Purity has been recognized as an ideal of proof. In this paper, I consider whether purity continues to have value in contemporary mathematics. The topics (e.g., algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, category theory) and methods of contemporary mathematics often favor unification and generality, values that are more often associated with impurity rather than purity. I will demonstrate this by discussing several examples of methods and proofs that highlight the epistemic significance of unification and generality. First, I discuss the examples (...) of algebraic invariants and of considering a mathematical object from several different perspectives to illustrate that the methods used in contemporary mathematics favor impurity. Then I consider an example from category theory which demonstrates how unification and generality are related to impurity and that impure solutions can be explanatory. In light of this discussion, we see that purity only has marginal value within contemporary mathematics which instead prioritizes the epistemic values associated with impurity. (shrink)

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools (...) designed to measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

Recent molecular biology has seen the development of genomics as a successor to traditional genetics. This paper offers an overview of the structure, epistemology, and history of contemporary genomics. A particular focus is on the question to what extent the genome contains, or is composed of, anything that corresponds to traditional conceptions of genes. It is concluded that the only interpretation of genes that has much contemporary scientific relevance is what is described as the "developmental defect" gene concept. (...) However, developmental defect genes typically only correspond to general areas of the genome and not to precise chemical structures . The parts of the genome to be identified for an account of the processes of normal development are highly diverse, little correlated with traditional genes, and act in ways that are highly dependent on the cellular and higher level environment. Despite its historical development out of genetics, genomics represents a radically different kind of scientific project. (shrink)

In an economy that increasingly trades in electronic information products, the copy assumes a new reversibility, as a figure at once valued for its rapid exchangeability and vilified for of its associations with counterfeit and fraud. The incorporation of confidence measures into the design of electronic information products is symptomatic of a primary crisis of belief installed within empiricist epistemologies, of which anti-circumvention technologies and knock-off economies are merely the incorrigible children. The aesthetic strategies practiced by Albert Oehlen and N.E. (...) Thing Co., which mirror the information hiding techniques employed by steganography software and technologies of trust as well as the circumvention tactics employed to defeat them, register an emergent preoccupation in contemporary visual culture with structures of belief. They also disclose a Humean attention to processes of devivification, which figures in these artists’ work as an effect of the multiplication of the same. The trope of the ‘false bottom’ deployed in the 1930s novels of British artist and author Wyndham Lewis serves as intertext in this genealogical investigation of the politics of circumvention. (shrink)

This collection provides a thorough grounding in the philosophy of American pragmatism by examining the views of four principal thinkers - Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead - on issues of central and enduring importance to life in human society. Pragmatism emerged as a characteristically American response to an inheritance of British empiricism. Presenting a radical reconception of the nature of experience, pragmatism represents a belief that ideas are not merely to be contemplated but must (...) be put into action, tested and refined through experience. At the same time, the American pragmatists argued for an emphasis on human community that would offset the deep-seated American bias in favor of individualism. Far from being a relic of the past, pragmatism offers a dynamic and substantive approach to questions of human conduct, social values, scientific inquiry, religious belief, and aesthetic experience that lie at the center of contemporary life. This volume is an invaluable introduction to a school of thought that remains vital, instructive, and provocative. (shrink)

Commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University to create an artwork reflecting on the importance of freshwater, Milwaukee-based photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki embarked on a two-week, 1,800-mile drive around Lake Michigan. He traveled its perimeter, through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, to produce what he calls “a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan.” Miyazaki set up his portable studio on beaches, in parks, on boat docks, and in backyards, photographing those he met along the way. From residents, (...) environmental scientists, and artists to a Native American water rights advocate, surfers, and commercial fishermen, Lake Michigan holds a powerful place in the life of each. Many shared their thoughts with him on why this body of water is important to all. Miyazaki also photographed the water as he went, creating waterscapes of the ever-changing lake affected by weather and time. Perimeter gathers these images together, creating a diverse portrait of both people and a place, encapsulating Lake Michigan’s significance to those who are drawn to it. (shrink)

This cross-disciplinary collection explores Vladimir Jankélévitch’s thought on love, forgiveness, humility, virtue, bad conscience, remorse, death, reconciliation, music, and religion. It examines his relations with philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Plotinus. The chapters are linked by the theme of intangibility, or what cannot be touched.

The concept of totalitarianism was particularly prevalent in intellectual and political debate in Germany in the 1970s, and was motivated largely by anti-totalitarian convictions. Although it did not enter everyday language, it persists in political rhetoric, where it is used today as a political football in speeches and constitutional reports. In response to historical approaches to the concept of totalitarianism, which generally contextualise the term and put forward alternative terms, this article probes the meaning of this term as it is (...) actually used and misused in political and educational contexts in contemporary Germany. It concludes by highlighting the fictitious (figurative, semantic and epistemological) dimensions of the rhetoric of anti-totalitarianism, and calls for a more genuinely liberal, non-totalitarian, posture. (shrink)

The essays in this collection are all studies in the history of modern philosophy. Together they provide a cross-section of current efforts to reconstruct ...

본 연구는 주희의 자연관에 담긴 선 개념의 성격과 그 현대적 의미를 탐색한 것이다. 환경윤리이론은 인간과 자연의 관계를 설정하는 방식에 따라 그 성격이 결정된다. 주희에게서 인간과 자연의 관계는 세 가지 양상으로 나타난다. 첫째, 자연의 기원에 대한 주희의 기(氣) 중심적 설명에서 인간을 포함한 천지 만물은 동일한 근원(一元之氣)에서 비롯된 평등한 존재들이다. 둘째, 자연의 본질에 대한 주희의 리(理) 중심적 설명에서 자연과 인간은 모두 도덕적 의미에서의 가치(仁)를 지닌 평등한 존재들이다. 셋째, 주희가 리와 기를 합하여 자연 현상을 설명할 때 자연 세계는 인간을 정점으로 하는 생명체들의 위계적 (...) 구조를 드러내는데, 그 의도는 인간의 자연 지배를 정당화하는데 있는 것이 아니라 인간의 도덕적 책임을 강조하는데 있다. 이와 같이 주희의 자연관에서 인간과 자연은 한편으로는 평등하고 다른 한편으로는 위계적 관계를 형성하고 있다. 인간과 자연의 관계가 이중적이기에 자연 안에서 인간이 성취해야할 선은 역설적 성격을 지니게 된다. 선한 행동은 인간과 자연의 가치를 모두 고려해야 하지만(‘대상의 전체성’), 만약 자연의 가치와 인간의 가치가 충돌할 때에는 ‘가치의 중요성’과 ‘기의 근접성’에 의해 최선이 되는 행위를 선택하되, 그 결과 부득이하게 생명체의 희생이나 자연의 파손이 따를 경우 ‘생태적 감수성’(禮以用之)을 상실하지 않는 것이다. 이러한 주희의 역설적 선 개념은 인간중심주의와 생태중심주의 사이에서 고민하는 현대 환경윤리이론이 나아가야 할 방향성을 보여준다. (shrink)

사람은 누구나 행복한 삶을 꿈꾼다. 그러나 기본적인 생계를 유지할 수 없고 생명조차 지킬 수 없는 현실이라면 어떻게 행복하게 살 수 있을까? 담초(譚峭)가 인간의 생명에 주목하는 이유가 바로 여기에 있다. 당(唐)나라 말기는 전쟁이 끊이지 않고 착취가 심해 사람들이 기본적인 생계조차 유지하기 힘들었다. 이러한 시대를 살았던 담초는 당시 사회를 비판하고 어떻게 하면 모든 사람이 행복하게 살 수 있는가의 문제를 고민했다. 특히 그가 가장 심혈을 기울인 부분은 생명의 관점에서 인간사회의 내재적 모순을 탐구하고 나아가 모두가 어울려 살 수 있는 화합사회를 건설하는 것이었다. 대체적으로 보면 (...) 담초의 생명사상은 다음과 같은 몇 가지 방면에서 특징이 나타난다. 첫째, 생명은 단순히 사람의 육체생명이 아니라 우주 만물의 가장 높은 가치인 ‘도(道)’와 동등한 의미를 지닌다. 둘째, 생명은 삶의 원천일 뿐만 아니라 인간 사회가 변화, 발전하는 내재적 근거이다. 셋째, 생명을 지키는 것은 단지 삶을 보장하는 의미만 있는 것이 아니라 사회혼란을 바로잡을 수 있는 본질적인 방법이다. 담초는 이와 같은 생명의 관점에서 인간사회의 모순을 탐구하고, 먹을거리의 현실적 가치, 절약과 나눔의 도덕적, 윤리적 가치를 중시했으며, 이 세 가지가 화합사회를 이룩하기 위한 조건이라고 강조했다. 이처럼 생명의 관점에서 인간사회를 이해하는 것은 담초사상의 매우 독특한 특징이라 할 수 있다. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The question which I raise in this paper—"Is Science contenporary rationality?"—is entended to place the issue in an historical context.That is to say: rationality has a history. Modem science, I will argue is the dominant contenporary form of this rationality, as a matter of fact. The ceritical question is then: what normative claim does contenporary science make for this dominant position? Can contenporary science be understood as a historical form of rationality which has superseded earlier forms, and which itself has (...) historical limitations? I compare the mathematical model of scientific rationality of seventeenth century science with that of contenporary science, and consider whether there are norms of rationality which remain invariant through historical change. (shrink)

(1993). Deconstruction and Reconstruction in Contemporary Critical Theory. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 23, Supplementary Volume 19: New Essays on Metaphilosophy, pp. 247-264.

This anthology "explores three areas of life in which religion has a profound impact: political policy; ecology: and women's rights. Through the lens of six religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- the carefully-curated articles address some of contemporary society's most challenging issues"--Cover.

The connection is made between the Royal Museum of Scotland and encyclopaedia, one of MacIntyre's three rival versions of moral enquiry. It is then asked how MacIntyre's other two methods, genealogy and tradition‐constituted enquiry, would function within a museum. It is proposed that the museum fulfils Haldane's criterion for tradition‐constituted enquiry in that it combines the immanence and open‐endedness of the methods of enquiry with transcendence in the objects of enquiry. The ethical judgments of the visitors constitute transcendent truth in (...) morality; hence one can see the museum as a site of Aristotelian enquiry. -/- To pursue this, the museum is explored as a site of Aristotelian study or theoria, and of MacIntyre's updated Aristotelianism. Therein we study the narratives written by historians and by individuals in a version of Aristotelian epagogê, or the sifting of the opinions of the many and the wise. This process may also enhance civic friendship and our exercise of practical wisdom towards disadvantaged groups. -/- Finally, MacIntyre's three rival versions of moral enquiry are returned to, and a museum characterised for each. All three are found to involve seriousness in the purposes of enquiry. Attention is drawn to MacIntyre's criticism of the interaction of bureaucracy and social science. It is proposed that such interaction may, in the case of the museum, dilute its seriousness as a site of enquiry. (shrink)

v. 1. Power, property, and the state -- v. 2. The nation-state and violence.

Contractarianism, as a general approach to moral and political thought, has had a long and distinguished history -- its roots are easily traced as far back as Plato's Republic, where Glaucon advanced it as a view of justice, and its influential representatives include Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and Kant. In various ways, to various purposes, and against the background of various assumptions, each of these philosophers offered contractarian arguments for the views they defended. What binds the tradition together, in (...) the face of this variety, is the conviction that moral norms or political institutions find legitimacy, when they do, in their ability to secure (under the appropriate conditions) the agreement of those to whom they apply. (shrink)

Seven Days of Nectar: Contemporary Oral Performance of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa. By McComas Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 288.

Książka ukazała się jako drugi tom w nowo utworzonej serii Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, której patronuje wydawnictwo Blackwell Publishing Ltd, dobrze znane na rynku wydawnictw naukowych o charakterze przeglądowym czy quasi-encyklopedycznym. Ideą przewodnią serii jest udostepnienie studentom oraz wykładowcom forum filozoficznego, które dałoby im możliwość w pewien sposób włączyć się w dyskusje żywo podejmowane we współczesnej zachodniej filozofii. Jednakże autorzy są świadomi pewnej specyficznej trudności, jaką niesie dzisiaj filozofia, szczególnie, gdy chce się ją zaprezentować studentom. Chodzi tutaj o mniej (...) lub bardziej uzasadnione wrażenie, że każdy filozof rozumie terminy i problemy filozoficzne na swój sposób. To pociąga za sobą sytuacje, w których debaty wydają się tylko pozorne, 'gdyż jedni filozofowie atakują pozycje, których nikt nie broni, a drudzy bronią pozycji, których nikt nie atakuje'. Aby zapobiec takim paralelnym monologom i bezpośrednio zderzyć kontrastujące pozycje w ich całej mocy, autorzy przyjęli szczególną metodę. (shrink)

In this Element, Michael Ruse offers a critical analysis of contemporary atheism. He puts special emphasis on the work of so-called 'New Atheists': Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchins, whose views are contrasted with those of Edward O. Wilson. Ruse also provides a full exposition of his own position, which he labels 'Darwinian Existentialism'.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 580-589, May 2022. Women and girls in contemporary Arab societies suffer from various and intersecting forms of discrimination that deny them their enjoyment of fundamental human rights. The right to freedom of expression is one of the essential areas that may expose this gender-based discrimination and patriarchal attitudes. In many contexts, freedom of expression has enabled women to speak out and organize in civil, political, social, economic and cultural spheres and (...) contexts; participate in their own emancipation and improve their status. Women’s exercise of freedom of expression has also provided them with new rights such as the right to vote, the right to control their own bodies, the right to join unions and the right to equality before the law and to participate in decision-making and hold governments to account. In the last decade, we have witnessed different attacks on women’s rights particularly their right to the freedom of expression, as scholars, journalists, social media users, human rights defenders, politicians and activists. The aim of this article is to explore emerging challenges and to highlight the struggle of Arab women for freedom of expression. (shrink)

Islam as a religion and a way of life guides millions of people around the world and has a significant impact on worldly affairs. To many Muslims, however, a philosophical understanding or assessment of Islamic belief is seen as a feeble and religiously inappropriate attempt to understand matters that are beyond rational comprehension. Islam: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation explores this issue in detail, by guiding readers through a careful study of the relationship between faith and reason in Islam. In (...) particular, it pays close attention to religious objections to philosophizing about Islam, arguments for and against Islamic belief, and the rationality of Islamic belief in light of contemporary philosophical issues, such as problems of religious diversity, evil and religious doubt. (shrink)

Marriage, in fiction even more than in life, has been the woman's adventure, the object of her quest, her journey's end. Contemporary fiction modulates the formula in one respect: the abandonment of marriage replaces the achievement of it. While it is obvious what these fictional women detest in marriage, it is not always clear what they desire. How, indeed, might clarity be expected about an institution whose success depends so much upon woman's failure at autonomy? So the women split: (...) Kinflicks, Small Changes, The Women's Room, Loose Ends, The Oracle—these are merely representative of a long list. What is new in these books is that we are seeing marriage at all—seeing it, moreover, from a woman's point of view. "What about Norm?" the narrator asks in The Women's Room; "Who is he, this shadow man, this figurehead husband?"1 In fact, who Norm is, who all the husbands are, is clear: those who need someone to take care of their domestic, cooking, cleaning, sexual, breeding needs while they are out attending to civilization and their own appreciation of life. Even the least intelligent husbands realize that a change in marriage profound enough to satisfy the fleeing wives would profoundly alter the foundation of that conservative community, the family. Freud had urged women not to interfere with man in his pursuit of civilization; and this is the way it is, the way men want it to be. · 1. Marilyn French, The Women's Room , p. 193. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, professor of English at Columbia University, is the author of, among other works, Toward a Recognition of Androgyny. Her book, Reinventing Womanhood, includes parts of this present essay. (shrink)

The goal of Thailand's strategic business strategy is to "aim towards a sustainable and culturally influential creative industry on a global scale" to grow the textile and fashion sectors. By 2021, the intention is to establish Thailand as the center of fashion and textile design for the area, with a focus on "contemporary fashion" by 2031. This research aims to: 1) examine women's fashion during King Rama V's reign from the start to the end; 2) create modern women's special (...) occasion outfits inspired by the King Rama V era's attire; and 3) assess customer satisfaction with the prototype designs of modern women's special occasion outfits inspired by the King Rama V era's attire. Twelve drafts, six prototype outfits, and satisfaction surveys are among the tools employed. The two groups comprising the study sample are: Group 1 consists of five specialists who evaluate the drafts and a target group of 30 individuals who evaluate the drafts. Group 2 consists of 250 general people from Buriram Province who use random sampling to gauge how satisfied they are with the prototype clothes. The frequency distribution and mean were used to analyze the data. The study discovered that, with an average score of 4.32, which indicates a high degree of satisfaction, customers are quite happy with the modern women's special event attire inspired by the King Rama V era. The ensembles are seen to be elegant, contemporary, and appropriate for formal occasions. (shrink)

_Social and Political Philosophy_ introduces some of the most important topics in contemporary political philosophy and questions whether these can be accommodated within the framework of liberal theory. It consists of specially written essays by prominent figures in social and political philosophy. Each essay carefully considers both the theoretical and practical problems of a major topic. Traditional perspectives are balanced with new challenges. Topics include: * Moral Methodology * Libertarianism * Socialism * Lesbian and Gay Perspectives * Feminism * (...) Racial and Multicultural Perspectives * Rationality * Welfare Liberalism * Environmentalism * Virtue Ethics and Community * Just War Theory and Pacifism * Civil Disobedience. (shrink)

This meticulously edited anthology provides a comprehensive, problems-oriented entree to philosophy. Substantial readings from major classical and contemporary thinkers--featuring many of Hackett's widely acclaimed translations--are supported by a general introduction, engaging introductions to each major topic, and a glossary of important philosophical terms.