Through an analysis of key themes in Heidegger's work, the book challenges the traditional theological appropriation of Heidegger and the usual characterizations of religious thinking in terms of faith or belief in, or experience of, some ultimate reality. Heidegger, it is argued, offers a unique approach to a variety of issues and problems in contemporary religious thought and philosophy of religion that results in understanding religious thinking as a resolute openness to the holiness and meaningfulness of the world.

Altruistic behavior and motivation has traditionally been regarded as a defense mechanism defined by the vicissitudes of instinctual gratification. In this article, we suggest that there exists a substantial body of evidence from the fields of ethology, infant research, and experimental psychology to support the existence of an independently motivated altruism that is nondefensive in nature. We attempt to show how the view of altruism as a universal motivational system stems from the recent developments in evolutionary theory and contributes to (...) our understanding of intrapsychic factors influencing human behavior in general and the process of psychotherapy in particular. It is not our goal to prove the existence of "pure altruism" that can never be derived from selfish motives. Rather, our thesis is that self-oriented and altruistic motivations are equal and essential partners in human evolution and development. It is the optimal balance of these two forces that is necessary for evolutionary advancement and for psychological health. (shrink)

August 2006 marked the 10th anniversary of landmark legislation when Israel’s parliament passed the unique Patient’s Rights Law. This law underscores the importance of medical ethics in Israeli society. During a seminar at the Shaare Zedek School of Nursing, third-year students performed a qualitative research study investigating ethical issues arising in the field of nursing, and how nursing staff dealt with these issues in relation to the law. The research was conducted using semistructured questionnaires. The results showed that the staff (...) participants knew the law, but did not differentiate between legal and ethical problems. The establishment of a framework for dealing with these issues would help to promote professional ethics, encourage broad-based agreements related to ethical decisions, reduce ethical conflict, and increase implementation of the law on patients’ rights. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to reveal the scientific inconsistency and reactionary political essence of traditional and modern concepts that distort the truth about the Great Patriotic War and the most common techniques used for this, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to propose measures to ensure an offensive strategy to protect historical truth. The scientific novelty consists in the unique author's classification of Russophobic concepts and techniques into two directions, and within their framework in the (...) analysis of their content through relevant aspects and discourses. The result of the analysis carried out are proposals to neutralize hostile propaganda, provide an offensive strategy to combat falsifiers and protect historical truth. (shrink)

Speech unfolds over time, and the cues for even a single phoneme are rarely available simultaneously. Consequently, to recognize a single phoneme, listeners must integrate material over several hundred milliseconds. Prior work contrasts two accounts: (a) a memory buffer account in which listeners accumulate auditory information in memory and only access higher level representations (i.e., lexical representations) when sufficient information has arrived; and (b) an immediate integration scheme in which lexical representations can be partially activated on the basis of early (...) cues and then updated when more information arises. These studies have uniformly shown evidence for immediate integration for a variety of phonetic distinctions. We attempted to extend this to fricatives, a class of speech sounds which requires not only temporal integration of asynchronous cues (the frication, followed by the formant transitions 150–350 ms later), but also integration across different frequency bands and compensation for contextual factors like coarticulation. Eye movements in the visual world paradigm showed clear evidence for a memory buffer. Results were replicated in five experiments, ruling out methodological factors and tying the release of the buffer to the onset of the vowel. These findings support a general auditory account for speech by suggesting that the acoustic nature of particular speech sounds may have large effects on how they are processed. It also has major implications for theories of auditory and speech perception by raising the possibility of an encapsulated memory buffer in early auditory processing. (shrink)

Weight- (WAZ), height- (HAZ), and BMI-for-age (BMIZ) are frequently used to assess malnutrition among children. These measures represent different categories of risk and are usually hypothesized to be affected by distinct factors, despite their inherent relatedness. Life history theory suggests weight should be sacrificed before height, indicating a demonstrable relationship among them. Here we evaluate impact of family composition and household economics on these measures of nutritional status and explore the role of WAZ as a factor in HAZ. Anthropometrics, family (...) demographics, and measures of household economy were collected from Sidama agropastoralist children in a peri-urban village in southwestern Ethiopia (n = 157; 79 girls). Just over half of the sample (50.9%) had z-scores of − 2SD or below on at least one measure, indicating an elevated risk of morbidity/mortality; 30% were at or below − 2SD on two or more measures. We used hierarchical linear regression with random intercept analysis to model WAZ and HAZ. Siblings and crop sales significantly decrease WAZ while electricity, agriculture, and polygyny improve z-scores; however, an interaction between polygyny and siblings indicates negative effects of siblings in polygynous families and positive effects in nonpolygynous ones (adj. R2 = 66.5%). For HAZ, agriculture and electricity are positively associated with z-scores whereas siblings have a negative effect; the interaction term again indicates that effects of siblings vary in polygynous and nonpolygynous families (adj. R2 = 74.2%). A mediation model exploring the role of weight in height outcomes suggests not only that WAZ has direct effects on HAZ but also that effects of electricity and agriculture on HAZ are partially mediated by WAZ. Our findings indicate that WAZ and HAZ are primarily affected by shared variables, but effects of siblings vary by polygyny status. Long-term outcomes (HAZ) among Sidama children would likely benefit from interventions focused on stabilizing WAZ across family members. (shrink)

In a recent paper (Berry in Eur J Phys 42: 015401, 2020), the boundaries of superoscillatory regions (the regions where a function oscillates faster than its fastest Fourier component) of waves described by the Helmholtz equation in a uniform medium were related to zeros of the quantum potential, arising in the Madelung formulation of quantum mechanics. We generalize this result, showing that the relativistic counterpart, which is, essentially, a Klein-Gordon equation, exhibits the same behaviour, but in spacetime, giving rise to (...) anomalous values for the local mass (instead of local momenta, in the classical case). This amounts to the generalization of the condition for superoscillations from the magnitude of a vector, to the norm of a four-vector. For a photon, boundaries of superoscillatory regions are surfaces on which the photon’s trajectory is locally light-like, separating time-like and space-like regions, which correspond to real and imaginary local mass, respectively. (shrink)

The Cramér–Rao bound, satisfied by classical Fisher information, a key quantity in information theory, has been shown in different contexts to give rise to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we show that the identification of the mean quantum potential, an important notion in Bohmian mechanics, with the Fisher information, leads, through the Cramér–Rao bound, to an uncertainty principle which is stronger, in general, than both Heisenberg and Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relations, allowing to experimentally test the validity (...) of such an identification. (shrink)

In his book After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux criticizes post-Kantian philosophy for its inability to explain how science is able to describe a world without human beings. This paper addresses that challenge through a consideration of Heidegger’s thought and his thinking about science. It is argued that the disagreement between Meillassoux and Heidegger comes down to a question of first philosophy and the priority of logic or ontology in philosophy. Ultimately, Heidegger’s emphasis on ontology in philosophy is superior in its ability (...) to give a more comprehensive account of science and thinking about things themselves. (shrink)

This book is aimed at those studying for entry into the various professions where ethical questions are commonly faced such as teaching or social work.

In response to earlier papers in Informal Logic by Robert Fogelin and Andrew Lugg, this paper explores the issue of whether disagreement could ever be so deep that it defied rational resolution. Contra Lugg, I agree with Fogelin that such unresolvable disagreement is possible and, contra Fogelin, I suggest that the focus of such disagreement can be quite Iimited-a single proposition rather than a whole system of beliefs. I also suggest that emphasising arguing as a human practice rather than arguments (...) as a structure of propositions is unhelpful to consideration of these issues. (shrink)

Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency advocates a “speculative materialism” or what has come to be called “speculative realism” over against “correlationism” (his term for [nearly] all post-Kantian philosophy). “Correlationism” is “the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other.” As part of his criticism of “correlationism,” Meillassoux argues that it necessarily leads to fideism, referencing the return (...) of the religious in contemporary phenomenology and the fundamentalist fanaticisms of contemporary religion to make his point. It is this criticism of “correlationism” that I will explore in this paper—in two ways. On the one hand, I argue that, at least in the work of thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger, what Meillassoux calls “correlationism” leads to faith in doubt rather than fideism. On the other hand, I argue that “correlationism” has resulted in fideism only to the extent that it follows Hegel and becomes speculative, which raises questions for Meillassoux’s own “speculative realism” and his faith in mathematics as the means to accessing reality in itself. (shrink)

Despite his extended readings of parts of the Antigone of Sophocles, Heidegger nowhere explicitly sets about giving us a theory of tragedy or a detailed analysis of the essence of tragedy. The following paper seeks to piece together Heidegger's understanding of tragedy and tragic experience by looking to themes in his thinking – particularly his analyses of early Greek thinking – and connecting them both to his scattered references to tragedy and actual examples from Greek tragedy. What we find is (...) that, for Heidegger, tragedy is an interruption of speculation, a refusal to philosophize, a way of showing how things are that resonates with the goal of Heidegger's own thinking. (shrink)

Surprise and change are the way of the world. Philosophers have known this at least since Thales, and practical men knew it long before. Variety and the continual flux of one thing into another is, for Peirce, a central notion. A very similar conception underlies the information-gap theory of uncertainty and its application to decisions with severely deficient understanding which I have argued for earlier. For Haack, whose treatment of warrant is strongly non-probabilistic, info-gap theory is a natural context. The (...) connection between Peirce, Haack and info-gap theory is explored in this paper. (shrink)

Winston Nesbitt has argued that the usual examples appealed to as supporting the view that killing is no worse than letting die are misleading in that the comparison cases are not set up properly to tap our intuitions. Making various adjustments to the cases he judges killing to be intuitively worse than letting die and suggests that such a result is meta‐ethically appropriate to one view of the point of ethics. I contest each of these claims.

Winston Nesbitt has argued that the usual examples appealed to as supporting the view that killing is no worse than letting die are misleading in that the comparison cases are not set up properly to tap our intuitions. Making various adjustments to the cases he judges killing to be intuitively worse than letting die and suggests that such a result is meta‐ethically appropriate to one view of the point of ethics. I contest each of these claims.

SummaryNone of the above should be viewed as a defence of the particular version of OOE currently popular. I have not advanced any proposals concerning what particular ends might be of such importance that they legitimately override her prima facie right to control the contents of her mind. I have suggested that an internal tension exists within CCE as sketched by Forster but even ‘empowerment’ was not assumed by me to successfully meet the onus; my point was merely that it (...) was to be more plausibly construed as an argument for a compulsory, outcome‐driven, rather than for a free, interest‐driven, curriculum. Whether it is right for Janey to be overruled or not is a matter for continuing discussion, a discussion that OOE challenges us to have. It is, however, a prospective dialogue that is pre‐empted by any assumption that, just because CCE is prevalent in primary schools, the task is to protect it from OOE's predatory threat. For all that Forster has provided argument to the contrary, OOE may be a reform; the enemy might not be ‘a narrow vision of the national good’ but a narrow conception of Janey's good; perhaps there are things more important about portions of learning than that Janey finds them to have ‘personal significance’. (shrink)

SummaryNone of the above should be viewed as a defence of the particular version of OOE currently popular. I have not advanced any proposals concerning what particular ends might be of such importance that they legitimately override her prima facie right to control the contents of her mind. I have suggested that an internal tension exists within CCE as sketched by Forster but even ‘empowerment’ was not assumed by me to successfully meet the onus; my point was merely that it (...) was to be more plausibly construed as an argument for a compulsory, outcome‐driven, rather than for a free, interest‐driven, curriculum. Whether it is right for Janey to be overruled or not is a matter for continuing discussion, a discussion that OOE challenges us to have. It is, however, a prospective dialogue that is pre‐empted by any assumption that, just because CCE is prevalent in primary schools, the task is to protect it from OOE's predatory threat. For all that Forster has provided argument to the contrary, OOE may be a reform; the enemy might not be ‘a narrow vision of the national good’ but a narrow conception of Janey's good; perhaps there are things more important about portions of learning than that Janey finds them to have ‘personal significance’. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Jim Garrison (1997) opines that a Deweyan social constructivism ought to be embraced by science educators in preference to the subjectivist variety espoused by Ernst von Glasersfeld as it '. . . retains all [of the latter's] virtues and does not get caught up in its confusions' (p. 543), In this response, I argue that key elements of Garrison's complaints are misguided and that his preferred Deweyan social constructivism is a theoretical framework without (...) apparent superiority and with enough flaws that it is best eschewed by science educators (and metascientists, generally). © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. (shrink)