He draws on recent philosophy, but assumes no knowledge of the texts or terminology. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous, the Twelve Step program now provides life direction for the millions of people worldwide who are recovering from addiction and undergoing profound personal transformation. Yet thus far it has received surprisingly little attention from philosophers, despite the fact that, like philosophy, the program addresses all-important questions regarding how we ought to live. In Sobering Wisdom, Jerome A. Miller and Nicholas Plants offer a unique approach to the Twelve Step program by exploring its spirituality (...) from a philosophical point of view. Drawing on a variety of thinkers from Aristotle to William James and from Nietzsche to Foucault, as well as a diverse range of philosophical perspectives including naturalism, Buddhism, existentialism, Confucianism, pragmatism, and phenomenology, the contributors to this volume address such questions as the relation of personal responsibility to an acknowledgment of powerlessness, the existence of a "higher power," and the role of virtue in recovery. Ranging in tone from deeply scholarly to intensely personal, their essays are written in an accessible way for a broad audience that includes not only philosophers, theologians, and psychologists but also spiritual directors, health professionals, and addiction counselors. Perhaps most important, the book is also conceived for those involved in Twelve Step programs whose lives are being transformed by the experience. (shrink)

In recent years there has been widespread interest in assimilating forgiveness into a rational conception of the moral life. This project usually construes forgiveness as a way of “moving past” evil and resuming the moral narrative it disrupted. But to develop a philosophical sound conception of forgiveness, we must recognize that moral evil is world-shattering and cannot be assimilated into the moral narrative of our lives. It is not an event that happens in one’s world but to one’s world. In (...) this respect it is similar to death as Heidegger has described it. But, contrary to what Heidegger implies, evil is more traumatic than death because, unlike the latter, it shatters moral reasoning and moral narrative. Evil is a monstrosity; it traumatizes historical existence by impossibilizing the future. A philosophical account of forgiveness must therefore be traumatological: recognizing the traumatizing impact that evil has on historicity, it has provide us a heuristic that will help us to imagine the unimaginable possibility of transforming historical horror into good. (shrink)

Revisiting Heidegger’s interpretation of “world” in Being and Time can help us come to grips with the conflict between the naturalistic and hermeneutical points of view which post-modernism has aggravated rather than resolved. After discussing Heidegger’s account of the “hermeneutical circle,” and his rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, I argue that, to “save” truth from hermeneuticalrelativism, Heidegger smuggles naturalism inside the hermeneutical circle. I suggest that, in order to abandon naturalism without abandoning truth, it is necessary to radically (...) rethink the nature of judgment and recognize that it alone completes our ontological access to the world. (shrink)

The normalized, deterministic conception of evolution espoused by Dennett is increasingly being challenged by theorists who, following Gould, emphasize the role that historical contingencies play in it. I explore the conflict between these views and argue that correcting our understanding of the relationship between nature’s systematic necessities and historical temporality can resolve it. The mathematically precise laws science formulates describe the systematic patterns of nature abstractly and, as abstractions, these laws do not preclude but allow for the contingencies of historical (...) time. Drawing on Heidegger and Hume, I argue that historical time is characterized by the ingression of the unprecedented future into the present. This is the ontological infrastructure that makes the evolution of unprecedented ontological alterities possible. (shrink)

Few recent advances in science have generated as much excitement and controversy as human embryonic stem cells. The potential of these cells to replace diseased or damaged cells in virtually every tissue of the body heralds the advent of an extraordinary new field of medicine. Controversy arises, however, because current techniques required to harvest stem cells involve the destruction of the human blastocyst. This even-handed, lucidly written volume is an essential tool for understanding the complex issues—scientific, religious, ethical, and political—that (...) currently fuel public debate about stem cell research. One of the few books to provide a comprehensive overview for a wide audience, the volume brings together leading scientists, ethicists, political scientists, and doctors to explain this new scientific development and explore its ramifications. (shrink)

Three reservations about Keller & Miller's (K&M's) argument are explored: Serious validity problems afflict epidemiological criteria discriminating disorders from non-disorders, so high rates may be misleading. Normal variation need not be mild disorder, contrary to a possible interpretation of K&M's article. And, rather than mutation-selection balance, true disorders may result from unselected combinations of normal variants over many loci. (Published Online November 9 2006).

A theory that treats language not as an abstract symbol system but as a function of our brains and experience, integrating recent findings from biology, ...

This paper presents a general computational treatment of how mammals are able to deal with visual objects and environments. The model tries to cover the entire range from behavior and phenomenological experience to detailed neural encodings in crude but computationally plausible reductive steps. The problems addressed include perceptual constancies, eye movements and the stable visual world, object descriptions, perceptual generalizations, and the representation of extrapersonal space.The entire development is based on an action-oriented notion of perception. The observer is assumed to (...) be continuously sampling the ambient light for information of current value. The central problem of vision is taken to be categorizing and locating objects in the environment. The critical step in this process is the linking of visual information to symbolic object descriptions; this is calledindexing, from the analogy of identifying a book from index terms. The system must also identifysituationsand use this knowledge to guide movement and other actions in the environment. The treatment focuses on the different representations of information used in the visual system.The four representational frames capture information in the following forms: retinotopic, head-based, symbolic, and allocentric. The functional roles of the four frames, the communication among them, and their suggested neurophysiological realization constitute the core of the paper. The model is perforce crude, but appears to be consistent with all relevant findings. (shrink)

There are at least two ways of writing the history of philosophy: the first and most common among those self−identified as "philosophers" treats philosophers of the past as if they were in live dialogue with the present. Only the text is dissected, studied, and analyzed as the interpreter attempts to reconstruct, examine, and occasionally challenge the arguments under consideration. Practitioners of this first way assume that systematic and seemingly internally coherent styles of thought are most worthy of the name "philosophy." (...) These thinkers believe that the term "philosophy," as Richard Rorty pointed out long ago, has an "honorific" sense: philosophy as such stands above other forms of thought, it is regulative in scope, and it serves as something that examines the conclusions of other, necessarily less rigorous fields. The second way is more explicitly contextualist, seeking to understand what a past thinker may have meant in his own time, what outside factors may have shaped his arguments, and how his thought may be part of broader historical currents that are none the less worthy of being remembered and studied now. Practitioners of this way are more likely to believe that ambiguities or seeming deficiencies of clarity that we find in the work of a past thinker are unlikely to be resolved by hypothetical, propositional reconstruction; rather the ambiguities are apparent to us because we are differently situated, so that the study of history is a more powerful tool in helping us satisfactorily access the work ofa past thinker than rationalistic reconstruction. (Full disclosure: I am an advocate of the second way.) This volume presents studies that fall into both of the two camps, as Jerome.. (shrink)

Payment for research participation has raised ethical concerns, especially with respect to its potential for coercion. We argue that characterising payment for research participation as coercive is misguided, because offers of benefit cannot constitute coercion. In this article we analyse the concept of coercion, refute mistaken conceptions of coercion and explain why the offer of payment for research participation is never coercive but in some cases may produce undue inducement.

What is it that turns a new observation into a true scientific discovery? And who may claim the credit? Theoreticians of science, the foremost thinkers of their times among them, have tried to answer these fundamental questions about the nature of scientific progress and discovery. With clear insight and the chemical as well as philosophical wisdom gained from over fifty years as a practising chemist, Jerome Berson puts their theories to the test. The development of chemistry into a "modern" (...) science during the last two centuries provides him with ample cases to illustrate the way scientific progress really happens. Kekul?'s struggle to arrive at a structure for benzene, the paradigm change that was necessary to accept the reality of molecular rearrangements, and other episodes are retold here from the philosopher's as well as from the practitioner's perspective, shedding light on the way scientists think and act. Berson's account of the rather unphilosophical way in which scientific discoveries are made includes the realization that even a false hypothesis, such as Woodward's ideas about the biosynthesis of strychnine, may help rather than hinder scientific progress. Scientists of all ages, as well as many non-scientists, will find this a highly readable and unusual book. (shrink)

Because most chemical reactions, by definition, cannot avoid breaking of bonds, weakly bonded species exist fleetingly in almost every chemical change. Historically, chemical quantum mechanics was aimed at explaining the nature of strong bonds. The theory involved a number of approximations to the full solution of the Schrödinger equation. The study of non‐Kekulé molecules provides an opportunity to test whether modern quantum chemical computations are competent to deal with the nature of molecules with very weak bonds. †To contact the author, (...) please write to: Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT: 06520‐8107; e‐mail: jerome[email protected]. (shrink)

First paper introducing probabilisitic decision theory methods to AI problem solving.

Examines John Dewey’s ideas in the context of evolutionary theory.

Many theories require empirical patches or ad hoc assumptions to work properly in application to chemistry. Some examples include the Bohr quantum theory of atomic spectra, the Pauli exclusion principle, the Marcus theory of the rate-equilibrium correlation, Kekule’s hypothesis of bond oscillation in benzene, and the quantum calculation of reaction pathways. Often the proposed refinements do not grow out of the original theory but are devised and added ad hoc. This brings into question the goal of constructing theories derived from (...) first principles and the concept of ranking the merit of theories according to their freedom from empirical contamination. (shrink)

_Examines John Dewey’s ideas in the context of evolutionary theory._.

John McMillan's article raises numerous important points about the ethics of surgical castration of sex offenders.1 In this commentary, we focus solely on and argue against the claim that the offer of release from detention conditional upon surgical castration is a coercive offer that compromises the validity of the offender's consent. We take no view on the question as to whether castration for sex offenders is ethically permissible. But, we reject the claim that it is ethically permissible only if competing (...) ethical considerations outweigh worries about coercion. For in the situation described, the proposal is not coercive at all.McMillan states that if offenders agree to castration because they fear long-term detention, then ‘it seems, intuitively, as if agreeing to be castrated under these conditions makes the decision coerced in some way.’1 He adds that if castration is ‘the only way that they will be released back into the community, the status of this decision as a genuine expression of their autonomy is questionable.’1 In defence of his claim, he uses two analogies that he borrows from Joel Feinberg. First, if a governor offers to commute a death sentence if the prisoner agrees to participate in a medical experiment, then ‘it's clear that the governor is coercing the prisoner.’1 Second, if a millionaire offers to give a woman $1 000 000 …. (shrink)

John Dewey’s famous early twentieth-century account of the relationship between education as growth and democratic societies, presented in Democracy and Education, was later rejected by him, because it failed to properly identify the role of societal structures in growth and experience. In the later Ethics, Dewey attempts to correct that omission, and adumbrates the argument required to reconstruct his theory, which is an appeal to the role of institutions in individual growth and experience. It is the contention of this paper (...) that the inadequacy Dewey finds in his early account is more comprehensively explained by means of recent analyses in philosophy of society, especially John Searle’s ontological analysis. Following in Dewey’s direction, a more complete analysis of the role of society in the theory of growth is presented in terms of the deontological analysis of institutions. It is suggested that the current analyses in philosophy of society provide the means for the completion of Dewey’s views of both growth and experience, making Dewey’s account more useful today than it was a century ago. (shrink)

Abstract The views of eleven writers who develop a naturalized spirituality, from Baruch Spinoza and George Santayana to Sam Harris, André Comte-Sponville, Ursula Goodenough, and Sharon Welch and others are presented. Then the writer's own theory is developed. This is a pluralistic notion of sacredness, an adjective referring to unmanipulable events of overriding importance. The difficulties in using traditional religious words, such as God and spiritual are addressed.

Jerome A. Popp examines the role of Dewey-based pragmatism in the past, present, and future of philosophy of education.

Recruiting nurses from other countries is a long-standing practice. In recent years many countries in the developed world have more frequently recruited nurses from the developing world, causing an imbalance in the health services in often already impoverished countries. Despite guidelines and promises by developed countries that the practice should cease, it has largely failed to do so. A consortium of authors from countries that have experienced significant nurse poaching consider the ethical aspects behind this continuing practice.

Is a Christian naturalism possible? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. However, depending on the meaning of the terms, it is not only possible but highly desirable. The purpose of this article is to sketch the possibility of a Christian naturalism, drawing on a number of twentieth- and twenty-first-century theologians. Naturalism is a contrast term, like “left” or “up,” which gets its meaning partly from opposition to another term, in this case “supernaturalism” or sometimes “supranaturalism.” It is a set (...) of beliefs which focuses on this world. (Of course, there is no other world, according to naturalism, but since Christians and others have often spoken of God, soul, and/or heaven as distinct from .. (shrink)

Although its roots go back at least to Spinoza, religious naturalism is once again becoming a self–conscious option in religious thinking. This article seeks to (1) provide a generic notion of religious naturalism, (2) sketch my own “minimalist” variety of religious naturalism, and (3) view the science–religion dialogue from both of these perspectives. This last will include reflection on the nature of scientific practices, the contributions of religious traditions to moral reflection, and Ursula Goodenough's “religiopoiesis.”.