Attention Restoration Theory proposes that exposure to natural environments helps to restore attention. For sustained attention—the ongoing application of focus to a task, the effect appears to be modest, and the underlying mechanisms of attention restoration remain unclear. Exposure to nature may improve attention performance through many means: modulation of alertness and one’s connection to nature were investigated here, in two separate studies. In both studies, participants performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task before and immediately after viewing a meadow, (...) ocean, or urban image for 40 s, and then completed the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. In Study 1, an eye-tracker recorded the participants’ tonic pupil diameter during the SARTs, providing a measure of alertness. In Study 2, the effects of connectedness to nature on SART performance and perceived restoration were studied. In both studies, the image viewed was not associated with participants’ sustained attention performance; both nature images were perceived as equally restorative, and more restorative than the urban image. The image viewed was not associated with changes in alertness. Connectedness to nature was not associated with sustained attention performance, but it did moderate the relation between viewing the natural images and perceived restorativeness; participants reporting a higher connection to nature also reported feeling more restored after viewing the nature, but not the urban, images. Dissociation was found between the physiological and behavioral measures and the perceived restorativeness of the images. The results suggest that restoration associated with nature exposure is not associated with modulation of alertness but is associated with connectedness with nature. (shrink)

Liz JacksonEducation University of Hong KongNel Noddings is known around the world for her contributions to philosophy and philosophy of education. Her work on caring and relational ethics broke ne...

Young children judge that violations of ordinary, causal constraints are impossible. Yet children’s religious beliefs typically include the assumption that such violations can occur via divine agency in the form of miracles. We conducted two studies to examine this potential conflict. In Study 1, we invited 5- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school to judge what is and is not possible. Children made their judgments either following a minimal prompt or following a reminder of (...) God’s extraordinary powers. Irrespective of their education, and whether or not they had been reminded of God’s extraordinary powers, children systematically judged violations of ordinary, causal constraints to be impossible. In Study 2, we asked if more extensive reminders of God’s special powers would prompt religious children to say that the impossible can happen. Five- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school were presented with narratives in which the protagonist desired an ordinarily impossible outcome. In half the stories, the protagonist prayed to God for the desired outcome. Irrespective of education and of whether the protagonist prayed, children systematically concluded that the desired outcome would not occur and justified that conclusion by reference to ordinary causal constraints. Nevertheless, in a minority of their replies children did assert that violations of ordinary causality are possible. Overall, irrespective of their religious education, young children judge that events rarely deviate from their natural course; only occasionally do they acknowledge exceptions. (shrink)

Far more than the dialectic philosophy of Socrates, the rhetorical humanist tradition avoids objectivist epistemology, charts a traversable path to practical wisdom, and aptly highlights the importance of aesthetic style. In those and other ways, we argue, it offers a preferable historical basis for today’s philosophical counseling. Advocates of that contemporary practice tend to cite Socrates as its historical progenitor and favor the narrow propositional logic that is ascribed to him. Some practitioners, though, have also grown more attuned to metaphorical (...) and narrative elements in a client’s worldview. We aim to supplement their claims by drawing from principles of classical rhetorical theory, showing a way to rethink the practice of philosophical counseling today. (shrink)

Résumé Même si les utopies sont potentiellement dangereuses, les visions utopiques nous sont malgré tout indispensables. La perte de l’espoir et de l’utopie signifie la perte de l’humanité. Mais comment empêcher l’utopie de tourner en dystopie? L’utopie pensée en termes de perfection, de pureté et d’exclusivité impose sa version d’une vie meilleure comme la seule et unique. L’utopisme d’opposition par contre ne cherche ni la perfection, ni la suppression des possibilités d’évolution. Son objectif est le progrès et non pas la (...) répression de l’homme. Ce n’est pas l’utopisme qui est défectueux, le problème vient davantage de la conviction qu’une utopie particulière puisse faire advenir la seule façon correcte de vivre. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Brisbane: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares by William (Bill) MetcalfLyman Tower SargentWilliam (Bill) Metcalf. Brisbane: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares. Brisbane History Group Studies no. 11. Tingalpa: Boolarong Press, 2022. 297 pp. Australian $30.00 ISBN: 9781922643445.Bill Metcalf, the foremost scholar on Australian intentional communities, has discovered and written about a number of Australian utopias. In Brisbane: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares he focuses on a subset of Australian (...) utopias, those written by people who lived in Brisbane plus one Brisbane architect who made designs for a future utopian Brisbane. One of the books, A Workingman’s Paradise: An Australian Labour Novel (1892), is well known, particularly in Australia. A second novel, The Adventures of Halek: An Autobiographical Fragment (1882) by John H. Nicholson, will be familiar to some readers. The others will be unfamiliar to most readers both in Australia and in the rest of the world. I learned of many of them through Metcalf ’s previous work and correspondence with him. Given this situation and the fact that a few of the books are only available in Australia, I have said something about all of them.The book begins with “A Brief Overview of Utopianism” (1–6), an introduction suitable for those unfamiliar with the subject, followed by “Overview of Brisbane in the 1880s and 1890s” (7–12), which gives all readers an initial context. The entire book is strong on context, particularly local context. The following nine chapters are on authors or coauthors of utopian texts and one artist. All the chapters begin with substantial biographical information about the authors, as well as their activities and the Brisbane context within which they lived, followed by a presentation and discussion of their utopias. [End Page 158]The first authors mentioned are William and Annie Lane, which immediately raised a question in my mind. The two works discussed, the racist “White or Yellow? A Story of the Race-war of A.D. 1908” by Sketcher (serialized in The Boomerang in 1888), and the socialist A Workingman’s Paradise by John Maurice Miller, have always been identified as written by William Lane—with no mention of Annie. Metcalf suggests, but with minimal discussion, that while “White or Yellow” was by William, Annie was the unacknowledged coauthor, perhaps even author, of A Workingman’s Paradise. So, I asked Metcalf about the attribution and in a substantial email of October 5, 2022, he laid out the argument, which is based in part on the work of a former student, John Kellett, published as “One-Woman-One Vote: Annie Lane, ‘Lucinda Sharpe,’ and the Female Franchise in Late-Nineteenth Century Queensland” (Hecate 30, no. 2 [2004]: 37–52).Lucinda Sharpe was the nom de plume of a weekly contributor to the newspapers published by William Lane. It has been believed that he wrote all the articles. Kellett, however, makes a strong case that Annie, who was a working journalist in Canada when she met William (also a working journalist), was Lucinda Sharpe. In particular, Kellett notes the extreme differences between William’s usual style and that of Lucinda Sharpe and compares it to material known to be written by Annie. Kellett concludes, based on the similarities between Lucinda and Annie and other evidence, that Lucinda was Annie. But Kellett is only concerned with the Lucinda Sharpe works and the way they presented the case for the franchise; he does not mention either of the works that Metcalf discusses.In his email to me, Metcalf expands on Kellett, saying thatWhile researching for this book I re-read The Workingman’s Paradise and again I was struck by how the sentence structure and language differs from William Lane’s usual work. Then I compared it to “Lucinda Sharpe,” and it was similar. I discussed this observation with John Kellett, now retired and living in Armadale, and he agreed. That led me to conclude that Annie Lane probably wrote The Working Man’s Paradise. Perhaps/probably with William’s input. The real giveaway is when William tries to write in a female voice, as in White or Yellow with the Cissie character, it is very stilted, “twee” and demeaning. When... (shrink)

An annotated bibliography of the utopian scholarship of Lyman Tower Sargent from shortly before he submitted his Ph.D. dissertation to the present day.

There are many debates about what constitutes a utopia. Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical?

This paper presents an analysis of the applicability of a principalist approach for a global, or cross-cultural, bioethics. We focus especially on the principle of individual autonomy, a core value in ethical discourse. We echo some long-standing criticisms of other anthropologists, sociologists, and many medical ethicists that the individualistic approach to autonomy is a Euro-American value and cannot be ethically applied in all settings. As a remedy, we suggest an adaptation of Kleinman's Explanatory Model approach to questions of decisionmaking. We (...) argue that the analysis and resolution of ethical dilemmas might also benefit from forms of pedagogy that integrate anthropological and other social science perspectives, and the incorporation of ethnographic techniques in ethical practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 25-27 [Access article in PDF] Gender, Body, Meaning:Anthropological Perspectives on Self-Injury and Borderline Personality Disorder Carolyn Sargent THE CENTRAL THEMES OF "Commodity Body/Sign: Borderline Personality Disorder and the Signification of Self-Injurious Behavior" reflect issues that cut across the disciplines represented by this journal and have received increasing attention from anthropologists. Medical anthropologists, as well as psychological anthropologists and others interested in symbolic (...) analysis of the body, have addressed such topics as the culture of biomedicine and the cultural shaping of psychiatric classification, the multiple meanings of body modifications, power relations in therapeutic interactions between doctor and patient, and cultural variation in understandings of normality and abnormality.Curiously, there is little anthropological literature that directly focuses on either borderline personality disorder (BPD) or self-injurious acts per se. Indeed anthropological research on psychiatric diagnosis, classification, and treatment, as well as ethnopsychiatry, include scant reference to personality disorders. One exception is Nuckolls' 1992 article, "Toward a Cultural History of the Personality Disorders," which raises pertinent questions for one of Potter's introductory statements—that the majority of those diagnosed with BPD are women. Nuckolls directly addresses gender ideology and gender roles in the United States in his comparison of antisocial personality and histrionic personality diagnoses. In his paper, he argues that these personality disorders have cultural histories and are strongly congruent with prevailing gender stereotypes, such that men are many times more likely to be diagnosed as antisocial than women and women much more likely to be diagnosed as histrionic (Nuckolls 1992, 37). He also historicizes the emergence of certain behavioral styles that have been seen as characteristic of women and men, and the evolution of psychiatric diagnoses that classify extreme manifestations of these behavioral styles.The issue of why women, rather than men, are more frequently diagnosed with BPD is not elaborated in Potter's article, although she notes the importance of considering the intersection of gender and "identifying behaviors" associated with BPD. Cultural analyses of gender ideology in the [End Page 25] United States might suggest that the connection involves gendered expectations concerning emotionality and relational context but these articulations remain intriguing and underexplored. One might speculate that BPD/self-injury occurs in the context of particular gender ideologies, perhaps in class-based, industrialized societies where the body is highly commodified. It appears that the history of this constellation of symptoms and behaviors remains to be written.Cultural analysis of self-injury, a theme that runs through Potter's article, tends to be embedded in the anthropological literature on body ornamentation, initiation rituals, and "culture-bound" syndromes. Mascia-Lees and Sharpe (1992, 1) describe the body as "a site of adornment, manipulation, and mutilation," practices with roots reaching back as far as 30,000 years, and include as examples head deformation, scarification, foot binding, tooth filing, lip plates, nose rings, tattoos, subincision, and genital cutting.However, the concept of self-injury, as Potter notes, is problematic in the discipline of anthropology given the significance historically accorded to cultural relativism. Correspondingly, body "modification" is not "self-injury" as long as it is socially normative, for example, a facet of an initiation ordeal or body ornamentation (e.g., circumcision, scarification, piercing). Among the rare examples of acts that seem readily identifiable as "self-injury" are New Guinea practices of cutting off a finger to demonstrate mourning and Baatombu (West African) male finger amputation to show grief and anger over a wife's infidelity. Both are, however, considered culturally legitimate and not indicative of pathology.Potter's argument draws heavily on the notion of "body as text," derived largely from literary theory and feminist philosophy (Butler 1990; Jaggar and Bordo 1989). The perspective of "body as text" has influenced anthropological theory over the past two decades, particularly in the interpretive and postmodernist schools of thought. The body as a text of femininity is aptly characterized by Bordo, who argues that the continuum between female disorder and normal femininity is revealed by means of an analysis of symbolic meaning of gender in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 104-105 [Access article in PDF] William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 344. Cloth, $40.00. Newman and Principe have produced a masterful study of intellectual context, primarily by correcting the commonly held belief that there was a radical break (...) in the seventeenth century between late medieval alchemy and early modern chemistry. Although their main focus is on George Starkey (the 'alchemist') and Robert Boyle (the 'chemist'), they also provide copious details on the chemical practices and theories of Van Helmont, Benjamin Worsley, Frederick Clodius, and Kenelm Digby, among others. It is hard to do justice to their complex study in a short review. Following a brief summary, therefore, I will limit my discussion to how the authors' conclusions are significant for a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of philosophy in the seventeenth century.After a helpful introduction, Chapter 1 outlines the differences in the early lives of the English, aristocratic Boyle and the American, Harvard-educated Starkey. Chapter 2's background on late medieval chemistry includes an examination of corpuscular theories within that tradition as well as Van Helmont's arguments concerning the way in which mathematics is useful for explaining "superficial" changes but not the real, internal changes in bodies. Chapters 3 and 4 provide a close study of Starkey's laboratory notebooks. Among the entries, recorded in a style adapted from Scholasticism, there are passages that adopt the secrecy of alchemy, while others show Starkey's effective use of theoretical principles and such experimental quantitative methods as mass balance. Chapter 5 examines Boyle's intellectual context. Newman and Principe argue convincingly for Starkey's role in Boyle's addition of Helmontian elements to the general Baconian program. Chapter 6 looks at the [End Page 104] results of Boyle's eclectic mix of chemistry and mechanism. Although Helmontian chemistry played a significant role in Boyle's natural philosophy, the authors attribute his meager interest in quantitative measures and analyses to his attempts to use chemistry as a support for mechanism and as evidence against Aristotelianism. The concluding chapter draws together elements from previous chapters to provide the full argument against the idea of a radical break between medieval alchemy and modern chemistry.Newman and Principe's reconsideration of traditional categories surrounding the idea of a radical break should provide an impetus for similar reconsideration in the history of philosophy. As they point out, 'the' mechanical philosophy drew from a diverse range of disciplines. Boyle's eclectic and complex attempt to develop a unique version of the mechanical philosophy can be seen in other English philosophers, especially Locke and Newton. This study provides a promising basis for yet more extensive and refined studies of the seventeenth-century milieu. The continuing over-emphasis on the physical principles of Descartes and Gassendi's versions of the mechanical philosophy and the tendency to reduce all mechanism to their view needs revision. Also in need of reconsideration is the currently popular belief that the study of context simply means adding social elements to an uncontroversial intellectual context. As the authors clearly show, much more work on the intellectual context remains to be done.One line of research in the history of philosophy that could be pursued concerns the role of Francis Bacon in this context. Although Newman and Principe mention the general Baconian ethos, a detailed discussion of Bacon was clearly beyond their scope. Yet Bacon's own debts to chemistry, although frequently unrecognized, seem more significant given this study. Also, it would be interesting to see the extent to which Bacon's works influenced Van Helmont or Starkey. Newman and Principe's claims regarding the novelty of Starkey's notebooks, for example, may be a little overstated. Many of the elements from Starkey's notebooks can be found in Bacon's advice in his Natural and Experimental Histories (1622). In that work, Bacon advised writers... (shrink)

It is perhaps ironic that a methodology still convinced of its radical iconoclasm and progressive nature should at the same time be regarded as critically backward, a by‐product of a disappearing philosophy. Such a view of the historical‐critical method is held by John Milbank who argues that because of its dependence upon heretical philosophies that affirm the ontological autonomy of a world without reference to or participation in God, it should be confined to theological history. This essay will argue that (...) Milbank's challenge ought to be taken seriously by Christian biblical interpreters and suggests that historical‐critical study, in the form criticised by Milbank, needs to be rejected. Milbank exposes the philosophical bankruptcy of the method from a Christian perspective; nevertheless, Milbank overstretches himself. His rejection of the historical‐critical method results in a hermeneutic that has no place for a biblical text's historical particularity and sense. Because of this, he is left subsuming historic texts into the regula fidei of his philosophical meta‐narrative, whether they fit such a move or not. This is particularly the case with Milbank's treatment of biblical texts, which, it shall be argued, operates as a refusal of history and a refusal of the particularity and alterity of the text. This highlights the need for an historical hermeneutic for Christian biblical interpretation, based on theological presuppositions, which takes the theological value of both historical particularity and the text seriously. (shrink)

Technical, rigorous, and self-contained, this book will be useful for macroeconomists who seek to improve the robustness of decision-making processes.

Following A.N. Whitehead’s rhythm of education, the author provides a guide for parents and educators on raising children to thrive in times of tempestuous change. Each chapter presents exemplary educational events rich in context, and then draws on seminal research to ground her recommendations in a robust theoretical foundation.

This is the first comprehensive volume to offer a state of the art investigation both of the nature of political ideologies and of their main manifestations. The diversity of ideology studies is represented by a mixture of the range of theories that illuminate the field, combined with an appreciation of the changing complexity of concrete ideologies and the emergence of new ones. Ideologies, however, are always with us.

This Oxford Handbook will be the definitive study of political ideologies for years to come. The diversity of ideology studies is represented by a mixture of the range of theories that illuminate the field, combined with an appreciation of the changing complexity of concrete ideologies and the emergence of new ones.

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)