This volume, honoring the renowned historian of science, Allen G Debus, explores ideas of science - `experiences of nature' - from within a historiographical tradition that Debus has done much to define. As his work shows, the sciences do not develop exclusively as a result of a progressive and inexorable logic of discovery. A wide variety of extra-scientific factors, deriving from changing intellectual contexts and differing social millieus, play crucial roles in the overall development of scientific thought. These essays (...) represent case studies in a broad range of scientific settings - from sixteenth-century astronomy and medicine, through nineteenth-century biology and mathematics, to the social sciences in the twentieth-century - that show the impact of both social settings and the cross-fertilization of ideas on the formation of science. Aimed at a general audience interested in the history of science, this book closes with Debus's personal perspective on the development of the field. Audience: This book will appeal especially to historians of science, of chemistry, and of medicine. (shrink)

How do non-Western men interact with and understand the form of Western masculinity associated with global dominance? Is their experience of Western hegemonic masculinity’s denigration of their national/ethnic masculinity similar to what occurs among subordinated nonwhite and lower-class men in Western countries? We take up this subject in our study of the South Korean Father School movement, which trains Korean men to become more involved and loving family men. Our analysis of the discursive practices of Father School organizational leadership and (...) participants discovers the relational construction of a problematic “Korean” masculinity and a remedial “New Man” masculinity associated with white American men. We draw on Chen to suggest the Father School men’s movement is an attempt to elevate Korean masculinity on the world stage by “bargaining” with Western hegemonic masculinity. (shrink)

Here we examine the hypothesis that symbolic understanding across domains is mediated by a fundamental ‘symbolizing’ ability in young children. We tested 30 children aged 2–4 years on symbolic tasks assessing iconic and non-iconic word-referent and picture-referent understanding and administered standardised tests of symbolic play and receptive language. Children showed understanding of the symbol-referent relation earlier for pictures than written words, and performance within domains was correlated and, importantly, predicted by a marker of general symbolic ability. Performance on picture and (...) written word tasks was also unrelated to language comprehension. Thus, symbolic abilities in specific domains are underpinned by a general symbolizing ability which arises early in development. (shrink)

This book brings together scholars from a variety of epistemological perspectives to explore the multiple ways in which sexuality does indeed matter in the arena of public education.

The history of human subjects research and controversial procedures in relation to it has helped form the field of bioethics. Ethically questionable elements may be identified during research design, research implementation, management at the study site, or actions by a study’s investigator or other staff. Post-approval monitoring (PAM) may prevent violations from occurring or enable their identification at an early stage. In U.S.-initiated human subjects research taking place in resource-constrained countries with limited development of research regulatory structures, arranging a site (...) visit from a U.S. research ethics committee (REC) becomes difficult, thus creating a potential barrier to regulatory oversight by the parent REC. However, this barrier may be overcome through the use of digital technologies, since much of the world has at least remote access to the Internet. Empirical research is needed to pilot test the use of these technologies for research oversight to ensure the protection of human subjects taking part in research worldwide. (shrink)

Wir alle werden in eine bestimmte Kultur hineingeboren, in eine bestimmte Sprache, in bestimmte Denk-, Verhaltens- und Handlungsmuster, die nicht wir selbst erfinden, sondern die uns vorgegeben werden und in die wir durch einen Sozialisationsprozess hineinwachsen. Auch wenn heute durch die fortschreitende Globalisierung die ursprünglichen Herkunftskulturen immer weiter zurückgedrängt werden und einer Internationalisierung und Nivellierung weichen, lassen sich die jeweiligen Herkunftskulturen nicht gänzlich leugnen. Welche Rolle sie spielen, auch welche Schwierigkeiten sie bereiten, zeigt der cross-race-Effekt, die für das Leben erforderliche (...) Gruppenzugehörigkeit. Das vorliegende Buch macht sich zur Aufgabe, grundkategoriale Differenzen der diversen Kulturen aufzuzeigen: Parataxe, Hypotaxe und Vernetzung, die in allen Bereichen der Sprache, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Jurisprudenz, Zeit- und Geschichtsauffassung wiederkehren. Die parataktische Struktur wird anhand der altvorderorientalischen Kultur demonstriert, die hypotaktisch-hierarchische anhand der abendländischen und die vernetzte anhand der modernen globalen. (shrink)

Like biodiversity, sustainability is a buzz word in current conservation discourse. And like biodiversity, sustainability evokes positive associations. According to Allen and Hoekstra, “everyone agrees that sustainability is a good thing.” Both sustainability and biodiversity, however, are at grave risk of being coopted by people primarily concerned about things other than biological conservation. As Noss notes, “virtually everyone who has used the term sustainability seems to have had ‘human needs and aspirations’ as their primary concern.” Amgermeier and Angermeier and (...) Karr point out that local biodiversity can be artificially increased by introducing nonindigenous species into a biotic community; and, indeed, sports fisherpersons more concerned about angling opportunities than about biological conservation have cloaked their argument for introducing nonindigenous game fish to the Great Lakes in the mantle of enhanced biodiversity. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Beginning Lives, by Rosalind Hursthouse. On Moral Medicine:Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, edited by Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey. Quantitative Risk Assessment, edited by James M. Humber and Robert F. A Theory of Value and Obligation, by Robin Attfield. Ethical Issues at the Outset of Life, edited by William B. Weil Jr. and Martin Benjamin. Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying by Norman L. Cantor Having Your Baby By Donor Insemination:A Complete Resource Guide, (...) by Elizabeth Noble. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 69. In this issue of continent. , which takes as its theme the idea of the moraine, or that which is left behind, we attempt to think, and look beyond that horizon of the possible cataclysm, not in naive ways of hope and gleeful sounds, but in an attempt to present different directions in thought and looking and hearing. Beyond the cataclysm, or within it—or even, precisely anterior to it (anterior to an event not yet happened)—there are (...) new ways of thinking “beyond” already becoming apparent. These ideas are speculative, in a sense irresponsible: Graham Harman writes about Quentin Meillassoux’s God who does not exist now, but may do so in the future while Paul Ennis describes the speculative line backwards to Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. Michael O'Rourke assesses the future of Queer Theory and we are compelled to ask if queer theory is a theory of everything. Karen Spaceinvaders “maps” the brain through sound leaving us to wonder where is the mind, while Phillip Stearns, as though echoing Spaceinvaders’ work, remaps digital photography, creating images from the stray electrical currents in the apparatus. In fiction, Ben Segal gathers the blurbs of the books yet possible. And there is more. And so we proudly offer forth continent. ’s second issue. Whereas issue 1.1 took the theme of isthmus (that which connects land to land, or even, throat to voice), in issue 1.2 we look at what remains after the crushing weight of slow, glacial time has passed. It is geological (which is genealogical) and it is archeological, but it is architectural too. In his later work, Heidegger describes the open ( das offen ) as a lightening ( lichtung ) in terms of a forest clearing which is not only “free for brightness and darkness, but also for resonance and echo, for sounding and diminishing sound. The clearing is the open for everything that is present and absent.” In continent. 1.2, we imagine that clearing, that lichtung which is both a lightening and a clearing, a space of being from which to observe (or even participate in) the coming, very possibly banal, cataclysm(s). (shrink)

The Magician's Apparatus is an essay for the exhibition catalogue of The Collector's Room Exhibition at JGM Gallery in London, curated by Karen David. The Collector’s Room sees JGM Gallery transformed into a parlour room of a collector with a leaning towards illusion, stage magic and the escapologist Harry Houdini. In this room we encounter artworks such as spirit levels, levitations, gospel magic props, tarot cards, portraits of magicians, antique keys, handcuffs, sword boxes, escape trunks, magic wands, smoke, and (...) mirrors. The essay focuses on an encounter I had with a waxwork double of Paul Daniels at Wookey Hole Caves. It considers the central operation of the magicians’ craft: employing a decoy to misdirect, opening up the space between fact and fiction, the real and the made up. When watching a magic trick, the audience is knowingly placed at the centre of a conceit, an illusion that they are both complicit in but also kept separated from. A magician's audience always knows that the trick is not showing us what is actually happening - showing the spectator the mechanism of the illusion - but it is pretending to do that thing. Like the waxwork double, the magic trick is a simulation of reality that is always slightly distorted, always off-centre, always a theatrical manifestation of the real. (shrink)

Karen Spärck Jones produced over 200 publications, including nine books, in her long research career. She received many awards and honours, including the Association for Computing Machinery Salton Award in 1988; the American Society for Information Science and Technology Award of Merit in 2002; and the joint Association for Computing Machinery and Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Allen Newell Award in 2007. Karen also worked hard to try to improve the position of women in computing (...) and to attract more women to the discipline. She was a founder member of the ‘women@cl’ network based at the Computer Laboratory and was always unstinting with her time when women students and researchers asked her advice. (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light not only on (...) Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

In seeking an answer to the question of what it means for a theory to be fundamental, it is enlightening to ask why the current best theories of physics are not generally believed to be fundamental. This reveals a set of conditions that a theory of physics must satisfy in order to be considered fundamental. Physics aspires to describe ever deeper levels of reality, which may be without end. Ultimately, at any stage we may not be able to tell whether (...) we've reached rock bottom, or even if there is a base level – nevertheless, I draft a checklist to help us identify when to stop digging, in the case where we may have reached a candidate for a final theory. Given that the list is – according to (current) mainstream belief in high-energy physics – complete, and each criterion well-motivated, I argue that a physical theory that satisfies all the criteria can be assumed to be fundamental in the absence of evidence to the contrary (i.e., I argue that the necessary conditions are jointly sufficient for a claim of fundamentality in physics). (shrink)

This paper argues that modern virtue ethics provides a useful background against which to read the philosophical import of Christine de Pizan’s works. By recognizing the origins of much of her thought in the Medieval tradition of virtue ethics, the paper brings out the continuity between her writing and a rich stream of contemporary ethical debate. It shows how Christine’s strand of feminism was deeply indebted to Medieval virtue ethics; both as found in Boethius and in contemporary compilations on the (...) virtues, on which Christine drew. At the same time, this tradition was subtly transformed by Christine, in order to elevate the status of women, as well as the traditional practical and worldly activities of women. Indeed, Christine’s feminism can be read as a direct application of her meditation on virtue and the good life. The paper concludes with a brief sketch of the way in which, during the three centuries subsequent to Christine, the nature of virtue and the virtues continued to provide a central focus in women’s philosophical writings. (shrink)

A theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, Karen Barad elaborates her theory of agential realism, a schema that is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics.

We frequently speak of certain things or phenomena being built out of or based in others. Making Things Up concerns these relations, which connect more fundamental things to less fundamental things: Karen Bennett calls these 'building relations'. She aims to illuminate what it means to say that one thing is more fundamental than another.

Karen Gloys neues Buch geht der Funktion und Geschichte der Begriffe Individual- und Kollektivbewußtsein nach - Begriffe, die heute wegen ihrer politischsoziologischen Bedeutung und der geschichtlichen Entwicklung im 20. Jahrhunderts kaum noch unbelastet gebraucht werden können.

Recent defenses of shaming as an effective tool for identifying bad practice and provoking social change appear compatible with feminism. I complicate this picture by examining two instances of online feminist shaming that resulted in shame backlashes. Shaming requires the assertion of social and epistemic authority on behalf of a larger community, and is dependent upon an audience that will be receptive to the shaming testimony. In cases where marginally situated knowers attempt to “shame up,” it presents challenges for feminist (...) uses. (shrink)

In this original work of cultural criticism, Allen S. Weiss explores the meaning of radio to the modern imagination.

Thesis: Those affected by mental disorders whose actions are episodically influenced by their disorder are often overlooked by philosophers of moral and ethical responsibility. Allen gives us reasons for thinking it is inappropriate to either: a) “summarily exclude people with mental problems out of the universe of moral agents, reducing them to the status of rocks, trees, animals, and infants” b) “include the group on the false assumption that their moral lives are precisely like the paradigmatic moral lives of (...) the epistemically-sound and well-regulated people never personally touched by a mental condition” We must explore a revised approach to moral and ethical responsibility and obligation for this group. (shrink)

This book articulates a systematic vision of an international legal system grounded in the commitment to justice for all persons. It provides a probing exploration of the moral issues involved in disputes about secession, ethno-national conflict, "the right of self-determination of peoples," human rights, and the legitimacy of the international legal system itself. Buchanan advances vigorous criticisms of the central dogmas of international relations and international law, arguing that the international legal system should make justice, not simply peace among states, (...) a primary goal, and rejecting the view that it is permissible for a state to conduct its foreign policies exclusively according to what is in the "national interest." He also shows that the only alternatives are not rigid adherence to existing international law or lawless chaos in which the world's one superpower pursues its own interests without constraints. This book not only criticizes the existing international legal order, but also offers morally defensible and practicable principles for reforming it. Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination will find a broad readership in political science, international law, and political philosophy. (shrink)

Ecological feminism is the position that there are important connections-historical, symbolic, theoretical-between the domination of women and the domination of nonhuman nature. I argue that because the conceptual connections between the dual dominations of women and nature are located in an oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination, (1) the logic of traditional feminism requires the expansion of feminism to include ecological feminism and (2) ecological feminism provides a framework for developing a distinctively feminist environmental ethic. I (...) conclude that any feminist theory and any environmental ethic which fails to take seriously the interconnected dominations of women and nature is simply inadequate. (shrink)

This book explains how gossip contributes to knowledge. Karen Adkins marshals scholarship and case studies spanning centuries and disciplines to show that although gossip is a constant activity in human history, it has rarely been studied as a source of knowledge. People gossip for many reasons, but most often out of desire to make sense of the world while lacking access to better options for obtaining knowledge. This volume explores how, when our access to knowledge is blocked, gossip becomes (...) a viable path to knowledge attainment, one that involves the asking of questions, the exchange of ideas, and the challenging of preconceived notions. (shrink)

Illusionism treats the almost universally held belief in our ability to make free choices as an erroneous, though beneficent, idea. According to this view, it is sadly true, though virtually impossible to believe, that none of a person’s choices are avoidable and ‘up to him’: any claim to the effect that they are being naïveté or, in the case of those who know better, pretense. Indeed, the implications of this skepticism are so disturbing, pace Spinoza, that it must not be (...) allowed to see the light of intellectual day, confined to the nether regions of consciousness. Even those who have ‘done the philosophy’ and disabused themselves here should nevertheless (somehow) continue believing in free will, lest they come to regard our lives as meaningless, spreading despair and social upheaval. Thus, the “Illusionists” who propound this view are themselves circumspect in doing so. -/- But is escaping the (putative) truth really possible here? Could a disabused philosopher ever return to something like his former intellectual innocence? Self-deception may not be possible; but would an attempt at it reveal anything significant about choice formation? If one were to try to regain one’s illusion, what would one realize? I shall argue here that one would reflectively discover precisely the opposite of what the Illusionists contend- that there are indeed free choices. Let us begin by considering the inconsistency that supposedly entails the illusion of free will. (shrink)

A philosophical exploration of the nature, scope, and significance of ecofeminist theory and practice. This book presents the key issues, concepts, and arguments which motivate and sustain ecofeminism from a western philosophical perspective.

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop (...) quantum gravity. (shrink)

Ecological feminism is the position that there are important connections-historical, symbolic, theoretical-between the domination of women and the domination of nonhuman nature. I argue that because the conceptual connections between the dual dominations of women and nature are located in an oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination, (1) the logic of traditional feminism requires the expansion of feminism to include ecological feminism and (2) ecological feminism provides a framework for developing a distinctively feminist environmental ethic. I (...) conclude that any feminist theory and any environmental ethic which fails to take seriously the interconnected dominations of women and nature is simply inadequate. (shrink)

The paper is an extended discussion of what I call the ‘dismissive attitude’ towards metaphysical questions. It has three parts. In the first part, I distinguish three quite different versions of dismissivism. I also argue that there is little reason to think that any of these positions is correct about the discipline of metaphysics as a whole; it is entirely possible that some metaphysical disputes should be dismissed and others should not be. Doing metametaphysics properly requires doing metaphysics first. I (...) then put two particular disputes on the table to be examined in the rest of the paper: the dispute over whether composite objects exist, and the dispute about whether distinct objects can be colocated. In the second part of the paper, I argue against the claim that these disputes are purely verbal disputes. In the third part of the paper, I present a new version of dismissivism, and argue that it is probably the correct view about the two disputes in question. They are not verbal disputes, and the discussion about them to date has not remotely been a waste of time. At this stage, however, our evidence has run out. I argue that neither side of either dispute is simpler than the other, and that the same objections in fact arise against both sides. (For example, the compositional nihilist does not in fact escape the problem of the many, and the one-thinger does not in fact escape the grounding problem.). (shrink)

Nursing staff of many specialities are taking on and developing their roles in new and advanced practice areas. Patients will be offered new services from highly skilled advanced nurse practitioners. Such nurses need guidance, direction and information to assist them in their new roles. This book will offer insight and guidance on a variety of issues that are likely to be encountered by the Nurse Practitioner in everyday practice.