In March 1993, in preparation for the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, representatives from the states of Asia gathered in Bangkok to formulate their position on this emotive issue. The result of their discussions was the Bangkok declaration. They accepted the concept of universal standards in human rights, but declared that these standards could not overridet he unique Asian regional and cultural differences, the requirements of economic development, nor the privileges of sovereignty. : The difficult and powerful dichotomies (...) raised in Bangkok, and their particular relevance to China, are explored in the ten essays contained in this book. The underlying political, cultural, philosophical, legal and economic issues which cut across the human rights spectrum are also considered. The writiers themselves are Chinese and Hong Kong scholars, or leading political figures who are involved in the current human rights debate. The ultimate goal of the book is not to resolve the issues raised in Bangkok, but to expose some contours of discussion in a way that is fresh and accessible. (shrink)

Several types of amygdala-dependent learning can be blocked by local infusion of NMDA antagonists into the amygdala. This blockade shows anatomical, pharmacological, temporal, and behavioral specificity, providing a pattern of data more consistent with a role for NMDA receptors in learning than in arousal or attention, and supporting the contention that an “LTP-like” process is a neural substrate for memory formation.

In a recent speech Amartya Sen argued that democracy had become a universal value. He argued that at this time the burden is on those who would deny democracy to justify their position. He argued that this was a historic change from not long ago when the advocates for democracy in Aisa or Africa had to argue for democracy with their backs to the wall. In Asia, China has historically championed the fight against imperialism and has celebrated the fact the (...) the Chinese people have stood up to take their much-deserved place in the world. For China, which as worked so assertively to bring its nation into the modern world, it is a sign of failure if Tibetans, and even Chinese, have to continue to argue for genuine democracy and self-government with their backs against the wall. The Tibetans really face no dilemma since they are offered no choice except to defend their basic interest.But at present the Chinese leaders face a profound dilemma whether to embrace the modern values that are consistent with their own development and reform process or to continue to defy, especially in respect of Tibet, the very values they have championed in their relationships with the rest of the world. It is with regard to these universal values, against imperialism and in favor of democracy and self-rule, that solutions to the Tibetan problem should be found. To subjugate the Tibetan people is not only inconsistent with contemporary values but is also in contradiction of the pressures for change being spawned by China’s own emerging order in its reform era. It is within China’s power at present to set about solving the issues it confronts with Tibet. It can do so in ways that are consistent with its long-term developmetn interests or, alternatively, insist on old style imperial domination at the long-term costs of fostering a territorial and political structure for development that is inadequate both for itself and Tibet. (shrink)

Despite the increased prevalence of bioethics research that seeks to use empirical data to answer normative research questions, there is no consensus as to what an appropriate methodology for this would be. This review aims to search the literature, present and critically discuss published Empirical Bioethics methodologies.

We present an exactly soluble electron trajectory that permits an analysis of the soft (deep infrared) radiation emitted, the existence of which has been experimentally observed during beta decay via lowest order inner bremsstrahlung. Our treatment also predicts the time evolution and temperature of the emission, and possibly the spectrum, by analogy with the closely related phenomenon of the dynamic Casimir effect.

There is a widespread assumption that the universe in general, and life in particular, is 'getting more complex with time'. This book brings together a wide range of experts in science, philosophy and theology and unveils their joint effort in exploring this idea. They confront essential problems behind the theory of complexity and the role of life within it: what is complexity? When does it increase, and why? Is the universe evolving towards states of ever greater complexity and diversity? If (...) so, what is the source of this universal enrichment? This book addresses those difficult questions, and offers a unique cross-disciplinary perspective on some of the most profound issues at the heart of science and philosophy. Readers will gain insights in complexity that reach deep into key areas of physics, biology, complexity science, philosophy and religion. (shrink)

This study throws new light on the composition of Boyle's Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv'd Notion of Nature ; it also draws more general conclusions about Boyle's methods as an author and his links with his context. Its basis is a careful study of the extant manuscript drafts for the work, and their relationship with the published editions. Section 2 describes Boyle's characteristic method of composition from the late 1650s onwards, involving the dictation of discrete sections of text to (...) amanuenses; it also assesses the effect this had on the structure and presentation of Boyle's writings. Section 3 considers the published text section by section and indicates which parts were written when; it also surveys unpublished draft material relating to the work. Section 4 places the work in context, considering the intellectual threats that Boyle sought to confront in it, both when he initially composed it in the 1660s and when he rewrote it c. 1680. It thus anchors him more precisely than hitherto in the intellectual debates of his day. (shrink)

After twenty-five years of integrating ethics across the curriculum at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions conducted a survey of full-time faculty to investigate: a) what ethical topics faculty thought students from their discipline should be aware of when they graduate, b) how widely ethics is currently being taught at the undergraduate and graduate level, c) what ethical topics are being covered in these courses, and d) what teaching methods are (...) being used. The survey found that while progress spreading ethics across the curriculum has been substantial, it remains incomplete. The faculty think more should be done. From these findings we draw six lessons for ethics centers engaged in encouraging ethics across the curriculum. (shrink)

After twenty-five years of integrating ethics across the curriculum at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions conducted a survey of full-time faculty to investigate: a) what ethical topics faculty thought students from their discipline should be aware of when they graduate, b) how widely ethics is currently being taught at the undergraduate and graduate level, c) what ethical topics are being covered in these courses, and d) what teaching methods are (...) being used. The survey found that while progress spreading ethics across the curriculum has been substantial, it remains incomplete. The faculty think more should be done. From these findings we draw six lessons for ethics centers engaged in encouraging ethics across the curriculum. (shrink)

There are many ways to avoid responsibility, for example, explaining what happens as the work of the gods, fate, society, or the system. For engineers, “technology” or “the organization” will serve this purpose quite well. We may distinguish at least nine (related) senses of “responsibility”, the most important of which are: (a) responsibility-as-causation (the storm is responsible for flooding), (b) responsibility-as-liability (he is the person responsible and will have to pay), (c) responsibility-as-competency (he’s a responsible person, that is, he’s rational), (...) (d) responsibility-as-office (he’s the responsible person, that is, the person in charge), and (e) a responsibility-as-domain-of-tasks (these are her responsibilities, that is, the things she is supposed to do). For all but the causal sense of responsibility, responsibility may be taken (in a relatively straightforward sense)—and generally is. Why then would anyone want to claim that certain technologies make it impossible to attribute responsibility to engineers (or anyone else)? In this paper, I identify seven arguments for that claim and explain why each is fallacious. The most important are: (1) the argument from “many hands”, (2) the argument from individual ignorance, and (3) the argument from blind forces. Each of these arguments makes the same fundamental mistake, the assumption that a certain factual situation, being fixed, settles responsibility, that is, that individuals, either individually or by some group decision, cannot take responsibility. I conclude by pointing out the sort of decisions (and consequences) engineers have explicitly taken responsibility for and why taking responsibility for them is rational, all things considered. There is no technological bar to such responsibility. (shrink)

Airway mucin secretion is important pathophysiologically and as a model of polarized epithelial regulated exocytosis. We find the trafficking protein, SNAP23, selectively expressed in secretory cells compared with ciliated and basal cells of airway epithelium by immunohistochemistry and FACS, suggesting that SNAP23 functions in regulated but not constitutive epithelial secretion. Heterozygous SNAP23 deletant mutant mice show spontaneous accumulation of intracellular mucin, indicating a defect in baseline secretion. However mucins are released from perfused tracheas of mutant and wild-type mice at the (...) same rate, suggesting that increased intracellular stores balance reduced release efficiency to yield a fully compensated baseline steady state. In contrast, acute stimulated release of intracellular mucin from mutant mice is impaired whether measured by a static imaging assay 5 min after exposure to the secretagogue ATP or by kinetic analysis of mucins released from perfused tracheas during the first 10 min of ATP exposure. Together, these data indicate that increased intracellular stores cannot fully compensate for the defect in release efficiency during intense stimulation. The lungs of mutant mice develop normally and clear bacteria and instilled polystyrene beads comparable to WT mice, consistent with these functions depending on baseline secretion that is fully compensated. (shrink)

For all his peculiarities, man is not the only animal who knows. But he is, as far as it is possible to judge, the only animal who knows that he knows, and who seeks to understand the nature and meaning of the act of knowing itself. Michael Polanyi has been engaged in this search for more than twenty years, and the book here under review is an ‘interim report’ on the development of his thought since the publication of Personal (...) Knowledge and The Study of Man just ten years ago. Its three short chapters are substantially the Terry Lectures which he delivered at Yale University in 1962. This review will attempt no more than to summarise the central theme of Polanyi’s argument. A detailed, critical analysis of its philosophical significance is beyond the competence of a biologist. (shrink)

This collection of essays celebrates the seventieth birthday of one of the great scientist-philosophers of the century. The list of subscribers in the front of the book contains the names of some of the most distinguished scientists, academics, writers and educators living today, not to mention the names of organizations like the Fund for the Republic and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and of more than twenty universities, colleges and research institutes throughout the world. In all, one hundred and seventy-eight (...) names, a unique tribute to a remarkable man whose contributions to science, philosophy, sociology and that frontier region between science and religion, comprise one of the major intellectual achievements of our time. (shrink)

About the Author James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His many books include Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, and What Painting Is, all published by Routledge. Michael Newman teaches in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is Professor of Art Writing at Goldsmiths College in the University (...) of London. His publications include the books Richard Prince: Untitled (couple) and Jeff Wall, and he is co-editor with Jon Bird of Rewriting Conceptual Art. (shrink)

This article characterizes the varieties of four - dimensionalism and provides a critical overview of the main arguments in support of it.

In the present article, he explains why divine silence poses a serious intellectual obstacle to belief in God, and then goes on to consider ways of overcoming that obstacle. After considering several ways in which divine silence might actually be beneficial to human beings, he argues that perhaps silence is nothing more or less than God’s preferred mode of interaction with creatures like us. Perhaps God simply desires communion rather than overt communication with human beings, and perhaps God has provided (...) ways for us to experience God’s presence richly even amidst the silence. (shrink)

Black Art and Aesthetics comprises essays, poems, interviews, and over 50 images from artists and writers: GerShun Avilez, Angela Y. Davis, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Theaster Gates, Aracelis Girmay, Jeremy Matthew Glick, Deborah Goffe, James B. Haile III, Vijay Iyer, Isaac Julien, Benjamin Krusling, Daphne Lamothe, George E. Lewis, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Meleko Mokgosi, Wangechi Mutu, Fumi Okiji, Nell Painter, Mickaella Perina, Kevin Quashie, Claudia Rankine, Claudia Schmuckli, Evie Shockley, Paul C. Taylor, Kara Walker, Simone White, and Mabel O. Wilson. (...) The stellar contributors practice Black aesthetics by engaging intersectionally with class, queer sexuality, female embodiment, dance vocabularies, coloniality, Afrodiasporic music, Black post-soul art, Afropessimism, and more. Black aesthetics thus restores aesthetics to its full potential by encompassing all forms of sensation and imagination in art, culture, design, everyday life, and nature and by creating new ways of reckoning with experience, identity, and resistance. Highlighting wide-ranging forms of Black aesthetics across the arts, culture, and theory, Black Art and Aesthetics: Relationalities, Interiorities, Reckonings provides an unprecedented view of a field enjoying a global resurgence. Black aesthetics materializes in communities of artists, activists, theorists, and others who critique racial inequities, create new forms of interiority and relationality, uncover affective histories, and develop strategies for social justice. (shrink)

This book examines the moral philosophy of Paul Ramsey--one of the 20th century's most influential ethicists--from a theological perspective illustrating that religion can still play a substantial role in our ongoing moral inquiries. Ramsey wrote prodigiously on ethical issues including politics, medical research, the Vietnam war, and nuclear proliferation. His ethical theory, which concentrates on divine love, or `agape, ' as well as justice and order, provides a middle ground between fundamentalism and secularism. Therefore, Ramsey's ethics will appeal to the (...) 21st-century social conscience. McKenzie grounds his theological exploration in a comprehensive history of the theological and philosophical influences on Ramsey's thought, including Jonathan Edwards' theory of natural morality. He also explores a multidisciplinary selection of Ramsey's writings. In conclusion, McKenzie argues that Ramsey's natural law theory will continue to have significant and increasing relevance for morality in the postmodern world. This is the most thorough study of Paul Ramsey's work as well as a significant contribution to philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Although there is a large literature on referentiality, going back to at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this early work is based on constructed data and most of it is on English. The chapters in this volume contribute to a growing body of work that examines referentiality through naturalistic data in context. Taking an interactional approach to (non)referentiality, contributors to this volume ask how participants talk in real time about persons and things as individuals or as (...) categories, and what distinguishes 'referential' from 'nonreferential', 'specific' from 'nonspecific', and 'generic' from 'nongeneric'. Crucially, we ask whether these distinctions even matter to participants in conversation, and if they do, what the evidence for that would be. Contributors investigate these issues using data from conversational interaction in a variety of social contexts - from close friends and family to more casual acquaintances, in service encounters, and between adults and children - and in a range of languages: English, Finnish, French, Indonesian, Japanese, and Mandarin. Collectively, the chapters develop insights showing that reference is often fluid, dynamic, and indeterminate, that referential indeterminacy is typically unproblematic for participants, that shifts in referentiality tend to be tied to specific social goals, and that reference and referentiality emerge dialogically and interactionally. (shrink)

A study of Picasso's status in the art community and his influence on the avant-garde market follows his early year search for a gallery and his monumental rise to fame, noting his popularity among dealers and his commercial strategies.

This article challenges conventional readings of Michel Foucault by examining his fascination with neoliberalism in the late 1970s. Foucault did not critique neoliberalism during this period; rather, he strategically endorsed it. The necessary cause for this approval lies in the broader rehabilitation of economic liberalism in France during the 1970s. The sufficient cause lies in Foucault's own intellectual development: drawing on his long-standing critique of the state as a model for conceptualizing power, Foucault concluded, during the 1970s, that economic liberalism, (...) rather than “discipline,” was modernity's paradigmatic power form. Moreover, this article seeks to clarify the relationship between Foucault's philosophical antihumanism and his assessment of liberalism. Rather than arguing that Foucault's antihumanism precluded a positive appraisal of liberalism, or that the apparent reorientation of his politics in a more liberal direction in the late 1970s entailed a partial retreat from antihumanism, this article contends that Foucault's brief, strategic, and contingent endorsement of liberalism was possible precisely because he saw no incompatibility between antihumanism and liberalism—but only liberalism of the economic variety. Economic liberalism alone, and not its political iteration, was compatible with the philosophical antihumanism that is the hallmark of Foucault's thought. (shrink)

Books Reviewed in this Article: Transforming Bible Study. By Walter Wink. Pp.175, London, SCM Press, 1981, £3.50. Isaiah 1–39. By R.E. Clements. Pp.xvi. 301, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1980, £3.95. Isaiah 40–66. By R.N. Whybray. Pp.301, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1975, Reprinted 1981, £3.95. Die Gestalt Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien. By Heinrich Kahlefeld. Pp.264, Frankfurt, Verlag Josef Knecht, 1981, no price given. Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark. By Ernest Best. Pp.283, Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1981, (...) £15.00, £5.95. The Origin of Paul's Gospel. By Seyoon Kim. Pp.xii, 391, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1981, 78 DM. An die Römer. By Ernst Käsemann. Pp.xvi, 411, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1980, 48 DM. Les Récits de Resurrection des Morts dans le Nouveau Testament. By Gerard Rochais. Pp.xv, 252, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £15.00. Prêtres Anciens, Prétre Nouveau selon le Nouveau Testament. By Albert Vanhoye. Pp.366, Paris Editions du Seuil, 1980, no price given. Woman in the World of Jesus. By Evelyn and Frank Stagg. Pp.292, Edinburgh, The St Andrew Press, 1981, no price given. Jesus, Man and the Church. By Karl Rahner. Pp.260, London, Darton Longman & Todd, 1981, £14.50. Jesus Lord and Savior: A Theopathic Christology and Soteriology. By William M. Thompson. Pp.ix, 287, Leominster, Fowler Wright, 1981, £7.45. God and World in Schleiermacher's ‘Dialektik’ and ‘Glaubenslehre’. Criticism and the Methodology of Dogmatics. By John E. Thiel. Pp.xiv, 239, Bern, Frankfurt and Las Vegas, Peter Lang, 1981, SF 49.50. Ministry: A Case for Change. By Edward Schillebeeckx. Pp.ix, 165, London, SCM Press, 1981, £4.95. The Sacraments: Readings in Contemporary Sacramental Theology. Edited by Michael J. Taylor. Pp.274, New York, Alba House, 1981, $7.95. Believing in the Church: The Corporate Nature of Faith. A Report by the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England. Pp.ix, 310, London, SPCK, 1981, £8.50. Confessing the Faith in the Church of England Today. By R.T. Beckwith. Pp.36, Oxford, La timer House, 1981, £1.00. A Kind of Noah's Ark? The Anglican Commitment to Comprehensiveness. By J.I. Packer. Pp.39, Oxford, Latimer House, 1981, £1.00. Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith. By Anthony Hanson and Richard Hanson. Pp.xii, 283, Oxford University Press, 1981, £8.50. Doctrine in the Church of England. The 1938 Report with a new introduction by G.W.H. Lampe. Pp.lx, 242, London, SPCK, 1982, £8.50. The Divine Right of the Papacy in Recent Ecumenical Theology. By J. Michael Miller. Pp.xvi, 322, Rome, Università Gregoriana Editrice, 1980, 18,000 Lire. Der heilige Geist in der Theologie von Heribert Mühlen: Versucheiner Darstellung und Würdigung. By John B. Banawiratma. Pp.ix, 310, Frankfurt and Bern: Peter D. Lang, 1981, SFr. 60.00. Standing Before God: Studies on Prayer in Scriptures and Tradition with Essays in Honor of John M. Oesterreicher. Edited by Asher Frinkel and Lawrence Frizzell. Pp.410, New York, Ktav Publishing House, 1981, $29.50. Judaism and Healing. By J. David Bleich. Pp.xiii, 199, New York, Ktav, 1981, $15.00. The Diversity of Moral Thinking. By Neil Cooper. Pp.x, 303, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1981, £15.00. L'Homme: Sujet ou Objet? By Jacques Croteau. Pp.260, Montreal, Bellarmin: Tournai, Desclée et Cie, 1981, $15.00. The Texture of Knowledge: An Essay on Religion and Science. By James W. Jones. Pp.97, Washington, University Press of America, 1981, no price given. Cosmos and Creator. By Stanley L. Jaki. Pp.xii, 168, Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press, 1980, £6.75. Dante, Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos. By Patrick Boyde. Pp.vii, 408, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £30.00. Dissidence et Philosophie au Mayen Âge. By E.L. Fortin. Pp.201, Montreal, Bellarmin, 1981, $12.00. The Philosophy of John Norris of Bemerton. By Richard Acworth. Pp.x, 388, Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1979, 74 DM. Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought. By David Miller. Pp.xii, 218, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, £15.00. Hegelianism. By John Edward Toews. Pp.x, 450, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, £25.00. One Hundred Years of Thomism. Edited by V.B. Brezik. Pp.210, Houston, Centre for Thomistic Studies, 1981, no price given. Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness and the Revolutionary Process. By J.V. Femia. Pp.xiii, 303, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, £17.50. Greek and Roman Slavery. By Thomas Wiedemann. Pp.xvi, 284, London, Croom Helm, 1981, £10.95, £5.95. Prophecy and Millenarianism. Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves. Edited by Ann Williams. Pp.x, 355, London, Longman, 1980, £25.00. Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate. By Felicity Heal. Pp.xv, 353, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, £17.50. Radical Religious Movements in Early Modern Europe. By Michael Mullett. Pp.xxiv, 193, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1980, £10.50. The Jesuits. By J.C.H. Aveling. Pp.390, London, Blond and Briggs, 1981, £16.95. The Beginnings of Ideology. By Donald R. Kelley. Pp.xv, 351, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £24.00. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700. By J.C. Davis. Pp.x, 427, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £25.00. Eastern Politics of the Vatican 1917–1979. By Hansjakob Stehle. Pp.466, Athens, Ohio University Press, 1981, £16.20, £8.10. Structuralism or Criticism? By Geoffrey Strickland. Pp.viii, 209, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £17.50. The Call of God: The Theme of Vocation in the Poetry of Donne and Herbert. By Robert B. Shaw. Pp.xiii, 123, Cambridge, Mass., Cowley Publications, 1981, $5.00. John and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns, Journal Notes, Sermons, Letters and Treatises. Edited by Frank Whaling. Pp.xx, 412, London, SPCK, 1981, £8.95. The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. By Robert D. Pelton. Pp.312, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980, £15.00. (shrink)

This article considers various approaches used in complementary and alternative medicine research, and discusses the challenges that reviewing such research poses for Human Research Ethics Committees. Drawing on our experience with the University of Technology Sydney HREC, we offer some suggestions about how ethical principles governing conventional medical research can be applied in the context of research in complementary and alternative medicine. We argue that effective HREC review requires members to gain familiarity with such research, which helps ensure that such (...) research is conducted rigorously and ethically. (shrink)

A detailed account of human language and evolution, reconciling the apparent dichotomy between humans and all other animals. Focuses on the speculative presence of a Generative Assembly Device, unique to Homo sapiens.

Abstract: In this article, I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximization and stakeholder theory, which I call enlightened value maximization. Enlightened value maximization utilizes much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximization of the long-run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders, and specifies long-term value maximization or value seeking as the firm’s objective. This proposal therefore solves the problems that arise (...) from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, which is the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory, explaining how this theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard that gives no score—that is, no single-valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organization or division (and it must be consistent with the organization’s strategy), and as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organization it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm. (shrink)

In this critical examination of recent accounts of the nature of science and of its justification given by Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Laudan, and Newton-Smith, Banner contends that models of scientific rationality which are used in criticism of religious beliefs are in fact often inadequate as accounts of the nature of science. He argues that a realist philosophy of science both reflects the character of science and scientific justifications, and suggests that religious belief could be given a justification of the same (...) sort. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to provide characterizations of matter, form and constituency in a way that avoids what I take to be the three main drawbacks of other hylomorphic theories: (i) commitment to the universal-particular distinction; (ii) commitment to a primitive or problematic notion of inherence or constituency; (iii) inability to identify viable candidates for matter and form in nature, or to characterize them in terms of primitives widely regarded to be intelligible.

To most people it seems obvious that there are major mental differences between ourselves and other species, but there is considerable debate over exactly how special our minds are, in what respects, and which were the critical evolutionary events that have shaped us. Some researchers claimlanguage as a solely human, even defining, attribute, while others claim that only humans are truly conscious. These questions have been explored mainly by archaeologists and anthropologists until recently, but this volume aims to show what (...) psychologists have to say on the evolution of mind. The book begins with a thorough overview of what is known of the non-primate mind and its evolution. Following this, an international range of experts discuss in temporal sequence the human mind at various stages of evolution, beginning with the pre-hominids of 20 million years ago and ending withcontemporary human behaviour. Accessible to students and researchers alike in psychology, anthropology, evolution, archaeology, and ethology, The Descent of Mind provides a range of provocative answers to the timeless question of what it means to be human. (shrink)

This paper defends Mereological Universalism(the thesis that, for any set S of disjoint objects, there is an object that the members of S compose. Universalism is unpalatable to many philosophers because it entails that if there are such things as my left tennis shoe, W. V. Quine, and the Taj Mahal, then there is another object that those three things compose. This paper presents and criticizes Peter van Inwagen's argument against Universalism and then presents a new argument in favor of (...) Universalism. It turns out that the most reasonable way to resist the argument for Universalism is to deny the existence of artifacts; thus, if we believe in artifacts, we have no real choice other than to embrace Universalism. (shrink)

This book addresses such key ethical issues as euthanasia, the environment, biotechnology, abortion, the family, sexual ethics, and the distribution of health care resources. Michael Banner argues that the task of Christian ethics is to understand the world and humankind in the light of the credal affirmations of the Christian faith, and to explicate this understanding in its significance for human action through a critical engagement with the concerns, claims and problems of other ethics. He illustrates both the distinctiveness (...) of Christian convictions in relation to the above issues and also the critical dialogue with practices based on other convictions which this sense of distinctiveness motivates but does not prevent. The book's importance lies in its attempt to show the crucial difference which Christian belief makes to an understanding of these issues, whilst at the same time demonstrating some of the weaknesses and confusions of certain popular approaches to them. (shrink)

This comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship of black political thought identifies which political ideologies are supported by blacks, then traces their historical roots and examines their effects on black public opinion.

Procedures that increase the sustainability of agriculture often result in animals being treated more humanely:both livestock in animal and mixed farming and wildlife in arable farming. Equally, procedures ensuring humane treatment of farm animals often increase sustainability, for example in disease control and manure management. This overlap between sustainability and humaneness is not coincidental. Both approaches can be said to be animal centered, to be based on the fact that animal production is primarily a biological process. Proponents of both will (...) gain from recognition of commonality and development of cooperation. A collaborative approach to humane sustainable agriculture will benefit animals, people, and the environment. (shrink)