This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books—An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj —a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters, along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly (...) regarded scholars. (shrink)

Beginning with a review of Michael Pollan's latest book about the renaissance of research into the use of psychedelics to treat addiction, depression, and end-of-life anxiety, this essay considers wisdom and insight that might be gained by examining the psychedelic practices of primitive people. Pollan finds that almost all who begin using psychedelics to treat the ill eventually come to the conclusion that they should be made available for the broader purpose of 'the betterment of well people'. By considering both (...) scientific and spiritual perspectives on these compounds, the book offers insight into the toxicity not only of our mental environment, but at the same time our relationship to fellow humanity and Mother Nature. However, Pollan does not consider what is perhaps the greatest source of wisdom regarding the pharmacological potential of psychedelics: primitive societies who have long incorporated these compounds into their ways of being. By casting anthropological accounts of primitive psychedelic practices against those of contemporary research, this essay seeks to deepen enquiry into the pathologies of modern personhood as they bear upon the ecological crisis, together with the potential value of entheogens for understanding and responding to these problems. (shrink)

Neurofeedback has been suggested as a potential complementary therapy to different psychiatric disorders. Of interest for this approach is the prediction of individual performance and outcomes. In this study, we applied functional connectivity-based modeling using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) modalities to (i) investigate whether resting-state connectivity predicts performance during an affective neurofeedback task and (ii) evaluate the extent to which predictive connectivity profiles are correlated across EEG and fNIRS techniques. The fNIRS oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentrations and the (...) EEG beta and gamma bands modulated by the alpha frequency band (beta-m-alpha and gamma-m-alpha, respectively) recorded over the frontal cortex of healthy subjects were used to estimate functional connectivity from each neuroimaging modality. For each connectivity matrix, relevant edges were selected in a leave-one-subject-out procedure, summed into “connectivity summary scores” (CSS), and submitted as inputs to a support vector regressor (SVR). Then, the performance of the left-out-subject was predicted using the trained SVR model. Linear relationships between the CSS across both modalities were evaluated using Pearson’s correlation. The predictive model showed a mean absolute error smaller than 20%, and the fNIRS oxyhemoglobin CSS was significantly correlated with the EEG gamma-m-alpha CSS (r = −0.456, p = 0.030). These results support that pre-task electrophysiological and hemodynamic resting-state connectivity are potential predictors of neurofeedback performance and are meaningfully coupled. This investigation motivates the use of joint EEG-fNIRS connectivity as outcome predictors, as well as a tool for functional connectivity coupling investigation. (shrink)

Dean Falk has strategically explored “mother-infant gestural and vocal interactions . . . in chimpanzees and humans” in order to offer hypotheses “about the evolutionary underpinnings that preceded the first glimmerings of language.” Though she offers compelling evidence for many interesting hypotheses as to the epigenesis of language, other possibilities have yet to be explored. Here we explore the role of gestural communication among deaf signers and the neural correlates associated with this type of communication.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:I Am Speechless:Thank You, Colleague FriendsRita M. GrossBecause I had not seen half of these tributes before the session at which they were presented, I did not have a written paper, or even prepared notes, with which to respond to these colleagues. I was so touched by the care with which each person had prepared their remarks—a fully written paper in each case—and the wonderful things they said, that (...) when finally it was my turn to get up and take the podium, all I could say was, "I am speechless." That was my first response, but I am also very used to public speaking, so I did come up with some comments, which I reproduce here with some degree of faithfulness.I have known most of these friends for most of my professional life. I have traveled in India with two of them (Nancy and Kathleen), coedited or coauthored books with three of them (Nancy, Rosemary, and Terry), and cotaught with one of them (Paul). With everyone except Rosemary, we have visited each other's homes as well. One of the blessings of the academic life is sharing deep interests and concerns with one's colleagues, and I certainly have experienced that blessing. In person, I decided to respond to each person in the order in which they entered my life and I will also follow that format in these written comments.Nancy Auer FalkThe first person in this group whom I encountered was Nancy Falk, though, as she said, she doesn't remember me from those very early days. I entered the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1965, and because there were so few of us in those days, I clearly noticed a woman who was finishing her work in the same field I was entering—the history of religions. There were twelve women among some four hundred students at the Divinity School and six of us had entered that year! I remember that the professors were very worried about what to do with "all these women who now want to study religion." One of my professors said that he was changing some of the material he lectured on because of the presence of women in his class.In such an environment, I should have known better than to do a dissertation [End Page 89] studying women in religion and using feminist methodologies, which had not yet been developed, but which I did develop in my dissertation! It has taken me a long time to learn that telling the truth can exact a heavy price. I've often commented that all I've ever tried to do in my scholarship and in my thinking is to tell the truth. It's been hard to understand how that could be so controversial or so resented by so many people. But my dissertation was very controversial even though Mircea Eliade, who was still revered in those days, encouraged me to write the dissertation I did. But what I was doing was so controversial, largely I think, because I claimed that the sacrosanct University of Chicago methodology in the history of religions was inadequate, given that it simply had no tools with which to study the religious lives of at least half of humanity. Even years later I heard via some gossip train that students of the professor who most opposed my work were telling people that I was not supposed to have gotten a degree, but somehow, it had slipped though anyway. Now, some thirty-five years later, I am amazed at the level of insight I had as a graduate student in my mid to late twenties.During these graduate school battles, Nancy was already teaching at Western Michigan University, so I did not have her as an ally. But, as soon as I finished my degree, as she narrates in her comments, we began to work together on Unspoken Worlds, which, having been put together before computers, was extremely labor intensive. I really enjoyed the process of working together on that book. I enjoyed not having to hold back on anything. I enjoyed the give and take, the way we could put... (shrink)

Two arguments are critiqued here. The first is that hominin mothers “parked” their offspring; the evidence does not support that position. The second is that motherese developed to control the behavior of nonambulatory infants. However, Falk's case is stronger if we apply it to children who are already walking and more likely to be influenced by verbal information.

Cet ouvrage, récemment traduit de l’anglais, a été coordonné par deux universitaires américaines parties de cette constatation que l’histoire des religions a toujours été observée sous l’angle masculin et qu’il n’existait pas d’étude approfondie concernant l’approche féminine de la religion et le comportement religieux spécifique des femmes. L’ouvrage met donc les femmes sur le devant de la scène pour les aborder en tant que sujet et non objet d’étude, avec leurs propres expériences et aspira...

Cet ouvrage, récemment traduit de l’anglais, a été coordonné par deux universitaires américaines parties de cette constatation que l’histoire des religions a toujours été observée sous l’angle masculin et qu’il n’existait pas d’étude approfondie concernant l’approche féminine de la religion et le comportement religieux spécifique des femmes. L’ouvrage met donc les femmes sur le devant de la scène pour les aborder en tant que sujet et non objet d’étude, avec leurs propres expériences et aspira...

Cet ouvrage, récemment traduit de l’anglais, a été coordonné par deux universitaires américaines parties de cette constatation que l’histoire des religions a toujours été observée sous l’angle masculin et qu’il n’existait pas d’étude approfondie concernant l’approche féminine de la religion et le comportement religieux spécifique des femmes. L’ouvrage met donc les femmes sur le devant de la scène pour les aborder en tant que sujet et non objet d’étude, avec leurs propres expériences et aspira...

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)

Developments in the sequencing of whole genomes and in simultaneously surveying many thousands of transcription and translation products of specific cells have ushered in a conceptual revolution in genetics that rationally introduces top-down, holistic analyses. This emphasized the futility of attempts to reduce genes to structurally discrete entities along the genome, and the need to return to Johannsen's definition of a gene as 'something' that refers to an invariant entity of inheritance and development. We may view genes either as generic (...) terms for units of inheritance whose referents are pragmatic ad hoc and context-dependent, or as (epistemologically) representing entities of cell functions. It is cellular functions that determine the structural referents along the DNA. Structures that happened to secure specific functions that were essential for or conducive to the survival of cells were selected for. With natural selection being the etiological background of genes as functions, genes obtain again their theoretical role as intervening variables, abstractive variables that purely 'summarize' characters. The importance of DNA sequences is that of all possible phenotypes these are the most basic ones from which we can read off the genotype directly. (shrink)

Rather than the standard American story of an increasingly triumphant march of scientific inquiry towards structural phonology, Women, Language and Linguistics reveals linguistics where its purpose was communication; the appeal of languages lay in their diversity; and the authority of language lay in its speakers and writers. Julia S Falk explores the vital part which women have played in preserving a linguistics based on the reality and experience of language; this book finally brings to light a neglected perspective for those (...) working in linguistics and the history of linguistics. (shrink)

Many people share the intuition that by turning to works of literature something can be learned about the world. One way to explain the epistemic access to the world that fictional literature provides is by comparing it to thought experiments. Both? thought experiments and works of fiction? might be seen as imaginative exercises which help to find out what would or could happen if certain conditions were met. This comparison of fictional literature with thought experiments provides the point of departure (...) for the contributions in our volume. It contributes to the discussion of an approach that has quite recently entered the field of the philosophy of literature. (shrink)

In two eye-tracking studies we investigated the influence of Mandarin numeral classifiers – a grammatical category in the language – on online overt attention. Mandarin speakers were presented with simple sentences through headphones while their eye-movements to objects presented on a computer screen were monitored. The crucial question is what participants look at while listening to a pre-specified target noun. If classifier categories influence Mandarin speakers' general conceptual processing, then on hearing the target noun they should look at objects that (...) are members of the same classifier category – even when the classifier is not explicitly present. The data show that when participants heard a classifier they shifted overt attention significantly more to classifiermatch objects than to distractor objects, but when the classifier was not explicitly presented in speech, overt attention to classifier-match objects and distractor objects did not differ. This suggests that although classifier distinctions do influence eye-gaze behavior, they do so only during linguistic processing of that distinction and not in moment-to-moment general conceptual processing. (shrink)

Interprofessional collaboration involves some kind of knowledge sharing, which is essential and will be important in the future in regard to the opportunities and challenges in practices for delivering safe and effective health care. Nursing assistants are seldom mentioned as a group of health care workers that contribute to interprofessional collaboration in health care practice. The aim of this ethnographic study was to explore how the nursing assistants’ knowledge can be shared in a team on a spinal cord injury rehabilitation (...) ward. Using a sociomaterial perspective on practice, we captured different aspects of interprofessional collaboration in health care. The findings reveal how knowledge was shared between professionals, depending on different kinds of practice architecture. These specific cultural–discursive, material–economic, and social–political arrangements enabled possibilities through which nursing assistants’ knowledge informed other practices, and others’ knowledge informed the practice of nursing assistants. By studying what health care professionals actually do and say in practice, we found that the nursing assistants could make a valuable contribution of knowledge to the team. (shrink)

You have invited me to speak about Morals without Faith . Briefly, I take it, this question means: is there any moral law for agnostics? But it might be more interesting to put it rather differently: to ask, not simply whether there is a moral law for those who do not believe in God, but whether there is any such law even for those who do independent of their belief? We are then asking: Does being under a moral law mean (...) nothing more than being commanded by God? Is the only incentive for obeying it in our love or fear of Him, the only criterion by which to judge the morality of actions in their conformity to a revealed standard? Or would it be more true to say that the law which God wishes us to obey is that law to which we ought to conform because it corresponds to our nature and conditions in this world, a law which, apart from being God's will, we can understand as being indispensable to the kind of beings we are? (shrink)

Butler observes in the Preface to the Sermons that the subject of morals can be approached in two different ways: “One begins from enquiring into the abstract relations of things: the other from a matter of fact, namely what the particular nature of man is, its several parts, their economy or constitution; from whence it proceeds to determine what course of life it is, which is correspondent to his whole nature. In the former method the conclusion is expressed thus, that (...) vice is contrary to the nature and reason of things: in the latter, that it is a violation or breaking in upon our own nature. Thus they both lead us to the same thing, our obligations to the practice of virtue; and thus they exceedingly strengthen and enforce each other.” In making this observation Butler raises the problem of the nature of moral obligation, and of the criteria by which the existence of a moral obligation can be known. He does so by calling attention to the divisions of opinion which existed on this issue in his own days. Samuel Clarke, the fashionable moralist of the period, sought the roots of moral obligation in the “nature and reason of things”: for an agent to know that an act is his duty is to know that it is fitting or suitable to the circumstances in which it occurs . Shaftesbury, on the other hand, and many of the adherents to the doctrine of Natural Law, like Grotius and Pufendorf, sought the roots of moral obligation in the nature of agents: for an agent, to know that an act is his duty is for him to experience a special motive to do it . Butler recognized the fundamental difference between these two approaches. (shrink)

Kant's rationale for making self-respect an immediately clear precondition for action grounded in freedom is in need of thoroughgoing revision, since it fails to consider the phenomenological content and the actual origin of reflexive self-reference. On the basis of a history of the concept and a systematic reconstruction of affirmative relations to the self, the author proposes an alternative explanation. According to Bornmüller, moral insight should once again be properly regarded as emerging from a self-referential individual subject.

The writings of Weber and Taylor have some strong affinities. Both start from the anthropological idea that man evaluates his position in the world and constitutes the social world by values. Their analyses of values aim at an understanding of those intersubjective meanings that have constituted western modernity. But, at the same time, their anthropological starting point leads to different interpretations of modernity. Historically, both argue that rationalization (as instrumental rationality) is one of the most influential Kulturbedeutung of modernity. Weber's (...) thesis of rationalization is, however, entangled in a paradox. Overemphasizing the rationalized elements of modernity, he fails scientifically to grasp certain counter-movements in modernity, such as individuation, subjectivity and new life forms. Taylor, investigating the moral sources of expressivism, shows that these life forms are an inherent part of modernity. Yet his method of articulating the sources of modernity is insufficient to transform it towards a causal explanation of behaviour in everyday life. (shrink)

This article explores the tensions between geopolitics and human rights under present conditions of world politics. It takes notes of the rise of human rights as a discourse in international law, and draws attention to the use of this discourse by powerful states, especially the United States, to validate non-defensive uses of force. It also notes the role of the media in facilitating the geopolitical agenda associated with exerting pressure on some conditions but exempting other situations as serious or more (...) so . This article also discusses the reliance on the human rights discourse by oppressed groups and by countries in the South, and the emergence of a counter-hegemonic tradition in human rights that challenges geopolitical projects in a variety of settings. The main conclusion is that neither an uncritical endorsement nor a cynical dismissal of human rights is appropriate at this time.Keywords: human rights; geopolitics; hegemony; counter-hegemony; international law. (shrink)