The basic tenets of “classical” naturalism (exemplified in the work of Mead, Buchler, and Randall, among others) are delineated and distinguished from other versions of naturalism. Classical naturalism is also distinguished from reductive materialism and idealism. Nature is asserted to be indefinitely plural and not amenable to monistic or dualistic categorial schemes; that is, the principle of “ontological parity” is maintained. The method of inquiry of naturalism is outlined, along with the notion of truth as perspectivally objective. The metaphysical hypotheses (...) are then used to examine culture. Culture is found to be the specific environment of human being, arising out of, but irreducible to, other natural processes. Culture is described as the cumulative gestures of the human social organism as it discovers and creates itself in mutual constitution with other natural processes and products. (shrink)

Analyzes the theories of myth of Cassirer, Barthes, Eliade, and Hillman and offers an alternative original account of myth-making as an essential strand of cultural production.

While evenness is understood to be maximal if all types (species, genotypes, alleles, etc.) are represented equally (via abundance, biomass, area, etc.), its opposite, maximal unevenness, either remains conceptually in the dark or is conceived as the type distribution that minimizes the applied evenness index. The latter approach, however, frequently leads to conceptual inconsistency due to the fact that the minimizing distribution is not specifiable or is monomorphic. The state of monomorphism, however, is indeterminate in terms of its evenness/unevenness characteristics. (...) Indeed, the semantic indeterminacy also shows up in the observation that monomorphism represents a state of pronounced discontinuity for the established evenness indices. This serious conceptual inconsistency is latent in the widely held idea that evenness is an independent component of diversity. As a consequence, the established evenness indices largely appear as indicators of relative polymorphism rather than as indicators of evenness. In order to arrive at consistent measures of evenness/unevenness, it seems indispensable to determine which states are of maximal unevenness and then to assess the position of a given type distribution between states of maximal evenness and maximal unevenness. Since semantically, unevenness implies inequality among type representations, its maximum is reached if all type representations are equally different. For given number of types, this situation is realized if type representations, when ranked in descending order, show equal differences between adjacent types. We term such distributions “stepladders” as opposed to “plateaus” for uniform distributions. Two approaches to new evenness measures are proposed that reflect different perspectives on the positioning of type distributions between the closest stepladders and the closest plateaus. Their two extremes indicate states of complete evenness and complete unevenness, and the midpoint is postulated to represent the turning point between prevailing evenness and prevailing unevenness. The measures are graphically illustrated by evenness surfaces plotted above frequency simplices for three types, and by transects through evenness surfaces for more types. The approach can be generalized to include variable differences between types (as required in analyses of functional evenness) by simply replacing types with pairs of different types. Pairs, as the new types, can be represented by their abundances, for example, and these can be modified in various ways by the differences between the two types that form the pair. Pair representations thus consist of both the difference between the paired types and their frequency. Omission of pair frequencies leads to conceptual ambiguity. Given this specification of pair representations, their evenness/unevenness can be evaluated using the same indices developed for simple types. Pair evenness then turns out to quantify dispersion evenness. (shrink)

Aristotle'sPoeticsis a treatise notoriously difficult to understand, largely because of Aristotle's treatment of his theme, with its elliptical thought and loose terminology, but also because Aristotle's influence on subsequent drama and criticism makes it difficult to isolate the original thought from subsequent attempts at implementation or interpretation. However, as Aristotle devotes most of his treatise to tragedy—despite the wider subject he professes—and in discussing tragedy deals most extensively with plot, his views on the tragic plot should be reasonably clear. The (...) passages cited have some importance for the understanding of his views. (shrink)

Women's small share of professional and managerial occupations compared with their share of the total labor force is examined for the 11 largest racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Gender-related characteristics—women's labor force participation rates, marital status, and the sex ratio—influence women's share of the top jobs, as do class and ethnic variables such as place of birth, population size, and class of worker. Labor market gender inequality is greatest among the smaller, more affluent minorities, many of whom (...) are recent immigrants to this country. The larger, frequently indigenous, minority groups exhibit less of this kind of inequality. Minority and gender status intersect, so that men monopolize surplus resources among the more affluent minority groups and use these resources to secure a more advantaged labor market position. (shrink)

Many proteins responsible for genome maintenance interact with one another via short sequence motifs. The best known of these are PIP motifs, which mediate interactions with the replication protein PCNA. Others include RIR motifs, which bind the translesion synthesis protein Rev1, and MIP motifs, which bind the mismatch repair protein Mlh1. Although these motifs have similar consensus sequences, they have traditionally been viewed as separate motifs, each with their own target protein. In this article, we review several recent studies that (...) challenge this view. Taken together, they imply that these different motifs are not distinct entities. Instead, there is a single, broader class of motifs, which we call “PIP‐like” motifs, which have overlapping specificities and are capable of binding multiple target proteins. Given this, we must reassess the role of these motifs in forming the network of interacting proteins responsible for genome maintenance. (shrink)

Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration is a transtheoretical and transdiagnostic clinical approach to working with patients who are using or considering using psychedelics in any context. The ongoing discussion of psychedelics in academic research and mainstream media, coupled with recent law enforcement deprioritization of psychedelics and compassionate use approvals for psychedelic-assisted therapy, make this model exceedingly timely. Given the prevalence of psychedelic use, the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and the unique cultural and historical context in which psychedelics are placed, it (...) is important that mental health providers have an understanding of the unique motivations, experiences, and needs of people who use them. PHRI incorporates elements of harm reduction psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and can be applied in both brief and ongoing psychotherapy interactions. PHRI represents a shift away from assessment limited to untoward outcomes of psychedelic use and abstinence-based addiction treatment paradigms and toward a stance of compassionate, destigmatizing acceptance of patients' choices. Considerations for assessment, preparation, and working with difficult experiences are presented. (shrink)

The paper begins by emphasizing the importance of so-called complete philosophical works on ontology to include ideas on mood and emotions, noting the lack of this inclusion in many texts. Next, it uses and dives into Heidegger’s Being & Time, as an example of an ontological work that aptly includes explanations of mood & emotions, or “attunement” in Heideggerian terms. It is also noted the critical difference between Heidegger’s approach to these topics and the approach taken by psychologists and those (...) in similar fields. Finally, the paper concludes by arguing for the importance of Being & Time, Heidegger, and ontological work on mood. (shrink)

Through in-depth interviews with 41 middle-class Puerto Rican transmigrants, this research examines how gender constrains global care work. Migration compromises embeddedness in care networks, concurrently heightening its meaning. Women felt these effects more acutely than men given their primary responsibility for reproductive work. Migrants engaged in emotion work to cope with constraints, strategically rearticulating care work; yet unsuccessful strategies resulted in further emotional dislocation, particularly for women. Migration led to a dichotomy in which professional success was pitted against emotional fulfillment (...) through care work. Gender, cultural, and geopolitical factors mediated this split, contributing to a permanently unsettled flow of migrants. (shrink)

Models of risk-taking as used in the social sciences may be improved by including concepts from life history theory, particularly environmental unpredictability and life expectancy. Community college students completed self-report questionnaires measuring these constructs along with several well-known correlates. The frequency of risk-taking was higher for those with higher future unpredictability beliefs and shorter lifespan estimates (as measured by the Future Lifespan Assessment developed for this study), and unpredictability beliefs remained significant after accounting for standard predictors, such as sex and (...) temperament. The results demonstrate the usefulness of applying concepts from life history theory to enhance our understanding of human behavior. (shrink)

This essay is a critical engagement with recent assessments of comparative religious ethics by John Kelsay and Jung Lee. Contra Kelsay's proposal to return to a neo-Weberian sociology of religious norm elaboration and justification, the authors argue that comparative religious ethics is and should be practiced as a field of study in active conversation with other fields that consider human flourishing, employing a variety of methods that have their roots in multiple disciplines. Cross-pollination from a variety of disciplines is a (...) strength of comparative ethics, which has enlivened recent and ongoing research on ethics, not a problem to be resolved by convergence on a single, distinctively comparative project. The authors also argue in response to Lee and Kelsay that while individual comparative studies of virtue and personal formation can be flawed in various ways, this line of research has been productive and at times very compelling. Moreover, attention to comparative virtue ethics shows how scholarship on some ethical topics necessitates drawing on a variety of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds, a conclusion relevant to all work in religious ethics today. (shrink)

The Metaphysics of Experience styles itself as "a Sherpa guide to Process and Reality, whose function is to assist the serious reader in grasping the meaning of the text and to prevent falls into misinterpretation." Although originally published in 1925, Process and Reality has perhaps even more relevance to the contemporary scene in physics, biology, psychology, and the social sciences than it had in the mid-twenties. Hence its internal difficulty, its quasi-inaccessibility, is all the more tragic, since, unlike most metaphysical (...) endeavors, it is capable of interpretating and unifying theories in the above sciences in terms of an organic world view, instead of selecting one theory as the paradigm and reducing all others to it. Because Alfred North Whitehead is so crucial to modern philosophy, The Metaphysics of Experience plays an important role in making Process and Reality accessible to a wider readership. (shrink)

THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY, "READING MORE THAN LOLITA IN TEHRAN," IS meant to invoke Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir documenting how Western literary classics have the ability to change and improve the lives of people living under theocratic rule. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran, Nafisi invited seven of her best women students to attend a weekly study of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other (...) authors she believed would provide the women with examples of how to successfully assert their autonomy despite great odds. (shrink)

IN THIS ESSAY, I PROPOSE A DISTINCT APPROACH TO ETHICS—COMPARAtive rhetoric—that attempts to analyze moral discourse at the intratradition and intertradition levels. Drawing on Aristotle's classification of modes of rhetoric, I demonstrate how the epideictic mode helps conceptualize moral discourse as attempting to convince and motivate through persuasion, even as it assumes as audience of adherence. I then elaborate a method of technical rhetorical analysis, drawing on the work of Stephen Toulmin and Chiam Perelman. This method is applied to two (...) short rhetorical performances of John Paul II and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, focusing on motherhood. I conclude by briefly considering women's responses to clerical rhetoric. (shrink)

In his article ‘Saints and Heroes’, Urmson argues that traditional moral theories allow at most for a threefold classification of actions in terms of their worth, and that they are therefore unsatisfactory. Since the conclusion of his argument has led to the widespread use of the term ‘acts of supererogation’, and since I do not believe that such acts exist, I propose to argue that the actions with which he is concerned not only can, but should, be contained within the (...) traditional classification. (shrink)

Economics plays a key role in human rights issues as decision-makers weigh the incentives associated with choosing how to use scarce resources in the context of committing or escaping human rights violence. This textbook provides an introduction to the microeconomic analysis of human rights utilizing economics as a lens through which to examine social topics including capital punishment, violence against women, asylum seeking, terrorism, child abuse, genocide, and hate. Whether analyzing the decisions made in capital punishment cases, the causes and (...) consequences of genocide, or the impact of terrorist acts on domestic and international decision-making, the science of economics provides tools and a systematic method of analysis and policy recommendation. This key text presents a method for integrating the social sciences of economics and human rights to create new opportunities for the investigation of social issues. Within each chapter, readers gain a fundamental understanding of a specific human rights issue, the decision-makers and the decision-making process involved, and the benefits and costs leading to the decisions. Experts on each issue, drawn from a variety of fields, contribute to each chapter and present first-hand accounts and different perspectives on each issue. The detailed analyses and accounts provided also explore the potential incentives involved in the prevention and termination of human rights violations. Aiming to further economic inquiry and enhance interdisciplinary research, this textbook serves as a multi-purpose guide for a range of readers. Students, researchers, and educators, as well as those working in organizations supporting victims of human rights violations and policy-makers facing human rights challenges, will find this book informative and engaging. (shrink)

This article reflects one scholar's attempt to locate herself within emerging ethical methodologies given a specific concern with cross-cultural women's moral praxis. The field of comparative ethics's debt to past debates over methodology is considered through a typology of three waves of methodological invention. The article goes on to describe a specific research focus on U.S. Catholic and Iranian Shii women that initiated a search for a distinct method. This method of comparative ethics, which focuses on the production of ethical (...) knowledge through the interaction of discursive logics of various moral agents, is described. The conclusion turns to how methodological invention can itself become a constructive project through the way it (1) locates the scholar in relation to her subject of study and (2) allows for isolation of tactics within specific moral discourses. (shrink)

In his article ‘Saints and Heroes’, Urmson argues that traditional moral theories allow at most for a threefold classification of actions in terms of their worth, and that they are therefore unsatisfactory. Since the conclusion of his argument has led to the widespread use of the term ‘acts of supererogation’, and since I do not believe that such acts exist, I propose to argue that the actions with which he is concerned not only can, but should, be contained within the (...) traditional classification. (shrink)

Some of the greatest writers on moral philosophy have claimed that their theories about morality do not run counter to the moral views of ordinary men, but on the contrary are an elucidation of such views, or provide them with a sound philosophical underpinning. Aristotle, for example, made it quite clear that he could not take seriously a moral view that was at odds with the heritage of moral wisdom deeply imbedded in his society. His doctrine of the mean was (...) based on a philosophical consideration of such wisdom. And Immanuel Kant thought that his moral philosophy articulated the moral views of ordinary men. (shrink)

This paper investigates what it may mean to re-imagine learning through aesthetic experience with reference to John Dewey’s Art as Experience. The discussion asks what learning might look like when aesthetic experience takes centre stage in the learning process. It investigates what Dewey meant by art as experience and aesthetic experience. Working with Dewey as a philosopher of reconstruction of experience, the discussion examines responses to poetic writings and communication in learning situations. In seeking to discover what poetic writing does (...) within the experience of a reader and writer it considers three specific learning situations. Firstly there is an examination of a five-year old child’s experience of shared communication through the story of Horton the Elephant. Secondly there is an account of the responses of an 11-year-old child to poetry in a 1950s classroom setting, and later reconstructions of those experiences by the child as adult. Thirdly, the paper extends to intensive writing with 12 to 13-year-old children. The focus is on the process of learning via acts of expression as aesthetic experiences. Through art as experience the child develops perceptions that recover a coherence and continuity of aesthetic experience in art as in everyday life. (shrink)

Moral disengagement is a process whereby the self-regulatory mechanisms that would otherwise sanction unethical conduct can be selectively disabled. The present research proposed that moral disengagement might be adopted in the endorsement of asylum seeker policies in Australia, and in order to test this, a scale was developed and was validated in two studies. Factor analysis demonstrated that a 2-factor, 16-item structure had the best fit, and the construct validity of the scale was supported. Results provide evidence for the use (...) of moral disengagement in the context of asylum seekers as a means of rationalizing conduct that may otherwise be sanctioned. (shrink)

In Philosophy 51, October 1976, 471–472, Professor Tom Regan takes ud to task for our attack on Kant's theory concerning the moral status of animals. The ground of Regan's criticism is that ‘… it is clear that Kant does not suppose, as… Broadie and Pybus erroneously assume that he does, that the concept of maltreating an animal, on the one hand, and, on the other, the concept of using an animal as a means, are the same or logically equivalent concepts’ (...) . Regan argues that Kant does not say that we should avoid treating animals as a means. Rather, he claims, Kant's view is that we have an indirect duty not to maltreat animals, since in maltreating them we treat, or run the risk of treating, as a mere means rationality in ourselves or in others. (shrink)