Children and adults use established global knowledge to generate real‐time linguistic predictions, but less is known about how listeners generate predictions in circumstances that semantically conflict with long‐standing event knowledge. We explore these issues in adults and 5‐ to 10‐year‐old children using an eye‐tracked sentence comprehension task that tests real‐time activation of unexpected events that had been previously encountered in brief stories. Adults generated predictions for these previously unexpected events based on these discourse cues alone, whereas children overall did not (...) override their established global knowledge to generate expectations for semantically conflicting material; however, they do show an increased ability to integrate discourse cues to generate appropriate predictions for sentential endings. These results indicate that the ability to rapidly integrate and deploy semantically conflicting knowledge has a long developmental trajectory, with adult‐like patterns not emerging until later in childhood. (shrink)

The Midewiwin is the traditional religious belief system central to the world view of Ojibwa in Canada and the US. It is a highly complex and rich series of sacred teachings and narratives whose preservation enabled the Ojibwa to withstand severe challenges to their entire social fabric throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It remains an important living and spiritual tradition for many Aboriginal people today. The rituals of the Midewiwin were observed by many 19th century Euro-Americans, most of whom (...) approached these ceremonies with hostility and suspicion. As a result, although there were many accounts of the Midewiwin published in the 19th century, they were often riddled with misinterpretations and inaccuracies. Historian Michael Angel compares the early texts written about the Midewiwin, and identifies major, common misconceptions in these accounts. In his explanation of the historical role played by the Midewiwin, he provides alternative viewpoints and explanations of the significance of the ceremonies, while respecting the sacred and symbolic nature of the Midewiwin rituals, songs, and scrolls. (shrink)

The focus on translational research in clinical trials has the potential to generate clinically relevant genetic data that could have importance to patients. This raises challenging questions about communicating relevant genetic research results to individual patients. An exploratory pharmacogenetic analysis was conducted in the international ovarian cancer phase III trial, AGO-OVAR 16, which found that patients with clinically important germ-line BRCA1/2 mutations had improved progression-free survival prognosis. Mechanisms to communicate BRCA results were evaluated, because these findings may be beneficial to (...) patients and their families. Communicating individual BRCA results was not anticipated during clinical trial design. Consequently, options were not available for patients to indicate their preference for receiving their individual results when they signed pharmacogenetic informed consent. Differences in local requirements, clinical practice, and opinion regarding the ethical aspects of how to convey genetic results to patients are all potential barriers to returning individual BRCA results to patients. Communicating the aggregate BRCA result from this study provided clinical investigators with a mechanism to disseminate the overall study finding to patients while taking individual circumstances, local guidelines and clinical practice into account. This study illustrates the importance of increasing the clarity and scope of informed consent and the need for patient engagement to ensure clinical trial participants can indicate their preference regarding receipt of potentially important individual pharmacogenetic results. This study was registered in the NCT Clinical Trial Registry under NCT00866697 on March 19, 2009, following approval from participating ethics committees. (shrink)

Anselm is known for offering a distinctive definition of freedom of choice as “the ability of preserving uprightness of will for its own sake.” When we turn to Anselm’s account of the devil’s fall in De Casu Diaboli, however, this idiosyncratic understanding of freedom is not at the forefront. In that text, Anselm seemingly assumes a traditional understanding of free will defined in terms of alternative possibilities for the angels. These alternative possibilities must be present so the angels can engage (...) in ‘self-determination.’ God, however, does not face alternative possibilities to achieve His self-determination. Anselm thus explicates his notion of free will in terms of three different concepts: his distinctive definition of free choice, self-determination, and the principle of alternative possibilities. Despite attempts (by both scholars and Anselm) to explain how these three concepts are related, I argue that their relationship is problematic. In particular, I argue that Anselm is guilty of conflating and equivocating with regard to these concepts. I further importantly claim that the conflation obscures the fact that his understanding of self-determination calls into question God’s excellence over that of the good angels. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1107, Page 678-685, September 2022.

The twelve contributors to Looking for Los Angeles focus on dramatic shifts in the urban landscape, important moments in the city's architectural history, and the role of the image in this mecca of image makers.

"Cover " -- "Title Page " -- "Copyright " -- "Dedication" -- "Contents" -- "Introduction: Moral Globalization and Its Discontents" -- "1. Jackson Heights, New York: Diversity Plaza" -- "2. Los Angeles: The Moral Operating Systems of Global Cities" -- "3. Rio de Janeiro: Order, Corruption, and Public Trust" -- "4. Bosnia: War and Reconciliation" -- "5. Myanmar: The Politics of Moral Narrative" -- "6. Fukushima: Resilience and the Unimaginable" -- "7. South Africa: After the Rainbow" -- "Conclusion: Human Rights, (...) Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues" -- "Notes" -- "Acknowledgments. (shrink)

I presented an earlier version of this paper to the Law and Philosophy Discussion Group in Los Angeles, whose members I would like to thank for their comments. In addition, I would also like to thank the following people for reading and providing written or verbal commentary on earlier drafts: Robert Mams, Rogers Albritton, G. A. Cohen, David Copp, Matthew Hanser, Craig Ihara, Brian Lee, Marc Lange, Derk Pereboom, Carol Voeller, and the Editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs. I owe (...) special thanks to Timothy Hall and Seana Shiffnn for their insightful and helpful comments. (shrink)

I thank the members of the Law and Philosophy Discussion Group in Los Angeles and those who attended a talk sponsored by the philosophy department at New York University, where I presented earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to thank G. A. Cohen, Stephen Munzer, Seana Shiffrin, Peter Vallentyne, Andrew Williams, and the editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs, who read and provided written commentary on earlier drafts.

Essays on atheism by Kurt Baier, John Dewey, Paul Edwards, Antony Flew, Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, Sidney Hook, Walter Kaufmann, Corliss Lamont, Wallace I. Matson, H.J. McCloskey, Ernest Nagel, Kai Nielsen, Richard Robinson, Bertrand Russell, and Michael Scriven.

Sir Michael Tippett was born in 1905 and thus celebrates his 90th birthday in 1995. To mark this occasion, Oxford University Press publishes Tippett on Music, a new and up-to-date compilation of his essays drawing on his two published collections Moving into Aquarius and Music of the Angels but also including much new material.

The contributors to this special issue of _Tikkun_ seek to redefine the boundaries of political and ethical responsibility by crediting a worldview in which we are held to account for the well-being of everyone who has “passed through our city,” if only momentarily. Their conclusions challenge the ethos of materialism that _Tikkun_ believes is at the root of globalized capitalism and, alternatively, articulate a social justice ethos derived from the Jewish tradition of “accompaniment,” the call to take care of those (...) who enter our common space. Contributors from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions bring an interfaith perspective to the foundations of social responsibility, laying the groundwork for a new global notion of justice. Drawing on a model from Rabbinic Judaism, one contributor discusses homelessness in Los Angeles, calling us to adopt a new, radical sense of obligation in relation to our neighbors. Another offers challenging insights from the point of view of one who grew up homeless. An essay from the Christian tradition expands this model by comparing our mutual relationships to body parts that all belong to the same whole. Another essay extracts from medieval Islamic texts a vision of the state as a caregiver and then compares this vision to life in Vancouver, where citizens’ taxes underwrite robust social services for those in need. Contributors:_ _Rumee Ahmed, Aryeh Cohen, Estelle Frankel, Jill Goldberg, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, Peter Laarman, Ana Levy-Lyons, Alexia Salvatierra Michael Lerner is editor of _Tikkun_ and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun; his writings have appeared in many national publications. Alana Yu-lan Price is managing editor of _Tikkun_. Aryeh Cohen is a contributing editor to _Tikkun_. (shrink)

The most notable development in public sculpture of the last thirty years has been the disappearance of the sculpture itself. Ever since Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York destroyed itself at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960, sculptors have tried to find new ways to make the sculptural object invisible, immaterial, or remote. Where the sculpture did have some material presence, it often took unexpected forms. As Rosalind Krauss says, “Rather surprising things have come to be called sculpture: narrow (...) corridors with TV monitors at the ends; large photographs documenting country hikes; mirrors placed at strange angles in ordinary rooms; temporary lines cut into the floor of the desert.”However various these experiments may seem, they began with a single motive: to escape the constraints of the pedestal, the gallery, and finally of art itself. To prevent this new work from becoming just another commodity in the market, artists either produced works so intangible or remote they could not be bought and sold, or disseminated their ideas in so many reproducible forms they could not be monopolized. The political nature of these motives also meant that much of this “sculpture” could be considered “public.” Changing the nature of the art meant changing the role of the audience as well, questioning the purely contemplative role the observer plays in the conventional setting of the museum or gallery. According to Henry Sayre, “As the avant-garde work of art denies its own autonomy, it implicates the audience in its workings.”3 As the aesthetic focus shifts from the object to the experience it provokes, the relationship of the two goes beyond mere implication: the public becomes the sculpture. Artists, like Richard Serra, whose goal is to illuminate the material nature of space and the often tenuous materiality of the observer’s own body, have made “the viewer, in effect, the subject of the work,” to quote Douglas Crimp. Michael North is associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Final Sculpture: Public Monuments and Modern Poets and is currently completing a study of the politics of Yeats, Eliot, and Pound. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that there are three primary dimensions to the issue of freedom in Leibniz’s work. The first, and most widely discussed, is the logical dimension. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is concerned primarily about the relationship between freedom and modality: what does it mean for choice to be contingent? The second dimension is the theological one. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is interested in considering such issues as the relationships between divine knowledge or providence and human (...) freedom, the nature of freedom in God, the angels, the demons, the blessed, the damned, etc., the relationship between human freedom and divine grace, and like matters. The third dimension treats freedom from the perspective of faculty psychology. In this mode, Leibniz considers how the intellect, will, and passions are related to one another in complete human acts. Questions such as: What is deliberation? What is choice? What is weakness of will?, etc. define this third dimension of the freedom discussion. In a forthcoming paper, an abstract of which appeared in the 1992 issue of this Review, I discuss the second dimension in some detail. In this paper, I take up the third. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that there are three primary dimensions to the issue of freedom in Leibniz’s work. The first, and most widely discussed, is the logical dimension. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is concerned primarily about the relationship between freedom and modality: what does it mean for choice to be contingent? The second dimension is the theological one. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is interested in considering such issues as the relationships between divine knowledge or providence and human (...) freedom, the nature of freedom in God, the angels, the demons, the blessed, the damned, etc., the relationship between human freedom and divine grace, and like matters. The third dimension treats freedom from the perspective of faculty psychology. In this mode, Leibniz considers how the intellect, will, and passions are related to one another in complete human acts. Questions such as: What is deliberation? What is choice? What is weakness of will?, etc. define this third dimension of the freedom discussion. In a forthcoming paper, an abstract of which appeared in the 1992 issue of this Review, I discuss the second dimension in some detail. In this paper, I take up the third. (shrink)

This article explores the construction of extremism in media discourse, the factors driving specific constructions and the implications of these constructions for counterterrorism policy. We contend that extremism has predominantly and increasingly been framed as a security issue. This article explores the implications of this practice through the framework of securitisation. We measure the average intensity of security framing in 38,616 articles found in three major US newspapers, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, between 20 January (...) 1993 and 19 January 2017 comprising the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies, and look at factors influencing the shift in intensity over time. Through our analysis, we show that it is possible to return to a pre-9/11 discourse but that the confluence of real-world events and the strategic choices of political actors have so far prevented this from fully occurring. We then explore the effect of securitisation on public perceptions of the threat from terrorism, finding that increases in the intensity of security framing artificially increases the public’s worry about becoming a victim of terrorism. We conclude by discussing implications for the communication of counterterrorism policy and the requirements for an after, after 9/11 approach. (shrink)

This paper makes some observations for assessing faith-based social services from a sociological perspective. More specifically, it examines internal factors like the theology of the group and external factors, the political context, for understanding a Pentecostal approach in the USA. Observations are made from the Los Angeles Dream Center, a Pentecostal ministry, which is also a model for other Dream Centers throughout the world. The central argument is twofold: Pentecostals offer a unique holistic approach to mission and second, a sociological (...) approach which takes seriously the theology of a group as well as its social context provides an optic for assessing similarities and differences among faith-based social services. (shrink)

This is the definitive study of the history and accomplishments of the Frankfurt School. It offers elegantly written portraits of the major figures in the school's history as well as overviews of the various positions and directions they developed from the founding years just after World War I until the death of Theodor Adorno in 1969.The book is based on documentary and biographical materials that have only recently become available. As the narrative follows the Institute for Social Research from Frankfurt (...) am Main to Geneva, New York, and Los Angeles, and then back to Frankfurt, Wiggershaus continually ties the evolution of the school to the changing intellectual and political contexts in which it operated. He also interweaves these accounts with incisive summaries of substantive works by Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Fromm, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal, Marcuse, Neumann, Pollock, and Habermas.The book is self-contained and can serve as a general introduction to critical theory, but it also has a wealth of new material to offer those who are familiar with this tradition but would like to learn more about its history and context.Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. (shrink)

Basic Questions The following are among the basic questions discussed in this essay: (1) What is the concept of a person? (2) What properties make something a person? (3) Is personhood a matter of degree? (4) Is potential personhood morally significant? (5) Is species membership morally significant? (6) Why is the concept of a person important? Important Arguments The important arguments that are examined include the following: (1) Counterexample arguments: (a) Whole brain death and upper brain death. (b) Brain transplants. (...) (c) Currently irreparable damage versus impossibility of resuscitation. (2) The reprogramming argument. (3) The generalized potentialities argument. (4) Potentialities and comas: active versus passive. (5) Anti-speciesism and the common sense generality of the concept of a person: deities, angels, disembodied souls, extraterrestrials. Important Positions Among the important positions considered are the following: (1) Consciousness is sufficient for personhood. (2) Self-consciousness is necessary for personhood. (3) The capacity for thought is necessary for personhood. (4) Moral agency is necessary for personhood. (shrink)

Within Luis Buñuel's classic surrealist film The Exterminating Angel is a philosophical motif which expresses, demonstrates, and develops two of Ludwig Wittgenstein's central concepts: language lays traps for the unwary that can lead to illogical thought and mind-bending quests; and any picture of the world is formed through cultural habits that cannot be rationally expressed but can be changed. This article argues that what we find in Buñuel's Angel is a “picture” that is at one level rational and (...) habitual and at another entirely absurd. These apparently rational preconceptions – the insular habits of privilege and the language that maintains it – produce a certain “aspect” which, when clung to, can entrap us. In this effort we thread a series of chance meetings into a web of encounters: of people at a dinner party, of a philosopher and a filmmaker, and perhaps most significantly, of games that form a totality of gamesmanship – a chance meeting of the game... (shrink)

Different types of Religious Experience: One experiences a nonreligious object as a religious one, e.g. a dove as an angel, one experiences an object that is a "public object” (one there for everyone to experience/observe), an experience of a supernatural entity that others cannot experience/observe, experiences that resist being captured by words, an awareness of an entity, though there is no sensation.

The story of the devil’s fall poses at least three separate philosophical puzzles, only two of which Anselm addressed. The first (Puzzle A) wonders how this angel could have committed a sin in the first place since he was created with a good will and good desires. A second puzzle (Puzzle B) consists of trying to explain why the devil cannot ever be forgiven for that first sin. According to Christian teaching, the devil is unable to “repent” (i.e., express (...) sorrow for) that first sin and thereby acquire forgiveness for it. Humans, by contrast, are portrayed as repeatedly sinning, repenting, and being forgiven. It is a mystery why no mechanism similar to that humans use for forgiveness is available to the devil. The final puzzle (Puzzle C) is slightly different. It wonders why the devil was never given a second chance. In daily life, most of us are given (and grant to others) second chances all the time. Given that the consequences of choosing incorrectly were in this case so disastrous and permanent, it seems inconceivable that a good God would permit one of His angels merely one chance to choose and thereby determine his eternal fate. And yet, despite this inconceivability, this is precisely the way the story is presented. Anselm addressed Puzzles A and B but never explicitly raised Puzzle C. I propose he failed to raise it because he conflated it with Puzzle B. In this paper, I first explain how he solved Puzzles A and B. I then go on to argue that Puzzle C does indeed constitute a separate puzzle that should not be conflated with Puzzle B. I then argue that the best (and perhaps only) way in which Anselm could solve Puzzle C is to appeal to a type of free will that conflicts with his solution to Puzzle A. As a result, I argue that there may be a latent contradiction in Anselm’s treatment of the devil’s sin unless an alternate solution to Puzzle C can be found. (shrink)

Although De Casu Diaboli is not a traditional locus for a discussion of faith and reason, it is nonetheless subtly permeated by this topic in two ways. The first concerns Anselm’s general strategy for answering the student’s questions regarding the cause of the devil’s first sin. Anselm ends by claiming the devil willed incorrectly for no other cause than that his will so willed. Anselm thus ultimately calls upon the student to have faith in the mysterious, libertarian selfdetermining power of (...) the created will; explanation must cease and the student must accept that God would only have punished the devil if the devil’s will were freely to blame. This implicit, ultimate appeal to faith appears in stark contrast to the content of the entire treatise—a treatise up to that point filled with explanations of how the devil sinned in terms of the structure of the angels’ wills and intellects. In other words, the purpose of the treatise had been to provide a reason for the devil’s sin. It would seem that such reasons-giving discussions which occupy the first part of the work would be unnecessary if Anselm were ultimately to appeal to the student to rest upon his faith. The first part of the paper accordingly explores and attempts to alleviate this seeming tension. Additionally, Anselm explains that the devil had some compelling reasons to choose the way in which he did given his particular epistemic state. Despite this, the devil was to have faith in God’s prohibition and not follow his reasons for doing otherwise. The second part of the paper, therefore, discusses how the relative priority of faith can be inferred from Anselm’s discussion of the devil’s first sin. (shrink)

In these compositions, the subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind, bid fair to be of the greatest public utility.From toddlers to teenagers, children are everywhere in Hogarth’s pictures. There are children of the drawing room and children of the streets; “little angels” shown putting on a play, “little devils” shown torturing animals; portraits of the sons and daughters of minor aristocrats and the upwardly mobile professional classes and gangs of youngsters gambling at cards on the pavements of (...) St. James’s Street. Biblical images may lend gravitas or satirical point to the messages of the pictures: for example, in the theme of abandonment that lies behind the painting of the infant Moses Brought... (shrink)

There is an apparent tension in William Blake’s attitude toward the visual. Blake denies the value of sense perception, and of perceptible natural objects, as sources of genuine insight. And he is dismissive of “natural religion” on the grounds that natural objects as present to the senses are insufficient to ground religious experience.Blake’s own spiritual experiences are, however, typically described in intensely visual terms. As a child of eight, he saw “a tree filled with angels” on the common at Peckham (...) Rye in south London, and throughout his life reported “visions” as a source of insight. The narrative of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” is largely composed of.. (shrink)

"Any man-any artist, as Nietzsche or Cezanne would say- climbs the stairway in the tower of his perfection at the cost of a struggle with a deunde-not with an angel, as some have maintained, or with his muse. This fundamental distinction must be kept in mind if the root of a work of art is to be grasped." -Frederico Garcia Lorca.

The papers in this issue were presented at the 4th conference on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology—Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.