This book cuts through the complex writing style of the seminal philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. It disentangles his ideas, explains them one by one, and then puts the pieces back together for application to educational issues. Accessible to a general readership, this study provides useful insights into Peirce's pragmatism for educators and philosophers.

Although we all learn differently, we all need to be able to engage certain fundamental reasoning skills if we are to manoeuvre successfully through life—however we define success. Peirce's philosophy provides us with a framework for helping students (and ourselves) develop and hone the ability for making deliberate and well‐considered choices. For, embedded within Peirce's complete body of work is a design for thinking that provides a sturdy foundation for the development of three important learning capabilities. These capabilities are 1) (...) the ability to identify, compare, and contrast qualities, 2) the ability to perform analyses, and 3) the ability to interpret the meaning of signs. Although these capabilities may seem like the sort of skills that only older and academically inclined students can master, even young children and the intellectually challenged can learn to use them as well. Once teachers learn to develop their own intellectual potential by expanding these capabilities within themselves, they will be able to begin bringing about the development of these capabilities in their students. Once identified, developed, and applied to the mastery of educational skills and subject matter, these three fundamental learning capabilities (qualification, analysis, and interpretation), can form the foundation of a common‐sense approach to educational reform. Peirce asserts that good reasoning must be informed by ethical considerations, which in turn has been informed by the highest of aesthetic impulses. From this, we can extrapolate the importance that an educational model based upon Peirce's philosophy must place upon aesthetic and ethical considerations, as well as logical ones. Once fully understood, the philosophy of education embedded within Peirce's epistemology can revolutionize educational practices at all levels of learning. (shrink)

Although we all learn differently, we all need to be able to engage certain fundamental reasoning skills if we are to manoeuvre successfully through life—however we define success. Peirce's philosophy provides us with a framework for helping students develop and hone the ability for making deliberate and well‐considered choices. For, embedded within Peirce's complete body of work is a design for thinking that provides a sturdy foundation for the development of three important learning capabilities. These capabilities are 1) the ability (...) to identify, compare, and contrast qualities, 2) the ability to perform analyses, and 3) the ability to interpret the meaning of signs. Although these capabilities may seem like the sort of skills that only older and academically inclined students can master, even young children and the intellectually challenged can learn to use them as well. Once teachers learn to develop their own intellectual potential by expanding these capabilities within themselves, they will be able to begin bringing about the development of these capabilities in their students. Once identified, developed, and applied to the mastery of educational skills and subject matter, these three fundamental learning capabilities , can form the foundation of a common‐sense approach to educational reform. Peirce asserts that good reasoning must be informed by ethical considerations, which in turn has been informed by the highest of aesthetic impulses. From this, we can extrapolate the importance that an educational model based upon Peirce's philosophy must place upon aesthetic and ethical considerations, as well as logical ones. Once fully understood, the philosophy of education embedded within Peirce's epistemology can revolutionize educational practices at all levels of learning. (shrink)

Scientific and philosophical literature on causality has become highly specialised. It is hard to find suitable access points for students, young researchers, or professionals outside this domain. This book provides a guide to the complex literature, explains the scientific problems of causality and the philosophical tools needed to address them.

This article integrates research on gendered organizations and the work-family interface to investigate an innovative workplace initiative, the Results-Only Work Environment, implemented in the corporate headquarters of Best Buy, Inc. While flexible work policies common in other organizations “accommodate” individuals, this initiative attempts a broader and deeper critique of the organizational culture. We address two research questions: How does this initiative attempt to change the masculinized ideal worker norm? And what do women’s and men’s responses reveal about the persistent ways (...) that gender structures work and family life? Data demonstrate the ideal worker norm is pervasive and powerful, even as employees begin critically examining expectations regarding work time that have historically privileged men. Employees’ responses to ROWE are also gendered. Women are more enthusiastic, while men are more cautious. Ambivalence about and resistance to change is expressed in different ways depending on gender and occupational status. (shrink)

Ethics and professionalism -- Ethical theory and philosophy -- Ethical principles and values -- Social responsibility -- Codes of ethics -- Ethical decision making in dental hygiene and dentistry -- Society and the State Dental Practice Act -- Dental hygienist/patient relationship -- Dental hygienist/dentist-employer relationship -- Risk management -- Case studies, activities, and testlets -- Appendix A : American Dental Association Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct.

_Feminist Epistemology _is the area of feminist philosophy that deals specifically with questions about the nature of knowledge. It draws attention to the fact that, historically, women have been excluded or discouraged from what were typically recognized as the important areas or disciplines of knowledge, particularly in academic institutions. It examines whether the exclusion of women from various knowledge communities has had an impact on the subject as a whole and looks at the ways in which feminist epistemology connects with (...) ongoing central concerns within the tradition. Phyllis Rooney introduces and assesses the main developments, issues and contentions that have come out of this major topic within philosophy and examines the ways in which the subject has been enriched in terms of the feminist evaluation. Her style is exceptionally clear and the book will serve anyone doing a course in epistemology or feminist philosophy. (shrink)

After a decade of intense debate about mechanisms, there is still no consensus characterization. In this paper we argue for a characterization that applies widely to mechanisms across the sciences. We examine and defend our disagreements with the major current contenders for characterizations of mechanisms. Ultimately, we indicate that the major contenders can all sign up to our characterization.

This paper was written for a workshop, Chance and Contingency in Indian Philosophy, that was held at Yale University in May 2017. It examines the role that chance plays by focusing on the popular maxim of the crow and the palm tree. It argues that while representatives of different schools of thought were aware of the possibility of purely random occurrences, they dealt with it very differently. For some like the Vedāntins chance provided proof of their positions, while for others, (...) Naiyāyikas and Buddhists, chance was a challenge, particularly to their theories of inference. (shrink)

There has been a burst of work in the last couple of decades on mechanistic explanation, as an alternative to the traditional covering-law model of scientific explanation. That work makes some interesting claims about mechanistic explanations rendering phenomena ‘intelligible’, but does not develop this idea in great depth. There has also been a growth of interest in giving an account of scientific understanding, as a complement to an account of explanation, specifically addressing a three-place relationship between explanation, world, and the (...) scientific community. The aim of this paper is to use the contextual theory of scientific understanding to build an account of understanding phenomena using mechanistic explanations. This account will be developed and illustrated by examining the mechanisms of supernovae, which will allow synthesis of treatment of the life sciences and social sciences on the one hand, where many accounts of mechanisms were originally developed, and treatment of physics on the other hand, where the contextual theory drew its original inspiration. (shrink)

Why do ideas of how mechanisms relate to causality and probability differ so much across the sciences? Can progress in understanding the tools of causal inference in some sciences lead to progress in others? This book tackles these questions and others concerning the use of causality in the sciences.

Sartre posed a problem for himself in his discussion of bad faith: how is it possible to deceive oneself, given the unity and translucency of consciousness? Many critics of Sartre interpret translucency as transparency; some, such as M.R. Haight, conclude that Sartre's account of consciousness makes self-deception impossible.A reply to those critics takes the form of showing that translucent consciousness has a number of dimensions: (a) non-positional versus positional aspects; (b) prereflective versus reflective levels; (c) temporally synthetic flux; and (d) (...) the first-person perspective versus the third-person perspective. These dimensions enable Sartre to succeed in describing subtle and varied patterns of self-deception, based on such strategies as obscuring, evasion, distraction, misdescription and disavowal. The translucency of consciousness is not a barrier to self-deception.However, there is another problem in Sartre's claim that all purposive activity is conscious, including our practice of self-deception. The bodily subject of consciousness performs important purposive activities beyond the range of the most obscure non-positional consciousness. This calls into question Sartre's existentialist claim that we are wholly responsible for all we do. (shrink)

Mechanisms have become much-discussed, yet there is still no consensus on how to characterise them. In this paper, we start with something everyone is agreed on – that mechanisms explain – and investigate what constraints this imposes on our metaphysics of mechanisms. We examine two widely shared premises about how to understand mechanistic explanation: (1) that mechanistic explanation offers a welcome alternative to traditional laws-based explanation and (2) that there are two senses of mechanistic explanation that we call ‘epistemic explanation’ (...) and ‘physical explanation’. We argue that mechanistic explanation requires that mechanisms are both real and local. We then go on to argue that real, local mechanisms require a broadly active metaphysics for mechanisms, such as a capacities metaphysics. (shrink)

Russo and Williamson claim that establishing causal claims requires mechanistic and difference-making evidence. In this article, I will argue that Russo and Williamson's formulation of their thesis is multiply ambiguous. I will make three distinctions: mechanistic evidence as type vs object of evidence; what mechanism or mechanisms we want evidence of; and how much evidence of a mechanism we require. I will feed these more precise meanings back into the Russo–Williamson thesis and argue that it is both true and false: (...) two weaker versions of the thesis are worth supporting, while the stronger versions are not. Further, my distinctions are of wider concern because they allow us to make more precise claims about what kinds of evidence are required in particular cases. (shrink)

Philosophy’s adversarial argumentation style is often noted as a factor contributing to the low numbers of women in philosophy. I argue that there is a level of adversariality peculiar to philosophy that merits specific feminist examination, yet doesn’t assume controversial gender differences claims. The dominance of the argument-as-war metaphor is not warranted, since this metaphor misconstrues the epistemic role of good argument as a tool of rational persuasion. This metaphor is entangled with the persisting narrative of embattled reason, which, in (...) turn, is linked to the sexism-informed narrative of the “man of reason” continually warding off or battling “feminine” unreason. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of what motivates internalism about justification in light of recent attempts to undermine the intuitions long thought to favour it (Srinivasan in Philos Rev 129:395–431, 2020). On the account I propose, internalist intuitions are sensitive to epistemic agency. Internalist intuitions track a desire to acknowledge the epistemic agency one has in virtue of being in a position to meet the standards one is accountable to.

Craver claims that mechanistic explanation is ontic, while Bechtel claims that it is epistemic. While this distinction between ontic and epistemic explanation originates with Salmon, the ideas have changed in the modern debate on mechanistic explanation, where the frame of the debate is changing. I will explore what Bechtel and Craver’s claims mean, and argue that good mechanistic explanations must satisfy both ontic and epistemic normative constraints on what is a good explanation. I will argue for ontic constraints by drawing (...) on Craver’s work in Sect. 2.1, and argue for epistemic constraints by drawing on Bechtel’s work in Sect. 2.2. Along the way, I will argue that Bechtel and Craver actually agree with this claim. I argue that we should not take either kind of constraints to be fundamental, in Sect. 3, and close in Sect. 4 by considering what remains at stake in making a distinction between ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation. I suggest that we should not concentrate on either kind of constraint, to the neglect of the other, arguing for the importance of seeing the relationship as one of integration. (shrink)

The responses of 178 Latin dioceses in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to the Preparatory Document for the Synod on Synodality were synthesized in fourteen regional reports. From these reports, and a report of lay groups, the USCCB produced the US report, which was synthesized with 111 other national reports into the Working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS). The latter was provided to seven continental assemblies. North American participants discussed the DCS in virtual meetings, and a (...) writing team produced the North American report. The synthesized result of the continental assemblies’ reports was the synod’s 2023 Instrumentum laboris. This article discusses US diocesan participation and the North American response to the DCS as they contributed to the Instrumentum laboris’ statement relative to “the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate.” It includes a table documenting US diocesan responses to questions of women’s participation in the Church. (shrink)

The debate about the rational and the social in science has sometimes been developed in the context of a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Paying particular attention to two important discussion in the last decade, by Longino and by McMullin, I argue that a fuller understanding of values in science ultimately requires abandoning the distinction itself. This is argued directly in terms of an analysis of the lack of clarity concerning what epistemic values are. I also argue that the (...) philosophical import of much of the feminist work in philosophy of science is restricted by any kind of strict adherence to the distinction. (shrink)

In this paper, we compare the mechanisms of protein synthesis and natural selection. We identify three core elements of mechanistic explanation: functional individuation, hierarchical nestedness or decomposition, and organization. These are now well understood elements of mechanistic explanation in fields such as protein synthesis, and widely accepted in the mechanisms literature. But Skipper and Millstein have argued that natural selection is neither decomposable nor organized. This would mean that much of the current mechanisms literature does not apply to the mechanism (...) of natural selection.We take each element of mechanistic explanation in turn. Having appreciated the importance of functional individuation, we show how decomposition and organization should be better understood in these terms. We thereby show that mechanistic explanation by protein synthesis and natural selection are more closely analogous than they appear—both possess all three of these core elements of a mechanism widely recognized in the mechanisms literature. (shrink)

One needs to recognize that the perinatal period is a vulnerable time where negative attitudes, words and actions can have an emotionally damaging effect on birthing women, who are especially sensitive to how they are treated, because of their high oxytocin levels. This case report depicts a traumatic birth in which the mother was needlessly separated from her baby and also harshly treated by the personnel, which had an emotionally devastating impact on the mother/baby relationship. This case report will demonstrate (...) how psychotherapy was used to heal this distress. (shrink)

The Chinese traditionally have valued sons over daughters, depending on their sons to support them in old age. Recent changes, however, suggest a shift toward greater gender equality, with daughters also keeping elderly parents. The present study, undertaken in 1979 in the People's Republic of China, assessed attitudes of 48 university staff members toward financial support for aged parents and living arrangements in old age, with an emphasis on gender differences. We found that most sons and daughters gave financial support (...) to their parents regularly and most men and women still believed adult children should share housing with their aged parents. In this sample, the sons assumed this responsibility far more than the daughters, and few of the respondents believed their parents should live with a daughter. However, when asked to project their own preferences in old age, sons thought they would prefer to live with a son, but daughters feel they would like to live with a daughter. These results are discussed in terms of two important cultural changes, the new marriage laws and the one-child policy, that were implemented at the time of the study. (shrink)

Is it ever aesthetically permissible to engage in acts of cultural appropriation? This paper shows how recent work on aesthetic normativity can help answer this question. Drawing on the work of Lopes and McGonigal, I argue that in many cases those who engage in cultural appropriation act against their aesthetic reasons. Lopes and McGonigal advocate for externalist accounts of aesthetic reasons according to which whether or not an agent has an aesthetic reason to act depends on whether or not their (...) action will be an aesthetic achievement. Employing this framework, I argue that insofar as acts of cultural appropriation are seldom aesthetic achievements, many agents who engage in culturally appropriative aesthetic activities act against their aesthetic reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an (...) ontology are explicitly articulated. We distinguish three such desiderata. The first is a more permissive descriptive ontology of science, the second a more reductive ontology prioritising understanding, and the third a more reductive ontology prioritising minimalism. We compare MDC’s entities-activities ontology to its closest rival, the entities-capacities ontology, and argue that the entities-activities ontology does better on all three desiderata. (shrink)

Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World is an apt title for this collection of essays in honour of Roger C. Hutchinson who, over many decades, has encouraged and participated in shaping a Canadian contextual social ethics. His abiding interest in social ethics and in religious engagement with public issues is reflected in his life’s work — seeking the consensus and self-knowledge required to achieve cooperation in the search for a just, participatory, and sustainable society. One of Roger Hutchinson’s many notable (...) accomplishments is his development of a method of dialogue for ethical clarification in situations of diversity. Some of the essays collected here apply this method to specific issues, while others discuss how religious persons and organizations can and do co-operate in a pluralistic world to achieve social and ecological well-being. All essays are of keen interest to those concerned with the role and function of ethics at the matrix of religious conviction and social transformation. For nearly three decades Roger Hutchinson has been based at Victoria University in Toronto, first in religious studies, then at Emmanuel College, where he completed his teaching career as professor of church and society while serving as principal from 1996 to 2001. (shrink)

Organizations may need to attract occupational groups they did not recruit so far to implement strategic changes. Against the backdrop of this practical problem, this study introduces and explores an occupation-based measure of person-organization fit: occupational fit. I investigate its relationship with employer attractiveness based on human capital theory and explore the role of employer image as a moderator in this relationship. I surveyed 153 software engineers and mechanical engineers to analyze whether their occupational fit with software engineering and mechanical (...) engineering firms is related to employer attractiveness. I find that occupational fit is only related to a firm’s employer attractiveness among software engineers. Employer image does not moderate this relationship. A qualitative follow-up study proposes first explanations for the unexpected differences between the two occupations by indicating that occupations may differ in the logic they apply to determine fit and their degree of professionalization. The study contributes to research by highlighting the neglected role of occupation in recruitment research and exploring potential boundary conditions of recruitment for fit. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

A discussion of synodality in the Catholic Church, addressing the competing claims of prophecy and law, and examining the ways lay people are excluded from governance and from having their voices heard. The paper addresses the question of whom to obey, the law or the prophets, and reviews the ongoing confusion between the two apparent opposing forces. The paper describes the creation and recent functioning of the Synod of Bishops and lay-clerical tension in the Church, and the ways each contributes (...) to either positive or negative discernment. Finally, in light of the ongoing Synod on Synodality, the paper examines and explains the discernment process in Ignatian terms, concluding that only Spirit-driven discussion is fruitful. (shrink)

Pope Francis’s decision to establish a Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women in August 2016 reemphasizes the question : what do we know about women deacons? We know they existed. There is ample literary, epigraphical, and historical evidence that women deacons ministered in the West at least to the 12th century, and longer in the East. That they existed presents three questions : What do we know about the liturgical ceremonies bishops used to create women deacons? What (...) do we know about their tasks and duties? What do we know about the theology of the diaconate that would admit or restrict women from diaconal ordination? (shrink)

A revision of the author's thesis, University of Michigan, 1969. Bibliography: p. [154]-161. Includes index.

In this opening chapter, we review the literature on information quality. Our major aim is to introduce the issues, and trace some of the history of the debates, with a view to situating the chapters in this volume – whose authors come from different disciplines – to help make them accessible to readers with different backgrounds and expertise. We begin in this section by tracing some influential analyses of IQ in computer science. This is a useful basis for examining some (...) examples of developing work on IQ in section two. We look at some cases for applying IQ in section three, and conclude with some discussion points in section four. (shrink)

Reason has regularly been portrayed and understood in terms of images and metaphors that involve the exclusion or denigration of some element-body, passion, nature, instinct-that is cast as "feminine." Drawing upon philosophical insight into metaphor, I examine the impact of this gendering of reason. I argue that our conceptions of mind, reason, unreason, female, and male have been distorted. The politics of "rational" discourse has been set up in ways that still subtly but powerfully inhibit the voice and agency of (...) women. (shrink)