In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points (...) that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms. (shrink)

This bibliography constitutes the most extensive compilation of references on Nathaniel Branden yet published.

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

The behavior of some systems is non-computable in a precise new sense. One infamous problem is that of the stability of the solar system: Given the initial positions and velocities of several mutually gravitating bodies, will any eventually collide or be thrown off to infinity? Many have made vague suggestions that this and similar problems are undecidable: no finite procedure can reliably determine whether a given configuration will eventually prove unstable. But taken in the most natural way, this is trivial. (...) The state of a system corresponds to a point in a continuous space, and virtually no set of points in space is strictly decidable. A new, more pragmatic concept is therefore introduced: a set is decidable up to measure zero (d.m.z.) if there is a procedure to decide whether a point is in that set and it only fails on some points that form a set of zero volume. This is motivated by the intuitive correspondence between volume and probability: we can ignore a zero-volume set of states because the state of an arbitrary system almost certainly will not fall in that set. D.m.z. is also closer to the intuition of decidability than other notions in the literature, which are either less strict or apply only to special sets, like closed sets. Certain complicated sets are not d.m.z., most remarkably including the set of known stable orbits for planetary systems (the KAM tori). This suggests that the stability problem is indeed undecidable in the precise sense of d.m.z. Carefully extending decidability concepts from idealized models to actual systems, we see that even deterministic aspects of physical behavior can be undecidable in a clear and significant sense. (shrink)

Shors & Matzel set up a straw man, that LTP is a memory storage mechanism, and knock him down without due consideration of the important relations among different levels of organization and analysis regarding LTP, learning, and memory. Assessing these relationships requires analysis and hypotheses linking specific brain regions, neural circuits, plasticity mechanisms, and task demands. The issue addressed by the authors is important, but their analysis is off target.

In “Diversifying Effective Altruism’s Longshots in Animal Advocacy”, Matthew C. Halteman acknowledges the value of aspects of the EA method but considers two potential critical concerns. First, it isn’t always clear that effective altruism succeeds in doing the most good, especially where long-shots like foiling misaligned AI or producing meat without animals are concerned. Second, one might worry that investing large sums of money in long-shots like these, even if they do succeed, has the opportunity cost of (...) failing adequately to combat systemic injustice in the shorter term. This chapter explains each of these reservations and goes on to suggest some exciting new initiatives—institution-building in Black veganism, higher education, and religious communities—that could mitigate these reservations, energize and diversify the movement, and remain true to the EA method of supporting underexploited but potentially high-impact causes that produce non-fungible goods otherwise unlikely to be funded. (shrink)

There is an old saw in health policy that everyone wants health care that is good, fast, and cheap — but it’s impossible to have more than two of these at one time.A similar bit of folk wisdom seems intuitively true for the development and testing of new pharmaceutical products. The public is in a bind. We want breakthrough drugs, and fast. But we also want these drugs to be affordable, thoroughly tested, safe, and effective. It seems we can’t have (...) it all.In this paper, we will not claim that one can have it all — but that we can do far better than we are at present. First, we review extensive data on contemporary problems in the design, conduct, and analysis of industry-sponsored clinical trials. Finding major issues that have been solidly documented over more than a decade, we provide many examples of the multifarious ways in which industry-funded trials have been manipulated to raise the likelihood of producing industry-friendly results. (shrink)

Cognitive control has long been one of the most active areas of computational modeling work in cognitive science. The focus on computational models as a medium for specifying and developing theory predates the PDP books, and cognitive control was not one of the areas on which they focused. However, the framework they provided has injected work on cognitive control with new energy and new ideas. On the occasion of the books' anniversary, we review computational modeling in the study of (...) cognitive control, with a focus on the influence that the PDP approach has brought to bear in this area. Rather than providing a comprehensive review, we offer a framework for thinking about past and future modeling efforts in this domain. We define control in terms of the optimal parameterization of task processing. From this vantage point, the development of control systems in the brain can be seen as responding to the structure of naturalistic tasks, through the filter of the brain systems with which control directly interfaces. This perspective lays open a set of fascinating but difficult research questions, which together define an important frontier for future computational research. (shrink)

Effective human–robot teaming increasingly requires humans to work with intelligent, autonomous machines. However, novel features of intelligent autonomous systems such as social agency and incomprehensibility may influence the human’s trust in the machine. The human operator’s mental model for machine functioning is critical for trust. People may consider an intelligent machine partner as either an advanced tool or as a human-like teammate. This article reports a study that explored the role of individual differences in the mental model in a simulated (...) environment. Multiple dispositional factors that may influence the dominant mental model were assessed. These included the Robot Threat Assessment, which measures the person’s propensity to apply tool and teammate models in security contexts. Participants were paired with an intelligent robot tasked with making threat assessments in an urban setting. A transparency manipulation was used to influence the dominant mental model. For half of the participants, threat assessment was described as physics-based ; the remainder received transparency information that described psychological cues. We expected that the physics-based transparency messages would guide the participant toward treating the robot as an advanced machine, while psychological messaging would encourage perceptions of the robot as acting like a human partner. We also manipulated situational danger cues present in the simulated environment. Participants rated their trust in the robot’s decision as well as threat and anxiety, for each of 24 urban scenes. They also completed the RoTA and additional individual-difference measures. Findings showed that trust assessments reflected the degree of congruence between the robot’s decision and situational danger cues, consistent with participants acting as Bayesian decision makers. Several scales, including the RoTA, were more predictive of trust when the robot was making psychology-based decisions, implying that trust reflected individual differences in the mental model of the robot as a teammate. These findings suggest scope for designing training that uncovers and mitigates the individual’s biases toward intelligent machines. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

Differences between human beings have long been used to justify a range of degrading, exclusionary, and murderous practices that strip people of their humanity and dignity. While considerable scholarship has been devoted to such dehumanization, Matthew S. Weinert asks how we might conceive its reverse—humanization, or what it means to “make human.” Weinert proposes an account of making human centered on five mechanisms: reflection, recognition, resistance, replication of dominant mores, and responsibility. Examining cases such as the UN Security (...) Council’s engagements with crises and the International Court of Justice’s grappling with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, he illustrates the distinct and contingent ways these mechanisms have been deployed. Theoretically, the cases evince a complex, evolving relationship between state-centric and human-centric views of society, ultimately revealing the normative potentialities of both. Though the case studies concern specific human relations issues on an international level, Weinert argues in favor of starting from the shared problem of being human and of living in a world in which the humanity of countless groups has been demeaned or denied. Working outward from that point, he proposes, we obtain a more pragmatically grounded understanding of the social construction of the human being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life ed. by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew LeveringMatthew ShadleRessourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life Edited by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew Levering Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. 409 pp. $64.95This edited volume is a festschrift in honor of Romanus Cessario, OP, but, as its title suggests, it also has the larger (...) goal of showing that “ressourcement does not dispense with, but in fact requires, Thomism” (3). The contributors’ efforts to bring to light the insights of Aquinas are organized into three sections: theological method, sacramental theology, and moral theology.Readers of this journal will be most interested in the latter section. Highlights include Craig Steven Titus’s response to Jean Porter’s criticism of Aquinas’s doctrine of the unity of the virtues, in which Titus claims that Aquinas has a more developed awareness of moral struggle and development, even among the virtuous, than Porter allows, and that therefore Aquinas is not averse to the idea of a “flawed saint” (331). Steven A. Long distinguishes between acts that are necessary for the completion of a given end and those that are not, arguing that for the former the end defines the species of the act whereas the latter possess their own end and species independent of further intentions. Long’s purpose is to refute Martin Rhonheimer’s contention that condoms can be used by married couples to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by showing that the use of condoms is not necessary for this purpose (since abstinence is also available), and therefore that such use must be considered an act of contraception regardless of any other good intentions involved. Joseph W. Koterski provides an excellent overview of the classical roots of the natural law theory and its modern exponents that could be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses, although the essay seems mismatched for the volume since the likely reader will probably find little new in it.An evaluation of the overall project of the volume requires a reading of the essays in the first section on theological method. Thomas Joseph White points to the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as two extremes in the debate over historicity in theology: “in one we find history without sufficient recourse to dogma, while in the other we have dogma without sufficient recourse to history” (96). White insists that [End Page 218] theologians must find the proper balance between the two. It is not entirely apparent that those loosely identified with ressourcement Thomism have found this balance, if “recourse to history” includes sensitivity to the questions and concerns of one’s own age. In many of the essays in this volume it is unclear whose questions the authors’ exegeses of Aquinas are meant to answer, although other essays are quite engaging. Of course historical exegesis is necessary, but those involved in the mid-twentieth-century patristic ressourcement understood that the recovery of the sources was necessary precisely as an answer to the burning questions of the contemporary world. This is not accommodation, since the Christian tradition proposes something new to the world, but it proposes it with the confidence that human questioning is rooted in the innate desire for the triune God. The advocates of the earlier ressourcement saw the Thomism of their day as an obstacle to this dialogue between the Christian tradition and the contemporary world. The project of ressourcement Thomism will succeed to the extent that it shows how the teachings of Thomas Aquinas can contribute to this dialogue. [End Page 219]Matthew ShadleLoras CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Integrity is sometimes conceived in terms of the wholeness of the individual, such that persons who experience temptations or other sorts of inner conflicts, afflictions, or divisions of self would seem to lack integrity to a greater or lesser degree. I contrast this understanding of integrity—which I label psychological integrity —with a different conception which I call practical integrity . On the latter conception, persons can manifest integrity in spite of the various factors mentioned above, so long as they (...) remain true to their commitments in action and deliberation. Although psychological harmony is one feature reasonably associated with integrity, I suggest that practical integrity captures other features of character and action often (and reasonably) related to ascriptions of integrity. Practical integrity remains possible even for those who must confront, manage, and control factors that give rise to various kinds of inner conflict. (shrink)

The university has long been oriented toward a meritocratic ideal that emphasizes individual labor and individual measures of success. However, recent studies showing the professorate to be depressed, lonely, and extremely anxious about their future careers raise questions about the merits of such meritocracy. Drawing upon classical sociological theories of solidarity as well as recent scholarship on meritocracy in American culture this essay argues that the meritocratic ideals of contemporary academia have stripped it of the ability to produce the (...) genuine solidarity that sustains communities. (shrink)

What is a self? What does it mean to have selfhood? What is the relationship between selfhood and identity? These are puzzling questions that philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, and many other researchers often grapple with. -/- Self and Identity is a book that explores and brings together relevant ideas on selfhood and identity, while also helping to clarify some important and long standing scientific and philosophical debates. It will enable readers to understand the difference between selves in humans and (...) other animals, and the different selves that we come to possess from when we are born to when we become old. It also explains how and why the self might break down due to mental illness, thereby providing insight into how we might treat illnesses such as dementia and depression, both of which are conditions that fundamentally affect our selfhood. -/- Taking an important step towards clarifying our understanding of human selfhood and applying it to mental illness, this book will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students exploring philosophical questions of selfhood, as well as those examining the connection to clinical disorders. (shrink)

Among mainstream political philosophers, Charles Mills is probably best known, not as the author of The Racial Contract, but for his long-running critique of ideal theory and Rawls for his association with it. Yet the critique of ideal theory that followed the publication of The Racial Contract is prefigured in that very work, where we find in inchoate form what would be further developed later on. In the book, this early formulation of the critique occupies a small part of (...) a larger, more general argument condemning mainstream political philosophy for the way that it has ignored race. In this paper, I explore the relation of the critique to this more general argument. It might be thought that the general argument leads inevitably to the critique of ideal theory. I will argue that this is not so. I will show how Mills’ more general argument can be made without taking the further step of critiquing ideal theorizing. The blame for why mainstream political philosophy has ignored race, and continues to ignore race, I will argue, should be placed elsewhere. (shrink)

If you assume the progression of humanity points to a pattern, then nearly everything you encounter in life is a piece of data in the puzzle of mankind's fate. Does it paint a doom and gloom prospect or is it going somewhere amazing? Matthew Sexton's debut novel is a glimpse into the evolution of humanity and its inherent potential going forward. The goal to marginalize pessimism and negativity is critical to our efforts of progression. But it is not just (...) optimism or wishful thinking that Sexton professes; it's realism based on the wonders of the modern world. Knowledge and its results, such as technology and standardized practices which have proven their worth, are not the products of a single individual's efforts but a 'collective consciousness,' a concerted, connected effort that portends an extraordinary future of boundless possibility. There is no reason to assume this progress is reaching its boundaries or even that they are in sight. Thought provoking and sound in principle, Utopia rising probes without cynicism and with a desire for deeper understanding of the overall complexity, interrelatedness, and nature of our beings. It then goes on to offer suggestions on how to maximize the efforts toward the long range goals and thoughts on what will eventually prove to be the ideals of a future built by mankind's incredible ability to achieve"--Back cover. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to critically assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying the normativity of meaning and its transcendental conditions. Using the pioneering work of Steven Crowell as a springboard, phenomenologists from all over the world examine the promise of phenomenology for illuminating long-standing problems in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, action theory, the philosophy of religion, and moral psychology. The essays are unique in that they engage with the phenomenological tradition not (...) as a collection of authorities to whom we must defer, or a set of historical artifacts we must preserve, but rather as a community of interlocutors with views that bear on important issues in contemporary philosophy. The book is divided into three thematic sections, each examining different clusters of issues aimed at moving the phenomenological project forward. The first section explores the connection between normativity and meaning, and asks us to rethink the relation between the factual realm and the categories of validity in terms of which things can show up as what they are. The second section examines the nature of the self that is capable of experiencing meaning. It includes essays on intentionality, agency, consciousness, naturalism, and moral normativity. The third section addresses questions of philosophical methodology, examining if and why phenomenology should have priority in the analysis of meaning. Finally, the book concludes with an afterword written by Steven Crowell. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline. ks us to rethink the relation between the factual realm and the categories of validity in terms of which things can show up as what they are. The second section examines the nature of the self that is capable of experiencing meaning. It includes essays on intentionality, agency, consciousness, naturalism, and moral normativity. The third section addresses questions of philosophical methodology, examining if and why phenomenology should have priority in the analysis of meaning. Finally, the book concludes with an afterword written by Steven Crowell. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a particular sort of inquiry. Even if coherent, this situation (...) isn’t ideal. My goal in this article is to begin to articulate a more general account of ‘natural kind phenomena’. While I do not claim that this account should satisfy everyone—it is built around a certain conception of the epistemic role of kinds and has an obvious pragmatic flavour—I believe that it has the resources to go further than extant alternatives, in particular the homeostatic property cluster view of kinds. (shrink)

Over a century’s worth of research suggests that “perception” without awareness is a genuine phenomenon. However, relatively little research has explored the question of whether all visually presented information activates representations in long term memory without awareness. Two experiments explored the use of a figure–ground display consisting of competing views in which one view dominates the other such that subjects are unaware of the non-dominant view. Neither experiment provided evidence that the non-dominant view activated its representation in long (...) term memory when the subject failed to report being aware of the embedded word in that priming was not seen on a subsequent stem completion task. In contrast, priming was seen when subjects reported being aware of the embedded word. It is suggested that two competing figure–ground relations are not concurrently computed unconsciously. (shrink)

It has long been believed that membrane proteins present in degradative compartments such as endolysosomes or vacuoles would be destined for destruction. Now however, it appears that mechanisms and machinery exist in simple eukaryotes such as yeast and more complex organisms such as mammals that can rescue potentially “doomed” membrane proteins by retrieving them from these “late” compartments and recycling them back to the Golgi complex. In yeast, a sorting nexin dimer containing Snx4p can recognize and retrieve the Atg27p (...) membrane protein while in mammals, the AP5 complex (with SPG11 and SPG15) directs the recycling of Golgi‐localized proteins along with the cation‐independent mannose 6‐phosphate receptor (CIMPR). Although the respective machinery is different, there is much commonality between yeast and mammals regarding the mechanisms of retrieval and the physiological importance of these late recycling pathways. (shrink)

Science and religion have long been thought incompatible. But nowhere has this apparent contradiction been more fully resolved than in the figure of A. S. Eddington (1882–1944), a pioneer in astrophysics, relativity, and the popularization of science, and a devout Quaker. Practical Mystic uses the figure of Eddington to shows how religious and scientific values can interact and overlap without compromising the integrity of either. Eddington was a world-class scientist who not only maintained his religious belief throughout his scientific (...) career but also defended the interrelation of science and religion while drawing inspiration from both for his practices. For instance, at a time when a strict adherence to deductive principles of physics had proved fruitless for understanding the nature of stars, insights from Quaker mysticism led Eddington to argue that an outlook less concerned with certainty and more concerned with further exploration was necessary to overcome the obstacles of incomplete and uncertain knowledge. By examining this intersection between liberal religion and astrophysics, Practical Mystic questions many common assumptions about the relationship between science and spirituality. Matthew Stanley’s analysis of Eddington’s personal convictions also reveals much about the practice, production, and dissemination of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In his long 1957 paper, “The Theory of the Universal Wave Function”, Hugh Everett III made some significant preliminary steps towards the application and generalization of Shannon’s information theory to quantum mechanics. In the course of doing so, he conjectured that, for a given wavefunction on a compound space, the Schmidt decomposition maximises the correlation between subsystem bases. This is proved here.

For many decades, researchers have explored the true potential of human achievement. The expertise field has come a long way since the early works of de Groot (1965) and Chase and Simon (1973). Since then, this inquiry has expanded into the areas of music, science, technology, sport, academia and art. Despite the vast amount of research to date, the capability of study methodologies to truly capture the nature of expertise remains questionable. Some considerations include (i) the individual bias in (...) the retrospective recall of developmental activities, (ii) the ability to develop ecologically valid tasks, and (iii) difficulties capturing the influence of confounding factors on expertise. This article proposes that expertise research in electronic sports (esports) presents an opportunity to overcome some of these considerations. Esports involves individuals or teams of players that compete in video game competitions via human-computer interaction. Advantages of applying the expert performance approach in esports include (i) developmental activities are objectively tracked and automatically logged online, (ii) the constraints of representative tasks correspond with the real-world environment of esports performance, and (iii) expertise has emerged without the influence of guided systematic training environments. Therefore, this article argues that esports research provides an ideal opportunity to further advance research on the development and assessment of human expertise. (shrink)

Neuroscience has long had an impact on the field of psychiatry, and over the last two decades, with the advent of cognitive neuroscience and functional neuroimaging, that influence has been most pronounced. However, many question whether psychopathology can be understood by relying on neuroscience alone, and highlight some of the perceived limits to the way in which neuroscience informs psychiatry. -/- Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience is a philosophical analysis of the role of neuroscience in the study of psychopathology. The (...) book examines numerous cognitive neuroscientific methods, such as neuroimaging and the use of neuropsychological models, in the context of a variety of psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, dependence syndrome, and personality disorders. -/- Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience includes chapters on the nature of psychiatry as a science; the compatibility of the accounts of mental illness derived from neuroscience, information-processing, and folk psychology; the nature of mental illness; the impact of methods such as fMRI, neuropsychology, and neurochemistry, on psychiatry; the relationship between phenomenological accounts of mental illness and those provided by naturalistic explanations; the status of delusions and the continuity between delusions and ordinary beliefs; the interplay between clinical and empirical findings in psychopathology and issues in moral psychology and ethics. -/- With contributions from world class experts in philosophy and cognitive science, this book will be essential reading for those who have an interest in the importance and the limitations of cognitive neuroscience as an aid to understanding mental illness. (shrink)

"Notes toward a metaphysic of wonder" is the outcome of a "Reciprocal Inquiry" in which Leoni Henning and I participated. In our correspondence, we moved very fast: I thought each of us surprised the other. As a result, I found myself writing about astonishment more elaborately than I'd intended to. Before long I was involved not only with wondering but with awe and bewilderment and amazement, and eager to connect it all with philosophy in Latin America. So these "Notes..." (...) are just a foretaste of what I hope will someday be a more extensive article, but which is only hinted at in the present version. Leoni Maria Padillha Henning’s thoughtful and informative paper, “Pragmatism in Matthew Lipman and its influence in Latin America” is singularly helpful in showing the relevance of Philosophy for Children to Latin-American education. Indeed, the intellectual momentum it generates is a powerful invitation to other educators and scholars to take up the issues where she leaves off. I’d like to take up just one of these issues, one that, on the surface at least, seems to be particularly unpromising. I’m referring to the near-unanimity that exists among scholars with regard to the tradition, descended from Aristotle, that philosophy begins in wonder. My intention is not to attempt to refute this claim, but to show its complicity in defending the traditional non-reflective paradigm of education, which has sturdily resisted the introduction of philosophy into the schools, just as it resists the conversion of the classroom into a community of inquiry. With the proper pedagogy, philosophy can readily be taught to children, and the teaching of philosophy for children can readily be taught to teachers. It is not essential that wonder precede philosophy: it can just as well follow it. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin has long criticized legal positivists for their efforts to distinguish between legal and non-legal standards of conduct that are incumbent on people. Recently, Dworkin has broached this criticism in his hostile account of the debates between Incorporationist Legal Positivists and Exclusive Legal Positivists. Specifically, he has maintained that Incorporationists cannot avoid the unpalatable conclusion that the axioms and theorems of arithmetic are legal norms. This article shows why such a conclusion is indeed avoidable and why Dworkin's criticism (...) is therefore wide of the mark. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Does Meditation Solve the Situationist Crisis in Modern Ethics? A Contemplative Response to John M. DorisMatthew Spencer (bio)There is a good chance you believe in character, in the notions of good character and bad character.1 You may believe in the virtues, too. The virtues are classically said to lead us toward the good, toward the noble, the fine, the honorable (to kalón, to kalon).2 But John M. Doris wants (...) you [End Page 555] to forget about, or move on from, all this talk of virtue and character. There are two suggestions, then: (1) forgetting, (2) thinking about moving on. The two stories are different, and Doris has supported both, sometimes pushing back against his own earlier statements.3 Both stories are powerful, and if we do not assess how they overlap, we will not be in good ethical shape for the future.Why does Doris criticize virtues and character? Virtues, according to the ancient sources, encourage and facilitate our having good ethical dispositions (Anscombe 1958; Keown 1992). If this is right, we ought to have the right kind of (what psychologists today call) traits and, moreover, we can have them.4 Notice, however, that while the virtues may contain or include the having of dispositions, they also extend beyond mere dispositions.According to Aristotle, cultivating courage is to be seen primarily, even exhaustively, as a matter of developing and maintaining the disposition (trait) of courage (Nic. Eth. 1115a6 ff.). However, as others have recognized,5 isolated acts of bravery still count when it comes to calling someone courageous. If you haul a stricken victim from train tracks, you merit the appellation “courageous” even if (especially if) you usually show opposite traits like non-courageousness or cowardice.Furthermore, according to modern virtue ethicists (Russell 2013, pp. 1–28), we must not only have good dispositions but also relate the virtues to the long tradition of what moral philosophy has noticed about the interplay of virtues and character with the moral life in general. Reducing this “moral life” to dispositional virtues is, as the train example indicates, not as attractive as recent writing on virtue ethics suggests.6Because virtues include even if they are not limited to the right kind of traits, they keep us stably disposed to do the right thing whatever the situation. At least, that is the classical picture. The virtues under classical description impact a range of ethically relevant traits, although do note that what “ethical relevance” amounts to is a deep if underexamined question in philosophical ethics; the meanings of “ethical” and “moral” have evolved over time and have not operated in all cultures.Not all cultures, then, have the notions of “moral” and “ethical” that we have, more or less intelligibly, in our own day.7 Arguably, these notions were foreign to Aristotle, as several philosophers from Elizabeth Anscombe to Alasdair MacIntyre have claimed. It may, moreover, be the case that they remained foreign through the early stages of the Western philosophical tradition, much as they also appear foreign to traditions such as Buddhism (MacIntyre 2013, p. 46). The notion that there is some distinguishable realm of “moral matters” as opposed to “nonmoral” matters or to some equally distinguishable realm of “the ethical” is, then, hard to find in the Nicomachean Ethics—despite the name that posterity has given it, with some irony.8 I do not believe the notion can be found, nor that it is named, in the earliest Buddhist texts.9 [End Page 556]The virtues, in any case, are classically designed (arguably in both Aristotle’s works and Buddhism) to give us good ethical dispositions. It is not much use just having a disposition; we need to put it into practice. Defeasible dispositions, in the jargon, do not count for very much—or they do not always count when it matters. The notion, then, that we can have a disposition but not always act upon it because it gets defeated, is controversial.10 How we avoid this fate is a central theme in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Then it matters that, for some years now, Doris has criticized the virtues in ancient and modern authors, deprecating... (shrink)

This article challenges John M. Cooper’s reading of ancient Stoicism as a way of life, one which sets its back against Pierre Hadot’s notion that Stoicism could have philosophically advocated regimens of non-cognitive practices of the kind documented by Hadot. Part 1 examines Arrian’s Discourses, following A. A. Long in seeing in this text Arrian’s portrait of Epictetus as a philosophical persona: one bringing together the different virtues of Socrates, Diogenes, and Zeno. Part 2 then examines Epictetus’s Handbook , (...) seeing in this text—in contrast to Hadot and Sellars—a distinct set of prescriptions for the kinds of existential practices the Roman Stoics advocated, not in place of philosophical argumentation, but as a means to habituate aspirants’ conduct to ways of thinking, desiring and acting harmonious with their philosophical conclusions. (shrink)

Technological advancements in information systems over the past few decades have enabled firms to work with the major suppliers and customers in their supply chain in order to improve the performance of the entire channel. Tremendous benefits for all parties can be realized by sharing information and coordinating operations to reduce inventory requirements, improve quality, and increase customer satisfaction; but the companies must collaborate effectively to bring these gains to fruition. We consider two alternative methods of managing these interfirm supply (...) chain relationships in this article. The first, which we have named “dictatorial collaboration,” occurs when a dominant supply chain entity assumes control of the channel and forces the other firms to follow its edicts. We compare and contrast this method with “sustainable collaboration,” in which the parties share resources and engage in joint problem solving to improve the performance of the system as a whole. We use a virtue ethics lens to describe these methods of relationship management to suggest that sustainable collaboration is preferable to dictatorial collaboration both operationally and ethically in the long run. (shrink)

John Locke s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding begins with a clear statement of an epistemological goal: to explain the limits of human knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. The actual text of the Essay, in stark contrast, takes a long and seemingly meandering path before returning to that goal at the Essay s end one with many detours through questions in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. Over time, Locke scholarship has come to focus on Locke s contributions (...) to these parts of philosophy. In Locke s Science of Knowledge, Priselac refocuses on the Essay s epistemological thread, arguing that the Essay is unified from beginning to end around its compositional theory of ideas and the active role Locke gives the mind in constructing its thoughts. To support the plausibility and demonstrate the value of this interpretation, Priselac argues that contrary to its reputation as being at best sloppy and at worst outright inconsistent Locke s discussion of skepticism and account of knowledge of the external world fits neatly within the Essay s epistemology. ". (shrink)

Ubuntu originated in small-scale societies in precolonial Africa. It stresses metaphysical and moral interconnectedness of humans, and newer Africapitalist approaches absorb ubuntu ideology, with the aims of promoting community wellbeing and restoring a love of local place that global free trade has eroded. Ecological degradation violates these goals, which ought to translate into care for the nonhuman world, in addition to which some sub-Saharan thought systems promote environmental concern as a value in its own right. The foregoing story is reinforced (...) by field research on African hunting operations that appear—counterintuitively—to reconcile conservation with business imperatives and local community interests. Though acknowledging shortcomings, I maintain these hunting enterprises do, by and large, adopt Africapitalist and ubuntu attitudes to enhance community wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and long-term economic viability. I also examine how well-intentioned Western conservation agendas are neocolonial impositions that impede local control while exacerbating environmental destruction and socioeconomic hardship. Ubuntu offers a conciliatory epistemology, which Africapitalism incorporates, and I conclude by considering how standard moral theories and political divisions become less antagonistic within these sub-Saharan frameworks, so even opponents can find common cause. (shrink)

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order (...) inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, be hopeful for an outcome with which one has a long record of experience: in other words, what is the epistemology behind when one should, if ever, stop hoping for outcomes which have failed one many times in the past? (shrink)

Recent develops in AI technology have led to increasingly sophisticated forms of video manipulation. One such form has been the advent of deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated videos that typically depict people doing and saying things they never did. In this paper, I demonstrate that there is a close structural relationship between deepfakes and more traditional fake barn cases in epistemology. Specifically, I argue that deepfakes generate an analogous degree of epistemic risk to that which is found in traditional cases. Given (...) that barn cases have posed a long-standing challenge for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, I consider whether a similar challenge extends to deepfakes. In doing so, I consider how Duncan Pritchard’s recent anti-risk virtue epistemology meets the challenge. While Pritchard’s account avoids problems in traditional barn cases, I claim that it leads to local scepticism about knowledge from online videos in the case of deepfakes. I end by considering how two alternative virtue-theoretic approaches might vindicate our epistemic dependence on videos in an increasingly digital world. (shrink)

Given the rise of genetic etiological beliefs regarding psychiatric disorders, a growing body of research has focused on trying to elucidate the effects that such explanatory frameworks might be having on how mental disorders are perceived by patients, clinicians, and the general public. Genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders have long been seen as a potential tool in the efforts to destigmatize mental disorders, given the harshness of the widespread negative attitudes about them and the important negative (...) clinical and social impacts of this stigma. The conventional wisdom has appeared to be that because the effects of genes are seen as falling outside individual control, conceiving of mental disorders as caused by genes casts patients as blameless, thereby reducing stigmatization. Indeed, the results of experimental and correlational research have now robustly linked genetic and other biomedical explanations for mental disorders with reductions in the extent to which people are blamed for their psychiatric symptoms. However, research examining the impact of genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders has also suggested that they can have significant downsides. The most consistently observed negative effect of these kinds of explanations is that they can apparently lead to the assumption that mental disorders are unlikely to improve or abate. Genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders can also increase people’s confidence in the effectiveness of biomedical treatments (such as pharmacotherapy) but decrease their confidence in the effectiveness of “nonbiomedical” treatments (such as psychotherapy). (shrink)

This article seeks to historicize both the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the debate on realism occasioned by Russian aggression in Ukraine since 2014. Using the research of Gerard Toal on Russia’s construction of its security interests in the post-Soviet spaces that include Ukraine, the article argues that neorealist geopolitical explanations fail to do justice to the roles of contingency and culture in setting Russia’s so-called ‘red lines.’ It also identifies an agency problem in realism: realists not only (...) fail to do justice to the agency of small states like Ukraine in this conflict but elide the moral and practical agency of decisionmakers like Russian President Vladmir Putin. The article also suggests that the current realism debate is the tip of an iceberg: realism has long had a problem specifying the relation of its theory to its practice. The article concludes by discussing the long shadow of 19th century imperial history over contemporary discussions of spheres of influence and great power status. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mensonge MélodramatiqueTriangular Desire in Sense and SensibilityMatthew Taylor (bio)The Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, (...) mouth, hands and feet; what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores.—Charlotte Brontë1"Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!" [End Page 189]—Marianne in Sense and Sensibility2Charlotte Brontë had probably not read Sense and Sensibility (SS) before making her famous indictment of Jane Austen above, otherwise she would have found herself prophetically, and mercilessly, parodied through the character of Marianne Dashwood.3 Marianne's critique of Edward above matches Brontë's denunciation with uncanny precision. Marianne, the "stormy sister" of the novel, carries on in the same vein through most of it. What she proclaims as passionate sensibility comes off instead as, at varying times, snooty, self-indulgent, exhibitionist, and histrionic. Marianne even assumes the role of Brontë's "sentient target of Death" not long after she is cruelly jilted by Willoughby, when she wanders listlessly outdoors in the damp. It is not unlike Jane Eyre's numb wanderings when she flees Thornfield and Rochester. This "acting out" by Marianne comes close to killing her.Marianne's romantic "sensibility" contrasts with her sister Elinor's "sense." Yet, of course, readers of SS will come to know that Elinor can feel just as deeply and passionately as Marianne; she just has to conceal it. Elinor can suffer as much, too, only without the luxury of wearing it on dew-drenched sleeves. Thus, we have the thematic frame of the novel, suggested in the title. As Austen's first published novel, SS is brilliant, mature, and confident. One weakness seems to be a Brontëan one, the melodramatic coincidence in the plot that connects Colonel Brandon's secret life of compassion to Willoughby's secret sins. Otherwise, SS sits very well alongside Austen's other five masterpieces.4From the perspective of René Girard's mimetic theory, mimesis comes out with a bang in SS.5 Not only is Marianne a principal character in Austen's first canonical novel, but her romantic sensibility is thematized in the title.6 "Sensibility" for Marianne is feeling, unmediated desire expressed in unrestrained language and impulsive action. Yet Marianne's actions are anything but unmediated, and they are compulsive rather than impulsive. Even when she finally overcomes the worst symptoms under the influence of Elinor, and even though we do develop genuine sympathy for her, Marianne never comes to any deep self-knowledge. Marianne perfectly encapsulates Girard's mensonge romantique, or "romantic lie."Implying that Marianne is a liar is not a comfortable stance, and not just because we may be fond of her, but because she is open and sincere—to a fault. Yet just because Marianne is honest about her feelings, it does not follow that she is accurate about them. In fact, this is often a problem in interpreting Marianne: Her self-characterization is accepted uncritically.7 From that basis, she is framed, somewhat understandably, as representing one side of a moral debate about sensibility.8 Austen is seen as being for it, or against it, or working out some sort of accommodation. Austen is further assessed as having done [End Page 190] so well, or badly, or indifferently, as the case may be. Then Austen is seen as conforming to cultural standards, or challenging... (shrink)

One might be surprised at finding a protracted refutation of the theory of relativity in a turbine engineering journal. Milena Wazeck says we should not. Once we grasp the common threads among anti-relativity activists in the 1920s, she argues, it becomes clear why turbine engineering was a natural home for such ideas.Einstein’s Opponents contends that historians’ current understanding of the anti-relativity movement is obscured by the enormous shadow of the Nazis. Instead of reaching forward to the 1930s to explain the (...) clash of the 20s, it instead points us back to the long nineteenth century. There we find the wonderfully named “world riddle solvers.” They were a group who saw themselves as scientists generating new knowledge, although they functioned almost completely outside the circles of academic science. They often worked in spiritual or holistic contexts and built elaborate theories based on core ideas such as occultism, vitalism, and monism. These theories carried titles such .. (shrink)

As workforce aging continues through the next decade, the number of persons who will retire from long-held jobs and careers will increase. In recent years, researchers across disciplines of psychology have focused attention on the impact of the retirement process on post-retirement adjustment and well-being. One area that has received attention from investigators in both psychology and economics pertains to the impact of retirement planning on the retirement decision and post-retirement adjustment. The objective of the current review is twohreefold. (...) The first goal is to review the literature on retirement planning with attention to past conceptualizations and current theoretical specifications. Second, empirical work investigating the psychological antecedents of retirement planning is reviewed. The primary conclusion reached from this review is that, conceptually, retirement planning continues to be poorly delineated and, thereby, narrowly investigated. Empirically, cognitive antecedents of retirement planning continue to figure prominently in both workplace and retirement researches. The boundary conditions of retirement planning, as well as alternative mechanisms for adult wellbeing, are discussed. Specifically, retirement planning’s meaning amidst increasing job mobility and longer life expectancies are identified as two complementary areas for future empirical integration of work - retirement research domains. (shrink)

Generativism about memory justification is the view that memory can generate epistemic justification. Generativism is gaining popularity, but process reliabilists tend to resist it. Process reliabilism explains the justification of beliefs by way of the reliability of the processes they result from. Some advocates of reliabilism deny various forms of generativism. Other reliabilists reject or remain neutral about only the more extreme forms. I argue that an extreme form of generativism follows from reliabilism. This result weakens a long-standing argument (...) for reliabilism. (shrink)

John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher, associated with pragmatism. Over a long working life, Dewey was influential not only in philosophy, but as an educational thinker and political commentator and activis.

In July 2012, the Kazimierz Naturalist workshop gathered in Kazimierz-Dolny, Poland to discuss the topic Naturalizing Religion. A group of 16 presenters with backgrounds in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and religious studies gave presentations with a general focus on the burgeoning field of the cognitive science of religion . This included keynotes from Robert McCauley, Jesper Sørensen, Helen de Cruz, and John Wilkins . The current special issue contains three of the papers presented during the 4-day-long conference. They represent (...) the scope and variety of the presentations, addressing both theoretical and empirical issues in the discussions of the new science of religion. The first paper, ‘Reduction, Explanation, and the New Science of Religion,’ by Christopher Pearson and Matthew P. Schunke, is a theoretical exploration of the term reduction and the ways in which it is applied to the scientific study of religion. Pearson and Schunk .. (shrink)

This chapter outlines something of Mario Bunge’s long life and career as a physicist-philosopher originally living and working in Argentina for 40 years, then in Canada for nearly 60 years. It indicates the extraordinary breadth, depth and quantity of his research publications. It deals briefly with some key components of his work, such as: systemism, causation, theory analysis, axiomatization, ontology, epistemology, physics, psychology and philosophy of mind, social science, probability and Bayesianism, defence of the Enlightenment project, and education. Finally, (...) the chapter gives an account of the structure of the festschrift, and an indication of each of the 41 contributions. (shrink)

This chapter examines the political theory found in the primary texts of early Buddhism and related contemporary scholarship. It argues that the early texts contain both a theory of government, which endorses enlightened monarchy based on a primitive social contract, and a political theory, which rests on the ideas that human beings are not selves, that politics is necessary but not very important, and that moral norms are advice rather than absolute duties. This reading directly contradicts the long Western (...) tradition of seeing Buddhism as anti-political. It also argues that modern readings of the Buddhist political tradition as republican are mistaken. (shrink)