How is epistemology related to the issue of teaching science and evolution in the schools? Addressing a flashpoint issue in our schools today, this book explores core epistemological differences between proponents of intelligent design and evolutionary scientists, as well as the critical role of epistemological beliefs in learning science. Preeminent scholars in these areas report empirical research and/or make a theoretical contribution, with a particular emphasis on the controversy over whether intelligent design deserves to be considered a science alongside Darwinian (...) evolution. This pioneering book coordinates and provides a complete picture of the intersections in the study of evolution, epistemology, and science education, in order to allow a deeper understanding of the intelligent design vs. evolution controversy. This is a very timely book for teachers and policy makers who are wrestling with issues of how to teach biology and evolution within a cultural context in which intelligent design has been and is likely to remain a challenge for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

How is epistemology related to the issue of teaching science and evolution in the schools? Addressing a flashpoint issue in our schools today, this book explores core epistemological differences between proponents of intelligent design and evolutionary scientists, as well as the critical role of epistemological beliefs in learning science. Preeminent scholars in these areas report empirical research and/or make a theoretical contribution, with a particular emphasis on the controversy over whether intelligent design deserves to be considered a science alongside Darwinian (...) evolution. This pioneering book coordinates and provides a complete picture of the intersections in the study of evolution, epistemology, and science education, in order to allow a deeper understanding of the intelligent design vs. evolution controversy. This is a very timely book for teachers and policy makers who are wrestling with issues of how to teach biology and evolution within a cultural context in which intelligent design has been and is likely to remain a challenge for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This article explores the affective dimension of resilient epistemological systems. Specifically, I argue that responsible epistemic practice requires affective engagement with nondominant experiences. To begin, I outline Kristie Dotson's account of epistemological resilience whereby an epistemological system remains stable despite counterevidence or attempts to alter it. Then, I develop an account of affective numbness. As I argue, affective numbness can promote epistemological resilience in at least two ways. First, it can reinforce harmful stereotypes even after these stereotypes have been rationally (...) demystified. To illustrate, I examine the stereotype of Black criminality as it relates to false confessions. Second, it can encourage “epistemic appropriation”, which I demonstrate by examining the appropriation of “intersectionality” and #MeToo by white culture. Finally, I conclude that resisting harmful resilience requires affective resistance, or efforts that target numbness via different kinds of affective engagement. I consider Kantian “disinterestedness” as a candidate. (shrink)

In order to address questions about how to conceptualize and resist epistemic oppression most effectively, this essay develops a critical engagement with Kristie Dotson’s “Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression.” Relying on a conceptual clarification of what is meant by “shared epistemic resources,” I argue against Dotson’s distinction which finds some instances of epistemic oppression to be “reducible” to the unequal distribution of social and political power, and some to be distinctively epistemic, and thus “irreducible” to these factors. Rather, I maintain the most (...) effective conceptualization of the phenomenon will find that all of its forms have a distinctive epistemic dimension that must be contended with; they are thus irreducible in Dotson’s sense. In other words, the critical interrogation of governing norms will be necessary for resistance in all three cases. I briefly consider the import of my view by looking at epistemic oppression amidst the presidency of Barack Obama. (shrink)

I argue that in recent years, the therapeutic ethos and the ideal of authenticity have become aligned with distinctively neo-liberal notions of personal responsibility and self-reliance. This situation has radically exacerbated the threat to political community that Charles Taylor saw in the ‘ethics of authenticity’. I begin by tracing the history of the therapeutic ethos and its early (Rieff, Lasch, MacIntyre) and late (Furedi) critics. I then discuss Charles Taylor’s argument that the culture of self-fulfillment generated by the (...) therapeutic ethos harbors an important moral ideal, namely, the ethic of authenticity. Pace Taylor, I argue that authenticity has now become thoroughly instrumentalized in the service of the guiding political rationality of neo-liberalism. I make this case through a discussion of its uptake in managerial techniques and practices and also in popular culture. (shrink)

The claim that photographs are fictionally incompetent (i.e. that they can only depict those particulars they are appropriately causally related to) is argued by Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, and Nigel Warburton to be falsified by cinematic works of fiction. In response I firstly argue that it does not follow from cinema's having a capacity for the representation of ficta that photography has a capacity for the representation of ficta. Secondly, and inspired by the work of Roger Scruton, I develop (...) an account of how it is that cinema represents ficta on which this is fundamentally a matter of dramatic/theatrical representation. I argue that in cinematic fiction photography delivers a pre-existent representation of ficta rather than creating or generating fictional content. With this being so, the claim that photography is fictionally incompetent is compatible with cinematic fiction. 1. (shrink)

Unfortunately, as the Chinese might say, we live in very interesting times. Recent technological developments have had the effect of shrinking the world, and, although they have not created the “global village” foreseen by Marshall McLuhan, they have caused major changes in the more familiar “villages” of the past—the family, the community, and the nation—while calling into question the moralities and moral ideals which have found their natural homes within those older “villages.” One of those older moral ideals is that (...) of patriotism. In the lead essay in this volume, Martha Nussbaum argues against this ideal and for another equally old ideal, the stoic ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose allegiance is to the worldwide community of human beings. Nussbaum’s essay originally appeared in Boston Review, along with twenty-nine replies. Eleven of those replies, some substantially reworked, appear in this volume, together with five new essays and a final response by Nussbaum. Nussbaum’s respondents span the political spectrum and include such luminaries as Sissela Bok, Richard Falk, Amy Gutmann, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Elaine Scarry, Amartya Sen, and Charles Taylor. Together these essays raise more questions than they answer, reveal hidden complexities in seemingly simple issues, and force the reader to see the world from a variety of sometimes uncomfortable perspectives. In short, they make up a very interesting and very good philosophical text. (shrink)

Plato is the first scientist whose work we still possess. He is our first writer to interpret the natural world mathematically, and also the first theorist of mathematics in the natural sciences. As no one else before or after, he set out why we should suppose a link between nature and mathematics, a link that has never been stronger than it is today. Mathematical Plato examines how Plato organized and justified the principles, terms, and methods of our mathematical, natural science. (...) "Roger Sworder deserves our gratitude for drawing attention to the significance of mathematics in Plato's thought and writings. He lays the principal discussions out before us with clarity. He also presents Plato as a theorist of nature: of physics and not just metaphysics, to use Aristotle's distinction. Not all readers, we should admit, will be equally convinced of the usefulness of Plato's science for today, but they will all be led more deeply into Plato's vision of reality."--ANDREW DAVISON, Westcott House, Cambridge "Here is Plato for an anti-Platonic age. The author gives careful attention to some of the most important passages in the Platonic dialogues and offers new solutions to some of Plato's most famous mathematical puzzles. He then considers the implications of these penetrating studies for the philosophy of science, and the natural sciences especially. This is a book that revivifies the core themes of Platonism and restores science to worship. It shows Roger Sworder to be one of the foremost students of Plato writing today, and places him in the noble tradition of Thomas Taylor."--RODNEY BLACKHIRST, author of Primordial Alchemy and Modern Religion: Essays on Traditional Cosmology. (shrink)

This collection consists of fourteen essays, a long introduction, and a useful bibliography. All of the essays have appeared previously--either in philosophy journals or as book chapters--over the last thirty years. They include such well-known philosophical essays as Thomas Hill's "Servility and Self-Respect," Bernard Boxill's "Self-Respect and Protest," and Rawls's early treatment of self-respect, here titled, "Self-Respect, Excellences, and Shame." In addition, there are a number of essays that come from the "virtues approach" to ethics, such as Gabriele Taylor's (...) "Shame, Integrity, and Self-Respect." Oddly enough, although they are mentioned in almost every article in this collection, none of the classic treatments of self-respect--such as those of Aristotle, Hume, and Kant--are included in the book, nor are there any extended commentaries on these classical treatments. Moreover, there are no articles from any discipline outside philosophy, although it would seem that this might be one topic in which psychological investigations would be especially helpful. These problems are alleviated to some degree by Dillon's long introduction, which attempts a sketch of the relevant conceptual terrain and relates the selections to the history of thought on this subject. (shrink)

In 1982, cinemas around the world screened Sophie's Choice, a film starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, adapted from the book by William Styron. The film opens with Stingo, a young journalist from the South, who arrives in New York in 1947 and rents a room in Brooklyn. Stingo is drawn into a relationship with Sophie and Nathan, the couple who live upstairs. Sophie is a Polish concentration camp survivor; Nathan is the man who saved her when she arrived in (...) America. Nathan is charismatic, schizophrenic, and violent.In one of the film's flashbacks, a German soldier imposes a terrible choice on Sophie, a young mother who arrives at Auschwitz with other prisoners from Krakow. Sophie is ordered to choose which of her two children will be sent to the ovens, and which will live. (shrink)

I have a hairstylist whose lover was very sick. I’d been seeing this stylist for ten years and we’re good friends. [His lover was] becoming an invalid, not able to get out of bed. He said “I hate to ask you this but would you mind writing a prescription to help us out?” [So] I wrote a prescription to a patient who I had never seen, and I sent it to him in the mail and I heard the next time (...) I went in to get my hair cut that it was the most beautiful experience that my stylist had ever had. It was Valentine’s Day and they had a lovely meal with champagne. And they held each other and then, you know, his partner took his pills and was released. (shrink)

I have a hairstylist whose lover was very sick. I’d been seeing this stylist for ten years and we’re good friends. [His lover was] becoming an invalid, not able to get out of bed. He said “I hate to ask you this but would you mind writing a prescription to help us out?” [So] I wrote a prescription to a patient who I had never seen, and I sent it to him in the mail and I heard the next time (...) I went in to get my hair cut that it was the most beautiful experience that my stylist had ever had. It was Valentine’s Day and they had a lovely meal with champagne. And they held each other and then, you know, his partner took his pills and was released. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Philologus Jahrgang: 160 Heft: 2 Seiten: 197-216.

The two questions, “What is public health law?” and “How can law improve the public's health?” are perennial ones for public health law scholars. This paper proposes a framework for conceptualizing discussion and debate about the scope and opportunities for public health law within liberal democracies. Part 2 of the paper draws selectively on this framework in order to highlight some areas where law's potential role deserves greater acknowledgment and exploration.

The two questions, “What is public health law?” and “How can law improve the public’s health?”, are perennial ones for public health law scholars. They are ideological questions because perceptions about the proper boundaries of law’s role will shape perceptions of what law can do, in an operational sense, to improve health outcomes. They are also theoretical questions, in the sense that, without closing down debate about the limits of public health law, these questions can be addressed by mapping the (...) range of perspectives on how law might “go to work” for the public’s health. Finally, these are immensely practical questions. On our ability to understand the roles that law can play in public health improvement rests our capacity, as a society, to use law strategically as a policy tool. (shrink)

We propose that the fine discrete movements of the tongue as used in speech are what account for the extreme lateralization in humans, and that handedness is a mere byproduct of tongue use. With regard to syntax, we support the Armstrong et al. (1995) proposition that syntax derives directly from gestural motor movements as opposed to facial expressions.

Unter Berücksichtigung von Ishiguros Gegenargumenten untersucht dieser Aufsatz erneut die traditionelle Interpretation von Leibniz' These, daß es keine kausale Wechselwirkung zwischen den Substanzen gebe und daß die kausalen Erklärungen für die Eigenschaften einer Substanz völlig in ihrer Natur lägen. Ishiguros Argumente benutzen die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Begriff einer Substanz und ihrer Natur, und in der Tat kann die Philosophie von Leibniz ohne diese Unterscheidung nicht voll gewürdigt werden. Aber sie lassen nicht erkennen, daß für Leibniz keine eindeutige Entsprechung zwischen ihnen (...) besteht. Sie lassen nicht erkennen, daß die kausale Erklärung für die Eigenschaften einer Substanz nicht völlig in ihrer eigenen Natur liegt. Die traditionelle Interpretation der prästabilierten Harmonie wird von allem, was Leibniz sagt, unterstützt und sollte wieder zur Geltung kommen. (shrink)

Moral theories may differ not only in the substantive moral principles they assert, but also in their concept of a person or moral agent. Thus, for example, Utilitarianism stresses the ability of a human being to calculate rationally the profit and loss which attend particular actions; and Aristotle bases his Nichomachean Ethics on a moral psychology tied to the notion of harmonious self-development.

Economists working on behavioral economics have been awarded the Nobel Prize four times in recent years. This book explores this innovative area and in particular focuses on the work of Harvey Leibenstein, one of the pioneers of the discipline. The topics covered in the book include agency theory; dynamic efficiency; evolutionary economics; X-efficiency; the effect of emotions, specifically affect on decision-making; market pricing; experimental economics; human resource management; the Carnegie School, and intra-industry efficiency in less developed countries.

For the past 30 years, the Melbourne urologist Dr Rodney Syme has quietly—and more recently, not-so-quietly—assisted terminally and permanently ill people to die. This paper draws on Syme’s recent book, A Good Death: An Argument for Voluntary Euthanasia , to identify and to reflect on some important challenges to what I outline as the traditional account of law, ethics, and end of life decisions. Among the challenges Syme makes to the traditional view is his argument that physicians’ intentions are frail (...) and unfairly expose physicians to moral and legal censure. Secondly, Syme argues that physician-assisted dying (PAD) should be framed as a form of palliative care, not as a kind of safety-chute for when palliative care fails. Thirdly, Syme himself is a rare breed: a dissident doctor who has opened himself up for scrutiny and criticism, by reflecting publicly on his experiences at the edge of the law. Syme’s career illustrates that prohibition, just like legalization, is a social policy that carries social consequences. The paper acknowledges the variability and idiosyncratic nature of extra-legal physician-assisted dying, and argues that the best way forward is to attempt to weigh the social consequences of both policies. Advocates and opponents of PAD should recognize that both prohibition and legalization involve trade-offs and impose possible costs on patients and on society. (shrink)

This unique anthology brings together readings from the works of the most significant post-Leninist Marxist thinkers. The selections reflect the diversity and high intellectual accomplishment of twentieth-century Marxism and show how these theorists have transformed traditional Marxism's general philosophical orientation, interpretation of historical materialism, models of socialist political practice, and conception of human liberation. The writings reveal the evolution of a sophisticated and democratic Marxism with a theoretical emphasis on class consciousness and subjectivity, a resistance to all forms of domination--including (...) sexism--and a belief in the political power of consciousness-raising. The selections include the work of forerunners Karl Korsch, George Lukacs, and Antonio Gramsci; figures from the 1930s, including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Wilhelm Reich; post-war and New Left thinkers Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Gorz, Herbert Marcuse, and Jurgen Habermas; and contemporary socialist-feminists Sheila Rowbotham, Juliet Mitchell, Barbara Ehrenreich, Heidi Hartmann, and Ann Ferguson. Gottlieb places the readings in historical and theoretical context, providing a clear and insightful account of the intellectual problems and historical events that gave rise to the Western Marxism, and describing how it both anticipated and influenced contemporary radical movements. Each selection is prefaced by a biographical sketch and the book concludes with a bibliography suggesting further research. (shrink)