The emergence of nanotechnology, with all its promises of economic, social, and medical benefits, along with dire predictions of environmental, health, and safety threats, has occasioned an active debate in the Science and Technology Studies field, in which we have seen five distinct conversations that frame the discussion. The topical threads include ethics, regulation, opportunities and threats including utopian/dystopian visions of the future, public perception, public participation. These conversational distinctions are not absolutes with firm borders as they clearly overlap at (...) many points. Nonetheless, common to all is a strong sense that control and consequence are significant problems that have yet to be addressed adequately by the promoters of nanotechnology. A final section addresses articles on nanotechnology that exemplify the social construction theory of technology. We include herein a selective summary of this recent body of science, technology, and society (STS) journal literature focused on the social and ethical interactions of nanotechnology (SEIN) that has emerged in the last few years. The intent is not to be encyclopedic in coverage, but rather to seek to understand, in a general way, the key issues and concepts STS scholars are discussing. It is clear that STS-oriented scholars are well poised to grapple explicitly with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. Drawing on understandings of earlier socio-technical areas of interest and concern—nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, the human genome—such scholars have moved well beyond the questions of whether and where nanotechnology intersects society. More important is their effort to seek an understanding in depth of exactly how they are socio-politically, culturally, and ethically interconnected. In doing so, SEIN studies have at the same time become increasingly diverse and more sophisticated and mature over the course of the past decade. Scholars have quite rightly recognized the inadequacies of blanket ideas of moratoria versus non-regulatory environments, utopian versus dystopian futures, and whether or not the public has a role to play in nanotechnology decision making. Rather, a more sophisticated, often case specific, flexible understanding of the societal context of a given issue or concern is called for. (shrink)

In Wyoming Revisited, Michael A. Amundson uses the power of rephotography to show how landscapes across the state have endured over the last century. Three sets of photographs—the original black-and-white photographs taken by famed Wyoming photographer Joseph E. Stimson more than a century ago, repeat black-and-white images taken by Amundson in the 1980s, and a third view in color taken by the author in 2007–2008—are accompanied by captions explaining the history and importance of each site as well as information (...) on the process of repeat photographic fieldwork. The 117 locations feature street views of Wyoming towns and cities, as well as views from the state's famous natural landmarks like Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Devil's Tower National Monument, Hot Springs State Park, and Big Horn and Shoshone National Forests. In addition, Amundson provides six in-depth essays that explore the life of Joseph E. Stimson, the rephotographic process and how it has evolved, and how repeat photography can be used to understand history, landscape, historic preservation, and globalization. Wyoming Revisited highlights the historic evolution of the American West over the past century and showcases the significant changes that have occurred over the past twenty-five years. This book will appeal to photographers, historians of the American West, and anyone interested in Wyoming's history or landscape. The publication of this book is supported in part by the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund. (shrink)

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis investigate many of the activities that are featured in the cognitive sciences. These include memory, learning, perception, and calculative activities. However, for ethno/ca such activities are not necessarily ‘cognitive’, and their investigation as activities does not necessarily require observation or speculation about what goes on within the mind or brain. This article briefly discusses three examples of nominal ‘cognitive’ activities: looking-for/seeing; failing to recall; and counting things and people. The discussion suggests how these examples can be (...) understood and elucidated in a way that has little to do with any existing program in cognitive science. The modest aim of the article is not to persuade readers that ethno/ca can contribute to cognitive studies. Instead, I argue that ethno/ca offers a path not taken in cognitive science: a viable research program for investigating nominally ‘cognitive’ themes without trading in mentalistic notions of cognition. (shrink)

The findings reported in the article “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” by Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, are indeed disturbing, but I am not convinced that they tell us all we need to know about public attitudes. Different questions, those that invite respondents to reflect on the reciprocal nature of practical morality, might reveal very different views of justified and unjustified conduct in war. I believe that these views, regarding, for example, (...) the treatment of prisoners of war, would probably support the idea of the moral equality of soldiers on the battlefield. (shrink)

This paper provides a commentary on “Vascular amputees: A study in disappointment” and its significance in the development of the disability rights movement, as well as the movements for values-based medicine and person-centred health and social care.

The molecular evolution of pituitary growth hormone and prolactin in mammals shows two unusual features: episodes of markedly accelerated evolution and, in some species, complex families of related proteins expressed in placenta and resulting from multiple gene duplications. Explanations of these phenomena in terms of physiological adaptations seem unconvincing. Here, I propose an alternative explanation, namely that these evolutionary features reflect the use of the hormones (and their receptors) as viral receptors. Episodes of rapid evolution can then be explained as (...) due to “arms races” in which changes in the hormone lead to reduced interaction with the virus, and subsequent changes in the virus counteract this. Placental paralogues of the hormones could provide decoys that bind viruses, and protect the foetus against infection. The hypothesis implies that the extensive changes introduced into growth hormone, prolactin and their receptors during the course of mammalian evolution reflect viral interactions, not endocrine adaptations. (shrink)

Contemporary philosopher Michael Walzer described the Problem of Dirty Hands as the choice between achieving a morally good end by violating one's own moral principles and sticking to one's moral principles without achieving this end. Walzer specifically explored this problem in the context of someone in the position of political power who can make a significant impact on the greater good but only through performing morally problematic deeds. In the 2016 film Doctor Strange, there are three characters who see (...) themselves as presented with this problem: the Ancient One, Kaecilius, and Doctor Stephen Strange himself. Of the three characters we've considered, the Ancient One most obviously faced the Problem of Dirty Hands. Dark magic is one of those things that are so dangerous that they're simply forbidden, even by the most adept of users, such as the Ancient One. (shrink)

A highly original theory of the political, the book explores the literal and metaphorical flare-ups in political theology, revolutionary thought, radical protests, and global energy production.

Confronting the challenges of the 20th century, from modernity and the Great War to the Holocaust and postmodern culture, Jewish thinkers have wrestled with such fundamental issues as redemption and revelation, eternity and history, messianism and politics. From the turn of the century through the 1920s, European Jewish intellectuals confronted alienation and the challenges of modernity by seeking secure grounds for a meaningful life. After the Holocaust and the fall of Nazism, the rich results of their thinking—on topics such as (...) transcendence, redemption, revelation, and politics—were reinterpreted in an atmosphere of increasing disillusion and fragmentation. In Interim Judaism, Michael L. Morgan traces the evolution of this shift in values, as expressed in the work of social thinkers, novelists, artists, and poets as well as philosophers and theologians at the beginning and end of the century. Focusing on the problem of objectivity, the experience of the transcendent, and the relationship between redemption and politics, he argues that the outcome for contemporary Jews is a pragmatic style of religiosity that has abandoned traditional conceptions of Judaism and is searching and waiting for new ones, a condition that he describes as "interim Judaism." Published with the generous support of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati. (shrink)

Un des enjeux du rapport que Deleuze a entretenu avec l'histoire de la philosophie fut de ne pas tomber dans le piège de la contradiction. D'abord au sens où, selon lui, la fécondité de l'exercice philosophique ne passe pas par la confrontation des idées, mais dans la puissance de leur retentissement dans la pensée de ceux qui les comprennent à leur tour ; ensuite, et surtout, en ce que cette compréhension, parce qu'elle est une réappropriation, implique nécessairement une trahison du (...) sens, p... (shrink)

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This paper is concerned with the question of how the social and economic structure of cities affects the degree of political competition and how in turn these factors affect the degree of a political stability. It isbased on a comparative empirical study of the outcomes of the communal elections of 1952, 1958 and 1964 in 147 Belgian cities that had a population size of 10.000 or more in 1947.In the first place the following generalizations are made with regard to the (...) election outcomes in these cities during the 1952-1964 period. 1. A general proliferation of lists or parties participating in the elections from 1952 to 1964.2. A trend from one-party-control over the college of the city council toward coalition-control.3. A net increase in the number of catholic lists and a net decrease in the number of socialist and liberal lists participating in the colleges of these townships.4. An increase in the number of cities in which newer, smaller and nontraditional parties or lists participated in the college of the city council.Three measures of politica! competitions are employed :1. The average number of parties or lists, that entered the communal election of 1952, 1958 and 1964.2. The average number of lists that received at least ten per cent of the vote in these three elections, and3. The presence or absence of a coalition on the college of the city council in 1952.The two measures of politica! stability, which are also based on the results of the same elections, are :1. The degree of stability in the lists and parties participating in the college of the city council, and2. The degree of stability in the list or party controlling the college of the city council.In general, measures of structural differentiation, linguistic diversity, industrial diversity, and social heterogeneity are found to be positively related to the degree of competition in local politics. In turn, measures of each of these structural factors and the measures of political competition are found to be negatively related to measures of political stability. Regression analysis supports the interpretation that diversity and heterogeneity in the social structure of cities - specifically, population size, density, and the presence of many persons with high occupational status - contribute to greater politica! competition in local polities, but that it is the degree of political competition that most strongly affects the degree of political stability.The conclusion is drawn that cities with a high degree of social and economic heterogeneity have a greater amount of conflict and cleavage. This results in greater competition in the political arena whichin turn predisposes such cities to have a high degree of instability in the control of their city governments. (shrink)

Culturally inherited institutional norms structure much of human social life. Successfully replicating institutions train their current members to behave in the generally adaptive ways that served past members. Ancestor veneration is a well-known manifestation of this phenomenon whereby deference is conferred to prestigious past members who are used as cultural models. Such norms of respect may be maintained by punishment based on evidence from theory and laboratory experiments, but there is little observational evidence to show that punishment is commonly used. (...) To test for punishment as a mechanism that maintains these norms, we examine a norm of ancestor veneration in a natural field experiment at the Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M University. The MSC is a memorial to university war dead, and the expectation is that all who enter the building remove their hats out of respect. Observations reveal that hat removal is significantly more common at the MSC than at two control locations. Survey data indicate that most, but not all, subjects understand the norm to be veneration of the dead, and most expect others to follow the norm. Many report a strong negative emotional response when asked to imagine the norm being violated. Sixty-two percent report they would definitely or probably ask the noncompliant to uncover. Focal follow data show that punishment is relatively rare, however, with the majority of behatted subjects going unreproached as they pass through the building. Both survey and observational data indicate there is a motivated minority that enthusiastically enforces the norm. (shrink)

Basics of Embodied Cognition EC treats cognition as a set of tools evolved by organisms for coping with their environments. Each of the key terms in this characterization—tool, evolved, organisms, coping, and environment—has a special significance for, and casts a particular light on, the study of the mind. EC thereby foregrounds the following six facts.

If there is one pivotal epistemological issue the Eastern and the Western Christian churches have agreed upon, this must be the understanding that God’s essence is inherently and conclusively unavailable to humans. This settlement is based on the shared assumption that there is no possible mode of accessing this or any essence, other than either from objective or subjective knowl­edge. Neo-Orthodoxy has preserved the heritage of Pateric apophaticism and has built upon the shared assumption its own, ecclesial accessibility instead to (...) God’s existence. In this exclusivist orientation Neo-Orthodoxy has further proclaimed itself the only true heir to ancient Greece, cutting off the West and criticizing it as a bastion of rational alienation. A phenomenological investigation of Greek statuary art, however, addresses prosody as a third, hitherto unexplored mode of epistemological intelligibility for an access to the essence of “God.” Through the implementation of suprasegmental theory in the phenomenological reduction of a certain statue, we revisit certain key concepts in the discussion between Christos Yannaras, whose works comprise the Neo-Orthodox manifesto, and Martin Heidegger, who claimed that the Greek statue “is the god himself.” Amongst the conclusions emerging from this comparative hermeneutics is the idea that in fact the West may have remained all along more ready than the East to move into the next historical step of man’s self-elucidation in the light of what is Holy. (shrink)

With this special volume of Speculations, the editors wanted to challenge the contested term "speculative realism," offering scholars who have some involvement with it a space to voice their opinions of the network of ideas commonly associated with the name.

In the third act of his journey, Michael McLeod, a beloved physician and professor emeritus of medicine at Duke University, has shown why he's an even more beloved professor of life. In a manner that is clear, practical, and inspiring, this book is an invitation to grow and flourish during what can be one of the most challenging periods in our lives. McLeod demonstrates his courage to share his journey and his willingness to learn from his medical students and (...) from the participants in his conscious aging workshops. As you read his words, you can learn alongside this respected elder. He has put together a powerful guide for living your life fully. (shrink)

Evolution is often seen as a site of contestation within the school curriculum. The topic of evolution is therefore often considered to be ‘controversial’. I first examine what is meant by ‘controversial’ and conclude that while, in an everyday sense, the topic of evolution can indeed be considered to be controversial, this term can mislead. A more fruitful way forward may be to regard the topic of evolution as ‘sensitive’. I examine reasons why evolution might be considered sensitive – noting (...) that for a not inconsiderable number of people it is so because of a perceived conflict with religious views and also because it may be existentially disturbing for some. Rather little attention has been paid in the philosophy of education literature as to how we might deal with sensitive issues. I therefore look at what we mean by describing an issue as sensitive and at how teachers might deal in the classroom with such issues, specifically evolution. (shrink)

To protect art under the First Amendment, John Finnis claims that art is simply the expression of emotion. Later, to protect aesthetic experience from subjectivity, Finnis claims that aesthetic experience is just a form of knowledge. However, neither of these claims adequately accounts for the nature of their objects nor fully protects them. The expression of emotion—intrinsic to art in Finnis’s view—is not always clear or even present, yet people can still appreciate the work. Equally problematic, aesthetic experience is not (...) mere knowledge. It involves something more: a response or judgment. So, what is the nature and purpose of art and aesthetic experience? I argue that the main purpose of art is to provide the possibility of an aesthetic experience. Further, aesthetic experience is a distinct basic good. This status as a basic good and as the purpose of art provides justification for the state to protect (and occasionally promote) art. (shrink)

Freiheit der Reflexion - Reflexivität der Freiheit: beide Ausdrücke bedeuten einen Zusammenhang zwischen der theoretischen und der praktischen Philosophie. Zentrale Bedeutung für die theoretische Philosophie kommt der Reflexion nicht erst bei Hegel zu, sondern die Konstruktion theoretischer Zusammenhänge erfolgt seit den Anfängen der Metaphysik über reflexive Bestimmungen, also solche, die einen Bezug auf sich selbst enthalten: So liegt in jeder Abkürzung eines unendlichen Regresses hinter der dogmatischen Setzung der Anspruch, daß dieses gesetzte Glied aus sich selbst gilt, wo nicht die (...) Philosophie sich selbst als autoritären Sophismus versteht. (shrink)