The essays in this book demonstrate the breadth and vitality of American intellectual history. Their core theme is the diversity of both American intellectual life and of the frameworks that we must use to make sense of that diversity. The Worlds of American Intellectual History has at its heart studies of American thinkers. Yet it follows these thinkers and their ideas as they have crossed national, institutional, and intellectual boundaries. The volume explores ways in which American ideas have circulated in (...) different cultures. It also examines the multiple sites--from social movements, museums, and courtrooms to popular and scholarly books and periodicals--in which people have articulated and deployed ideas within and beyond the borders of the United States. At these cultural frontiers, the authors demonstrate, multiple interactions have occurred - some friendly and mutually enriching, others laden with tension, misunderstandings, and conflict. The same holds for other kinds of borders, such as those within and between scholarly disciplines, or between American history and the histories of other cultures.The richness of contemporary American intellectual history springs from the variety of worlds with which it must engage. Intellectual historians have always relished being able to move back and forth between close readings of particular texts and efforts to make sense of broader cultural dispositions. That range is on display in this volume, which includes essays by scholars as fully at home in the disciplines of philosophy, literature, economics, sociology, political science, education, science, religion, and law as they are in history. It includes essays by prominent historians of European thought, attuned to the transatlantic conversations in which Europeans and Americans have been engaged since the seventeenth century, and American historians whose work has carried them not only to different regions in North America but across the North Atlantic to Europe, across the South Atlantic to Africa, and across the Pacific to South Asia. (shrink)

While new generations of implantable brain computer interface devices are being developed, evidence in the literature about their impact on the patient experience is lagging. In this article, we address this knowledge gap by analysing data from the first-in-human clinical trial to study patients with implanted BCI advisory devices. We explored perceptions of self-change across six patients who volunteered to be implanted with artificially intelligent BCI devices. We used qualitative methodological tools grounded in phenomenology to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Results (...) show that, on the one hand, BCIs can positively increase a sense of the self and control; on the other hand, they can induce radical distress, feelings of loss of control, and a rupture of patient identity. We conclude by offering suggestions for the proactive creation of preparedness protocols specific to intelligent—predictive and advisory—BCI technologies essential to prevent potential iatrogenic harms. (shrink)

Information is the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness and of legal preparedness for public health emergencies specifically. Clearly, the creation, transmittal, and application of information are vital to all public health endeavors. The critical significance of information grows exponentially as the complexity and scale of public threats increase.Only a small body of organized information on public health law existed before the 21st century: a series of landmark books published beginning in 1926 by Tobey, Grad, and Wing ; (...) model public health laws published as early as 1907; systematic reviews of original research studies published in the 1990s; and a small but growing number of articles published in public health journals and law reviews.With the new century came new public health law programs and activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in public health professional associations, and in numerous non-profit and academic organizations. (shrink)

Information is the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness and of legal preparedness for public health emergencies specifically. Clearly, the creation, transmittal, and application of information are vital to all public health endeavors. The critical significance of information grows exponentially as the complexity and scale of public threats increase.Only a small body of organized information on public health law existed before the 21st century: a series of landmark books published beginning in 1926 by Tobey, Grad, and Wing ; (...) model public health laws published as early as 1907; systematic reviews of original research studies published in the 1990s; and a small but growing number of articles published in public health journals and law reviews.With the new century came new public health law programs and activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in public health professional associations, and in numerous non-profit and academic organizations. (shrink)

We analyse the electronic portfolio in higher education policy and practice.While evangelical accounts of the ePortfolio celebrate its power as a new eLearning technology,we argue that it allows the mutually-reinforcing couple of neoliberalism and the enterprising self to function in ways in which individual difference can be presented, cultured and grown, all the time within a standardised framework which relentlessly polices the limits of the acceptable and unacceptable. We point to the ePortfolio as a practice of government, arguing that grander (...) policy coalesces out of a halting, experimental set of technological instruments for thinking about how life should be lived. (shrink)

This article analyses the relations that teachers and school leaders establish with themselves and with others—especially those who would seek to govern them—through the professional and personal–professional activities that increasingly accompany pedagogical and administrative practice today. Specifically, the article seeks to analyse the conditions under which such ‘ethical-governmental’ relations have become possible and to clarify the lines of power, truth and ethics that are in play within them. In this way, it is argued, their intelligibility may be recovered; their contingencies (...) disclosed. The article first posits a non-psychologised, ‘enfolded’ notion of the self on which analysis rests before turning to an analytics of government of the conditions themselves. An important element within this entanglement of diverse events, discourses, practices and foldings is the ensemble of policies and practices developed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. The article argues that the programmes of this national agency are a salient and widespread force for acting upon teachers’ and school leaders’ self-constitution as a subject of their own actions—a subject which, in consequence, is enjoined to be more agile, self-reliant, engaged and entrepreneurial than its ‘routine-bound’ predecessors; a subject we describe as the ‘adaptive professional’. (shrink)

This article analyses ‘performance government’ as an emergent form of rule in advanced liberal democracies. It discloses how teachers and school leaders in Australia are being governed by the practices of performance government which centre on the recently established Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and are given direction by two major strategies implicit within the exercise of this form of power: activation and regulation. Through an ‘analytics of government’ of these practices, the article unravels the new configurations (...) of corporatized expert and academic knowledge—and their attendant methods of application—by which the self-governing capacities of teachers and school leaders are being activated and regulated in ways that seek to optimize the performance of these professionals. The article concludes by outlining some of the dangers of performance government for the professional freedom of educators and school leaders. (shrink)

Substantial medical evidence shows that about half of ovarian cancers originate in the fallopian tube. Some medical organizations and clinical articles have suggested opportunistic salpingectomy to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in patients at average risk of developing it. This entails removing the fallopian tubes at the same time as another procedure that would occur anyway. The authors argue that the principles of totality and double effect can justify such salpingectomies, even though there is a low incidence of ovarian (...) cancer. Since screening tools for ovarian cancer are ineffective and treatment options are poor, the good effect of reducing the risk of death from this type of ovarian cancer can be proportionate to the bad effects of the minor increase in surgical risk over the other procedure, the unintended side effect of infertility, and the removal of normally functioning tissue. The authors conclude that it is within the purview of a patient and physician to determine whether the benefits are proportionate to the risks in a particular case. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the compatibility of palliative care with the vision of human dignity in the Catholic moral and theological traditions. The unique value of this book is that it presents expert analysis of the major domains of palliative care and how they are compatible with, and enhanced by, the holistic vision of the human person in Catholic health care. This volume will serve as a critically important ethical and theological resource on palliative care, including care (...) at the end of life, for bioethicists, theologians, palliative care specialists, other health care professionals, Catholic health care sponsors, health care administrators and executives, clergy, and students. Patients receiving palliative care and their families will also find this book to be a clarifying and reassuring resource. (shrink)

Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind, doubts persist about its _computational_ credentials. Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute. We first develop a generic account of computation—no easy task, because computation, like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science, has resisted canonical definition. We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the explanatory role of computation in cognitive science. Next we examine (...) what might be regarded as the “conventional” account of connectionist computation. We show why this account is inadequate and hence fosters the suspicion that connectionist networks aren’t genuinely computational. Lastly, we turn to the principal task of the paper: the development of a more robust portrait of connectionist computation. The basis of this portrait is an explanation of the representational capacities of connection weights, supported by an analysis of the weight configurations of a series of simulated neural networks. (shrink)

The volume presents essays on the philosophical explanation of the relationship between body and soul in antiquity from the Presocratics to Galen. The title of the volume alludes to a phrase found in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, referring to aspects of living behaviour involving both body and soul, and is a commonplace in ancient philosophy, dealt with in very different ways by different authors.

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

This study offers a new analysis of the last argument of Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul. Interpretations of this argument and especially of the last section have differed considerably. Judgements on its value have usually been adverse. One scholar speaks of the ‘screen of unreal argument’ which concludes the proof, and writes that ‘from the standpoint of logic the argument has petered out into futility’. Another describes the final stage of the proof as ‘a blatant petitio principii’. (...) A third remarks that the conclusion follows ‘if we do not look too closely’. (shrink)

When it comes to applying computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, cognitive scientists appear to face a dilemma. The only strategy that seems to be available is one that explains consciousness in terms of special kinds of computational processes. But such theories, while they dominate the field, have counter-intuitive consequences; in particular, they force one to accept that phenomenal experience is composed of information processing effects. For cognitive scientists, therefore, it seems to come down to a choice between (...) a counter-intuitive theory or no theory at all. We offer a way out of this dilemma. We argue that the computational theory of mind doesn't force cognitive scientists to explain consciousness in terms of computational processes, as there is an alternative strategy available: one that focuses on the representational vehicles that encode information in the brain. This alternative approach to consciousness allows us to do justice to the standard intuitions about phenomenal experience, yet remain within the confines of cognitive science. (shrink)

In Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology, Horgan and Tienson (1996) argue that cognitive processes, pace classicism, are not governed by exceptionless, “representation-level” rules; they are instead the work of defeasible cognitive tendencies subserved by the non-linear dynamics of the brain’s neural networks. Many theorists are sympathetic with the dynamical characterisation of connectionism and the general (re)conception of cognition that it affords. But in all the excitement surrounding the connectionist revolution in cognitive science, it has largely gone unnoticed that connectionism (...) adds to the traditional focus on computational processes, a new focus – one on the vehicles of mental representation, on the entities that carry content through the mind. Indeed, if Horgan and Tienson’s dynamical characterisation of connectionism is on the right track, then so intimate is the relationship between computational processes and representational vehicles, that connectionist cognitive science is committed to a resemblance theory of mental content. (shrink)

Joshua Knobe's work has marshaled considerable support for the hypothesis that everyday judgments of whether an action is intentional are systematically influenced by evaluations of the action or agent. The main source of evidence for this hypothesis is a series of surveys that involve an agent either helping or harming something as a side effect. Respondents are much more likely to judge the side effect intentional if harm is involved. It is a remarkable feature of the discussion so far that (...) it assumes without scrutiny that the substitution of one act-type for another could not, taken alone, explain the difference in responses that the two scenarios yield. This paper presents evidence, both experimental and conceptual, that it is precisely this difference that explains the asymmetry in responses. Briefly, agents who token the act-type help must fulfill certain psychological conditions that they don't have to fulfill if they are to token the act-type harm. Harming, unlike helping, does not require the ful.. (shrink)

This study offers a new analysis of the last argument of Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul. Interpretations of this argument and especially of the last section have differed considerably. Judgements on its value have usually been adverse. One scholar speaks of the ‘screen of unreal argument’ which concludes the proof, and writes that ‘from the standpoint of logic the argument has petered out into futility’. Another describes the final stage of the proof as ‘a blatant petitio principii’. (...) A third remarks that the conclusion follows ‘if we do not look too closely’. (shrink)

Hume claims that education is ‘disclaimed by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion’ (T 1.3.10.1) and that it is ‘never... recogniz'd by philosophers’ (T 1.3.9.19). He is usually taken to be referring here to indoctrination. I argue, however, that his main concern is with association and those philosophers who emphasize the epistemic dangers of the imagination. These include Locke, Hutcheson and Descartes, but not Hume himself. Hume praises education, highlighting its role in the formation of general (...) rules, and in fostering social conditions that encourage the growth of knowledge and moral virtue. (shrink)

What is special about successful action explanation is that it reveals what the agent saw in her action. Most contemporary philosophers assume that this amounts to explanation in terms of the reason for which the agent acted. They also assume that such explanations conform to a realist picture of explanation. What is disputed is whether the reason is a psychological state or a normative state of affairs . I argue that neither psychological states nor their contents suffice to make actions (...) intelligible in the right way , while Anti-Psychologism can’t explain acting on bad reasons . The alternative that I propose, Proceduralism, has it that explaining an action requires simulating the agent’s practical deliberation. On this view, explanation is not grounded in reasons, and thereby avoids the problems with “bad” reasons that Anti-Psychologism faces. Instead, in simulating to the same conclusion as the agent, the “explainer” comes to see what the agent saw in her action, thereby satisfying the Reasonableness Constraint. Proceduralism requires giving up on the assumption that the reason for which the agent acts explains the action and on the realist picture of action explanation. In addition, it accounts for the incomprehension that explainers experience when they encounter “alien” psychologies – psychologies that are deeply different from their own. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Not by Nature but by Grace: Forming Families through Adoption by Gilbert C. MeilaenderThomas O'BrienNot by Nature but by Grace: Forming Families through Adoption Gilbert C. Meilaender notre dame, in: university of notre dame press, 2016. 136 pp. $25.00I was adopted as an infant through a Catholic Charities office in 1961, and just three years ago, thanks to an online DNA analysis service, I met both of my (...) biological parents, with whom I have an ongoing, loving relationship. So my keen interest in this book and its topic is more than just theological [End Page 209] curiosity. It includes personal and emotional dimensions, as I'm sure it will for many readers.This book is an attempt to understand modern adoptive practices from a primarily Christian/Catholic perspective, with helpful allusions to the beliefs and practices of the other Abrahamic faiths. Overall, I believe the book succeeds in presenting a solid theological foundation for adoption in general and, more specifically, for its current mainstream manifestation in the developed world. The author doesn't shy away from the various controversies related to adoption—like assisted reproduction, LGBTQ adoption, embryo adoption—and he takes on other authors who make claims about adoption that he believes distract or obscure the central purpose of adoption, which is to provide a child a "needed place of belonging" within the network of loving relationships that is the ideal of the family (38).My reservations about the book are two. The first has to do with the inconsistent tone of the book, which tends to swing, abruptly at times, from a theological and analytical tone to one that feels more popular and homiletic—even to the point of being maudlin. As stated earlier, I have high regard for most of the analytical sections and find the overarching thesis convincing. Generally, in these sections, the method begins with the lived experience of adoptees and their parents and works through scripture, tradition, and critical reflection to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. However, occasionally the book drifts into uncritical and merely emotive territory, and this is especially the case in the sections called "interludes," where the author presents letters to adoptees from their parents reprinted from the Christian Century magazine. These seem out of place and even distracting. Of even greater concern is the concluding chapter, where the author should be summarizing and highlighting the strengths of his thesis. Instead he chose to draw homiletic lessons from Anne of Green Gables (110).My second reservation is not so much a critique of this book but of the state of contemporary Catholic sexual ethics, which forms a backdrop for the entire book. The book accurately reflects a mainstream position in Catholic sexual ethics, which abandoned a narrow focus on procreation decades ago in favor of one highlighting the unitive and relational aspects of human intimacy. This move away from a strictly deontological framework stressing the duty to procreate and toward a teleological ethic stressing the need to model human relationships after divine ones has been celebrated for good reasons, but it has not come without costs. Like all teleological ideals, this sexual ethic is attractive to purveyors of high philosophy but tends to be thoroughly abstract and almost entirely incapable of offering concrete, practical guidance. Because it is so abstract, its application to specific moral issues can seem arbitrary and at the whim of the author. Such is the case in this book, for instance, when this teleological ideal is wielded to shed doubt on LGBTQ adoption. It is particularly telling [End Page 210] that the author neglects to consult lived experience in this section, ignoring the mountains of evidence readily available that LGBTQ families can be just as loving and nurturing as those of traditional families. Ultimately, a second Renaissance would benefit Catholic sexual ethics—one that balances deontological and teleological elements by introducing practical, consequential, and proportional methods.Thomas O'BrienDePaul UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In addition to double‐ and single‐strand DNA breaks and isolated base modifications, ionizing radiation induces clustered DNA damage, which contains two or more lesions closely spaced within about two helical turns on opposite DNA strands. Post‐irradiation repair of single‐base lesions is routinely performed by base excision repair and a DNA strand break is involved as an intermediate. Simultaneous processing of lesions on opposite DNA strands may generate double‐strand DNA breaks and enhance nonhomologous end joining, which frequently results in the formation (...) of deletions. Recent studies support the possibility that the mechanism of base excision repair contributes to genome stability by diminishing the formation of double‐strand DNA breaks during processing of clustered lesions. BioEssays 23:745–749, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution (...) of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (shrink)

At the end of the Middle Ages, the friar Dominican Peter Schwarz wrote The shield of the Thomists. It is a handly book of philosophy in which he presents the main thesis of thomist school, between them is the theory of active intellect.

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)