A number of ways of taxonomizing human learning have been proposed. We examine the evidence for one such proposal, namely, that there exist independent explicit and implicit learning systems. This combines two further distinctions, between learning that takes place with versus without concurrent awareness, and between learning that involves the encoding of instances versus the induction of abstract rules or hypotheses. Implicit learning is assumed to involve unconscious rule learning. We examine the evidence for implicit learning derived from subliminal learning, (...) conditioning, artificial grammar learning, instrumental learning, and reaction times in sequence learning. We conclude that unconscious learning has not been satisfactorily established in any of these areas. The assumption that learning in some of these tasks is predominantly based on rule abstraction is questionable. When subjects cannot report the “implicitly learned” rules that govern stimulus selection, this is often because their knowledge consists of instances or fragments of the training stimuli rather than rules. In contrast to the distinction between conscious and unconscious learning, the distinction between instance and rule learning is a sound and meaningful way of taxonomizing human learning. We discuss various computational models of these two forms of learning. (shrink)

A number of ways of taxonomizing human learning have been proposed. We examine the evidence for one such proposal, namely, that there exist independent explicit and implicit learning systems. This combines two further distinctions, (1) between learning that takes place with versus without concurrent awareness, and (2) between learning that involves the encoding of instances (or fragments) versus the induction of abstract rules or hypotheses. Implicit learning is assumed to involve unconscious rule learning. We examine the evidence for implicit learning (...) derived from subliminal learning, conditioning, artificial grammar learning, instrumental learning, and reaction times in sequence learning. We conclude that unconscious learning has not been satisfactorily established in any of these areas. The assumption that learning in some of these tasks (e.g., artificial grammar learning) is predominantly based on rule abstraction is questionable. When subjects cannot report the rules that govern stimulus selection, this is often because their knowledge consists of instances or fragments of the training stimuli rather than rules. In contrast to the distinction between conscious and unconscious learning, the distinction between instance and rule learning is a sound and meaningful way of taxonomizing human learning. We discuss various computational models of these two forms of learning. (shrink)

In the original target article (Shanks & St. John 1994), one of our principal conclusions was that there is almost no evidence that learning can occur outside awareness. The continuing commentaries raise some interesting questions, especially about the definition of learning, but do not lead us to abandon our conclusion.

My first article, back in 1989! Thanks, forever, Ralph McInerny. Here I take issue with John F.X. Knasas, a strong supporter of the existential Thomism of Etienne Gilson and Joseph Owens. Knasas's desire to sequester Thomas away from allowing the discipline of natural philosophy to arrive at a fully immaterial reality through its proper demonstrative methods seemed to me to be at odds with Thomas's text.

Regional Perspectives in Bioethics" illustrates the ways in which the national and international political landscape encompasses persons from diverse and often fragmented moral communities with widely varying moral intuitions, premises, evaluations and commitments.

Regional Perspectives in Bioethics" illustrates the ways in which the national and international political landscape encompasses persons from diverse and often fragmented moral communities with widely varying moral intuitions, premises, evaluations and commitments.

Catholic healthcare institutions live amidst tension between three intersecting primary values, namely, a commitment of service to the poor and vulnerable, promoting the common good for all, and financially sustainability. Within this tension, the question sometimes arises as to whether it is ever justifiable, i.e., consistent with Catholic identity, to place limits on charity care. In this article we will argue that the health reform measures of the Affordable Care Act do not eliminate this tension but actually increase the urgency (...) of addressing it. Moreover, we will conclude that the question of limiting charity care in a manner that is consistent with the obligations of Catholic identity around serving the poor and vulnerable, promoting the common good, and remaining financially sustainable is not a question of if, but of how such limits are established. Such limits, however, cannot be established in light of one overriding moral consideration or principle, but must be established in light of a multitude of principles guiding us to a holistic understanding of the interrelatedness of the moral dimensions of Catholic identity. (shrink)

Genomic interventions ex utero and in utero are already a reality in medicine. It is plausible to believe that this reality will lead to therapies at the preimplantation level, especially where such interventions are the only safe and effective way to truly prevent human suffering and disease in offspring. The plausibility of this type of genomic therapy is of particular interest for prospective parents who are Roman Catholic, since in vitro fertilization provides the only means by which an offspring’s genome (...) may be accessed prior to implantation. The goal of this essay is to provide a review of two traditional methodologies in Roman Catholic moral thought and the potential moral quandary they present Roman Catholic parents: adherence to moral teaching prohibiting IVF or relief of gene-based disease in their child. After finding little resolution of this quandary through these two methodologies, the essay proposes as an alternative a third approach that leans heavily on John Henry Cardinal Newman’s understanding of doctrinal development. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011): 735–756. (shrink)

Back in the 1980's I was a River Forest Thomist, eager to show that Thomas's debt to Aristotle on fundamental metaphysical issues was deep. And what's more deep than creation?

This is paper from my graduate school days that has had chunks of it published, but which I never did develop fully—nor do I think I ever shall. It is useful for getting a sense on how the notion 'obediential potency' was used in Thomas's day, however, and visits key moments in Thomas's writing that illustrate how he applies the notion in his teaching.Oh, the paper was written for Fr Walter Principe, who had no love for the notion of obediential (...) potency; but he did say to me that I had started to change his mind... (shrink)

One of the most important ongoing debates in the philosophy of mind is the debate over the reality of the first-person character of consciousness.[1] Philosophers on one side of this debate hold that some features of experience are accessible only from a first-person standpoint. Some members of this camp, notably Frank Jackson, have maintained that epiphenomenal properties play roles in consciousness [2]; others, notably John R. Searle, have rejected dualism and regarded mental phenomena as entirely biological.[3] In the opposite (...) camp are philosophers who hold that all mental capacities are in some sense computational - or, more broadly, explainable in terms of features of information processing systems.[4] Consistent with this explanatory agenda, members of this camp normally deny that any aspect of mind is accessible solely from a first-person standpoint. This denial sometimes goes very far - even as far as Dennett's claim that the phenomenology of conscious experience does not really exist. (shrink)

The current transatlantic debate over multilateralism reveals that the traditional understanding of liberal internationalism is being transcended in favor of “globalism.” The latter is a doctrine that goes well beyond favoring international cooperation among states; in fact, the new globalism is intrinsically hostile to the sovereignty of the nation-state. Thus it runs counter to the basic liberal understanding of the nature of the political order, as reflected in the American Declaration of Independence and, on a more philosophical level, in the (...) political teaching of John Locke. The Declaration and the Lockean teaching proclaim universal principles, but hold that the implementation of these principles should be the business not of some international authority but of democratically elected and accountable national. (shrink)

Karl Rahner’s transcendental Christology examined the conditions for the possibility of faith in Christ and presented human nature as developing in response to God’s grace. This article affirms Rahner despite the critiques of Michel Henry, Roger Haight, John McDermott, Patrick Burke, and Donald Gelpi. Rahner’s Christology is not a phenomenology but a theology that affirms God’s presence in history. To be sure, some critics have attacked Rahner for emphasizing God’s initiative and diminishing human responsibility and for uncritically accepting Greek (...) metaphysics . Yet Rahner rightly depicted Christ as a sacrament of the Father’s will, an event in history with consequences for all time. Other critics have accused him of obscuring the distinction between God and humanity and suggesting that there are two conscious subjects in Christ . This article accepts Rahner’s view of Jesus as both the presence of God’s Word and the human response to it. (shrink)

There is increasing evidence that dynamic changes to chromatin, chromosomes and nuclear architecture are regulated by RNA signalling. Although the precise molecular mechanisms are not well understood, they appear to involve the differential recruitment of a hierarchy of generic chromatin modifying complexes and DNA methyltransferases to specific loci by RNAs during differentiation and development. A significant fraction of the genome-wide transcription of non-protein coding RNAs may be involved in this process, comprising a previously hidden layer of intermediary genetic information that (...) underpins developmental ontogeny and the differences between species, ecotypes and individuals. It is also evident that RNA editing is a primary means by which hardwired genetic information in animals can be altered by environmental signals, especially in the brain, indicating a dynamic RNA-mediated interplay between the transcriptome, the environment and the epigenome. Moreover, RNA-directed regulatory processes may also transfer epigenetic information not only within cells but also between cells and organ systems, as well as across generations. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into (...) St. Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

For forty years, Harvey Mansfield has been worth reading. Whether plumbing the depths of MachiavelliOs Discourses or explaining what was at stake in Bill ClintonOs impeachment, MansfieldOs work in political philosophy and political science has set the standard. In Educating the Prince, twenty-one of his students, themselves distinguished scholars, try to live up to that standard. Their essays offer penetrating analyses of Machiavellianism, liberalism, and America., all of them informed by MansfieldOs own work. The volume also includes a bibliography of (...) MansfieldOs writings. (shrink)

During the past decade, the Philosophy for Children Program has offered teacher-training workshops throughout the United States and elsewhere. The workshops frequently supported by grants, enable teachers to work with a professional philosopher in developing the skills required for teaching critical thinking to elementary and intermediate schools.

Liver transplantation is the treatment of choice for many forms of liver disease. Unfortunately, the scarcity of cadaveric donor livers limits the availability of this technique. To improve the availability of liver transplantation, surgeons have developed the capability of removing a portion of liver from a live donor and transplanting it into a recipient. A few liver transplants using living donors have been performed worldwide.Our purpose was to analyze the ethics of liver transplants using living donors and to propose guidelines (...) for the procedure before it was introduced in the United States. We used a process of research ethics consultation that involves a collaboration between clinical investigators and clinical ethicists. We concluded that it was ethically appropriate to perform liver transplantation using living donors in a small series of patients on a trial basis, and we published our ethical guidelines in a medical journal before the procedure was introduced. We recommend this prospective, public approach for the introduction of other innovative therapies in medicine and surgery. (shrink)

A key philosophical feature of Peter Jackson’s film interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is its use of fantasy to inspire a “recovery” of the actual or, in other words, a reawakening to the beauty of nature and the many possible ways of living in healthier ecological relation to the world. Though none of these ways is perfectly achieved, this pluralistic view is demonstrated in the various lifeways of Hobbits, Elves, Men, and Ents. All of the positive (...) relationships embodied in the films—to trees, mountains, horses, and vegetable gardens—involve loving care and attention, receiving nourishment and livelihood without instrumentalization, or reducing nature to mere resource. The films also vividly display a variety of ugly and destructive ways of using the land to accrue power and wealth. These noxious ways, specifically because they actively destroy the lands that they use, always need more. They will thus eventually annihilate the beautiful ways of being if they are not actively resisted. Some of those who would rather be tending their own trees, gardens, or horses or even wandering in the wild forests must therefore turn their attention to struggle and resistance instead. This is a struggle full of grief, and at times even verging on despair, but it is marked by the refusal to give up hope. Indeed, what Jackson and Tolkien have to say about hope is as important in responding to the ecological crisis as anything they have to say about nature, inasmuch as they help to remind us that even in our own times, “there is still hope.”. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

This book applies Augustine's thought to current questions of teaching and learning. The essays are written in an accessible style and is not intended just for experts on Augustine or church history.

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

The address presents the recently discovered second, Roman commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on Peter Lombard’s Liber sententiarum and offers some reflections on work to be done by scholars in the study of this text. The first part of the address presents the manuscript and its circumstances to argue for the authenticity of the text. The second part briefly describes the character and content of Thomas’ Lectura romana. The third part addresses a concern expressed by Frs. Dondaine and Torrell that (...) a rationalist tendency in the text’s consideration of the Trinity raises questions of its authenticity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A PARABLE OF SCANDAL: SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE WHEAT AND THE TARES IN MATTHEW 13 John F. Cornell St. John's College, NM I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret since the foundation of die world" (Matthew 13:35) The title ofone of René Girard's path-breaking books, Things Hidden since the Foundation ofthe World, is of course drawn from this passage. Few scholarly writings (...) compare to this discussion ofmimetic rivalry and collective persecution for conveying a sense of the Bible's depths and secrecy, and for deciphering the wisdom inscribed in its images. Yet it is curious that Girard eschews the parables said to be the repositories of scriptural secrets. Both in Things Hidden (189) and in Quand ces choses commenceront (171-172), he distances himself from the parables as conceding too much to the human desire for a mythical God ofretribution. In light of all we have learned from Girard about our traditional misreadings of the Gospel, we might well question even the strongest impressions left by some of its figures. Might the parables' language of apocalyptic vengeance conceal a different revelation, just as an innocent death on a cross should disclose not the bloodlust ofa deity but the violence ofmen? Matthew's Jesus tells a story about a sowerwhose crop was infested by his enemy's weeds, weeds to be uprooted and destroyed at the harvest. And, granted, when Jesus translates the parable for the disciples he describes divine violence at the end ofhistory. The enemy is the devil and the sower is the Son ofMan who sends out his angels to discern the unrighteous ofhumanity and cast them into the furnace. But something does not seem quite right. Isn't Jesus' reduction of his own parable a little too obvious? And is there not John F. Cornell99 something grotesque—or at least simple-minded—about the teacher who warned about dirowing pearls ofwisdom now turning around and broadcasting the solution to one of the great mysteries? If we look closely at the very parable that surrounds the suggestion of "things hidden since the foundation ofthe world," we may see, however, that something is indeed hidden, hidden in the text. And what is hidden there confirms Girard's insight about the dominion ofmimetic rivalry since the world began. The Wheat and Tares is more than amyth ofdivine punishment. It is a parable ofthe essential human malady, a parable ofscandal. Here is the main text of the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, from Matthew chapter 13, in the New King James Version.1 "The kingdom ofheaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field (agroi) but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grainhad sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the [master of the house] (oikodespotou) came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed inyourfield? How then does it have tares?' He said to diem, 'An enemy, [a man,] has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' But he said, 1No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time ofharvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to bum them, but gather the wheat into my bam.'"" (Matthew 13: 24-30) Andhere is the explanation ofdie Wheat and die Tares that follows soon after: All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying: "1 will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret [since] the foundation ofthe world." 1 Minor corrections, necessary to reflect the Greek, are indicated by brackets. The source for the Greek text is the Nestle-Almond Novum Testamentum Graece. 100A Parable ofScandal Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house (oikiari). And His... (shrink)

Mr. Bannon, a philosopher of Maison St. Louis, Isle of Jersey, sends us this lively treatment of the problem of color sensation. Regardless of your own convictions on the subject, we feel that you will finish his paper with a feeling of satisfaction at his explanation of the via media of the question.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 95 OCKHAM ON INTUITIVE COGNITION t In the first part of what follows, I try to locate Ockham's theory of intuitive cognition in the context of one set of philosophical problems rather than another. The device I use is to emphasize the major error Ockham wants to avoid: "platonism" rather than scepticism. In the second part, I try to show how difficulties raised by some recent (...) commentary result from the wrong orientation. This very limited project involves neither exposition nor assessment of Ockham's proposed solutions for the philosophical problems. But hopefully it will prove useful or at least suggestive for others working in this or related areas in Ockham. According to Ockham, 2 someone can be said to hold to or cognize a proposition evidently when he knows it to be true. The paradigm of knowing something to be true is seeing that it follows from the premisses in a demonstrative syllogism. However, first principles, or any proposition per se nota, can also be known to be true or cognized evidently. And, what is most important for our purposes, contingent propositions can be cognized evidently when, as one might say, they are known in experience. When someone is looking at a white wall, to ~se one of Ockham's examples, he can cognize evidently the proposition "The wall is white." 3 i Aside from a few quotations, I have given only the location of references in Ockham. Only very extensive quotations would make the article self-sufficient or, for that matter, even be helpful to the reader. My effort is both tentative and parasitic on earlier commentary and can, perhaps, be excused from providing logistic support that would far exceed its own weight. Moreover, I have tried to direct the reader to the most convenient materials, using fairly common or obvious abbreviations for Ockham's writings and the symbols given in the brackets for each of these sources. [Baudry] L Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d'Ockham (Paris, 1958). [McKeon] R. McKeon, Selections /tom Medieval Philosophers, Vol. II (New York, 1929). This almost literal translation of selected Quodlibeta is sufficient for my present purposes. The Strasbourg edition of 1491, of course, is not more readily available m the reimpression from Louvain, Editions de la Biblioth~que Sd., 1962. [OPW] P. Boehner, Ockham: Philosophical Writings (New York, 1957). The page numbers given are from the Nelson edition, containing both Latin and English. The Library of Liberal Arts (Bobbs-Merrill) edition which consists only of the English text runs from one to sixteen pages ahead as a result of numbering the blank pages at the beginning of each section. [Ordinatio] Opera Philosophica et Theologica (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1967). Vol. I: Scripture in Librum Primum Sententiarum Ordinatio, Prologus et Distinctio Prima, edited by G. Gal and S. Brown. The lines referred to are given as superscripts to the page numbers. a Expos. Physicorum, Prologue ([OPW] pp. 4-5). See also [Baudry] under scire and evidens. a The issue of translation raises a host of problems of varying degrees of philosophical importance. I am not settled in my own mind about the best English equivalents for many important terms, and in my translations and commentary I have not tried for consistency. In principle, I prefer odd or quaint terms, since they bear their faults on their 96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY At one point, Ockham gives this description: Whoever knows some proposition evidently cannot dissent from that proposition by the power of the will alone, but it is necessary that he be persuaded by an argument more strongly moving his intellect to dissent, or it is necessary that he have forgotten something evidently known.4 Let me call your attention to the un-Cartesian way in which Ockham removes the judgement of some contingent (and all necessary) propositions from the (total) dominion of the will. I may remain silent or talk of something else, or I may avail myself of questions and conditionals, but if I intend to deal head-on with equals added to equals or (while looking at the white wall) with walls and whiteness, I cannot but assert that equals added to equals are equal or... (shrink)