This new and complete translation of Spinoza's famous 17th-century work fills an important gap, not only for all scholars of Spinoza, but also for everyone interested in the relationship between Western philosophy and religion, and the history of biblical exegesis.

The development and use of nanotechnology in the food industry have grown steadily. While visions for nanofood suggest that the applications will improve quality and safety, they are also controversial for several reasons including potential health risks coupled with difficulty in assessing low-dosage nanoparticle risks as well as values-based objections. In recent years, debate over nanofoods has sparked inquiry into factors that predict public attitudes and purchase intentions. Such studies have investigated the roles of demographics and sociographics, value predispositions toward (...) science and technology, preferences for natural products, trust in regulatory agencies, scientific knowledge, and media attention. This study assesses the role of each of these factors in shaping public attitudes toward nanofood and improves the predictive models by evaluating concepts from protection motivation theory. We find that incorporating threat and coping appraisals provides the best predictive models of public attitudes and intention to purchase nanofood products. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest that differing approaches to the science of social cognition mirror the arguments between radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognition. We contrast the use in social cognition of theoretical inference and mental simulation mechanisms with approaches emphasizing a direct perception of others’ mental states. We build from a recent integrative framework unifying these divergent perspectives through the use of dual-process theory and supporting social neuroscience research. Our elaboration considers two complementary notions of direct perception: one (...) primarily stemming from ecological psychology and the other from enactive cognition theory. We use this as the foundation from which to offer an account of the informational basis for social information and assert a set of research propositions to further the science of social cognition. In doing so, we point out how perception of the minds of others can be supported in some cases by lawful information, supporting direct perception of social affordances and perhaps, mental states, and in other cases by cues that support indirect perceptual inference. Our goal is to extend accounts of social cognition by integrating advances across disciplines to provide a multi-level and multi-theoretic description that can advance this field and offer a means through which to reconcile radical embodied and traditional approaches to cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

In "mind-Body identity, Privacy and categories" richard rorty set forth a new form of the identity theory of the mind, (called the 'disappearance' version) in which he suggested that instead of identifying sensations with neural events, Sensations might be eliminated. Using an illustration of rorty's I show that 'pain' cannot come to refer to a brain process for neural events are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. For 'pain' to refer to something unpleasant, We would have to give 'brain process' the connotation (...) of unpleasantness. But to do this would be to identify the brain process with the sensation of pain--I.E., To return to the older identity theory. (shrink)

This study compared professional and amateur classical musicians matched for age, gender, and education on reaction times during the Stroop color-word test, brainwaves during an auditory ERP task and during paired reaction-time tasks, responses on the Gibbs Sociomoral Reflection questionnaire, and self-reported frequencies of peak experiences. Professional musicians were characterized by: lower color-word interference effects , faster categorization of rare expected stimuli , and a trend for faster processing of rare unexpected stimuli , higher scores on the Sociomoral Reflection questionnaire, (...) and more frequent peak experiences during rest, tasks, and sleep. Both groups had high values on the Brain Integration Scale. These findings are interpreted in light of a Unified Theory of Performance, which posits that effectiveness in any area is influenced by one’s level of mind-brain development—emotional, cognitive, moral, ego and cortical development—with higher mind-brain development supporting greater effectiveness in any domain. (shrink)

Barker and Achinstein misread Goodman's definitions of 'grue' and 'bleen'. If we stick to Goodman's definition of 'grue' as applying "to all things examined before t just in case they are green but to other things just in case they are blue" (my italics), and his parallel definition of 'bleen', then Barker and Achinstein's arguments are seen to be irrelevant. The result is to by-pass the question whether Mr. Grue sees things as grue rather than as green while showing that (...) it is possible for human conceptual schemes to employ different sensory terms. These two issues are separate. (shrink)

I argue that john r searle's speech-Act theory of meaning violates his own requirement that such a theory specify a set of conditions for the performance of a certain illocutionary (speech) act which does not include the performance of any other illocutionary act. For the "propositional act" mentioned in searle's analysans is in actuality an illocutionary act. Then I show that any speech-Act theory must include a subsidiary speech act in the analysans. Since the analysans must not contain such an (...) act, Such an analysis is impossible. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn Germany during the 1870s and 1880s a number of important scientific innovations in chemistry and biology emerged that were linked to advances in the new technology of synthetic dyestuffs. In particular, the rapid development of classical organic chemistry was a consequence of programs in which chemists devised new theories and experimental strategies that were applicable to the processes and products of the burgeoning dye factories. Thereafter, the novel products became the means to examine and measure biological systems. This (...) took place as a result of two trends. The first was a move toward diversification in the dye industry – made possible by the extensive range of products – which in turn was stimulated by economic and political conditions. The second was the increasing availability of techniques, substances, and processes used in industry. This made possible a concrete program of introducing the qualitative and quantitative methods of chemistry into the domain of laboratory experimentation on biological materials, thereby realizing the abstract desire to transform cell biology into an exact science.Moreover, the conceptualization of biological systems that emerged from this endeavor leaned heavily on a theory of dye chemistry that indicated which particular arrangements of atoms performed specific functions. This biological modeling used the imagery of chemical structural formulae to transform chemical nuclei and their side chains into adequate representations of protoplasmic structure. (shrink)

Raphael Meldola (1849-1915), an industrial chemist and keen naturalist, under the influence of Darwin, brought new German studies on evolution by natural selection that appeared in the 1870s to the attention of the British scientific community. Meldola's special interest was in mimicry among butterflies; through this he became a prominent neo-Darwinian. His wide-ranging achievements in science led to appointments as president of important professional scientific societies, and of a local club of like-minded amateurs, particularly field naturalists. This is an account (...) of Meldola's early scientific connections and studies related to entomology and natural selection, his contributions to the study of mimicry, and his promotion in the mid-1890s of a more theory driven approach among entomologists. (shrink)

Samuel Shirley's splendid new translation, with critical annotation reflecting research of the last half-century, is the only edition of the complete text of Spinoza's correspondence available in English. An historical-philosophical Introduction, detailed annotation, a chronology, and a bibliography are also included.

John said, “Sam went to the bank”. He meant it as a literal statement to be assessed as true or false. He meant by “bank” ‘financial institution', referring by it to the First National Bank of Muncie. By “Sam” he referred to Sam Jorgensen. Do we need to know any other sorts of facts about John's utterance to know how it is to be understood?It might be argued that we do need to know something else, for suppose john produced an (...) utterance fitting the above description before Sam went to the bank. Then what he said was false. If John produced an utterance fitting the same description after Sam went to the bank, then what he said was true. Whatever John says on any occasion, it surely can't be both true and false. But if what John said before Sam went to the bank equals what john said after Sam went to the bank, equals what john said, then what john said appears to be both true and false. The moral drawn by this argument is that on the two different occasions john said two different things. So full specifications of what John would have said on the two different occasions must be different. These specifications must, then, differ by features not yet mentioned. (shrink)

This article investigates the embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in two different `sites of desire', namely London and Hong Kong. In London, Hong Kong gay men have constantly encountered the intertwining relationships between race and sexuality in the constellation of the Western construction of body/desire/masculinity. By contrast, Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong tend to place more emphasis on issues of family and culture. The main site of struggle for Hong Kong gay men in Hong Kong is (...) the family-oriented and community-based environment. They adopt not a confrontational politics in a constitutional sense but rather derive tactics of microscopic resistance against societal and familial domination. By comparing 34 Hong Kong gay men living in London and Hong Kong, I argue the divergent constructions of being gay in these two contexts. Through the `voices' of these gay men, I criticize the `Western' construction of identity/the body and offer new insights into the discussion of gay identities. (shrink)

American society has a history of turning to physicians during times of extreme need, from plagues in the past to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases. This public instinct comes from a deep seated trust in physician duty that has been earned over the centuries through dedicated and selfless care, often in the face of personal risks. As dangers facing our communities include terroristic events physicians must be adequately prepared to respond, both medically and ethically. While the ethical principles that govern (...) physician behavior—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and social justice—are unchanging, fundamental doctrines must change with the new risks inherent to terroristic events. Responding to mass casualty disasters caused by terrorists, natural calamities, and combat continue to be challenging frontiers in medicine. Preparing physicians to deal with the consequences of a terroristic disease must include understanding the ethical challenges that can occur. (shrink)