Cortical color blindness, or cerebral achromatopsia, has been likened by some authors to ''blindsight'' for color or an instance of ''covert'' processing of color. Recently, it has been shown that, although such patients are unable to identify or discriminate hue differences, they nevertheless show a striking ability to process wavelength differences, which can result in preserved sensitivity to chromatic contrast and motion in equiluminant displays. Moreover, visually evoked cortical potentials can still be elicited in response to chromatic stimuli. We suggest (...) that these demonstrations reveal intact residual processes rather than the operation of covert processes, where proficient performance is accompanied by a denial of phenomenal awareness. We sought evidence for such covert processes by conducting appropriate tests on achromatopsic subject M.S. An ''indirect'' test entailing measurement of reaction times for letter identification failed to reveal covert color processes. In contrast, in a forced choice oddity task for color, M.S. was unable to verbally indicate the position of the different color, but was surprisingly adept at making an appropriate eye movement to its location. This ''direct'' test thus revealed the possible covert use of chromatic differences. (shrink)

It is tempting to assume that metacognitive processes necessarily evoke awareness. We review a number of experiments in which cognitive schema have been shown to develop without awareness. Implicit learning of a novel schema may not involve metacognitive regulation per se. Substitution of one automatic process by another as a result of the inadequacy of the former as circumstances change does, however, clearly involve metacognitive and executive processes of error correction and schema selection. We describe a recently published study in (...) which we serendipitously discovered that a blindsight subject could change the schema with which he processed cue information in orienting spatial attention task without reporting any awareness of this change, or of the cues and targets which respectively directed and were the object his attention. (shrink)

In this introductory paper, we assess the current status of blindsight -- the phenomenon in which patients with damage to their primary visual cortex retain the ability to detect, discriminate and localize visual stimuli presented in areas of their visual field in which they report that they are subjectively blind. Blindsight has garnered a great deal of interest and critical research, in part because of its important implications for the philosophy of mind. We briefly consider why this is so, and (...) then go on to examine three empirical questions which have fuelled challenges to the validity of blindsight as a distinct neuropsychological phenomenon. First, is blindsight simply degraded normal vision? Second, does blindsight depend on undamaged areas of primary visual cortex? Third, does evidence that blindsight patients are aware of moving stimuli undermine the apparent dissociation between access to visual information and visual experience in blindsight? In the course of the review we introduce the four other papers on blindsight in this issue. We conclude that, although patients with primary visual cortex damage may indeed perceive moving stimuli, there is still good evidence for a dissociation between access to information and phenomenal experience which cannot be accounted for in terms of degraded normal vision or undamaged primary visual cortex. (shrink)

Can we learn without consciousness? When the eminent neuropsychologist, Lawrence Weiskrantz first coined the term 'blindsight' to describe a condition whereby a patient could demonstrate that they were aware of some object, yet insist that they were completely unaware of its existence, the response from some in the scientific community was one of extreme skepticism. Even now, there are those who question the existence of unconscious learning, and the topic remains one of the most actively researched and debated in psychology. (...) In recent years evidence for unconscious processing across a range of sensory modalities have come from studies of vision, audition, memory, emotion, and action. Never before have these studies of unconscious processing in the different senses been brought together into a single volume. In a book dedicated to Lawrence Weiskrantz, some of the leading psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists of the day explain what we know about unconscious processing in the different senses. Including contributions from, amongst others, David Milner, Jon Driver, Alan Cowey, and Ray Dolan, the book presents a state of the art account of what we now know about 'the unconscious'. The book will provide a fascinating account for students and researchers in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy. (shrink)

One of science's greatest intellects examines how people and animals display fear, anger, and pleasure. Darwin based this 1872 study on his personal observations, which anticipated later findings in neuroscience. Abounding in anecdotes and literary quotations, the book is illustrated with 21 figures and seven photographic plates. Its direct approach, accessible to professionals and amateurs alike, continues to inspire and inform modern research in psychology.

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary philosophy: his 'philosophical anthropology' spans an unusually wide range of theoretical interests and draws creatively on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions in philosophy. A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of language) (...) which aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences. (shrink)

This new edition of Charles Fried's 'Medical Experimentation' includes a general introduction by Franklin Miller and the late Alan Wertheimer, a reprint of the 1974 text, an in-depth analysis by Harvard Law School scholars I. Glenn Cohen and D. James Greiner, and a new essay by Fried reflecting on the original text and how it applies to the contemporary landscape of medicine and medical experimentation.

In this revised edition of his 1979 classic Political Theory and International Relations, Charles Beitz rejects two highly influential conceptions of international theory as empirically inaccurate and theoretically misleading. In one, international relations is a Hobbesian state of nature in which moral judgments are entirely inappropriate, and in the other, states are analogous to persons in domestic society in having rights of autonomy that insulate them from external moral assessment and political interference. Beitz postulates that a theory of international (...) politics should include a revised principle of state autonomy based on the justice of a state’s domestic institutions, and a principle of international distributive justice to establish a fair division of resources and wealth among persons situated in diverse national societies. (shrink)

Familiarity with Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution is essential to every well-educated individual. One of the most important books ever published--and a continuing source of controversy, a century and a half later--this classic of science is reproduced in a facsimile of the critically acclaimed first edition.

Perhaps the most readable and accessible of the great works of scientific imagination, The Origin of Species sold out on the day it was published in 1859. Theologians quickly labeled Charles Darwin the most dangerous man in England, and, as the Saturday Review noted, the uproar over the book quickly "passed beyond the bounds of the study and lecture-room into the drawing-room and the public street." Yet, after reading it, Darwin's friend and colleague T. H. Huxley had a different (...) reaction: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." Based largely on Darwin's experience as a naturalist while on a five-year voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species set forth a theory of evolution and natural selection that challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the immutability of species. A landmark contribution to philosophical and scientific thought, this edition also includes an introductory historical sketch and a glossary Darwin later added to the original text. Charles Darwin grew up considered, by his own account, "a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." A quirk of fate kept him from the career his father had deemed appropriate--that of a country parson--when a botanist recommended Darwin for an appointment as a naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Darwin is also the author of the five-volume work Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle (1839) and The Descent of Man (1871). (shrink)

The publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 ignited a public storm he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Having offered his book as a contribution to science, Darwin discovered to his dismay that it was received as an affront by many scientists and as a sacrilege by clergy and Christian citizens. To answer the criticism that his theory was a theory only, and a wild one at that, he published two volumes in 1868 to demonstrate that evolution was (...) obvious to anyone who cared to look at a bull in a pasture or a dog on a hearth. In response to those who insisted that species were distinct since creation, Darwin pointed to breeders of pigs and pigeons. In reply to those who protested that human intervention is one thing and natural selection another, he argued, "If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." To counter those who scorned his descriptions of species in exotic places, he submitted local evidence of cabbages and cauliflower. Based on a wide array of sources, from ancient pictographs to Polish roosters, from skins and from skeletons, from scientific journals and breeding manuals, Darwin assembled a mass of proof--and a hypothesis about species reversion that risked his reputation anew. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a two-volume compilation of his thorough and intensive research and the revolutionary conclusions that resulted. The first portion of his work is dedicated to a meticulous analysis of various aspects of plant and animal life, including an inventory of varieties and their physical and behavioral characteristics, investigation of the impact of a species' surrounding environment and the role that both natural and forced changes in this environment have had. Darwin then turns to a richly detailed discussion of the roles of inheritance and crossing in the development of species. A wealth of illustrations further support and enhance his findings. This fascinating, invaluable, and courageous undertaking eventually formed the foundation for our current understanding of evolution. "In science as in politics the victors tend to write the history books. As a result, the record of the past is edited, intentionally or unintentionally, so that it focuses mainly on the precursors of contemporary orthodoxy. Such a focus may accurately represent the genealogy of modern ideas, but it almost inevitably misrepresents the historical experience of their progenitors... Even the powerful, persuasive, and ultimately triumphant theory of evolution by natural selection required not only defense, but repeated buttressing and revision. Variation showed Darwin hard at work on this rearguard action, using the materials he had at hand... His information was gleaned from the observations of fanciers, breeders, and amateur naturalists, as well as from the treatises of those on the cutting edge of zoology and botany. As hindsight narrows the historical spotlight, it imposes its own sense of hierarchy on the preoccupations of the past. But Darwin was interested in all of these topics, valued all of these sources, and belonged, to a greater or lesser extent, to all of these communities."--from the Introduction. (shrink)

A new understanding of political philosophy from one of its leading thinkers What is political philosophy? What are its fundamental problems? And how should it be distinguished from moral philosophy? In this book, Charles Larmore redefines the distinctive aims of political philosophy, reformulating in this light the basis of a liberal understanding of politics. Because political life is characterized by deep and enduring conflict between rival interests and differing moral ideals, the core problems of political philosophy are the regulation (...) of conflict and the conditions under which the members of society may thus be made subject to political authority. We cannot assume that reason will lead to unanimity about these matters because individuals hold different moral convictions. Larmore therefore analyzes the concept of reasonable disagreement and investigates the ways we can adjudicate conflicts among people who reasonably disagree about the nature of the human good and the proper basis of political society. Challenging both the classical liberalism of Locke, Kant, and Mill, and more recent theories of political realism proposed by Bernard Williams and others, Larmore argues for a version of political liberalism that is centered on political legitimacy rather than on social justice, and that aims to be well suited to our times rather than universally valid. Forceful and thorough yet concise, What Is Political Philosophy? proposes a new definition of political philosophy and demonstrates the profound implications of that definition. The result is a compelling and distinctive intervention from a major political philosopher. (shrink)

Packed with examples pulled straight from recent headlines, ENGINEERING ETHICS, Sixth Edition, helps engineers understand the importance of their conduct as professionals as well as reflect on how their actions can affect the health, safety and welfare of the public and the environment. Numerous case studies give readers plenty of hands-on experience grappling with modern-day ethical dilemmas, while the book's proven and structured method for analysis walks readers step by step through ethical problem-solving techniques. It also offers practical application of (...) the Engineering Code of Ethics and thorough coverage of critical moral reasoning, effective organizational communication, sustainability and economic development, risk management, ethical responsibilities, globalized standards for engineering and emerging challenges relating to evolving technology. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon (...) those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time. (shrink)

Integrity ought logically to be a particularly important concept within political science. If those acting within the political system do not have integrity, our ability to trust them, to have confidence in their actions, and perhaps even to consider them legitimate can be challenged. Indeed, the very concept of integrity goes some way towards underwriting positive views of political actors. Yet, despite this importance, political science as a discipline has perhaps focused too little on questions of integrity. Where political science (...) has looked at the subject of integrity, it has often done so without using the specific linguistic formulation “integrity”. Most commonly, the focus has instead been on “corruption”—a strand of research which has produced results that cannot always be translated into discussions of integrity, by virtue of its narrower focus upon the “negative pole” of public ethics. Other measures, such as “Quality of Government”, focus on positive attributes, notably impartiality, but this also fails fully to capture the notion of integrity: dishonesty can be impartial. Specific formal “codes” used within public life and among political practitioners can be much more nuanced than the most widely used measures, and can be much closer to what we understand—academically—as “integrity”. This paper argues that the hard conceptual and empirical work of elaborating integrity into a fully operationalizable concept offers the potential reward of an analytical concept that is more closely aligned with political reality. (shrink)

A new proof of the impossibility of reconciling realism and locality in quantum mechanics is given. Unlike proofs based on Bell's inequality, the present work makes minimal and transparent use of probability theory and proceeds by demonstrating a Kochen-Specker type of paradox based on the value assignments to the spin components of two spatially separated spin-1 systems in the singlet state of their total spin. An essential part of the argument is to distinguish carefully two commonly confused types of contextuality; (...) we call them ontological and environmental contextuality. These in turn are associated with two quite distinct senses of nonlocality. We indicate the relevance of our treatment to other related discussions in recent literature on the philosophy of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The Tattvasaṃgraha, or Encyclopedia of Metaphysics, is the most influential and most frequently studied philosophical text from the late period of Indian Buddhism. This edition includes verses by Śāntarakṣita (c. 725-788 CE), which are clarified and expounded in the commentary of his student Kamalaśīla (c. 740-795 CE); both of these authors played crucial roles in founding the Buddhist tradition of Tibet. In the Tattvasaṃgraha, they explain, discuss and critique a vast range of views and arguments from across the whole South (...) Asian philosophical and religious spectrum. The work deals at length with ideas drawn from Buddhism, Jainism, and a variety of traditions now incorporated within Hinduism, including Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya-vaiśeṣika, and Sāṃkhya; it also includes the earliest discussion of Advaita Vedānta in any Buddhist text. The chapters selected for translation from Sanskrit and Tibetan deal with such fundamental philosophical issues as the existence or nonexistence of God and the soul; the nature of matter and of causal relationships; the connection between words and their referents; the rules of logic; the sources of our knowledge; and the compatibility of beliefs about karma with Buddhism's fundamental claim that there is no self. Introductory chapters discuss translation choices and explain the forms of argument and methods of reasoning employed by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla. (shrink)

This first volume of the Logic of the Future edition collects Peirce's writings on the historical development, theory and application of his graphical method and diagrammatic reasoning. Its 28 selections of texts and extensive general and volume int.

In this book, Charles Larmore develops an account of morality, freedom, and reason that rejects the naturalistic metaphysics shaping much of modern thought. Reason, Larmore argues, is responsiveness to reasons, and reasons themselves are essentially normative in character, consisting in the way that physical and psychological facts - facts about the world of nature - count in favor of possibilities of thought and action that we can take up. Moral judgments are true or false in virtue of the moral (...) reasons there are. We need therefore a more comprehensive metaphysics that recognizes a normative dimension to reality as well. Though taking its point of departure in the analysis of moral judgment, this book branches widely into related topics such as freedom and the causal order of the world, textual interpretation, the nature of the self, self-knowledge, and the concept of duties to ourselves. (shrink)

Charles Babbage was an English mathematician, philosopher and mechanical engineer who invented the concept of a programmable computer. From 1828 to 1839 he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position whose holders have included Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. A proponent of natural religion, he published The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise in 1837 as his personal response to The Bridgewater Treatises, a series of books on theology and science that had recently appeared. Disputing the claim that science disfavours (...) religion, Babbage wrote 'that there exists no such fatal collision between the words of Scripture and the facts of nature'. He argues on the basis of reason and experience alone, drawing a parallel between his work on the calculating engine and God as the divine programmer of the universe. Eloquently written, and underpinned by mathematical arguments, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise is a landmark work of natural theology. (shrink)

Of laws in general -- Of laws directly derived from the nature of government -- Of the principles of the three kinds of government -- That the laws of education ought to be relative to the principles of government -- That the laws given by the legislator ought to be relative to the nature of government -- Consquences of the principles of different governments, with respect to the simplicity of civil and criminal laws, the form of judgements, and inflicting of (...) punishments -- Consquences of the different principles of the three governments, with respect to sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women -- Of the corruption of the principles of the three governments -- Of the laws in the relation they bear to defensive force -- Of laws, in the relation they bear to offensive force. (shrink)

During the mid-nineteenth century the annual tuberculosis mortality in the penitentiaries at Auburn, N.Y., Boston, and Philadelphia exceeded 10 percent of the inmate population. At the beginning of the sanatorium era, 80 percent of the prison deaths were attributed to TB. As the mountain air was “commonly known” to be healthful, the first prison sanatorium was opened in the mountains near Dannemora, N.Y. in 1904. It served to isolate contagious prison inmates until the advent of effective chemotherapy for the disease (...) in the 1950’s. Early antibiotic therapy for TB was such a great success that the public health aspects of TB in prisons remained dormant for the next 40 years.In 1991, a correctional officer from Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, New York died as a result of multidrug-resistant TB. He had been posted to care for hospitalized patients, from whom he acquired his disease. This death, and the transmission of TB infection to health care workers in the same hospital, brought the nature and extent of modern inmate medical care into finer focus. (shrink)

During the mid-nineteenth century the annual tuberculosis mortality in the penitentiaries at Auburn, N.Y., Boston, and Philadelphia exceeded 10 percent of the inmate population. At the beginning of the sanatorium era, 80 percent of the prison deaths were attributed to TB. As the mountain air was “commonly known” to be healthful, the first prison sanatorium was opened in the mountains near Dannemora, N.Y. in 1904. It served to isolate contagious prison inmates until the advent of effective chemotherapy for the disease (...) in the 1950’s. Early antibiotic therapy for TB was such a great success that the public health aspects of TB in prisons remained dormant for the next 40 years.In 1991, a correctional officer from Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, New York died as a result of multidrug-resistant TB. He had been posted to care for hospitalized patients, from whom he acquired his disease. This death, and the transmission of TB infection to health care workers in the same hospital, brought the nature and extent of modern inmate medical care into finer focus. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch and moral philosophy -- Understanding the other: a Gadamerian view on conceptual schemes -- Language not mysterious? -- Celan and the recovery of language -- Nationalism and modernity -- Conditions of an unforced consensus on human rights -- Democratic exclusion (and its remedies?) -- Religious mobilizations -- Themes from a secular age -- The immanent counter-enlightenment -- Notes on the sources of violence: perennial and modern -- The future of the religious past -- Disenchantment-re-enchantment -- What does secularism (...) mean? -- Die blosse Vernunft ("reason alone") -- Perils of moralism -- What was the Axial revolution? (shrink)

The description for this book, Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory, will be forthcoming.

Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

What laws of logic say -- Frege's target -- The twilight of empiricism -- Psychologism -- Morally alien thought -- To represent as so -- The proposition's progress -- Truth and merit -- The shape of the conceptual -- Thought's social nature -- Faust's way.