Mind and Body in Early China critiques Orientalist accounts of early China as a radical "holistic" other, which saw no qualitative difference between mind and body. Drawing on knowledge and techniques from the sciences and digital humanities, Edward Slingerland demonstrates that seeing a difference between mind and body is a psychological universal, and that human sociality would be fundamentally impossible without it. This book has implications for anyone interested in comparative religion, early China, cultural studies, digital humanities, or (...) science-humanities integration. (shrink)

What Science Offers the Humanities examines some of the deep problems facing the study of culture. It focuses on the excesses of postmodernism, but also acknowledges serious problems with postmodernism's harshest critics. In short, Edward Slingerland argues that in order for the humanities to progress, its scholars need to take seriously contributions from the natural sciences - and particular research on human cognition - which demonstrate that any separation of the mind and the body is entirely untenable. The (...) author provides suggestions for how humanists might begin to utilize these scientific discoveries without conceding that science has the last word on morality, religion, art, and literature. Calling into question such deeply entrenched dogmas as the 'blank slate' theory of nature, strong social constructivism, and the ideal of disembodied reason, What Science Offers the Humanities replaces the human-sciences divide with a more integrated approach to the study of culture. (shrink)

One purpose of this article is to support the universalist claims of conceptual blending theory by documenting its application to an ancient Chinese philosophical text, and also to provide illustrations of complex multiple-scope blends constructed over the course of conceptual blending by suggesting that, in many cases, the primary purpose of achieving human scale is not to help us apprehend a situation, but rather to help us to know how too feel about it. This argument is essentially an attempt to (...) connect the insights of conceptual blending theorists with those of neuroscientists such Antonio Damasio who argues for the importance of somatic states and emotional reactions in human value-creation and decision-making. (shrink)

The little-known story of the architectural project that lay at the heart of Paine's grand political vision for the United States. Thomas Jefferson praised Tom Paine as the greatest political writer of the age. The author of 'Common Sense' and Rights of Man, Paine helped make revolutions in America and France. But beyond his inspiring calls to action, Paine harbored a deeper political vision for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent decades planning: an (...) iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. The bridge was Paine's answer to the political puzzle of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and geographically fragmented as the United States. Among its patrons were other giants of the time, including Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, Paine's ideological opponent. Set against the background of the American Revolution, the story of his iron bridge reveals a new Tom Paine and connects this revolutionary to the vast program of internal improvements that soon transformed America"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: A NEW UNIVERSITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW SCIENCE Despite the recent and continuing controversy concerning the proper role of ...

Reflectivity and Cultivating Student Learning includes theory, research, and practice appropriate for teacher educators, teacher candidates, classroom teachers, school administrators, and educational researchers.

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

Although fertility is fundamental to spiritual health, it is often taken for granted. When a desired pregnancy fails to occur, stress and grief frequently follow. Visual expression of feelings through “art therapy” has proved a powerful healing tool for women brave enough to give it a try at the McMaster University Fertility Clinic. The objective and subjective findings of this ongoing project suggest that through simple visual self-expression, stress, anxiety and hopelessness may be reduced. This form of art therapy also (...) provides a joyful social experience of sharing with other women, who are dealing with these issues. (shrink)

It was certainly Kant’s purpose in the Critique of Pure Reason to find a middle ground between Cartesian rationalism and empirical idealism. One of the difficulties in reading the Critique is trying to follow how Kant can maintain his dual argument—that of transcendental idealism and that of empirical realism—at every point. Perhaps there is no better example of this than the crucial argument refuting idealism. The second edition Refutation is drastically reduced from the first edition and as densely packed as (...) any Kantian argument. Our purpose here is to unpack the argument, trying to show Kant’s grounds and his difficulties in attempting a deduction of the empirically real. (shrink)

This early essay by Albert Camus presents an eloquent picture of his understanding of what it means to know. But in order for us to assimilate it, we must recognize that Camus is not celebrating a hedonic naturalism, nor engaging in an existential anti-intellectualism. Rather, his articulation of lucidity and the exemplification of it in the artistry of the essay itself presents us with a challenging concept of knowledge. I attempt to explicate this concept with the help of two images, (...) one from the musical Hair and one from the movie The Pawnbroker, thus seeking to reinforce Camus' reliance upon image as the equivalent of idea. (shrink)

The question of whether literature can be read as philosophy depends perhaps more upon our conception of philosophy than upon our conception of literature. The more logical, argumentative and systematic we take philosophy to be, the less likely we will take literature as serious philosophy. The more intuitive, evidentiary, fluid and visionary we take philosophy to be, the more likely we will take literature as serious philosophy. I think it unlikely that we will get wide agreement about the validity of (...) literature as philosophy through the use of transcendental deductions or through the place of such a claim in a grand metaphysical scheme. Those who believe that literature has important philosophical relevance are better off trying to cite specific examples of how this relevance can be cashed in with the hope that enough examples will win others to this belief. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the understanding of philosophy as entirely made up of argument. It gives some characterization of argument as a rhetorical form and conversation as a motivating attitude. It explicates the understanding of this distinction in Book 1 of Plato’s Republic, and emphasizes the contemporary relevance of the distinction by appeal to the work of Richard Rorty. While respectful of Rorty’s insights, it sides more with the Platonic understanding of philosophical conersation, which does not abandon the pursuit of truth.

This article exposes the sophistry inherent in the construction of the "number line," as this continuum is named by mathematicians, and shows how another continuum, one which preserves the properties of the old "number line" but which is based on rational foundations, namely the relations to one another of the ratios that continuous magnitudes have to one another, can be generated to replace it.

THERE IS MUCH TALK THESE DAYS OF RIGHTS: Civil rights, legal rights, natural rights, human rights, women's rights, reproductive rights, children's rights. A great deal of it--if not all of it--is confused and confusing. Indeed, it is safe to say that no politically relevant concept more needs clarification than this one. Furthermore, because we are lavishly spending our political capital, it will soon happen that neither the incantation of familiar phrases nor the public expression of sentimental pieties will keep us (...) from destroying our community. The conflict between property rights and civil rights, so prominent in the 1960s, is only one example of the sort of tensions which we will undergo in the future. Unless adequate categories through which these conflicts may be resolved are accepted, any one solution can only prefigure larger conflicts whose features are ominous indeed. (shrink)