Attempts to understand visual attention have produced models based on location, in which attention selects particular regions of space, and models based on other visual attributes . Previous studies of inattentional blindness have contributed to our understanding of attention by suggesting that the detection of an unexpected object depends on the distance of that object from the spatial focus of attention. When the distance of a briefly flashed object from both fixation and the focus of attention is systematically varied, detection (...) appears to have a location-based component. However, the likelihood that people will detect an unexpected event in sustained and dynamic displays may depend on more than just spatial location. We investigated the influence of spatial location on inattentional blindness under precisely controlled, sustained and dynamic conditions. We found that although location-based models cannot fully account for the detection of unexpected objects, spatial location does play a role even when displays are visible for an extended period. (shrink)

John Dupr argues that 'scientific imperialism' can result in 'misguided' science being considered acceptable. 'Misguided' is an explicitly normative term and the use of the pejorative 'imperialistic' is implicitly normative. However, Dupr has not justified the normative dimension of his critique. We identify two ways in which it might be justified. It might be justified if colonisation prevents a discipline from progressing in ways that it might otherwise progress. It might also be justified if colonisation prevents the expression of important (...) values in the colonised discipline. This second concern seems most pressing in the human sciences. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ has sold over a million copies in more than twenty languages and has remained one of the ten most cited academic works for the past half century. In contrast, Karl Popper's seminal book _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ has lapsed into relative obscurity. Although the two men debated the nature of science only once, the legacy of this encounter has dominated intellectual and public discussions on the topic ever since. Almost universally recognized as (...) the modern watershed in the philosophy of science, Kuhn's relativistic vision of shifting paradigms -- which asserted that science was just another human activity, like art or philosophy, only more specialized -- triumphed over Popper's more positivistic belief in science's revolutionary potential to falsify society's dogmas. But has this victory been beneficial for science? Steve Fuller argues that not only has Kuhn's dominance had an adverse impact on the field but both thinkers have been radically misinterpreted in the process. This debate raises a vital question: Can science remain an independent, progressive force in society, or is it destined to continue as the technical wing of the military-industrial complex? Drawing on original research -- including the Kuhn archives at MIT -- Fuller offers a clear account of "Kuhn vs. Popper" and what it will mean for the future of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

In this book, Steve Gronert Ellerhoff explores short stories by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, written between 1943 and 1968, with a post-Jungian approach. Drawing upon archetypal theories of myth from Joseph Campbell, James Hillman and their forbearer C. G. Jung, Ellerhoff demonstrates how short fiction follows archetypal patterns that can illuminate our understanding of the authors, their times, and their culture. In practice, a post-Jungian ‘mythodology’ is shown to yield great insights for the literary criticism of short fiction. (...) Chapters in this volume carefully contextualise and historicize each story, including Bradbury and Vonnegut’s earliest and most imaginatively fantastic works. The archetypal constellations shaping Vonnegut’s early works are shown to be war and fragmentation, while those in Bradbury’s are family and the wholeness of the sun. Analysis is complemented by the explored significance of illustrations that featured alongside the stories in their first publications. By uncovering the ways these popular writers redressed old myths in new tropes—and coined new narrative elements for hopes and fears born of their era—the book reveals a fresh method which can be applied to all imaginative short stories, increasing understanding and critical engagement. Post-Jungian Psychology and the Short Stories of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut is an important text for a number of fields, from Jungian and Post-Jungian studies to short story theoriesand American studies to Bradbury and Vonnegut studies. Scholars and students of literature will come away with a renewed appreciation for an archetypal approach to criticism, while the book will also be of great interest to practising depth psychologists seeking to incorporate short stories into therapy. (shrink)

Robert Pirsig wrote of Steve Hagen's first book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense, "For those who are certain that objectivity and intellect are the ground floor of all knowledge, this can be a valuable trip to the sub-basement." Now, in The Grand Delusion, Hagen drills deeper, into the most basic strengths, assumptions, and limitations of religion and belief, philosophy and inquiry, science, and technology. In doing so, he shines new light on the question Why is (...) there Something rather than Nothing?-and shines this light from an entirely unexpected (and largely unexplored) direction. Using a provocative mix of examples from physics, philosophy, religion, myth, neuroscience, and mathematics-and a clever, shade-throwing Socratic dialogue between Hagen and his foil, "ANYONE"-this book also offers a fresh perspective on other questions that science, philosophy, and religion have long grappled with. Such topics include: · What does it mean to exist? · What is mind? · What constitutes a measurement? · What exactly is motion? Layer by layer, Hagen examines the questions we ask, the way we ask them, the assumptions and beliefs we hold dear, and the ways in which we separate ourselves from the very answers we seek. In the process, he draws on sources that include Huang Po, Richard Feynman, Sir Arthur Eddington, Hui-Neng, Susan B. Anthony, Daniel Dennett, Joseph Campbell, Dogen, Emily Dickinson, Nagarjuna, Ikkyu, William I. McLaughlin, Sam Harris, and Henry David Thoreau. Ultimately, this book reveals how all of these fundamental questions-and many, many more-stem from a single error, a single unwarranted belief, a single Grand Delusion. The Grand Delusion helps readers move past this delusion into insight that can settle these age-old and seemingly intractable questions. (shrink)

Most self-improvement programs train people to identify and solve problems by grappling with them endlessly, often to no avail. Executive coach Steve Sisgold, however, knows that the body--not the mind--is the most reliable and effective pathway to realizing your innermost desires and achieving success. His unique, body-centric approach will show you how to get out of your head and take charge of every area of your life with increased awareness, clarity, and confidence. Whole Body Intelligence teaches you (...) how to become aware of subtle body sensations--such as gripping the phone or clenching your jaw during a tense conversation--and how to interpret their meanings, linking them to negative thoughts and behaviors that are impeding your success and happiness. You will recognize the patterns and imprints that have shaped your experiences and decisions for your entire life and learn how to change these thoughts and behaviors before they become self-sabotaging. No more overthinking! Decisions will become easier to make and you will stay engaged, resilient, and relaxed in any situation. With an easy-to-follow 30-day plan, body centric stress management tools, and inspiring stories of people who have changed their lives using this system, Whole Body Intelligence empowers you to channel the power of your body to achieve your wildest dreams. (shrink)

People of the western world now have unprecedented freedom to choose their religion. In this book, the world's leading sociologist of religion argues that the liberty and freedom to choose religion corrodes faith and that religion remains most vital when it is part of ethnic and national identity.

Thomas Kuhn's _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ is one of the best known and most influential books of the twentieth century. Whether they adore or revile him, critics and fans alike have tended to agree on one thing: Kuhn's ideas were revolutionary. But were they? Steve Fuller argues that Kuhn actually held a profoundly conservative view of science and how one ought to study its history. Early on, Kuhn came under the influence of Harvard President James Bryant Conant, (...) who had developed an educational program intended to help deflect Cold War unease over science's uncertain future by focusing on its illustrious past. Fuller argues that this rhetoric made its way into _Structure,_ which Fuller sees as preserving and reinforcing the old view that science really is just a steady accumulation of truths about the world. Fuller suggests that Kuhn, deliberately or not, shared the tendency in Western culture to conceal possible negative effects of new knowledge from the general public. Because it insists on a difference between a history of science for scientists and one suited to historians, Fuller charges that _Structure_ created the awkward divide that has led directly to the "Science Wars" and has stifled much innovative research. In conclusion, Fuller offers a way forward that rejects Kuhn's fixation on paradigms in favor of a conception of science as a social movement designed to empower society's traditionally disenfranchised elements. Certain to be controversial, _Thomas Kuhn_ must be read by anyone who has adopted, challenged, or otherwise engaged with _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions._ "Structure will never look quite the same again after Fuller. In that sense, he has achieved one of the main aims of his ambitious and impressively executed project."—Jon Turney, _Times Higher Education Supplement_ "Philosophies like Kuhn's narrow the possible futures of inquiry by politically methodizing and taming them. More republican philosophies will leave the future open. Mr. Fuller has amply succeeded in his program of distinguishing the one from the other."—William R. Everdell, _Washington Times_. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of libertarianism for welfare policy. There are two central arguments. First, the paper argues that if one adopts a libertarian framework, it makes most sense to be a Lockean right-libertarian. Second, the paper argues that this form of libertarianism leads to the endorsement of a fairly extensive set of redistributive welfare programs. Specifically, the paper argues that Lockean right-libertarians are committed to endorsing welfare programs under which the receipt of benefits is conditional on meeting (...) a work requirement, and also endorsing some form of publicly funded jobs of last resort for potential welfare recipients. (shrink)

In distributing the costs associated with climate change, most scholars have focused exclusively upon mitigation burdens. Few consider the distribution of adaptation costs, which concern projects that seek to minimize harm from human-induced climate change.

This article addresses the relationship between understanding and believing from the cognitive perspective of information-processing. I promote, within the scope of the Critical Discourse Analysis agenda, the relevance of an account of belief-fixation sustained by a combination of argumentative and cognitive insights. To this end, I first argue that discursive strategies fulfilling legitimization purposes, such as evidentials, tap into the same cognitive mechanisms as arguments. I then proceed to examine the idea that the most effective arguments are the ones (...) that manage to obscure or make irrelevant counter-evidence and propose, from a cognitive pragmatic perspective, a formulation of rhetorical effectiveness as a constraint on information-selection taking place at the interpretation stage and decisively influencing the evaluation stage responsible for belief-fixation. (shrink)

In the face of argument to the contrary, it is shown that there is defensible middle ground available for entity realism, between the extremes of scientific realism and empiricist antirealism. Cartwright's ([1983]) earlier argument for defensible middle ground between these extremes, which depended crucially on the viability of an underdeveloped distinction between inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the most probable cause (IPC), is examined and its defects are identified. The relationship between IBE and IPC is (...) clarified and a revised version of Cartwright's argument for defensible middle ground, which is free of the identified defects, is presented. (shrink)

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, Historical Materialism has brought together some of the most significant Marxist scholars working in this area to debate the issues. This text introduces some of the questions raised by the Civil War and Southern slavery for Marxists and introduces the essays that follow.

This paper presents a new way of thinking about the relationship between humans and the nonhuman animals in their care. Most ethical analysis of the treatment of nonhuman animals has focussed on questions of moral status, justice, and the wrongness of harming them. This paper does something different, it examines the role played by trust in interspecies relationships. In both agriculture and laboratory settings, humans deliberately foster trusting relationships with nonhuman animals. An intrinsic feature of the trusting relationship in (...) these settings is that it is created in order to be exploited and betrayed. However, little consideration has been given to asking what a deliberate betrayal of another species says about the character of those who carry out the betrayals. This paper argues that regardless of the moral status of nonhuman animals, a willingness to foster trust in order to exploit the vulnerability of a nonhuman suggests a serious character flaw. Our failure thus far to apprehend systematic forms of betrayal indicates a moral blind-spot when it comes to other species. (shrink)

One of the great virtues of LEGO is that it has the potential to make any one of us a Master Builder. In The LEGO Movie, Wyldstyle and Batman present a case study in the value of precision in language. If your basic two‐by‐four brick is the "uncarved block", LEGO makes "carved" ones too: cockpits, irregular minifig heads, all those cool bits. In the case of the LEGO brick, the less it's like a toy, the better we can play with (...) it. According to the Daoists, government is no different: the less it does, the better it works. One of the most telling differences between ancient Greek philosophy and ancient Chinese philosophy lies in their attitudes toward imprecision. LEGO Master Builders understand this. This is the Daoist model of government: commit yourself to the goal, be willing to be flexible, and voila, you've freed yourself of the tyranny of the instruction booklet. (shrink)

Although The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most influential books of this century, its author, Thomas Kuhn, is notorious for disavowing most of the consequences wrought by his text. Insofar as these consequences have appeared "radical" or "antipositivist," this article argues that they are very misleading, and that Kuhn's complaints are therefore well placed. Indeed, Kuhn unwittingly succeeded where Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology tried and failed, namely, to alleviate the anxieties of alienated academics (...) and defensive policy-makers by teaching them that they could all profit from solving their own paradigmatic puzzles. The influence of tructure is traced from the philosophy of science into the social sciences and science policy. Special attention is paid to the import of the General Education in Science curriculum at Harvard, in which Kuhn taught for most of the period prior to writing tructure. Harvard President James Conant had designed this curriculum in order to keep "pure science" in the good favor of the American public, in whose eyes it suffered after the use of the atomic bomb. While Conant was keen to stress the distinctiveness of science from other social practices, Kuhn's model seemed to provide a blueprint for reconstituting any practice as a science. This enabled potentially antiscientific academics to become scientists themselves, thereby neutralizing any radical challenges to the ends of scientific inquiry. The article concludes by reconstructing some of the inchoate possibilities for radical critique that Kuhn's success preempted, and by making some suggestions for how they may be recovered in the present academic environment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Lack of Autonomy: A View From the InsideSteve Weiner (bio)Keywordsagency, autonomy, deficit, determinismThe most vivid and truly overwhelming response I have to all arguments stressing agency/autonomy, that is, what lay people call free will, is this: that I’ve never had the sensation of acting autonomously since the onset of my mental illness on August 28, 1965. I have never been comfortable with saying that “I made a choice,” (...) or with other people either lecturing me or attempting to reassure me, often at the same time, by saying that I acted with autonomy/primary agency, as it were. That is my overwhelming subjective experience. I usually refrain from attempting to make a general case for determinism about myself or the universe in general, although, again, I feel far more determined than free. (I would note that Mary Midgley [2006] points out that the word determined and the concept, by extension, of determinism have two different meanings in say, social theory and geometry.)One strong criticism of this article I would put forward is that the Davidson and Shahan seemed to mention only depression among many diagnoses to make their case, although their French mentors/ co-thinkers apparently focused on schizophrenia, however unusually defined by them. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, we all have the very strong impression of the obsessive thoughts having been forced into our mind by something or someone else. My impression is that we all engage in our warding-off rituals, especially in the later, most frequent, most ritualistic repetitions, “against our will.”My most frequent diagnoses over the decades have been paranoid schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and I more or less agree most of the time with those labels. I find Louis Sass’ “discovery” that our delusions are better thought of as semi-delusions with our simultaneously believing and not believing them, and our usual failure to take action on them, pretty well describes my own long-term experience. I know he is insistent on ascribing some degree of agency/whole personality involvement to us as compared with the standard National Alliance on Mental Illness/biological model, but I feel that he is getting closer to most of the “truth” when he talks about a subtle interweaving of affliction/deficit and agency.The authors’ reliance on French thinkers almost inevitably sends me back to a once-prominent French intellectual, one of my favorite writers Albert Memmi, the Tunisian-Jewish born socialist and Zionist. In a book that mentions The Story of O, (Memmi 1984) a story of extreme sexual submission or masochism, he makes the striking remark that the mentally ill are “oppressed from within.” I have spoken of this often because it seems to touch perfectly on my experience and that of fellow mentally ill people I have met. From the perspective of the outsider, it seems that the whole [End Page 237] and integrated person is involved in every behavior. What looks like agency to others, especially when it comes to undesirable behaviors, when experienced from within, is actually a situation of affliction from a seemingly autonomous place. We experience this as coming, yes, from within us, but not ultimately of us.I cannot be sure, but a belief in some degree of metaphysical choice from the beginning of one’s life seems to me the only way the authors of this article can firmly, enthusiastically come down on the side of agency as opposed to deficit/malfunction in trying to explain human problems. In contrast, I suppose I could be called a physicalist. I have noticed that physical substances (alcohol, caffeine, psychiatric drugs) have such a vivid and consistent effect on my mind that it makes sense to me to conclude that yes, mind is probably ultimately reducible to brain/body/experience of the senses. That is my private opinion based on experience as mediated through knowledge/intellect.One final point: Despite the (almost certainly) radical left politics of the authors, as an officially disabled person almost completely dependent on the welfare state, I fear that in competitive individualist America, the authors’ hoped-for far greater emphasis on autonomy will feed into popular “blame the victim” ideology. I believe... (shrink)

In this challenging and provocative book, Steve Fuller contends that our continuing faith in science in the face of its actual history is best understood as the secular residue of a religiously inspired belief in divine providence. Our faith in science is the promise of a life as it shall be, as science will make it one day. Just as men once put their faith in God's activity in the world, so we now travel to a land promised by (...) science. In "Science", Fuller suggests that the two destinations might be the same one. Fuller sympathetically explores what it might mean to live scientifically. Can science give a sense of completeness to one's life? Can it account for the entirety of what it is to be human? And what does our continuing belief in scientific progress say about us as a species? In answering these questions, Fuller ranges widely over the history of science and religion - from Aristotle and the atomists to Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists - and takes a close look at what science is, how its purpose has changed over the years, and what role religion and in more recent years atheism have played in its progression. Science, argues Fuller, is now undergoing its own version of secularization. We are ceasing to trust science in its institutional forms, formulated by an anointed class of science priests, and instead we are witnessing the emergence of what Fuller calls Protscience' - all sorts of people, from the New Age movement to anti-evolutionists, claiming scientific authority as their own. Fuller shows that these groups are no more anti-scientific than Protestant sects were atheistic. Fearless and thought-provoking, Science questions some of our most fundamental beliefs about the nature and role of science, and is a distinct and important contribution to debates about evolution, intelligent design, atheism, humanism, the notion of scientific progress, and the public understanding of science. (shrink)

Peter Sloterdijk first became known in this country for his late 1980s Critique of Cynical Reason, which confronted headlong the "enlightened false consciousness" of Habermasian critical theory. Two decades later, after spending seven years in India studying Eastern philosophy, he is now attracting renewed interest for his writings on politics and globalization and for his magnum opus Spheres, a three-volume archaeology of the human attempt to dwell within spaces, from womb to globe: Bubbles, 1998; Globes, 1999; Foam, 2004, all forthcoming (...) from Semiotext. In Neither Sun nor Death, Sloterdijk answers questions posed by German writer Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs, commenting on such issues as technological mutation, development media, communication technologies, and his own intellectual itinerary.Iconoclastic and provocative, alternatively sparkling and bombastic, a child of '68 and a libertarian, Sloterdijk is the most exciting and controversial German philosopher to appear on the world scene since Nietzsche and Heidegger. Like Nietzsche, Sloterdijk remains convinced that contemporary philosophers have to think dangerously and let themselves be "kidnapped" by contemporary "hypercomplexities"; they must forsake our present humanist and nationalist world for a wider horizon at once ecological and global.Neither Sun nor Death is the best introduction available to Sloterdijk's philosophical theory of globalization. It reveals a philosophe extraordinaire, encyclopedic and provocative, as much at ease with current French Theory as with Heidegger and Indian mystic Osho Rajneesh. (shrink)

This paper unites Deely’s call for a better understanding of semiotics with Jaeger’s insight into the sophists and the cultural history of the Ancient Greeks. The two bodies of knowledge are brought together to try to better understand the importance of rhetorical processes to political forms such as democracy. Jaeger explains how cultural expression, particularly poetry, changed through the archaic and classical eras to deliver, or at least to be commensurate with contemporary politics and ideologies. He explains how Plato struggled (...) against certain poetry and prose manifestations in his ambition to create a ‘perfect man’ – a humanity which would think in a way which would enable the ideal Republic to flourish. Deely’s approach based on Poinsot and Peirce presents a theoretical framework by means of which we can think of the struggle to influence individual and communal conceptualisation as a struggle within semiotics. This is a struggle over the ways reality is signified by signs. Signs are physical and mental indications which, in the semiotic tradition, are taken to produce human subjectivity – human ‘being’. Deely’s extensive body of work is about how these signs are the building blocks of realist constructions of understanding. This paper is concerned with the deliberate use of oral and written signs in rhetorical activity which has been deliberately crafted to change subjectivity. We discuss: what thought and culture is in terms of semiotics and Jaeger’s depiction of Ancient Greece as an illustration of the conjunction between culture and subjectivity. These two fields are brought together in order to make the argument that rhetoric can be theorised as the deliberate harnessing of semiotic affects. The implication is that the same semiotic, subjectivity-changing potency holds for 21st century rhetoric. However fourth century BCE Athens is the best setting for a preliminary discussion of rhetoric as deliberate semiotic practice because this was when rhetoric was most clearly understood for what it is. By contrast a discussion concentrating on modern rhetoric: public relations; advertising; lobbying; and public affairs would open wider controversies requiring considerably more complex explanation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Surfing the Sublime:Tim Winton's Breath and Eco-HeroismSteve Mentz (bio)The sublime represents an ecological problem. Breathing poses an entangled solution. Surfing, in which a human body stands upright inside a rotating barrel of unbreathable whitewater, provides a way to imagine the connection between these two things.The sublime has represented an elevated category of literary language since the classical writer Longinus's On the Sublime (~1st century CE). From the start, the (...) sublime captures grandeur and also an excess that challenges human thinking. Many of the essential Romantic and Post-Romantic tropes of the sublime that would later appear in dense philosophical accounts, from Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant to Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, show themselves embryonically in Longinus's brief classical description.1 The key force of sublime style, Longinus emphasizes, is irrationality: "A lofty passage does not convince the reason of the reader, but takes him out of himself. That which is admirable ever confounds our judgment" (1.4). The conceptual violence of the sublime strains our imaginations almost to breaking, and Longinus's intuition that sublimity always sits on the far side of human comprehension becomes a central feature of this idea in literary history. Although we know very little about Longinus the author–neither his name nor the century in which he lived are certain–he fingers the particular pleasurable pain and rupture of coherence that would become the signature of the sublime in modern poetics. The problem with the sublime perspective is that it craves rupture, centers the human imagination, and refuses to make space for nonhuman collaborators. The opposite of the sublime's imaginative conquest of the world may be simple breathing, the taking of alien air into one's lungs and body, and the environmental dependence each breath marks.The philosopher Graham Harman has recently traced the sublime lineage of Burke and Kant to Lyotard, Levinas, Derrida, and other twentieth-century thinkers, in order to reject the concept as fundamentally [End Page 79] anthropocentric. Harman instead advocates for a philosophy that does not require the shaping structures of human perspective. He argues for an ecological art that engages with the world beyond the merely human perspective, "art that explores unforeseen interactions between the different parts of the external world." What Harman terms "unsublime ecology" might reasonably be described as an inhuman ecological perspective. The philosopher reminds us that the sublime has always been, both from Longinus and in Harman's reading explicitly from Kant and Burke to Lyotard and Derrida, a ju-jitsu trick in which the imagination of a (white male) subject reintegrates what it cannot fully comprehend. The list of poetic works whose language most commonly appears as exemplary of the sublime–Milton's Paradise Lost, Shelley's "Mont Blanc," Shakespeare's King Lear, Wordsworth's The Prelude–suggest that the mode appeals to poetic egoists of a particularly masculinine type.2The heroic sublime of these poets and theorists falters on the physical fact of breathing. Each day of their lives, more than 20,000 times per day, every one of these men, even stern, blind Milton dictating his prophetic poem to dutiful daughters after his revolution had failed, drew nonhuman air into and out of his lungs, exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide. Each man's thinking continued, while their minds dwelled little on how their body's dependence on alien matter to suspire might impinge upon the heroic sense of self. Even prophets and geniuses, even Wordsworth and Derrida, depend on unconscious patterns. Even the greatest of poets breathes.That's where surfing comes in, in particular Tim Winton's 2008 surf novel Breath, which relates a minor-key epic of surfing against breathing. The novel's core figures devote themselves to intentional oxygen deprivation: our teenage narrator-hero Pikelet; his rebellious buddy Loonie; Sando, the Australian surf-seer they follow; and Sando's American one-time freestyle skier wife, Eva (note the unsubtle symbolism of her name), whose injured knee keeps her off the snow but does not prevent her from chasing sublimity through self-suffocating games that involve sex, a plastic bag, and eventually Pikelet. To court mortality by cutting... (shrink)

There is one grand question that lies beneath most of what follows. That question is: what is morality I mean morality as it is contrasted with the non-moral, not as it is opposed to the immoral. The question does not ask, say, whether lying to a friend in a certain situation is moral or immoral, but asks what makes something, for instance lying to a friend, a moral problem. Parts of the same question ask what counts as a moral (...) consideration, as opposed to, say, one of efficiency or aesthetics, or ask what makes a motivation moral as opposed to prudential. The question asks for the boundaries of the domain of morality. (shrink)

One way to study ontology is to assess how people differentiate real activities from others, and a good case is how groups organize simulation. However, social scientists have tended to discuss simulation in more limited ways, either as a symptom of postmodernism or as an instrumental artifact. Missing is how groups organize simulations to prepare for the future. First, I formulate a definition of simulation as a group-level technique, which includes the qualities of everyday ontology, playfulness, risk and consequence reduction, (...) constrained innovation, and transportability. Next, I use ethnographic data collected at an amateur boxing gym to argue that simulations simplify the most risky, unpredictable, and interpersonal aspects of a consequential performance. The problem is that a simulation can rarely proceed exactly like the reality it is derived from. For example, boxers hold back in sparring but should not in competition. The effectiveness of a simulation therefore depends on how robust the model is and how well members translate the imperfect fit between the contextual norms of the simulation and its reality. (shrink)

While powers and tendencies are among the most fundamen- tal concepts of critical realism, there are several problems with these concepts that have been ignored, avoided or glossed. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to tease out these problems and provide clarification and consistency where possible. In the first section of the paper I sketch the existing critical realist conceptualization of tendencies by identifying eight distinct moments in a causal chain, denoted tendency1 to tendency8. In section two I (...) ask: Is there a difference between powers and tendencies? The answer, controversially perhaps, is: ‘No’. In section three I ask: What is the difference between tendency1 and tendency2? The answer considers two possible arguments accounting for the difference, and initiates a re-think of some of the terminology used to discuss tendencies as distinct moments in a causal chain. I conclude by raising the possibility that tendencies or powers are not of an either/or, discrete, dichotomous or discontinuous nature, but are continuous. This raises the further possibility that powers or tendencies can come in stronger and weaker forms. (shrink)

We have a need today to free up the Church in its ability think through and debate its ethical responses to contemporary issues. How do we think about and respond to the issues of crime, punishment and rehabilitation, consumerism - money, banks, economics and bonuses, war and peace making, euthanasia and assisted dying, same sex relationships. etc. ‘We can only act within the world we can envision…. We do not come to see merely by looking, but must develop disciplined skills (...) through initiation into that community that attempts to live faithfully to the story of God…by learning to be faithful disciples, we are more able to see the world as it is.’ Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom. Ethics provide the cultural and moral framework in which we live our whole lives. Our ethics are like the air we breathe, and though for the most part they go unnoticed, our lives and communities depend on them. But Christian ethics are distinctive. They are not just anyone’s ethics. Indeed, if the Christian vision is not distinct from other moral frameworks, then what is so special about Christ and our story? For many, Jesus has simply become nothing more than a ‘personal’ and ‘private’ motivator to the same common ideals, which are shared by all. So, how do we live distinctively in a time of uncertainty? How do we see the world through the eyes of Christ? What tools do we need for the complex choices that confront us, in order to live well; to live Christ centred lives in the 21st century? This book provides this kind of help in a clearly, written accessible style with discussion questions making this useful for small-group use. (shrink)

Philosophy may relate to interdisciplinarity in two distinct ways On the one hand, philosophy may play an auxiliary role in the process of interdisciplinarity, typically through conceptual analysis, in the understanding that the disciplines themselves are the main epistemic players. This version of the relationship I characterise as ‘normal’ because it captures the more common pattern of the relationship, which in turn reflects an acceptance of the division of organized inquiry into disciplines. On the other hand, philosophy may be itself (...) the site for the production of interdisciplinary knowledge, understood as a kind of second-order understanding of reality that transcends the sort of knowledge that the disciplines provide, left to their own devices. This is my own position, which I dub ‘deviant’ and to which most of this article is devoted. I begin by relating the two types of interdisciplinarity to the organization of inquiry, especially their respective attitudes to the history of science. Underlying the two types are contrasting notions of what constitutes the ‘efficient’ pursuit of knowledge. This difference is further explored in terms of the organization of the university. The normal/deviant distinction was already marked in the institution’s medieval origins in terms of the difference between Doctors and Masters, respectively, an artefact of which remains in the postgraduate/undergraduate degree distinction. In the context of the history of the university, the prospects for deviant interdisciplinarity were greatest from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century—the period called ‘early modern’ in the philosophy curriculum. Towards the end of that period, due to Kant and the generation of idealists who followed him, philosophy was briefly the privileged site for deviant interdisciplinarity. After Hegel’s death, the mantle of deviant interdisciplinarity increasingly passed to some version of ‘biology’. I explore the ‘Natur-’ and ‘Geisteswissenschaft’ versions of that post-philosophical vision, which continue to co-exist within today’s biological science. I then briefly examine the chequered reputation of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, someone who exemplified the promise and perils of deviant interdisciplinarity over the past 200 years. I conclude with an Epilogue that considers contemporary efforts to engage philosophy in interdisciplinary work, invoking William James as an exemplar. (shrink)

If artificial neural networks are ever to form the foundation for higher level cognitive behaviors in machines or to realize their full potential as explanatory devices for human cognition, they must show signs of autonomy, multifunction operation, and intersystem integration that are absent in most existing models. This model begins to address these issues by integrating predictive learning, sequence interleaving, and sequence creation components to simulate a spectrum of higher-order cognitive behaviors which have eluded the grasp of simpler systems. (...) Its capabilities are described based on simulations calling for increasing levels of functionality and are used to show how the model can progress from fundamental sequence learning and recall tasks to sophisticated behaviors such as an ability to solve simple mathematical expressions and a creative capacity for the formation and application of inductive rules. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy is by all counts an ambitious work. Its primary goal is to provide the reader with a foundational framework in which to engage interpretively the tradition of Japanese philosophy. It would be impossible to summarize, let alone do justice to, the thirty-six rich and illuminating chapters written by many of the most prominent scholars in the field from Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America.Navigating between the "violence of inclusion" that would reduce the philosophically (...) other to our own conception of philosophy and the "violence of exclusion" that would fail to recognize what we share with this other, Bret Davis... (shrink)

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Italian-language rap in the 1990s has been the close association of some popular performers with the nation's radical Left. Through a critical reading of the imagery, lyrics and other writings of two of Italy's best known rap bands, this essay seeks to explore the tensions between cultural labour and political commitment in the social centres movement.

In this article, I report on my reading of a debate between two practitioners and scholars of philosophy with children – Karin Murris and Darren Chetty. The parts of their exchanges I have chosen to focus on relate to a children's book called Tusk Tusk by David McKee. Their respective arguments raise questions for me about the relationship between the starting text and issues of importance in the wider world. Although Chetty sees benefits in using picture books, he appears to (...) believe there is an over-reliance on fables and other magical tales and that alternative starting points could be more suitable for exploring complex social issues with historical dimensions. Murris, on the other hand, seems to appreciate the lack of historical perspective that is evident in many of her preferred picture books. She values their ‘universal’ and ‘magical’ aspects because they stimulate ‘rhizomatic’ dialogues that are spontaneous and non-hierarchical. In this commentary I trace what, to me, are the most significant lines of argument put forward by Chetty and Murris. In response, I suggest some practical ideas for choosing texts and ‘reading against the text’ – a term both writers use. I also ask and answer the question: ‘In sessions of philosophical dialogue, should adults bring to children for consideration issues they regard as important or refrain from doing so?’. (shrink)

Rambo (2008) marked the return of Sylvester Stallone's iconic action hero. What is most striking about the fourth film (as the response from reviewers testifies), is its graphic violence. My intention here is to critically engage with Rambo (2008) as rewriting the series' established aesthetic of violence. My overarching aim is to highlight how the popular press has sought to read the 2008 version of Rambo according to the discursive narratives surrounding Stallone's 1980s action films. The negative response to (...) Rambo, I argue, stems from relying on critical patterns that do not fit the film itself. (shrink)

Corporate sustainability can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This (...) concept embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions. TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability, the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework, a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives. (shrink)

While there is now general agreement that memory gives rise to both conscious and unconscious influences, there remains disagreement concerning the process architecture underlying these distinct influences. Do they arise from independent underlying systems or from systems that are interactive ? In the current paper we present a novel “inside-out” technique that can be used with the process-dissociation paradigm to arrive at more concrete conclusions concerning this central question and demonstrate this technique via a meta-analysis of currently published findings. Our (...) results suggest that the data presented in these studies vary in ways most consistent with the assumption that conscious and unconscious influences behave independently. (shrink)

Long-running horror series are reputed to yield diminishing returns (both in terms of profit and quality). At first glance, the A Nightmare on Elm Street series appears to fit that established pattern. For instance, lead antagonist Freddy supposedly ‘deteriorates’ from sinister, backlit child molester to comic-book ‘Las Vegas lounge’ stand-up act by the end of the 1980s (Schoell and Spencer 1992, 116). However, interviews from the period indicate that comedy was a central component from the outset of the series; it (...) is not, as has been often suggested, that the series’ horror was diluted by the introduction of humour in later sequels. Such misremembrances are entrenched by the writers’, directors’ and actors’ retrospective reflections on Elm Street, which colour how the series is understood more broadly. This chapter will focus on one of the most common misremembrances embedded into Elm Street’s lore; that the series began with hard rules about the relationship between dream and reality, which became looser (to the point of incoherence) as the series progressed. As close textual analysis and examination of archival interviews will demonstrate, the series’ “rules” were never as clearly established as creator Wes Craven intended. Moreover, rather than complaining that the continuing story did not hold together—indeed, Craven dismissed parts 2-6 of the series on these grounds—I argue that the series ought to be taken on its own terms. The individual films may vary in aesthetic and quality for various industrial reasons, but they are nevertheless chapters in a continuing narrative, and ought to be understood as such. Given that the diegesis is based on shared experiences—secrets held by Springwood’s parents, nightmares and abilities shared by the teens—it is reductive to understand the Elm Street films as anything other than an imbricated whole. As such, this chapter will demonstrate that the series’ narrative is best understood as a recurring nightmare. Its logic is dreamlike, being constituted by events, characters and motifs that are echoed across the series. Thus, this chapter contends that to dismiss the Elm Street sequels as a product of diminishing returns is to overlook the series’ narrative richness. More broadly, this chapter makes a case for understanding sequels as valuable parts of a whole, rather than dismissing them as inferior copies of the original. (shrink)

Ram Dass is one of America's most renowned spiritual teachers. Born Richard Alpert, he received his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University and taught there and at Harvard University before going to India and receiving the name Ram Dass () from his guru. He has long been involved in many charitable service organizations, particularly those devoted to providing healthcare for underserved populations. Among his many books are BeHereNow, HowCanIHelp, and CompassioninAction; his newest book is StillHere:EmbracingAging,Changing,andDying.

This research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils? educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their local authority because of poor pupil attendance, below?average examination results and low rates of continuing in full?time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and coeducational. Over 800 pupils aged 12?14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils? experience of home, school and their (...) peers. A sub?sample of 48 pupils, selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools, also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self?concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self?concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the classical conceptions of justice and then examines the contemporary movements that arose to challenge these old concepts. It looks at Wakanda's record on justice. In the comics, the trial to become the Black Panther involves more than fighting, but ritual combat has always been the final and most glamorous test in Wakanda. The Wakandan philosopher Changamire quotes him in the 12‐issue run “A Nation Under Our Feet,” by Ta‐Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze. Changamire gathers (...) not just the powers that be (T'Challa the king and Aneka the rebel leader) but also ordinary citizens traumatized by the war, so that together they can navigate a path forward. Their interest is not retribution or reparation, but rather restorative justice. In the transformative justice movement, the work of justice is the work of building our capacity to take care of each other, as ordinary people in ordinary communities. (shrink)

The use of informatic metaphors and models derived from mid-20th-century cyberscience in molecular biology has been the subject of much controversy. Many social critics have argued that informatic discourses implicitly privilege a disembodied or implicitly masculine conception of life that is most fully realized in contemporary genomics. In this paper, I offer a different perspective on these issues by returning to the 18th-century work of Gregor Mendel, who conducted a series of experiments that are generally regarded as having laid (...) down the basic rules of heredity underlying genetic science. I attempt to show that a nascent informatic understanding of the body is already present in Mendel’s work, and that the implications of his approach for the politics of gender and social life are much more ambiguous than is generally recognized. More specifically, I argue that the meaning of ‘sex’, and of its relation to the organic body, is implicitly at stake in Mendel’s thought. I suggest that his text contains certain unresolved questions of sexual propriety that are today still being worked out in the context of contemporary genomics. (shrink)

Many efforts are focused on transformation to wellbeing economies as economies oriented towards equity, social justice, and human wellbeing in a flourishing natural environment (wellbeing economics). Drawing from analysis of innovations associated with these efforts, we emerge a framework of wellbeing-oriented ‘economic operating infrastructure’ (EOI). This is presented as a typology of six core types of economic transformation innovations nested from innovations with the broadest reach (narratives) to the most specific (products and services). Development of the typology was guided (...) by a set of wellbeing economies values that help in identifying which innovations to include. The innovations were identified by research on the internet, technical reports, and published articles. The typology elements are: innovations in economic narratives; governance; financing mechanisms; exchange mechanisms; business structures; and the products and services derived from them. Examples are presented in each category to illustrate how this infrastructure is emerging in alignment with establishing wellbeing economies. This exploratory and descriptive typology provides a preliminary framework for developing a strategic approach to economic transformation through wellbeing economic infrastructure development. Four EOI-based activities are identified to accelerate this transformation. (shrink)

Since a few decades, policy evaluation is a main topic in Western democracies. lt identifies, measures and appreciates effects, outcomes and impacts of a policy. Yet, there is not a common way to institutionalise that policy instrument; one can observe many differences in terms of its intensity and maturity, as well as a diversity of institutional device. Compared to other countries, Belgium is characterized by a low visibility and weak decisional impact of evaluation. Public demand for enlightening state action rarely (...) takes the form of a demand for evaluation. The word 'Evaluation' is frequently pronounced, but most often in a political sense.In this article three types of arguments can be put forward to explain this Jack of evaluation: a lacking commitment of Parliament and political staff, the fragmentation and weak autonomy of the civil service and the domination of political parties upon the Belgian political and administrative system. (shrink)

It is commonly proposed that since the mid-2000s, the slasher subgenre has been dominated by unoriginal remakes of "classics". Consequently, most original slasher films have been ignored by academics (and critics), leaving the field with a limited understanding of this highly popular subgenre. This book corrects that mischaracterisation by analysing contemporary slasher films that sincerely attempt to innovate within the subgenre. I argue that these films reflect broader cultural turns towards sincerity, optimism in the face of crisis, and an (...) emphasis on felt experience that are indicative of a metamodern sensibility. This is the first book to use metamodernism to analyse film in a sustained way, and the first academic work to use metamodernism to examine horror. The Metamodern Slasher offers readers new ways to understand the slasher film, the horror genre, and also the cultural moment we find ourselves in. (shrink)

Since the early 2000s, zombies have become an increasingly significant presence in popular culture. Zombies are social monsters, epitomizing aspects of social horror. What is at once central and yet strangely absent from current debates about zombies is any detailed consideration of sex and sexuality. This oversight is startling, not least since sex is arguably the most intimate form of social engagement, and is a profound aspect of human social identity. What makes the omission even more remarkable is how (...) appositely the zombie reflects socio-sexual desires and fears. Sex and love play crucial roles in numerous zombie narratives. Moreover, the undead have sex with each other and with humans in many contemporary zombie narratives. The unpalatable combination of zombies and sex is provocative, triggering a multitude of questions about the nature of desire, sex, sexuality, and the politics of our sexual behaviors. This chapter outlines the zombie’s historical development towards sex/uality, setting the context for the various approaches to sex/uality – queer and straight, romantic and pornographic – explored in contemporary zombie media. (shrink)

As a bioethical and social issue, euthanasia has become in the 1990s what abor- tion was in the 1960s. Around the world, a de facto taboo on open discussion of the practice is seemingly falling by the wayside, as recognition increases that “active” euthanasia is taking place in spite of social and legal prohibitions. Euthanasia, or more specifically physician-assisted suicide, has become the most visible bioethical issue of the present era; and in the United States the debate has taken (...) on a prominence and urgency unprecedented in our nation's history. (shrink)

Brian Barry's Culture and Equality is probably the most powerful liberal egalitarian critique of multiculturalism addressing the pathologies of recognizing difference of ethnicity, religion, race, and culture. In this essay, I examine Barry's approach to the law, which underpins his theory of egalitarianism to determine whether it is enough — as Barry thinks it is — to insist on either applying the same law for everyone so that exemptions are foreclosed in general, or repealing the law since the case (...) for its existence is not justified. I find that Barry's effort is inadequate. Because the conditions for exemptions are not specified, exemptions are merely defensible, not just. Using the headscarf controversy in France to illustrate why Barry's approach backfires, I argue how enforcing the same law for all leads to undermining the very politics of redistribution that Barry champions. (shrink)

Aims to find the common language between two of the most important philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century.

A groundbreaking effort to find the "common language" between two of the most important philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century, _Forms in the Abyss_ promises to be one of the most significant contribution to our critical understanding of western thought in recent memory.

Hard determinism is hardly a new position, but the most common arguments are not widely convincing. Theological arguments rest on the oversight or control of a supernatural entity, and so are not convincing to any who do not share the metaphysical assumptions latent in the argument. Psychological arguments reston putatively scientific claims that, if examined more closely, seem not to be scientific at all. A doxastic argument avoids these pitfalls. According to this doxastic argument, beliefs are not freely chosen, (...) for to believe X is to be convinced of X, and it is not up to the agent to find something convincing or unconvincing. If an agent's allegedly free actions are based on beliefs, and if those beliefs cannot freely be chosen by the agent, then that agent's actions are not ultimately free. (shrink)

During the past four decades, four questions have shaped the debate over eating meat: (1) What hurts the most? (2) Are animal lovers nature haters? (3) Are vegetarians bigots? (4) Do animals have rights? The following conclusions are advocated: (1) Where general welfare is the issue, numbers count, and they will always count against a small minority profiting by repeatedly exploiting the majority. However, how most effectively to respond to this injustice is not obvious. (2) Despite disagreements about (...) the relationship between biology and morals, vegetarians and environmentalists agree that factory farming is immoral because of what it does either to suffering animals or to the natural order. (3) Whether humans using animals for food can be a respectful relation-especially when we humans make all the decisions-is the real question here. So far, this extension of fairness beyond our own species is one for which we have shown little capacity. (4) Whether or not animals have "rights," morally concerned Westerners should not partake of factory-farmed products and should work for the abolition of such farms. (shrink)

A woman presents to her physician with a newly diagnosed condition that in her considered and informed judgment requires an elective surgical procedure. The physician, after speaking with her, agrees that this is an acceptable option. The procedure in question is in fact one of the commonest surgeries performed on American women. The physician is also aware that although the procedure is deemed elective in this and in most cases, research has shown that the consequences of not providing the (...) procedure when it is requested can be severe in terms of both physical and emotional sequelaewhich itself can add to the complexity and risk of the procedure. Presented with this option, the patient expresses dismay but also her resigned commitment to follow through with this referral, and leaves the office in tears. (shrink)

Although particular political parties have succeeded in some countries, the Far Right has relatively little electoral support in most EU member-states. Yet what we can observe is a consensus over far-right ideas; fundamentally racialised concepts of the nation, tighter immigration controls, and less generous asylum regimes, which form part of the centre-right/centre-left contemporary mainstream.Focusing on the Far Right alone is to distort the question: a better formulated problem would be that of how the racialisation of Europe both prior to, (...) and as a corollary of the construction of the European Union, functions to set parameters to national political action.The messages conveyed by ‘tough’ immigration policies produced by mainstream parties for example, bolster the Far Right in its endeavour to racialise membership of the nation.The Far Right’s ideological ascendancy is thus a product of mainstream political ethics spiralling rightwards and historically backwards, rather than simply of pressure from the Far Right itself. (shrink)