Essays in Memory of Richard Helgerson: Laureations brings together new essays by leading literary scholars of the British and European middle ages and early modern period who have been influenced by the groundbreaking scholarship of Richard Helgerson. The contributors evince the ongoing impact of Helgerson's work in critical debates including those of nationalism, formal analysis, and literary careerism.

Background Researchers engaged in the study of the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics and genomics are often publicly funded and intend their work to be in the public interest. These features of U.S. ELSI research create an imperative for these scholars to demonstrate the public utility of their work and the expectation that they engage in research that has potential to inform policy or practice outcomes. In support of the fulfillment of this “translational mandate,” the Center for (...) ELSI Resources and Analysis (CERA), funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), aims to facilitate community-informed, ELSI research results synthesis and dissemination. However, little is known about how ELSI research scholars define the goals of translation and imagine the intended users of their research findings.Methodology We distributed a Qualtrics survey to ELSI scholars that aimed to determine: (1) researchers’ expectations for their research findings in relation to policy or practice outcomes, (2) the stakeholder groups researchers believe could benefit from their research findings, and (3) the methods researchers use to foster the uptake of their findings by those stakeholders.Results Most ELSI researchers surveyed thought there were stakeholders that could benefit from their research findings, including health care professionals, at-risk individuals, patients, and their family members, policy-makers, and researchers/scientists, and expected their research findings to inform the creation or revision of laws, policies, or practice guidelines. Most researchers planned to disseminate findings directly to relevant stakeholders, with fewer expecting dissemination support from research funders, universities, or other entities.Conclusion The broad range of research topics, disciplines, and set of potential end users represented in ELSI reseach complicate the work of a knowledge broker. Nonetheless, the CERA can play an important role in disseminating ELSI results to relevant stakeholders. Further research should explore outreach mechanisms. (shrink)

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

Public investments in genomic and precision medicine have begun to yield clinically useful interventions, most recently, for example, two new, FDA-approved gene therapies for sickle cell disease (F...

Au détour de l'ordre géométrique, dans un scolie de la Quatrième partie de l'Éthique faisant suite à l'énoncé de la règle fondamentale qui associe l'utilité du corps humain, et par conséquent le bien de l'individu, à la recherche d'une constance fondamentale dans le rapport de ses parties, surgit un scolie baroque, où passe l'ombre de la mort et qui débouche sur d'inquiétantes possibilités de mutation, voire de transmutation de l'identité : « Il arrive qu'un homme subit de tels changements, que (...) je ne dirai pas aisément qu'il est le même. C'est ce que j'ai entendu raconter de certain poète espagnol qui avait été atteint de maladie et qui, bien qu'il en fût guéri, demeura cependant dans un tel oubli de sa vie passée, qu'il ne croyait pas que les nouvelles et les tragédies qu'il avait faites fussent de lui ; et certes on eût pu le tenir pour un nourrisson adulte, s'il eût oublié aussi sa langue maternelle... » De ce texte perturbateur et de sa « contradiction » centrale, qui ont semé le trouble chez les commentateurs, François Zourabichvili qui en propose une explication systématique fait le fil conducteur d'une relecture complète des relations qui associent la métaphysique spinozienne à son anthropologie et à sa politique, centrée sur la question de la transformation comme « oubli », voire amnésie d'une forme antérieure, et « imagination », chimérique ou non, d'une nouvelle aptitude du corps. Il démontre ainsi la rigoureuse correspondance qui, d'un bout à l'autre de l'œuvre, associe la question d'une sortie de l'enfance à celle d'une émancipation de l'imaginaire monarchique. A l'encontre d'une lecture naïvement « révolutionnaire » du spinozisme, surgit alors ce qu'on peut appeler un conservatisme : mais dont le paradoxe est éclatant, car il tend moins à préserver l'état de choses existant qu'à inventer les conditions d'une vraie conservation de soi (neutralisation de la mort et de la servitude). Pages de début Avertissement Introduction Première étude. Envelopper une autre nature / envelopper la nature Introduction 1. La transition éthique dans le Court traité 2. La transition éthique dans le Traité de la réforme de l'entendement Deuxième étude. L'image rectifiée de l'enfance Introduction 3. La figure de l'infans adultus 4. Enfance et philosophie 5. Enfance et mémoire Conclusion sur le rapport à l'enfance Troisième étude. Puissance de Dieu et puissance des rois Introduction 6. La confusion des deux puissances et la dérive baroque du cartésianisme 7. Le rêve transformiste de la monarchie absolue 8. Qu'est-cequ'une multitude libre? Guerre et civilisation Bibliographie Index. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts three different substantive principles of justice for making health care priority-setting or “rationing” decisions: need principles, maximising principles and egalitarian principles. The principles are compared by tracing out their implications for a hypothetical rationing decision involving four identified patients. This decision has been the subject of an empirical study of public opinion based on small-group discussions, which found that the public seem to support a pluralistic combination of all three kinds of rationing principle. In conclusion, (...) it is suggested that there is room for further work by philosophers and others on the development of a coherent and pluralistic theory of health care rationing which accords with public opinions. (shrink)

A cross-disciplinary dialogue among writers who are sympathetic to the humanist tradition, and interested in developing a new humanist project through debate. The book emerges from the Institute of Ideas' festival, the Battle of Ideas.

Ideas can define and transform society, but how healthy is intellectual life today? In a period when Big Brother refers not to George Orwell but to a reality TV show, and when bright young things are developing gameshow formats rather than scribbling essays; when thinkers join think tanks to design short-term government policy rather than reflecting on and challenging the status quo, and when the ever growing number of graduates seem more interested in job prospects than academic endeavour, is intellectual (...) life in terminal decline? This book looks at the idea of the public intellectual, considering whether such thinkers are becoming an endangered species. It also looks at the legacy of relativism and ethical doubts about the pursuit of knowledge, and the effect of such developments on intellectual life. The final section considers the expansion of higher education and the changing role of the academic. Taken together, the essays in this collection form a comprehensive overview of the intellectual climate today, and the possibilities for the future. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal _Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy _. (shrink)

L'ordre matériel du savoir Comment les savants travaillent | XVIe-XXIe siècles L'article, le graphique, la fiche, le poster, le cahier de laboratoire sont quelques-uns des nombreux outils du travail scientifique étudiés dans cet ouvrage qui offre une histoire matérielle de la culture savante entre le XVIe et le XXIe siècle. Il rend manifeste, de la médecine à l'archéologie, de la géographie à la chirurgie, ce que l'on ne voit pas ou plus dans les résultats : la masse imposante de l'outillage (...) à disposition, sa grande diversité, son accroissement constant. S'y ajoutent les ressources des savants eux-mêmes, celles de leurs sens éduqués ou amplifiés par de multiples instruments. Les configurations fascinantes que ces outils et leur emploi créent entre écrit, image, parole, regard et geste révèlent le caractère composite, multimédia et multisensoriel, de l'ordre raisonné du savoir. Explorer la science dans sa matérialité éclaire d'un jour nouveau des pans entiers de l'histoire intellectuelle. Les outils de travail ne sont pas de simples à-côtés des idées. Ils participent étroitement à la connaissance, entre objectivité scientifique et éléments empruntés à l'expérience des sens. Un essai d'anthropologie des savoirs qui porte un regard original sur l'ordinaire de la science. (shrink)

Frances Yates, leading Renaissance scholar of her time, revolutionised the study of art, science and ideas. She was a pioneer in her emphasis on visual culture, Fellow of the British Academy, and a remarkable twentieth century philosopher. This set provides immediate access to the work of this very important late twentieth century philosopher.

Although deductive reasoning is a closed system, one's beliefs about the world can influence validity judgements. To understand the associated functional neuroanatomy of this belief-bias we studied 14 volunteers using event-related fMRI, as they performed reasoning tasks under neutral, facilitatory and inhibitory belief conditions. We found evidence for the engagement of a left temporal lobe system during belief-based reasoning and a bilateral parietal lobe system during belief-neutral reasoning. Activation of right lateral prefrontal cortex was evident when subjects inhibited a prepotent (...) response associated with belief-bias and correctly completed a logical task, a finding consistent with its putative role in cognitive monitoring. By contrast, when logical reasoning was overcome by belief-bias, there was engagement of ventral medial prefrontal cortex, a region implicated in affective processing. This latter involvement suggests that belief-bias effects in reasoning may be mediated through an influence of emotional processes on reasoning. (shrink)

This article examines how on-air conversations between journalists indicate how US television coverage of a race-related crisis can reflect racial ideology. Using critical discourse analysis, we examined interjournalistic discourse about African Americans in national network and cable news programs that aired after Hurricane Katrina reached New Orleans. While we expected conversational semantic items from conservative Fox News to reflect racial ideology, we also found such discursive elements from politically moderate and progressive news organizations such as CBS, CNN, and MSNBC. These (...) findings are consistent with Anxiety Uncertainty Management theory, which predicts that exposure to stressors in unfamiliar settings causes individuals to think in ethnocentric, dichotomous, stereotypical ways. Our research underscores the impact of white privilege on language, communication, and news production, and the need for cultural competence training to enhance journalists’ ability to discuss racial matters with ease. (shrink)

This study examines the complex and dynamic relationship between Kosovo and NATO. It argues that Kosovo’s prospects for NATO membership are shaped by an array of contradictory and often confusing international and domestic political forces. It draws on theoretical sources, media reports, and descriptive statistical data to the factors shaping expectations for NATO membership. The study relies on theories and concepts from the established and evolving literature on alliance formation and expansion to explain how states aspiring for membership in security (...) organizations must navigate a pattern of political and security hurdles in their quest for membership accession. It then explores Kosovo’s case for NATO membership by examining whether Kosovo has met key political and security benchmarks and devotes significant attention to the settlement dispute with Serbia, the roles played by the U.S. and E.U., and identifies alternative paths for Kosovo’s membership in NATO. (shrink)

Une théologie est-elle encore possible après la déconstruction de la pensée métaphysique? Cette étude ne cesse de tourner autour de cette question, en interrogeant et en se laissant interroger par les écrits de Jacques Derrida.

Various promising claims have been made that business can help alleviate poverty, and can do so in ways that add value to the bottom line. This article begins by highlighting that the evidence for such claims is not especially strong, particularly if business is thought of as a development agent, i.e. an organization that consciously and accountably contributes towards pro-poor outcomes. It goes on to ask whether, if we did know more about either the business case or the poverty alleviation (...) case, would this give cause for greater optimism that business could make a significant contribution to development. By exploring the experiences of producers of Fairtrade tea in Kenya, we reveal the complex nature of what constitutes a beneficial outcome for the poor and marginalized, and the gap that can exist between ethical intentions and the experience of their intended beneficiaries. The lessons of these experiences are relevant for Fairtrade and any commercial initiative that seeks to achieve outcomes beneficial and recognizable to the poor, and raise questions about the integration of social and instrumental outcomes that a future generation of ethical entrepreneurship will need to address. (shrink)

Wagering contingent on a previous decision, or post-decision wagering, has recently been proposed to measure conscious awareness. Whilst intuitively appealing, it remains unclear whether economic context interacts with subjective confidence and how such interactions might impact on the measurement of awareness. Here we propose a signal detection model which predicts that advantageous wagers placed on the identity of preceding stimuli are affected by loss aversion, despite stimulus visibility remaining constant. This pattern of predicted results was evident in a psychophysical task (...) where we independently manipulated perceptual and economic factors. Changes in wagering behaviour induced by changes in wager size were largely driven by changes in criterion, consistent with the model. However, for near-threshold stimuli, a reduction in wagering efficiency was also evident, consistent with an apparent but potentially illusory decrease in awareness of the stimulus. These findings challenge an assertion that post-decision wagering provides a direct index of subjective awareness. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt disavowed the title of “philosopher,” and is known above all as a political theorist. But the relationship between philosophy and politics animates her entire oeuvre. We find her addressing the topic in The Human Condition (1958), in Between Past and Future (a collection of essays written in the early 1960s), and in Men in Dark Times (another collection of essays, this one from the late sixties). It is treated in her Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, composed during the (...) seventies, and also in the posthumous Life of the Mind, two of three projected volumes of which were complete when she died in 1975. Certainly, Arendt’s thought cannot be understood without taking into account her deep suspicion of and equally deep commitment to philosophy in the context of political reflection. For all that, her writings on this abiding preoccupation do not gel into a systematically articulated theory or programmatic statement. Instead, they reflect Arendt’s appreciation of what remained for her a “vital tension” – an enigma. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated whether differences in the experience of regret may be a potential explanation for damaging behaviours associated with psychopathy and criminal offending. Participants were incarcerated offenders (n = 60) and non-incarcerated controls (n = 20). Psychopathic traits were characterised with the Psychopathic Checklist: Screening Version. Regret was assessed by responses to outcomes on a simulated gambling task. Incarcerated offenders experienced a reduced sense of regret as compared to non-incarcerated controls. We obtained some evidence that specific psychopathic (...) factors and facets could differentially relate to the experience and use of emotions. Our data provide initial evidence of important associations between negative emotions and decision behaviour in the context of criminal offending. (shrink)

A growing trend toward knowledge workers and more highly educated employees has made effective human resource management a key metric separating the corporate wheat from the chaff. Studies confirm that the way people are managed and developed delivers a higher return on investment than new technology, R&D, competitive strategy or quality initiatives. In this book, the authors contend that the broader management models of Management by Instructions and Management by Objectives fail to position organizations for competitive success. What is needed (...) is a strategic leadership tool whose practical application will mine market potential through its relevance to individual organizational members. With a step by step guide to implementation, Managing by Values is just such a tool. (shrink)

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they willing to sacrifice it for other attributes, such as income and health? Tackling this question has largely been the preserve of philosophers. In this article, we find out just how much happiness matters to ordinary citizens. Our sample consists of nearly 13,000 members of the UK and US (...) general populations. We ask them to choose between, and make judgments over, lives that are high in different types of happiness and low in income, physical health, family, career success, or education. We find that people by and large choose the life that is highest in happiness but health is by far the most important other concern, with considerable numbers of people choosing to be healthy rather than happy. We discuss some possible reasons for this preference. (shrink)

The present chapter provides a review of the literature addressing changes in memory performance in older adults (often retired individuals with an age between 60 and 80 years), compared to younger adults (often college students around age 20). While it is well-established that memory performance declines in older adults (e.g., Kausler, 1994; Ryan, 1992), it is now clear that not all aspects of memory are impaired (e.g., Balota & Duchek, 1988; Burke & Light, 1981; Craik, 1983; Schacter, Kihlstrom, Kaszniak & (...) Valdiserri, 1993; Shimamura, 1989). Dissociations across age groups with respect to impairments in different memory types/processes have provided (a) insights into the influence of aging on neuropsychological underpinnings of memory, and (b) leverage for memory theorists to develop a better understanding of normal memory functioning. This chapter involves three sections: First, we provide a summary of selected empirical findings that document the nature of age-related changes across a wide set of memory tasks. Although it is beyond the scope of the present chapter to review the rich literature concerning memory and aging, this section will acquaint the reader with examples of paradigms used to study distinct aspects of memory and the conclusions that researchers have reached regarding the influence of age on each memory type/process. Second, we discuss the major theoretical perspectives that have been proposed as explanatory constructs for these age-related memory deficits. Finally, we provide an overview of recent developments that shed some light on understanding the possible neurological underpinnings of aging on memory functioning. (shrink)

Estimating the financial value of pain informs issues as diverse as the market price of analgesics, the cost-effectiveness of clinical treatments, compensation for injury, and the response to public hazards. Such costs are assumed to reflect a stable trade-off between relief of discomfort and money. Here, using an auction-based health market experiment, we show the price people pay for relief of pain is strongly determined by the local context of the market, determined either by recent intensities of pain, or their (...) immediately disposable income, but not overall wealth. The absence of a stable valuation metric suggests that the dynamic behaviour of health markets is not predictable from the static behaviour of individuals. We conclude that the results follow the dynamics of habit formation models of economic theory, and as such, the study provides the first scientific basis for this type of preference modelling. (shrink)

From its inception, genomics has been a speculative endeavor, fixated on a far-off horizon that would deliver on the promise of targeted diagnostics and individualized therapeutics (Fortun 2008). M...

If Martin Heidegger was a philosopher who poetized, Wallace Stevens was a poet who philosophized. In "The Sail of Ulysses," one of his later poems, Stevens speaks enigmatically of a "right to be." The phrase is straightforward, if taken to indicate the right to life. But Stevens is rarely, if ever, straightforward. The poem is much more understandable if we take "being" in a Heideggerian sense, as an understanding of what it means to be.

This article explores the relationship between class and the gendered domestic division of labor by examining how the contribution by husbands to housework in dual-career families varies across the class system. The article uses data from the United States and Sweden. The findings indicate that location in the class structure is not a powerful or systematic determinant of variations in the division of labor across households.

The 21st century, otherwise unremarkable after the Great Climate Change Scare of its early decades was revealed to be a hoax, is remembered for its solution to an age-old problem.