Written by the world's best-known political and legal theorist, Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution is a collection of essays that discuss almost all of the great constitutional issues of the last two decades, including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, homosexuality, pornography, and free speech. Professor Dworkin offers a consistently liberal view of the Constitution and argues that fidelity to it and to law demands that judges make moral judgments. He proposes that we all interpret the abstract language (...) of the Constitution by reference to moral principles about political decency and justice. His `moral reading therefore brings political morality into the heart of constitutional law. The various chapters of this book were originally published separately and are now drawn together to provide the reader with a rich, full-length treatment of Dworkin's general theory of law. (shrink)

Preface 9 PART I: RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND Introduction to Part I 19 1. The Bible 27 2. Natural Theology 33 William Paley 3. On the Origin of Species 38 Charles Darwin 4. Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species 65 Adam Sedgwick 5. The Origin of Species 73 Thomas H. Huxley 6. What Is Darwinism? 82 Charles Hodge 7. Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program 105 Karl Popper 8. Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Biology 116 Michael (...) Ruse 9. Human Nature: One Evolutionist’s View 136 Francisco Ayala 10. Universal Darwinism 158 Richard Dawkins PART II: CREATION SCIENCE AND THE McLEAN CASE Introduction to Part II 187 11. The Creationists 192 Ronald L. Numbers 12. Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence 231 Duane T. Gish 13. Witness Testimony Sheet: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 253 Michael Ruse 14. United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 279 Judge William R. Overton 15. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem 312 Larry Laudan 16. Science at the BarùCauses for Concern 331 Larry Laudan 17. Pro Judice 337 Michael Ruse 18. More on Creationism 345 Larry Laudan 19. Commentary: Philosophers at the BarùSome Reasons for Restraint 350 Barry R. Gross PART III: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE KITZMILLER CASE Introduction to Part III 369 20. But Isn’t It Creationism? The Beginnings of "Intelligent Design" in the Midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana Litigation 377 Nick Matzke 21. What Is Darwinism? 414 Phillip E. Johnson 22. Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design, Creationism, and the Constitution 426 Matthew Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey 23. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Witness Testimony 434 Michael Behe 24. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Report 456 Robert T. Pennock 25. A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies 485 Steve Fuller 26. What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design? 495 Elliott Sober 27. United States District Court Memorandum Opinion: Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 506 Judge John E. Jones II 28. Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited 536 Robert T. Pennock. (shrink)

Debate over the nature of science has recently moved from the halls of academia into the public sphere, where it has taken shape as the "science wars." At issue is the question of whether scientific knowledge is objective and universal or socially mediated, whether scientific truths are independent of human values and beliefs. Ronald Giere is a philosopher of science who has been at the forefront of this debate from its inception, and Science without Laws offers a much-needed mediating (...) perspective on an increasingly volatile line of inquiry. Giere does not question the major findings of modern science: for example, that the universe is expanding or that inheritance is carried by DNA molecules with a double helical structure. But like many critics of modern science, he rejects the widespread notion of science--deriving ultimately from the Enlightenment--as a uniquely rational activity leading to the discovery of universal truths underlying all natural phenomena. In these highly readable essays, Giere argues that it is better to understand scientists as merely constructing more or less abstract models of limited aspects of the world. Such an understanding makes possible a resolution of the issues at stake in the science wars. The critics of science are seen to be correct in rejecting the Enlightenment idea of science, and its defenders are seen to be correct in insisting that science does produce genuine knowledge of the natural world. Giere is utterly persuasive in arguing that to criticize the Enlightenment ideal is not to criticize science itself, and that to defend science one need not defend the Enlightenment ideal. Science without Laws thus stakes out a middle ground in these debates by showing us how science can be better conceived in other ways. (shrink)

Alan Gross applies the principles of rhetoric to the interpretation of classical and contemporary scientific texts to show how they persuade both author and audience. This invigorating consideration of the ways in which scientists--from Copernicus to Darwin to Newton to James Watson--establish authority and convince one another and us of the truth they describe may very well lead to a remodeling of our understanding of science and its place in society.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

This brief essay explores how understanding the treatment of expert evidence requires engaging with its legal and political contexts, and not just focusing on its epistemological aspects. Although the law of evidence and thus its treatment of experts is significantly informed by epistemological considerations, it is also informed by concerns over the organization of trials, larger issues of intelligent governance, social concerns, and enforcement issues. These five aspects to the law of evidence give rise to principles to guide the explicit (...) structuring of the law of evidence that are identified here as well. This complexity helps to explain why the central issue of expert testimony is not the epistemological one of knowledge and belief but instead the conflict between educational and deferential modes of trial. (shrink)

Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction is a work of political philosophy that examines the core injustices of the contemporary U.S. housing crisis and its relation to enduring racial injustices. It posits that what is required to achieve justice in social-spatial arrangements—what is otherwise called “spatial justice”—is to prioritize, in the crafting and enforcement of housing policy, individual moral equality and liberty; distributive justice; equal citizenship; and, due to history and continuing practice and effects of racial discrimination in housing (...) policy and the housing market in the United States, corrective justice in the form of rectification programs to address the history of racism in housing policy that should be implemented by local, state, and federal governments. To arrive at and illustrate this conclusion, it investigates aspects of the housing crisis closely related to the history of American racial injustice, such as gentrification, segregation, desegregation, integration, and, to a lesser extent, homelessness, and offers liberal reform gestures toward a broad view of reconstructive justice. (shrink)

I do not want to be misunderstood as saying that the cultural situation I describe here caused Reagan, or that it typifies Reaganism, or that everything about it can be ascribed or referred back to the personality of Ronald Reagan. What I argue is that a particular situation within the field we call "criticism" is not merely related to but is an integral part of the currents of thought and practice that play a role within the Reagan era. Moreover, (...) I think, "criticism" and the traditional academic humanities have gone through a series of developments over time whose beneficiary and culmination is Reaganism. Those are the gross claims that I make for my argument.A number of miscellaneous points need to be made here. I am fully aware that any effort to characterize the present cultural moment is very likely to seem quixotic at best, unprofessional at worst. But that, I submit, is an aspect of the present cultural moment, in which the social and historical setting of critical activity is a totality felt to be benign , uncharacterizable as a whole and somehow outside history. Thus it seems to me that one thing to be tried–out of sheer critical obstinacy–is precisely that kind of generalization, that kind of political portrayal, that kind of overview condemned by the present dominant culture to appear inappropriate and doomed from the start.It is my conviction that culture works very effectively to make invisible and even "impossible" the actual affiliations that exist between the world of ideas and scholarship on the one hand, and the world of brute politics, corporate and state power, and military force, on the other. The cult of expertise and professionalism, for example, has so restricted our scope of vision that a positive doctrine of noninterference among fields has set in. This doctrine has it that the general public is best left ignorant, and the most crucial policy questions affecting human existence are best left to "experts," specialists who talk about their specialty only, and–to use the word first given wide social approbation by Walter Lippman in Public Opinion and The Phantom Public–"insiders," people who are endowed with the special privilege of knowing how things really work and, more important, of being close to power1.1. See Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century , pp. 180-85 and 212-6. (shrink)

As consumer lifestyles have changed over recent decades, people have increasingly turned to meals prepared away from home. A major consequence of this shift in eating patterns has been a concomitant rise in obesity rates worldwide. Research has consistently documented that consumers tend to make less healthy choices when purchasing prepared meals away from home. In part, this can be attributed to inadequate information at the time of purchase; both nutrition experts and lay consumers tend, for example, to underestimate calories (...) in food purchased away from home and thus portion sizes tend to be larger. Thus, by requiring restaurants and other purveyors of prepared foods to provide the calorie content and other nutrition information at the point of purchase, consumers should be able to make more informed decisions and public health should be improved. The often maligned Affordable Care Act (i.e., “Obamacare”) addressed this issue in a mandate calling for compulsory nutrition labeling of prepared foods at the point of sale. In response to this effort, conservatives in Congress introduced the “Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act” (CSNDA) which, if enacted, would have effectively eviscerated the menu labeling provisions mandated by the Affordable Care Act. The stated rationale behind this legislation: to protect small business and prevent job loss resulting from overly‐burdensome federal regulations. This article provides a historical look at the evolution of federally mandated menu labeling in the United States with particular emphasis on opposition to its passage. The position is taken such that this legislation is beneficial, warranted, and long overdue, and its opposition, as reflected in the CSNDA, points to the need for new metrics when evaluating public policy. (shrink)

The problem of providing mandated medical care has become commonplace as correctional systems in the United States struggle to manage unprecedented increases in its aging prison population. This study explores older incarcerated women’s perceptions of prison health care policies and their day-to-day survival experiences. Aggregate data obtained from a sample of 327 older women residing in prison facilities in five Southern states were used to identify a baseline of health conditions and needs for this vulnerable group. With an average of (...) 4.2 chronic health conditions, frequently histories of victimization, and high rates of mental health issues, the women’s experiences of negotiating health care was particularly challenging. By incorporating the voices of older women, we expose the contradictions, dilemmas, and obstacles they experience in their attempts to obtain health care. It is clear from the personal accounts shared that, despite court mandates, penal harm practices such as delaying or denying medical treatment as well as occasional staff indifferences are common in women’s prisons. With older women having the greatest need for health care, an age- and gender-sensitive approach is recommended. (shrink)

The companion volume to Arnold Come's Kierkegaard as Humanist, Kierkegaard as Theologian is an exploration of Søren Kierkegaard's deliberately Christian writings, from Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1846) to For Self-Examination (1851). In his later writings Kierkegaard sought to "get further forward in the direction of discovering the Christianity of the New Testament" to resolve his own spiritual crisis. His struggle to understand how authentic theologizing relates to the spiritual struggles of personal faith led him to a discussion of the (...) three basic foci of his theologizing: the self as gift, that is, a creation "out of nothing" from God; the self as failure, which brings on a state of despair; and the self redeemed by God's love and healing compassion. Come probes some of the problematic aspects of Kierkegaard's theology. He addresses the question of whether God's high intentions and demands for human achievement of selfhood and spirituality justify the unspeakable sufferings entailed in human failures to fulfil those demands. He also explores the puzzling relation between Kierkegaard's seeming assignment of exclusivity to the Christian understanding and experiences of both sin and salvation as well as his assumption of the capacity of humans to recognize the need to turn to the eternal that is immanent in every human consciousness - so-called Religiousness A. (shrink)

On his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that (...) prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature , one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

This book consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology.

The university has lost its way. The world needs the university more than ever but for new reasons. If we are to clarify its new role in the world, we need to find a new vocabulary and a new sense of purpose. The university is faced with supercomplexity, in which our very frames of understanding, action and self-identity are all continually challenged. In such a world, the university has explicitly to take on a dual role: firstly, of compounding supercomplexity, so (...) making the world ever more challenging; and secondly, of enabling us to live effectively in this chaotic world. Internally, too, the university has to become a new kind of organization, adept at fulfilling this dual role. The university has to live by the uncertainty principle: it has to generate uncertainty, to help us live with uncertainty, and even to revel in our uncertainty. Ronald Barnett offers nothing less than a fundamental reworking of the way in which we understand the modern university. Realizing the University is essential reading for all those concerned about the future of higher education. (shrink)

This text engages preservice and practicing teachers in considering some of the complex issues related to religion and teaching that all educators face in their interactions with students, parents, administrators, and fellow teachers. The questions are not just about what is legal and what is not, but how a teacher should act in the best interests of all students, both those who are religious and those who are not. This book does not provide answers. Its goal is to cause readers (...) to reflect deeply on issues related to their professional decisions and actions regarding religion and teaching. _Religion and Teaching_ is pertinent for all prospective and practicing teachers at any stage in their teaching careers. It can be used in any undergraduate or graduate course that addresses issues of religion and teaching. (shrink)

This book addresses the most important questions asked about higher education: What should its content be? What should we educate for, and why? What constitutes a meaningful liberal education, as distinct from mere training for a vocation? These and many other questions are addressed by Reuben Abel, M.H. Abrams, Robert L. Bartley, Ronald Berman, Also S. Bernardo, Wm. Theodore deBary, Gray Dorsey, Joseph Dunner, Nathan Glazer, Feliks Gross, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Gerald Holton, Sidney Hook, Charles Issawi, Montimer R. Kadish, (...) Paul Oscar Krissteller, paul Kurtz, Herbert I. London, Ernest Nagel, Henry R. Novotny, Frederick A. Olafson, Michael Rabin, Howard B. Radest, Joseph J. Schwab, Robert F. Sexton, Thomas Sowell, John B. Stephenson, and Miro M. Todorovich. (shrink)

Following a series of national protests in support of an increase in the federal minimum wage, many fast food workers faced retaliation by their employers when they returned to work; schedules were changed, wages and hours were reduced, and some employees were terminated. These retaliatory actions resulted in a number of complaints being filed with the National Labor Relations Board alleging violations of the National Labor Relations Act. Several of the complaints were found to have merit and, additionally, in several (...) instances both the immediate employer, the franchisee, and the corporate organization of which it was a part, the franchisor, were named as co‐defendants. This ruling—that franchisors like McDonald’s USA—could be held jointly responsible for the labor violations of independent franchisees reversed a long‐standing precedent, whereby franchisees were regarded as independent contractors solely responsible for day‐to‐day labor practices, including compliance with federal and state labor statutes. Critics of the ruling argue that it will open the door to unionization and may well spell the end of the service‐sponsor franchising format. Supporters of the NLRB argue that the ruling is just and reflects new “industrial realities” in retail labor markets. Further, a case can be made that the NLRB’s position represents a step in the direction of the restoration of more equitable balance of power between labor and management. (shrink)

Dating back to the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that workers were entitled to a wage that allowed them to enjoy a decent standard of living—a conviction that led the president to propose the first federally-mandated minimum wage. Mr. Roosevelt’s proposal was met with highly partisan resistance in congress and the courts—reactions not different in kind from the highly partisan resistance former President Obama experienced in his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 (...) per hour. Reflecting President Roosevelt’s convictions, it is clear that many low wage workers today are not, and cannot, enjoying a decent standard of living at current minimum wage levels. Further, many of the economic arguments raised in opposition to increasing the minimum wage have been thoroughly discredited: empirical evidence suggests that increased minimum wages would not lead to dramatic spikes in unemployment, massive substitutions of capital for labor, business closings, and significantly increased consumer prices. However, as compelling as arguments for increasing the minimum wage may be, the reality is that this may not be sufficient to alleviate the plight of low income workers, particularly given the political nature of minimum wage adjustments. Indeed, it may be time to shift the national focus away from the minimum wage to an emphasis on viable living wage legislation, a proposition consistent with the social justice perspective of contemporary ethicists. (shrink)

RESUMEN Durante el siglo XVII, el reloj parece el modelo más adecuado para pensar los seres vivos. El filósofo alemán G. W. Leibniz es parte de la tradición mecanicista que concibe los seres vivos a partir del modelo del reloj o de los autómatas, pero establece una distinción esencial entre máquinas naturales y artificiales, que muestra los límites de este modelo. Las primeras son máquinas infinitamente complejas, máquinas dentro de máquinas ad infinitum, las segundas no, alcanzan un límite de complejidad. (...) Esta distinción obliga a ir más allá del reloj como modelo de los seres vivos, pues este modelo resulta insuficiente para comprender la dinámica propia de los seres vivos, en al menos dos aspectos: a) deja sin explicar el origen de la estructura o forma del ser vivo; b) no establece un principio interno de actividad que fundamente la unidad dinámica y estructural del ser vivo. Con su noción de organismo o máquina natural, Leibniz intenta resolver estas insuficiencias del modelo puramente mecánico: a) en su propuesta el ser vivo no se constituye de manera mecánica o serial, sino de una vez, por un acto de creación; b) la conservación del ser vivo en el tiempo sólo es comprensible a partir de un principio de actividad intrínseca que dota de unidad, actividad y estructura al viviente. ABSTRACT During the seventeenth century, the clock seems the most appropriate model for thinking about living beings. The German philosopher G. W. Leibniz, is part of the mechanical tradition that conceives living beings from the clock or the automata’s model, but he establishes an essential distinction between natural and artificial machines. This distinction shows the limits of the mechanical model. The machines of nature are infinitely complex machines, machines within machines ad infinitum; the artificial machines, instead, reach a limit of complexity. This distinction forces us to go beyond the clock as a model of living beings, because this model is insufficient to understand the dynamics of living beings, in at least two aspects: a) it is not able to explain the origin of the living being’s structure or form; b) it does not establish an internal principle of activity grounding the living being’s dynamic and structural unit. With his notion of organism or natural machine, Leibniz tries to solve these insufficiencies of the purely mechanical model: a) in his proposal, the living being is not constituted mechanically or serially, but at once, by an act of creation; b) the conservation of the living being in time is only understandable from a principle of intrinsic activity that provides unity, activity and structure to living beings. (shrink)

Toward the end of the Nomadology plateau of A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari differentiate an ambulant holey space from the smooth space of the nomadic war machine and the striated space of the sedentary State apparatus. Although Deleuze and Guattari only discuss the concept briefly, holey space provides a useful means of framing their remarks on music in general. Music’s holey space is a quasi-territory determined by processes of following sonic movement-matter. Its instruments differ from nomadic weapons and sedentary (...) tools, being characterized by directions of injection, ejection and parajection; the vector of lines of the universe and extemporality; the model of free play; the trait of expression of incantation; and the tonality of affects-percepts. A paradigmatic instance of musical holey space is John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit as performed on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018. (shrink)

Toward the end of the Nomadology plateau of A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari differentiate an ambulant holey space from the smooth space of the nomadic war machine and the striated space of the sedentary State apparatus. Although Deleuze and Guattari only discuss the concept briefly, holey space provides a useful means of framing their remarks on music in general. Music’s holey space is a quasi-territory determined by processes of following sonic movement-matter. Its instruments differ from nomadic weapons and sedentary (...) tools, being characterized by directions of injection, ejection and parajection; the vector of lines of the universe and extemporality; the model of free play; the trait of expression of incantation; and the tonality of affects-percepts. A paradigmatic instance of musical holey space is John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit as performed on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018. (shrink)

Ours is a vacuumless universe - Character and Potential pervade The spatio-temporal manifold! The manifold is discretely divided As the ancients foretold By atomicity, by discreteness amid continuity! Atomicity embedded within atomic occasions Events emerging as a confluence of Antecedent events! The character and relations within that nexus Constituent of an occasion’s causal past Determine the characteristics and relations Which ingress within the atomic event! As character ingresses into an atomic occasion, Bounded by spatial magnitude and temporal duration, The character (...) and potentiality Within the event’s causal future Emerge, Begat as an occasion’s progeny. Co-Director, International Center for Process Philosophy, Science and Education. (shrink)

Humans are complex social beings. To understand human behaviour, an integrated perspective is required - one which considers both what we regularly do and what motivates us. Personality, Values, Culture uses an evolutionary perspective to look at the similarities and differences in personality and values across modern societies. Integrating research on personality and human values into a functional framework that highlights their underlying compatibilities, Fischer describes how personality is shaped by the complex interplay between genes and the environment, both over (...) the course of human evolution and within the lifespan of individuals. He proposes a gene-culture coevolution model of personality and values to explain how and why people differ around the world and how genes, economics, social conditions, and climate jointly shape personality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

This research examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and company stock valuation across three regions of the world. After a brief introduction, the article gives an overview of the evolving definition of CSR as well as a discussion of the ways in which this construct has been operationalized. Presentation of the potential impact of corporate social performance on firm financial performance follows, including investor characteristics, the rationale behind their choices, and their influence on the marketplace for securities worldwide. (...) The unique method used to select socially responsible investments is then provided that also includes a description of the quantitative techniques employed in the analyses. Results are offered subsequently, and the close describes implications for global enterprises as socially responsible investments. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

Using the theoretical approach he introduced in his acclaimed Religious Reason (Oxford, 1978), and drawing on contemporary rationalist ethical theory as well as a variety of religious traditions and issues, Ronald M. Green here provides a simple, effective model for understanding the complexity of religious life. He shows clearly and convincingly that the basic processes of religious reasoning are the same everywhere and that they give rise, in perfectly understandable ways, to the rich diversity of religious expression worldwide. This (...) is a major resource for courses in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Over the centuries, magicians have developed extensive knowledge about the manipulation of the human mind—knowledge that has been largely ignored by psychology. It has recently been argued that this knowledge could help improve our understanding of human cognition and consciousness. But how might this be done? And how much could it ultimately contribute to the exploration of the human mind? We propose here a framework outlining how knowledge about magic can be used to help us understand the human mind. Various (...) approaches—both old and new—are surveyed, in terms of four different levels. The first focuses on the methods in magic, using these to suggest new approaches to existing issues in psychology. The second focuses on the effects that magic can produce, such as the sense of wonder induced by seeing an apparently impossible event. Third is the consideration of magic tricks—methods and effects together—as phenomena of scientific interest in their own right. Finally, there is the organization of knowledge about magic into an informative whole, including the possibility of a science centered around the experience of wonder. (shrink)

We show that early vision can use monocular cues to rapidly complete partially-occluded objects. Visual search for easily detected fragments becomes difficult when the completed shape is similar to others in the display; conversely, search for fragments that are difficult to detect becomes easy when the completed shape is distinctive. Results indicate that completion occurs via the occlusion-triggered removal of occlusion edges and linking of associated regions. We fail to find evidence for a visible filling-in of contours or surfaces, but (...) do find evidence for a "functional" filling-in that prevents the constituent fragments from being rapidly accessed. As such, it is only the completed structures—and not the fragments themselves—that serve as the basis for rapid recognition. (shrink)

Our visual experience of the world is one of diverse objects and events, each with particular colors, shapes, and motions. This experience is so coherent, so immediate, and so effortless that it seems to result from a single system that lets us experience everything in our field of view. But however appealing, this belief is mistaken: there are severe limits on what can be visually experienced. -/- For example, in a display for air-traffic control it is important to track all (...) moving items. For a single item, this can be done without problem. Three or four can also be tracked, although some degree of effort may be needed. As the number is increased further, accurate tracking becomes more and more difficult—and eventually, impossible. Performance is evidently affected by a factor within the observer which enables certain kinds of perception to occur, but is limited in some way. This factor is generally referred to as attention. -/- At various times, attention has been associated with clarity of perception, intensity of perception, consciousness, selection, or the allocation of a limited “resource” enabling various operations (see Hatfield, 1998). During the past several decades, considerable progress has been achieved by focusing on the idea of selection (Broadbent, 1982). In particular, attention can be productively viewed as contingently selective processing. This can be embodied in various ways by various processes—there need not be a single quantity identified with all forms of attention, or a single site where it operates (Allport, 1993; Tsotsos, 2011). Although “paying attention” is often considered to be a unitary operation, it may simply refer to the control of one or more selective processes, ideally in a co-ordinated way. While this view has some cost in terms of conceptual simplicity, it can help make sense of a large set of phenomena. -/- This article surveys several of the major issues in our understanding of attention and how it relates to perception. It focuses on vision, since many—if not all—considerations are similar for all sensory modalities, and the level of understanding achieved in this domain is currently the most advanced. (shrink)

Princess Diana’s death was a tragedy that provoked mourning across the globe; the death of a homeless person, more often than not, is met with apathy. How can we account for this uneven distribution of emotion? Can it simply be explained by the prevailing scientific understanding? Uncovering a rich tradition beginning with Aristotle, _The Secret History of Emotion_ offers a counterpoint to the way we generally understand emotions today. Through a radical rereading of Aristotle, Seneca, Thomas Hobbes, Sarah Fielding, and (...) Judith Butler, among others, Daniel M. Gross reveals a persistent intellectual current that considers emotions as psychosocial phenomena. In Gross’s historical analysis of emotion, Aristotle and Hobbes’s rhetoric show that our passions do not stem from some inherent, universal nature of men and women, but rather are conditioned by power relations and social hierarchies. He follows up with consideration of how political passions are distributed to some people but not to others using the Roman Stoics as a guide. Hume and contemporary theorists like Judith Butler, meanwhile, explain to us how psyches are shaped by power. To supplement his argument, Gross also provides a history and critique of the dominant modern view of emotions, expressed in Darwinism and neurobiology, in which they are considered organic, personal feelings independent of social circumstances. The result is a convincing work that rescues the study of the passions from science and returns it to the humanities and the art of rhetoric. (shrink)

My thesis is that, although medicine is scientific, it is not and can not become a science. After rejecting as flawed an argument attempting to show that medicine is already a science, I argue that a comparison of such basic, defining features as internal aims, criteria of success, and principles regulating the enterprises demonstrate that medicine and science are inherently different. I then argue that while it may be possible to reduce the cognitive content of medicine to biology, medicine itself (...) cannot be reduced, for as an enterprise it possesses features that make it an inappropriate subject of reduction. I conclude by indicating four results that emerge from recognizing that medicine and science are basically distinct. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Husserl has finally begun to be recognized as the precursor of current interest in intentionality — the first to have a general theory of the role of mental representations in the philosophy of language and mind. As the first thinker to put directedness of mental representations at the center of his philosophy, he is also beginning to emerge as the father of current research in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.

The concept of food sovereignty is primarily taken as an alternative to the prevailing neoliberal food security model. However, the approach has hitherto not received adequate attention from policy makers. This could be because the discourse is marked by controversies and contradictions, particularly regarding its ability to address the challenges of feeding a rapidly growing global population. In response to these criticisms, this paper argues that the principles of food sovereignty, such as democratic and transparent food systems, agroecology, and local (...) market prioritization, should be fundamental pillars for achieving sustainable food security. It acknowledges that neither food sovereignty nor food security models alone can guarantee long-term food security, thus advocating for a blended approach that integrates these perspectives into a complex and interconnected system. This paper makes three significant contributions to the existing literature. Firstly, it emphasizes that food sovereignty should be seen as an integral component of transforming food systems towards sustainability, rather than a complete departure from neoliberal food systems. Secondly, it highlights the importance of adopting a multi-scalar approach, where decisions and policies for transforming food systems are context-specific and tailored to local circumstances. Lastly, the paper recognizes the necessity of institutional transformations that involve nation-states, social movements, and civil society organizations as key actors in the process of food system transformation. By reframing the discussion on food sovereignty and its relationship with food security, this paper provides insights into how these concepts can be mutually reinforcing, leading to more sustainable and equitable food systems. (shrink)