In response to the dozen essays published here, which relate my 1964 paper on “The Nature of Belief Systems in the Mass Publics” to normative requirements of democratic theory, I note, inter alia, a major misinterpretation of my old argument, as well as needed revisions of that argument in the light of intervening data. Then I address the degree to which there may be some long‐term secular change in the parameters that I originally laid out. In the final section, I (...) provide a case study of public understanding of factual trends in federal tax policy in recent decades which seems commendably veridical on average. The preferences of the public thereon add up to a remarkably clear popular mandate. But this mandate seems to disappear rather magically in the voting booth, probably due to a combination of limited contextual information on the public side, and considerable skill on the elite side in manipulating apparent political realities. (shrink)

Dans les sociétés occidentales, traversées par les processus de la sécularisation et de laïcisation, les sciences humaines tendent à distinguer le religieux du politique. Les nouvelles formes de la manifestation du pentecôtisme transnational, incitant à envelopper toutes les dimensions de la vie, ont indéniablement conduit à l’investissement du terrain politique. L’engagement actif des pentecôtistes dans un combat spirituel recentré sur des enjeux politiques se perçoit davantage en contexte kabyle où les représentations individuelles et les positions dans l’arène religieuse s’inscrivent dans (...) une configuration militante et prosélyte d’un religieux revendicatif et protestataire. Cet article propose ainsi d’esquisser la forme militante qui se profile autour de l’adhésion au pentecôtisme devenu à la fois catalyseur de la contestation idéologique et marqueur du désir d’autonomisation politique. (shrink)

In recent years, with the development of society and the rapid development of the animation industry, people are paying more and more attention to and requirements for animation production. As an indispensable part of animation production, picture composition plays a major role in animation production. It can give full play to the application of color matching and light and shadow design and enhance the depth and space of the animation screen. Tone space conversion refers to the conversion or (...) representation of color data in one color space into corresponding data in another color space. Its purpose is to distinguish and process color components such as hue and saturation in an image. This article first introduces the domestic and foreign research status of digital image preprocessing and analyzes the basic principles of several color space conversions in detail. Then, several color space conversion algorithms are studied, and the performance of the algorithms is compared and analyzed. The paper focuses on the hardware implementation and optimization of the algorithm for converting RGB color space into HSI color space to meet the real-time requirements. This article focuses on the mutual conversion between the RGB tone space and the HSI tone space and describes in detail how each color component in the HSI tone space is converted from the three RGB color components from a geometric perspective, and then the conversion is derived, and several general conversion methods of RGB to HSI tone space are introduced; two conversion methods of geometric derivation method and standard modulus algorithm are implemented in the software, and the comparison verification is carried out, and the comparison is made from the perspective of hardware implementation. The pros and cons of the two methods are discussed. Finally, the paper summarizes the shortcomings in the design and proposes further research directions in the future. (shrink)

This is a study of how self-transformation may occur through the practice of reframing one's personal experience in terms of a canonical language: that is, a system of symbols that purports to explain something about human beings and the universe they live in. The Christian conversion narrative is used as the primary example here, but the approach used in this book also illuminates other practices such as psychotherapy in which people deal with emotional conflict through language.

SummaryFaraday's concept of force is described by six assumptions. These specify a concept that is quite distinct from ‘mechanical’ conceptions of his contemporaries and interpreters. Analysis of the role of these assumptions clarifies Faraday's weighting of experimental evidence and shows how closely-linked Faraday's chemistry and physics were to his theology. It is argued that Faraday was unable to secularize his concept of force by breaking the ties between his physics and his theology of nature. Examination of his basic assumptions also (...) explains Faraday's failure to quantify his principle of conservation of force, his rejection of mechanical concepts of force and energy, and his early attempt to develop a wave-model for the conversion and transmission of electricity, magnetism, light and heat. (shrink)

Cet article examine certains des éléments fondamentaux de la pensée de Bernard Lonergan sur l'éthique. Il y est proposé que le traitement des préceptes transcendentaux et des valeurs dans Method suggère une continuité avec sa position antérieure dans Insight. Cette continuité est exposée par l'examen de la manière dans laquelle Lonergan dérive les 'devoirs' des préceptes transcendentaux de 'l'être' de la structure de la connaissance. Cet approche, dessinée à grands traits, est appliquée à une analyse de l'éthique proportionnaliste. On suggère (...) en outre qu'une telle éthique se révèle incohérente. (shrink)

I think it is impossible to adhere to the plan of this book and to follow a chronological sequence.

The use of Buddhist teachings and practices in psychotherapy, once described as a new, popular trend, should now be considered an established feature of the mental health field in the United States and beyond. Religious studies scholars increasingly attend to these activities. Some express concern about what they view as the secularizing medicalization of centuries old traditions. Others counter with historical precedent for these phenomena comparing them to previous instances when Buddhist teachings and practices were introduced into new communities for (...) healing benefit like medieval China. I reveal that a growing number of clinicians also describe their activities in comparison to moments of Buddhist transmission like medieval China. Drawing on the models of scholars like Robert Ford Campany and Pierce Salguero, I outline the possible benefits and limits of such comparisons. I ultimately conclude that scholars use comparison to normalize these contemporary phenomena as cohering to a historical pattern and their interpretations are subsequently employed by clinicians to legitimate their activities. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Schweitzer end up defending radically similar, yet critically opposed conclusions about the human animal and its place in nature, particularly with regard to the ethical awareness that does or does not follow from this situatedness. Arthur Schopenhauer’s notion of the will accounts for their similar foundational assumptions. But what accounts for the fact that their shared desire to affirm the will to life leads to fundamentally opposed ethical conclusions? What keeps Schweitzer’s ascetic ethic of reverence for (...) life from evolving into Nietzsche’s anti-ascetic vision of a second innocence beyond good and evil? We argue that situating the notion of reverence for life within an environmental virtue ethics, as one environmental virtue among many, aiming at ecological conversion, better articulates and motivates the disposition demanded by the ethics of reverence for life. (shrink)

Between the first and second editions of A System of Logic, John Stuart Mill underwent a startling conversion from an uncompromising frequentist philosophy of probability to a thoroughly Bayesian degree-of-belief view. The conversion was effected by correspondence with the eminent scientist Sir John Herschel, to whom Mill already owed what have become known as Mill's Methods of Experimental Inference. We present the relevant correspondence, and discuss the extent of Mill's conversion.

Sartre's phenomenological ontology discloses that understanding consciousness and its mode of being requires an analysis of its relation with other consciousnesses. The primordial manner in which the Other relates to consciousness is through the look. Sartre claims that consciousness tends to adopt a pre-reflective fundamental project that leads it to view the Other as a threat to its pure subjective freedom. This creates a conflictual social relation in which each consciousness tries to objectify the Other to maintain its subjective freedom. (...) But Sartre also notes that consciousnesses can establish a social relation called the “we” in which each consciousness is a free subject. While certain commentators have noted that communication allows each consciousness to learn that the Other is not simply a threatening object but another subject, communication can only play this positive role if both consciousnesses have undergone a specific process called conversion. Only conversion brings consciousness to recognise, respect, and affirm the Other's practical freedom in the way necessary to create a we-relation. To support my argument, I spend significant time outlining what conversion and the social relations created post-conversion entail. (shrink)

In the last few years, many countries have introduced (or are proposing to introduce) legislation on ‘conversion therapy’, prohibiting attempts to change or suppress sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This legislation covers ‘aversion therapy’, a form of torture that has already been criminalized in most progressive countries, and also ‘talk therapy’, involving things like counselling, psychoanalysis, and prayer. Focusing on this latter category of practices, I explain what is at stake in the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity (...) have been paired for the purposes of this legislation. I use a particular law reform institute’s approach to this legislation as a case study, and review their literature review in mind to discovering whether they provided sufficient empirical justification for including gender identity in their conversion therapy legislation. I conclude that they did not, and suggest that the pairing of sexual orientation and gender identity may be purely political. (shrink)

The so-called "biometric-Mendelian controversy" has received much attention from science studies scholars. This paper focuses on one scientist involved in this debate, Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire, who performed a series of hybridization experiments with mice beginning in 1901. Previous historical work on Darbishire's experiments and his later attempt to reconcile Mendelian and biometric views describe Darbishire as eventually being "converted" to Mendelism. I provide a new analysis of this episode in the context of Darbishire's experimental results, his underlying epistemology, and his (...) influence on the broader debate surrounding the rediscovery and acceptance of Mendelism. I investigate various historiographical issues raised by this episode in order to reflect on the idea of "conversion" to a scientific theory. Darbishire was an influential figure who resisted strong forces compelling him to convert prematurely due to his requirements that the new theory account for particularly important anomalous facts and answer the most pressing questions in the field. (shrink)