This article explores sex selective abortion as a form of structural violence within the broader notion of women's ‘protection’ in contemporary India. While SSA tends to be framed more generally within ethical and choice-based frameworks around abortion access and reproductive ‘rights’, and specifically in India around preference for sons as a discriminatory, cultural, technological misogyny, this article argues that sex selective abortion in India needs to be understood as an outcome of broader systemic economic, political and social processes. The deepening (...) of neoliberal values through state policies has impacted significantly on social relations, shaping SSA as a manifestation of structural violence. State-driven policies in India reflect a neoliberal governmentality through state patriarchy that is implicit within the neoliberal developmental, governmental and capitalist paradigm of contemporary India. This article argues that SSA is structurally produced and therefore cannot be remedied through awareness-raising strategies such as beti bachao or financial inclusion as a means to ‘protect’ or ‘save the girl child’. Indeed, it is neoliberal economic forces that actively, though seemingly inadvertently, promote anti-women, sex selective abortion as a reproductive strategy, which is then disciplined through neoliberal governmentality. This highlights SSA as a form of gendered and structural, rather than discriminatory, violence. (shrink)

This text explores how human beings construe experience: experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality.

Science, Technology and Society: A Sociological Approach is a comprehensive guide to the emergent field of science, technology, and society (STS) studies and its implications for today’s culture and society. Discusses current STS topics, research tools, and theories Tackles some of the most urgent issues in current STS studies, including power and culture, race, gender, colonialism, the Internet, cyborgs and robots, and biotechnology Includes case studies, a glossary, and further reading lists.

Dog ownership is believed to benefit owner wellbeing but, contrary to popular belief, there is limited evidence to suggest that simply owning a dog is associated with improved mental health. This mixed-methods study investigates whether dog owners with stronger relationships with their dogs experience better mental health. Participants completed an online survey. Owners’ health was measured using the validated PROMIS questions regarding depression, anxiety, emotional support, and companionship. The dog–owner relationship was measured using the validated MDORS scale, which has three (...) subscales: interaction, emotional closeness, and perceived costs. Univariable and multivariable linear regression analyses were conducted, adjusting for confounding factors. Additionally, positive and negative impacts of dog ownership on mental wellbeing were coded from open questions using thematic analysis. A stronger dog–owner relationship was associated with greater feelings of emotional support and companionship but poorer mental health in terms of anxiety or depression. However, the perceived costs subscale was consistently associated with better mental health outcomes. Direction of causality cannot be inferred as people with poor mental health may acquire dogs to help relieve symptoms, which qualitative analysis supported. Key themes included positive impacts on owner wellbeing and happiness through providing purpose, companionship and self-acceptance, pleasure and distraction, as well as lessening emotional pain and suffering and reducing risk behaviors. However, negative impacts of a strong relationship include anticipatory grief over loss of the dog, and concerns regarding the burden of responsibility and ability to meet dog’s needs. Perceived ability to adequately meet dog’s needs promoted personal growth and positive relationships with others, whereas perceived inability led to feelings of guilt, or anger/frustration, and reduced autonomy and sense of environmental mastery. Dog ownership contributes to both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing in multiple ways, including supporting owners through periods of poor mental health and providing purpose. However, the burden of responsibility and owner and dog characteristics can create challenges, and owners may benefit from support in caring for their dogs and reducing problematic behaviors. (shrink)

The widespread potential for somatic fusion among different conspecific multicellular individuals suggests that such fusion is adaptive. However, because recognition of non‐kin (allorecognition) usually leads to a rejection response, successful somatic fusion is limited to close kin. This is consistent with kin‐selection theory, which predicts that the potential cost of fusion and the potential for somatic parasitism decrease with increasing relatedness. Paradoxically, however, Crozier1 found that, in the short term, positive‐frequency‐dependent selection eliminates the required genetic polymorphism at allorecognition loci. The (...) ‘Crozier paradox’ may be solved if allorecognition is based on extrinsically balanced polymorphisms, for example at immune loci. Alternatively, the assumption of most models that self fusion is mutually beneficial is wrong. If fusion is on average harmful, selection will promote unconditional rejection. However, we propose that fusion within individuals is beneficial, selecting for the ability to fuse, but fusion between individuals on average costly, selecting for non‐self recognition (rather than non‐kin recognition). We discuss experimental data on fungi that are consistent with this hypothesis. BioEssays 30:1193–1203, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

As studies continue to accumulate on leader humility, it has become clear that humility in a leader is largely beneficial to his or her followers. While the majority of the empirical research on this topic has demonstrated the positive effects of leader humility, this study challenges that consensus by arguing that a leader’s humble behavior can have contradictory outcomes in followers’ voice behavior. Drawing on attachment theory, we develop a model which takes into account the ways in which leader humility (...) influences the seemingly contradictory voice behavior of followers, i.e., inducing challenging voice, and defensive voice depending on the followers’ sense of security as reflected by feeling trusted and self-efficacy for voice. The results of this empirical study confirm that leader humility influences followers’ voice in a contradictory way through their sense of security. (shrink)

Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14850 [email protected] are motorcycles made of? Presumably the answer is something like ‘wheels, pistons, fuel lines …’ or perhaps ‘metal, leather, plastic …’. Whatever precisely the parts of a motorcycle are, surely they are all material. Kathrin Koslicki disagrees. She has recently argued that ordinary material objects like motorcycles not only have material proper parts, but also have formal proper parts . On her view, an accurate list of the proper parts of a motorcycle must include (...) something like motorcyclehood in addition to the sorts of things just listed. Although she remains neutral about what exactly such a formal part is , she is explicit about what it does. The formal part of an object dictates structure; it dictates how the material parts must be arranged. It is ‘a kind of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind’ . Koslicki claims that this recipe or structure is itself a proper part of every motorcycle. That is what she calls the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis . A strange claim! So let us examine Koslicki’s argument for it. She begins by asking us to consider a case in which an artist shapes a single lump of clay L, thereby creating a statue S. The argument then proceeds as follows : The argument for the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis:1.It is possible to make an object S from a single preexisting material ingredient L. 2.L is a proper part of S. 3.Weak Supplementation: anything that has a proper part has at least two non-overlapping proper parts. 4.S has a proper part Q that does not overlap L . 5.S has no material proper parts other than L 6.Q is a proper part, but not a material proper part, of S 7.S has …. (shrink)

The paper considers certain extensions of the system LC introduced in Dunn & Meyer 1997. LC is a structurally free system , but it has combinators as formulas in the place of structural rules. We consider two ways to extend LC with conjunction and disjunction depending on whether they distribute over each other or not. We prove the elimination theorem for the systems. At the end of the paper we give a Routley-Meyer style semantics for the distributive extension, including some (...) new definitions and an algorithm which are used in proving a representation theorem in general, i.e., for arbitrary combinators. (shrink)

Over the past hundred years, a number of scientific investigators claim to have adduced experimental evidence for phenomena information” seems to behave like a weak signal that has to compete for the information-processing resources of the organism, a reduction of ongoing sensorimotor activity may facilitate ESP detection. Such a meaningful convergence of results suggests that psi phenomena may represent a unitary, coherent process whose nature and compatibility with current physical theory have yet to be determined. The theoretical implications and potential (...) practical applications of psi could be significant, irrespective of the small magnitude of psi effects in laboratory settings. (shrink)

Argues against D. Hume's (1825) treatise "Of Miracles," which is often used to disprove the existence of psi. Hume states that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature which are proved to be true by common experience, and that the only sufficient testimony for a miracle would be testimony whose falsehood would be even more miraculous than the miracle itself. The primary objections to Hume's argument are that (1) it is tautological, since it presupposes the nonexistence of (...) miraculous events, and (2) as a metaphysical statement, it is inappropriate when considering empirical evidence, which should be judged by its own rule. (shrink)

K. E. Boxer explores moral responsibility, and whether it is compatible with causal determinism. She suggests that to answer this question we must focus on responsibility in the sense of liability, and that an incompatibilist view may only be preserved on an understanding of the moral desert of punishment that many find morally problematic.

Starting from a decidedly Frijdian perspective on emotion in action, we adopt neurocognitive theories of action control to analyze the mechanisms through which emotional action arises. Appraisal of events vis-à-vis concerns gives rise to a determinate motive to establish a specific state of the world; the pragmatic idea of the action’s effects incurs the valuation of action options and a change in action readiness in the form of incipient ideomotor capture of the selected action. Forward modeling of the sensory consequences (...) of the selected action option allows for the evaluation and fine-tuning of anticipated action effects, which renders the emotional action impulsive yet purposive. This novel theoretical synthesis depicts the cornerstone principles for a mechanistic view on emotion in action. (shrink)

A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament, being Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti. Translated, Revised and Enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Divinity School of Harvard University. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 726. 36s.Biblico Theological Lexicon to New Testament Greek. by Hermann Cremer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Greifswald. Third English Edition. With Supplement. Translated from the latest German Edition by William Uewick, M.A. (...) Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 943. 38s. (shrink)

I address the question: ‘Are acts of the ritual slaughter of animals, of the kind recently engaged in by the Yengeni family, morally justifiable?’ Using the Yengeni incident as a springboard for my discussion, I focus on the moral question of the relative weight of two competing ethical claims. I weigh the claim that we have an obligation not to cause animals pain without good reason against the claim by cultures that traditional practices, such as the one under discussion, are (...) morally justifiable on the basis of the moral goods obtained through cultural identification and participation. I attempt to show that claims justifying practices on the basis of culture are not strong enough to outweigh the prima facie wrong of causing non-human animals unnecessary pain. (shrink)

This article argues that current economic upheaval should be understood as a problem of domination, in two respects: the ‘dyadic’ domination of one actor by another, and the ‘structural’ domination of individuals by a diffuse, decentralized, but nevertheless human-made system. Such domination should be contested through specifically democratic political mobilization, through institutions and practices that expand the political agency of citizens themselves. The article advances this argument by synthesizing two traditions of political thought. It reconstructs radical democratic theory from the (...) Progressive Era. These thinkers in turn help to reinforce contemporary debates in neorepublican thought, resolving disputes over the scope of domination and the relationship between domination and democracy. This synthesis offers a novel normative framework for diagnosing and responding to the current combination of economic upheaval and political dysfunction. (shrink)

Structurally free logic LC was introduced in [4]. A natural extension of LC, in particular, in a sequent formulation, is by conjunction and disjunction that do not distribute over each other. We define a set theoretical semantics for these logics via constructing a representation of a lattice that we extend by intensional operations. Canonically, minimally overlapping filter-ideal pairs are used; this construction avoids the use of an equivalent of the axiom of choice and lends transparency to the structure. We also (...) discuss adapting the present semantics for substructural logics, as well as, the question of cannnonicity of LC+. (shrink)

This book provides a defence of epistemological relativism against its most powerful opponents.

Objective To study how doctors care for their patients, both medically and as fellow humans, through observing their conduct in patient–doctor encounters. Design Qualitative study in which 101 videotaped consultations were observed and analysed using a Grounded Theory approach, generating explanatory categories through a hermeneutical analysis of the taped consultations. Setting A 500-bed general teaching hospital in Norway. Participants 71 doctors working in clinical non-psychiatric departments and their patients. Results The doctors were concerned about their patients' health and how their (...) medical knowledge could be of service. This medical focus often over-rode other important aspects of the consultations, especially existential elements. The doctors actively directed the focus away from their patients' existential concerns onto medical facts and rarely addressed the personal aspects of a patient's condition, treating them in a biomechanical manner. At the same time, however, the doctors attended to their patients with courteousness, displaying a polite and friendly attitude and emphasising the relationship between them. Conclusions The study suggests that the main failing of patient–doctor encounters is not a lack of courteous manners, but the moral offence patients experience when existential concerns are ignored. Improving doctors' social and communication skills cannot resolve this moral problem, which appears to be intrinsically bound to modern medical practice. Acknowledging this moral offence would, however, be the first step towards minimising the effects thereof. (shrink)

Developing the Horizons of the Mind is a comprehensive book on Relational and Contextual Reasoning, a theory of the human mind which powerfully addresses key areas of human conflict such as the ideological conflict between nations, the conflict in close relationships and the conflict between science and religion. K. Helmut Reich provides a clear and accessible introduction to the fresh RCR way of thinking that encourages people to adopt an inclusive rather than an oppositional approach to conflict and problem-solving. Part (...) one outlines the key aspects of RCR theory and supporting empirical data and part two provides examples of its application in the world. RCR provides a stimulating and challenging tool to several disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, religious studies and education, and this book will be a valuable resource for cognitive scientists, psychotherapists, theologians, educators and all those involved in conflict resolution. (shrink)

Here, I discuss how natural biological evolution might have selected human origin and the psychology of the better mind-brain. However, all humans are closely related; why do we make crimes, war, hate, and jealousy their primary reasons and overcoming methodologies? How can they gain their best happiness? What kind of philosophy apply to annalize this big question and convince humankind to evolve their mind? How we could achieve our optimum potential happiness by developing hidden intelligence to make the world a (...) happier place to live in. (shrink)