v. 1. Psychological issues.--v. 2. Structural issues.--v. 3. Awareness and self-awareness.--v. 4. Clinical issues.

Eye movements were recorded during the display of two images of a real-world scene that were inspected to determine whether they were the same or not . In the displays where the pictures were different, one object had been changed, and this object was sometimes taken from another scene and was incongruent with the gist. The experiment established that incongruous objects attract eye fixations earlier than the congruous counterparts, but that this effect is not apparent until the picture has been (...) displayed for several seconds. By controlling the visual saliency of the objects the experiment eliminates the possibility that the incongruency effect is dependent upon the conspicuity of the changed objects. A model of scene perception is suggested whereby attention is unnecessary for the partial recognition of an object that delivers sufficient information about its visual characteristics for the viewer to know that the object is improbable in that particular scene, and in which full identification requires foveal inspection. (shrink)

This article explores three distinct approaches to politics identified by Deleuze and Guattari. I argue that they consistently privilege a 'problematic' approach entailing individuals and associations establishing norms on the basis of the potential they possess within a concrete situation, and that this implies resistance to both the 'theorematic' politics they associate with statist philosophy and struggles aiming to alter the 'axiomatic' determination induced by global forces of capital. While this resistance necessarily proceeds in relation to established notions of identity (...) and value, it must also do more than aim for the establishment of particular institutional 'constants,' including particular democratic procedures and human rights. (shrink)

New forms of river management have emerged following widespread recognition of the environmental damage caused by attempts to harness and control rivers for navigation, consumptive water use and power generation. A dominant top-down engineering-based paradigm is being challenged by catchment-framed, ecosystem-based approaches which claim to place greater emphasis on participation and equity. However, there has been limited attention given to examining these claims, and principles of justice are frequently left unarticulated or embedded in what is still presented as an essentially (...) technical, outcome-driven management process. This paper examines the contribution of an environmental justice framework in articulating and explicating the ethical and political nature of decision making in stream rehabilitation practice. Particular attention is given to distributive, procedural and relational elements of justice, and to the limitations of an anthropocentric approach. A broader-based ecological justice framework is proposed. Several key issues in applying this framework are discussed, including the need for 'situated justice', for multiple voices to be heard, for dealing with unity and diversity at the catchment scales, and in integrating knowledge through genuine transdisciplinary research and practice. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed growing concerns about how we should conduct conservation activities in a world of human-altered biophysical conditions. The 'novel ecosystems' perspective has emerged as a way to meet this challenge. Yet its focus on accepting 'new natures' as the 'new normal' has drawn much criticism from those wedded to conventional forms of conservation, such as 'ecological restoration'. This paper: 1) provides a much needed review of this dispute; 2) formulates and deploys an original analytical framework, which draws (...) on Thomas Kuhn's 'theoretical history' of science and Charles Taylor's moral philosophy to extricate the entangled moral and material ontologies of nature which conflate facts with values in the world-building activities of disputants; and 3) identifies and examines the processes underlying these world-building activities. The paper closes by offering an initial suggestion on how to explore options for resolving this highly contentious debate. (shrink)

Baxter (Australas J Philos 79: 449-464, 2001) proposes an ingenious solution to the problem of instantiation based on his theory of cross-count identity. His idea is that where a particular instantiates a universal it shares an aspect with that universal. Both the particular and the universal are numerically identical with the shared aspect in different counts. Although Baxter does not say exactly what a count is, it appears that he takes ways of counting as mysterious primitives against which different numerical (...) identities are defined. In contrast, I defend the idea— suggested, though not quite endorsed, by Baxter himself—that counts are independent dimensions of numerical identity. Different ways of counting are explained by the existence of these different sorts of identity (i.e., counts). For the instantiation of a universal by a particular, I propose one dimension concerned with the individuation of particulars (the p-count) and another dimension concerned with the individuation of universals (the u-count). On that basis, I give a clear definition of cross-count identity that explains its asymmetrical nature (i.e., the fact that particulars instantiate universais, but not vice versa). I extend the theory to a third dimension—that of time, or the t-count—and thereby defend Baxter's ideas on change, and the contingency of instantiation. Baxter (Mind 97(388): 575-582, 1988; Australas J Philos 79: 449-464, 2001) proposes the related idea of composition as (cross-count) identity. Parts are individually cross-count identical with the wholes that they constitute, and they collectively share all aspects across counts with those wholes. I propose an innovation by which totality is shared distinctness across counts. The theory applies to both the totality of particulars that instantiate any given universal, and the totality of parts that constitute any given whole. I argue that this has several advantages over Armstrong's view, which is based on a dubious external totalling relation. I also argue that Armstrong's theory of numbers (or quantities) as internal relations ought to be rejected in favour of an account based on identity and distinctness. The paper concludes with a careful analysis of external relations in Baxter's framework. I argue that we must recognise one further dimension of identity in order to differentiate between, e.g., the aspects of Abelard insofar as he loves Heloise and Abelard insofar as he loves Isobel. Each of these aspects is identical with Abelard and identical with loving-by, yet they must be in some way distinct. I therefore propose the r-count, in which multiple distinct relational properties are the very same relation (-part). The existence of these four independent dimensions explains the fact that particulars, universals, relations, and times are fundamentally different sorts of things in the ontology. Each is individuated with respect to a different dimension of identity. (shrink)

Through an analysis of personal histories, we reflect on changes in disability discourses in educational contexts since the 1970s. We argue that educational systems are deeply resistant to critical discourse of disability even while espousing social justice principles. We simultaneously recognize the disconnection between disability, education, and the lived experiences of disabled children, and the way in which their experiences are framed. We call for a more integrated discourse between academic theories of disability, professional systems, and children’s lived experiences in (...) order to better care for children and their families, and to address injustice in education systems. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the political agency of Cultural Studies within the contemporary conjuncture. It begins by examining critical polemics around culture and postmodernity and moves on to consider Bennett's Foucauldian approach to cultural criticism. Although critical of Bennett's approach, the paper retains the Foucauldian notion of governmentality as the explanation of governance as a form of rule. The relevance of governance to cultural studies is shown through the argument that the political agency of cultural studies rests on (...) an administrative structure that can no longer be verified empirically or conceptually. The argument proceeds by proposing that the liquidation of this political agency has been caused by the cultural agency of postmodernity, to which administrative and political authority is subordinate. Governance is the political expression of this state of affairs. After outlining the general features of governance the paper concludes with a discussion of how the political agency of culture is expressed through governance. (shrink)

Language is commonly regarded as an exclusively human attribute and the possession of the word has long served to demarcate culture from nature. This is often taken to imply that nature is incapable of meaningful expression, that any meaning it acquires is merely bestowed upon it by humanity. This anthropic logocentrism seriously undermines those forms of 'environmental advocacy' which claim to find and speak of the meaning and value of nature perse. However, shorn of their own anthropocentric presuppositions, the expressivist (...) hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Walter Benjamin might offer an alternative understanding of the nature of language and the language of nature. (shrink)

This book sets out to redress the balance and develop an understanding of what comprises ethical leadership in organizations.

If, as Lefebvre argues, every society produces its own social space, then modernity might be characterized by that (anti-)social and instrumental space epitomized and idealized in Le Corbusier's writings. This repetitively patterned space consumes and regulates the differences between places and people; it encapsulates a normalizing morality that seeks to reduce all differences to an economic order of the Same. Lefebvre's dialectical conceptualization of 'difference' can both help explain the operation of this (im)moral landscape and offer the possibility of alternative (...) post-modern social spaces that might produce and respect Otherness. In this sense Lefebvre's work is an incipient 'difference ethics'. (shrink)

Inspired by recent anti-roads protests in Britain, I attempt to articulate a radical environmental ethos and, at the same time, to produce a cogent moral analysis of the dialectic between environmental destruction and protection. In this analysis, voiced in terms of a spatial metaphoric, an “ethics of place,” I seek to subvert the hegemony of modernity’s formal systematization and codification of values whilestill conserving something of modernity’s critical heritage: to reconstitute ethics in order to counter the current enclosure of the (...) moral field within economistic and legal bureaucratic frameworks and institutions. (shrink)

This discussion paper offers a critical provocation to my mental health nursing colleagues. Drawing upon David Graeber's account of bullshit work, work that is increasingly meaningless for workers, I pose the question: Is mental health nursing a bullshit job? Ever‐increasing time spent on record keeping as opposed to direct care appears to represent a Graeberian bullshitisation of mental health nurses' work. In addition, core aspects of the role are not immune from bullshit. Professional rhetoric would have us believe that mental (...) health nursing is a therapeutically beneficent occupation organised around ideals of care and compassion and providing fulfilling work for practitioners. Yet, there are some key characteristics of the experience of mental health nursing work that afford alternative judgements on its value and meaningfulness. Not least of these is the fact that many mental health nurses feel quite existentially unsettled in the practise of their work and many service users do not recognise the professional ideal, especially when compelled into increasingly coercive and restrictive services. In this context, Graeber's thesis is explored for its applicability to mental health nursing with a conclusion that many aspects of mental health nursing work are commensurate with bullshit but that mental health care can possibly be redeemed from bullshitisation by authentically democratising reforms. Engaging with posthumanist ideas, this exploration involves a flexing of aspects of Graeber's theory. (shrink)

'This book radically raises the level of debate.

This book uses a theory of cyborg semiotics to explore the similarities between language and cyborgs in their formation, interpretation, and relationships. This intersectional theory provides a unique perspective on power and the human condition.

The physician's son -- Two great masters -- The natural scientist -- The lyceum -- "The philosopher".

Cognitive fatigue is a problem for the safety of critical systems as it can lead to accidents, especially during unexpected events. In order to determine the extent to which it disrupts adaptive capabilities, we evaluated its effect on online and anticipatory control. Despite numerous studies conducted to determine its effects, the exact mechanism affected by fatigue remains to be clarified. In this study, we used distribution and electromyographic analysis to assess whether cognitive fatigue increases the capture of the incorrect automatic (...) response or if it impairs its suppression, and whether the conflict adaptation effect is reduced. To this end, we evaluated the evolution of the performance over time during the Simon task, a classic conflict task that elicits incorrect automatic responses. To accentuate the presence of fatigue during the Simon task, two groups previously performed a dual-task with two different cognitive load levels to create two different levels of fatigue. The results revealed that time on task impaired online control by disrupting the capacity to suppress the incorrect response but leaving unaffected the expression of the automatic response. Furthermore, participants emphasized speed rather than accuracy with time on task, with in addition more fast guesses, suggesting that they opted for a less effortful response strategy. As the implementation of the suppression mechanism requires cognitive effort, the conjunction of these results suggests that the deficits observed may be due to disengagement of effort over time rather than reflecting an incapacity to make an effort. (shrink)

Debates over “Big Data” shed more heat than light in the humanities, because the term ascribes new importance to statistical methods without explaining how those methods have changed. What we badly need instead is a conversation about the substantive innovations that have made statistical modeling useful for disciplines where, in the past, it truly wasn’t. These innovations are partly technical, but more fundamentally expressed in what Leo Breiman calls a new “culture” of statistical modeling. Where 20th-century methods often required humanists (...) to squeeze our unstructured texts, sounds, or images into some special-purpose data model, new methods can handle unstructured evidence more directly by modeling it in a high-dimensional space. This opens a range of research opportunities that humanists have barely begun to discuss. To date, topic modeling has received most attention, but in the long run, supervised predictive models may be even more important. I sketch their potential by describing how Jordan Sellers and I have begun to model poetic distinction in the long 19th century—revealing an arc of gradual change much longer than received literary histories would lead us to expect. (shrink)

From Ansel Adams to Carleton Watkins, Diane Arbus to Weegee, Richard Avedon to James VanDerZee, American photographers have recorded their vast, multicultural nation in images that, for more than a hundred years, have come to define the USA. In Photography and the USA, Mick Gidley explores not only the medium of photography and the efforts to capture key events and moments through photographs, but also the many ways in which the medium has played a formative role in American culture. (...) Photography and the USA encompasses the major movements, figures and works that are crucial to understanding American photography, but also pays attention to more obscure aspects of photography’s history. Focusing on works that reveal many different facets of America, its landscapes and its people, Gidley explores the ambiguities of American history and culture. We encounter images that range from an anti-lynching demo in 1934 to Dorothea Lange’s poster “All races serve the crops in California;” an early photographic view of Niagara Falls against the painstaking detail of Edward Weston’s Pepper, No. 30; a fireman’s fight in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to the Ground Zero images of 2001 by Joel Meyerowitz; an 1890s “Wanted” image to Elliot Erwitt’s shot of the Nixon–Kruschchev “Kitchen Debate.” Organizing his narrative around the themes of history, technology, the document and the emblem, Mick Gidley not only presents a history of photography, but also reveals the complexities inherent in reading photographs themselves. A concise yet comprehensive overview of photography in the United States, this book is an excellent introduction to the subject for American Studies or visual arts students, or for anyone interested in US history or culture. (shrink)

Learning Two Ways: Some Notes about the Author Paula Underwood was born in Los Angeles in 1932. From her father she learned many traditions, some of which ...

Specific phobias of natural objects, such as moths, spiders and snakes, are both common and socially significant, but they have received relatively little sociological attention. Studies of specific phobias have noted that embodied experiences of disgust are intimately associated with phobic reactions, but generally explain this in terms of objective qualities of the object concerned and/or evolutionary models. We draw on the work of Kolnai, Douglas and Kristeva to provide an alternative phenomenological and culturally informed account of the complex links (...) between pervasive social categories and their emotional embodiment and expression in phobic individuals. (shrink)

Specific phobias of natural objects, such as moths, spiders and snakes, are both common and socially significant, but they have received relatively little sociological attention. Studies of specific phobias have noted that embodied experiences of disgust are intimately associated with phobic reactions, but generally explain this in terms of objective qualities of the object concerned and/or evolutionary models. We draw on the work of Kolnai, Douglas and Kristeva to provide an alternative phenomenological and culturally informed account of the complex links (...) between pervasive social categories and their emotional embodiment and expression in phobic individuals. (shrink)

Then Wendy began to see that one didn't stay at two for the rest of one's life. Indeed two is the beginning of the end. The end is being grown-up. Once you get to twenty one or so, you can never be ungrown-up again. But Mrs. Darling did not tell this to Wendy. Between two and twenty one, there was lots of time for her to find out.

(1963). The early teaching of anatomy at Padua, with special reference to a model of the Padua anatomical theatre. Annals of Science: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 1-26.

Modern Western thought and culture have envisaged their task in terms of a metaphorics, a metaphysics and a technics of 'enlightenment'. However, the ethical and environmental implications of this determination to dispel all shadows have become increasingly pernicious as modernity both extends and alters the conceptualization and employment of (a now artificial) light as a tool of discovery and control. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Benjamin amongst others, this paper seeks to illustrate, through a critical ethopoietics, the 'speculative (...) aporia' of contemporary society from the perspective of radical ecology. The world does not just reflect our own instrumental interests: it has an elusive, shadowy existence of its own that can impinge upon our ethical perceptions. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role that ethics theory might play in business ethics teaching. It is noted that little attention is devoted to the explanation and application of ethics theory in business ethics textbooks, which suggests that ethics theory is held in low esteem by business ethics educators. This relative disregard has been justified by some critics on the basis of the limited usefulness of ethics theory to business ethics pedagogy. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the paper argues that ethics theory can (...) play an important role in business ethics teaching which conforms to a speculative agenda. A speculative agenda is described, and a contribution that ethics theory can make to it is explained. This constitutes a form of immanent critique, which enables putative statements of business ethicality to be subjected to critique against the cultural values upon which their credibility rests. Ethics theory is offered as a mediating resource to facilitate such critique. Some criteria that the presentation of ethics theory needs to meet if it is to fulfill this speculative agenda are also outlined. (shrink)

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale is an instrument designed to provide researchers with a self-report measure of spiritual experiences as an important aspect of how religiousness/spirituality is expressed in daily life for many people. The sixteen-item scale includes constructs such as awe, gratitude, mercy, sense of connection with the transcendent, compassionate love, and desire for closeness to God. It also includes measures of awareness of discernment/inspiration and transcendent sense of self. This measure was originally developed for use in health studies, (...) but has been increasingly used more widely in the social sciences, for program evaluation, and for examining changes in religious/spiritual experiences over time. It has been included on the U. S. General Social Survey , and the items have shown high prevalence in that population. The challenge of identifying items that tap the underlying constructs was addressed through qualitative methods, both in the development and testing of the instrument. Translations have been made into Spanish, Korean, Hebrew, Vietnamese, and French, and the scale has been effectively used outside the United States. Detailed discussion of item construction based on qualitative work is given to assist in use, interpretation and translation development. Options for scoring and suggestions for exploring correlations with other variables using individual items and subgroups are also presented. (shrink)

The natural world’s myriad differences from human beings, and its apparent indifference to human purposes and ends, are often regarded as problems an environmental ethics must overcome. Perhaps, though, ecological ethics might instead be re-envisaged as a form of other-directed concern that responds to just this situation. That is, the recognition of worldly (in)difference might actually be regarded as a precondition for, and opening on, any contemporary ethics, whether human or ecological. What is more, the task of ethics might be (...) regarded as one of conserving (at least some) such differences. The work of Iris Murdoch and the “difference ethics” of Emmanuel Levinas seem to offer possible ways to express such understandings. However, their ecological potential and theoretical limits, especially in terms oftheir metaphysical presuppositions, remain relatively under-explored. A closer examination of their work is presented in order to illustrate some of the possibilities and difficulties facing an ecological form of difference ethics. (shrink)

Longtime San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle's freewheeling journey through several dozen big-screen visions of California.

The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics that illustrate (...) the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being. (shrink)

This article examines the technical apparatus of the Warburg Haus in Hamburg and its relationship with Aby Warburg’s art historical methodology. A link is made to an exhibition in 1941 by Saxl and Wittkower entitled English Art and the Mediterranean that was published in 1948 and again in 1969 as British Art and the Mediterranean. In turn, the manner in which this exhibition and publication was image led, the text serving to annotate the images, links to broadcast media, namely, Clark’s (...) Civilisation (1969) and Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972), as a strong example of a working practice. (shrink)

This article examines the technical apparatus of the Warburg Haus in Hamburg and its relationship with Aby Warburg’s art historical methodology. A link is made to an exhibition in 1941 by Saxl and Wittkower entitled English Art and the Mediterranean that was published in 1948 and again in 1969 as British Art and the Mediterranean. In turn, the manner in which this exhibition and publication was image led, the text serving to annotate the images, links to broadcast media, namely, Clark’s (...) Civilisation and Berger’s Ways of Seeing, as a strong example of a working practice. (shrink)

This article examines the technical apparatus of the Warburg Haus in Hamburg and its relationship with Aby Warburg’s art historical methodology. A link is made to an exhibition in 1941 by Saxl and Wittkower entitled English Art and the Mediterranean that was published in 1948 and again in 1969 as British Art and the Mediterranean. In turn, the manner in which this exhibition and publication was image led, the text serving to annotate the images, links to broadcast media, namely, Clark’s (...) Civilisation and Berger’s Ways of Seeing, as a strong example of a working practice. (shrink)