During the last two decades, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has become a dominant force in cultural activity ranging from taste in music and art to choices in food and lifestyles. _The Field of Cultural Production_ brings together Bourdieu's major essays on art and literature and provides the first introduction to Bourdieu's writings and theory of a cultural field that situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. Bourdieu develops a highly original approach to the study of (...) literary and artistic works, addressing many of the key issues that have preoccupied literary art and cultural criticism in the last twentieth century: aesthetic value and canonicity, intertextuality, the institutional frameworks of cultural practice, the social role of intellectuals and artists, and structures of literary and artistic authority. Bourdieu elaborates a theory of the cultural field which situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. He examines the individuals and institutions involved in making cultural products what they are: not only the writers and artists, but also the publishers, critics, dealers, galleries, and academies. He analyzes the structure of the cultural field itself as well as its position within the broader social structures of power. The essays in his volume examine such diverse topics as Flaubert's point of view, Manet's aesthetic revolution, the historical creation of the pure gaze, and the relationship between art and power. The Field of Cultural Porduction will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines: sociology and social theory, literature, art, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Classical Christology provides reason to reject the principle of alternative possibilities [PAP]. The Gethsemane prayer highlights an instance in which Jesus Christ performs a voluntary and morally significant action which he could not have done otherwise, namely, Christ’s submission to God’s will. Two classical Christological doctrines undermine PAP: impeccability, and volitional non-contrariety. Classical Christology teaches that Christ could not sin, and that Christ’s human will could not be contrary to his divine will. Yet, classical Christology also teaches that Christ’s death (...) is voluntary and morally praiseworthy. First, I present the relevant elements of classical Christology: dyothelitism, impeccability, and volitional non-contrariety. Second, I define and disambiguate varieties of PAP. Third, I show that Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane disproves PAP. I respond to several objections along the way. Finally, I reflect on the implications of denying PAP. (shrink)

To explore the realm of creativity, we will make use of the concept of instauration as articulated in the work of Étienne Souriau. Although infrequently used, the word remains extant in English, with agreement among dictionaries that the primary definition is the action of restoring or renewing, with a secondary meaning of instituting or founding. While both senses are at play in Souriau’s thought, it is perhaps the tension between the two that is predominantly in question, akin to what we (...) describe as open containment. We think instauration, as institutive renewal, in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty’s late use of the term aesthesiology to further elaborate the process of creating as a return to the wonder that is aesthesis, the affectively and sensually apprehended opening onto and entanglement with what is. Merleau-Ponty extends aesthesiology as the science of the sense organs themselves into a philosophical organology for ontology. His use of aesthesiology and Souriau’s use of instauration constitute efforts to offer sufficient conceptual containment to be able to say the contingent and ambiguous open of ongoing originating, even while both thinkers strive not to institute any final closure by this very act of naming. This is the inevitable tension of writing philosophic creation.Pour explorer le royaume de la créativité, nous utilisons ici le concept d’instauration tel qu’il a été articulé dans l’oeuvre d’Étienne Souriau. Quoique utilisé rarement, ce terme est attesté dans la langue anglaise. Les dictionnaires anglais accordent que sa définition principale désigne une action de rétablissement ou de renouvellement, avec un sens secondaire d’institution ou fondation. Si les deux sens sont à l’oeuvre chez Souriau, c’est peut-être la tension entre eux qui y est surtout patente. Nous pensons ici l’instauration, entendue comme renouvellement instituant, en dialogue avec l’idée d’esthésiologie telle que Merleau-Ponty la comprend à la fin de son oeuvre. Il utilise cette notion pour développer sa conception du processus de création comme retour à l’étonnement que produit l’áisthesis. L’áisthesis est en effet l’ouverture, affective et sensible, et l’entrelacs, affectif et sensible, à ce qui est. Merleau-Ponty prolonge ainsi l’esthésiologie entendue comme science des organes sensibles, vers une organologie philosophique à visée ontologique. L’usage de l’esthésiologie chez Merleau-Ponty et l’usage de l’instauration chez Souriau constituent des efforts vers une maîtrise conceptuelle suffisante pour pouvoir dire l’ouverture continue, contingente et ambiguë de l’originaire – bien que les deux penseurs ne visent pas à instaurer une clôture finale à partir de l’acte nominatif. Telle est la tension inévitable qu’on rencontre lorsqu’on cherche à écrire la création philosophique.Utilizzeremo in queste pagine per esplorare il regno della creatività il concetto di “instaurazione” così come si trova articolato nell’opera di Étienne Souriau. Benché impiegato raramente, questo termine è attestato anche nella lingua inglese. I dizionari inglesi danno come significato principale quello di un’azione di ristabilimento o rinnovamento, a cui si aggiunge un significato secondario di istituzione o fondazione. Se è vero che entrambi i significati sono all’opera in Souriau, è d’altra parte ancor più evidente la loro tensione. Proporremo qui di pensare l’instaurazione, intesa come rinnovamento istituente, in dialogo con l’idea di estesiologia così come la intende Merleau-Ponty alla fine del suo percorso. Egli usa questa nozione per sviluppare la sua concezione del processo creativo come ritorno allo stupore dell’áisthesis, cioè dell’apertura affettiva e sensibile, e dell’intreccio affettivo e sensibile, a ciò che è. Merleau-Ponty prolunga così l’estesiologia come scienza degli organi di senso in direzione di un’organologia filosofica orientata ontologicamente. L’indagine sull’estesiologia condotta da Merleau-Ponty e l’uso del concetto di instaurazione in Souriau costituiscono così altrettanti sforzi di dire concettualmente l’apertura continua, contingente e ambigua dell’originario – benché sia chiaro che i due pensatori non intendono raggiungere in alcun modo, con questo dire concettuale e con questa scelta lessicale, una qualsiasi “chiusura” della questione. Tale è infatti la tensione inevitabile cui ci si ritrova esposti quando si tenta di scrivere la creazione. (shrink)

The traditional Molinist scheme implies that God is one center of consciousness, knowledge, and will. The person-will paradigm, however, claims there are three centers of consciousness, knowledge, and will in the Godhead. I argue that the Molinist ought to reject the person-will paradigm, and thus reject both monothelitism and social trinitarianism. I begin by presenting standard accounts of Molinism, monothelitism, and social trinitarianism. Then I consider three approaches to reconciling Molinism and the person-will paradigm. I show that each approach is (...) fraught with difficulties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aesthetic Potential of Global Issues CurriculumWilliam Gaudelli (bio) and Randall Hewitt (bio)IntroductionGlobal issues rarely suggest conversations about aesthetics, as they conjure thinking about massive problems such as global warming, famine, and war rather than beautiful thoughts such as grace, love, and compassion. Students may engage in study of global issues in any number of venues, perhaps through a world geography class, within world literature, or as part (...) of a course in Earth science. They would likely be exposed to readings, Web sites, and videos about the nature and extent of problems. Teachers might engage them in small and large group discussions of problems, and, ideally, there would be some consideration of what they might do as citizens. Such processes, their outcomes, and subsequent civic directions are generally not regarded as aesthetic acts, however. One is likely to consider the aesthetic value of a piece of art, a song or poem, movie or performance, but to speak of activities like teaching global issues being aesthetic seems discordant.Yet, this is not so within John Dewey's notion of aesthetics. He argues that aesthetics can exist outside of museums and beyond theaters, potentially in social discourse. Activities like public talk, while not as inherently pleasing as listening to music, have the potential to be experienced as aesthetic:Hence an experience of thinking has its own esthetic quality. It differs from those experiences that are acknowledged to be esthetic, but only [End Page 83] in its materials … [T]he experience itself has a satisfying emotional quality because it possesses integral integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement … In short, esthetic cannot be sharply marked off from intellectual experience since the latter must bear an esthetic stamp to be itself complete.1Dewey's contention that all types of activity, from repairing an automobile to discussing species extinction, can point toward transcendence has not achieved widespread recognition among philosophers, nor has its utility been demonstrated in curriculum.2 Aesthetics and art are still largely confined to the museum, hermetically sealed off from everyday experiences in a Schillerian "ideal kingdom."3 To suggest curriculum, schools, and pedagogy as potential landscapes for artwork far removed from the museum is to render oneself a heretic in many quarters of educational discourse.Yet, there is a despondency and desperation about schools, and thereby curriculum, that too often fail to teach for and about something more than narrow, capitalist-driven, techno-rationalist ends. Constructivist orientations in teaching, for example, have contributed to shifting the manner of teaching but have done relatively little to reframe the ends of learning. Metaphorically, constructivism is a spoon of sugar to help swallow the bitter pill that is learning for and as work. What is lacking in this conceptualization, according to Parker Palmer, Nel Noddings, and Aostre Johnson, is an aesthetic and spiritual rationale for learning that honors the sanctity of students beyond their academic capacities, values the processes of learning as much as its outcomes, and seeks a space for learning that is transcendent.4What we seek in this article with Dewey, then, is an antidote for the malaise that has befallen curriculum, one that is rooted in an aesthetic way of thinking instantiated in a most unlikely candidate: teaching about global issues. We begin by briefly outlining some of Dewey's thinking related to aesthetics, particularly as it germinated in his career and biography. We then turn to the work of contemporary scholars in education who have similarly found value in Dewey's notion of aesthetics. Finally, we draw an illustration from a recent study of student focus groups engaged in reading global media. This student conversation about the potential cataclysm of global warming demonstrates the surprising capacity of such bleak policy discussions to generate aesthetic moments. The significance of this work lies in its potential to contribute to a broadened curriculum discourse that aims toward living an aesthetically resonant life in classrooms and wider social environs while augmenting and enhancing the rationalistic focus of contemporary schools and, indeed, the study of global issues.Deweyan Aesthetics and BiographyWe begin by weaving Dewey's biography with his notion of aesthetics as an internal process of... (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors (...) We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

In the popular misconception fostered by blockbuster action movies and best-selling thrillers--not to mention conventional explanations by social scientists--violence is easy under certain conditions, like poverty, racial or ideological hatreds, or family pathologies. Randall Collins challenges this view in Violence, arguing that violent confrontation goes against human physiological hardwiring. It is the exception, not the rule--regardless of the underlying conditions or motivations. -/- Collins gives a comprehensive explanation of violence and its dynamics, drawing upon video footage, cutting-edge forensics, and (...) ethnography to examine violent situations up close as they actually happen--and his conclusions will surprise you. Violence comes neither easily nor automatically. Antagonists are by nature tense and fearful, and their confrontational anxieties put up a powerful emotional barrier against violence. Collins guides readers into the very real and disturbing worlds of human discord--from domestic abuse and schoolyard bullying to muggings, violent sports, and armed conflicts. He reveals how the fog of war pervades all violent encounters, limiting people mostly to bluster and bluff, and making violence, when it does occur, largely incompetent, often injuring someone other than its intended target. Collins shows how violence can be triggered only when pathways around this emotional barrier are presented. He explains why violence typically comes in the form of atrocities against the weak, ritualized exhibitions before audiences, or clandestine acts of terrorism and murder--and why a small number of individuals are competent at violence. (shrink)

Palliative care is a recent branch of health care. The doctors, nurses, and other professionals involved in it took their inspiration from the medieval idea of the hospice, but have now extended their expertise to every area of health care: surgeries, nursing homes, acute wards, and the community. This has happened during a period when patients wish to take more control over their own lives and deaths, resources have become scarce, and technology has created controversial life-prolonging treatments. Palliative care is (...) therefore faced with more ethical problems that other areas of health care. This book, by a clinician, teacher, and writer on health care ethics, has been written to provide all those who care for the terminally ill--doctors, nurses, social workers, clergymen, physiotherapists--with the concepts and principles which will assist them with difficult decisions. It challenges many received doctrines of palliative care, but its well-illustrated central theme is that technical expertise must be controlled by humane, non-technical judgments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Negotiating Maternal IdentityAdrienne Rich’s Legacy for Inquiry into the Political-Philosophical Dimensions of Pregnancy and ChildbirthCandace JohnsonGiving birth has been described as the crossing of an imaginary threshold, which separates an independent maternal self from some sort of dual or subordinate existence. The metaphor of a border has also been employed to demonstrate this transformation, which may be liberating, oppressive, or some complex combination thereof (Weir 2006; Martinez 2004). What (...) happens, in psychic and sociopolitical terms, in the journey across this border? Can a woman, as an independent, autonomous being, preserve her identity, her selfhood as a mother? Is the transition to motherhood an expression of culture or nature? The answers to these questions are infinitely complex, yet are at the core of philosophical, political, and personal explorations of the maternal. Central to these explorations are academic critiques and personal responses to the biomedical mediation of the transition to motherhood. For some women, medical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth is inherently oppressive, whereas for other women such intervention is a marker of privilege. In a groundbreaking volume published in 1998, Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert argue that women respond to different biomedical interventions in pragmatic ways, which reflect their lived experiences. They claim that “it is more appropriate to understand women’s responses in medical settings as reflecting their daily experiences as part of a domestic group, a community, or a society” (19). [End Page 65]I would like to advance this analysis by suggesting that women respond to biomedical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth in ways that reflect not simply their practical needs and realities, but important details about inequality and identity. Women’s relative degrees of power and agency in society are expressed through their preferences for care during pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, and in connection with the (structural) dynamics of inequality, these preferences reflect the complexities of shifting, negotiated, maternal identities. In order to consider the ways in which women negotiate maternal identity through their preferences concerning care during pregnancy and childbirth, I will examine the contributions of Adrienne Rich, which effectively serve as the foundation for this and countless other areas of women’s and gender studies. In Of Woman Born, Rich dedicates two full chapters to childbirth, and explains in these chapters that the institution of childbirth has come to dominate and eclipse women’s experiences. Moreover, the patriarchal circumscription of childbirth is reinforced by the isolation of childbirth (and motherhood) from other life events. Rich demonstrates these problems through the metaphor of “giving birth to oneself ” (29), which has (at least) two distinct meanings: self actualization and self replacement.My investigation into these meanings will include an examination of Rich’s philosophical treatment of pregnancy and childbirth and an assessment of the sociopolitical implications of both conceptions of “giving birth to oneself.” I will then subject these conceptions to empirical testing, as Rich insists. Such empirical testing is crucial because the social and political dimensions of the institutions of childbirth and motherhood are complex and differ from one context to the next. Rich explains that[t]o hold power over others means that the powerful is permitted a kind of short-cut through the complexity of human personality. He does not have to enter intuitively into the souls of the powerless, or to hear what they are saying in their many languages, including the language of silence. Colonialism exists by virtue of this short-cut—how else could so few live among so many and understand so little?(65)This essay will avoid a similar shortcut often taken by theorists, which builds philosophical arguments without empirical support. The empirical cases to be considered in the context of philosophical debate include Canada, Honduras, and Cuba, and details of each case will be drawn from extensive interview data from a larger empirical study.1 In the Canadian context, resistance to the constraining effects of motherhood as institution is reduced to resistance to medical regulation of pregnancy and childbirth. The benefit indicated by this resistance is that women have found ways to expand their range of options and reinterpret the birthing event, thereby integrating it into other realms [End Page 66... (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that in cultural production fields the concatenation of eminence explains success, defined as influence and innovation. We propose that individuals in fields as diverse as philosophy, literature, mathematics, painting, or architecture gain visibility by cumulating the eminence of others connected to them across and within generations. We draw on interaction ritual chain and social movement theories, and use evidence from the field of modernist architecture, to formulate a model of how networks of very strong ties generate (...) motivations and emotional enthusiasm, change reputations, and form collective movements that over time transform the structure of cultural fields. Because major aesthetic innovations break sharply with older styles, they need very strong group solidarity over a long period of time to propagate a new standard of practice. We propose mutual halo effects, i.e., the reciprocal reinforcement of upstream and downstream prestige on a given individual node, as the key factor accounting for success in a cultural production field. We discuss the relevance of these results for building a model of influence and innovation in cultural production fields in which networks—reshaped by shifting technological, political, and economic conditions—trigger new styles. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been declared one of the top ten global public health threats facing humanity. To address AMR, coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies are being enacted in some settings. These policies, like all in public health, require ethical justification. Here, I introduce a framework for ethically evaluating coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies on the basis of ethical justifications (and their limitations). I consider arguments from effectiveness; duty of easy rescue; tragedy of the commons; responsibility-tracking; the harm principle; paternalism; justice and (...) development; a precautionary approach; and professional duties. I consider how these justifications might form the basis for developing a comprehensive ethical framework, and the need for this to be context-specific and aligned with the priorities, evidence and needs of the particular jurisdictions in which a policy is to be enacted. I demonstrate how the ethical justifications might be used by reference to an example policy of the EU ban on the use of certain human-critical antibiotics for livestock, before concluding with challenges for further development of the framework. (shrink)

In Queer Social Philosophy, Randall Halle analyzes key texts in the tradition of German critical theory from the perspective of contemporary queer theory, exposing gender and sexuality restrictions that undermine those texts' claims of universal truth. Addressing such figures as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, and Habermas, Halle offers a unique contribution to contemporary debates about sexuality, civil society, and politics.

Taking the possibility of visual argumentation seriously, this essay explores how refutation might proceed. We posit three ways in which images can refute and be refuted in a mixed-media environment: (1) dissection, in which an image is broken down discursively; (2) substitution, in which one image is replaced within a larger visual frame by a different image; and (3) transformation, in which an image is recontextualized in a new visual frame. These strategies are illustrated in an analysis of three American (...) documentary films on abortion. (shrink)

The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

You might think a simple “No” would suffice as an answer. But there are features of Kant’s ethics that appear to be strikingly similar to virtue oriented views, so striking that some Kantians themselves have argued that Kant’s ethics in fact shares these features with virtue ethics. In what follows, I will argue against this view, though along the way I will acknowledge the features of Kant’s view that make it appear more like a kind of virtue ethics than it (...) really is. My plan is to first set out the distinctive features of what is nowadays called “virtue ethics”, those features that make it a genuine alternative to other normative theories. I then consider the features Kant’s view might share in common with virtue ethics and the case for saying that it is, therefore, fundamentally the same sort of theory. I follow these two sections with an argument against this position. I want to warn you at the outset, however, that my argument itself will be quite unsurprising, since it is an argument that has been central to the way in which most philosophers have understood Kant’s ethics. Any novelty I can claim here is in my account of what makes virtue ethics a genuine alternative to other normative theories, and my defense of this argument against those, in particular Barbara Herman, who have apparently found the argument unpersuasive. (shrink)

This book aims to develop a sophisticated understanding of propaganda. It begins with a brief history of early Western propaganda, including Ancient Greek classical theories of rhetoric and the art of persuasion, and traces its development through the Christian era, the rise of the nation-state, World War I, Nazism, and Communism. The core of the book examines the ethical implications of various forms of persuasion, not only hate propaganda but also insidious elements of more generally acceptable communication such as advertising, (...) public relations, and government information, setting these in the context of freedom of expression. Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion examines the art of persuasion but it also hopes to establish a "self-defense" resistance to propaganda. As Jacques Ellul warned in 1980, any new technology enters into an already existing class system and can be expected to develop in a way favourable to the dominant interests of that system. The merger of AOL and Time-Warner confirms the likelihood of corporate interests dominating the future of the Internet, but the Internet has also opened up new possibilities for a politically effective counter-culture, as was demonstrated at the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in late 1999 and numerous similar gatherings since. (shrink)

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

The main focus of this book is the normative or ethical aspects of sustainability, including matters of justice in governance that is important to sustainability. The idea of sustainability is widely perceived as having a normative dimension, often referred to as equity, but the character of this normative dimension is seldom explored. The book aims to fill this gap in the literature of sustainability. It proposes a conceptualization of sustainability that is geared to clarifying its essential ethical structure. It frames (...) sustainability in terms of the capacity of natural systems to provide opportunities to live well, as well as the conduciveness of human practices and systems to preserving such opportunity into the distant future. It develops the idea of sustainability as an art of preserving opportunity to live well – an ethically and scientifically grounded political art of living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. (shrink)

Looks at issues such as, the intellectual outlook of Medieval Christendom, the Renaissance, the order of nature in the 17th and 18th centuries, and thought and aspiration in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Too many patients are injured in the course of care. Clinicians may mistakenly cause new harm to a patient or fail to take established steps to improve the presenting condition. Medical institutions within which they work may lack mechanisms to reduce errors or prevent them from harming patients. Many, perhaps even most, injuries are preventable, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands a year for hospital care alone. Long ignored by medical practitioners and health-care payers and little appreciated by the (...) public, the problem of medical injury is finally receiving high-level policy attention. Much credit goes to the Institute of Medicine for its landmark report of November 1999, which marshaled the evidence about medical injuries and highlighted new approaches to systematic improvement of safety within systems of care. (shrink)

Too many patients are injured in the course of care. Clinicians may mistakenly cause new harm to a patient or fail to take established steps to improve the presenting condition. Medical institutions within which they work may lack mechanisms to reduce errors or prevent them from harming patients. Many, perhaps even most, injuries are preventable, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands a year for hospital care alone. Long ignored by medical practitioners and health-care payers and little appreciated by the (...) public, the problem of medical injury is finally receiving high-level policy attention. Much credit goes to the Institute of Medicine for its landmark report of November 1999, which marshaled the evidence about medical injuries and highlighted new approaches to systematic improvement of safety within systems of care. (shrink)

Whole brain emulation aims to re-implement functions of a mind in another computational substrate with the precision needed to predict the natural development of active states in as much as the influence of random processes allows. Furthermore, brain emulation does not present a possible model of a function, but rather presents the actual implementation of that function, based on the details of the circuitry of a specific brain. We introduce a notation for the representations of mind state, mind transition functions (...) and transition update functions, for which elements and their relations must be quantified in accordance with measurements in the biological substrate. To discover the limits of significance in terms of the temporal and spatial resolution of measurements, we point out the importance of brain region and task specific constraints, as well as the importance of in-vivo measurements. We summarize further problems that need to be addressed. (shrink)

Traces the impact of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on a diverse group of writers, abolitionists, and social reformers, including Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott, against a backdrop of growing tensions and transcendental idealism in 1860 America.

The aim of this paper is to revive a tradition of educational thought that identifies good judgment as the highest aim of education. It identifies sharply opposed manifestations of this tradition in the works of Aristotle and Locke, and uses these as points of departure in defending and exploring the tradition. The defense rests on the claims that the basic aim of educational institutions should be to enable people to live well and that good judgment is essential to living well. (...) The relationships between good judgment and other widely discussed educational aims are addressed, including autonomy, fulfillment of potential, and acquisition of knowledge. Curricular and pedagogical aspects of the promotion of good judgment are addressed, and the paper concludes by identifying potential benefits as well as limitations associated with the conditions of epistemic dependence. (shrink)

Aristotle regarded law and education as the two fundamental and deeply interdependent tools of political art, making the use of education by the statesman a topic of the first importance in his practical philosophy. The present work develops the first comprehensive treatment of this neglected topic, and assesses the importance of Aristotle's defense of public education for current debates about school choice and privatization, and educational equality.

This paper argues that rural children’s prospects of achieving civic equality within the wider society are limited by the fact that the education they receive is not inclusive, that this is in some respects unjust, and that some partial remedies are available. The non-inclusiveness of rural education is characterized as a form of rural isolation, defined by physical and cultural distance from pathways of opportunity that are significant for civic equality, and by failures of mutually recognized mutual goodwill. Physical and (...) cultural distance are identified as aspects of an evolving geography of opportunity, in which college graduates are highly favored and high-status opportunities are concentrated in cities. (shrink)

This article explores an alternative logic of imprudence at work in Machiavelli's The Prince, a text seemingly defined by its prudence. Arguing that crucial engagements with The Prince by Eugene Garver and Robert Hariman operate as “prudent” readings, I note that the text offers durable resources for radical political and rhetorical imagination. Such resources are recoverable, however, only in and through an alternative, imprudent, reading strategy. Following the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I read The Prince—particularly in its aesthetic and rhetorical (...) articulation of “the people”—neither as a manual for princes or realpolitik but as both irreducible plurality and differential network, reflecting a political imagination at work in the text beyond modern calculation. Reading The Prince imprudently, I explore the necessary interconnection between rhetorical reading and political thinking—and the subsequent importance of understanding political theory as an aesthetic and textual practice. (shrink)

Marina Sbisà’s remarks on illocutionary pluralism suggest but do not constitute a full-blown theory. In this chapter I discuss two different attempts to build on those remarks. The first, illocutionary relativism, is my own attempt to develop the ideas presented in Sbisà’s remarks. The second, from Marcin Lewiński, differs in important ways. I then briefly compare these two varieties of illocutionary pluralism.

There has been considerable debate in the literature about the relative merits of information processing versus dynamical approaches to understanding cognitive processes. In this article, we explore the relationship between these two styles of explanation using a model agent evolved to solve a relational categorization task. Specifically, we separately analyze the operation of this agent using the mathematical tools of information theory and dynamical systems theory. Information-theoretic analysis reveals how task-relevant information flows through the system to be combined into a (...) categorization decision. Dynamical analysis reveals the key geometrical and temporal interrelationships underlying the categorization decision. Finally, we propose a framework for directly relating these two different styles of explanation and discuss the possible implications of our analysis for some of the ongoing debates in cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper examines the investigations carried out between 1798 and 1834 to determine whether, and how, magnetism affected the rate at which marine chronometers gained or lost time. There were persistent claims that chronometers systematically altered rate between those determined on land and those at sea, and magnetism was thought by some to be the most likely cause. Others disputed any rate difference at all. The experiments carried out to determine the influence of magnetism and those carried out to determine (...) if there was a difference between land and sea rates of chronometers will be considered. The data will be re-analysed in an attempt to extract additional information to clarify the answers to these questions. The influence these experiments had on certain navigational practices will be discussed briefly. (shrink)

Is it ethical to treat a death row inmate only to stabilize him or her for eventual execution? What happens when a military provider receives highly sensitive intelligence from a client?