David Milner and Melvyn Goodale’s dissociation hypothesis is commonly taken to state that there are two functionally specialized cortical streams of visual processing originating in striate (V1) cortex: a dorsal, action-related “unconscious” stream and a ventral, perception-related “conscious” stream. As Milner and Goodale acknowledge, findings from blindsight studies suggest a more sophisticated picture that replaces the distinction between unconscious vision for action and conscious vision for perception with a tripartite division between unconscious vision for (...) class='Hi'>action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. The combination excluded by the tripartite division is the possibility of conscious vision for action. But are there good grounds for concluding that there is no conscious vision for action? There is now overwhelming evidence that illusions and perceived size can have a significant effect on action (Bruno & Franz, 2009; Dassonville & Bala, 2004; Franz & Gegenfurtner, 2008; McIntosh & Lashley, 2008). There is also suggestive evidence that any sophisticated visual behavior requires collaboration between the two visual streams at every stage of the process (Schenk & McIntosh, 2010). I nonetheless want to make a case for the tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. My aim here is not to refute the evidence showing that conscious vision can affect action but rather to argue (a) that we cannot gain cognitive access to action-guiding dorsal stream representations, and (b) that these representations do not correlate with phenomenal consciousness. This vindicates the semi-conservative view that the dissociation hypothesis is best understood as a tripartite division. (shrink)

This paper examines Milner and Goodale’s hypothesis about the two visual streams and raises the questions of whether properties in egocentric space (commonly associated with the vision-for-action, or "dorsal," stream) can be part of the phenomenal content of perceptual experience, or only properties in allocentric space (commonly associated with the vision-for-perception, or "ventral," stream) can play this role, and how (if at all) properties in egocentric space differ from properties in allocentric space. These questions are reminiscent of (...) issues raised by Christopher Peacocke's "equal-sized trees" case: if you are looking at equal-sized trees on the side of a road, the trees will phenomenally look to you to be equally tall. But it is also true that a tree will take up more of the space in your visual field the closer it is to you. So, the equal-sized trees will also phenomenally look to you to have different heights. Your (visual) perceptual experience is not illusory. That is, the trees veridically look to you to have the same height, and they also veridically look to you to have different heights. Call the sort of issue raised here the "problem of dual looks." I provide a solution to the problem of dual looks that helps shed light on whether properties in egocentric space can be part of the phenomenal content of perceptual experience, and how (if at all) properties in egocentric space differ from properties in allocentric space. (shrink)

Empirical work and philosophical analysis have led to widespread acceptance that vision for action, served by the cortical dorsal stream, is unconscious. I argue that the empirical argument for this claim is unsound. That argument relies on subjects’ introspective reports. Yet on biological grounds, in light of the theory of primate cortical vision, introspection has no access to dorsal stream mediated visual states. It is thus wrongly assumed that introspective reports speak to absent phenomenology in the dorsal (...) stream. In light of this, I consider a different conception of consciousness’s relation to agency in terms of access. While theoretical reasons suggest that the inaccessibility of the dorsal stream to conceptual report is evidence that it is unconscious, this position begs important questions. I propose a broader notion of access in respect of the guidance of intentional agency and not, narrowly, conceptual report (Note: this paper contradicts my earlier paper, "The Case for Zombie Agency"). (shrink)

According to an influential view, the detection of action possibilities and the selection of a plan for action are two segregated steps throughout the processing of visual information. This classical approach is committed with the assumption that two independent types of processing underlie visual perception: the semantic one, which is at the service of the identification of visually presented objects, and the pragmatic one which serves the execution of actions directed to specific parts of the same objects. However, (...) as our knowledge of vision has improved over the years, this established view has turned out to be only an approximation. This paper sets out the details of a non-modularist approach to visual perception of action possibilities and explains how to resist the lure of cognitive segregation. (shrink)

In visual information processing, two kinds of vision are distinguished: vision-for-perception related to the conscious identifi cation of objects, and vision-for-action that deals with visual control of movements. Neuroscience suggests that these two functions are performed by two separate brain neural systems - the ventral and dorsal pathways. Two experiments using behavioural measures were conducted with the objective of exploring any potential interaction between these two functions of vision. The aim was to combine in one (...) task methods allowing for the simultaneous capture of both perceptual global processing and affordance extraction and to check whether they infi uence each other. This aim was achieved by employing the paradigms of Navon and Tucker and Ellis. A compound fi gure was created made up of objects with handles that might or might not have orientation congruent between levels. The results revealed that while the affordance effect occurred every time, the Navon effect appeared only when subjects focused their attention on object elements responsible for inconsistence within compound fi gure. Most importantly, even when these two effects occurred at once, they had no effect on each other. Results from the study failed to confi rm the hypothesis about interaction and gives support to the view that vision-for-perception and vision-for-action tend to act as separate systems. (shrink)

It is natural to assume that the fine-grained and highly accurate spatial information present in visual experience is often used to guide our bodily actions. Yet this assumption has been challenged by proponents of the Two Visual Systems Hypothesis , according to which visuomotor programming is the responsibility of a “zombie” processing stream whose sources of bottom-up spatial information are entirely non-conscious . In many formulations of TVSH, the role of conscious vision in action is limited to “recognizing (...) objects, selecting targets for action, and determining what kinds of action, broadly speaking, to perform” . Our aim in this study is to show that the available evidence not only fails to support this dichotomous view but actually reveals a significant role for conscious vision in motor programming, especially for actions that require deliberate attention. (shrink)

As early-career neuroethicists, we come to the field of neuroethics at a unique moment: we are well-situated to consider nearly two decades of neuroethics scholarship and identify challenges that have persisted across time. But we are also looking squarely ahead, embarking on the next generation of exciting and productive neuroethics scholarship. In this article, we both reflect backwards and turn our gaze forward. First, we highlight criticisms of neuroethics, both from scholars within the field and outside it, that have focused (...) on speculation and lack of skepticism; the dearth of consideration of broader social issues such as justice and equality, both with regard to who speaks for neuroethics as a field and who benefits from its recommendations and findings; and the insufficient focus on the practical impact of our ethical work. Second, we embrace the concept of “translational neuroethics” to outline a vision for neuroethics that is integrated, inclusive, and impactful. Integration can help us identify more pertinent, real-world issues, and move away from speculation; inclusivity can help ensure that the questions we attend to are not merely relevant to a single subgroup but aim toward just distribution of benefits; and impact can help us think beyond guidelines and recommendations to focus on implementation. Our goal is for this call to action to help shape neuroethics into a discipline that develops rigorous research agendas through relationships with interdisciplinary partners, that is broadly inclusive and attends to issues beyond novel neurotechnologies, and that is devoted to the translation of scholarship into practice. (shrink)

Our eyes, bodies, and perspectives are constantly shifting as we observe the world. Despite this, we are very good at distinguishing between self-caused visual changes and changes in the environment: the world appears mostly stable despite our visual field moving around. This, it seems, also occurs when we are dreaming. As we visually investigate the dream environment, we track moving objects with our dream eyes, examine objects, and shift focus. These movements, research suggests, are reflected in the rapid movements or (...) saccades of our sleeping eyes. Do we really see the dream world in the same way that we see the real world? If we do, how could dreaming, usually assumed to be mind-generated hallucinations, replicate such an experience? This problem would be deflated if dreams are not hallucinations at all, but rather imagination, illusion or simply unrealistic. I argue that imagination and illusion views do not satisfactorily explain away the problem of vision and action in sleep. The imagination model is not a complete description of dreaming that is consistent with empirical research, and it is unlikely that the visual dream world is an illusion. Given that the dreaming visual experience is most likely active, hallucinatory, and at times a realistic world simulation, there are important implications for our understanding of visual perception and its relationship to movement. Evidence suggests that our dream eyes investigate the dream world as our waking eyes investigate the waking world. If changes to the unconsciously generated dream environment are perceived as external and unintentional while dream body movements are perceived as self-generated and intentional, current theory of visual perception may have to be expanded to account for how the dreaming mind generates a stable world in which we track and visually explore mind-generated objects. (shrink)

According to Milner and Goodale’s dual visual systems (DVS) theory, a division obtains between visual consciousness and motor action, in that the visual system producing conscious vision (the ventral stream) is distinct from the one guiding action (the dorsal stream). That there would be this division is often taken (by Andy Clark and others) to undermine the folk view on how consciousness and action relate. However, even if this division obtains, this leaves open the possibility that (...) con- scious ventral information is often transmitted to the uncon- scious dorsal stream and then used to guide action, a possibility seeming to preserve a significant role for consciousness in action. This article assesses this possibility. In course of doing so, we will review those arguments recently having been made against the DVS view on how visual consciousness and action relate (ones due to, e.g., Briscoe and Schwenkler, or Schenk and McIntosh). What we will find is that, if we properly analyze the data upon which these arguments are based, we are still left with the impression that the DVS view is largely correct; i.e., it is only rarely that visual experience guides action. (shrink)

_A proactive, inclusive plan for the cross-disciplinary teaching of climate change from preschool to high school._ In _Teach for Climate Justice_, accomplished educator and social and emotional learning expert Tom Roderick proposes a visionary interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to PreK–12 climate education. He argues that meaningful instruction on this urgent issue of our time must focus on climate justice—the convergence of climate change and social justice—in a way that is emotionally safe, developmentally appropriate, and ultimately empowering. Drawing on examples of (...) real-life educators teaching climate change, Roderick identifies eight key dimensions of climate education that will prepare students to face the challenges of the climate crisis and give them the means to take action. These dimensions include not only educating for a deep understanding of the scientific, geopolitical, and socioeconomic equity issues that surround global warming, but also cultivating appreciation for the environment, building a supportive community, and fostering active hope for the future. Roderick's intentional layering of skills will help students develop the knowledge and sense of agency necessary to engage in civil resistance and nonviolent activism. In support of this crucial endeavor, Roderick suggests evidence-based teaching strategies, practices that promote inclusivity, and tools for social and emotional learning. This timely and uplifting book lays out a powerful vision for teaching, learning, and curriculum development to nurture a generation of courageous, informed advocates for climate justice. (shrink)

I argue that conscious visual experience consists in a direct and noninferential grasp of the way one’s current perceptual contact with the environment poises one to pursue various intentional plans, goals and projects. I show that such a view of visual consciousness is supported by current work in cognitive neuroscience, affords a compelling account of colour perception, and suggests a way to bridge the ‘explanatory gap’ between consciousness and the language of the natural sciences. In chapter 1, I examine the (...) reasoning that leads to the appearance of an explanatory gap between the phenomenal and the physical in more detail, and set out the constraints on a solution that our discussion of the problem has imposed. I then sketch the two rival takes on the relationship between perception and action mentioned above – adjudicating between these two theories is the task of the next two chapters, and is a recurring theme throughout. Chapter 2 moves on to discuss some recent work in the neuropsychology of vision and what it might suggest about the functional role of conscious vision, and the first half of chapter 3 considers two puzzle cases concerning colour perception. Each of these discussions turns out to constitute a source of support for the actionspace view that visual perception consists in a grasp of the practical consequences of sensation, and the second half of chapter 3 sets out this view and responds to an initial range of questions and objections it might face. Chapter 4 illustrates our view via a discussion of colour perception, and chapter 5 discusses the type of grasp of practical consequences that is necessary for perceptual sensitivity to issue in conscious experience. By chapter 6, we are in a position to see how the action-space approach can help close the explanatory gap for phenomenal consciousness, and our final chapter sets out how I think this should be done. I conclude with a brief discussion of further questions and prospects for the action-space approach. (shrink)

What representational state mediates between perception and action? Bence Nanay says pragmatic representations, which are outputs of perceptual systems. This commits him to the view that optic ataxics face difficulty in performing visually guided arm movements because the relevant perceptual systems output their pragmatic representations incorrectly. Here, I argue that it is not enough to say that pragmatic representations are output incorrectly; we also need to know why they are output that way. Given recent evidence that optic ataxia impairs (...) peripersonal space representation, I argue that pragmatic representations are output incorrectly because the organizing principle of the vision-for-action system is blocked by optic ataxia. I then show how this means that this principle, not pragmatic representations, is the representational state that mediates between perception and action, i.e. the principle, not pragmatic representations, is the immediate mental antecedent of action. (shrink)

Blindsight and vision for action seem to be exemplars of unconscious visual processes. However, researchers have recently argued that blindsight is not really a kind of uncon- scious vision but is rather severely degraded conscious vision. Morten Overgaard and col- leagues have recently developed new methods for measuring the visibility of visual stimuli. Studies using these methods show that reported clarity of visual stimuli correlates with accuracy in both normal individuals and blindsight patients. Vision for (...) action has also come under scrutiny. Recent findings seem to show that information processed by the dor- sal stream for online action contributes to visual awareness. Some interpret these results as showing that some dorsal stream processes are conscious visual processes (e.g., Gallese, 2007; Jacob & Jeannerod, 2003). The aim of this paper is to provide new support for the more traditional view that blindsight and vision for action are genuinely unconscious per- ceptual processes. I argue that individuals with blindsight do not have access to the kind of purely qualitative color and size information which normal individuals do. So, even though people with blindsight have a kind of cognitive consciousness, visual information process- ing in blindsight patients is not associated with a distinctly visual phenomenology. I argue further that while dorsal stream processing seems to contribute to visual awareness, only information processed by the early dorsal stream (V1, V2, and V3) is broadcast to working memory. Information processed by later parts of the dorsal stream (the parietal lobe) never reaches working memory and hence does not correlate with phenomenal awareness. I con- clude that both blindsight and vision for action are genuinely unconscious visual processes. (shrink)

In _Action in Perception _Alva No develops and presents a sensorimotor account of vision and of visual consciousness. According to such an account seeing (and indeed perceiving more generally) is analysed as a kind of skilful bodily activity. Such a view is consistent with the emerging emphasis, in both philosophy and cognitive science, on the critical role of embodiment in the construction of intelligent agency. I shall argue, however, that the full sensorimotor model faces three important challenges. The first (...) is to negotiate a path between two prima facie unsatisfactory readings of the central claim that conscious perceptual experience is constituted by knowledge of patterns of sensorimotor dependence. The second is to convince us that the sensorimotor contribution, in such cases, is actually constitutive of perceptual experience rather than merely causally implicated in the origination of such experience.² And the third is to respond to the important challenge raised by what I will dub 'sensorimotor summarizing' models of the relation between conscious experience and richly detailed sensorimotor routines. According to such models³ conscious perceptual experience only rather indirectly reflects the rich detail of our actual sensorimotor engagements, which are instead lightly sampled as a coarse guide, optimized for planning and reasoning, and geared and filtered according to current needs and purposes. (shrink)

(1) The purported evidence for neural filling-in is not evidence for filling-in, but just for long-range dynamic interactions. (2) Vision is perhaps not an “illusion,” but at any rate it is not “pictorial.” (3) The idea of the “world as an outside memory” as well as MacKay's “conditional readiness for action” may help approach an “enactive” theory of vision.

Outlines four emerging "opportunity trends," including voluntary simplicity, that readers can utilize to surmount social, economic, and environmental challenges ...

A social scientific survey on visions of human/nature relationships in western Europe shows that the public clearly distinguishes not only between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, but also between two nonanthropocentric types of thought, which may be called “partnership with nature” and “participation in nature.” In addition, the respondents distinguish a form of human/nature relationship that is allied to traditional stewardship but has a more ecocentric content, labeled here as “guardianship of nature.” Further analysis shows that the general public does not subscribe (...) to an ethic of “mastery over nature.” Instead, practically all respondents embrace the image of guardianship, while the more radical relationships of partnership and participation also received significant levels of adherence. The results imply that ethicists should no longer assume that the ethics of the public are merely anthropocentric. Finally, they call into question the idea of a single form of ecocentrism and favor a hermeneutic virtue ethics approach to the study of the interface between ethics and action. (shrink)

Action is a means of acquiring perceptual information about the environment. Turning around, for example, alters your spatial relations to surrounding objects and, hence, which of their properties you visually perceive. Moving your hand over an object’s surface enables you to feel its shape, temperature, and texture. Sniffing and walking around a room enables you to track down the source of an unpleasant smell. Active or passive movements of the body can also generate useful sources of perceptual information (Gibson (...) 1966, 1979). The pattern of optic flow in the retinal image produced by forward locomotion, for example, contains information about the direction in which you are heading, while motion parallax is a “cue” used by the visual system to estimate the relative distances of objects in your field of view. In these uncontroversial ways and others, perception is instrumentally dependent on action. According to an explanatory framework that Susan Hurley (1998) dubs the “Input-Output Picture”, the dependence of perception on action is purely instrumental: "Movement can alter sensory inputs and so result in different perceptions… changes in output are merely a means to changes in input, on which perception depends directly" (1998: 342). -/- The action-based theories of perception, reviewed in this entry, challenge the Input-Output Picture. They maintain that perception can also depend in a noninstrumental or constitutive way on action (or, more generally, on capacities for object-directed motor control). This position has taken many different forms in the history of philosophy and psychology. Most action-based theories of perception in the last 300 years, however, have looked to action in order to explain how vision, in particular, acquires either all or some of its spatial representational content. Accordingly, these are the theories on which we shall focus here. -/- We begin in Section 1 by discussing George Berkeley’s Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), the historical locus classicus of action-based theories of perception, and one of the most influential texts on vision ever written. Berkeley argues that the basic or “proper” deliverance of vision is not an arrangement of voluminous objects in three-dimensional space, but rather a two-dimensional manifold of light and color. We then turn to a discussion of Lotze, Helmholtz, and the local sign doctrine. The “local signs” were felt cues for the mind to know what sort of spatial content to imbue visual experience with. For Lotze, these cues were “inflowing” kinaesthetic feelings that result from actually moving the eyes, while, for Helmholtz, they were “outflowing” motor commands sent to move the eyes. -/- In Section 2, we discuss sensorimotor contingency theories, which became prominent in the 20thcentury. These views maintain that an ability to predict the sensory consequences of self-initiated actions is necessary for perception. Among the motivations for this family of theories is the problem of visual direction constancy—why do objects appear to be stationary even though the locations on the retina to which they reflect light change with every eye movement?—as well as experiments on adaptation to optical rearrangement devices (ORDs) and sensory substitution. -/- Section 3 examines two other important 20th century theories. According to what we shall call the motor component theory, efference copies generated in the oculomotor system and/or proprioceptive feedback from eye-movements are used together with incoming sensory inputs to determine the spatial attributes of perceived objects. Efferent readiness theories, by contrast, look to the particular ways in which perceptual states prepare the observer to move and act in relation to the environment. The modest readiness theory, as we shall call it, claims that the way an object’s spatial attributes are represented in visual experience can be modulated by one or another form of covert action planning. The bold readiness theory argues for the stronger claim that perception just is covert readiness for action. -/- In Section 4, we move to the disposition theory, most influentially articulated by Gareth Evans (1982, 1985), but more recently defended by Rick Grush (2000, 2007). Evans’ theory is, at its core, very similar to the bold efferent readiness theory. There are some notable differences, though. Evans’ account is more finely articulated in some philosophical respects. It also does not posit a reduction of perception to behavioral dispositions, but rather posits that certain complicated relations between perceptual input and behavioral provide spatial content. Grush proposes a very specific theory that is like Evans’ in that it does not posit a reduction, but unlike Evans’ view, does not put behavioral dispositions and sensory input on an undifferentiated footing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pragmatist Aesthetics and New Visions of the Contemporary Art Museum:The Tate Modern and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary ArtAngela Marsh (bio)John Dewey mandated the repositioning of our experience of art within the realm of the everyday, and recognized the importance of art objects principally with regard to how they operate within an experience as "carriers of meaning."1 In this quote from Art as Experience, Dewey illustrates the segue between (...) art and the perceiver, and his belief that within the profound art experience, lived dichotomies are healed:In art as an experience, actuality and possibility or ideality, the new and the old, objective material and personal response, the individual and the universal, surface and depth, sense and meaning, are integrated in an experience in which they are all transfigured from the significance that belongs to them when isolated in reflection.2Although the ephemeral nature of Dewey's definition of art-as-experience — hinged upon immediacy and the subjective heuristics of the perceiver — may seem difficult to capture and apply, the practicality of the concept, Richard Shusterman argues, lies in its "transformative potential," as a way to reconceive the place of art and its function in our world:Defining art as experience, I argue, also has value in widening the realmof art by challenging the rigid definition between art and action that is supported by definitions that define art as mimesis, poiesis, or the narrow practice as defined by the institutional art world. In other words, I argue that Dewey's definition of art as experience has a very fruitful transformational potential.3By defining art as experience, Dewey also sought to dissolve the binary structures of aesthetic rifts: art and life, high art and low art, body and mind, subject and object, self and world, emphasizing the holistic action in our engagement with art.4 But according to Dewey, the divisor of art from life and thus to blame for the aesthetic barrenness of our lived reality is the museum institution, as Shusterman describes: [End Page 91]The compartmentalization and spiritualization of art as an elevated "separate realm" set "upon a far-off pedestal," divorced from the materials and aims of other human effort, has removed art from the lives of most of us, and thus impoverished the aesthetic quality of our lives.(PA, 19)However, we must keep in mind that Art as Experience was published in 1934. Today, new approaches towards encounter and engagement within public museums are taking form and gaining momentum, with unprecedented directorial visions and mandates designed to nurture and make accessible art-based experiences among diverse audiences — where art and life can meet via multiple approaches. Theoretical synchronicities between pragmatist approaches to aesthetics and fruitful museum experiences can be suggested upon consideration of various innovative programs and approaches initiated at the Tate Modern in London and the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. The overwhelming success of both venues could signify a reengagement of the general public with contemporary art, fed by "democratic," participatory approaches to exhibiting and programming art that make the museum more accessible to the various mixed publics it serves. In light of these new museological developments, Dewey's polemic oppositions between his conceptualizations of the museum experience and "art-as-experience" should be reexamined and possibly redefined.Dewey was entirely opposed to the concept of "art for art's sake." By exonerating art of any functional value — deeming it "fine" — art was elevated to a position separate from life, and thus rendered impotent to effect a lived aesthetic experience (which is how, Dewey would argue, the arts function most powerfully — as the purveyors of heightened experience). As Shusterman describes:The underlying motive for such attempts to purify art from any functionality was not to denigrate it as worthlessly useless, but to place its worth apart from and above the realm of instrumental value...and this freedom from use would be its defining and ennobling feature.(PA, 9)Dewey (and Shusterman) thus maintained that the very power construct that put the "fine" in art did so by removing the aspect of function from it. As previously stated, Dewey blamed museum institutions for removing art from its... (shrink)

For almost half a century dual-stream advocates have vigorously defended the view that there are two functionally specialized cortical streams of visual processing originating in the primary visual cortex: a ventral, perception-related ‘conscious’ stream and a dorsal, action-related ‘unconscious’ stream. They furthermore maintain that the perceptual and memory systems in the ventral stream are relatively shielded from the action system in the dorsal stream. In recent years, this view has come under scrutiny. Evidence points to two overlapping (...) class='Hi'>action pathways: a dorso-dorsal pathway that calculates features of the object to be acted on, and a ventro-dorsal pathway that transmits stored information about skilled object use from the ventral stream to the dorso-dorsal pathway. This evidence suggests that stored information may exert significantly more influence on visually guided action than hitherto assumed. I argue that this, in turn, supports the notion of skilled automatic action that is nonetheless agential. My focus here will be on actions influenced by implicit biases (stereotypes/prejudices). Action that is biased in this way, I argue, is in an important sense intentional and agential. (shrink)

Discusses contemporary Confucianism's relevance and its capacity to address pressing social and political issues of twenty-first-century life. Condemned during the Maoist era as a relic of feudalism, Confucianism enjoyed a robust revival in post-Mao China as China’s economy began its rapid expansion and gradual integration into the global economy. Associated with economic development, individual growth, and social progress by its advocates, Confucianism became a potent force in shaping politics and society in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities. (...) This book links the contemporary Confucian revival to debates—both within and outside China—about global capitalism, East Asian modernity, political reforms, civil society, and human alienation. The contributors offer fresh insights on the contemporary Confucian revival as a broad cultural phenomenon, encompassing an interpretation of Confucian moral teaching; a theory of political action; a vision of social justice; and a perspective for a new global order, in addition to demonstrating that Confucianism is capable of addressing a wide range of social and political issues in the twenty-first century. Tze-ki Hon is Professor of Chinese and History at City University of Hong Kong. He is the author of The Yijing and Chinese Politics: Classical Commentary and Literati Activism in the Northern Song Period, 960–1127, also published by SUNY Press; Revolution as Restoration: Guocui Xuebao and China’s Path to Modernity, 1905–1911; and The Allure of the Nation: The Cultural and Historical Debates in Late Qing and Republican China. Kristin Stapleton is Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is the author of Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937 and Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pragmatist Aesthetics and New Visions of the Contemporary Art Museum:The Tate Modern and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary ArtAngela Marsh (bio)John Dewey mandated the repositioning of our experience of art within the realm of the everyday, and recognized the importance of art objects principally with regard to how they operate within an experience as "carriers of meaning."1 In this quote from Art as Experience, Dewey illustrates the segue between (...) art and the perceiver, and his belief that within the profound art experience, lived dichotomies are healed:In art as an experience, actuality and possibility or ideality, the new and the old, objective material and personal response, the individual and the universal, surface and depth, sense and meaning, are integrated in an experience in which they are all transfigured from the significance that belongs to them when isolated in reflection.2Although the ephemeral nature of Dewey's definition of art-as-experience — hinged upon immediacy and the subjective heuristics of the perceiver — may seem difficult to capture and apply, the practicality of the concept, Richard Shusterman argues, lies in its "transformative potential," as a way to reconceive the place of art and its function in our world:Defining art as experience, I argue, also has value in widening the realmof art by challenging the rigid definition between art and action that is supported by definitions that define art as mimesis, poiesis, or the narrow practice as defined by the institutional art world. In other words, I argue that Dewey's definition of art as experience has a very fruitful transformational potential.3By defining art as experience, Dewey also sought to dissolve the binary structures of aesthetic rifts: art and life, high art and low art, body and mind, subject and object, self and world, emphasizing the holistic action in our engagement with art.4 But according to Dewey, the divisor of art from life and thus to blame for the aesthetic barrenness of our lived reality is the museum institution, as Shusterman describes: [End Page 91]The compartmentalization and spiritualization of art as an elevated "separate realm" set "upon a far-off pedestal," divorced from the materials and aims of other human effort, has removed art from the lives of most of us, and thus impoverished the aesthetic quality of our lives.(PA, 19)However, we must keep in mind that Art as Experience was published in 1934. Today, new approaches towards encounter and engagement within public museums are taking form and gaining momentum, with unprecedented directorial visions and mandates designed to nurture and make accessible art-based experiences among diverse audiences — where art and life can meet via multiple approaches. Theoretical synchronicities between pragmatist approaches to aesthetics and fruitful museum experiences can be suggested upon consideration of various innovative programs and approaches initiated at the Tate Modern in London and the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. The overwhelming success of both venues could signify a reengagement of the general public with contemporary art, fed by "democratic," participatory approaches to exhibiting and programming art that make the museum more accessible to the various mixed publics it serves. In light of these new museological developments, Dewey's polemic oppositions between his conceptualizations of the museum experience and "art-as-experience" should be reexamined and possibly redefined.Dewey was entirely opposed to the concept of "art for art's sake." By exonerating art of any functional value — deeming it "fine" — art was elevated to a position separate from life, and thus rendered impotent to effect a lived aesthetic experience (which is how, Dewey would argue, the arts function most powerfully — as the purveyors of heightened experience). As Shusterman describes:The underlying motive for such attempts to purify art from any functionality was not to denigrate it as worthlessly useless, but to place its worth apart from and above the realm of instrumental value...and this freedom from use would be its defining and ennobling feature.(PA, 9)Dewey (and Shusterman) thus maintained that the very power construct that put the "fine" in art did so by removing the aspect of function from it. As previously stated, Dewey blamed museum institutions for removing art from its... (shrink)

Why games? How could anyone consider action games an experimental paradigm for Cognitive Science? In 1973, as one of three strategies he proposed for advancing Cognitive Science, Allen Newell exhorted us to “accept a single complex task and do all of it.” More specifically, he told us that rather than taking an “experimental psychology as usual approach,” we should “focus on a series of experimental and theoretical studies around a single complex task” so as to demonstrate that our theories (...) of human cognition were powerful enough to explain “a genuine slab of human behavior” with the studies fitting into a detailed theoretical picture. Action games represent the type of experimental paradigm that Newell was advocating and the current state of programming expertise and laboratory equipment, along with the emergence of Big Data and naturally occurring datasets, provide the technologies and data needed to realize his vision. Action games enable us to escape from our field's regrettable focus on novice performance to develop theories that account for the full range of expertise through a twin focus on expertise sampling and longitudinal studies of simple and complex tasks. (shrink)

Proponents of an intentionalist theory of perceptual experience have taken for granted that perceptual experience is an informing form of intentionality. Hence they often speak of the way an experience represents the environment to be, or what there is. In this respect perceptual experience is thus assumed to resemble a speech act like assertion or a mental state like belief. There is another important form of intentionality though that concerns not what there is, but what to do. I call this (...) a guiding form of intentionality. In speech, there are – for example – imperatives and among intentional mental states there are desires and intentions. In this paper I argue that perceptual experience is at least sometimes characterized by such a guiding form of intentionality. Perception does not just inform, it is sometimes intrinsically action‐guiding. I call this the perceptual guidance claim. I distinguish the perceptual guidance claim from related, but importantly distinct claims (such as claims concerning the perception of affordances or concerning whether perception is normative), and argue that perceptual action guidance occurs not just in an unconscious vision‐for‐action system, but also within conscious perceptual experience.1I have benefitted a lot from many discussions of the materials of this paper. Precursors, variants and extensions of this paper have been presented at the Harvard Philosophical Psychology lab, the CSMN colloquium in Oslo, a workshop on Imperatival Aspects of Perceptual Experience at the University of Oslo (organized by Susanna Siegel and the author), and a workshop on Attention and Perceptual Activity at Warwick University (organized by Thomas Crowther). I especially would like to thank: Tim Bayne, Rosa Cao, Thomas Crowther, Anya Farennikova, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Olav Gjelsvik, Sean Kelly, Farid Masrour, James Stazicker. Most of all I would like to thank Susanna Siegel for many illuminating and exciting discussions of every aspect of the contents of this paper. (shrink)

Bowers et al. focus their criticisms on research that compares behavioral and brain data from the ventral stream with a class of deep neural networks for object recognition. While they are right to identify issues with current benchmarking research programs, they overlook a much more fundamental limitation of this literature: Disregarding the importance of action and interaction for perception.

The integration of multisensory information is an essential mechanism in perception and action control. Research in multisensory integration is concerned with how the information from the different sensory modalities, such as the senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and proprioception, are integrated to a coherent representation of objects (for an overview, see e.g., Calvert, Spence and Stein, 2004). The combination of information from the different senses is central for action control. For instance, when you grasp for (...) a rubber duck, you can see its size, feel its compliance and hear the sound it produces. Moreover, identical physical properties of an object can be provided by different senses. You can both see and feel the size of the rubber duck. Even when you grasp for the rubber duck with a tool (e.g., with tongs), the information from the proximal hand, from the effective part of the distal tool and from the eyes are integrated in a manner to act successfully (for limitations of this integration see Sutter et al., 2013).Over the recent decade a surge of interest in multisensory integration and action control has been witnessed, especially in connection with the idea of a statistically optimized integration of multiple sensory sources. The human information processing system is assumed to adjust moment-by-moment the relative contribution of each sense’s estimate to a multisensory task. The sense’s contribution depends on its variance, so that the total varia... (shrink)

Increasing computational power and improving deep learning methods have made computer vision technologies pervasively common in urban environments. Their applications in policing, traffic management, and documenting public spaces are increasingly common (Ridgeway 2018, Coifman et al. 1998, Sun et al. 2020). Despite the often-discussed biases in the algorithms' training and unequally borne benefits (Khosla et al. 2012), almost all applications similarly reduce urban experiences to simplistic, reductive, and mechanistic measures. There is a lack of context, depth, and specificity in (...) these practices that enables semantic knowledge or analysis within urban contexts, especially within the context of using and occupying urban space. This paper will critique existing uses of artificial intelligence and computer vision in urban practices to propose a new framework for understanding people, action, and public space. This paper revisits Geertz's (1973) use of thick descriptions in generating interpretive theories of culture and activity and uses this lens to establish a framework to approach evaluating the varied uses of computer vision technologies that weigh meaning. By discussing cases of implemented examples of urban computer vision—from LinkNYC and Numina's urban measurements to the Detroit Police's use of DataWorks Plus's facial recognition technology—it proposes a framework for evaluating the thickness of the algorithm's conclusions against the computational method's complexity required to produce that outcome. Further, we discuss how the framework's positioning may differ (and conflict) between different users of the technology, from engineer to urban planner and policymaker, to citizen. This paper also discusses how the current use and training of deep learning algorithms and how this process limits semantic learning and proposes three potential methodologies toward gaining a more contextually specific, urban-semantic, description of urban space relevant to urbanists. This paper contributes to the critical conversations regarding the proliferation of artificial intelligence by challenging the current applications of these technologies in the urban environment by highlighting their failures within this context while also proposing an evolution of these algorithms that may ultimately make them sensitive and useful within this spatial and cultural milieu. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools by Geoffrey BakerKim BoeskovGeoffrey Baker: Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021)If indeed there exists, as Geir Johansen has proposed,1 a self-critical movement within the field of music education, Geoffrey Baker is undoubtedly one of its leading (...) figures. According to Johansen, the self-critical turn is characterized by an increasing number of music educators directing criticism toward music education itself by denouncing overly romantic visions of “the power of music” and scrutinizing how music educational practices are implicated in the propulsion of problematic social forces of inequality, oppression, and injustice. Baker’s widely read book from 2014, El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth,2 thoroughly denounced the globally acclaimed Venezuelan ‘musical miracle’ as a myth. Based on extensive field work in Venezuela, Baker painstakingly dissected El Sistema as an archaic, morally, and pedagogically flawed model of music education veiled in the empty rhetoric of music as a tool of social redemption and documented how such models are ripe with opportunities for abuse, in every sad sense of the word.The continuation of Baker’s critical project is published in the form of a four-hundred-page book, entitled Rethinking Social Action Through Music. Baker presents the text as “a ‘post-El Sistema’ project”3 as it constitutes a departure [End Page 92] from his preoccupation with ‘The System’ toward potential alternatives to the Venezuelan model. He finds such an alternative in the Red (Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín), a network of music schools in the Colombian city of Medellín, which figures as the center of attention in Baker’s institutional ethnography. However, even as the Colombian institution is invoked as a counterexample to its Venezuelan sibling, the Red is not held up for its ability to enact social change or display of innovative pedagogical principles. What Baker finds exemplary and worthy of investigation is the willingness he locates within the administrative layer of the Red to continuously engage in reflective work with regards to the tensions, conflicts, and pitfalls, as well as potentials of musical-social work. Particularly, Baker’s attention is directed to the decision-making processes and discussions among the leaders of the institution; how senior staff members adopt self-critical stances, how needs for institutional change are recognized, the recurring frictions between musical staff and members of the institution’s social team, and tensions between public statements expressing confidence in the program’s efficacy and internal conversations full of ambivalence and doubt.It is with reference to the reflexive processes of the Red that Baker conducts insightful and well-informed discussions of a range of themes relevant to music educators and scholars. Baker situates his analysis within the wider landscape of SATM (Social Action Through Music), which can roughly be understood as the field of musical practice emanating from the large socio-musical orchestral programs conceived in Latin America in the last decades of the 20th century and subsequently spread as ‘Sistema-inspired’ offspring throughout the globe in the beginning of the 21st century. Yet, the discussions found in this book are easily connected to pertinent themes of the philosophy and sociology of music education, such as the notion of artistic citizenship, decolonization, the political nature of music education, ‘the social’ in music education, to name a few. One of the striking qualities of this book is its ability to identify important issues in the local context of Medellín, extract the underlying mechanisms and through empirical examples unfold a much broader discussion of what social justice and social change might mean in the field of music education. Baker, originally educated as an ethnomusicologist, reflects on these topics with depth and nuance, underscoring the relevance of approaching these complex issues through ethnographic work, rather than basing such discussions solely on conceptual exploration.Appearing as a red line throughout the book is Baker’s insistence on foregrounding the ambiguity and ambivalence of musical-social work. In fact, his critical encounter with the field... (shrink)

This article describes a project that seeks to join the experiences of several fields of knowledge, through systems thinking, promoting the improvement of the quality of life in the Saltillo valley community. All this is done through an action- research process, which integrates most of the available elements. This project considers the history of the community and the complex interaction of population with natural ecosystems. The project goes into detail in the collective learning and the community conscience development, based (...) on social ethics, dialogue, public participation, open information, and the shared knowledge processes, all of these tending to the improvement of the relations between humans and nature, and therefore to reach the sustainable development of the region. (shrink)

Darrel Moellendorf places hope at the core of his call for climate-change vision and action, positing a ‘hopeful vision of a sustainable and prosperous world’ committed to ‘green growth’ – along th...

Milner and Goodale's Two Visual Systems Hypothesis is regarded as common ground in recent discussions of visual consciousness. A central part of TVSH is a functional model of vision and action. In this paper, I provide a brief overview of these current discussions and argue that there is ambiguity between a strong and a weak version of PAM. I argue that, given a standard way of individuating computational mechanisms, the available evidence cannot be used to distinguish between these (...) versions. This not only has consequences for philosophical theories of the role of visual consciousness but also for the role of experimental evidence in model testing in cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Mental action deserves a place among foundational topics in action theory and philosophy of mind. Recent accounts of human agency tend to overlook the role of conscious mental action in our daily lives, while contemporary accounts of the conscious mind often ignore the role of mental action and agency in shaping consciousness. This collection aims to establish the centrality of mental action for discussions of agency and mind. The thirteen original essays provide a wide-ranging (...) class='Hi'>vision of the various and nuanced philosophical issues at stake. By investigating the nature, scope, and explanation of mental action, the essays presented here aim to demonstrate the significance of conscious mental action for discussions of agency and mind. Mental Action and the Conscious Mind will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and philosophy of agency, as well as to philosophically inclined cognitive scientists. -/- . (shrink)

Vision constitutes an interesting domain, or range of domains, for debate over the extended mind thesis, the idea that minds physically extend beyond the boundaries of the body. In part this is because vision and visual experience more particularly are sometimes presented as a kind of line in the sand for what we might call externalist creep about the mind: once all reasonable concessions have been made to externalists about the mind, visual experience marks a line beyond which (...) lies a safe haven for individualists. Here I want to put a little more pressure on such a view of visual experience, as well as to offer a more constructive, positive argument in defense of the idea of extended vision. (shrink)

Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way (...) of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The out- side world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the gov- erning laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Sev- eral lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual “filling in,” visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the world of information and communications technology from its early days to the near future. The aim is to consider how successfully academia, industry and government have worked together in delivering ethically acceptable ICT which is accessible to those who might benefit from such advances. The paper concludes with suggestions of a fresh approach for the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon evidence from the history of computers, funded research (...) projects, professional bodies in the field, the ETHICOMP conference series and reported ICT disasters. The author uses his experience as both an ICT practitioner and an academic in the ICT ethics field to synthesise the evidence so providing a foundation on which to build an outline global action plan. Findings – The paper lays out the findings that there has been much detailed observation and analysis of the ethical challenges surrounding ICT but the transformation of this into widespread practical positive action remains elusive. It explores why progress has been difficult. Originality/value – This review of the interconnecting landscapes of practical ICT, funded research and the ICT ethics community is new. The attempt to demonstrate what progress has been made and to identify the underlying factors which influence progress are valuable to future generations working in this area. The concluding suggestions for action offer a starting point for entering the next phase of ICT ethics. (shrink)

Vision is so closely identified with visual phenomenology that we sometimes forget that the visual system does more than deliver our experience of the world. Vision also plays a critical role in the control of our movements, from picking up our coffee cups to playing tennis. But the visual control of movement has, until recently, been relatively neglected. Indeed, traditional accounts of vision, while acknowledging the role of vision in motor control, have simply regarded such control (...) as part of a larger function—that of constructing an internal model of the external world. Even though such accounts might postulate separate ‘modules’ for the processing of different visual features, such as motion, colour, texture, and form, in most of these accounts there is an implicit assumption that, in the end, vision delivers a single representation of the external world—a kind of simulacrum of the real thing that serves as the perceptual foundation for all visually driven thought and action. (shrink)

Vision is so closely identified with visual phenomenology that we sometimes forget that the visual system does more than deliver our experience of the world. Vision also plays a critical role in the control of our movements, from picking up our coffee cups to playing tennis. But the visual control of movement has, until recently, been relatively neglected. Indeed, traditional accounts of vision, while acknowledging the role of vision in motor control, have simply regarded such control (...) as part of a larger function – that of constructing an internal model of the external world. Even though such accounts might postulate separate ‘modules’ for the processing of different visual features, such as motion, colour, texture, and form, in most of these accounts there is an implicit assumption that, in the end, vision delivers a single representation of the external world – a kind of simulacrum of the real thing that serves as the perceptual foundation for all visually driven thought and action. (shrink)

In _Anarchist Prophets_ James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics. He shows how archism—a centralized and hierarchical political form that is a secularization of ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions—dominates contemporary politics through a prophet’s promises of peace and prosperity or the threat of violence. Archism is met by anarchism, in which a community shares a collective form of judgment and vision. Martel focuses on the (...) figure of the anarchist prophet, who leads efforts to regain the authority for the community that archism has stolen. The goal of anarchist prophets is to render themselves obsolete and to cede power back to the collective so as to not become archist themselves. Martel locates anarchist prophets in a range of philosophical, literary, and historical examples, from Hobbes and Nietzsche to Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler to Kurdish resistance in Syria and the Spanish Revolution. In so doing, Martel highlights how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can provide the means to overthrow archist authority. (shrink)

The paper presents a new philosophical theory of blurred vision according to which visual experiences have two types of content: exteroceptive content, characterizing external entities, and interoceptive content, characterizing the state of the visual system. In particular, it is claimed that blurriness-related phenomenology interoceptively presents acuity of vision in relation to eye focus. The proposed theory is consistent with the representationalist thesis that phenomenal character supervenes on representational content and with the strong transparency thesis formulated in terms of (...) mind-independentness. Furthermore, the interoceptive approach is free from controversial assumptions adopted by other philosophical theories of blurred experiences and is able to account for the epistemic and motivational role of visual blur, i.e. that blurred experiences provide a prima facie justification for beliefs regarding our vision and motivate actions directed toward our eyes. (shrink)

Since we explain behavior by ascribing intentional states to the agent, many philosophers have assumed that some guiding principle of folk psychology like [Intentional States and Actions] must be true. [Intentional States and Actions]: If A and B are different actions, then the agents performing them must differ in their intentional states at the time they are performed. Recent results in the physiology of vision present a prima facie problem for this principle. These results show that some visual information (...) that guides spatial manipulation and fine motor control is unavailable for verbal report. Plausibly, this information is not consciously available to the agent, and as such, not available to inform the content of intentional states. Thus, it is hard to see how every difference in action is subject to intentional explanation, as [Intentional States and Actions] requires. I articulate the prima facie problem and argue that the most plausible solution requires us to reject [Intentional States and Actions]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 134-135 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of 'The Visible and the Invisible Douglas Low. Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of 'The Visible and the Invisible.' Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000. Pp. xv + 124. Cloth, $75.00. Paper, $19.95. Low sets himself an impossible task, that of (...) completing the uncompleted work of a philosopher whose untimely decease prevented him from doing so himself. What he does succeed in providing is a systematic commentary and a rich integration of Merleau-Ponty's later philosophy. This task itself is important since it is believed by many that Merleau-Ponty's premature death prevented the completion of a book that would have altered the philosophical scene of Paris in the 1960s, and that, moreover, even in its incomplete form, speaks to pressing contemporary philosophical debates on such issues as mind/body dualism, and our relation to nature.The main focus of Low's reading is Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of language, which Low appropriately situates as a mediation between a modernist philosophy of presence and a postmodern Derridean approach to language as the constant deferral of meaning. Language is not the repository for ideal essences, nor do existents have an immediate [End Page 134] coincidence or fusion with things or the world. Indeed, the strength of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is that he begins with an understanding of human action as meaningfully orientated; to move in the world is to interpretatively encounter it. As Low points out, "an ontological priority [is] granted to the body and the world upon which it opens, for together in lived experience they sustain a field of stable meanings, meanings that are then sublimated in the bodily gesture called speech" (22). Low differs from most Merleau-Ponty scholars in his assumption that there is no significant break between the earlier Phenomenology of Perception, where Merleau-Ponty carefully worked out his descriptions of embodied perception, and the later work that lays out the ontology. Indeed, one accomplishment of Low's book is to show how they fit together, explaining how the insights of the first work are necessary for grounding the ontology Merleau-Ponty began to work out in the later one.Low's book is divided into two sections. The first section, "The Visible and Nature," focuses on how we encounter the world, concluding with a helpful summary and assessment of Merleau-Ponty's ontology. Drawing upon the late essay "Eye and Mind," Low lays out Merleau-Ponty's ontology through his intuition that modern art, unlike the representational focus of Renaissance art, reveals our contact with the world as a "system of exchanges between the sensing and the sensible" (56). Perceiving the artwork is not an intellectual computation of a second-order representation of the world; rather, we see according to the work. It is a bodily process that reveals a reversibility between the viewer and the world. The second section, "The Invisible and Logos," focuses on how these encounters are sublimated or taken up in language. Language is, for Merleau-Ponty, first speech since it relies upon a speaker to take it up, "to sustain and modify it." Signs, gestures, and meaning are folded into one another. As embodied beings, we literally grasp meaning (89).This book would be of enormous benefit to scholars embarking on a reading of Merleau-Ponty's works, and it is one I highly recommend for that purpose. Although it is not original in its interpretations, its value lies in its gathering and integration of complex themes that provide an important introduction to Merleau-Ponty's late philosophy. The book maps out, moreover, a chronology of these themes and the specifics of where to find them; it also shows how the fragments fit together, indicating directions in which they might lead. His writing style is accessible without being simplistic. By interweaving his interpretations with long quotes from... (shrink)

At no time in the past century have there been fiercer battles over our public schools than there are now. Parents and educational reformers are challenging not only the mission, content, and structure of mass compulsory schooling but also its underlying premise—that the values promoted through public education are neutral and therefore acceptable to any reasonable person. In this important book, Rosemary Salomone sets aside the ideological and inflammatory rhetoric that surrounds today’s debates over educational values and family choice. She (...) offers instead a fair-minded examination of education for democratic citizenship in a society that values freedom of conscience and religious pluralism. And she proposes a balanced course of action that redefines but does not sever the relationship between education and the state. Salomone demonstrates how contemporary conflicts are the product of past educational and social movements. She lays bare some of the myths that support the current government monopoly over education and reveals how it privileges those of economic means. Through a detailed case study of recent controversy in a suburban New York school district, the author explores the legal and policy issues that arise when widely disparate world views stand in the way of political compromise on educational materials, techniques, and programs. Salomone builds a case for educational governance that places the developmental needs of the child at the center of family autonomy. She advances a plan that respects diverse values and visions of schooling while preserving the core commitments that bind our nation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 555-557 [Access article in PDF] Quentin Skinner. Visions of Politics. Vol. I, Regarding Method. Pp. xvi + 209. Vol. II, Renaissance Virtues. Pp. xix + 461. Vol. III, Hobbes and Civil Science. Pp. xvii + 386. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Cloth, $180.00. Paper, $65.00. Quentin Skinner's Visions of Politics consists of three volumes of his essays, most of which (...) have been previously published. Volume I concerns the nature of historical interpretation. It contains the classic, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas"; much of his "Reply to My Critics," from Meaning and Context (James Tully, editor [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988]);"Interpretation and the Understanding of Speech Acts"; and other notable essays. Volume II focuses on aspects of the Renaissance, especially discussions of the concept of liberty and various theories of civic republicanism. Volume III focuses on the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes, although its chapters also contain an enormous amount of information about ancient rhetoric, Renaissance humanism, and other things. As my brief description of the contents of these volumes indicates, Skinner's knowledge is [End Page 555] not just encyclopedic; it is Britannic. The range and depth of his scholarship, evident in each article written over several decades, is all the more impressive when they are gathered together. Unfortunately, he has stopped short of reprinting all of his articles in their entirety; for example, only part of "Hobbes on Sovereignty" (1965), is included.Although the Journal of the History of Philosophy does not normally review works of previously published essays, an exception is being made in this case because of the importance of Skinner's thought and because these volumes contain significant new material. Although most of the chapters are reprinted largely as they originally appeared, some chapters were extensively rewritten. Many readers will wish that he had changed less and provided more commentary on the views of his younger self.Given the number and originality of Skinner theses, every reader will disagree with some of them. In the rest of this review, I will discuss a few of these. Skinner makes the provocative claim that "our goals as historians should [not] be to recount [facts]... as objectively as possible" (I:1). This looks relativistic but he says that he is not a relativist. Shortly later, he makes the disturbing, but not unfamiliar, claim that "the concept of truth is irrelevant to the enterprise of explaining beliefs" (I:2). A major problem for this view is that anyone who makes a statement is, or purports to be, aiming at the truth. The fact that a speaker might not use the word 'true' or 'truth' does not show that the concept is not operating. Moreover, to be rational is to pursue the truth.Skinner is particularly interested in political rhetoric, and the rhetorical feature he studies most closely is paradiastole. Simplifying it, let's say that paradiastole is the technique of rejecting one description-cum-evaluation, say, "The prince is stubborn," for another, say, "The prince is resolute." Since redescriptions of things can go in either direction, many philosophers thought that the possibility of paradiastole undermined the objectivity of ethics. Rhetoricians fostered this belief by teaching students to argue for either side of an argument.Skinner thinks Hobbes "undoubtedly" provided a solution to the problem of paradiastole and that the solution "has the great merit of confronting the problem in a uniquely uncompromising way" (III:141). The solution depends on recognizing that the goodness of virtues "resides in the fact that they form 'the meanes of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living'" (III:137). So, when a dispute about morality arises, one simply asks "whether the effect of the action will or will not be conducive to the preservation of peace" (III:137). I do not see that this solves the problem. In early 2003, one side called the American invasion of Iraq a means to peace by defeating terrorism, the other side a provocation of war against Muslim nations; either side can be argued. Tending toward peace cannot be part... (shrink)

The central problem of the ‘normativity of law’ concerns how legal rules or directives give us reasons for actions. The core of this question is how something that is external to the agent, such as legal rules or directives, can be ‘part of the agent’, and how they can guide the agent in performing complex actions (such as legal rule-following) that persist over time. David Enoch has denied that the normativity of law poses any interesting challenge to theories of law. (...) He argues that law provides reasons for actions in terms of what he calls triggering-reasons and he advances the view that because there are many circumstances in which reasons are triggered, law does not pose a special challenge. According to Enoch, once we understand the way that triggering reasons operate, we can understand how legal rules and directives provide us with reasons for actions. In §II of this paper, I set the stage for the debate and establish a set of principles that emerge from the common sense of view of reasons for actions and argue that any theory of reasons for action should provide a coherent explanation of these key principles. I focus on the idea that a satisfactory account of reasons for action should also explain reasons in actions. In §III I explain briefly the different theories of reasons for action and locate Enoch’s conception of reasons for action as triggering-reasons within this theoretical framework. In §IV I show that Enoch’s conception of reasons for actions does not explain some of the key features or principles that emerge from our common sense view of reasons for action and nor does it explain reasons in actions.Resumen:El problema central de la ‘normatividad del derecho’ versa sobre cómo las reglas o directrices jurídicas nos dan razones para la acción. El núcleo de esta cuestión reside en cómo algo que es externo al agente, tal como las reglas o directrices jurídicas, pueden ser ‘parte del agente’, y cómo pueden guiar a ese agente al llevar a cabo acciones complejas (tal como la obediencia de las reglas) que persisten en el tiempo. David Enoch ha negado que la normatividad del derecho presente algún reto interesante a las teorías del derecho. Arguye que el derecho provee razones para la acción en términos de lo que él llama razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) y propone la perspectiva de que, dado que hay muchas circunstancias bajo las cuales se detonan las razones, el derecho no plantea ningún reto especial. De acuerdo con Enoch, una vez que entendemos la manera en que operan las razones detonantes, podemos comprender cómo las reglas y directrices jurídicas nos proveen razones para la acción. En la sección II de este artículo, fijo el escenario para el debate y establezco una serie de principios que emergen de la visión de sentido común sobre las razones para las acciones, y sostengo que cual- quier teoría de las razones para la acción debería proporcionar una explicación coherente de estos principios clave. Me centro en la idea de que una concepción satisfactoria de las razones para la acción también debe- ría explicar las razones en las acciones. En la sección III, explico brevemente las diferentes teorías de las razones para la acción y ubico la concepción de Enoch de razones para la acción como razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) dentro de este marco teórico. En la sección IV muestro que la concepción de Enoch de razones para las acciones no explica algunas de las principales características o principios que emergen de nuestra visión de las razones para la acción basada en el sentido común, ni tampoco explica las razones en las acciones. (shrink)

Wicked Philosophy. Philosophy of Science and Vision Development for Complex Problems provides an overview of the philosophy of the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, and explores how insights from these three domains can be integrated to help find solutions for the complex, 'wicked' problems we are currently facing. The core of a new science-based vision is complexity thinking, offering a meta-position for navigating alternative paradigms and making informed choices of resources for projects involving complex problems. (...) The book also brings design thinking into problem-solving and teaching, fostering construction of an integrative approach that bridges structure and action amplified by transdisciplinary engagement of stakeholders in society. Bron: Flaptekst, uitgeversinformatie. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo constituye una propuesta encaminada a dar respuesta a la necesidad social de la superación del profesor de Educación Física del Centro de Experiencia del Adulto Mayor. Se propone como objetivo fundamentar la estrategia para la superación del profesor de Educación Física dirigida a la rehabilitación acuática de los adultos mayores con limitaciones articulares, desde una visión de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad. Se reconoce la oportunidad que representa el empleo de las nuevas tecnologías como elemento que contribuye a (...) la mejora de la calidad de vida de las personas mayores. La magnitud del reto exige la puesta en acción de todos los resortes con los que la sociedad cuenta, para la atención al envejecimiento, mediante diversos programas, cuya significación contribuye a fortalecer la identidad nacional, y a elevar la cultura general integral de los profesores hacia los adultos mayores lo cual repercutirá en la formación de una conciencia social, política y cultural. ABSTRACT The article constitutes a proposal directed to give answer to the social need for the self-improvement of the teacher of Physical Education of the Center of Experience of the Elder Adult. It proposes as objective: to base the strategy for the self-improvement of the teacher of Physical Education directed to the aquatic rehabilitation of the elderly with articular limitations, from a vision of science, technology and society. It is recognized the opportunity that represents the employment of the new technologies as element that contributes to the progress of the quality of life of the elderly. The magnitude of the challenge demands the putting in action of all the springs with which the society is provided, for the attention to the aging, by means of diverse programs, which significance helps to strengthen the national identity, and to raise the integral general culture of the teachers towards the elderly which will reverberate in the formation of a social, political and cultural conscience. (shrink)