In this volume, fourteen scholars, many of them contemporaries of Professor Frank, engage with his legacy with important and seminal works which take some of ...
In evolutionary biology changes in population structure are explained by citing trait fitness distribution. I distinguish three interpretations of fitness explanations—the Two‐Factor Model, the Single‐Factor Model, and the Statistical Interpretation—and argue for the last of these. These interpretations differ in their degrees of causal commitment. The first two hold that trait fitness distribution causes population change. Trait fitness explanations, according to these interpretations, are causal explanations. The last maintains that trait fitness distribution correlates with population change but does not cause (...) it. My defense of the Statistical Interpretation relies on a distinctive feature of causation. Causes conform to the Sure Thing Principle. Trait fitness distributions, I argue, do not. *Received July 2009; revised October 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy/Institute for the History, Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, Victoria College, 91 Charles Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1K7, Canada; e‐mail: denis.walsh@utoronto.ca. (shrink)
In At the Will of the Body , Arthur Frank told the story of his own illnesses, heart attack and cancer. That book ended by describing the existence of a "remission society," whose members all live with some form of illness or disability. The Wounded Storyteller is their collective portrait. Ill people are more than victims of disease or patients of medicine they are wounded storytellers. People tell stories to make sense of their suffering when they turn their diseases into (...) stories, they find healing. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known--Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer--to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilties. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic. Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness in restitution, chaos, and quest. Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new. (shrink)
Contemporary health care often lacks generosity of spirit, even when treatment is most efficient. Too many patients are left unhappy with how they are treated, and too many medical professionals feel estranged from the calling that drew them to medicine. Arthur W. Frank tells the stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who are restoring generosity to medicine--generosity toward others and to themselves. The Renewal of Generosity evokes medicine as the face-to-face encounter that comes before and after diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and (...) surgeries. Frank calls upon the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin to reflect on stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who transform demoralized medicine into caring relationships. He presents their stories as a source of consolation for both ill and professional alike and as an impetus to changing medical systems. Frank shows how generosity is being renewed through dialogue that is more than the exchange of information. Dialogue is an ethic and an ideal for people on both sides of the medical encounter who want to offer more to those they meet and who want their own lives enriched in the process. The Renewal of Generosity views illness and medical work with grace and compassion, making an invaluable contribution to expanding our vision of suffering and healing. (shrink)
This essay begins where Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue begins: facing a moral world in ruin. MacIntyre argues that this predicament leaves us with a choice: we can follow the path of Friedrich Nietzsche, accepting this moral destruction and attempting to create lives in a rootless, uncertain world, or the path of Aristotle, working to reclaim a world in which close-knit communities sustain human practices that make it possible for us to flourish. Jeff Frank rejects MacIntyre's framework and in this essay (...) attempts to create an alternative path, one of moral repair. Through a close reading of several poems from Robert Frost's North of Boston, Frank develops the notion of moral repair and describes its ethical and educational implications. (shrink)
Sylvia Walsh explores Kierkegaard's understanding of Christianity and the existential mode of thinking theologically appropriate to it in the context of the ...
The effect of prism adaptation on movement is typically reduced when the movement at test (prisms off) differs on some dimension from the movement at training (prisms on). Some adaptation is latent, however, and only revealed through further testing in which the movement at training is fully reinstated. Applying a nonlinear attractor dynamic model (Frank, Blau, & Turvey, 2009) to available data (Blau, Stephen, Carello, & Turvey, 2009), we provide evidence for a causal link between the latent (or secondary) aftereffect (...) and an additive force term that is known to account for symmetry breaking. The evidence is discussed in respect to the hypothesis that recalibration aftereffects reflect memory principles (encoding specificity, transfer-appropriate processing) oriented to time-translation invariance—when later testing conserves the conditions of earlier training. Forgetting or reduced adaptation effects follow from the loss of this invariance and are reversed by its reinstatement. (shrink)
Introduction, by G. Holton.--Three eighteenth-century social philosophers: scientific influences on their thought, by H. Guerlac.--Science and the human comedy: Voltaire, by H. Brown.--The seventeenth-century legacy: our mirror of being, by G. de Santillana.--Contemporary science and the contemporary world view, by P. Frank.--The growth of science and the structure of culture, by R. Oppenheimer.--The Freudian conception of man and the continuity of nature, by J. S. Bruner.--Quo vadis, by P. W. Bridgman.--Prospects for a new synthesis: science and the humanities as complementary (...) activities, by C. Morris.--A humanist looks at science, by H. M. Jones. (shrink)
The following letters were written by the distinguished British chemist Professor Brian G. Gowenlock in response to Tibor Frank’s article on “Networking, Cohorting, Bonding: Michael Polanyi in Exile,” Tradition and Discovery 23:2 (2001-2002): 5-19. The two letters contribute to the history of the Manchester years of Michael Polanyi with interesting details concerning several of his colleagues and contemporaries. These informative comments by a former student of Michael Polanyi will improve our knowledge of the last years of Polanyi as a physical (...) chemist. (shrink)
The Modern Philosophical Revolution breaks new ground by demonstrating the continuity of European philosophy from Kant to Derrida. Much of the literature on European philosophy has emphasized the breaks that have occurred in the course of two centuries of thinking. But as David Walsh argues, such a reading overlooks the extent to which Kant, Hegel, and Schelling were already engaged in the turn toward existence as the only viable mode of philosophizing. Where many similar studies summarize individual thinkers, this book (...) provides a framework for understanding the relationships between them. Walsh thus dispels much of the confusion that assails readers when they are only exposed to the bewildering range of positions taken by the philosophers he examines. His book serves as an indispensable guide to a philosophical tradition that continues to have resonance in the post-modern world. (shrink)
For each $n > 0$ , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are synonymous in the sense of deBouvere. It is further (...) shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are synonymous with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories. (shrink)
We outline our central reasons for pursuing the project of equality studies and some of the thinking we have done within an equality studies framework. We try to show that a multi-dimensional conceptual framework, applied to a set of key social contexts and articulating the concerns of subordinate social groups, can be a fruitful way of putting the idea of equality into practice. Finally, we address some central questions about how to bring about egalitarian social change.
Wide content and individualist approaches to the individuation of thoughts appear to be incompatible; I think they are not. I propose a criterion for the classification of thoughts which captures both. Thoughts, I claim, should be individuated by their teleological functions. Where teleological function is construed in the standard way - according to the aetiological theory - individuating thoughts by their function cannot produce a classification which is both individualistic and consistent with the principle that sameness of wide content is (...) sufficient for sameness of psychological state. There is, however, an alternative approach to function, the relational theory, which is preferable on independent grounds. A taxonomy of thoughts based on these functions reconciles wide content with individualism. One consequence of individuating thoughts in this way is that intentional content is context sensitive. I discuss some of the implications of context sensitive content. (shrink)
This paper presents the findings of a study of purchasing and supply management professionals in India conducted to identify the key ethical issues they face in carrying out their work related responsibilities as well as to determine the extent to which various factors appear to be helpful or to present challenges to their efforts to act ethically in the course of their work. The Indian findings are then compared to those for studies conducted among purchasing and supply management professionals in (...) the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Key findings for the four studies are summarized and implications for business and the professions are presented. (shrink)
: This essay discusses the implications of Irigaray's readings of the Antigone in the construction of a feminist ethics. By focusing on the gaps and intersections between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian phenomenology as formulative of Irigaray's eventual call for an ethics of sexual difference, I emphasize the inevitability of rethinking the functions of historicity, femininity, and maternity in the formation of new models of intersubjectivity.
Psychological individualism is motivated by two taxonomic principles: (i) that psychological states are individuated by their causal powers, and (ii) that causal powers supervene upon intrinsic physiological state. I distinguish two interpretations of individualism--the 'orthodox' and the 'alternative'--each of which is consistent with these motivating principles. I argue that the alternative interpretation is legitimately individualistic on the grounds that it accurately reflects the actual taxonomic practices of bona fide individualistic sciences. The classification of homeobox genes in developmental genetics provides an (...) illustration. When applied to the taxonomy of psychological kinds, alternative individualism has some surprising consequences. In particular, externalist taxonomies of thought are consistent with the alternative interpretation, and hence consistent with individualism. I conclude, on this basis, that the individualism/externalism dispute which has long preoccupied philosophy of psychology is an empty one. (shrink)
We reply to discussions of Equality: From Theory to Action by Harry Brighouse, Joanne Conaghan, Cillian McBride and Stuart White. We find many of their points helpful and treat them as a useful contribution to a continuing dialogue on egalitarianism.
. This paper presents the findings of two surveys conducted in April 2003 of Chartered Life Underwriters (CLUs) and Chartered Financial Consultants (ChFCs) who are members of the Society of Financial Service Professionals. The first survey of 3000 CLUs and ChFCs – the life insurance industry’s most highly regarded professionals – was aimed at identifying the key ethical issues faced by professionals working in the life insurance industry today. A comparison of these findings with those of earlier studies conducted in (...) 1990 and 1995 suggests that while the key ethical issues facing those working in the life insurance business today are essentially the same as those encountered during industry’s highly troubled ethical environment of the early 1990s, these issues are perceived as presenting somewhat less serious problems than in the past. The second survey of 3000 CLUs and ChFCs was aimed at determining the extent to which these professionals perceive the industry created Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA) as having contributed to any change in the ethical environment that has taken place. The findings suggest that IMSA has played an important role in influencing senior managers to more strongly encourage and support ethical market conduct, a critical step in improving the industry’s ethical environment. (shrink)
Based on the findings of several research studies of professionals in both the property-liability insurance industry and the life insurance industry, the paper makes and supports several important points. First, ethical challenges in the insurance industry involve not only a series of ethical dilemmas frequently faced by those working in the business, but also a variety of factors that hinder those working in the industry as they seek to resolve the ethical dilemmas encountered in the course of their work. Both (...) of these two components of ethical challenges must be understood by those in the financial services industry who will deal with insurance operations in the future. Second, whereas the life insurance business and the property-liability insurance business have traditionally been viewed as being quite different from one another and still are in terms of operations and regulation, the research findings show that they are no longer very different in terms of the key ethical challenges faced by those working in the two segments of the industry. The paper shows how during the past decade the ethical challenges in the property-liability insurance industry have become quite similar to those in the more troubled life insurance industry. (shrink)
The issue of boundaries in clinician–patientencounters is considered through narrativeanalysis of four clinical stories in whichboundaries crossings are a self-conscioustopic. One story is by a physician as patient,two are by physicians, and one is by apalliative care nurse. The stories arediscussed using Walter Benjamin''s distinctionbetween the painter, who maintains distance andsees the whole, and the cameraman, who usestechnology to penetrate realities and thenreassembles fragments. The essay argues thatdistance and closeness are ethical issues thatconstitute the possibility of clinicalencounters but the encounter (...) also changes theclinician''s sense of boundaries. The relevantethics of boundary decisions in most clinicalencounters are not procedural ethics but anethics of self-creation: in orienting toboundaries as doctors do, they createthemselves in their relations to others. (shrink)
In recent decades, the individual has become more and more central in both national and world cultural accounts of the operation of society. This continues a long historical process, intensified by the consolidation of a more global polity and the weakening of the primordial sovereignty of the national state. Increasingly, society is culturally rooted in the natural, historical, and spiritual worlds through the individual, rather than through corporate entities or groups. The shift has produced a proliferation and specification of individual (...) roles, accounting for what individuals do in society. It has also produced an expansion in recognized individual personhood, accounting for who individuals are in the extrasocial cosmos and fueling elaborated personal tastes and preferences. Where it has been contested, the shift to the individual has also produced a rise in specializing identities (e.g., in such domains as ethnicity or gender). These offer accounts of individuals' distinctive linkages to the cosmos, and they serve to bolster individual claims to standard roles and personhood. Over time, specializing identities tend to get absorbed into roles and personhood. And in turn, expanded roles and personhood provide further bases for specializing identity claims. Because many theorists mischaracterize the relationship of specializing identities to roles and personhood, the literature often overemphasizes the anomic character of the identity explosion and the closeness of the coupling between social roles and identity claims. On the contrary, specializing identities tend to be edited to remain within general rules of individual personhood and to be disconnected from the obligations involved in institutionalized roles. (shrink)
This paper compares the findings of studies of seven groups of professionals in various key segments of the fields of accounting and insurance conducted during 1990 through 1994 in an effort to determine the extent to which they tend to rely on various factors in their business and professional environments for help in behaving ethically in the course of their work. Commonalities among the findings for these rather diverse groups are highlighted and their possible implications for business and the professions (...) are discussed. (shrink)
Newspaper stories that rely on reconstruction of events from police reports, court records, and recollections of witnesses often sacrifice attribution for the sake of immediacy. Such stories make compelling reading, but they mislead readers by erasing the line between information obtained via observation and information obtained from human or documentary sources. This article argues that the lack of attribution is more distracting than it presence--because readers wonder how the reporters know what they know--and calls on reporters to make clear when (...) they have left the realm of observation and entered that of reconstruction. (shrink)
Abstract Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mah?y?na Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mah?y?na Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum (...) is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism. (shrink)
Discussion of Frank Jackson’s a priori entailment thesis – which he employs to connect metaphysics and conceptual analysis. In From Metaphysics to Ethics. (2001) he develops this thesis within the two-dimensional framework and also proposes a formal argument for the existence of a priori truths. I argue that the two-dimensional framework doesn’t provide independent support for the a priori entailment thesis since one has to build into the framework assumptions as strong as the thesis itself. -/- .
Two very different insights motivate characterizing the brain as a computer. One depends on mathematical theory that defines computability in a highly abstract sense. Here the foundational idea is that of a Turing machine. Not an actual machine, the Turing machine is really a conceptual way of making the point that any well-defined function could be executed, step by step, according to simple 'if-you-are-in-state-P-and-have-input-Q-then-do-R' rules, given enough time (maybe infinite time) [see COMPUTATION]. Insofar as the brain is a device whose (...) input and output can be characterized in terms of some mathematical function -- however complicated -- then in that very abstract sense, it can be mimicked by a Turning machine. Given what is known so far brains do seem to depend on cause-effect operations, and hence brains appear to be, in some formal sense, equivalent to a Turing machine [see CHURCH-TURING THESIS]. On its own, however, this reveals nothing at all of how the mind-brain actually works. The second insight depends on looking at the brain as a biological device that processes information from the environment to build complex representations that enable the brain to make predictions and select advantageous behaviors. Where necessary to avoid ambiguity, we will refer to the first notion of computation as algorithmic computation, and the second as information processing computation. (shrink)
An illustrious line-up of seventeen philosophers from the USA, the UK, and Australia present new essays on themes from the work of Frank Jackson, which bridges mind, language, logic, metaphysics, and ethics. Central to Jackson's work is an approach to metaphysical issues built on the twin foundations of supervenience and conceptual analysis. In the first part of the book six essays examine this approach and its application to philosophy of mind and philosophy of color. The second part focuses on Jackson's (...) highly influential work on phenomenal consciousness. The third part is devoted to Jackson's work in ethics, both normative ethics and metaethics. The last three papers discuss Jackson's ground-breaking work on conditionals. The final section of the book comprises a substantial essay by Jackson in reply to his critics: this offers some of the clearest expressions of the ideas which Jackson has brought to the fore in philosophy. (shrink)
This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I give an in-depth comparison and analysis of the theories of Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia, in which I highlight their most important resemblances and differences. What both have in common is their notion of the presence of the past as a ‘presence in absence’. They differ, however, with respect to the character of this past and the role representation plays in making it present. Second, I also argue that for (...) both Ankersmit and Runia, the presence of the past is always the present of our past, which excludes the experience of the otherness of the past, and which opens both theories to the criticisms of being self-centered and nationalistic. (shrink)
Manfred Frank and Niels Weidtmann (Eds.): Husserl und die Philosophie des Geistes Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s10743-011-9101-2 Authors Dan Zahavi, Center for Subjectivity Research, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Journal Husserl Studies Online ISSN 1572-8501 Print ISSN 0167-9848.
Frank Welz’s Kritik der Lebenswelt undertakes a sociology of knowledge criticism of the work of Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz that construes them as developing absolutist, egological systems opposed to the “processual” worldview prominent since the modern rise of natural science. Welz, though, misunderstands the work of Schutz and Husserl and neglects how their focus on consciousness and eidetic features pertains to the kind of reflection that one must undertake if one would avoid succumbing to absolutism, that uncovers the presuppositions (...) of the processual worldview itself, and that secures a domain distinctive of philosophy over against sociology. Finally, Welz’s charge that Schutz favors a Neo-Kantian social scientific methodology contradictory to his phenomenology neglects the levels of Schutz’s discourse and ignores how the Weberian ideal-typical approach can be subsumed within phenomenology. (shrink)
Frank Jackson has a new objectivist and representationalist account of the content of colour-experience. I raise several objections both against the account itself and, primarily, against how he tries to support it. He argues that the new account enables us to see what is wrong with the so-called Opacity Puzzle. This alleged puzzle is an argument in which a seemingly implausible conclusion is derived from three premises of which seem plausible to an representationalist. Jackson.
Logical Empiricism is commonly regarded as uninterested in, if not hostile to sociological investigations of science. This paper reconstructs the views of Otto Neurath and Philipp Frank on the legitimacy and relevance of sociological investigations of theory choice. It is argued that while there obtains a surprising degree of convergence between their programmatic pronouncements and the Strong Programme, the two types of project nevertheless remain distinct. The key to this differences lies in the different assessment of a supposed dilemma facing (...) post-Mertonian sociologists of science. (shrink)
This essay works to set up a debate between the German philosopher Manfred Frank and the French philosophers Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. At stake in the debate is the concept of freedom. The essay begins by explaining Frank's subject-based concept of freedom and then it presents the perfectly opposed non-subjective ontological concept of freedom that Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy forward. In the end, in the interest of threading a way through this impasse, and following the cue of these three philosophers, (...) we turn to the early German Romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel to help us reconceptualise freedom. Following their cue, I draw on the strengths of Frank and Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy while avoiding their dangerous extremes. (shrink)
The language of self and nonself has had a prominent place inimmunology. This paper examines Frank Macfarlane Burnet's introductionof the language of selfhood into the science. The distinction betweenself and nonself was an integral part of Burnet's biological outlook– of his interest in the living organism in its totality, itsactivities, and interactions. We show the empirical and conceptualwork of the language of selfhood in the science. The relation betweenself and nonself tied into Burnet's ecological vision of host-parasiteinteraction. The idiom of (...) selfhood also enabled Burnet to organizeand unify a diversity of immune phenomena. Rather than approach thelanguage of self and nonself as a bluntly imposed metaphor, we focuson its endogenous origins and immanent uses in immunology. (shrink)
Denis Walsh has written a striking new defense in this journal of the statisticalist (i.e., noncausalist) position regarding the forces of evolution. I defend the causalist view against his new objections. I argue that the heart of the issue lies in the nature of nonadditive causation. Detailed consideration of that turns out to defuse Walsh’s ‘description‐dependence’ critique of causalism. Nevertheless, the critique does suggest a basis for reconciliation between the two competing views. *Received December 2009; revised December 2009. †To contact (...) the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 599 Lucas Hall, One University Boulevard, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO 63121; e‐mail: northcottr@umsl.edu. (shrink)
Semën Frank (1877–1950) considered the Universe as the “all-unity.” According to him, everything is a part of the all-unity, which has a divine character. God is present in the world, but his nature is incomprehensible. In this article I analyze two consequences of Frank’s panentheistic view of the relation between science and theology. Firstly, the limits of scientific knowledge allow recognition of the mystery of the world and the transcendence of God. Secondly, Frank claimed that nature is a “trace” of (...) God and the manifestation of the absolute reality, i.e. the all-unity. As a result, both science and theology lead to the knowledge of God, although we cannot understand His essence. (shrink)
The physicist–philosopher Philipp Frank’s work and influence, especially during his last three decades, when he found a refuge and a position in America, deserve more discussion than has been the case so far. In what follows, I hope I may call him Philipp – having been first a graduate student in one of his courses at Harvard University, then his teaching assistant sharing his offices, then for many years his colleague and friend in the same Physics Department, and finally, doing (...) research on his archival holdings kept at Harvard. I also should not hide my large personal debt to him, for without his recommendation in the 1950s to the Albert Einstein Estate, I would not have received its warm welcome and its permission, as the first one to do historical research in the treasure trove of unpublished letters and manuscripts, thus starting me on a major part of my career in the history of science. (shrink)
Philipp Frank"s book Relativity – a richer truth1 shows something we do not find very often after World War 2: a philosopher of science acting as a public intellectual. Taking part in the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Philipp Frank intervened in the public debate about the causes of Nazism and how to defend democracy and liberalism against totalitarian ideas and politics. Could philosophy of science contribute to such a struggle? Philipp Frank thought it could, he (...) even thought that Philosophy of Science should play a crucial role in it. It"s obvious that this position should be of some interest for philosophers in Austria and Europe today. Of course, any serious analysis of Frank"s position would have to take the whole historical constellation into account. Between the beginning of the conference in 1940 and the publication of the book in 1951 the historical situation had dramatically changed. And therefore one has to distinguish several political dimensions in Frank"s arguments. Let me just make a short remark on the plurality of political perspectives Frank"s discourse opened up. Philipp Frank defined the role science should play in democracy not only in contrast to the role of science as it was conceived by totalitarian governments. Of course he criticised the Nazis" and Soviets" �philosophies of science� several times (see for instance p. 73, 98, 103p.). But he also made very clear that in the 40ies and 50ies not even the majority of scholars and university teachers in the US supported the specific view of science which Frank thought was so important to the advancement of democracy (for instance 59pp.). His rather critical comments on the teaching of science in the post war / cold war period show what he thought the really important political impact of science was. As far as I can see, these comments did not loose their significance. (shrink)
Recent writings of Professor Frank raise basic questions concerning the nature of science and its relations to social, political, theological and metaphysical issues. This paper concentrates on several of these questions. What determines the acceptance of an hypothesis in the sciences? Is it explanation of the facts and confirmation by experimentation or is it the capacity of a theory to guide human conduct? Professor Frank's espousal of the latter criterion raises the question of whether this criterion can clearly be applied. (...) Equally important: it places on the scientist the responsibility of (a) reliably predicting the effects of a theory on human conduct and (b), deciding which effects ought to be achieved, assuming we could reliably achieve them. Another set of problems arises concerning the relation between scientific views and metaphysical, political and religious beliefs. Are the former relevant to the latter? If so, how? Does not scientific method at least involve the rejection of certain political and religious philosophies? We conclude that each and all of these difficulties could be relieved if not resolved by accepting a thoroughgoing empiricism. (shrink)
At the most general level I am interested in how we come to make sense of the world around us. Much of this research involves asking how intuitive explanations and understandings emerge in development and how they are related to notions of cause, mechanism and agency. These relations are linked to broader questions of what concepts are, how they change with development and increasing expertise and how they are structured in adults.
This article strives to combine conceptions of the person by Semën Frank. From his early critical Marxist works to his metaphysical personalism and late Christian anthropology, he covered normative-ethical, transcendent-epistemological, and "total unity'—ontological questions in equal measure. This diversity will be synthesized in comparisons of his personalist and ontological thought. The text will highlight Frank's different schemes of personal modes of being, i.e. correlations between the 'I-thou' relationship and the absolute being, and move on to contrast his concepts of ontological (...) personality. /// Dieser Artikel untersucht Semën Franks Personalitätskonzeptionen, wie er sie von der Revolutionszeit um 1905 bis in die späte Emigrationszeit entwickelt hat. Von seinen frühen Artikeln - inspiriert durch den kritischen Marxismus -bis zum metaphysischen Personalismus und zur christlichen Anthropologie behandelt er gleichermaßen normativ-ethische, transzendental-epistemologische und identitätsgeleitete, ontologische Fragen. Diese Vielfalt wird nun produktiv zusammengeführt in Gegenüberstellungen seines personalen und ontologischen Denkens. Dazu erarbeitet dieser Text Franks verschiedene Entwürfe personalen Seins, genauer die Korrelationen zwischen der frankschen 'Ich-Du-Beziehung' und dem absoluten Sein um so seine Konzeptionen einer ontologischen Personalität zu kontrastieren. (shrink)
Isolation in the back-country: George Chamier, G.B. Lancaster, Katherine Mansfield, John Mulgan, and Graham Billing -- Outsiders and misfits in fragmented social milieux: William Satchell, Vincent Pyke, John A. Lee, Robin Hyde, Frank Sargeson, and others -- The lonely and the alone in the fiction of Janet Frame -- Maurice Gee and postmodern isolation -- Women, isolation, and history: Fiona Kidman, Noel Hilliard, and Patricia Grace -- Cultural deracination and isolation: Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, and Alan Duff.
