The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. Lectureships are awarded to outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions. Volume 25 features lectures given by Frans B.M. de Waal, Richard Dawkins, Christine M. Korsgaard, Seyla Benhabib, and Harry Frankfurt.

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. Lectureships are awarded to outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions. Volume 26 features lectures given by Stephen Breyer, Carl Bildt, Axel Honneth, Paul Farmer, and Avishai Margalit.

This essay aims at an elucidation of the performative relation connecting artistic mimesis with the living body. Encompassing art theory and phenomenology of the body, the scope is to evince a crucial link between aesthetic interpretation, body motion, and mimetic creativity, with general implications for reflection on the body, as well as a deeper understanding of a major element of ancient Chinese culture. By mainly analyzing Chinese texts on ink brush writing, as well as some testimony taken from 20th century (...) European philosophy, this essay, from a transcultural stance, tries to show how ink brush writing may be interpreted as a type of regulated body movement and body exercise. What appears as responsiveness within this phenomenal field is a specific form of mimesis, namely body mimesis. As a sort of imitative action, body mimesis runs through the bodily self, beyond consciousness, transforming it and shaping its behavior. (shrink)

關懷當代跨文化思維的處境與潛力 對華語界的哲學思維進行批判省思 繼而開拓嶄新的思索途徑 為了盡量具體揭露跨文化思維的立場和思考模式，《漢學與跨文化思維》落實在中文字獨有的視像性以及與《莊子》、王陽明、海德格、列維納斯等研究對象相關的跨領域、跨科系之探討。 宋灝以身體現象學為基本視角與綱領，探究這些哲學資源的啟發。藉由融合詮釋學與現象學的方法，揭示「身體自我」在人的存在上標記著多麼關鍵、豐富的情境，以便為了當代身體觀的轉化必要作辯解，並且具體彰顯這種轉化 的可能性與意義。 全書分為三部，第一部反映宋灝從隸屬漢學對中國古代傳承的關懷，逐漸過渡到哲學與跨文化思維的立場，試圖以宋明理學與華嚴佛教為例，藉中國的文獻逆向來擴充歐洲的詮釋學思想，尤其是高達美式哲學詮釋學。第二部收入 作者近幾年對漢學與跨文化思維的方法和處境所進行的批判和反思。第三部是在此方法論架構下，採取現象學及當代歐洲思維為出發點，探討中國古代傳承的啟發。.

This paper deals with a paradoxon inherent to the concept of “reification”, commonly used with negative connotations only, as seen from the stance of phenomenological aesthetics. A positive understanding of the term is proposed in this pleading for a re-evaluation of our notion of a “thing” and its significance for the human access to the world. After an inquiry into Adorno’s ambiguous reflections on reification by creating art works, and reification of art itself, a discussion of the Japanese garden yields (...) further elucidation concerning phenomena of artistic reification, as well as the ontological status of natural things. (shrink)

Wie ist die geheimnisvolle Schönheit japanischer Gärten zu erklären? Aus dem sinnhaft-sinnlichen Erleben heraus erschließt dieses Buch eine Reihe wichtiger Phänomene, denen wir in japanischen Gärten begegnen. Im Zuge der phänomenologischen Betrachtung erhalten Leitideen wie Horizont, Affektion, Stimmung, Responsivität und Zeitlichkeit schärfere Konturen. Vor diesem Hintergrund vermag an den Erscheinungsdingen eine eigentümliche Fremdheit zutage zu treten, die uns ein erneuertes, von Achtung geprägtes Verhältnis zu unserer Umwelt ermöglicht.

Batman ist einer der komplexesten und ambivalentesten Charaktere der Comic-Welt. Um ihn und sein Tun drehen sich eine Menge Fragen: Welchen philosophischen Belastungen und Herausforderungen muss er sich beim Schutz von Gotham City stellen? Was treibt seine Gegenspieler an? Ist Batman in seiner Menschlichkeit besser als Superman? Die Philosophie bei Batman bietet unterhaltsame Antworten und Einblicke in Batmans Welt. Das Buch zeigt wie der Dark Knight zum Beispiel mit ethischen Fragen, moralischer Verantwortung, seinem Wunsch nach Rache an den Mördern seiner (...) Eltern und seiner geheimen Identität ringt. Dabei beschäftigen sich die Autoren mit bekannten Philosophen wie Plato, Aristoteles, Kant, Nietzsche und Kierkegaard. (shrink)

There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent writing in the philosophy of mind.

Whereas previous discussions on ownership of biological material have been much informed by the natural rights tradition, insufficient attention has been paid to the strand in liberal political theory represented by Felix Cohen, Tony Honoré, and others, which treats property relations as socially constructed bundles of rights. In accordance with that tradition, we propose that the primary normative issue is what combination of rights a person should have to a particular item of biological material. Whether that bundle qualifies to be (...) called “property” or “ownership” is a secondary, terminological issue. We suggest five principles of bodily rights and show how they can be applied to the construction of ethically appropriate bundles of rights to biological material. (shrink)

Presupposing no familiarity with the technical concepts of either philosophy or computing, this clear introduction reviews the progress made in AI since the inception of the field in 1956. Copeland goes on to analyze what those working in AI must achieve before they can claim to have built a thinking machine and appraises their prospects of succeeding.There are clear introductions to connectionism and to the language of thought hypothesis which weave together material from philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. John Searle's (...) attacks on AI and cognitive science are countered and close attention is given to foundational issues, including the nature of computation, Turing Machines, the Church-Turing Thesis and the difference between classical symbol processing and parallel distributed processing. The book also explores the possibility of machines having free will and consciousness and concludes with a discussion of in what sense the human brain may be a computer. (shrink)

The social, educational and political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have become enormously influential in the 200 years since his death. But the breadth as well as the depth of Rousseau's achievement - he was amongst other things a creative writer and musical composer as well as a philosopher - is not always appreciated. In around 100 articles, alphabetically arranged and fully cross-referenced, N. J. H. Dent explores all facets of Rousseau's work and thoughts, while his subject's remarkable life is summarized (...) in a biographical introduction. Details of works by and about Rousseau are listed in an extensive bibliography. For students or general readers seeking an introduction to Rousseau's work, and for those already familiar with the material who require a convenient reference source, this dictionary is essential reading. (shrink)

In fourteen scholarly yet delightfully readable essays, Ober solves some ancient mysteries and reveals the secret kinks and passions of famous and obscure historical figures.

The serotonin transporter plays an important role in regulating serotonergic transmission via removal of serotonin from synaptic clefts. Alterations in 5-HTT expression and subsequent 5-HT transmission have been found to be associated with changes in behaviour, such as fearfulness or activity, in humans and other vertebrates. In humans, alterations in 5-HTT expression have been suggested to be able to lead to better learning performance, with more fearful persons being better at learning. Similar effects of the variation in the 5-HTT on (...) fearfulness have been found in chickens, and in this study, we investigated effects on learning. Therefore, we tested 52 adult laying hens, differing in their functional 5-HTT genotype in an operant learning paradigm in three different phases and in a tonic immobility test for fearfulness. We found that the 5-HTT polymorphism affects the initial learning performance of laying hens, with homogeneous wild-type hens being the slowest learners, and the most fearful birds. W/W hens, showed significantly more choices to solve the initial learning task and had the highest latencies in a tonic immobility test, indicating the highest fearfulness. Our results provide interesting first insights into the role of 5-HTT in chickens and its sensitive interaction with the environment. We further suggest that the 5-HTT gene can be an interesting target gene for future breeding strategies as well as for further experimental studies. (shrink)

Between Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics and pragmatics. Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, (...) indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects. (shrink)

Even after multiple cycles of ABET accreditation, many engineering programs are unsure of how much curriculum content is needed to meet the requirements of ABET’s Criterion 3.f (an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility). This study represents the first scholarly attempt to assess the impact of curriculum reform following the introduction of ABET Criterion 3.f. This study sought to determine how much professional and ethical responsibility curriculum content was used between 1995 and 2005, as well as how, when, why, and (...) to what effect changes in the amount of content occurred. Subsequently, the study sought to evaluate if different amounts of curriculum content generated differing student outcomes. The amount of curriculum content used by each of the participating programs was identified during semi-structured interviews with program administrators and a review of ABET Self-Study documents. Quantitative methods were applied to determine if a relationship existed between the curriculum content and performance on a nationally administered, engineering-specific standardized examination. The findings indicate a statistical relationship, but a lack of structure between the amount of required content in the curriculum and performance on the examination. Additional findings were also generated regarding the way that programs interpret the Criterion 3.f feedback generated during accreditation visits. The primary impact of this study is that it dispels the myth that more courses or course time on professionalism and ethics will necessarily lead to positive engineering education outcomes. Much of the impetus to add more curriculum content results from a lack of conclusive feedback during ABET accreditation visits. (shrink)

The competency profile underlying higher nursing education in the Netherlands states that bachelor-prepared nurses are expected to be able to participate in ethics committees. What knowledge, skills and attitudes are involved in this participation is unclear. In five consecutive years, groups of two to three fourth-year (bachelor) nursing students conducted 8 to 11 semi-structured interviews each with nurses in ethics committees. The question was what competencies these nurses themselves say they need to participate in such committees. This article reports the (...) aggregate of the 52 interviews in these five studies. Regarding knowledge, the article reports on health law, ethics and professional knowledge. Regarding skills, communication is mentioned, as are professional skills and skills for ‘doing ethics’. An open and respectful attitude towards patients and fellow committee members is required, as well as commitment to patient care, committee work and professional ethics. The right attitude for a nurse in an ethics committee is said to include a reflective and perceptive attitude, along with an awareness of one’s own limitations and convictions. A detailed competency profile for nurses’ participation in ethics committees as outlined in the recommendations may serve nursing education, institutional committees and nurses themselves to meet the demands of nurses’ preparation for clinical ethics consultations. (shrink)