The broad focus of the dissertation is mankind's problem of soul. The narrow focus is the nature of philosophy. The narrow focus evaluates the nature of philosophy by showing how philosophy makes the claim to resolve mankind's problem of soul by allowing us to overcome our experience of separation while preserving our distinctness. ;The philosophical standpoint allows us to overcome our experience of separation while preserving our distinctness by providing us with a fulfilling relation to the sources of intelligibility that (...) assimilates the soul's relation to the sources of life and order. The model form of this fulfilling relation to intelligibility allows the soul a fulfilling relation to what are truly the sources of life and order without the vulgar madness, the loss of distinctness, that threatens the non-philosopher. Philosophy in its model form is a divine madness that is characterized by both this comprehensive claim of fulfillment and a means of self-control, or sophrosyne, which preserves the soul's distinctness in relation to the sources of the cosmos. The narrow focus of the dissertation takes its bearings from the Platonic account of the unity of divine madness and self-control in the Phaedrus; the broad focus is oriented towards the Greek polis in relation to which the philosopher's comprehensive standpoint is most clearly visible. ;The success of philosophical fulfillment is purchased at the price of suppressing what is distinct, but not separate from, the zenith of intelligibility. The consequence of such a cost is that the philosophical standpoint leaves us with an irreducible residue of resistance to our drive to overcome the resistance of a lack of manageability and "shareability" to our experience. The last chapter explores the nature of the actual telos of human fulfillment, or what it would mean to overcome the limitations of the philosophical standpoint through the process of deification. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there are seven stages, or orientations, of thought about divine madness (initially understood by Plato as eros) with each stage offering claims, or critiques of claims, about its nature. Moreover, each orientation offers a claim, or a critique of a claim, about a relation to the Good that comes through divine madness. My account of the stages is greatly indebted to, but divergent from, the work of William Desmond. Hence, my thought is metaxological and (...) the discussion of the stages takes its bearings from the "between" of eros and agape. I make reference to Desmond's work in order to develop and contrast my own view of the Good as both agapeic and erotic. I argue that the agapeic activity of the Good has an erotic aspect. This aspect of the Good is not an incompleteness or need; rather, it is an absence that "contains" the Good's agapeic activity of creation. Further, this aspect serves not to realize the Good but to ground the becoming in creation (including the movement of our eros through the seven stages of divine madness). I develop how in the seventh stage our eros dynamically images the erotic aspect of the Good's activity by consciously intermediating its relations to the other. (shrink)

This book is a fascinating and substantial contribution to the study of ancient philosophy. It is a collection of thirty-two papers delivered at an international congress devoted to the title theme. All but two of the essays are in French; one is in English and the other is in Italian. Mattéi, who directed the congress, has ordered the articles into five thematic groups and written a lucid and seductive preface. My own remarks, which I must limit to the briefest survey (...) of the contents, are indebted to, but at the same time divergent from, his guidance there. (shrink)

Agricultural diversification in the Midwestern Corn Belt has the potential to improve socioeconomic and environmental outcomes by buffering farmers from environmental and economic shocks and improving soil, water, and air quality. However, complex barriers related to agricultural markets, individual behavior, social norms, and government policy constrain diversification in this region. This study examines farmer perspectives regarding the challenges and opportunities for both corn and soybean production and agricultural diversification strategies. We analyze data from 20 focus groups with 100 participants conducted (...) in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa through a combined inductive and deductive approach, drawing upon interpretive grounded theory. Our results suggest that when identifying challenges and opportunities, participants center economics and market considerations, particularly income, productivity, and market access. These themes are emphasized both as benefits of the current corn-soybean system, as well as challenges for diversification. Additionally, logistical, resource and behavioral hurdles– including the comparative difficulty and time required to diversify, and constraints in accessing land, labor, and technical support– are emphasized by participants as key barriers to diversification. Agricultural policies shape these challenges, enhancing the comparative advantage and decreasing the risk of producing corn and soybeans as compared to diversified products. Meanwhile, alternative marketing arrangements, farmer networks, family relationships, and improved soil health are highlighted as important opportunities for diversification. We contextualize our findings within the theories of reasoned action and diffusion of innovation, and explore their implications for farmer engagement, markets, and agricultural policy, and the development of additional resources for business and technical support. (shrink)

And while globalisation has ushered in many benefits for companies and consumers alike, this book posits that it is the fierce competition of global market-places which drives the largely unopposed belief that firms exist solely to enhance ...

With the 1985 publication of "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical", John Rawls ushered in a new era in political philosophy. In JAF Rawls provided the first detailed articulation of his conception of "political liberalism"—a concept and a term that would soon thereafter become familiar features of contemporary political theory. In the wake of this development, theorists did more than simply analyse Rawls’ provocative, new propositions; a few also began to develop and articulate their own conceptions of political liberalism. One (...) such individual was Charles Larmore. Of those theorists who have joined Rawls in his effort to develop and promote the concept of political liberalism, none has been more dedicated to the endeavour than Larmore. Beginning most notably with his Patterns of Moral Complexity and continuing through to his 1999 article entitled "The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism," Larmore has sought to articulate a feasible conception of political liberalism and in the course of so doing explain the benefits and necessity of its adoption. Not surprisingly, there has been a substantial degree of convergence between Larmore’s and Rawls’ arguments. While both Larmore and Rawls readily acknowledge the similarities between their conceptions, Larmore also, understandably, believes that there are important differences between the two. In turn, Larmore argues that these differences enable him to better demonstrate the appropriateness and necessity of political liberalism, and thereby more effectively than Rawls justify the claim that the concept of political liberalism offers the "best" foundation for a conception of justice for modern liberal democracies. The purpose of this essay is to review the principal features of Larmore’s conception of political liberalism and note some important similarities and purported differences between it and Rawls’ conception. Completing this exercise will not only reveal the extent to which the two conceptions mimic each other, but also show that when examined closely the differences cited by Larmore are in fact cosmetic in character and insignificant in their effect. (shrink)

Horan offers a substantial challenge to the narrative of radical orthodoxy's idiosyncratic take on Scotus and his role in ushering in the philosophical age of the modern. This volume not only corrects the received account of Scotus but opens a constructive way forward toward a positive assessment and appropriation of Scotus's work for contemporary theology. --Book cover.

Philosophers and social scientists have recently turned to game theory and agent-based models to better understand social contract formation. The stag hunt game is an idealization of social contract formation. Using the stag hunt game, we attempt to determine what, if any, barrier diversity is to the formation of an efficient social contract. We uncover a deep connection between tolerance, diversity, and the social contract. We investigate a simple model in which individuals possess salient traits and behave cooperatively when the (...) difference between their trait and the trait of their counterpart is less than their ‘tolerance level’. If traits are fixed and correspond to permanent or semipermanent features of the individual, such as religion or race, social contract formation is a remote possibility. If traits are malleable, social contract formation is possible but comes at the steep cost of diversity and tolerance, that is, individuals are unwilling to cooperate with those much different from themselves. Yet homogeneity and intolerance are not a long-term feature of the population. Over time mutations allow for increasingly tolerant agents to prosper, thereby ushering in trait diversity. In the end, all reap the benefits of cooperation. (shrink)

Cooperation in the prisoner’s dilemma is possible if interactions are sufficiently correlated. We show that when conditions favorable to the evolution of cooperation hold (rb > c) tag-based strategies dominate. Thus, well-meaning interventions aimed at promoting cooperation may succeed but will often lead to in-group favoritism and ethnocentric behavior. Exploring ways that promote cooperation but do not usher in tag-based strategies should be a focal point of future work on the evolution of cooperation.

The Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Philosophy series serves undergraduate college students who have had little or no exposure to philosophy, as well as the curious lay reader. Following this first primer volume, which introduces both the discipline and the topics of the remaining nine volumes, each handbook will usher the reader into a subfield of philosophy, and explore fifteen to thirty topics in that subfield. Every chapter in each volume will use vehicles such as film to facilitate understanding of philosophical (...) issues; for example, the film Dead Man Walking may be used as an introduction to issues related to the death penalty. (shrink)

J.P. Moreland—Christian philosopher, theologian, and apologist—issues a call to recapture the drama and power of kingdom living—to cultivate a revolution of Evangelical life, spirituality, thought, and Spirit-led power. Drawing insights from the early church, he unpacks three essential ingredients of this revolution: Recovery of the Christian mind. Renovation of Christian spirituality. Restoration of the power of the Holy Spirit. Western society is in crisis: the result of our culture's embrace of naturalism and postmodernism, and a biblical worldview has been pushed (...) to the margins. Christians have been strongly influenced by these trends, with the result that their personal lives often reflect the surrounding culture more than the way of Christ, and the church's transforming influence on society has waned as a result. Kingdom Triangle is divided into two major sections: The first examines and provides a critique of secular worldviews and shows how they have ushered in the current societal crisis. The second lays out a strategy for the Christian community to regain the potency of kingdom life and influence in the world. Moreland believes that evangelical Christianity can mature and lead the surrounding society out of the meaningless morass it finds itself in with humility and vision. With clear insight, he puts the thoughtful Christian in a position to understand our current cultural struggle and to return to a responsible presentation of "the way of Christ" as not just a way of right living, but also a way of knowledge and meaningful life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 16.4 (2006) 379-396MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Pharmacists and Conscientious Objection *In March 2005, a Wisconsin pharmacist's act of conscience garnered headlines across the United States. After a married woman with four children submitted a prescription for the morning-after pill, the pharmacist, Neil Noesen, not only refused to fill it, but also refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacist or to return the prescription (...) to the customer. As more such incidents occurred, many states "... decided to consider and enact laws setting the bounds of pharmacists' and other health care workers' professional obligations" (III, Grady 2006, p. 327). Discussions of objector legislation, also referred to as "conscience clauses," "refusal clauses," and "abandonment laws" (III, Appel 2005, p. 279), are not limited to professional ethics, but also draw from philosophical, theological, and legal perspectives. The purpose of this Scope Note is to present a wide variety of viewpoints on the health provider's right to conscience.More than 40 years ago the development of "The Pill" as the first reliable method of birth control not only ushered in a feminist revolution, but also provided a new focus for concerns of conscience for those who were part of the anti-abortion movement based on religious belief in the sanctity of life. Similarly, in the past ten years, worldwide, and seven years (1999) since the emergency contraception "morning after" pill first became available as a prescription item, there has been an upsurge in the number of medical personnel who refuse to prescribe or dispense it on grounds of personal conscience, whether for religious reasons or not. Their actions bring into play issues of power and control for health care personnel and for patients—in this case women, which also raises women's rights issues. Ironically, studies in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have shown that emergency contraception does not reduce the abortion rate—it is too infrequently used (II, Glasier 2006).It is important to underline the difference between the "morning-after" pill or "Plan B," which is made up of two progestin pills containing levonorgestrel (a synthetic derivative of the female hormone progesterone), and RU-486 (Mifiprex [End Page 379] or mifipristone with misoprostol). Plan B, if taken within 72 hours post-coitus prevents implantation, and therefore pregnancy, by suppressing the output of luteinizing hormone, the hormone that triggers the ovulation process. Scientists have been unable to determine whether this action could destroy already fertilized eggs, but even if it does, it uses the same mechanism as occurs with the birth-control pill, that was developed some 45 years ago. By contrast, RU-486 acts up to 49 days after implantation by blocking the action of progesterone in order to terminate the pregnancy and as such is an abortifacient (II, US FDA 1).On 24 August 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced approval of the Plan B pill for over-the-counter (OTC ) sales (II, US FDA 2). Although this action makes the drug more widely available, it remains to be seen whether pharmacists who are conscientious objectors and who refuse to dispense it also will refuse to provide it OTC.A survey article by Rebecca Dresser (II, 2005, p. 9) succinctly sums up the problem for conscientious objectors: "Because emergency contraception can act to block implantation of a fertilized egg, people who believe in protection of human life after conception find it morally objectionable."When conscientious objections are raised over abortion or birth control services performed, prescribed, or dispensed, they affect not only the health professionals—physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and health technicians—who may object, as well as their colleagues and/or managers, but also the consumers: the female patients who are then forced to reconsider or to seek an alternative supplier, as well as their spouses or partners. Alta Charo (II, 2005, p. 2473) makes the point that the patient needs to have access to a system of counseling and referral "so... (shrink)

This article investigates the portrayal of Spanish women in a rarely discussed work by the German popular philosopher Christoph Meiners (1747–1810). Between 1788 and 1800 Meiners wrote four substantial volumes titled History of the Female Sex: Comprising a View of the Habits, Manners, and Influence of Women, Among all Nations, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, which sought to give an account of the physical and moral qualities of women, and their treatment at the hands of men “at (...) all times in all lands” (Vol. 1, p. III). This article explores the two chapters of this work that address the qualities and status of Spanish women, in order to shed light on perceptions of Spain in northern Europe in the eighteenth century. The decline of the Iberian Peninsula as a seat of European imperial power from the seventeenth century, and the emergence of northern European countries such as France, the British Isles, and even the German provinces, as centres of Enlightenment thinking ushered in a new era of geographical dualism in Europe. This article will build upon recent critiques of the “Orientalisation” of Spain by northern Europeans, showing how the marginalisation of Spain served the nationalist strivings of this provincial German scholar. ☆ Heather Merle Benbow would like to thank the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, for support towards this research. (shrink)

This chapter both explains the origins of emotivism in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, R. B. Braithwaite, Austin Duncan-Jones, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson (along with the endorsement by Frank P. Ramsey, and the summary of C. D. Broad), and looks at MacIntyre's criticisms of emotivism as the inevitable result of Moore's attack on naturalistic ethics and his ushering in the fact/value, which was a historical product of the Enlightenment.

For over a century, the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory. Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of (...) which consists of what are called his "journals and notebooks." Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term "diaries." By far the greater part of Kierkegaard's journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects--philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure--but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially (or almost entirely) completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself. Volume 7 of this 11-volume series includes six of Kierkegaard's important "NB" journals (Journals NB15 through NB20), covering the months from early January 1850 to mid-September of that year. By this time it had become clear that popular sovereignty, ushered in by the revolution of 1848 and ratified by the Danish constitution of 1849, had come to stay, and Kierkegaard now intensified his criticism of the notion that everything, even matters involving the human soul, could be decided by "balloting." He also continued to direct his barbs at the established Danish Church and its clergy (particularly Bishop J. P. Mynster and Professor H. L. Martensen), at the press, and at the attempt by modern philosophy to comprehend the incomprehensibility of faith. Kierkegaard's reading notes include entries on Augustine, the Stoics, German mystics, Luther, pietist authors, and Rousseau, while his autobiographical reflections circle around the question of which, if any, of several essays explaining his life and works he ought to publish. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kierkegaard's more personal reflections return once again to his public feud with M. A. Goldschmidt and his broken engagement to Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced. (shrink)

In the middle of myMathematical logicI defined a certain class of formulae as “stratified,” and conjectured that exclusion from this class is a feature “shared, presumably, by all the untenable statements(p. 157). This ushered in a set of axioms of class-membership which Rosser has since shown to be inconsistent. Accordingly, inElement and numberI dropped the principle*200, in which had been assembled axioms to the effect, roughly, that “stratified functions of elements are elements.” In lieu of*200 I set forth alternatives in (...) which no appeal is made to stratification. The system ofMathematical logicexclusive of*200 carries over as an unchanging framework; and this framework admits, we know, of a simple consistency proof. My concern in the present paper is to draw attention to certain relationships between this framework and earlier theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Gandhi's Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to PeaceChristopher Key ChappleGandhi's Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to Peace. By Jay McDaniel. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005. 134 + viii pp.This book by prominent Protestant theologian Jay McDaniel suggests that Mahatma Gandhi challenged the modern world by publicly revealing that which he learned from other faith traditions and advocating this path as a way (...) for intercultural understanding. The wisdom of Gandhi holds special poignancy today, when the processes of globalization and migration have placed followers of different faiths in closer proximity than can be remembered in the past five hundred years.Jay McDaniel writes with crisp clarity and organizes his insights into bite-sized pieces. He lays out five challenges that face all the world's faiths: compassion, self-criticism, simple living, ecological awareness, and welcoming religious diversity. In approaching this decidedly postmodern list of issues, McDaniel draws from two primary resources: the experiences shared by his students at Hendrix College and the writings of Alfred North Whitehead. Along the way, he invokes the Buddhist teacher and leader Thich Nhat Hanh and several progressive Catholics, including Sister Joan Chittester and theologians Hans Küng and Paul Knitter.Continuing with a style developed in his earlier books, McDaniel latches onto a [End Page 237] metaphor and extends it to illustrate his central point—in this case, the value of diversity. In past books, he has used the image of the hunter and the hunted to underscore the need to respect animals. In Gandhi's Hope, the metaphor he employs is that of a jazz concert, with all different manner of instruments pooling their resources to create a tapestry of diverse yet harmonious music.Although the title of the book may seem to indicate that Gandhi will serve as thefocus, in fact, Whitehead anchors McDaniel's approach. Through an updated approach to Whitehead, McDaniel seeks to answer the questions regarding diversity and compassion that he has posed. He suggests that an experience of concrescence will result in the sort of heightened awareness needed to increase one's conscience and to make the ethical changes needed to respond to the current state of the world. McDaniel identifies twelve "planks" that will usher Whitehead's vision into the contemporary world. These twelve aspects seem also to be heavily influenced by McDaniel's own encounter with Buddhism: interdependence, impermanence, indeterminism, mind/matter, deep listening, value, God, creativity, persuasive power, divine empathy, many forms of salvation, and life after death. These broad categories embrace key notions found in all religious traditions. Some traditions emphasize certain aspects more than others. Buddhists cleave to impermanence and Jews to establishing a covenant with God, but Jews also recognize that all things will pass, and Buddhists revere their great teacher and many strive to emulate his experience through techniques akin to those who worship God.In order for religious traditions to maintain their urgency and relevance, McDaniel suggests that they must respond actively to the looming threat of environmental degradation. Consumer culture drives people into a state of indifference about natural resources, and arrogance prevents people from taking an interest in the life patterns and cultures of others. These tendencies lie at the root of the world's troubles. McDaniel suggests that process theology can remedy these ills by calling people into a state of compassion and can help guide people toward adopting thoughtful self-criticism, to living a more simple life, to recognizing the importance of other living beings and ecosystems, and to celebrating diversity of cultures. Echoing a refrain long associated with process thought, McDaniel writes "the universe is a creative and creating process of interdependent events, lured by but not controlled by God, such that the future is not yet decided, not even by God" (p. 71). To the extent that religions sustain themselves by reinforcing separateness and promoting a narrow cultural identity and/or an unthinking fundamentalism, they can be an impediment to peace, which, for McDaniel, is an important goal of the world's religions.When attempting to theologize about ultimate matters, McDaniel posits "four faces of the sacred," which he lists as the Abyss... (shrink)

The "New Atheists" are pulling no punches. If the world of nature needs a designer, they ask, then why wouldn't the designer itself need a designer, too? Or if it can exist without any designer behind it, then why can't we just say the same for the universe and wash our hands of a designer altogether? Interweaving its pursuit of the First Cause with personal stories and humor, this ground-breaking book takes a fresh approach to ultimate questions. While attentive to (...) empirical science, it builds its case not on authoritative pronouncements of experts that readers must take on faith, but instead on a nuanced understanding of universal principles implicit in everyone's experience. Here is essential reading for all people who care about contemplating God, not exclusively as a best-explanation for the findings of science, but also as the surprising-yet-inevitable implication of our commonsense contact with reality. Augros harnesses such intellects as Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, ushering into the light a wealth of powerful inferences that have hitherto received little or no public exposure. The result is an easygoing yet extraordinary journey, beginning from the world as we all encounter it and ending in the divine mind" --Cover, p. 4. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 471-475 [Access article in PDF] Cosmopoiesis. The Renaissance Experiment, by Giuseppe Mazzotta; xvi & 106 pp. Toronto Italian Studies/Goggio Publication Series. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2001; $35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper. There is a sense in which this (most recent) book by Giuseppe Mazzotta might be seen as having been born out of his previous book The New Map of the World: The Poetic Philosophy (...) of Giambattista Vico (Princeton University Press, 2000). For there is something unmistakably Vichian in Mazzotta's "reading" of the Renaissance as it has been revealed in his Cosmopoiesis. As a matter of fact, it is in the "Preface" to his book that Mazzotta explicitly gives a number of reason why Giambattista Vico's philosophy of history could be taken as a valuable and quite promising starting point for a better understanding of "the Renaissance experiment": "The first is that he theorized art as poiesis or making and as the work of the imagination. The second reason is that he lucidly understood the Renaissance as the ambiguous time of both extraordinary achievements and inexorable decadence. The third reason is that Vico obliquely suggests how we can move beyond the limits in our current understanding of the Renaissance" (pp. xv-xvi). Mazzotta is deeply sympathetic with this cluster of Vichian insights, which insights will constitute, so to speak, the primum movens behind his own interpretative approach to the Renaissance world, and he takes as his major task in Cosmopoiesis to creatively develop and boldly expand them.The book is actually a collection of four ample essays (resulting—largely—from the Goggio Lectures the author delivered at the University of Toronto in the fall of 1999): "Poliziano's Orfeo: The World as Fable"; "Ariosto and Machiavelli: Real Worlds/Imaginary Worlds"; "Adventures of Utopia: Campanella, Bacon, and The Tempest"; and "The Ludic Perspective: Don Quixote and the Italian Renaissance." All of these essays are "variations on the same theme," attempts at putting under a careful scrutiny one of the most fascinating aspects of the European Renaissance: the topic of "the invention of the world and the notion of making through utopias, magic, science, art, and the theatre. These are the imaginative elements that characterize the paradigm shift from the Middle Ages to the modern ages ushered in by the Renaissance" (p. xiii). [End Page 471]As such, the Renaissance marks, in Mazzotta's view, the spectacular emergence of the myth of world-making (cosmopoiesis), a myth with a tremendously wide success, a myth that was eventually to become one of the very foundations on which our own world is built. When Dr. Faust, in his quite unorthodox work as a translator, was looking for an "appropriate" equivalent of Logos, as it appears in St. John's Gospel, he unreservedly dismissed the Word (das Wort), only to embrace the deed: Am Anfang war die Tat ("In the beginning there was the deed"). Making, in the most general sense of the word (and along with the numerous symbols, representations, and values associated with it), is not for the modern man a cultural trait among others, but it is, so to say, a matter of life and death, a question of self-definition andultimate identity. For making is not only about the world one lives in (world-making), about conferring upon it a new content, or a new meaning, appearance, etc., but—maybe more importantly—making is also about the very identity of the one who lives in that world (self-making), about her or his most intimate constitution. Mazzotta considers that in order for a historian to understand exactly man's position in the world at a given moment in history s/he has to take seriously into account the deeper, sometimes obscure, theological and metaphysical presuppositions hidden behind—and, actually, making possible—the current, immediately visible cultural representations: "The modern world is no longer, as it was in the Middle Ages, a book that pre-exists us and whose signs we seek to decipher in the light of precepts drawn from biblical hermeneutics. The modern world [...] is made by human... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AMERICAN OATHOLlC THEOLOGY AT CENTURY'S END: POS'I100NCIL!IAR, POSTMODERN, POST...THOMISTIC * J. A. D1No1A, O.P. Domiinican House of Studies Washiington, D.O. I N CENTURY'S END-.a iascinaiting recent hook describing the decades at the turn of the centuries from the 990s throiUgh the 1990s-cultural historian Hillel Schwartz writes: "The millennial year ~000 has gravitamona1l tides of maximal reach. Its entire precedirng hundred years, our century, has come to he felt as (...) a final epoch, a time of grotesque·extremity...." 1 Along with other modern intellectual inquiries, American Catholic theology has felt the pull of the app :voaching miHenium. Any interpretation of its current stateas well as of the 'l:"ole that the ·thought of St. Thomas Aquinas may continue to play in it--'ll.eeds to take account of long range intellectual and theological trends. Clearly, the main currents in fate 20th century American Catholic theology result at least in part from the play of large tides reaching over the past hundred years and hey;ond. Among the most significant of these is Ohrist]anity's continuing endeavor to meet the pl'leS'sing surge of modernity. This endeavor engaged the energies of Catholics and Protestants for nearly two centuries, :before reaching 1someth:ing orf a climax in the Second Vatican C01Uncil. Assimilating the 1Work of several *A version of this paper was presented on May 4, 1990 in Rome at an Angelicum University symposium on the role of St. Thomas in contemporary thought. 1.Hillel.Schwartz, Oentury's End: A Oultural History of the Fiin de Siecle from the 990s through the 1990s (New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 239. 499 500 J. A. DI NOIA1 O.P. generrutions of,bishops and theologians, the Council oombined a reaffirmation of the Catholic Christian identity of the Church with a positive, a:lbeit critical, approach to modernity. Now, just when disagreements about the conciliar stance to modernity preoccupy and divide eurrent American Catholic theologians, the advent of " :postmodernity " is being hailed in a1,chitecbure, literary oriticism, science, philosophy, and other fields. No wonder the decades ushering in the 21st century have seemed to many "a final epoch, a time of grotesque extremity " in theology an:d in Church life. The condition of late 20th century American theology is intelligible, I shall af'gue here, only when viewed in the perspective of the complex responses of Catholic and Protestant Christianity to the once swelling and now receding tides of modernity. The fortunes of the study of Aquinas ha,V'e shifted in tandem with these :fluctuations. In both Aquinas's late 19th century 11evival and, at least in American CathoJic circles, his late 20th century eclipse, alternative Christian assessments of the challenge of moderniity figured prominently. But the situation is again in flux. There is a recovery of Aquinas underway, in connection with theological developments that encompass at least a measure of the refreshing postmodern agenda. It is here, I shall suggest, that we can identify some of the most creative currents at work in present-day American theology. I Although united in their appeal to the authority of Vatican II, rival American Catholic theological positions are divided by two opposed readings of the nature of the conciliar response to modernity and its implioataions for the theo1ogica:l a:genida. Acco1 •ding to one reading, the Coundl is understood to commend,a strong reaffirmation o.f Catho·lic Christian identity, taking the broadest view of its historic traditions, yet open to the cultural and religious pluralism characteristic of our times. But in the eyes of a numerous and influential group of American theologians, such a reading reverses the true priorities of AMERICAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGY 501 the Council. It was not resfomtion, ibut modernization, dialogue, a.nd social oommitment that V:atican IT chiefly sought to culti¥ate in the contemporary Church. To a. large extent, the state of theology in the U.S. (and perhaps elsewhere as well) refLects the predominance of the second interpreta.tion of the Council. Ressourcement or aggiornamento? As the conciliar documents reveal, both of these progmms were ruddressed and embraced by Viatican II. But which of them has priority? The documents themselrves... (shrink)

The distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness is a subject of intensive debate. According to one view, visual experience overflows the capacity of the attentional and working memory system: We see more than we can report. According to the opposed view, this perceived richness is an illusion—we are aware only of information that we can subsequently report. This debate remains unresolved because of the inevitable reliance on report, which is limited in capacity. To bypass this limitation, this study utilized (...) color diversity—a unique summary statistic—which is sensitive to detailed visual information. Participants were shown a Sperling-like array of colored letters, one row of which was precued. After reporting a letter from the cued row, participants estimated the color diversity of the noncued rows. Results showed that people could estimate the color diversity of the noncued array without a cost to letter report, which suggests that color diversity is registered automatically, outside focal attention, and without consuming additional working memory resources. (shrink)

This volume collects P. M. S. Hacker's papers on Wittgenstein and related themes written over the last decade. Hacker provides comparative studies of a range of topics--including Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology, conception of grammar, and treatment of intentionality--and defends his own Wittgensteinian conception of philosophy.

In his book on The Mathematics of Great Amateurs Coolidge starts the chapter on Bolzano saying that he included Bolzano because it seemed interesting to him ‘that a man who was a remarkable pulpit orator, only removed from his chair for his political opinions, should have thought so far into the deepest problems of a science which he never taught in a professional capacity’ [Coolidge, 1990, p. 195]. In fact, considering Bolzano's poor health and his enormous productivity in (...) his ‘professional areas’, the results, the breadth and the extent of this ‘great amateur's’ thoughts on mathematics, and its proper scientific presentation are simply astonishing. Even this new selection of more than 650 printed pages of text, well edited and translated by Steve Russ, represents only a part of Bolzano's legacy on mathematical topics: the complete German edition of Bolzano's writings, the Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe edited by J. Berg, E. Morscher, B. van Rootselaar, and others is projected to include over 120 volumes of which more than 36 volumes will contain his mathematical works. About 25 volumes have been published so far in this mathematical subseries including Bolzano's extensive Miscellanea Mathematica .To most readers of this journal, Bolzano will be well-known for his contributions to logic—his ‘logic of variation’ is viewed as a precursor of the modern semantic conception of logical consequence—and his contributions to the foundations of calculus, especially his ‘purely analytic proof’ of the intermediate-value theorem and the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, or his early discovery of a counterintuitive function which is continuous in its domain, but nowhere-differentiable.Despite his lifelong interest in the foundations of mathematics, Bolzano studied theology and taught philosophy of religion in his native city, Prague, from 1805 until his dismissal in 1820. Part of Bolzano's duties …. (shrink)

Many of our concepts are introduced to us via, and seem only to be constrained by, roughand-ready explanations and some sample paradigm positive and negative applications. This happens even in informal logic and mathematics. Yet in some cases, the concepts in question – although only informally and vaguely characterized – in fact have, or appear to have, entirely determinate extensions. Here’s one familiar example. When we start learning computability theory, we are introduced to the idea of an algorithmically computable function (...) (from numbers to numbers) – i.e. one whose value for any given input can be determined by a step-by-step calculating procedure, where each step is fully determined by some antecedently given finite set of calculating rules. We are told that we are to abstract from practical considerations of how many steps will be needed and how much ink will be spilt in the process, so long as everything remains finite. We are also told that each step is to be ‘small’ and the rules governing it must be ‘simple’, available to a cognitively limited calculating agent: for we want an algorithmic procedure, step-by-minimal-step, to be idiot-proof. For a classic elucidation of this kind, see e.g. Rogers (1967, pp. 1–5). Church’s Thesis, in one form, then claims this informally explicated concept in fact has a perfectly precise extension, the set of recursive functions. Church’s Thesis can be supported in a quasi-empirical way, by the failure of our searches for counterexamples. It can be supported too in a more principled way, by the observation that different appealing ways of sharpening up the informal chararacterization of algorithmic computability end up specifying the same set of recursive functions. But such considerations fall short of a demonstration of the Thesis. So is there a different argumentative strategy we could use, one that could lead to a proof? Sometimes it is claimed that there just can’t be, because you can never really prove results involving an informal concept like algorithmic computability.. (shrink)

Central to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society was the description and justification of the method adopted and advocated by the Fellows of the Society, for it was thought that it was their method which distinguished them from ancients, dogmatists, sceptics, and contemporary natural philosophers such as Descartes. The Fellows saw themselves as furthering primarily a novel method, rather than a system, of philosophy, and the History gave expression to this corporate self-perception. However, the History's description of their method (...) was not necessarily accurate. Rather, as will be argued below, by a combination of subtle misrepresentation and selective exposition, Sprat portrayed a method which would further the aims of social and ecclesiastical stability and material prosperity, essential for the Royal Society since its continued existence depended upon the creation of a social basis for the institutionalized pursuit of natural philosophy. Some link had to be forged between the activities of the Society and the intellectual and social aspirations of the Restoration. To understand the intent and meaning of Sprat's History and the method there portrayed, we must therefore look to the institutional needs which it fulfilled. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 493 an improvement over what is available. In this way the English reader unable to go to the Spanish originals could benefit greatly. ANTON DONOSO University of Detroit Das Verhdltnis von Philosophie und Theologie im Denken Martin Heideggers. By Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert. Symposium, no. 47. (Freiburg/Miinchen: Karl Alber, 1974. Pp. 340) Sie'fert deals competently not only with Heidegger's own views on the relation between philosophy and theology but (...) with the response they found among philosophers and theologians. From the beginning Heidegger has insisted on the difference in experience at the root of philosophy and theology. This remains true even after the "turn" when Heidegger has much to say about God or gods. At the time when Sein und Zeit appeared Heidegger gave a lecture entitled Phenomenology and Theology, which was published only in 1970.1 He claimed that theology as positive science is not independent from philosophy. What does this mean? A few quotations from the lecture may clarify his viewpoint and show how theological concepts are related to the ontological understanding of secular human existence. "The factual matter [das Vorliegende] (Positum) for theology is its being Christian.... Christian we call faith.... Christ, the crucified God, is for the 'Christian' faith the being that is manifest primarily in faith.... -2 Thus Heidegger holds that "theology itself is primarily founded on faith. ''3 Furthermore, faith as regeneration of the soul transcends the non-Christian existence.4 This means that the believer finds himself in an existential situation in which he cannot avoid taking into consideration the pretheological existence. Therefore, Heidegger says that "in the Christian event as regeneration.., the prebelieving that is disbelieving of Dasein is surpassed. Surpassed does not mean disposed of but lifted on to the new creation and kept and preserved by it. ''~ Thus Heidegger maintains that the concept of "sin as the counterphenomenon to faith as regeneration.., can only be made clear in its meaning by the concept of guilt as an existential of Dasein. ''6 Both the publication of Sein und Zeit and the lecture Phenomenology and Theology belong to the period when Heidegger was a professor at Marburg University and in close contact with R. Bultmann. The historical-temporal structure of Dasein together with the hermeneutic circle, as these terms were developed in Sein und Zeit, became the pivotal issues of Bultmann's theology. Bultmann justifies his reliance on Heidegger (according to a quotation by Siefert, p. 146), claiming that theology as a positive science deals with a specific being (Seiendes) and presupposes a sense of Being that it takes from philosophy. The much-discussed result of Heidegger's influence on Bultmann is his demythologizing of Scripture. Biblical myths, Bultmann argues, are based on a cosmology that, because it belongs to a prescientific age, can no longer be taken for granted by modern man. 7He further agrees with Heidegger that faith is the quality that identifies a Christian. Only "the man of faith" will "hear" the message contained in the Bible. Moreover, faith as regeneration has a temporal character insofar as it liberates the person from his sinful past and directs him to the "new" man in the future. Because of Bultmann's emphasis on faith some critics have reproached him for neglecting Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann. 2Ibid., p. 18. Translations in this review are my own. Ibid., p. 27. 4Ibid., p. 29. Ibid. 6Ibid., p. 30. 7See Kerygma and Myth, ed. H. W. Bartsch (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), p. 3. 494 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY divine grace. In her critique Siefert joins these critics in arguing that Bultmann gains his theological concepts not through being open to the substance of existential structures of Dasein as a matter of principle but on the ground of faith (p. 153). G. Noller, a theologian educated at Tiabingen University, rejects Bultmann's theology and starts with Heidegger's concept of Being. Siefert argues that Noller "misinterprets Heidegger in that he defines God as a being (Seiendes) and falls back into a metaphysical position (p. 157). In Sein und Existenz, says Siefert, Noller states that "God is the destiny (Schickung) of Being, but Being qua nothing may negate God and usher in... (shrink)

We analyse the extent of possible computations following Hogarth ([2004]) conducted in Malament–Hogarth (MH) spacetimes, and Etesi and Németi ([2002]) in the special subclass containing rotating Kerr black holes. Hogarth ([1994]) had shown that any arithmetic statement could be resolved in a suitable MH spacetime. Etesi and Németi ([2002]) had shown that some relations on natural numbers that are neither universal nor co-universal, can be decided in Kerr spacetimes, and had asked specifically as to the extent of computational limits there. (...) The purpose of this note is to address this question, and further show that MH spacetimes can compute far beyond the arithmetic: effectively Borel statements (so hyperarithmetic in second-order number theory, or the structure of analysis) can likewise be resolved: Theorem A. If H is any hyperarithmetic predicate on integers, then there is an MH spacetime in which any query ? n H ? can be computed. In one sense this is best possible, as there is an upper bound to computational ability in any spacetime, which is thus a universal constant of that spacetime. Theorem C. Assuming the (modest and standard) requirement that spacetime manifolds be paracompact and Hausdorff, for any spacetime there will be a countable ordinal upper bound, , on the complexity of questions in the Borel hierarchy computable in it. Introduction 1.1 History and preliminaries Hyperarithmetic Computations in MH Spacetimes 2.1 Generalising SADn regions 2.2 The complexity of questions decidable in Kerr spacetimes An Upper Bound on Computational Complexity for Each Spacetime CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Computational modeling of sketch understanding is interesting both scientifically and for creating systems that interact with people more naturally. Scientifically, understanding sketches requires modeling aspects of visual processing, spatial representations, and conceptual knowledge in an integrated way. Software that can understand sketches is starting to be used in classrooms, and it could have a potentially revolutionary impact as the models and technologies become more advanced. This paper looks at one such effort, Sketch Worksheets, which have been used in multiple classroom (...) experiments already, with students ranging from elementary school to college. Sketch Worksheets are a software equivalent of pencil and paper worksheets commonly found in classrooms, but they provide on-the-spot feedback based on what students draw. They are built on the CogSketch platform, which provides qualitative visual and spatial representations and analogical processing based on computational models of human cognition. This paper explores three issues. First, we examine how research from cognitive science and artificial intelligence, combined with the constraints of creating new kinds of educational software, led to the representations and processing in CogSketch. Second, we examine how these capabilities have been used in Sketch Worksheets, drawing upon experiments with fifth-grade students in biology and college students in engineering design and in geoscience. Finally, we examine some open issues in sketch understanding that need to be addressed to better model high-level aspects of vision, and for sketch understanding systems to reach their full potential for supporting education. (shrink)

The widely cited Nuffield Council on Bioethics ‘Intervention Ladder’ structurally embodies the assumption that personal autonomy is maximized by non-intervention. Consequently, the Intervention Ladder encourages an extreme ‘negative liberty’ view of autonomy. Yet there are several alternative accounts of autonomy that are both arguably superior as accounts of autonomy and better suited to the issues facing public health ethics. We propose to replace the one-sided ladder, which has any intervention coming at a cost to autonomy, with a two-sided ‘Balanced Intervention (...) Ladder,’ where intervention can either enhance or diminish autonomy. We show that not only the alternative, richer accounts of autonomy but even Mill’s classic version of negative liberty puts some interventions on the positive side of the ladder. (shrink)

Richard Taylor was born in Charlotte, Michigan on 5 November 1919. He received his A. B. from the University of illinois in 1941, his M. A. from Oberlin College in 1947, and his Ph. D. from Brown University in 1951. He has been William H. P. Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University, Professor of Philosophy (Graduate Faculties) at Columbia University, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester. He is the author of about fifty articles and of five (...) philosophical books. This volume consists of essays presented to Richard Taylor on the occa sion of his sixtieth birthday. Some of the contributors have been Taylor'S students; some have been his colleagues; and all have been, and continue to be, his admirers. I have made several attempts to articulate what it is I (I would not presume to speak for anyone else) admire about Richard Taylor: (1) There is a particular 'flavor' to Taylor's philosophical writing and con versation that is wholly delightful. Like any other flavor, it can be tasted and enjoyed and remembered but never adequately described. (If there should be someone who has picked up this book who does not know what I mean, I recommend that he read the chapter on 'God' in Taylor's Metaphysics. ) (2) Taylor is a masterful dialectician. (shrink)

Philosophers often distinguish in some way between two senses of life's meaning. Paul Edwards terms these a ‘cosmic’ and ‘terrestrial’ sense. The cosmic sense is that of an overall purpose of which our lives are a part and in terms of which our lives must be understood and our purposes and interests arranged. This overall purpose is often identified with God's divine scheme, but the two need not necessarily be equated. The terrestrial sense of meaning is the meaning people find (...) in their own lives apart from the place of their lives in any ultimate end or context. (shrink)

The author clarifies the existential philosophy that is implicit in Kurt Goldstein's philosophy of organism (Goldstein, 1963; 1995). Situated in response to the growing trend that psychological phenomena are reducible to the nervous system, the author argues for the reverse: that the significance of nervous system activity can only be understood by viewing it as background to foreground performances. Like the organization of perception into meaningful figure-- ground Gestalts, the existential modes of embodiment, sociality, temporality, spatiality, and attunement are organized (...) together to accomplish foreground performances. It is only within this context that the activity of the nervous system may be understood as significant or insignificant. Speech is given as an example. The article concludes with a commentary on how the trend of reducing psychological phenomena to neurological phenomena has impaired our understanding of brain disorders and psychological disorders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Metaphysics between Experience and Transcendence: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science by Rudi A. te VeldeO.P. Philip-Neri ReeseVELDE, Rudi A. te. Metaphysics between Experience and Transcendence: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2021. vii + 246 pp. 38,00€In the opening chapter of Metaphysics 4, Aristotle states not only that there is a science of being as being and its per se properties but (...) also that it is the task of the metaphysician to investigate the principles and causes of such being. Does this mean that metaphysics comes in two parts—namely, an ontology that investigates being and its properties, followed by a theology that investigates the first principle of being? Or does it mean that the very investigation into being and its properties involves an investigation into the first principle of being—that is, that ontology in some sense is theology? The central purpose of Rudi A. te Velde's newest book is to show that, at least for Thomas Aquinas and those who would follow him, the answer is emphatically the latter: Thomistic metaphysics is essentially the resolutio, or tracing-back, of common being (ens commune) to divine being (ens divinum). This process of resolution situates Aquinas's metaphysics "between experience and transcendence." Unlike natural philosophy, metaphysics is not focused on reality as it is given to us in and through sensory experience. Unlike Christian theology, metaphysics is not focused on God as revealed to us in and through supernatural faith. Rather, it is focused on what both of these—experience and transcendence—presuppose, namely, the fundamental truth that all of reality comes from, and points back to, God as its principle and source. For te Velde, Aquinas's metaphysics is etiology or, as he puts it, "the science of presuppositions."Chapter 1 offers the reader a synoptic view of the basic outlines and contours of Aquinas's metaphysics, both positively and negatively. Positively, te Velde points out that Aquinas understands metaphysics to be an Aristotelian science, that is, a discipline unified around its subject. For the properties of a subject are what we aim to demonstrate when we engage in Aristotelian science, and its principles are what we appeal to when doing so. Negatively, te Velde contrasts Aquinas's view of metaphysics with that of his contemporary, Siger of Brabant, and that of our contemporary, John Haldane. Unlike the former, Aquinas's metaphysics takes common being, which is participated and created (and so does not include God), as its subject. Unlike the latter, Aquinas's [End Page 162] metaphysics is unified by the intelligibility of being in light of its principles.In chapters 2 through 5, te Velde focuses in on particular themes that are of central importance to Aquinas's account of metaphysics. Chapter 2 examines the role of separatio in distinguishing metaphysics from physics and mathematics. Where physics considers things that require matter both to be and to be understood, and mathematics considers things that require matter to be but not to be understood, metaphysics considers things that require matter neither to be nor to be understood. It does so by means of a judgment of separation—a judgment that something (for example, substance, form, and so on) can be without matter. Chapter 3 turns to the topic of resolutio, wherein the mind moves "from the concrete particular to its intelligible ground." Aquinas's metaphysics is marked by a twofold resolution: one in which being and its attributes are grasped as the intrinsic principles of all things, and a second in which God and separate substances are grasped as the extrinsic principles of all things. Chapter 4 then investigates the notion of transcendentality, which arises in the first of those two resolutive processes—for insofar as being and its attributes are common to all things, they are not limited to just one of the ten categories (that is, they are transcendental). Nevertheless, the way in which predicates like "one," "true," and "good" cut across the categories that divide common being is different from the way that they cut across the divide between God and creatures. This difference ushers in chapter 5's discussion... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Burma’s Healthcare Under Fire: My Experience as an Exiled Medical ProfessionalP. P. KyawI used to work as a medical doctor in a less developed state than many big cities in Burma1 that experienced prolonged civil wars and current similar atrocities decades before the urban areas of the country experienced them. Before everything started, I was responsible for the medical management of the most vulnerable communities and had been struggling (...) with pandemic-related medical activities. Those were the happiest years of my life. I was with one of the best international organizations, where every effort I made was directly delivered to the patients with no unnecessary paperwork. The system was efficient, my colleagues were supportive, and I had a good work-life balance. I supported my family and whoever needed temporary financial support, played music weekly, met good friends who I hung out with every weekend, and [End Page 164] found hobbies like gardening and crocheting. I was content and happy. I even postponed my plans to get registered as a doctor in the Western world.Before moving to this beautiful ethnic state in 2019, I previously worked as a government medical doctor in Yangon, the capital. As much as I loved working in those civilian hospitals, I could not support myself with a monthly pay of $100-$150 USD. It was a hard decision to leave the service because it meant I could not pursue the medical specialty that I had always longed for and had to leave like-minded supportive colleagues. In Myanmar, unless you are a civil servant, you cannot pursue further clinical specialties. However, after leaving the government’s service to work in humanitarian medical assistance in hard-to-reach areas of Burma, I learned that life is still beautiful outside my comfort zone, until February 2021 when the coup began. Democratically elected members of the country’s ruling party were overthrown by the military, which then bestowed power in a military junta.I expected the election prior to the coup in November 2020 to be an uphill battle for Burma, but nothing more. I was still in denial when I first heard the news from one of the town’s NGO staff. The person had to travel on a motorbike to inform everyone that the junta had staged the coup. No telephone or internet was working at that time. My colleagues and I cried in our office, saying, “We are so young, and the future is still ahead. I don’t think this is going to last long. Maybe it will be over in a few days or, at most, a few weeks.” Once the peaceful protests started nationwide, my friends and I provided medical cover for the protesters, initially for minor medical problems such as low sugar, low blood pressure, injuries from accidental minor slips and falls, etc. Never in my life had I imagined that I would be taking care of bullet wounds and people injured by live rounds. While learning about gunshot wounds in forensic medicine, I thought, “Oh, this is not going to be very useful because Burma is not America, and I am not going there.” Then suddenly, it became too real and more useful than I would’ve liked it to be.I always think back to one especially bloody day when many people in the town were shot with live rounds. We assisted many patients. Usually, we would go around with the protest groups until they were over in the late afternoon. The protesters were always peaceful. There were no riots, no harmful acts, or vandalism. Only when the protesters were cruelly dispersed with tear gas, high-pressure pumps, rubber bullets, and live rounds (to the head) did they decide to defend themselves while still making their voices heard. The only defenses people had to counteract the live rounds were things like metal covers, firecrackers, and slingshots.One afternoon in March 2021, my team and I took an early break for lunch—unaware that some people would lose their lives that afternoon. We followed the local protests through Facebook Live while having lunch and started to hear firecracker sounds. A few seconds later, we knew... (shrink)