 2 Nevertheless, the phrase “will to power” remains the most notorious feature of Nietzsche’s philosophy, probably due to its unfortunate and mistaken connections with the Third Reich. As Walter Kaufmann notes, the notion of will to power did not “spring fully formed from Nietzsche’s brow like Pallas Athena.” 3 This was an idea that evolved over time. This paper examines both the published and his unpublished writings (the Nachlass) to gain a better understanding of how this important phrase developed.The Nachlass can be divided roughly into three different kinds of work. 4 The first kind is comprised of the works Nietzsche was editing right before his collapse. These works are Ecce Homo, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and The Antichrist, and they were so polished that we can safely take them as [End Page 447] equal in status to the works that Nietzsche had already published or, like Twilight of the Idols, were being published at the time of his collapse. The second kind are Nietzsche’s early, finished pieces that were never published, the so-called Schriften, primarily his lectures and writings while he was employed at Basel. These pieces are presumably complete and polished, although Nietzsche chose not to publish them, but they do not affect this inquiry, since will to power was a relatively late concept for Nietzsche.The third kind of work consists of Nietzsche’s notes, which vary from sentence fragments or single sentences to sketchy outlines of various projects to several long paragraphs in essay form. Nietzsche’s notebooks looked like anyone’s notebook, with passages lined out, words jotted in the margins, and overwriting. Some of the entries in the Nachlass can be found with only minor revisions in the books Nietzsche had published, and since he painstakingly recopied his books in his neatest handwriting right before he sent them to his editor, these strikingly similar entries are most probably the penultimate copy drafts of the published aphorisms.The writings that did not find their way into publication in any form are problematic. Are they rough drafts of some future work which Nietzsche was unable to complete due to his illness? If so, some of these controversial notes would have been waiting for years. Are they ideas that Nietzsche entertained but ultimately rejected? If so, we should not place them on par with the ideas in his published works. Even if we consider these notes rough drafts of future works, it remains unclear whether we should consider what is written in these notes to be as indicative of what Nietzsche thought as the works he authorized for publication. Sometimes what is written in the unpublished notes on a particular topic is very different from what is written on that topic in the published works. Bernd Magnus made this kind of case against the Nachlass notes concerning eternal recurrence, 5 and I want to make a similar claim about the notes concerning will to power. Reviewing the Nachlass notes in conjunction with the published aphorisms will give us a better understanding of how the published and unpublished notes differ.The term “will to power” (Wille zur Macht) first appeared in publication in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 6 In the aphorism “On 1001 Goals” Nietzsche describes a people’s tablets of good and bad as the voice of its will to power. Wille zur Macht appears in only two more aphorisms in the course of this long work, in “On Self-Overcoming” and in... (shrink)

We explore an analogue of major subset for Π0 1 classes, which leads to the definition and characterization of almost complemented Π0 1 classes.

cal practice: the enterprise of specifying information about the world for use in computer systems. Knowledge representation as a field also encompasses conceptual results that call practitioners’ attention to important truths about the world, mathematical results that allow practitioners to make these truths precise, and computational results that put these truths to work. This chapter surveys this practice and its results, as it applies to the interpretation of natural language utterances in implemented natural language processing systems. For a broader perspective (...) on such technical practice, in all its strengths and weaknesses, see (Agre 1997). Knowledge representation offers a powerful general tool for the science of language. Computational logic, a prototypical formalism for representing knowledge about the world, is also the model for the level of logical form that linguists use to characterize the grammar of meaning (Larson and Segal 1995). And researchers from (Schank and Abelson 1977) to (Shieber 1993) and (Bos to appear) have relied crucially on such representations, and the inference methods associated with them, in articulating accounts of semantic relations in language, such as synonymy, entailment, informativeness and contradiction. The new textbooks (Blackburn and Bos 2002a, Blackburn and Bos 2002b) provide an excellent grounding in this research, and demonstrate how deeply computational ideas from knowledge representation can inform pure linguistic study. In this short chapter, I must leave much of.. (shrink)

The mid-twentieth century saw the introduction of a new general model of processes, COMPUTATION, with the work of scientists such as Turing, Chomsky, Newell and Simon.1 This model so revolutionized the intellectual world that the dominant scientific programs of the day—spearheaded by such eminent scientists as Hilbert, Bloomfield and Skinner—are today remembered as much for the way computation exposed their stark limitations as for their positive contributions.2 Ever since, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has defined itself as the subfield (...) of computer science dedicated to the understanding of intelligent entities as computational processes. Now, drawing on fifty years of results of increasing breadth and applicability, we can also characterize AI research as a concrete practice: an ENGINEER-. (shrink)

Explains how yoga practitioners can deepen and enrich their relationships with family and friends, as well as become more engaged with their communities.

Maintaining two full-time careers has required sacrifice, of course. On a recent Saturday Night Live, as an obvious plug, one of the actors carried a copy of The Chomsky Reader throughout a skit. Albert telephoned Chomsky to say, "Hey, you're on television!" and found himself having to explain what Saturday Night Live is. So Chomsky doesn't know anything about popular culture. He doesn't watch TV. He doesn't listen to rock & roll. He goes to maybe one movie a year. He (...) has little time for a private life. (shrink)

This satirical book review humorously attacks two targets. The first is the formality and audacity of the book review proper; the second is the book Hating Perfection, the two copies sent to every APA member (American Philosophical Association). The book review was written for the Lighthearted Philosophers' Society and submitted for publication in their special anniversary journal.

In this essay, I examine Luce Irigaray’s aesthetic of sexual difference, which she develops by extrapolating from Paul Klee’s idea that the role of painting is to render the non-visible rather than represent the visible. This idea is the premise of her analyses of phenomenology and psychoanalysis and their respective contributions to understanding art and sexual identity. I claim that Irigaray assembles an aesthetic of sexual difference that exceeds these familiar intellectual traditions, one that articulates the encounter of non-visible, material (...) forces that engender modes of sexuate being and becoming. I further claim that this encounter is the very matter of artistry and art-making. (shrink)

As is so often the case in a common law system, the legal protection conferred by one strand of law is undermined by other legal provisions. There is no blanket legal duty which compels health care professionals to undergo HIV/AIDS tests; on the other hand, appropriately drafted contracts of employment, duties imposed by courts on employees and the risk of litigation by patients with pressurise individual workers to submit to testing. Whereas in Italy the law clearly condemned any compulsory testing (...) of health care workeers, but must now be interpreted to support it, in England and Wales each individual worker's case must be examined in order to determine whether testing must be submitted to. (shrink)