From Abraham to Abu Ghraib, from the dissenting prophets to Darfur, he probes history, the Bible and the works of contemporary thinkers for ideas about both ...

Perhaps the burning issue facing us today is how people from different cultural backgrounds can live together or in close proximity with one another and preserve their identities without destroying one another. This topic is important to me because I believe that new understandings about what we mean by the terms “speech” and “reality”' may contribute towards an improvement in our ability to work together with peoples of diverse backgrounds in order to create a more caring an humane planet. As (...) I approach my three score and ten years of life and think about the importance for future generations of the legacies of my teacher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, of Mikhail Bakhtin, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, two Christians and two Jews, whose lives and writings have also influenced my own life and thinking. I would single out their insights into speech and language as worthy of serious attention by future generations. When asked by students and colleagues if there is a single unifying theme that we should focus our energies on, without hesitation, I say: speech and reality. (shrink)

Moje zainteresowanie pracami i dziełem Michaiła Bachtina oraz Eugena Rosenstocka-Huessy bierze swój początek z odkrycia, ze obaj myśliciele zgodnie twierdzili, iż religijna moc języka oraz mowy wyrasta z różnorodnych kryzysów życiowych. Theoria przez nich stworzona zbudowana jest na gruncie praxis i czerpie swą siłę ze zderzenia doświadczeń duchowych i intelektualnych obu filozofów z rewolucyjnym wrzeniem otaczającej ich współczesności. Wykład niniejszy to próba nawiązania dialogu z osobami podzielającymi podobne zainteresowania i troski. Pisząc go kierowałem się także pragnieniem zaabsorbowania uwagi moich słuchaczy (...) przedstawione w nim istoty metalingwistyki głoszonej przez „nieortodoksyjnego" prawosławnego teoretyka literatury i filozofa języka, Michaiła Bachtina, oraz znaczeniem metanomiki opracowanej przez „rewolucyjnie konserwatywnego" chrześcijańskiego myśliciela mowy i filozofa społecznego, Eugena Rosenstocka-Huessy. Zamiarem moim jest przedstawienie roli, jaką społeczno-religijne modele filozofii i socjologii oparte na mowie i języku mogą^ odegrać w dążeniach do zaprowadzenia pokojowego współistnienia na całej naszej planecie. Ten właśnie obszar zainteresowań został określony przez Williama Jamesa, amerykańskiego filozofa pragmatyzmu, mianem „moralnego równoważnika wojny”. Przywołując na pamięć ogromną rzeszę myślicieli, których prace odnoszą się bezpośrednio do wyznaczonego tu obszaru – a w pewnych przypadkach noszą znamiona dzieła prekursorskiego – nie możemy poprzestać na wymienieniu tylko nazwiska Williama Jamesa. Inne wielkie postaci to: Charles Sanders Pierce, George Herbert Mead, a także myśliciele podejmujący zagadnienia, które później stały się treścią filozofii Rosenstocka-Huessy, tj. Giovanni Battista Vico, J. G. Hamann, Comte de Saint-Simon oraz Giuseppe Ferrari. (shrink)

This anthology on creativity represents a lifetime of reading and study by the late Charles Dewey Tenney, a philosopher who had been a student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard. In a series of fourteen essays Tenney considers the various factors that can be identified in creativity, followed by the recorded testimony of philosophers, artists, historians, explorers, scientists and others, both theorists and practitioners. The contributors extend in time from Aristotle and Sophocles to Buckminster Fuller and May Sarton. They include (...) such diverse thinkers as Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Lewis Carroll, Julian Huxley, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Gertrude Stein, Henry Nelson Wieman and Alfred North Whitehead. In all, more than 300 of the world's most creative individuals are included. Contents: Discovery, Invention and Creation; Roots of Discovery; Environs of Discovery; Agents of Discovery; Hinderances to Discovery; Observation and Discovery; Reason in Discovery; Reverie Discovery; Imagination in Discovery; Sensibility and Discovery; Method in Discovery; Artistry in Discovery; Diffusion; and Foresight and Discovery. (shrink)

Much indirect evidence supports the hypothesis that transformations of mental images are at least in part guided by motor processes, even in the case of images of abstract objects rather than of body parts. For example, rotation may be guided by processes that also prime one to see results of a specific motor action. We directly test the hypothesis by means of a dual-task paradigm in which subjects perform the Cooper-Shepard mental rotation task while executing an unseen motor rotation in (...) a given direction and at a previously learned speed. Four results support the inference that mental rotation relies on motor processes. First, motor rotation that is compatible with mental rotation results in faster times and fewer errors in the imagery task than when the two rotations are incompatible. Second, the angle through which subjects rotate their mental images, and the angle through which they rotate a joystick handle are correlated, but only if the directions of the two rotations are compatible. Third, motor rotation modifies the classical inverted V-shaped mental rotation response time function, favoring the direction of the motor rotation; indeed, in some cases motor rotation even shifts the location of the minimum of this curve in the direction of the motor rotation. Fourth, the preceding effect is sensitive not only to the direction of the motor rotation, but also to the motor speed. A change in the speed of motor rotation can correspondingly slow down or speed up the mental rotation. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

The low rates of regular exercise and overall physical activity (PA) in the general population represent a significant public health challenge. Previous research suggests that, for many people, exercise leads to a negative affective response and, in turn, reduced likelihood of future exercise. The purpose of this paper is to examine this exercise–affect–adherence relationship from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, we argue that low rates of physical exercise in the general population are a function of the evolved human tendency to avoid (...) unnecessary physical exertion. This innate tendency evolved because it allowed our evolutionary ancestors to conserve energy for physical activities that had immediate adaptive utility such as pursuing prey, escaping predators, and engaging in social and reproductive behaviors. The commonly observed negative affective response to exercise is an evolved proximate psychological mechanism through which humans avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. The fact that the human tendencies toward negative affective response to and avoidance of unnecessary physical activities are innate does not mean that they are unchangeable. Indeed, it is only because of human-engineered changes in our environmental conditions (i.e., it is no longer necessary for us to work for our food) that our predisposition to avoid unnecessary physical exertion has become a liability. Thus, it is well within our capabilities to reengineer our environments to once again make PA necessary or, at least, to serve an immediate functional purpose. We propose a two-pronged approach to PA promotion based on this evolutionary functional perspective: first, to promote exercise and other physical activities that are perceived to have an immediate purpose, and second, to instill greater perceived purpose for a wider range of physical activities. We posit that these strategies are more likely to result in more positive (or less negative) affective responses to exercise, better adherence to exercise programs, and higher rates of overall PA. (shrink)

The essays in this volume apply philosophical analysis to address three kinds of questions: What are the implications of genetic science for our understanding of nature? What might it influence in our conception of human nature? What challenges does genetic science pose for specific issues of private conduct or public policy?

Heuristics provide insight into the inconsistencies that characterize thinking related to the use of nonhuman animals. We examine paradoxes in judgments and policy related to the treatment of animals in science from a moral intuition perspective. Sunstein's ideas are consistent with a model of animal-related ethical evaluation we developed twenty-five years ago and which appear readily formulated as moral heuristics.

In 1961, an inventive Englishman, named Peter Mitchell, proposed a radically novel hypothesis to explain how energy is conserved during respiration and photosynthesis, and applied to the generation of ATP and other kinds of functional work. The chemiosmotic hypothesis sparked an intense controversy that lasted for 15 years. Today, Mitchell's conception of proton currents and their role in phosphorylation and active transport is generally accepted, and has ramified into many corners of cellular physiology. His most profound contribution may have been (...) to introduce spatial direction into biochemistry, and thereby transform our perception of the relationship between molecules and cells. BioEssays 23:848–855, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The speed and scale of the COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted the limits of current health systems and the potential promise of non‐establishment research such as “DIY” research. We consider one example of how DIY research is responding to the pandemic, discuss the challenges faced by DIY research more generally, and suggest that a “trust architecture” should be developed now to contribute to successful future DIY efforts.