In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 263-283 [Access article in PDF] Contesting Metaphors and the Discourse of Consciousness in William James Jill M. Kress Ah, not to be cut off,not by such slight partitionto be excluded from the stars' measure.What is inwardness?What if not sky intensified,flung through with birds and deepwith winds of homecoming? --Rainer Maria Rilke William James's lifelong attention to questions about human (...) mental experience elucidates the development of the concept of consciousness through its realization in fields as disparate as natural science, radical empiricism, and religious mysticism. 1 Over the course of a career that both establishes and traverses disciplinary boundaries, James's work embodies tensions between scientific explanations for mental phenomena and the inescapability of metaphysical arguments. Jamesian psychology thus alternates between materialist and spiritualist assumptions of scientists and philosophers at the turn of the century, joining their compulsive investigations into the nature of consciousness. 2 Most readers [End Page 263] of James puzzle over the theoretical contradictions within his work, debating central philosophical dilemmas concerning the status of the conscious self. Perhaps the most paradoxical aspect of James's theories, his response to dualism, emerges as he attempts to negotiate ethereal explanations for consciousness with bodily processes. 3 The mind-body problem disrupts James's more delicately balanced theories, a disruption registered explicitly through the metaphors in his texts.Reading The Principles of Psychology (1890) alongside "Does 'Consciousness' Exist" (1904), this essay demonstrates how figurative language directs James's study of consciousness. I argue that metaphor does more than describe consciousness; metaphor constructs James's arguments, governs his conflicting theories of mind through a series of rhetorical configurations and provokes the continual reconstruction of his ideas of human subjectivity. Furthermore, while it is impossible for James to explain and to study consciousness without metaphor, he experiences great anxiety about using language, figurative or otherwise, to represent his object of study. The language becomes more powerful than his intentions or designs and, indeed, raises implications that James cannot control. James possesses a heightened awareness of what he crafts with words; he also, perhaps more penetratingly, acknowledges the inadequacy of any linguistic system to realize concepts thoroughly. 4 Struggling over appropriate "names" and "terms" for consciousness, James presupposes some clearly delineated concept around which we might wrap a verbal expression; yet he also seems painfully aware that every new metaphor launches an entirely new theory. Fluid and unpredictable, consciousness becomes like language itself, yielding its power precisely because it can be so many things at once. The ultimate principle of Jamesian consciousness seems to be its creative capacity; still, once James admits that the problem of consciousness is a problem of language, his carefully constructed designs begin to unravel. Though consciousness will be translated into James's notion of "pure experience" by the time he writes the radical empiricism [End Page 264] essays, James remains simultaneously committed to his figures (especially of the "stream of consciousness") and ambivalent about the account of consciousness that they provide. James helps create the modern self with its enhanced individuality, though his metaphors at once direct us inward to a centered, private self and propel us outward to find consciousness materializing in the fluxional cycle of the natural world.In presenting his initial theory of the stream of our thoughts, James argues for its coherence. His most famous metaphor of the "stream" of consciousness appears to saturate the varied material of the mind, its water washing over and through any distinctions or separations which the mind might present: Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as "chain" or "train" do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A "river" or a "stream" are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. 5James's desire to find words that are more "natural... (shrink)

Two books bound together, from the religious period of one of the most renowned and representative thinkers. Written for laymen, thus easy to understand, it is penetrating and brilliant as well. Illuminations of age-old religious questions from a pragmatic perspective, written in a luminous style.

A survey of Descartes' scientific career from his student days at the Jesuit College of La Flèche to his departure for Sweden in 1649.

We analyze two problems in mathematics – the first (stated in our title) is extracted from Wittgenstein’s “Philosophy for Mathematicians”; the second (“What set of numbers is non-denumerable?”) is taken from Cantor. We then consider, by way of comparison, a problem in musical aesthetics concerning a Brahms variation on a theme by Haydn. Our aim is to bring out and elucidate the essentially riddle-like character of these problems.

With a vast majority of the land in the Driftless Region of the Midwestern United States dedicated to agricultural production, the future of farming has significant economic, social, recreational, agricultural, and ecological implications. An important literature stream has developed on ways agriculture can change to impact both human and ecological communities positively. In this study, we examine the processes and extent to which community narratives assert and inform regional identities that shape the meaning of being a good farmer. Using a (...) mixed methods approach, we examine what farmers consider good farming and how they utilize community narratives to assert their perspective of good farming. Employing a correlational analysis, we examined the relative importance of the four dimensions of good farming (productivist, conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist). In addition, we used narrative analysis to explore the development of community narratives that assert a multi-dimensional view of good farming. Data for this study was collected through 21 semi-structured interviews with farmers, two focus groups of farmers, and a survey of farmers with 82 survey participants. The mean scores for conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist dimensions were significantly higher than those for productivists. There was no significant correlation between the productivists dimension and the three other dimensions of good farming. Through analysis of transcripts, we identified a community narrative that actively problematized a dominant cultural narrative centered on production agriculture. Collectively, a community narrative is emerging in the Driftless Region that sought to normalize agricultural practices that promote profitable farms, vibrant communities, and a wide array of ecosystem services. (shrink)

Research ethics education has taken many forms since federal funding agencies issued regulatory guidance directing those supported by these agencies to complete required training. In the absence of a standard training approach among institutions such as universities, the design and content of courses, workshops, and seminars varies widely. Here we describe a southwestern United States research university program that employed six teaching strategies to assist students in deep learning of ethical principles and behavior. Our purpose was to determine how these (...) strategies impact understanding and empowerment among an interdisciplinary group of graduate students. Results suggested that deep learning design can result in learning that requires students not only to remember and understand key ethics concepts but also to analyze and apply them in a broader ethical domain. Key findings inform design and delivery of future research ethics courses for instructional designers and instructors in higher education. (shrink)

Game of Thrones is a popular, award-winning television series with an eight-season run on Home Box Office, based on the Song of Fire and Ice series of books by George R.R. Martin. It depicts a morally complex political situation in a fantasy environment that has some similarities to medieval Europe. In the midst of this setting, the series advocates a cynical attitude towards politics, social structures, and religion. Most notably, the series suggests that there is no such thing as political (...) legitimacy. This chapter identifies a pattern of cynicism throughout Game of Thrones but points towards the thoughts of John Locke and Thomas Aquinas as possible alternatives to the story’s cynicism. (shrink)

Most opposition to induced abortion turns on the belief that human fetuses are persons from conception. On this view, the moral status of the fetus alone requires those in a position to provide aid—gestational mothers—to make tremendous sacrifices to benefit the fetus. Recently, critics have argued that this pro-life position requires more than opposition to induced abortion. Pro-life theorists are relatively silent on the issues of spontaneous abortion, surplus in vitro fertilisation human embryos, and the suffering and death of born (...) persons due to lack of access to food, shelter and medical care. Colgrove et al call such arguments inconsistency arguments, arguing they ‘do not matter’ and mischaracterise them as ad hominem attacks. Here, I argue these are better understood as moral dilemmas. While some critics argue pro-life inaction is evidence that they do not really believe human fetuses are persons, I contend this inaction is likely the result of resolvable confusion rather than moral negligence. (shrink)

Animal behaviour and welfare research are part of a wider endeavour to optimize the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems. As such, it is part of the One Health research agenda. This article applies ethical principles described by the One Health High Level Expert Panel to animal behaviour and welfare research. These principles entail that animal behaviour and welfare research should be valued equitably alongside other research in transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration. It should include and promote a multiplicity (...) of marginalized voices, including those of animals, and it should apply and describe a harmonious balance between human—animal-environment interactions. Lastly, it should describe how humans need to change behaviour, adopt sustainable solutions and recognize the importance of animal welfare and the integrity of the whole ecosystem. (shrink)

This chapter presents a reconstruction of Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence in English, identifying two principles on which the argument depends. The first is the claim that whatever is understood is in the understanding; the second is that for whatever exists solely in the understanding, something greater than it can be conceived. Most of the chapter focuses on the first principle. Anselm claims that there is an intimate connection between something’s being in the understanding and its being conceived. Moreover, (...) he relies on a distinction between conceiving of something and conceiving that thing to exist. There are two ways of analyzing the distinction. Neither way provides Anselm with a sound argument for God’s existence. (shrink)

“The Perfect Island” explores the second principle mentioned in chapter 11, that is, the principle that for whatever exists solely in the understanding, something greater than it can be conceived. There are at least five versions of that principle, of varying strength. Anselm’s argument relies on the weakest of the five. Gaunilo invoked his “lost island” counterexample in an attempt to demonstrate that an argument structurally identical to Anselm’s would “prove” the existence of the greatest conceivable island, thus exposing the (...) absurdity of Anselm’s argument. But Anselm’s argument relies only on the weakest version of the second principle, whereas Gaunilo’s argument requires one of the stronger versions. This chapter presents a model in which the weakest version is true while the other four versions are false. Gaunilo’s argument is thus not a successful counterexample. (shrink)

Synkategorematische Sprachzeichen bilden ein zentrales Thema der Logik, Sprachphilosophie, Linguistik und Grammatik von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Im Mittelalter verstand man unter "syncategoremata "Ausdrücke, denen eine besondere Bedeutung für die logische Analyse von Aussagen und Schlüssen zukommt. Zu den Synkategoremata zählte eine relativ eng begrenzte Gruppe von Wörtern wie etwa die distributiven Zeichen ("jeder", "kein"), die Exklusiva ("allein", "nur"), Konjunktionen wie "und", "oder" und "wenn", die Kopula "ist", aber auch einzelne Verben wie "anfangen" und "aufhören". Synkategoremata haben anders als (...) Kategoremata wie "Mensch", "Lebewesen "und "läuft" keine selbständige Bezeichnungsfunktion, sondern erhalten eine solche Funktion erst im Satzzusammenhang. In den im 13. Jhdt. verbreiteten und einflussreichen Traktaten dieses Genres werden Synkategoremata oft unter Rückgriff auf Sophismata, d.h. mehrdeutige, analysebedürftige Aussagen, behandelt. Im Mittelpunkt stehen neben Fragen zu ihrem Skopus (insbesondere bei quantifizierenden und in irgendeiner Form negierenden Zeichen) auch die der Abhängigkeit ihrer syntaktischen Funktion von ihrer Bezeichnungsfunktion. Die Traktate bieten Regeln zur Verwendung der einzelnen Synkategoremata und weisen dabei vielfältige Bezüge zur aristotelischen Logik, speziell der Fehlschlusslehre, sowie zu den genuin mittelalterlichen Lehren der Folgerungen und der Supposition der Termini auf. (shrink)

Use of rhetorical figures has been an element of persuasive speech at least since Gorgias of Leontini, for whom such deliberate deviations from ordinary literal language were a defining feature of what he called the ‘psychagogic art’. But must we consider figures of speech limited to an ornamental and merely stylistic function, as some ancient and still many modern theorists suggest? Not according to contemporary cognitive rhetoric, which proposes that figures of speech can play a fundamentally argumentative role in speech (...) by evoking a level of shared meaning between speaker and listener, and simultaneously by affording the possibility of reorganizing this common ground. This paper argues that, in Latin literature, zeugma—the ‘linking together’ of two elements with a third that is semantically compatible with only one of them—can and very often does operate argumentatively, and that it does so by surfacing figurative relationships that normally remain below the conscious awareness of Latin speakers and by imparting a certain structure to these relationships. What very often motivates the selection of elements within zeugma—and what makes zeugma more than simply a stylistic device—are in fact metaphorical structures that are highly conventionalized in Latin's semantic system. In tapping into symbolic associations that are deeply entrenched in the language and thought of Latin speakers, zeugma therefore provided a ready-made device for constructing arguments in context. (shrink)

Chapter 2 explores the PTEV’s response to the contemporary misalignment of higher education through the development of a metaphor, drawn from recent research on cognition, of learning as apprenticeship. The chapter divides undergraduate experience into three “apprenticeships.” The first, or academic apprenticeship describes the formal educational program of courses of study, organized by the faculty. The second, or social apprenticeship refers to the co-curricular programs of clubs, organizations, and activities by which, universities and colleges seek to promote the personal and (...) social development of students. The third apprenticeship concerns the institutions’ efforts to provide students with opportunity to discover and develop a larger direction and purpose for themselves during their collegiate experience and beyond graduation. One such “third apprenticeship” experience, the Senior Keystone for the Business major at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is analyzed for its ability to integrate academic learning with career preparation around the vocation theme that the college’s PTEV program has infused widely in curricular and co-curricular areas of campus life. (shrink)

The Introduction begins with a discussion of the misalignment in higher education between the expanded aims of many institutions and the actual organization of their learning. Three key elements of the Lilly Endowment’s Program on the Theological Exploration of Vocation is examined in this context: the theme of vocation and its integration of curricular and co-curricular learning to address the “whole student,” practices of reflection drawn from different religious traditions and their successful adaptation by the vocation programs, and the educative (...) power of learning communities comprising students, faculty, and staff. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the research project on which the book is based, along with an outline of the arc of argument that spans the following chapters. (shrink)

The wave function of quantum mechanics can be understood in terms of the dispositional role it plays in the dynamics of a distribution of matter in three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional spacetime). There is more than one way, however, of specifying its dispositional role. This paper considers Suárez’s theory of ‘Bohmian dispositionalism’, in which the particles are endowed with their own ‘Bohmian dispositions’, and Simpson’s theory of ‘Cosmic Hylomorphism’, in which the particle configuration comprises a hylomorphic substance which has an intrinsic (...) power. I argue that Bohmian dispositionalism fails to capture intuitively correct counterfactuals about what would happen in Small Worlds which have only a small number of particles, but that this problem is avoided by Cosmic Hylomorphism, in which the cosmic power manifests a teleological process. (shrink)

The primitive ontology approach to quantum mechanics seeks to account for quantum phenomena in terms of a distribution of matter in three-dimensional space and a law of nature that describes its temporal development. This approach to explaining quantum phenomena is compatible with either a Humean or powerist account of laws. In this paper, I offer a powerist ontology in which the law is specified by Bohmian mechanics for a global configuration of particles. Unlike in other powerist ontologies, however, this law (...) is not grounded in a structural power that is instantiated by the global configuration. Instead, I combine the primitive ontology approach with Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism to create a new metaphysical model, in which the cosmos is a hylomorphic substance with an intrinsic power to choreograph the trajectories of the particles. (shrink)

In recent years evolutionary theorists have been engaged in a protracted and bitter disagreement concerning how natural selection affects units such as genes, individuals, kin groups, and groups. Central to this debate has been whether selective pressures affecting group success can trump the selective pressures that confer advantage at the individual level. In short, there has been a debate about the utility of group selection, with noted theorist Steven Pinker calling the concept useless for the social sciences. We surveyed 175 (...) evolutionary anthropologists to ascertain where they stood in the debate. We found that most were receptive to group selection, especially in the case of cultural group selection. The survey also revealed that liberals and conservatives, and males and females, all displayed significant differences of opinion concerning which selective forces were important in humanity’s prehistory. We conclude by interpreting these findings in the context of recent research in political psychology. (shrink)

The norms of simplicity, convenience, unfussiness, and self-control guide Diogenes the Cynic, Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius in approaching food. These norms generate the precept that meat and dainties are luxuries, so Stoics should eschew them. Considerations of justice, environmental harm, anthropogenic global climate change, sustainability, food security, feminism, harm to animals, personal health, and public health lead contemporary Stoics to condemn the meat industrial complex, debunk carnism, and select low input, plant-based foods.

Most opposition to abortion stands or falls on whether a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. In her influential paper ‘A defense of abortion,’ Judith Jarvis Thomson effectively sidesteps this issue, assuming the fetus is a person with the right to life yet arguing this alone does not give it the right to use the mother’s body. In a recent article, Perry Hendricks takes inspiration from Thomson and assumes the fetus is not (...) a person, arguing that abortion is wrong because causing fetal impairment is wrong and abortion is worse than causing fetal impairment. Here I argue Hendricks’ impairment argument fails. For Hendricks, risking fetal impairment is wrong because it risks harm to a future person, but if we assume the fetus is not a person, abortion doesn’t harm anyone, it merely prevents them from existing. (shrink)