Matthew Stuart offers a fresh interpretation of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, arguing for the work's profound contribution to metaphysics. He presents new readings of Locke's accounts of personal identity and the primary/secondary quality distinction, and explores Locke's case against materialism and his philosophy of action.

This is the first book to take a comprehensive look at white collar criminal offenses from the perspective of moral and legal theory. Focussing on the way in which key white collar crimes such as fraud, perjury, false statements, obstruction of justice, bribery, extortion, blackmail, insider trading, tax evasion, and regulatory and intellectual property offenses are shaped and informed by a range of familiar, but nevertheless powerful, moral norms.

In this work drawn from lectures delivered in 1994 a founding figure of cultural studies reflects on the divisive, deadly consequences of our politics of identification. Stuart Hall untangles the power relations that permeate race, ethnicity, and nationhood and shows how oppressed groups broke apart old hierarchies of difference in Western culture.

Tim Stuart-Buttle offers a fresh view of British moral philosophy in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In this period of remarkable innovation, philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Hume combined critique of the role of Christianity in moral thought with reconsideration of the legacy of the classical tradition of academic scepticism.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a brief flourishing of practical and group phenomenological work, spurred by a renewed intention towards the things themselves. Despite a growing turn to phenomenology across the Humanities since the 1990’s, there is still much more written about phenomenology than phenomenology performed. This essay sketches a brief history of group phenomenological methods which have sought to remedy this situation and outlines a project nearing completion at the Department of Performance Studies at the University of (...) Sydney, Australia, using a small group of trained phenomenological researchers to study the phenomenon of being in audiences. (shrink)

Analyses C S Lewis's argument for the existence of 'something in addition to nature' - i.e., something which is of a kind that neither depends on nature's interlocking system, nor could be explained as being a necessary product of it. This singular exceptional item, Lewis argued, is rational thought, 'which is not part of the system of nature'.

Thoughts on poetry and its vbarieties.--Bentham.--Coleridge.--On liberty.--Utilitarianism.--Inaugural address at Saint Andrews.

Jaswal & Akhtar provide several quotes ostensibly from people with autism but obtained via the discredited techniques of Facilitated Communication and the Rapid Prompting Method, and they do not acknowledge the use of these techniques. As a result, their argument is substantially less convincing than they assert, and the article lacks transparency.

The political thought of Mohandas K. Gandhi has been increasingly used as a paradigmatic example of hybrid political thought that developed out of a cross-cultural dialogue of eastern and western influences. With a novel unpacking of this hybridity, this article focuses on the conceptual influences that Gandhi explicitly stressed in his autobiography and other writings, particularly the works of Leo Tolstoy and the Bhagavad Gītā. This new tracing of influence in the development of Gandhi’s thought alters the substantive thrust of (...) Gandhi’s thought away from more familiar quasi-liberal interpretations and towards a far more substantive bhakti or devotional understanding of politics. The analysis reveals a conception of politics that is not pragmatic in its use of non-violence, but instead points to a devotional focus on cultivating the self (ātman), ultimately dissolving the public/private distinction that many readings of Gandhi’s thought depend upon. (shrink)

This collection of essays addresses emergent trends in the meeting of the disciplines of phenomenology and performance. It brings together major scholars in the field, dealing with phenomenological approaches to dance, theatre, performance, embodiment, audience, and everyday performance of self. It argues that despite the wide variety of philosophical, ontological, epistemological, historical and methodological differences across the field of phenomenology, certain tendencies and impulses are required for an investigation to stand as truly phenomenological. These include: description of experience; a move (...) towards fundamental conditions or underlying essences; and an examination of taken-for-granted presuppositions. The book is aimed at scholars and practitioners of performance looking to deepen their understanding of phenomenological concepts and methods, and philosophers concerned with issues of embodiment, performativity and enaction. (shrink)

Since the rediscovery of the ancient Indian political thinker Kautilya and his Arthaśāstra in the early twentieth century, scholars have argued for similarities between his political thinking and Machiavelli’s, especially on the topic of realism. Employing a new analytic approach to reexamine their political thought, I locate unidentified tensions and overlaps between Machiavelli’s secular ethic, which pulls towards autonomous standards, and Kautilya’s political-theological ethic, which follows traditional brahmanical beliefs. In the first part of the essay, I challenge existing interpretations of (...) Kautilya’s thought and clarify a coherent political theology in the Arthaśāstra. The second part critically assesses their realist positions using the concepts of flexibility and legitimacy. While I explain how the Machiavellian position poses justifiable objections to the apparent repression and self-defeating nature of brahmanical realism, I also argue that the Kautilyan position raises important questions concerning both the flexibility and inflexibility of a secular realist position. (shrink)

For retributivists, who believe that criminal sanctions should be used to punish only conduct that is blameworthy, the so-called mala prohibita offenses have always been a source of concern: When the conduct being criminalized is wrongful prior to and independent of its being illegal - as it is with presumptive mala in se offenses like murder and rape - the path to blameworthiness is relatively clear. But when the wrongfulness of the conduct depends on the very fact of its being (...) illegal - as is said to be the case with presumptive mala prohibita offenses like fishing without a license and buying drugs without a prescription - the argument in favor of criminalization becomes more difficult to sustain. Unless one believes that law-breaking as such is morally wrongful, criminal penalties would seem hard to justify. That, in any event, is the standard liberal, retributivist view. As I shall argue, however, things are considerably more complicated than this account would suggest. No offense, at least in the real world, is wholly malum in se or wholly malum prohibitum. Rather, the concepts of malum in se and malum prohibitum should be understood as contrasting, scalar qualities that all criminal offenses, to one degree or another, possess. Under such a conception, an offense could be, say, 80 percent malum in se and 20 percent malum prohibitum, or 20 percent malum in se and 80 percent malum prohibitum. Thinking about malum in se and malum prohibitum in this way can help us make a more precise assessment of the moral content of criminal offenses, taking account of the various ways in which law and legal institutions inform their moral content, the reasons people obey such laws, and what it means to “obey” the law in the first place. (shrink)

This collection of original research explores ways that educators can create participatory spaces that foster civic engagement, critical thinking, and authentic literacy practices for adolescent youth in urban contexts. Casting youth as vital social actors, contributors shed light on the ways in which urban youth develop a clearer sense of agency within the structural forces of racial segregation and economic development that would otherwise marginalize and silence their voices and begin to see familiar spaces with reimagined possibilities for socially just (...) educational practices. (shrink)

Invertebrate genetic models with their tractable neuromuscular systems are effective vehicles for the study of human nerve and muscle disorders. This is exemplified by insights made into spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. For speed and economy, these invertebrates offer convenient, whole‐organism platforms for genetic screening as well as RNA interference (RNAi) and chemical library screens, permitting the rapid testing of hypotheses related to disease mechanisms and the exploration of new (...) therapeutic routes and drug candidates. Here, we discuss recent developments encompassing synaptic physiology, RNA processing, and screening of compound and genome‐scale RNAi libraries, showcasing the importance of invertebrate SMA models.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: SMN and Gemins: ‘We are family’... or are we? Abstract. (shrink)

Group process methods for problem solving and planning are now widely used in organizations in the United States. Such methods, which involve active participation by employees, are not often used in Russia. We believe these methods would help Russia move from a centrally planned, authoritarian style of management to a more participatory, information-sharing style of management. Accordingly, two training sessions were held with faculty members at universities in Irkutsk and Novosibirsk. This article describes how these meetings were arranged, the results (...) of the planning activities, and the implications of participatory methods of decision making for organizations in Russia and in other transitional economies. (shrink)

In this expanded version of his Thank-Offering to Britain Fund lectures, delivered at the British Academy in February 1976, Stuart Hampshire compares two radically different conceptions of morality, those of Aristotle and Spinoza, authors, he claims, of the most plausible of all moral philosophies. He discusses the relation between moral intuitions and moral theory, and the contrasting ideas of moral normality and moral conversion. Spinoza's theory of the relation between mind and body is expounded and its relevance to recent (...) theories is explained. (shrink)

The dispute between Legal Positivists (eg, Hart) and Natural Lawyers (e.g., Finnis) concerns the existence or otherwise of a necessary (conceptual) connection between law and morality. Legal Positivists such as Hart deny this connection and assert the merely contingent relationship of law and morals. However, it can be demonstrated that implicit in the valid sociological method of concept formation of post‐Austinian Positivists are interpretative or ideal‐typical models of the practical rationality of the legal enterprise which are not, and cannot possibly (...) be, value‐neutral. With particular attention to the work of John Finnis and his incorporation of Weberian and Aristotelian methodological principles, this paper exposes, if not the truth of Natural Law Theory, the impossibility of Legal Positivism. (shrink)

Today we’re talking with Stuart Hameroff, Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies, at the University of Arizona. Dr Hameroff is best-known for his research on 'quantum consciousness', an alternative model to the accepted view of how consciousness arises. With Sir Roger Penrose, Dr Hameroff has proposed that consciousness arises at the quantum level within structures inside neurons, known as microtubules.

The fundamental impulse of Discourse Theory is to eschew the moral substantivism of ethical rationalism in favour of a pragmatic, procedural approach to ethical and legal analysis. However, this paper argues that even if the analysis of Communicative Action as reconstructed by Habermas’s “Universal Pragmatics,” and the implied procedural rules of practical discourse advanced by Robert Alexy are accepted, the validation or “redemption” of all authoritative and distributive claims must, in terms of logical priority, encounter the substantively general necessity of (...) Gewirth’s Principle of Generic Consistency. This result operates as a reductio ad absurdum of the project of Universal Pragmatics and prompts us to reconsider the epistemological status and the political and ethico-legal function of Discourse Ethics in Civil Society. (shrink)

Kenneth Westphal provides here a masterful evolutionary account of Normative Constructivism in its classical development, which encompasses Hobbes, Hume, Kant and Rousseau, and culminates in Hegel’s vision of Sittlichkeit. In the process of endorsing the comprehensive moral anthropology of the latter, Westphal rejects the essentialist/objectivist rhetoric of Plato’s Euthyphro and invokes Hume’s alternative to Moral Realism, which is articulated in the view that what might appear “artificial” and “conventional” in our understanding of the rules (norms) of Justice does not necessarily (...) imply that these rules are thus arbitrary. Westphal advocates a metaphysically agnostic Normative Constructivism, which separates our claims to what, on the one hand, is deemed to be morally factual, and on the other, is simply morally relevant. Whilst I acknowledge that this separation of claims is not only possible, but necessary, I argue that it is not, in any critically viable sense, consistent with the rejection of moral objectivism. (shrink)

Kenneth Westphal provides here a masterful evolutionary account of Normative Constructivism in its classical development, which encompasses Hobbes, Hume, Kant and Rousseau, and culminates in Hegel’s vision of Sittlichkeit. In the process of endorsing the comprehensive moral anthropology of the latter, Westphal rejects the essentialist/objectivist rhetoric of Plato’s Euthyphro and invokes Hume’s alternative to Moral Realism, which is articulated in the view that what might appear “artificial” and “conventional” in our understanding of the rules of Justice does not necessarily imply (...) that these rules are thus arbitrary. Westphal advocates a metaphysically agnostic Normative Constructivism, which separates our claims to what, on the one hand, is deemed to be morally factual, and on the other, is simply morally relevant. Whilst I acknowledge that this separation of claims is not only possible, but necessary, I argue that it is not, in any critically viable sense, consistent with the rejection of moral objectivism. (shrink)

Heyman's target article contributes to our understanding of addictions by offering solutions to several paradoxes and by recognizing the stable nature of addictive behavior. Previous classical and operant conditioning models have emphasized molecular processes, such as acquisition and extinction, and have failed to address the aggregate effects of long-term exposure to the contingencies of drug and alcohol use.

Despite the importance of Leibniz's mature philosophy, his early work has been relatively neglected. This collection begins with an overview of his formative years and includes 12 original papers by internationally-known scholars. The contributions reflect the wide range of the young Leibniz's philosophical interests and his interests in related subjects, including law, physics and theology. Some chapters explore his relationship to other philosophers, including his teachers in Leipzig and Jena and his Paris friend Tschirnhaus, as well as Hobbes and Spinoza. (...) Others focus on particular periods or texts and deal with themes ranging from ethics and free-will to his philosophically-significant account of transubstantiation and his early monadology. Some of the topics are familiar to Leibniz students - harmony, sufficient reason and possible worlds, for instance - but others are less familiar - for instance, his attitude to historical truth, millenarianism and the relation of mathematics to the natural world. The book provides an introduction to Leibniz's early philosophy and throws light on the development of some of the doctrines with which he is particularly associated. (shrink)

Stuart, SN Review of: Agnosticism: A very short introduction, by Robin Le Poidevin Oxford University Press, 2010,.

Stuart, SN Review of: Atheism for dummies, by Dale McGowan, John Wiley, 2013,.

Stuart, Stephen Review of: Free will, by Sam Harris, Free Press, New York, 2012,.

Stuart, SN The notorious Yasukuni shrine does not look particularly unusual to the foreign eye. Situated in metropolitan Tokyo, not far from the Ministry of Defence, it is busy with people soberly paying their brief respects, as they will do at any Shinto shrine. Several buildings are distributed over an area comparable to that of the Shrine of Remembrance reserve in Melbourne. There is a statue of a military gentleman and some bronze bas-reliefs of battle scenes, including one depicting (...) a ship's captain heroically calming his terrified men, even as the sea pours in upon them all, through a hole in the hull. Created in the nineteenth century as an imperial memorial to war dead whose names are not apparent today, the shrine authority announced in 1979 it was also accommodating the souls of fourteen executed war criminals - a provocation to pacifists ever since. But facile objection to the piety of others can obscure the historic plight of a whole people. (shrink)