Previous research in the social sciences has shown that haptic interaction rituals are critical for maintaining social relationships. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, ‘social distancing’ was encouraged in order to avoid the spread of disease. Drawing on data from self-ethnography as well as publicly available resources, in this study we explore some new, locally negotiated haptic trajectories to accomplish interaction rituals in the time of coronavirus. First, we present self-ethnographic observations of distancing in face-to-face encounters from our everyday lives. Second, (...) utilizing methods of microanalysis of naturally occurring interaction, we investigate video recordings of the embodied negotiation of space and touch among politicians. We analyze three different ways in which politicians negotiate transitional moves in this haptic ritual when one party initiates a handshake: repairing, declining and apologizing. Our analysis shows that politicians adapt their entire bodies in conjunction with talk, gestures and laughter not only to accomplish the greeting but also to remedy the potentially face-threatening situation of not getting the greeting right. This research has implications for better understanding the spontaneous ability of human beings to invent new ways of engaging with each other. Moreover, it adds to our knowledge of how the materiality of human bodies can impact forms of sociality. (shrink)

Scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals are currently developing a variety of new devices under the category of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Current and future applications are both medical/assistive (e.g., for communication) and non-medical (e.g., for gaming). This array of possibilities comes with ethical challenges for all stakeholders. As a result, BCIs have been an object of both hope and concern in various media. We argue that these conflicting sentiments can be productively understood in terms of personhood, specifically the impact of BCIs (...) on what it means to be a person and to be recognized as such by others. To understand the dynamics of personhood in the context of BCI use and investigate whether ethical guidance is required, a meeting entitled "BCIs and Personhood: A Deliberative Workshop" was held in May 2018. In this article, we describe how BCIs raise important questions about personhood and propose recommendations for BCI development and governance. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whose New American Poetry? Anthologizing in the NinetiesMarjorie Perloff (bio)In the two-year span 1993–94, no fewer than three major poetry anthologies appeared that featured the poetry of what has been called “the other tradition”—the tradition inaugurated thirty-five years ago by Donald M. Allen’s New American Poetry: 1945–1960. These three anthologies are, in order of publication, Eliot Weinberger’s American Poetry since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders, Paul Hoover’s Postmodern American Poetry, (...) and Douglas Messerli’s From the Other Side of the Century. A New American Poetry 1960–1990. 1 In 1994, moreover, there were two other large anthologies of alternate poetries by “younger” poets, 2 these two in the tradition of Ron Silliman’s In The American Tree: Language, Poetry, Realism and Douglas Messerli’s earlier ‘Language’ Poetries: An Anthology. They are Peter Gizzi, Connell McGrath, and Juliana Spahr’s two-volume anthology called Writing from the New Coast, 3 and Dennis Barone and Peter Ganick’s The Art of Practice: 45 Contemporary Poets.Five volumes, then, of the “new” alternate poetries. And a sixth—this time a real blockbuster—is in progress: Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris’s two-volume Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, which differs from all of the above by covering poetry and poetics of the entire twentieth century and from around the world. The first volume of Poems for the Millennium, From Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude (1995), takes us from such “forerunners” of Modernism as Blake, Hölderlin, Dickinson, and Rimbaud through the Futurisms, Dada, Surrealism, and Objectivism, along with complex “galleries” of individual poets, while the second—and sure to be more controversial—volume (1997) brings us up to the global present.A new avant-garde thus seems to be in the making—indeed, oxymoronic as it may sound, a new avant-garde consensus. Yet the countercanonizing of the recent anthologies is not without its own aporias. What these are is my subject here.The Modest OppositionMy starting point is that of the avant-garde anthologists themselves: Donald Allen’s New American Poetry of 1960. From the vantage point of 1995, the most startling thing about the Allen anthology—still acknowledged by all later anthologists as the fountainhead of radical American poetics—is its modesty. The New American Poetry runs to 454 pages, including statements of poetics, biographical notes, and a short bibliography; it contains forty-four poets, all of them having come to prominence in the period between 1945 (the [End Page 104] end of World War II) and 1960 (the date of publication). The four-page preface opens as follows:In the years since the war American poetry has entered upon a singularly rich period. It is a period that has seen published many of the finest achievements of the older generation: William Carlos Williams’ Paterson, The Desert Music and Other Poems, and Journey to Love; Ezra Pound’s The Pisan Cantos, Section: Rock-Drill, and Thrones; H. D.’s later work culminating in her long poem Helen in Egypt; and the recent verse of E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, and the late Wallace Stevens. A wide variety of poets of the second generation, who emerged in the thirties and forties, have achieved their maturity in this period: Elizabeth Bishop, Edwin Denby, Robert Lowell, Kenneth Rexroth, and Louis Zukofsky, to name only a few very diverse talents. And we can now see that a strong third generation, long awaited but only slowly recognized, has at last emerged.[xi]Note that Allen introduces the “new” American poetry, not as an “alternative” to anything else but as the successor of two preceding generations. He does not quarrel about the Moderns: if Eliot isn’t included in the above list, it is because he had stopped writing lyric poetry after Four Quartets and had turned to the theater. The cited second generation, moreover, is more “diverse” (Allen’s word) here than it will ever be again in the anthologies: Bishop and Denby, Lowell and Rexroth and Zukofsky. And the third generation, presumably following in the footsteps of the first and second, is now said to... (shrink)

The chapters of the book do not situate Spinoza among the natural philosophical giants who opened the way to modern science. Rather they explore Spinoza's relation to the sciences in a variety of ways. Contributors: Joseph Agassi, Thomas Cook, Marjorie Grene, Hans Jonas, André Lecrivain, Genevieve Lloyd, Alexandre Matheron, Nancy Maull, Debra Nails, Michel Paty, Richard H. Popkin, David Savan, Heine Siebrand, and Joe D. Van Zandt.

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the exception to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution (...) of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade marjorie grene. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature. (shrink)

How does our understanding of what it means to be rational affect our interpretation of the world around us? ... Essayists discuss the nature and extent of rationality - its content, focus, and the intrinsic guidelines for using the term "rational" when describing persons or actions. The distinguished contributors to this collection include Max Black, Steven J. Brams, James H. Bunn, Christopher Cherniak, Murray Clarke, Marjorie Clay, Paul Diesing, Antony Flew, John T. Kearns, D. Mark Kilgour, Hilary Kornblith, Charles (...) H. Lambros, Duncan MacIntosh, Alistair MacLeod, Robert G. Meyers, Erwin Segal, Zeno G. Swijtink, Brice R. Wachterhauser, and Paul Weirich. (shrink)

This is another volume in the Modern Studies in Philosophy, a series of anthologies under the general editorship of Prof. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, which present contemporary interpretations and evaluations of the works of major philosophers. This volume, consisting of a collection of papers by an impressive gallery of scholars, offers a plurality of perspectives on Spinoza. Each interpretation conflicts with some other; yet each illuminates some aspect of the subject. All the papers reflect the "tensions" and "conflicts" which make for (...) very exciting and rewarding reading. Still the substantive puzzles remain and will continue to excite and fascinate successive generations of Spinoza's critics. (shrink)

“The City of the Hospital” is a creative nonfiction writing workshop for medical students, which the author has conducted annually since 2002. Part of the required preclinical Narrative Medicine curriculum at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, this six-week intensive workshop includes close readings of literary works and in-class assignments that are then edited by fellow class members and rewritten for final submission. Over the years, students have produced a wide range of compelling essays and stories, and they (...) describe the class as having an effect that lasts throughout their further medical training. This special section includes selected works from class members. (shrink)

I here introduce a set of essays on William H. Poteat by quoting in full a 1968 letter from Poteat to Marjorie Grene. Poteat articulates reasons he cannot collaborate with Grene in editing the volume of Polanyi essays that was eventually published as Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi in 1969.

I here introduce a set of essays on William H. Poteat by quoting in full a 1968 letter from Poteat to Marjorie Grene. Poteat articulates reasons he cannot collaborate with Grene in editing the volume of Polanyi essays that was eventually published as Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi in 1969.

Illustrates the similarities between the enslavement of Black people and the enslavement of animals in both the past and the present.

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to (...) expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, _American Literature_ "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, _Boston Review_ "_Wittgenstein's Ladder_ offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, _Chicago Review_ "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic.... Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, _Sub-Stance_. (shrink)

Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the her mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical mind.

Norwegian health professionals, elderly people and family members experience ethical problems involving end-of-life decision making for elders in the context of the values of Norwegian society. This study used ethical inquiry and qualitative methodology to conduct and analyze interviews carried out with 25 health professionals, six elderly people and five family members about the ethical problems they encountered in end-of-life decision making in Norway. All three participant groups experienced ethical problems involving the adequacy of health care for elderly Norwegians. Older (...) people were concerned about being a burden to their families at the end of their life. However, health professionals wished to protect families from the burden of difficult decisions regarding health care for elderly parents at the end of life. Strategies are suggested for dialogue about end-of-life decisions and the integration of palliative care approaches into health care services for frail elderly people. (shrink)

This book is about "diamond", a logic of paradox. In diamond, a statement can be true yet false; an "imaginary" state, midway between being and non-being.

Is "living together" in a marriage-like relationship compatible with the feminist ideal of individual self-development? Paradoxically, while the structure and social-historical context of marriage-like relationships seems in fundamental conflict with the goal of autonomous self-development, the development of individuality also seems to be better fostered by living with a significant other in a committed relationship than by living alone. This paradox is resolved through the suggestion of a three-stage account of self-development: inauthenticity, autonomous being oneself, and autonomous being with others. (...) At the third stage, living together in a marriage-like relationship is one social format in which autonomous relating to others is possible. Unless the partners have attained the second stage, however, such a relationship will be destructive rather than conducive to individuality. (shrink)

Treats, in retrospect and prospect, dominant themes and main currents in twentieth century philosophy, such as the European sources of Anglo-American philosophy, Continental philosophy in America, and German and French Existentialism.

The United States, unlike most developed countries, continues to use the marital couple as the taxable unit for its income tax. This continued use of the marital unit— like its original establishment —rests on cultural preferences. This Article suggests that the roles of marriage, religion and taxation in America are essential factors in America’s retention of the marital unit. Part I examines the distinctive contribution marriage — especially the traditional single-earner breadwinner marriage — makes to the political life of the (...) country. Part II explores the similar role of religion. Part III describes some congressional efforts over the past two decades to aid, ostensibly, married couples through the income tax. Part IV concludes that although these actions have not been the most effective or efficient means of helping married couples, they nevertheless serve an important expressive purpose. Tax has been the arena for many political issues since the founding of the nation. Consequently, congressional actions and rhetoric regarding the income tax’s "marriage penalty" reinforce the marital unit/joint return and reaffirm — even if only symbolically — a national commitment to marriage as instrumental to American democracy. (shrink)