Social robots have the potential to support autistic school children with their wellbeing. This research reveals how a co-design approach with autistic children and their teachers was undertaken. Focus groups with autistic children and teachers collaboratively identified user requirements for the social robot and robot behaviours within the school ecosystem in order to improve student wellbeing. The results reveal the importance of including autistic children in the co-design process to ensure their voices are heard and also that the role of (...) the robot is appropriate and targeted to the users’ needs and requirements. Autistic children and their teachers report multiple potential benefits for social robots supporting emotional wellbeing in the school. Autistic children were supportive of the introduction of a social robot in their school, mostly expressing positive attitudes towards the robot. The research is significant in revealing how a user-centred co-design approach involving autistic children and social robots may support emotional wellbeing. (shrink)

No point of John C.Calhoun's political thought has been more disputed than exactly where it is situated in the theoretical landscape. Calhoun has been treated as the �Marx of the master class� by Richard Hofstadter; a �reactionary conservative� arguing eclectically from liberal premises by Louis Hartz; an authentic conservative by Russell Kirk, Clinton Rossiter and August Spain; and a precursor to the pluralist vision of politics by Peter Drucker. Two of the most engaging treatments of Calhoun's thought are Darryl (...) Baskin's and Peter Steinberger's, both of relatively recent vintage. Baskin argues that despite Calhoun's use of vocabulary borrowed from organic conservatism he is essentially a classical liberal and, as such, is engaged in the typically liberal �flight from community�. He has no true notion of civic virtue and his concept of the public interest is only a mechanistic sum of private interests. Steinberger agrees that Calhoun is a liberal, but argues that his contribution to American liberalism is precisely to sublate selfishness to an authentic civic virtue. These disputes are interesting, but I suggest that in the efforts to contain Calhoun within the conservative/liberal scheme of categorization some of the subtlety of his thought is lost. Too often an appreciation of his thought is sacrificed to an underlying agenda of attacking or defending one ideology or another. In the present critique I attempt to recover some insights that have been submerged in other treatments. Calhoun's constitutional theory of concurrent majoritarianism, rather than his liberal or conservative bent, is the focal point of sections III and IV. I argue that Calhoun's theory exposes -- sometimes unwittingly -- the stern limits of what constitutions can accomplish. In section V I suggest that insofar as Calhoun is generally a liberal (as Hartz, Baskin and Steinberger contend) an internal contradiction within his theory points to a paradox at the very heart of liberalism. (shrink)

Rice crop diversity hasdecreased dramatically in the recent past.Understanding the causes that underlie theevident genetic erosion is critical for thefood security of subsistence rice farmers andbiodiversity. Our study shows that farmers inthe northeastern Philippines had a markedreduction in rice diversity from 1996 to 1998.The ultimate causes were a drought resultingfrom the El Niño phenomenon in 1997 andflooding due to two successive typhoons in1998. The proximate causes, however, includedlocal water control factors, limitations in thehousehold and village-level seedinfrastructure, farm (...) location in relation tothe goods and services necessary to obtainseeds, policies and programs of the Departmentof Agriculture, and the characteristics of therice varieties themselves. The implications ofour study are that genetic erosion is notalways the result of purposeful acts by farmersnor is it necessarily gradual. Improvingon-farm seed technology will stabilize the seedproduction, distribution, and use system andthereby enhance household food security.Ultimately, rice diversity will be improvedonly if diversity is a safe and viable optionfor farmers. Therefore, public policy thatsupports farmers who maintain a diverse set ofcultivars is critical for any on-farmconservation strategy. (shrink)

In June 2009, the Chinese mediasphere was abuzz with the announcement that the octogenarian writer Jin Yong (Louis Cha) was slated to join the Chinese Writers' Association (Zhongguo zuojia xiehui, CWA). Jin Yong is a beloved martial arts fiction writer who made his career in the freewheeling ex-British colony of Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s.1 His joining the association known for its stodgy conformism struck many as ironic, or at least as blog-worthy. Indeed, just a few years (...) ago, the playwright Sha Yexin had quipped: “How can you ask a writer like Louis Cha to write martial arts…. (shrink)

The number of studies examining visual perspective during retrieval has recently grown. However, the way in which perspective has been conceptualized differs across studies. Some studies have suggested perspective is experienced as either a first-person or a third-person perspective, whereas others have suggested both perspectives can be experienced during a single retrieval attempt. This aspect of perspective was examined across three studies, which used different measurement techniques commonly used in studies of perspective. Results suggest that individuals can experience more than (...) one perspective when recalling events. Furthermore, the experience of the two perspectives correlated differentially with ratings of vividness, suggesting that the two perspectives should not be considered in opposition of one another. We also found evidence of a gender effect in the experience of perspective, with females experiencing third-person perspectives more often than males. Future studies should allow for the experience of more than one perspective during retrieval. (shrink)

Theory, theoretical practice, and theoretical formation -- On theoretical work -- Philosophy and the spontaneous philosophy of the scientists (1967) -- Lenin and philosophy -- Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? -- The transformation of philosophy -- Marxism today.

For Ivor Grattan-Guinness on the occasion of his retirement. The work of Augustus De Morgan on symbolic logic in the mid-nineteenth century is familiar to historians of logic and mathematics alike. What is less well known is his work on probability and, more specifically, the use of probabilistic ideas and methods in his logic. The majority of De Morgan's work on probability was undertaken around 1837???1838, with his earliest publications on logic appearing from 1839, a period which culminated with the (...) publication of his Formal Logic in 1847. This article examines the overlap between his work on probability theory and logic during the earliest period of his interest in both. (shrink)

Treating mathematical science as a distinct cultural entity subject to environmental factors which influence its evolution, the author examines the creation and development of its major concepts since early times.

Highly idealized models, such as the Hawk-Dove game, are pervasive in biological theorizing. We argue that the process and motivation that leads to the introduction of various idealizations into these models is not adequately captured by Michael Weisberg’s taxonomy of three kinds of idealization. Consequently, a fourth kind of idealization is required, which we call hypothetical pattern idealization. This kind of idealization is used to construct models that aim to be explanatory but do not aim to be explanations.

In 1975 the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape crystallized a new view of the American West: the sublime “American” vistas of Ansel Adams were replaced and subverted by images of a landscape inundated with banal symbols of humanity. Organized by William Jenkins for the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, New Topographics showcased such photographers as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke. Their pictures, illustrating the vernacular, human-made world of contemporary America, punctured the myth (...) of the pristine, wild American landscape—and definitively changed the course of landscape photography. Reframing the New Topographics offers the first substantive analysis of this shift and the continuing influence of an exhibition that not only reshaped the look and subject matter of landscape photography, but also foreshadowed environmentalism’s expansion beyond the mere preservation of wilderness. The essays in this anthology will add an important new dimension to the studies of art history and visual culture. (shrink)

Empathy remains poorly understood, under-theorized, and subject to conflicting and opportunistic uses. Its systematic role in human experience has not been analyzed and interpreted from top to bottom. In this book, the author attempts to provide such an analysis in the philosophical traditions of hermeneutics, phenomenology, analytic philosophy of language, and psychoanalysis. applying his interpretation of empathy to the philosophical issues of intentionality, the emotions, and the checkered transformations of empathy itself. In doing so the author aims to rescue empathy (...) from the margins of intelligibility and reveal its central role in our understanding of the emotions, the integrity of our relations with others, and human community (“intersubjectivity”). -/- The work draws on both the Anglo-American (“analytic”) tradition of ordinary language philosophy and the continental ones of phenomenology and hermeneutics. This work follows the movement of empathy from the periphery of ethics, aesthetics, and theory of mind to a key place in establishing and maintaining the integrity and emotional equilibrium of dynamic interrelations with other individuals. Beginning with the philosophical infrastructure of the hermeneutics of empathy, this work thoroughly explains the complex architecture of empathy, tracing it downward through the levels of authentic human interrelations, empathy with unexpressed emotions, the empathic penetrability of cognitively impenetrable affect, the first-ever intentional analysis of both the empathizer and the “empathasand” in interrelation, and the hermeneutic infrastructure. The consequences of empathy are exposed in the context of the emotions, cognitive impenetrability, empathy and altruism, and the intentionality of empathy as accessed through language and story telling. Drawing on the multi-method approach of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and story telling, this work demonstrates that empathy forms the foundation for community in ways not clearly appreciated in the on-going debate. In a bootstrap operation that is guided by Heidegger’s call for a “special hermeneutic of empathy,” this work achieves a delicate balancing act of unpacking the rich intellectual traditions from which empathy - the phenomenon itself, not the concept - emerged historically. The result is an exposure of the deep structure of empathy as a fundamentally human capability for creating possibilities of community and human relations. (shrink)

A milestone in the development of post-war Marxist thought.

A Guide to Plato's Republic provides an integral interpretation of the Republic which is accessible even to readers approaching Plato's masterwork for the first time. Written at a level understandable to undergraduates, it is ideal for students and other readers who have little or no background in philosophy or political theory. Rice anticipates their inevitable reactions to the Republic and treats them seriously, opening the way to an appreciation of the complexities of the text without oversimplifying it. While many (...) books on the Republic never stray far from explicating Plato's text, this work contrasts Plato's responses to perennial issues in philosophy and political theory with those of several key subsequent thinkers. It uses engaging examples to show the continuing relevance of Plato's arguments and introduces some basic vocabulary of philosophy and political theory, going beyond terse dictionary definitions by illustrating what technical terms mean in the context of Plato's work. The author's interpretative posture is appreciative but respectfully critical of Plato's vision. Stressing the relationship between Plato's politics and metaphysics, Rice argues that Plato's reluctance to accept the reality and consequences of finitude accounts for much of what many readers find objectionable in his politics. Lively, relatively brief, and designed to provoke discussion in the classroom, A Guide to Plato's Republic is ideal for political theory and introduction to philosophy courses as well as other courses that assign the Republic as a primary text. (shrink)

This paper addresses one particular understanding, based in the Catholic intellectual tradition, of ethical and anthropological foundations of the formation of social and economic attitudes in the family, and how these might be related to the understanding of humanityHumanity at the foundation of participation in an inclusive economy. What is at stake is how the primordial subjectivity of the human person, formed in the family, may be related to the formation of social and economic attitudes in the wider societySociety. Building (...) on the position, expressed in the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (52), that “the family is a kind of school of a deeper humanityHumanity,” I will investigate the development of the notion of “humanityHumanity” in the thought of Karol WojtyłaJohn Paul II, Pope (the future Pope John Paul IIJohn Paul II, Pope) to situate the question of economic inclusion in a context of human ecologyEcologyHuman. I will treat the question of human consumptionConsumption within this perspective, as related not only to the human vocation to participate in community, but also to the consequences for persons of consumerist attitudes. (shrink)

The main line of Lewis's account of causation is in terms of chains of counterfactual dependence. According to his original account, a causal chain is a sequence of two or more events, with counterfactual dependence at each step; and one event is a cause of another if there is a causal chain from one to the other. But some awkward cases involving redundant causation lead him to introduce the notion of quasi-dependence. Laurie Paul has suggested a way of dealing with (...) one important class of these cases in terms of dependence proper. I shall suggest a different way of dealing with this class of cases; I shall also suggest that it is possible to deal with other awkward cases too in terms of dependence proper. (shrink)

Imagining being someone else from the inside is something relatively easy to do. In Williams (Imagination and the self, problems of the self: philosophical papers, p 26–45, 1973), for instance, one finds Williams’s famous imaginative scenario consisting in imagining being Napoleon from the inside at the battle of Austerlitz. However, providing an adequate analysis for imagination reports like “(1) Williams imagines being Napoleon (from the inside)” is no easy task, because the logical form of such imagination report is controversial. Following (...) Vendler (Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 84(2):161–173, 1979), the logical form of statements “X imagines F-ing” typically involve a _PRO_ construction. Furthermore, it is generally acknowledged following Chierchia (Semant Contextual Exp 11:1–31, 1989) that _PRO_ constructions require a _de se_ reading. Consequently, (1) is argued to be an instance of _de se_ imagination (this is the “genuine _de se_” analysis of (1)). Yet, (1) is also crucially about Napoleon and, as forcefully argued for in Williams (Imagination and the self, problems of the self: philosophical papers, p 26–45, 1973), it is not even clear that it is about Williams. So (1) cannot be an instance of _de se_ imagination in the standard sense, because Williams does not self-ascribe the semantic content of the imagining episode (this is the “quasi-_de se_” analysis of (1)). In this paper, I vindicate the genuine _de se_ analysis, based on some new data involving nested imaginings. I then investigate some consequences of the view, which, I argue, are not available to the quasi-_de se_ theorists, including what the view says about failed imaginings. (shrink)

The need for quantitative measurement represents a unifying bond that links all the physical, biological, and social sciences. Measurements of such disparate phenomena as subatomic masses, uncertainty, information, and human values share common features whose explication is central to the achievement of foundational work in any particular mathematical science as well as for the development of a coherent philosophy of science. This book presents a theory of measurement, one that is "abstract" in that it is concerned with highly general axiomatizations (...) of empirical and qualitative settings and how these can be represented quantitatively. It was inspired by, and represents a generalization and extension of, the last major research work in this field, Foundations of Measurement Vol. I, by Krantz, Luce, Suppes, and Tversky published in 1971. (shrink)

Once a company has identified its core values role play can help its leaders explore their meaning in practice. The author is now working as a freelance adviser on organisation development having worked in this area in a large engineering company. He has a general interest in the industry/church interface.

This paper presents BP’s approach to ethical corporate governance. The author suggests that corporate social responsibility is in the interests of both business and the people at large. In this context co‐operation between business, NGOs and activity is the best way to proceed, with each party focusing on their own field of engagement; doing business in a way that respects human rights for the companies, and campaigning and advocacy for the NGOs. Increasing transparency and risks to reputation require business to (...) take social responsibility seriously. It is also crucial, however, to examine the boundaries of business responsibility. The challenge is to address these issues and to co‐operate with other parties such as NGOs to provide clear guidelines within specific time frames. This requires bold leadership on all sides. (shrink)

This paper presents BP’s approach to ethical corporate governance. The author suggests that corporate social responsibility is in the interests of both business and the people at large. In this context co‐operation between business, NGOs and activity is the best way to proceed, with each party focusing on their own field of engagement; doing business in a way that respects human rights for the companies, and campaigning and advocacy for the NGOs. Increasing transparency and risks to reputation require business to (...) take social responsibility seriously. It is also crucial, however, to examine the boundaries of business responsibility. The challenge is to address these issues and to co‐operate with other parties such as NGOs to provide clear guidelines within specific time frames. This requires bold leadership on all sides. (shrink)

No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For (...) Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship. This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science. Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist." Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history. (shrink)

This article discusses minimal model explanations, which we argue are distinct from various causal, mechanical, difference-making, and so on, strategies prominent in the philosophical literature. We contend that what accounts for the explanatory power of these models is not that they have certain features in common with real systems. Rather, the models are explanatory because of a story about why a class of systems will all display the same large-scale behavior because the details that distinguish them are irrelevant. This story (...) explains patterns across extremely diverse systems and shows how minimal models can be used to understand real systems. (shrink)

(2011). Korn and Freidlin's Misunderstanding of the Null Hypothesis Significance Testing Procedure. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 15-16.

Reply to John Lewis: Note on "The critique of the personality cult". Remark on the category "Process without a subject or goal(s)"--Elements of self-criticism: On the evolution of the young Marx.--Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? "Something new".

Written by five scholars whose expertise extends across the disciplines of biblical, historical, systematic, and philosophical theology, this is a careful and ...

Important variations in access to health care and health outcomes are associated with geography, giving rise to profound ethical concerns. This paper discusses the consequences of such concerns for the allocation of health care finance to geographical regions. Specifically, it examines the ethical drivers underlying capitation systems, which have become the principal method of allocating health care finance to regions in most countries. Although most capitation systems are based on empirical models of health care expenditure, there is much debate about (...) which needs factors to include in such models. This concern with legitimate and illegitimate drivers of health care expenditure reflects the ethical concerns underlying the geographical distribution of health care finance. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical basis for government involvement in health care. It first provides the case for individual autonomy, focusing on the justifications–particularly ethical ones–for allowing individuals to make their own choices in health care, and to control more of their own resources in doing so. Next, it provides the opposite case–for abridging individual autonomy, and in particular, for redistributing resources from those who are well off to those who are not. The overriding reason for favouring the latter case, (...) which trumps the notion of individual autonomy, is to ensure that individuals who are at a disadvantage have an equal probability of attaining good health. (shrink)

Explores "the questions surrounding faith, skepticism, and the meaning of life... as well as... evidence for the existence of God and the truths of Christianity"--Dust jacket flap.

In this follow-up to the book 'God's Not Dead' (that inspired the movie), 'Man, Myth, Messiah' looks at the evidence for the historical Jesus and exposes the notions of skeptics that Jesus was a contrived figure of ancient mythology. It also looks at the reliability of the Gospel records as well as the evidence for the resurrection that validates His identity as the promised Messiah."--Amazon.com.