This book develops a metaphysics which is missing when trust is ordered around economic theories and institutions.

Modern technology has changed the way we live, work, play, communicate, fight, love, and die. Yet few works have systematically explored these changes in light of their implications for individual and social welfare. How can we conceptualize and evaluate the influence of technology on human well-being? Bringing together scholars from a cross-section of disciplines, this volume combines an empirical investigation of technology and its social, psychological, and political effects, and a philosophical analysis and evaluation of the implications of such effects.

Can it make sense for someone who appreciates the explanatory power of modern science to continue believing in a traditional religious account of the ultimate nature and purpose of our universe?

The influence of pragmatism—and of Dewey in particular—upon Lipman’s conception of the classroom Community of Inquiry is pervasive. The notion of the Community of Inquiry is directly attributable to Peirce, while Dewey maintained that inquiry should form the backbone of education in a democratic society, conceived of as an inquiring community. I explore the ways in which pragmatic conceptions of truth and meaning are embedded in the Community of Inquiry, as well as looking at its Deweyan moral and social commitments. (...) I show that Peirce’s and Dewey’s notions of truth are in perfect alignment with the philosophical Community of Inquiry, as is Dewey’s tie between meaning and ideas that bring our inquiries to a satisfactory conclusion. The Deweyan notion that moral values are justified by their utility in solving problems in social life is also to be found in the Community of Inquiry, as arguably is his view that moral values are to be regarded as working values that face the tribunal of experience in much the same way as hypotheses in science. Again, the focus in the classroom on open inquiry into issues and problems, the active participation of the students in building upon one another’s ideas, the sense of shared responsibility, and the growth and development of the intellectual and social powers of the individual, all mirror Dewey’s pragmatic conception of democracy. Given this allegiance, it may be argued that the Community of Inquiry faces a pragmatic problem of its own. While it aims to be a philosophically open encounter with all kinds of issues and ideas, pragmatic conceptions are so constitutive of it that they may skew the pitch philosophically. I also address this issue. (shrink)

There are a number of controversies surrounding the Human Genome Project. Some criticisms are based on the contention that the full human sequence will be scientifically worthless; others stem from short-term worries about the social impact of genetic testing and the release of genetic information about individuals. I argue that, properly understood, the HGP is a valuable scientific project with a misleading name, that the moral issues surrounding the short-term difficulties are relatively straightforward but that there are problems of practical (...) politics in implementing the obvious solutions. Finally, I suggest that the HGP serves as the occasion for raising deeper philosophical questions about our commitment to improve the quality of human lives. (shrink)

Philip H Walkling; The Idea of a Multicultural Curriculum [1], Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 87–95, https://doi.org.

In this volume philosophers from throughout the Asia-Pacific region discuss a wide range of topics related to the development of democratic values and ways of life. The papers explore ideas, values and practices related to democracy from the different perspectives of the great religious and philosophical traditions of Asia, as well as considering both philosophical issues and the place of philosophy in a democratic society. While the contributors represent different philosophical traditions, they are connected through a common concern with humanity, (...) a belief in the value of philosophical inquiry and scholarship and by a commitment to the value of philosophy education in building and sustaining democracy. (shrink)

_Diversity and Community: An Interdisciplinary Reader _is a collection of essays exploring the notion of community in its many theoretical, practical, and cultural manifestations. A collection of specially commissioned essays exploring the notion of community in its many theoretical, practical, and cultural manifestations. Discusses the idea of community in its full, cultural context. Deals with issues confronting many diverse groups, including African American, Franco-Canadian, computer-mediated, and gay and lesbian communities. Includes contributions by both eminent schlars and new voices, among them (...) Martha Nussbaum, Jean Bethke Elsthain, D.A. Masolo, Mary Hawkesworth, Lewis Gordon, Maria Lugones, Crispin Sartwell, Duane Champagne, and Frank Cunningham. (shrink)

There are hundreds of indications leading us to conclude that at every moment there is in us an infinity of perceptions, unaccompanied by awareness or reflection; that is, of alterations in the soul itself, of which we are unaware because the impressions are either too minute or too numerous, or else too unvarying, so that they are not sufficiently distinctive on their own. But when they are combined with others they do nevertheless have their effect and make themselves felt, at (...) least confusedly, within the whole. (Leibniz, 1704/1981, p. 53). (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 92-93. A collection of Images produced by intentionally corrupting the circuitry of a Kodak DC280 2 MP digitalcamera. By rewiring the electronics of a digital camera, glitched images are produced in a manner that parallels chemically processing unexposed film or photographic paper to produce photographic images without exposure to light. The DCP Series of Digital Images are direct visualizations of data generated by a digital camera as it takes a picture. Electronic processes associated with the normal operations (...) of the camera, which are usually taken for granted, are revealed through an act of intervention. The camera is turned inside­out through complexes of short­circuits, selected by the artist, transforming the camera from a picture taking device to a data capturing device that renders raw data (electronic signals) as images. In essence, these images are snap­shots of electronic signals dancing through the camera's circuits, manually rerouted, written directly to the on­board memory device. Rather than seeing images of the world through a lens, we catch a glimpse of what the camera sees when it is forced to peer inside its own mind. With the digital photo, this light, from out of the night, no longer comes entirely from the day, it doesn't come from a past day that would simply have become night (like the photons emenating from Baudelaire's face.) It comes from Hades, from the realm of the dead, from underground: it is an electric light, set free by materials from deep within the belly of the earth. And electronic, that is to say, a decomposed light. Digitization breaks the chain, it introduces manipulation even into the spectrum, and by the same token, it makes phantoms and phantasms indistinct. Photons become pixels that are in turn reduced zeroes and ones on which discrete calculations can be performed. Essentially indubitable when it was analog (whatever its accidental manipulability), the this was has become essentially doubtful when it is digital (it is nonmanipulation that becomes accidental). —Bernard Steigler, The Discrete Image There are so many ways to take something apart. Deconstruction, differentiation, dissection, dissolution. A whole slew of concepts and processes towards atomization which aim, eventually, to evoke or locate an essence of some kind, in material science as in philosophy. In picking things apart, what is it we attempt to do? To simplify? To comprehend? To confront? To disprove? With Stearns’ DCP Series we see that destructive scrutiny can sometimes bring about new forms. To create this series of images, Stearns applies circuit bending techniques to modern photography—his fingers and stray wires cutting across the camera’s circuitry at the moment of registration. As with Moholy­Nagy’s vinyl records and Nam June Paik’s cathode ray TVs, Stearns deconstructs the technological inscription of his era. In so doing, the function of the digital camera is revealed, but its transduction inverted: A recorder becomes a synthesizer, the scientist an artist. In a single, simple gesture, these works example a media archeology of the present. We resist the urge to call these photographs. —Jamie Allen. (shrink)

There is no question that something goes on in the head, which has been called consciousness. But is it consciousness? Over the last fifty years, there has been a concerted attempt to show how consciousness can be physical, of the brain. The diversity of views is characteristic of a Kuhnian pre- normal science revolution: but the revolution has not arrived. This is because the assumption that consciousness exists is wrong. In this paper consciousness (with e.g. its subjective/objective distinction) is characterized (...) as a pre-scientific theory. The biological ontology of the phenomenon is revealed, and its placement in organismic biology explained. The phenomenon will be termed brain-sign, as appropriate to its biological function. The nature of this function completely reconstructs our view of ourselves, and other creatures in which it is manifest. The detail and ramifications cannot be addressed at length in a paper, but a research program is outlined briefly. (shrink)

Mackie doubted anything objective could have the motivational properties of a value. In thinking we are morally required to act in a certain way, he said, we attribute objective value to the action. Since nothing has objective value, these moral judgments are all false. As to whether Mackie proved his error theory, opinions vary. But there is broad agreement on one issue. A litany of examples, ranging from amoralism to depression to downright evil, has everyone convinced that Mackie vastly overstated (...) the motivational implications of moral judgment. Mackie did go overboard. But did he have to? I think not. Even on the most modest motivational assumptions, Mackie can make objective value look queer and morality look like a sham. I begin with a sketch. (shrink)