This paper examines the first reptile house at the Zoological Gardens in London as a novel site for the production and consumption of knowledge about snakes, stressing the significance of architectural and material limitations on both snakes and humans. Snakes were familiar and ambiguous, present at every level of British society through the reading of Scripture and as recurrent characters in imperial print culture. For all that snakes engendered feelings of disgust as the most distinctive representatives of a lowly class (...) of animals, they exerted an equivalent fascination over diverse publics spanning the social spectrum. Building on work showing a consideration for the multi-sensory nature of visits to menageries, this paper considers animal display beyond the visual. It explores the emotional economy of encountering snakes in person and the bodily phenomena this engendered. Vicarious visits were offered up to readers of periodicals and newspapers and the reptile house was harnessed as a controversial pedagogical resource for teaching moral, as well as scientific, lessons. (shrink)

This brief essay reflects on my encounters with Polany, June and Rhine and tries to link some elements of their thought.

If there is anything true in this book, it is surely common sense. The author's intentions are to produce enough light for the reader to see the issues and find his own way out.

This book consists of 220 logic problems on which students can practice their beginner's logic skills. At least one solution is provided for each exercise. The point is to provide a vehicle for practice that will not make additional demands on the instructor's time. In addition, Logic Problems, unlike most other "secondary" texts, does not require the additional purchase of a primary text. It includes sentential and predicate arguments, and employs truth tables, formal proofs, conditional proofs and reductio. Contents: The (...) Apparatus; Sentential Problems; Predicate Problems; Sentential Solutions; Predicate Solutions. (shrink)

Do you think that philosophy is an activity for old men in sandals with long white beards? Or people who sit under trees and wait to be struck on the head by apples? If so, then you owe it to yourself to explore the insights of this book. In conversational yet artful prose, James H. Hall reveals the many ways that you can actually enjoy and use philosophy in the course of your everyday experience. Rather than presenting philosophy as an (...) endless list of ancient truths revealed by geniuses, or as instant wisdom, Hall presents philosophy as a concrete, practical enterprise that, once you've seen how it works, you can continue on your own. (shrink)

When James Hall was working in Africa with legendary singer Miriam Makeba, she perceived he had the rare gift to see both into the future and into people's souls. She urged Hall to consult a Sangoma, a traditional healer, who told him he was possessed by ancestral spirits who could give him the power to heal others and to become a Sangoma himself. He underwent a 2-year initiation into the mysteries of psychic possession and traditional healing. He also learned how (...) to read meanings and messages in his set of divination bones, and began his education in the collection and preparation of plants and roots used as traditional medicines. Photos. (shrink)

This brief essay reflects on my encounters with Polany, June and Rhine and tries to link some elements of their thought.

Williams concerns himself with what he calls the "phenomenalist" approach to the philosophical problem of perceptual knowledge. His conception of phenomenalism is rather broader than most. Under that term he gathers all versions of "foundations" empiricism: any epistemology that works its way back to sensorily-given data of any sort, called by any name. His purpose is two-fold: 1) to argue that any theory of perceptual knowledge that is, in his sense, phenomenalistic is radically defective; and 2) to argue that epistemology (...) as traditionally conceived does not constitute a coherent intellectual discipline. (shrink)