Kat Williams and Scott R. Stroud’s essay is about televised debates, but it is also about the value of television in a democracy. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that television is devoid of serious content, that it is superficial. But while the debates contain superficialities, they also reveal substantive issues about the candidates, the electorate, and the state of our democracy.

On April 1, 2016, at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, a book symposium, organized by Alyssa Ney, was held in honor of David Albert’s After Physics. All participants agreed that it was a valuable and enlightening session. We have decided that it would be useful, for those who weren’t present, to make our remarks publicly available. Please bear in mind that what follows are remarks prepared for the session, and that on some (...) points participants may have changed their minds in light of the ensuing discussion. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Each contributor to this book has used personal experience as the basis from which to frame his individual sociological perspectives. Because they have personalized their work, their accounts are real, and recognizable as having come from 'real' persons, about 'real' experiences. There are no objectively-distanced disembodied third person entities in these accounts. These writers are actual people whose stories will make you laugh, cry, think, and want to know more.

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

The example can be generalized. Suppose that ϕ and ψ are suffi- ciently different functions of an independent variable t. We may show that whenever X’s predictions for ϕ and ψ lie (weakly) between Z’s predictions and T’s predictions (the true values), then there are other quantities, interdefinable with ϕ and ψ, that reverse the ordering.

In January 2019 the Faculty of Philosophy of the Lomonosov Moscow State University held the round table “Problems of Consciousness: Research Opportunities.” It was dedicated to problems of interdisciplinary studies of consciousness. Many famous Russian specialists whose academic interests include consciousness, brain and mind took part in this event: K.V. Anokhin, D.I. Dubrovsky, T.V. Chernigovskaya, M.A. Piradov, A.A. Potapov, V.Y. Sergin, V.V. Vasil’ev, Z.A. Zorina and others. At the round table, the following problems were discussed: the specificity of consciousness problem, (...) its relevance in various academic disciplines, contemporary research possibilities for consciousness studies to solve the problems that specialists actually face. Much attention was paid to the problems of neurobiology, empirical research of consciousness. Nonetheless, participants showed in their speeches that the problem of consciousness is also a philosophical problem. Hence it requires thoughtful consideration of philosophers. Participants decided that to progress in solving this problem researches from various disciplines have to cooperate. (shrink)

Tarihte herhalde çok az soru Tanrı’nın varlığı sorusu kadar sık sorulmuş, çok yanıtlanmış ve verilen birbirinden farklı onca yanıta rağmen kesin bir sonuca ulaştırılamayıp tartışılmaya devam etmiştir. Yine de geçmişe dönüp baktığımızda bu soruya verilen farklı yanıtların farklı uygarlıkların inşa edilmesine, bazılarının yıkılmasına, acımasız çatışmalara ve her şeye rağmen kucaklaşmalara da vesile olduğunu görüyoruz. Tanrı var mı? Varsa onu nasıl bilebiliriz? Tanrı yoksa her şey mubah mı? İnsan aklı ilahi olanı kavrayabilir mi? Tanrı’nın varlığı ahlaklı olmanın şartı mı? Evren akıllı (...) bir tasarımcının imzasını taşıyor mu? Bu kitapta felsefeci William David Beck, bu sorulara tarihte verilen yanıtları ve bu konudaki tartışmaları ele alarak meselenin genel ve tarihsel bir tablosunu bize sunuyor. Platon, Aristoteles, Marcus Aurelius gibi Eski Yunan ve Roma düşünürlerinden Anselmus, Thomas Aquinas, Augustinus ve Yahudi-Hıristiyan geleneğine, Doğu’nun bilgelerine, İbni Rüşd, Fârâbî ve Gazzâlî gibi İslam düşünürlerinden Alvin Plantinga, Graham Oppy, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Max Tegmark gibi Batılı modern ilahiyatçılara, bilim insanlarına ve Yeni Ateizm hareketine kadar uzanan bir çizgide “Tanrı var mı?” sorusuna verilen çeşitli yanıtları ve bu yanıtlara sunulan akılcı gerekçeleri ortaya koyarak soruya felsefece bir yanıt vermenin nasıl bir iş olduğunu da gösteriyor. (shrink)

The notation and terminology of this paper follow [2], and are dual to those of [6] and [7]. If L is a language in the narrow sense, Cn may be any consequence operation on sets of sentences of L that includes classical sentential logic. Henceforth when we talk of the language L we intend to include reference to some fixed, though unspecified, operation Cn. X is a deductive system if X = Cn(X). Sentences x, z that are logically equivalent with (...) respect to Cn – that is x ∈ Cn({z}) and z ∈ Cn({x}) – are identified. If X and Z are systems we often write X x instead of x ∈ X and Z X instead of X ⊆ Z. If X = Cn({x}) for some sentence x, X is (finitely) axiomatizable. The set theoretical intersection of X and Z has the logical force of disjunction, and is written X ∨ Z; Cn(X ∪ Z), the smallest system to include both X and Z, is written XZ. If K is a family of systems, [K] and [K] may be defined in an analogous way. The logically strongest system S is the set of all sentences of L; the weakest system T is defined as Cn(∅). The autocomplement Z of Z is defined to be the strongest system to complement T, namely the system [{Y : Y ∨ Z = T}]. More generally we may define X − Z as [{Y : X Y ∨ Z}]. In terms of this operation to remainder, Z is identical with T − Z. The class of all deductive systems forms a distributive lattice under the operations of concatenation and ∨; and indeed a Brouverian algebra (a relatively authocomplemented lattice with unit) under concatenation, ∨ – and T. (shrink)

This paper shows how the classical finite probability theory (with equiprobable outcomes) can be reinterpreted and recast as the quantum probability calculus of a pedagogical or toy model of quantum mechanics over sets (QM/sets). There have been several previous attempts to develop a quantum-like model with the base field of ℂ replaced by ℤ₂. Since there are no inner products on vector spaces over finite fields, the problem is to define the Dirac brackets and the probability calculus. The previous attempts (...) all required the brackets to take values in ℤ₂. But the usual QM brackets <ψ|ϕ> give the "overlap" between states ψ and ϕ, so for subsets S,T⊆U, the natural definition is <S|T>=|S∩T| (taking values in the natural numbers). This allows QM/sets to be developed with a full probability calculus that turns out to be a non-commutative extension of classical Laplace-Boole finite probability theory. The pedagogical model is illustrated by giving simple treatments of the indeterminacy principle, the double-slit experiment, Bell's Theorem, and identical particles in QM/Sets. A more technical appendix explains the mathematics behind carrying some vector space structures between QM over ℂ and QM/Sets over ℤ₂. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ethics of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) DAVID BAUMGARDT* SALOMON MAIMON is now generally considered the most acute mind among the earliest critics of Kant. Kant himself had praised his acumen,1 though later qualifying his regard decisively.2 Johann Gottfried Herder called * We have just learned of the death of the author. David Baumgardt, born in Germany on April 20, 1890, studied in Vienna and in Berlin and (...) taught philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1924 to 1935 as Privatdozent, Extraordinarius and Ordinarius, until he was forced by Germany's racial laws to resign, but after the end of the war the Free University of Berlin appointed him honorary professor. From 1935 to 1939 he taught at the University of Birmingham; after his arrival in the United States he first joined the staff of the Pendle Hill School and, from 1941 to 1954, he served with the Library of Congress as a consultant in the field of philosophy. In 1955-56 he was Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. After his retirement he continued to publish and at present there are five publications by him in the press. The number of books and articles written by him probably well exceeds two hundred. Just in the last months of his life he was presented with a Festschri[t (Horizons of a Philosopher), indicative of a wide range of friends, students, and fellow-scholars who wanted to express their appreciation of the man and his work. On the continent Baumgardt was perhaps best known for two books: Franz yon Baader (1927) and Der Kampf um den Lebenssinn unter den Vorliiufern der Modernen Ethik (1933). The former threw full light on an important but unduly neglected figure of the German romantic school of philosophy; the latter confronts Kant's rationalistic ethics with the irrationalism of a Herder, Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi. In the United States he published, among others, Bentham and the Ethics of Today (1952) and Great Western Mystics (1961), originally delivered as Matchette Lectures, but enriched, for publication, by voluminous notes containing a wealth of information on mystics, some of whom, especially Jewish ones, are familiar only to the expert. At the time of his death he was working on a book which would probably have become his opus magnum: an attempt to reconcile what he called the ethics of force with the ethics of love. Baumgardt described his own philosophic position as that of a Benthamian hedonist, asserting that only hedonism, when carried to its conclusions, would permit such a reconciliation. Systematic, ethical and religious problems underlay all his historic research; thus his loss will be felt keenly and widely. (PHILIP MERLAN) t See Kant's Gesammelte Schri[ten, ed. K6nig. Preuss. Akad. Wissenschaften, Vol. XI, Abt. II, Kant's Briefwechsel (1900), Vol. II, p. 49, letter to Marcus Herz, May 26, 1789: "Nicht allein" hat "niemand yon meinen Gegnern reich und die Hauptfrage so wohl verstanden, sondern nur wenige... mochten zu dergleichen tiefen Untersuchungen so viel Scharfsinn besitzen... als Hr. Maymon." 2See ibid., p. 476, letter to Carl Leonhard Reinhold, March 28, 1794: "Was aber z. B. ein Maimon mit seiner Nachbesserung der critischen Philosophie... eigentlich wolle," habe ich "nie recht fassen k6nnen." The noticeable change in Kant's judgment of Maimon's work is hardly due to the fact that his praising remarks were addressed to a Jewish friend and the disapproving ones to a gentile disciple. The reason for this shift in his evaluation of Maimon's later writings 099] 200 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Maimon's Versuch iiber die Transzendentalphilosophie "profound" and "comprehensive.''~ Even Goethe and Schiller mentioned him with esteem in their correspondence;~ and Johann Gottlieb Fichte explicitly' warned that coming centuries would ridicule us bitterly for disregarding this "immensely great talent." It may, therefore, not be out of place if, even more than 150 years after Maimon's death, some attention is paid to his generally neglected criticism of Kant's categorical imperative. Maimon's acute critical observations on Kant's ethics may claim to be of interest even to the analysis of some basic issues of contemporary moral philosophy. In an autobiography, culturally of general interest, edited by the psychologist and esthetician Karl... (shrink)

From Socrates To Satre presents a rousing and readable introduction to the lives, and times of the great philosophers. This thought-provoking book takes us from the inception of Western society Plato's Athens to today when the commanding power of Marxism has captured one third of the world. T.Z. Lavine, Elton Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, makes philosophy come alive with astonishing clarity to give us a deeper, more meaningful understanding of ourselves and our times. From Socrates To Satire (...) discusses Western philosophers in terms of the historical and intellectual environment which influenced them, and it connects their lasting ideas to the public and private choices we face in America today From Socrates To Satre formed the basis for the PBS television series of the same name. (shrink)

Ethical consumerism -- Caveat emptor -- The consumer as causal agent -- The consumer as complicit participant -- Toward a practical consumer ethic.

This paper explores the concept of ectogenesis in both the partial and the complete forms and argues for the moral permissibility of artificial womb technology in some restricted contexts. The author proposes that artificial wombs could licitly be employed for the purpose of saving the lives of infants born at very young gestational ages either by miscarriage or by delivery induced for very serious medical reasons. The author also proposes that artificial womb technology may be licitly used for the rescue (...) of embryos created through in vitro fertilization and subsequently abandoned by their parents, but the technology would have no ethical application when used electively. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.3 (Autumn 2010): 515–528. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aesthetic Experience and Education:Themes and QuestionsDeborah Kerdeman"Being with" music. Attentive responsiveness in teaching. Scholarly learning as engagement with beauty. Three evocative images of aesthetic experience come to light in the essays by Custodero, Hansen, and Neumann. From the musical play of children conducting imaginary orchestras to the vocational aspirations of adults who gaze through telescopes or study paintings at Chicago's Art Institute, aesthetic experience spans a range of activities (...) and ages. No matter the setting or moment, aesthetic experience vitalizes our lives with meaning and joy. Why this is so and what difference this makes for education emerge as overarching concerns in this set of papers. Addressing these issues, the authors articulate a number of commonthemes and reach similar conclusions about the nature and value of aesthetic experience.I want to identify and analyze key ideas that run throughout these essays. Doing so deepens our appreciation of the authors' insights and underscores the importance of the project they undertake. I also want to examine three questions that the essays suggest but do not develop. Exploring these questions, I hope to further enrich our understanding of aesthetic experience and its place in education.First and foremost, aesthetic experience for all three authors integrates multiple ways of knowing and enables individuals to perceive connections that they might otherwise overlook. According to Custodero, aesthetic experience harmonizes imagination, physicality, and "thinking-in-action." [End Page 88] Thinking-in-action, Custodero says, while "critical and consequential," is nonverbal and nonjudgmental — unifying rather than analytic. Synthesizing bodily movement, imagination, and thought, aesthetic experience reveals "surprise relationships between seemingly disparate phenomena." The theme of integration is echoed in Neumann's description of scholarly learning as aesthetic experience. Scholarly learning does not shun feeling or lived experience, Neumann writes. This way of knowing instead is "deeply emotional and personal." Insight fuses with emotion, enabling scholars to "feel the whole picture," as David the astronomer puts it in his interview with Neumann. For Hansen, aesthetic experience connotes heightened perception, a way of being that attends to nuances of gesture that would otherwise remain invisible. "The aesthetic highlights aspects of wonder and of beauty that emerge, spontaneously and unrehearsed," Hansen explains. A form of creativity, aesthetic perception combines with moral and intellectual understanding to fully embrace "the living dynamic gestalt" of teaching and learning.Aesthetic experience thus integrates mind, body, and emotion. Hansen links aesthetic experience to moral judgment as well. Integrating various ways of knowing, aesthetic experience enables individuals to perceive and understand relationships that pulse throughout the social and natural world. Such understanding is pleasurable, the authors agree.Aesthetic experience not only is integrative. It also is interactive. Custodero's musicians interact with instruments, musical scores, and other individuals. Neumann's scholars interact with ideas and scholarly materials. Hansen's preservice teachers interact with works of art, subject matter, students, and one another. Interacting with people and things, individuals become absorbed in what they are doing. "Being with" music is howCustodero puts it. Carmen, the professor of music in Neumann's essay, says that playing music well "is like a complete focus of oneness."Being absorbed in aesthetic interaction does not discount or dissolve the ability to make decisions or direct action. Aesthetic experience rather presumes and promotes "aesthetic agency," to borrow a phrase from Custodero. "To 'be in the moment,'" Custodero writes, "is to encounter the aesthetic — fully engaged in an activity for which one's individual contributions are perceived as vital." Hansen's description of aesthetic perception combines attentiveness and responsiveness in a "dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative." Neumann states that scholarly learning is an experience of "deep engrossment." Such engrossment does not extinguish the self, however. In the words of David the astronomer, feeling "the whole picture... is a combination of both what you see, sort of an instinctive or primal thing, and also your knowledge of what, you know, you put together." [End Page 89]The interactive nature of aesthetic experience thus signifies a kind of "agency-in-situ." Aesthetic experience is shaped or directed by the contribution and initiative of individuals. But individuals cannot act in advance of experience or know what to do, unless they are... (shrink)

Concerns of public responsibility and professional certification may sometimes mean it is unethical to teach ethics.

CHAPTER ONE AIM AND STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY About ten years before his death the Athenian philosopher Plato, securely settled in the Academy which he had ...

In this paper, I seek to develop Aquinas’s view of the passions’ contribution to moral reasoning by discussing the role he sees the passions as playing in each of practical reason’s three acts. I begin by outlining why, on Aquinas’s account, the passions are capable of contributing to moral reasoning. I then turn to his proposal in Summa Theologica I-II, q. 44, a. 2 that certain passions can improve the act of counsel. I also address what appears to be a (...) contradiction in his account. Next, I explain why Aquinas allows the passions to contribute to the act of counsel, but claims in De malo q. 3, a. 11 that they should not be given weight in our moral judgments. I end by briefly exploring whether Aquinas allows the passions to contribute to the act of command. I suggest that he does. (shrink)

In this writing, David Hansen illuminates the aesthetic, moral, and epistemic meaning of bearing witness to teaching and teachers by drawing upon a recently completed field-based endeavor that included extensive school visits. Hansen shows how bearing witness can bring the inquirer close to the truth of teaching. However, the witness must undertake ethical work to ready her- or himself for the task. Even such readiness, which must be continuously re-won on each occasion, guarantees nothing. The witness in the classroom (...) must work with faith, hope, and a deep sense of the worthwhileness of teaching. Hansen suggests that the witness's practice as well as testimony regarding the work can have a valuable influence on the consciousness, and conscience, of all who concern themselves with teaching and teachers. (shrink)

With the possible exception of churches, fraternal societies were the leading providers of social welfare in the United States before the Great Depression. Their membership reached an estimated 50 percent of the adult male population and they were especially strong among immigrants and African Americans. Unlike the adversarial relationships engendered by governmental welfare programs and private charity, fraternal social welfare rested on a foundation of reciprocity between donor and recipient. By the 1920s, fraternal societies and other mutual aid institutions had (...) entered a period of decline from which they never recovered. The many possible reasons for this decline included the rise of the welfare state, restrictive state insurance regulation, and competition from private insurers. (shrink)

When government officials can look you in the eye and invoke the Federal Freedom of Information Act, they know full well that they have donned a cloak of invisibility. They are saying, in effect, "You can't touch me," and they are calculating that you will get the message and go away. Worse yet, they are putting a premium on "access" journalism—they are elevating the importance of access, of authorized leaks, of journalists currying favor with the right government officials to get (...) information and to get information quickly, when they are on deadline and they need answers. Simply put, if journalists cannot rely on being able to go to source documents in a reasonably fast way, they are in a terribly weakened position when it comes to actually dealing day-in and day-out with high government officials. (shrink)

A central tenet of hermeneutics is the claim that dialogue is necessary for the full understanding of ourselves. It follows, then, that dialogue must be fruitful for understanding in a way in which no solitary activity can be. This dissertation provides a much needed defense of this claim by articulating and defending the essential parts of an account of intersubjectivity from which the claim follows. The dissertation is divided into three sections, each focusing on a specific part of the account (...) of intersubjectivity-- intersubjectivity and language, intersubjectivity and time-consciousness, and intersubjectivity and the body--through a careful consideration of the views of pairs of philosophers. I focus on J. G. Fichte and Wilhelm von Humboldt on the issue of intersubjectivity and language, on Edmund Husserl and Martin Buber on the issue of intersubjectivity and time-consciousness, and on Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the issue of intersubjectivity and embodied subjectivity. Through exposing the necessity of our intersubjective relations for the very possibility of language use, awareness of time, and embodied awareness of the world, I demonstrate the existence of a pre-reflective, intersubjective relation between embodied subjects. This intercoporeal intersubjectivity requires extending traditional hermeneutics through an account of the body and a broader account of both understanding and dialogue. (shrink)

In this article, I map current conceptions of cosmopolitanism and sketch distinctions between the concept and humanism and multiculturalism. The differences mirror what I take to be a central motif of cosmopolitanism: the capacity to fuse reflective openness to the new with reflective loyalty to the known. This motif invites a reconsideration of the meaning of culture as well as of the relations between home and the world.