In this paper I intend to discuss some of the views put forward by Stephen Kemp in his recent critique of the Strong Program. In particular I will try to defend David Bloor’s SSK against the charge of weak idealism brought up by Stephen Kemp in his paper. The widely held accusation, namely, according to which the social constructionist approach to scientific knowledge is strongly idealist, is already rejected by Kemp himself. He argues, however that Bloor’s attempts to divert (...) the charge of idealism from the Strong Programme were not successful with respect to the kind of idealism that Kemp calls ‘weak idealism’, that is, treating scientific discourse as free-floating and unrelated to the world of things. I intend to argue that Kemp’s charges are unfounded when levelled at Bloor’s views on meaning and reference. Kemp deals with two issues of the Bloorian program: with the social constructionist approach to concepts as self-referential social institutions, and with the actor/analyst distinction introduced by the Strong Programmers. I will focus only on the first issue in my paper.Keywords: Strong Programme; David Bloor; Social constructionism; Self-reference; Idealism; Reference to external reality. (shrink)

In this essay, I address a novel criticism recently levelled at the Strong Programme by Nick Tosh and Tim Lewens. Tosh and Lewens paint Strong Programme theorists as trading on a contrastive form of explanation. With this, they throw valuable new light on the explanatory methods employed by the Strong Programme. However, as I shall argue, Tosh and Lewens run into trouble when they accuse Strong Programme theorists of unduly restricting the contrast (...) space in which legitimate historical and sociological explanations of scientific knowledge might be given. Their attack founders as a result of their failure to properly understand the overall methodological concerns of Strong Programme theorists. After introducing readers to the technique of contrastive explanation and correcting the errors in Tosh and Lewens’ interpretation of the Strong Programme, I argue that it is, in fact, Tosh and Lewens’ own commitment to scientific realism which places an unacceptable restriction on the explanatory space open to historians and sociologists of science. The happy ending is that the Strong Programme provides more freedom for analysis than does scientific realism, and that careful attention to the methodological benefits of contrastive explanation can help lighten the burden on historians and sociologists of science as they go about their explanatory business. (shrink)

It is widely believed that the “strong programme” in the sociology of knowledge comes into serious conflict with mainstream epistemology. I argue that the programme has two aspects—one modest, and the other less so. The programme’s modest aspect—best represented by the “symmetry thesis”—does not contain anything to threaten much of the epistemological mainstream, but does come into conflict with a certain kind of epistemological “externalism”. The immodest aspect, however—in the form of “finitism”—pushes the programme towards (...) a radical form of relativism about truth. Accepting these points will allow us to put an end to much unnecessary debate surrounding the strong programme, and allow a more fruitful discussion to begin.Author Keywords: Author Keywords: Strong programme; Epistemology; Normativity; Relativism; Finitism. (shrink)

In this essay, I respond to Tim Lewens's proposal that realists and Strong Programme theorists can find common ground in reliabilism. I agree with Lewens, but point to difficulties in his argument. Chief among these is his assumption that reliabilism is incompatible with the Strong Programme's principle of symmetry. I argue that the two are, in fact, compatible, and that Lewens misses this fact because he wrongly supposes that reliabilism entails naturalism. The Strong Programme (...) can fully accommodate a reliabilism which has been freed from its inessential ties to naturalism. Unlike naturalistic epistemologists, the Strong Programme's sociologistic reliabilist insists that all scientific facts are the product of both natural and social causal phenomena. Anticipating objections, I draw on Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations to explain how the sociologistic reliabilist can account for standard intuitions about the objective elements of knowledge. I also explain how the Strong Programme theorist can distinguish between a belief's seeming reliable and its being reliable. (shrink)

Advocates of the "strong programme" in the sociology of knowledge have argued that, because scientific theories are "underdetermined" by data, sociological factors must be invoked to explain why scientists believe the theories they do. I examine this argument, and the responses to it by J.R. Brown (1989) and L. Laudan (1996). I distinguish between a number of different versions of the underdetermination thesis, some trivial, some substantive. I show that Brown's and Laudan's attempts to refute the sociologists' argument (...) fail. Nonetheless, the sociologists' argument falls to a different criticism, for the version of the underdetermination thesis that the argument requires, has not been shown to be true. (shrink)

I offer a reply to criticisms of the Strong Programme presented by Stephen Kemp who develops some new lines of argument that focus on the ‘monism’ of the programme. He says the programme should be rejected for three reasons. First, because it embodies ‘weak idealism’, that is, its supporters effectively sever the link between language and the world. Second, it challenges the reasons that scientists offer in explanation of their own beliefs. Third, it destroys the distinction (...) between successful and unsuccessful instrumental action. Kemp is careful to produce quotations from the supporters of the programme as evidence to support his case. All three points deserve and are given a detailed response and the interpretation of the quoted material plays a significant role in the discussion. My hope is that careful exegesis will offset the numerous misinterpretations that are current in the philosophical literature. Particular attention is paid to what is said about the normative standards involved in the application of empirical concepts. The operation of these standards in the face of the negotiability of all concepts is explored and misapprehensions on the topic are corrected. The work of Wittgenstein, Popper, Kuhn and Hesse is used to illustrate these themes.Keywords: Strong Programme; Social constructionism; Idealism; Monism; Finitism; Relativism. (shrink)

We attack the SSK's rejection of the distinction between discovery and justification (the DJ distinction), famously introduced by Hans Reichenbach and here defended in a "lean" version. Some critics claim that the DJ distinction cannot be drawn precisely, or that it cannot be drawn prior to the actual analysis of scientific knowledge. Others, instead of trying to blur or to reject the distinction, claim that we need an even more fine-grained distinction (e.g. between discovery, invention, prior assessment, test and justification). (...) Adherents of the SSK, however, maintain that the distinction is useless and perhaps nonexistent. We first argue against the assumption that the SSK's objection to the DJ distinction is just the same as Thomas Kuhn's. Second, we point out general weaknesses of the SSK's arguments against the DJ distinction. Finally, we argue that the distinction is useful not only in order to explicate what is meant by an evaluation but even for the empirical explanation of knowledge. We use two case studies from the history of cognitive science to support this point. (shrink)

This article focuses on the development of argumentation studies in France and their complex relations with discourse analysis. First, the meanings of the basic word `argument' in French and in American English are discussed and contrasted. Second, a brief historical section summarizes the complex history of rhetorical argumentation in France up until the late 1980s and the Perelmanian revival. Third, Grize `natural logic' and Anscombre and Ducrot `argumentation within language' are briefly discussed from the discourse analysis point (...) of view. These programmes have restored argumentation study to favour in France, where it is currently the research paradigm most referred to in recent work. The fourth section examines the present situation in France which is characterized by a strong new interest in argumentation in all disciplines; this is fuelling a tendency towards the use of argumentation theories — classical or modern — for practical, short-term analysis purposes. Fifth, a proposal is made for a better integration of argumentation studies in discourse analysis, based on the conception of argumentation as opposite points of view, either in face-to-face disputes or in written arguments, sometimes lasting for several centuries. This article is based on the premise that research into the history of rhetoric and argumentation, as well as in specific discourse analytic trends that emerged in France during the 1970s, has some permanent value in that a better understanding of an academic discipline's historical development can be a good introduction to its current problems. (shrink)

The strong programme in the sociology of science is officially "inductively" based, generalizing a number of highly acclaimed case studies into a general approach to the social study of science. However, at a critical juncture, the programme allies itself with certain radical ideas in philosophical semantics, notablyWittgenstein's "rule following considerations". The result is an implausible, radical conventionalist view of natural science which undermines the empirical programme.

Abstract The accumulated case studies in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge have been taken to establish the Strong Programme's thesis that beliefs have social causes in contradistinction to psychological ones. This externalism is essentially a commitment to the stimulus control of behaviour which was the principal tenet of orthodox Skinnerian Behaviorism. Offered as ?straight forward scientific hypotheses? these claims of social determination are asserted to be ?beyond dispute?. However, the causes of beliefs and especially their contents has (...) also been the subject of intense study in the quite different domain of cognitive science where internal states, images, rules, representations and schemas are postulated as explanatory constructs. Such explanations which postulate mental states are described by Bloor as infected by the ?disease? of ?psychologism? and Bloor has defined his Strong Programme in terms of its diametrical opposition to mentalistic theories. For example, Bloor has explicitly endorsed the Behaviourist rejection of mental representations such as images. Accordingly, a direct comparison of these radically divergent approaches to a common subject matter is of considerable interest. The paper attempts to reveal the unnoticed enormity and recidivism of the sociological programme, and how its vulnerability is betrayed in Bloor's response to criticism on central issues. (shrink)

This introduction to a Special Issue of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) – dedicated to showcasing scholarly research into the language of conflict and peace, describes the general conceptual character of language in conflict initiation as well as in peace process. It further examines the potentials of linguistic representation in the construction of social and political realities that have strong implications for conflicts not only at the interpersonal level but also have consequences in terms of national and global (...) security. It argues that critical discourse analysis provides sufficient and interesting methodological resource for analyzing conflict and peace discourses. Then, it briefly summarizes the various topics covered in the Special Issue highlighting the approaches adopted by the authors. Drawing from different contexts and scenarios, the authors demonstrate how methods in linguistics and discourse studies are applied to analyzing conflict and peace processes. Hence, this introductory piece, shows how this Special Issue contributes to scholarly understanding of the roles of language within the context of conflict or peace, as well as illustrate in some interesting extent, how to research the language of conflict and peace in discourse studies. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the Strong Programme’s aim to provide robust explanations of belief acquisition is limited by its commitment to the symmetry principle. For Bloor and Barnes, the symmetry principle is intended to drive home the fact that epistemic norms are socially constituted. My argument here is that even if our epistemic standards are fully naturalized—even relativized—they nevertheless can play a pivotal role in why individuals adopt the beliefs that they do. Indeed, sometimes the fact (...) that a belief is locally endorsed as rational is the only reason why an individual holds it. In this way, norms of rationality have a powerful and unique role in belief formation. But if this is true then the symmetry principle’s emphasis on ‘sameness of type’ is misguided. It has the undesirable effect of not just naturalizing our cognitive commitments, but trivializing them. Indeed, if the notion of ‘similarity’ is to have any content, then we are not going to classify as ‘the same’ beliefs that are formed in accordance with deeply entrenched epistemic norms as ones formed without reflection on these norms, or ones formed in spite of these norms. My suggestion here is that we give up the symmetry principle in favor of a more sophisticated principle, one that allows for a taxonomy of causes rich enough to allow us to delineate the unique impact epistemic norms have on those individuals who subscribe to them.Keywords: Strong Programme; Naturalism; Epistemology; David Bloor; Barry Barnes. (shrink)

This article argues that phenomenological sociology has great potential to provide a strong theoretical support to the Sociocognitive Approach in Critical Discourse Studies. SCA is interested in the interconnections between knowledge, discourse and society while placing subjectivity in the centre of its framework. It looks into the correlative relationship between personal- and socially shared knowledge, and the significance of these correlations to discourse production and interpretation. Analogously, phenomenological sociology explores the interrelated structures of subjectivity, knowledge (...) and the social world. It systematically analyses the conditions and forms of intersubjective understanding and the mutually constitutive relationship between subjective- and objective knowledge. Given the considerable overlap between the subject matter of phenomenological sociology and that of SCA, the purpose of the article is to draw the attention of critical discourse analysts to a neglected but extremely resourceful field. Following a brief introduction to SCA, the article will address some of SCA’s key concepts in conjunction with the phenomenological-sociological insight. (shrink)

This study integrates corpus-assisted text analysis with frame semantics to study a social problem. Taking a cognitive-linguistic approach to critical discourse studies, in this article I examine the linguistic construction of minors in a corpus of 489 articles from the Uruguayan newspaper El País in the context of the so-called ‘Criminal Imputability Referendum’. Throughout, I focus on the construal operation of framing and identify a host of discursive patterns via which minors and adolescents are recurrently placed within the (...) semantic frame CRIME, and within this, they profile the frame elements of perpetrators of violent crimes rather than victims. I argue that, in the context of the referendum, these discursive strategies run the risk of facilitating the consolidation of a strong conceptual link whereby youth become readily associated with criminality, and are subservient to the political views of groups supporting a lower cut-off age for criminal responsibility and more stringent punishments. The observations arrived at in this instance set the foundations for a future experimental study testing whether the discursive patterns unearthed here have an effect on how readers conceptualize minors outside the texts. (shrink)

. MAINTAINING DISCIPLINE IN DETAINEE OPERATIONS: A STUDY IN SMALL UNIT LEADERSHIP AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOR. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 363-364. doi: 10.1080/15027570.2012.758409.

Currently, much hope for the protection of nature is pinned on the science of ecology. Without suggesting that we should pay less serious attention to science, I argue for a more pluralistic approach to the environmental and technological problems facing our time. I maintain that when ecology changes attitudes and ways of life, it does so by importing a language of engagement with nature rather than by remaining confined to a strictly scientific account. This language of engagement, which shows how (...) nature and natural things can be engaged by humans in a multiplicity of ways, I call disclosive discourse. Disclosive discourse, however, is not used exclusively by ecologists and other scientists. To the contrary, the great literary writers exemplify in their writings the ways this discourse can present nature and natural things in their most profound and powerful appeal. Moreover, disclosive discourse is not limited to words: artworks, too, are disclosive. By characterizing the deeper problem with which we are faced differently, as fundamentally technological rather than environmental, a more diversified plurality of alternatives to technology, not limited to those having to do with primarily nature, can be brought into relief and encouraged. (shrink)

The results of an exploratory study examining the role of trust in stakeholder satisfaction are reported. Customers, stockholders, and employees of financial institutions were surveyed to identify management behaviors that lead to stakeholder satisfaction. The factors critical to satisfaction across stakeholder groups are the timeliness of communication, the honesty and completeness of the information and the empathy and equity of treatment by management.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Barrow and Newton E. W. STRONG As E. A. Buxrr HAS ADDUCED,Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) in his philosophy of space, time, and mathematical method strongly influenced the thinking of Newton: The recent publication of an early paper written by Newton (his De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum)2 affords evidence not known to Burtt of Newton's indebtedness in philosophy to Barrow, his teacher. Prior to its publication in 1962, this paper (...) was utilized by Alexandre Koyrd in his essay, "Newton and Descartes," 3 a study based on the third Horblit Lecture in the History of Science which he gave at Harvard University, March 8, 1961. Koyr8 maintains that there is a radical opposition in Newton's Principia not only to Descartes' purely scientific theories but also to the Cartesian philosophy. Yet, as he remarks, "we do not find in the Principia an open criticism of the philosophy of Descartes.... " He attributes this fact principally "to the very structure of the Principia: it is essentially a book on rational mechanics, which provides principles for physics and astronomy. In such a book there is a normal place for the discussion of Cartesian optics, but not of the conception of the relations of mind and body, and other such things." Koyrd asserts, nonetheless, that the criticism is not absent. It lurks in Newton's carefully worded definitions of fundamental concepts--those of space, time, motion, and matter--and becomes more apparent in the Optice of 1706 and in the second odition of the Principia. In support of this argument, he makes much of young Newton's unfini.~hed paper. He holds that this essay is of exceptional value "as it enables us to get some insight into the formation of Newton's thought, and to recognize that preoccupation with philosophic problems was not an external additatmentum but an integral dement of his thinking." 4 As concerns "young Newton's conception of space in its being and in its relation to God and time," Koyrd remarks that we learn from this essay The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (New York, 1927), p. 144. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1962), Introduction, pp. 75-88; Latin text, pp. 90-121; English translation, pp. 121156. " Newtonian Studies (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 53-114. " Newtonian Studies, pp. 82-83. In his De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum, Newton is indeed engrossed with philosophic problems. With regard, however, to the announced purpose of his paper, namely, "to treat of the science of gravity and solid bodies in fluids by two methods," does Newton represent kis metaphysical "explanation of the nature of body" as an element of his science essential to its completeness7 He does not do so. At the end of his explanation he remarks: "I have already digressed enough; let us return to the main theme." He proceeds to set forth fifteen more definitions and then turns to the demonstration of two "Propositions on Non-Elastic Fluids." [155] 156 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY "that space is necessary, eternal, immutz~ble, and unmovable, that though we can imagine that there is nothing in space we cannot think space is not.., and that if there is no space, God would be nowhere. We learn also that all points of space are simultaneous and that, therefore, the divine omnipresence does not introduce composition in God.... " What we here learn from Newton about space in confutation of Descartes is to be found in Barrow's tenth mathematical lecture, "'Of Space, and Impenetrability." 5 In this lecture, Barrow opposes both Descartes and Hobbes. He objects, as does Newton, to the position taken by Descartes in his Principia Philosophiae, namely, "it is necessary.forMatter to be infinitely extended." He proceeds, as does Newton, to show how "very much Cartesius's great Subtility has failed him in this Case" to conclude that there is space empty of matter and distinct from magnitude from which an infinity of matter cannot be deduced. The correspondence of arguments tendered by Barrow and Newton indicates that the tenth lecture constituted a source from which Newton gleaned principal objections to Descartes' Principia Philosophiae. Although Koyr~ makes reference to Burtt's... (shrink)

In education, we are concerned with the teaching and learning of subjects, but the word “subject” can refer to the discipline being studied as well as the individual who is studying. In this essay, Teresa Strong-Wilson explores this “double entendre” of curriculum studies through the analogy afforded by German author-in-exile W. G. Sebald's working through of difficult subjects by way of semi-autobiographical writing that takes the form of an “invisible subject”: a preoccupation with an unnamed injustice entangled with (...) his own upbringing. Curriculum theory, as currere, has foregrounded the autobiographical. While the place of autobiography in curriculum studies has often been taken to mean writing, currere is more an allegorical method of study, of intellectual engagement, of learning through reading and writing, and of teaching so as to open spaces for agency. Strong-Wilson suggests that Sebald can provide a strong example for us in curriculum studies of how to ethically bring into being an allegorical, autobiographical practice focused on “invisible” subjects of deep concern. (shrink)

Casuistic methods of reasoning in medical ethics have been criticized by a number of authors. At least five main objections to casuistry have been put forward: (1) it requires a uniformity of views that is not present in contemporary pluralistic society; (2) it cannot achieve consensus on controversial issues; (3) it is unable to examine critically intuitions about cases; (4) it yields different conclusions about cases when alternative paradigms are chosen; and (5) it cannot articulate the grounds of its conclusions. (...) Two main versions of casuistry have been put forward, and the responses to these objections depend in part on which version one is defending. Jonsen has advocated a version modeled on the approach to casuistry used by moral theologians in the 15th and 16th century, involving comparison of the case at hand with a single paradigm and a lineup of cases. The present author has advocated another version, drawn from experience with cases in clinical ethics, which involves comparing the case at hand with two or more paradigms. Four of the five objections are unsuccessful when directed against Jonsen'sapproach, and all of them are unsuccessful when directed against the approach involving comparison with two or more paradigms. (shrink)

Blood supplies have become indexes of national security and the public good. While blood shortages can provoke anxiety, controversies continue to erupt in many countries over proper donor screening, especially with reference to HIV. This article sketches these dynamics in several global settings, focusing especially on activist efforts by gay men to reform exclusionary blood donor guidelines. The contours of the debate recall familiar conflicts between the putative demands of public health and the rights of individuals in the era of (...) AIDS. However, if gay activists marshal a discourse of individual rights vis-a-vis forms of institutional exclusion, they also seek a broader shift in social and cultural understandings of gay identity. To capture this complex interplay of citizenship and sociality, risk and responsibility, the article introduces the notion of `vital publics' to refer to the peculiar associational form represented by blood supplies. Vital publics are kinds of embodied association elicited through the generalized exchange of body — in this case, blood. Hailed to `give life' by the jargon of the pervasive social marketing of varied blood service systems, activists seek to contribute to the life of the `vital public' that transfusion medicine calls into being. (shrink)

Abstract This paper deals with Larry Laudan's attack on the symmetry thesis of Bloor's ?strong programme?. It will be shown that Laudan's argumentation is fallacious and, therefore, his attempt at refuting the symmetry thesis has failed.

The unique properties of nanotechnology have made nanotechnology education and its related subjects increasingly important not only for students but for mankind at large. This particular technology brings educators to work together to prepare and produce competent engineers and scientists for this field. One of the key challenges in nanotechnology engineering is to produce graduate students who are not only competent in technical knowledge but possess the necessary attitude and awareness toward the social and ethical issues related to nanotechnology. In (...) this paper, a research model has been developed to assess Malaysian nanotechnology engineering students’ attitudes and whether their perspectives have attained the necesary objectives of ethical education throughout their programme of study. The findings from this investigation show that socio ethical education has a strong influence on the students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes pertaining to socio ethical issues related to nanotechnology. (shrink)

Two phenomena have been present in multiethnic/multinational Bosnia and Herzegovina since its independence from SFR Yugoslavia: massive depopulation and strong nationalism(s). Although nationalism influences which nation/ethnic group should produce and how, the links connecting these nationalistic ideologies and pronatalist population policies in the country/entity have been, almost paradoxically, left on the margins of the previous studies. This paper asks to what extent nationalist ideologies are present in the pronatalist population policy discourse in the Serb-dominated entity Republic of (...) Srpska and what nationalism it is. After developing Spectrum of Nationalism(s), a framework underlined by Siniša Malešević’s views on nationalism and ethnicity as ideologies, the paper provides an overview of Bosnia’s demographic processes and brief insights into Republic of Srpska pronatalist policies through a semi-structured literature review. Keeping in mind that media profoundly influences public opinion, discursively moulding policy debates, two most recent cases of pronatalist campaigns and programs in the Republic of Srpska: Let Our Children Be Born and National Programme of Demographic Revival, are analysed via critical discourse analysis (CDA). Selected media articles predominantly cover the period from 2018 onwards, concentrating on the commentaries of the ruling SNSD political nomenklatura. The analysis displays the powerful influence of nationalism on the discourse on population policies. However, on the spectrum of nationalism(s), civic nationalism seems only to be pro forma defined, while in RS’s reality, the abovementioned path has continued toward an ethnonationalism direction. (shrink)

Nations with legal environments that allow indigenous entrepreneurs to create legal businesses are more likely to be peaceful and prosperous nations. In addition to focusing on the role of multinational corporations, those interested in creating peace through commerce should focus on promoting legal environments that allow indigenous entrepreneurs to create peace and prosperity. In order to illustrate the relationship between improved legal environments and conflict reduction, this article describes a case study in which increased economic freedom led to reduced violence (...) in Northern Ireland between 1975 and 2000. (shrink)

The Buddha’s final illness, brought on by his last meal prior to his death, was traditionally seen as one of a set of ailments suffered by him at various points during his lifetime. This paper looks at different Buddhist explications of the causes of these ailments and applies them to the episode of the Buddha’s final illness. In both instances, three explanatory strategies are detected: the first stresses the causative importance of the Buddha’s own negative karmic deeds in past lives; (...) the second looks to the negative deeds and karma of others than the Buddha; the third offers non-karmic explanations. The first two engendered two rather different kinds of j?taka stories; the last did not involve any j?takas but highlighted various kinds of ‘natural’ explanations. (shrink)

Philosophy has long been concerned with ‘moral status’. Discussions about the moral status of children, however, seem often to promote confusion rather than clarity. Using the creation of ‘savior siblings’ as an example, this paper provides a philosophical critique of the moral status of children and the moral relevance of parenting and the role that formative experience, regret and relational autonomy play in parental decisions. We suggest that parents make moral decisions that are guided by the moral significance they attach (...) to children, to sick children and most importantly, to a specific sick child (theirs). This moral valorization is rarely made explicit and has generally been ignored by both philosophers and clinicians in previous critiques. Recognizing this, however, may transform not only the focus of bioethical discourse but also the policies and practices surrounding the care of children requiring bone marrow or cord blood transplantation by better understanding the values at stake behind parental decision making. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to explore the effects of the Responsible Care programme and how it is applied in practice. The present research questions include the following focus: how should we assess the performance of an organization's RC activity and what are the different criteria for assessing RC practices? The results indicate that the RC programme provides practical tools for developing health, environmental and safety operations. RC companies are committed to developing their products and processes, and (...) continuously strive to minimize emission levels and improve the efficiency of their use of raw materials and energy. The RC partnership between the chemical industry and its customers is executed in the form of responsibility for the product and its safe use. The product stewardship approach provides companies with tools that help secure safe usage throughout the product life cycle. (shrink)

Ecology is composed of a remarkably diverse set of scientific disciplines. There are many different sub-fields in ecology—physiological, behavioral, evolutionary, population, community, ecosystem, and landscape ecology. Clearly, no summary will do them all justice. However, for the present context, ecology as a science can be divided into three basic areas—population, community, and ecosystem ecology. This entry will introduce some of the fundamental philosophical issues raised by these three disciplines. The first order of business is to ask what is the science (...) of ecology, and more importantly, what is it not (see Brennan 1988). Sometimes the term ‘ecology’ is treated as synonymous or coextensive with three different concepts or sets of concepts: • The science of ecology: the study of organisms and groups of them and their relation to their environment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 273 Verene, Donald Phillip. Vico's Science of Imagination. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, Pp. 227. $19.5o. In Chapter 1 (Introduction: Vico's Originality), Verene announces two principal concerns, a two-fold approach, and the predominant contention of his study.. 1. Principal concerns: "to consider the philosophical truth of Vico's ideas themselves, rather than to examine their historical character" (p. 19); to consider "the importance of Vico's conception (...) of barbarism for understanding present society" (p. 28). 2. Two-fold approach: "to interpret the central theses of Vico's thought" from the inside in the spirit of the whole and, at the same time, "to develop the problems of Vico's philosophy themselves" (pp. 19--21 ). 3. Predominant contention: "that Vico's ideas constitute a philosophy of recollective universals which generates philosophical understanding fronl the image, not the rational category. This approach regards imagination as a method of pfiilosophical thought" (p. 19) and the imaginative universal as "a key to his conception of knowledge" (p. 67). Vico's philosophy is depicted and characterized by Verene as fi)llows. Beginning with the imagination (fantasia) as an original and independent power of mind, Vico builds his philosophy on the image, the imaginative universal, thereby creating a position outside Western philosophy as traditionally understood. His New Science is a process of recollective fantasia, a kind of memory, and the system built constitutes a system of memory for all of human reality. By means of his concept of memory, Vico works his way back to the world of original thought, the mythicopoeticfantasia of the first men. His discovery of the imaginative universal as their way of thinking and their kind of knowledge establishes a new genetic origin for philosophical thought. Recollective fantasia constitutes the subject-matter and form of Vico's science itself', i.e., the term designates a type of nlemory through which the New Science is acconlplished as well as the type of thought from which it must be understood. "The New Science is a metaphysical fable, h creates a vera narratio of the recollectire imagination. The storia ideale eterna is an ideal trnth, but not an a priori or fictional one. As the master image of the recollective mind, it precisely contains all of the human event. Metaphysical truth, achieved through the exercise of.[antasia.., is generated out of the mind itself.., as images that actually contain the providential structure of reality" (p. 125). Vico's per|ornlative science "is man's true production of a knowledge of" his own nature" (p. 133). "The proof of the science is found through the reader making it for himself" (p. 156). What is the "recollective imaginative universal"? (a term coined by Verene) as distinguished from the universale fantastico? Vico identifies the latter quite simply. Poetic imagination, he tells us, was active in the first men who, "not being able to form intelligible class concepts of things, had a natural need to create poetic characters ; that is, imaginative class concepts or universals, to which, as to certain models or ideal portraits, to reduce all the particular species that resembled them." (The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. Cornell University Press, 1968; orig. pub. 1948, w ) Thus in the theological age, 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY "Jove was born naturally in poetry as a divine character or imaginative universal, to which everything having to do with the auspices was referred by all the ancient gentile nations, which must therefore all have been poetic by nature" (9 381). In the age of heroes, Achilles embodies the idea of valor common to all strong men and Ulysses the idea of prudence common to all wise men (9 403). The myths, fables, and allegories brought to birth by poetic imagination were true stories for their makers. Imaginative universals or genera, "as the human mind later learned to abstract forms and properties from subjects, passed over into intelligible genera, which prepared the way for philosophers.... " (9 934)- Abstracting, categorizing, and predicating on the basis of properties in common, the philosophers in their intelligible class concepts no hmger think in the same manner as the first men did... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:KARL ASCHENBRENNER, 19x 1-1988 Karl Aschenbrenner was born in Bison, Kansas, on November 20, 1911. He received the A. B. degree from Reed College in 1934 and his graduate degrees at Berkeley (M. A., 1938; Ph.D., 194o). After two years as an instructor at Reed College, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve (Lieutenant in Meteorology ) from 1943 to 1946. From 1946 to 1948, he taught in the (...) Department of Speech at Berkeley and thereafter in the Department of Philosophy until his retirement in 1978. His teaching was devoted mainly to aesthetics and to the history of philosophy, most notably his course on Kant. For many years he was active as a trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics, and from 1961 as a member of the Journal's founding executive committee and, after incorporation, of the Board of Directors. Karl's first two years of attachment to theJournal coincided with service as chairman of the Department of Philosophy. This conjunction enabled him to be extraordinarily helpful in dealing with problems of bringing the Journal to birth--problems of funding, editorial appointments, publication policies, and business arrangements with the University of California Press. He welcomed the opportunity offered the Philosophy Department of collaborating in the publishing venture recommended by a special committee of the American Philosophical Association in 1958. The recognition early won by the Journal for its articles and reviews answered to his hope and work for success. At the annual meeting of the Board of Directors in San Francisco in 1987, the twenty-fifth birthday of the Journal was celebrated as was his twenty-seven years of diligent care for theJournafs excellence. Karl was a regular contributor to the philosophy series published by the University of California prior to three books issued by D. Reidel: The Concepts ofValue(1971), The ConceptsofCriticism(1974) and AnalysisofAppraisiveCharacterization (1983). He received Guggenheim, Fulbright, and NEH fellowships. Despite a physically disabling stroke in 1979, he continued his trips to Budapest which he began in 1972. He was concerned to study a non-IndoEuropean language spoken by people of European culture and had selected the Magyar tongue spoken in Hungary. He learned the language to test theories he advanced about appraisive concepts. He discovered in the structure of Magyar a mode of valuing embodied in verb usage differing significantly [333] 334 from the special appraisive vocabularies of English and German. Besides his lectures in Hungary, he responded to invitations to lecture received from universities in England, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. Shortly after his return to Budapest on his eleventh trip, he died of a massive stroke on July 4, 1988. He is buried there in a city he loved, especially for its music. He is survived by Marie, his wife of fifty-one years, and three children: Lisabeth, an attorney in Los Angeles; Peter, a judge in Fairbanks; and John, a composer in New York. E. W. STRONG... (shrink)

Can we use technology in the pursuit of a good life, or are we doomed to having our lives organized and our priorities set by the demands of machines and systems? How can philosophy help us to make technology a servant rather than a master? Technology and the Good Life? uses a careful collective analysis of Albert Borgmann's controversial and influential ideas as a jumping-off point from which to address questions such as these about the role and significance of technology (...) in our lives. Contributors both sympathetic and critical examine Borgmann's work, especially his "device paradigm" apply his theories to new areas such as film, agriculture, design, and ecological restoration and consider the place of his thought within philosophy and technology studies more generally. Because this collection carefully investigates the issues at the heart of how we can take charge of life with technology, it will be a landmark work not just for philosophers of technology but for students and scholars in the many disciplines concerned with science and technology studies. (shrink)

Recent studies suggest that trust is culturally determined and that differentials in trust exist globally between cultures. The trusting culture may be an artifact given that there is little empirical support for such a notion. The results of an international survey of 122 business leaders failed to reveal significant differences in trust between cultures.

More than just a jail, Rikers has become a site of shifting discourse on punishment and justice in the United States. In the book Life and Death in Rikers Island, Homer Venters argues that the systematic failures of jails to provide appropriate safety and care constitute human rights violations and public health risks. The former chief medical officer and commissioner of correctional health services for the NYC Health and Hospitals system, Venters offers critical insight on the Rikers jail system. (...) “Because jails are chaotic and concealed from outside view,” he asserts, “we only become aware of them when very bad outcomes occur, such as deaths.” Life and Death's success lies in how it blends Venters's experiences on the ground as a health care professional with the empirical data he's been able to collect and analyze over the tenure of his career. According to Venters, all suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths in jail are jail attributable, as they reflect system‐wide failures in safety. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of meaning and its relation to symbolism through a contrastive reading of Whitehead’s 1927 Barbour-Page Lectures alongside the contemporary anthropologist Roy Wagner’s Symbols that Stand for Themselves. Despite their adoption of different registers of inquiry, a complementary relation may be posited between the two approaches. In particular, Whitehead’s emphasis on the foundational nature of symbolic reference within experience and its extendedness beyond merely human contexts may be grafted productively onto Wagner’s discussion of the “orders of (...) trope’”and “figure-ground reversal” within the formation of meaning in language. The argument is exemplified through reference to two contexts within Western culture where the play of symbol and meaning is strikingly evident—the Christian Eucharist and the contemporary sociological pervasiveness of motifs of screens and screening. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of meaning and its relation to symbolism through a contrastive reading of Whitehead’s 1927 Barbour-Page Lectures alongside the contemporary anthropologist Roy Wagner’s Symbols that Stand for Themselves. Despite their adoption of different registers of inquiry, a complementary relation may be posited between the two approaches. In particular, Whitehead’s emphasis on the foundational nature of symbolic reference within experience and its extendedness beyond merely human contexts may be grafted productively onto Wagner’s discussion of the “orders of (...) trope’”and “figure-ground reversal” within the formation of meaning in language. The argument is exemplified through reference to two contexts within Western culture where the play of symbol and meaning is strikingly evident—the Christian Eucharist and the contemporary sociological pervasiveness of motifs of screens and screening. (shrink)

Knee proprioception deficits and neuroplasticity have been indicated following injury to the anterior cruciate ligament. Evidence is, however, scarce regarding brain response to knee proprioception tasks and the impact of ACL injury. This study aimed to identify brain regions associated with the proprioceptive sense of joint position at the knee and whether the related brain response of individuals with ACL reconstruction differed from that of asymptomatic controls. Twenty-one persons with unilateral ACL reconstruction of either the right or left knee, as (...) well as 19 controls matched for sex, age, height, weight and current activity level, performed a knee joint position sense test during simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging. Integrated motion capture provided real-time knee kinematics to activate test instructions, as well as accurate knee angles for JPS outcomes. Recruited brain regions during knee angle reproduction included somatosensory cortices, prefrontal cortex and insula. Neither brain response nor JPS errors differed between groups, but across groups significant correlations revealed that greater errors were associated with greater ipsilateral response in the anterior cingulate, supramarginal gyrus and insula. This is the first study to capture brain response using fMRI in relation to quantifiable knee JPS. Activated brain regions have previously been associated with sensorimotor processes, body schema and interoception. Our innovative paradigm can help to guide future research investigating brain response to lower limb proprioception. (shrink)