Embedding ethics modules within computer science courses has become a popular response to the growing recognition that CS programs need to better equip their students to navigate the ethical dimensions of computing technologies like AI, machine learning, and big data analytics. However, the popularity of this approach has outpaced the evidence of its positive outcomes. To help close that gap, this empirical study reports positive results from Northeastern’s program that embeds values analysis modules into CS courses. The resulting data suggest (...) that such modules have a positive effect on students’ moral attitudes and that students leave the modules believing they are more prepared to navigate the ethical dimensions they’ll likely face in their eventual careers. Importantly, these gains were accomplished at an institution without a philosophy doctoral program, suggesting this strategy can be effectively employed by a wider range of institutions than many have thought. (shrink)

Chris Fujiwara _Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall_ Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-8018-6561-1 xii + 328 pp.

Bryan Ronald Wilson, a Fellow of the British Academy, was a world-renowned sociologist of religion. He was awarded a D.Litt. by the University of Oxford in 1994, the same year that he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Wilson was also awarded an Arnold Gerstenberg studentship, which allowed him to take up a place at the London School of Economics, where Maurice Ginsberg introduced him to the literature of the sociology of religion and where he (...) developed a life-long interest in sectarian movements. He returned to Yorkshire to take up an Assistant Lectureship in Sociology in the Department of Social Studies at the University of Leeds in October 1955, being promoted to Lecturer in 1957. There Wilson taught courses on urban sociology, sociological theory, and the social institutions of modern Britain, as well as on the sociology of religion. He was a Fellow of All Souls College for thirty years. The themes of secularisation, rationalism, and sectarianism were of particular interest to Wilson throughout his academic life. (shrink)

Research Articles Ronald J. Pestritto, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

The American administrative state is a feature of the new liberalism that is largely irreconcilable with the old, founding-era liberalism. At its core, the administrative state, with its delegation of legislative power to the bureaucracy, combination of functions within bureaucratic agencies, and weakening of presidential control over administration undercuts the separation-of-powers principle that is the base of the founders' Constitution. The animating idea behind the features of the administrative state is the separation of politics and administration, which was championed by (...) James Landis, the New-Deal architect of the administrative state for President Franklin Roosevelt. The idea of separating politics and administration, and the faith such a separation requires in the objectivity of administrators, did not originate with Landis or the New Deal but, instead, with the Progressives who had come a generation earlier. Both Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow were pioneers in advocating the separation of politics and administration, and made it the centerpiece of their broad arguments for constitutional reform. (shrink)

“Pick a card, any card. This has to be a completely free choice.” the magician tells you. But is it really? Although we like to think that we are using our free will to make our decisions, research in psychology has shown that many of our behaviours are automatic and unconsciously influenced by external stimuli (Ariely, 2008; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), and that we are often oblivious to the cognitive mechanisms that (...) underpin our decision (Wegner, 2002, 2003). Magicians have exploited this illusory sense of agency for a long time, and have developed a wide range of techniques to influence and control spectators’ choices of such things as card, word, or number (Annemann, 1933; Banachek, 2002a; Jones, 1994; Turner, 2015). These techniques are instances of what is called forcing. -/- Many forces are extremely effective, illustrating various weaknesses in our sense of control over decisions and their outcomes. Researchers have started to investigate them in various ways (Kuhn, Pailh s, & Lan, 2020; Olson, Amlani, Raz, & Rensink, 2015; Pailhes & Kuhn, 2020b, 2020c; Shalom et al., 2013) and are beginning to obtain valuable insights into decision-making processes as well as a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that lead people to experience an illusory sense of free will and of agency. -/- Although magicians have acquired large amounts of knowledge in covertly controlling people’s choices, much of this knowledge is only discussed in the context of individual magic tricks, or in books that are not readily accessible to non-magicans. As we and others have argued elsewhere (Ekroll, Sayim, & Wagemans, 2017; Kuhn, 2019; Kuhn, Amlani, & Rensink, 2008; Kuhn, Caffaratti, Teszka, & Rensink, 2014; Macknik et al., 2008; Olson et al., 2015; Olson, Landry, Appourchaux, & Raz, 2016; Shalom et al., 2013; Thomas, Didierjean, Maquestiaux, & Gygax, 2015), a particularly effective way of making this knowledge more available is via the creation of taxonomies centered around psychological mechanisms (Rensink & Kuhn, 2015). For example, the psychologically based taxonomy of misdirection (Kuhn et al., 2014) helps draw links between misdirection and formal theories of perception and cognition. -/- Our aim here is to apply a similar process to the knowledge magicians have about forcing. The present paper develops a psychologically based taxonomy of forcing techniques with two goals in mind. Firstly, it should help uncover the various psychological mechanisms that underlie forcing techniques. Secondly, it should facilitate knowledge transfer between magicians and psychologists. Among other things, this knowledge will allow researchers to gain new insights into the mechanisms underlying decision-making, and the feeling of free will and of agency over choice. We start by defining the magician’s force and then look at some of the past classifications of forcing. (shrink)

In an earlier essay I argued that perception involves an assentive propositional attitude. This essay completes the argument by examining the three most familiar propositional attitudes in order to determine which is best suited to perception. In Part I, I examine the contention of C.A. Campbell that perception involves judging, and I conclude that judging is too deliberative to be the assentive attitude in perception. On the other hand, in Part II, a study of David Armstrong’s and and George Pitcher’s (...) claims that perception involves belief concludes that belief is too dispositional to be the assentive attitude in perception. Finally, in Part III, I examine Cook Wilson’s notion of being under an impression that, H.H. Price’s notion of taking for granted, and Roderick Chisholm’s notion of sensible taking, and I conclude that taking is the assentive attitude best suited to perception since it is both spontaneous and an act. (shrink)

Some scientists and philosophers claimed that there is a converse to multiple realizability. While a given higher-level property can be realized by different lower-level properties (multiple realizability), a given lower-level property can in turn serve to realize different higher-level properties (this converse I dubbed the unfortunately obscure "constructival plasticity" to emphasize the constructive metaphysics involved in this converse to multiple realizability). I began by defining multiple realizabilty in a formal way. (Looking back, one point of interest is that I defined (...) modally weak and strong versions of realization, which is relevant to later views about contingent versus necessitarian grounding.) I then turned to the relation in question. By my analysis, for the converse claim to be true, a lower-level property G1 that realizes a higher-level F must be taken in conjunction with some other base condition G2 so that a difference in G2 allows G1 to determine some other higher-level property E but not F (otherwise there would be violations of supervenience). The realization law thus has the form: (G1 & G2) => F. As such, the base property G1 is insufficient by itself to produce F. It is an insufficient but necessary part of a sufficient condition. I also point out that this makes the realization base property an INUS condition, if combined with multiple realizability. Specifically, if F is multiply realized by properties other than the pair G1 and G2, then G1 is an insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition. This is just the first clear and explicit INUS condition view of realization in the literature. Looking back, this converse is also relevant to later views, such as Robert Wilson's view about metaphysically contextual realization. (shrink)

In an earlier essay I argued that perception involves an assentive propositional attitude. This essay completes the argument by examining the three most familiar propositional attitudes in order to determine which is best suited to perception. In Part I, I examine the contention of C.A. Campbell that perception involves judging, and I conclude that judging is too deliberative to be the assentive attitude in perception. On the other hand, in Part II, a study of David Armstrong’s and and George Pitcher’s (...) claims that perception involves belief concludes that belief is too dispositional to be the assentive attitude in perception. Finally, in Part III, I examine Cook Wilson’s notion of being under an impression that, H.H. Price’s notion of taking for granted, and Roderick Chisholm’s notion of sensible taking, and I conclude that taking is the assentive attitude best suited to perception since it is both spontaneous and an act. (shrink)

Professor Veatch's writings have a special significance here. In recent years he has been more concerned than most to accept this responsibility, and more concerned than many to insist upon its importance. Drawing out some of the implications of his earlier Intentional Logic and still—as then—relatively unconcerned about the fate of any particular necessary truth, he has attempted to relate a realistic doctrine of necessity to some non-realistic doctrines. His is, it should be remarked, not a realism which for its (...) logical inspiration finds anything of use in such random realists as Peirce or Cook Wilson; rather, there are muffled echoes of the early Russell and Moore, confident quotations from Aquinas, and a very firm reliance on the finality of the Aristotelian predicables. (shrink)

Although the theory of moral development is widely used in business ethics research to measure the quality of an ethical decision, there have been ongoingconcerns about certain aspects of the theory. These concerns include questions about the distinctness and sequentiality of the stages, the logic for claiming that the higher levels are morally superior, and the ability of the theory to incorporate the universality of the dominant ethical theories and the particularism of the ethics of care. This paper suggests that (...) many of these concerns can be addressed through recent research, most importantly through the application of the Lectical Assessment System (LAS) (Dawson, 2002, 2003; Dawson, Xie, & Wilson, 2003). (shrink)

In an earlier essay I argued that perception involves an assentive propositional attitude. This essay completes the argument by examining the three most familiar propositional attitudes in order to determine which is best suited to perception. In Part I, I examine the contention of C.A. Campbell that perception involves judging, and I conclude that judging is too deliberative to be the assentive attitude in perception. On the other hand, in Part II, a study of David Armstrong’s and and George Pitcher’s (...) claims that perception involves belief concludes that belief is too dispositional to be the assentive attitude in perception. Finally, in Part III, I examine Cook Wilson’s notion of being under an impression that, H.H. Price’s notion of taking for granted, and Roderick Chisholm’s notion of sensible taking, and I conclude that taking is the assentive attitude best suited to perception since it is both spontaneous and an act. (shrink)

Did the Devil Make Darwin Do It? Modern Perspectives on the Creation-Evolution Controversy. David B. Wilson, Warren D. Dolphin, Science and Creationism. Ashley Montagu. Is God a Creationist? The Religious Case against Creation-Science. Roland Mushat Frye. A History of Modern Creationism. Henry M. Morris.

This is a new Wittgensteinian account of the American Constitution that provides a fresh perspective on how judges can follow a legal document written in flexible language. The book shows why originalism is incompatible with the American legal system and challenges the views of Ronald Dworkin and numerous law professors.

This is a new Wittgensteinian account of the American Constitution that provides a fresh perspective on how judges can follow a legal document written in flexible language. The book shows why originalism is incompatible with the American legal system and challenges the views of Ronald Dworkin and numerous law professors.

In this reprint of Law's Empire,Ronald Dworkin reflects on the nature of the law, its given authority, its application in democracy, the prominent role of interpretation in judgement, and the relations of lawmakers and lawgivers to the community on whose behalf they pronounce. For that community, Law's Empire provides a judicious and coherent introduction to the place of law in our lives.Previously Published by Harper Collins. Reprinted (1998) by Hart Publishing.

An enormous intellectual adventure. In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience --the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning. Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again (...) breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species--a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aristotle's understanding of mathematical continuity constrains the mathematical ontology he can consistently hold. On my reading, Aristotle can only be a mathematical abstractionist of a certain sort. To show this, I first present an analysis of Aristotle's notion of continuity by bringing together texts from his Metaphysica and Physica, to show that continuity is, for Aristotle, a certain kind of per se unity, and that upon this rests his distinction between continuity and contiguity. Next (...) I argue briefly that Aristotle intends for his discussion of continuity to apply to pure mathematical objects such as lines and figures, as well as to extended bodies. I show that this leads him to a difficulty, for it does not at first appear that the distinction between continuity and contiguity can be preserved for abstract mathematicals. Finally, I present a solution according to which Aristotle's understanding of continuity can only be saved if he holds a certain kind of mathematical ontology. (shrink)

In 1993, Professor of Jurisprudence, Ronald Dworkin of Oxford University and Professor of Law at New York University, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s thirteenth Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion and Euthanasia." Dworkin is Professor of Philosophy and Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University. He received B.A. degrees from both Harvard College and Oxford University, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Learned Hand. He was (...) associated with a law firm in New York (Sullivan and Cromwell) and was a professor of law at Yale University Law School from 1962-1969. He has been Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and Fellow of University College since 1969. He has a joint appointment at Oxford and at NYU where he is a professor both in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Dworkin is the author of many articles in philosophical and legal journals as well as articles on legal and political topics in the New York Review of Books. He has written Taking Rights Seriously (1977), A Matter of Principle (1985), Law’s Empire (1986), Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia (1987), A Bill of Rights for Britain (1990), Life’s Dominion (1993), and Freedom’s Law (1996). (shrink)

Demonstrating the limitations of the one-at-a-time approach, crowd initiatives reveal the surprisingly powerful role of analytic and design choices in shaping scientific results. At the same time, cross-cultural variability in effects is far below the levels initially expected. This highlights the value of “medium” science, leveraging diverse stimulus sets and extensive robustness checks to achieve integrative tests of competing theories.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

This brief essay explores how understanding the treatment of expert evidence requires engaging with its legal and political contexts, and not just focusing on its epistemological aspects. Although the law of evidence and thus its treatment of experts is significantly informed by epistemological considerations, it is also informed by concerns over the organization of trials, larger issues of intelligent governance, social concerns, and enforcement issues. These five aspects to the law of evidence give rise to principles to guide the explicit (...) structuring of the law of evidence that are identified here as well. This complexity helps to explain why the central issue of expert testimony is not the epistemological one of knowledge and belief but instead the conflict between educational and deferential modes of trial. (shrink)

This collection of original essays--by philosophers of biology, biologists, and cognitive scientists--provides a wide range of perspectives on species. Including contributions from David Hull, John Dupre, David Nanney, Kevin de Queiroz, and Kim Sterelny, amongst others, this book has become especially well-known for the three essays it contains on the homeostatic property cluster view of natural kinds, papers by Richard Boyd, Paul Griffiths, and Robert A. Wilson.

We are causing species to go extinct at extraordinary rates, altering existing species in unprecedented ways and creating entirely new species. More than ever before, we require an ethic of species to guide our interactions with them. In this book, Ronald L. Sandler examines the value of species and the ethical significance of species boundaries and discusses what these mean for species preservation in the light of global climate change, species engineering and human enhancement. He argues that species possess (...) several varieties of value, but they are not sacred. It is sometimes permissible to alter species, let them go extinct and invent new ones. Philosophically rigorous, accessible and illustrated with examples drawn from contemporary science, this book will be of interest to students of philosophy, bioethics, environmental ethics and conservation biology. (shrink)

As consumer lifestyles have changed over recent decades, people have increasingly turned to meals prepared away from home. A major consequence of this shift in eating patterns has been a concomitant rise in obesity rates worldwide. Research has consistently documented that consumers tend to make less healthy choices when purchasing prepared meals away from home. In part, this can be attributed to inadequate information at the time of purchase; both nutrition experts and lay consumers tend, for example, to underestimate calories (...) in food purchased away from home and thus portion sizes tend to be larger. Thus, by requiring restaurants and other purveyors of prepared foods to provide the calorie content and other nutrition information at the point of purchase, consumers should be able to make more informed decisions and public health should be improved. The often maligned Affordable Care Act (i.e., “Obamacare”) addressed this issue in a mandate calling for compulsory nutrition labeling of prepared foods at the point of sale. In response to this effort, conservatives in Congress introduced the “Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act” (CSNDA) which, if enacted, would have effectively eviscerated the menu labeling provisions mandated by the Affordable Care Act. The stated rationale behind this legislation: to protect small business and prevent job loss resulting from overly‐burdensome federal regulations. This article provides a historical look at the evolution of federally mandated menu labeling in the United States with particular emphasis on opposition to its passage. The position is taken such that this legislation is beneficial, warranted, and long overdue, and its opposition, as reflected in the CSNDA, points to the need for new metrics when evaluating public policy. (shrink)

The problem of providing mandated medical care has become commonplace as correctional systems in the United States struggle to manage unprecedented increases in its aging prison population. This study explores older incarcerated women’s perceptions of prison health care policies and their day-to-day survival experiences. Aggregate data obtained from a sample of 327 older women residing in prison facilities in five Southern states were used to identify a baseline of health conditions and needs for this vulnerable group. With an average of (...) 4.2 chronic health conditions, frequently histories of victimization, and high rates of mental health issues, the women’s experiences of negotiating health care was particularly challenging. By incorporating the voices of older women, we expose the contradictions, dilemmas, and obstacles they experience in their attempts to obtain health care. It is clear from the personal accounts shared that, despite court mandates, penal harm practices such as delaying or denying medical treatment as well as occasional staff indifferences are common in women’s prisons. With older women having the greatest need for health care, an age- and gender-sensitive approach is recommended. (shrink)

Resumen Las tecnologías digitales han transfigurado el campo del arte teatral y vienen produciendo una serie de mutaciones que afectan la tradición perceptiva del espectáculo vivo. Para acercarnos a esos nuevos modos de comunicación que establece hoy el teatro, robustecido en el cruce con estas tecnologías, acudiremos al concepto de remediación planteado por Bolter y Grusin, para examinar en dos performances representativas de la escena latinoamericana del siglo XXI (Sin sangre, de Teatrocinema, yOthelo, de Buendía Theatre), las maneras cómo la (...) opacidad del medio (hipermediación) o su transparencia (inmediación) contribuyen a la construcción de las poéticas tecnológicas sobre la escena misma. Abstract Digital technologies have transfigured the field of theatrical art and have been producing a series of mutations that affect the perceptive tradition of live performance. To approach these new modes of communication that theater establishes today, strengthened in the intersection with these technologies, we will turn to the concept of remediation proposed by Bolter and Grusin, to examine two representative performances of the Latin American scene of the 21st century (Sin Sangre, by Teatrocinema, and Othelo, by Buendía Theatre), the ways in which the opacity of the medium (hypermediation) or its transparency (immediacy) contribute to the construction of technological poetics on the scene itself. (shrink)

"The Constitution is America's moral sail, and we must hold to the courage of the conviction that fills it, a conviction that we can all be equal citizens of a moral republic. That is a noble faith, and only optimism can redeem it." So writes Ronald Dworkin in the introduction to this characteristically robust and provocative new book in which Dworkin argues the fidelity to the constitution and to law demands that judges make contemporary judgements backed on political morality, (...) and why it encourages, or ought to encourage, an open display of the true grounds of judgement. The book discusses almost all of the great constitutional issues of the last two decades including abortion, affirmative action, pornography, race, homosexuality, euthanasia and free-speech and in doing so consistently offers a liberal view of the American Constitution. Dworkin's "moral reading" proposes that we all, judges, lawyers, citizens - interpret and apply the abstract language of the Constitution on the understanding that they invoke moral principles about political decency and justice. The "moral reading" therefore brings political morality into the heart of constitutional law. The various chapters of this book were first published seperately; now drawn together they bear all the hallmarks of Dworkin's legal and philosophical sophistication, his acute understanding of political process and his understanding of history. principles. (shrink)

The evil-god challenge holds that theism is highly symmetrical to the evil-god hypothesis and thus it is not more reasonable to accept one rather than the other. But, since it is not reasonable to accept the evil-god hypothesis, it is not reasonable to accept theism. This article will primarily focus on defending the challenge from two recent objections which hold that it follows from the nature of moral motivation that theism is intrinsically much more likely to be true than the (...) evil-god hypothesis. However, I will also argue that there is a different intrinsic asymmetry between the hypotheses which favours theism. (shrink)

The U.S. healthcare system has a long history of displaying racist contempt toward Black people. From medical schools’ use of enslaved bodies as cadavers to the widespread hospital practice of reporting suspected drug users who seek medical help to the police, the institutional practices and policies that have shaped U.S. healthcare systems as we know them cannot be minimized as coincidence. Rather, the very foundations of medical discovery, diagnosis, and treatment are built on racist contempt for Black people and have (...) become self-perpetuating. Yet, I argue that bioethics and bioethicists have a role in combatting racism. However, in order to do so, bioethicists have to understand the workings of contemptuous racism and how that particular form of racism manifests in U.S. healthcare institutions. Insofar as justice is part of the core mission of bioethics, then antiracism must also be part of the mission of bioethics. (shrink)

Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized? (...) Dworkin, one the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere. Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes--as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures--that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values. (shrink)

Liberty and freedom are frequently invoked to justify political action. Presidents as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush have built their policies on some version of these noble values. Yet in practice, idealist agendas often turn sour as they confront specific circumstances on the ground. Demonstrated by incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, the pursuit of liberty and freedom can lead to violence and repression, undermining our trust (...) in universal theories of liberalism, neoliberalism, and cosmopolitanism. Combining his passions for politics and geography, David Harvey charts a cosmopolitan order more appropriate to an emancipatory form of global governance. Political agendas tend to fail, he argues, because they ignore the complexities of geography. Incorporating geographical knowledge into the formation of social and political policy is therefore a necessary condition for genuine democracy. Harvey begins with an insightful critique of the political uses of freedom and liberty, especially during the George W. Bush administration. Then, through an ontological investigation into geography's foundational concepts—space, place, and environment—he radically reframes geographical knowledge as a basis for social theory and political action. As Harvey makes clear, the cosmopolitanism that emerges is rooted in human experience rather than illusory ideals and brings us closer to achieving the liberation we seek. (shrink)

Por meio de sua fisiopsicologia, isto é, da morfologia e doutrina do desenvolvimento da vontade de potência, Nietzsche avalia a condição impulsional de indivíduos e culturas. Assim, produções que afirmam a vida como um movimento contínuo de autossuperação são sintomas de uma dinâmica saudável; mórbidos são os organismos que procuram estratégias de conservação e paralisação das mudanças, como, por exemplo, a metafísica. Nesse contexto teórico, este artigo pretende investigar a reação de Nietzsche em face de um grande terremoto ocorrido em (...) Nice no ano de 1887, vivenciado pelo próprio filósofo. Nietzsche acredita ter a grande saúde, o que o habilita a rejeitar a busca, imposta por uma catástrofe à maioria dos seres humanos, de valores eternos em instâncias transcendentes. (shrink)

Following a series of national protests in support of an increase in the federal minimum wage, many fast food workers faced retaliation by their employers when they returned to work; schedules were changed, wages and hours were reduced, and some employees were terminated. These retaliatory actions resulted in a number of complaints being filed with the National Labor Relations Board alleging violations of the National Labor Relations Act. Several of the complaints were found to have merit and, additionally, in several (...) instances both the immediate employer, the franchisee, and the corporate organization of which it was a part, the franchisor, were named as co‐defendants. This ruling—that franchisors like McDonald’s USA—could be held jointly responsible for the labor violations of independent franchisees reversed a long‐standing precedent, whereby franchisees were regarded as independent contractors solely responsible for day‐to‐day labor practices, including compliance with federal and state labor statutes. Critics of the ruling argue that it will open the door to unionization and may well spell the end of the service‐sponsor franchising format. Supporters of the NLRB argue that the ruling is just and reflects new “industrial realities” in retail labor markets. Further, a case can be made that the NLRB’s position represents a step in the direction of the restoration of more equitable balance of power between labor and management. (shrink)

RESUMEN Durante el siglo XVII, el reloj parece el modelo más adecuado para pensar los seres vivos. El filósofo alemán G. W. Leibniz es parte de la tradición mecanicista que concibe los seres vivos a partir del modelo del reloj o de los autómatas, pero establece una distinción esencial entre máquinas naturales y artificiales, que muestra los límites de este modelo. Las primeras son máquinas infinitamente complejas, máquinas dentro de máquinas ad infinitum, las segundas no, alcanzan un límite de complejidad. (...) Esta distinción obliga a ir más allá del reloj como modelo de los seres vivos, pues este modelo resulta insuficiente para comprender la dinámica propia de los seres vivos, en al menos dos aspectos: a) deja sin explicar el origen de la estructura o forma del ser vivo; b) no establece un principio interno de actividad que fundamente la unidad dinámica y estructural del ser vivo. Con su noción de organismo o máquina natural, Leibniz intenta resolver estas insuficiencias del modelo puramente mecánico: a) en su propuesta el ser vivo no se constituye de manera mecánica o serial, sino de una vez, por un acto de creación; b) la conservación del ser vivo en el tiempo sólo es comprensible a partir de un principio de actividad intrínseca que dota de unidad, actividad y estructura al viviente. ABSTRACT During the seventeenth century, the clock seems the most appropriate model for thinking about living beings. The German philosopher G. W. Leibniz, is part of the mechanical tradition that conceives living beings from the clock or the automata’s model, but he establishes an essential distinction between natural and artificial machines. This distinction shows the limits of the mechanical model. The machines of nature are infinitely complex machines, machines within machines ad infinitum; the artificial machines, instead, reach a limit of complexity. This distinction forces us to go beyond the clock as a model of living beings, because this model is insufficient to understand the dynamics of living beings, in at least two aspects: a) it is not able to explain the origin of the living being’s structure or form; b) it does not establish an internal principle of activity grounding the living being’s dynamic and structural unit. With his notion of organism or natural machine, Leibniz tries to solve these insufficiencies of the purely mechanical model: a) in his proposal, the living being is not constituted mechanically or serially, but at once, by an act of creation; b) the conservation of the living being in time is only understandable from a principle of intrinsic activity that provides unity, activity and structure to living beings. (shrink)

Ours is a vacuumless universe - Character and Potential pervade The spatio-temporal manifold! The manifold is discretely divided As the ancients foretold By atomicity, by discreteness amid continuity! Atomicity embedded within atomic occasions Events emerging as a confluence of Antecedent events! The character and relations within that nexus Constituent of an occasion’s causal past Determine the characteristics and relations Which ingress within the atomic event! As character ingresses into an atomic occasion, Bounded by spatial magnitude and temporal duration, The character (...) and potentiality Within the event’s causal future Emerge, Begat as an occasion’s progeny. Co-Director, International Center for Process Philosophy, Science and Education. (shrink)

Neural Geographies draws together recent feminist and deconstructive theories, early Freudian neurology and contemporary connectionist theories of cognition. In this original work, Elizabeth A. Wilson explores the convergence between Derrida, Freud and recent cognitive theory to pursue two important issues: the nature of cognition and neurology, and the politics of feminist and critical interventions into contemporary scientific psychology. This book seeks to reorient the usual presumptions of critical studies of the sciences by addressing the divisions between the static and (...) the changeable; the natural and the political; the neuro-cognitive and the cultural that have been traditional to both scientific and critical accounts of neurology and cognition. (shrink)

This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the (...) finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the period of the Scientific Revolution, when it displaced scholastic Aristotelianism. Both modern social contract theory and utilitarianism in ethics were grounded in its tenets. Catherine Wilson shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural and social worlds took hold in philosophy, and how it is an acknowledged, and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or "mechanical" philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the author makes a persuasive case for the significance of materialism in seventeenth-century philosophy without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this deeply-researched inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy. (shrink)

According to one currently influential line of thinking, the evolution of ostensive communication was a prerequisite for the evolution of human language. In this article, I distinguish between a strong and a weak version of this view and offer a sustained argument against the former. More specifically, the strong version of this view would have it that ostensive communication was a prerequisite not just for the evolution of fully modern language but for any language-like system of communication. I argue that (...) this version is too strong: I show how some distinctive and important features of language may well have been assembled prior to the evolution of ostensive communication. Put another way, I argue that a protolanguage before ostensive communication scenario is a real possibility. I conclude by briefly arguing that such an evolutionary scenario coheres better with archaeological evidence from the early Pleistocene as well as evidence from developmental psychology pertaining to the nature of our mind reading abilities. (shrink)