In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Search of FaithKate RowlandSometimes I’m jealous of my patients’ faith. As a former happily religious person I miss the benefits I used to get from an active faith. I know that some of my patients must struggle with their faith, and I know the struggle probably affects their well–being. For those who simply believe or those who simply don’t believe, it’s easy. And for those who do believe, (...) there can be so much serenity and so much reward.As a doctor, I spend a lot of time reading science, weighing evidence, and making recommendations. Religion has been a respite from this. Faith, for me, has never been a series of decisions based on the best available evidence. I could analyze it as much as I wanted, peel its layers apart, question it, but in the end, it was just faith, not a hypothesis. It has always been something that I believe (or don’t), and practicing my faith had always been a relatively pleasant decision of figuring out what kind of community I want to share in.My faith life has been in shambles for the past several years. I feel distant from and unwelcome in the church where I was raised, and I haven’t found anywhere else to land. I cannot decide how to raise my own small children. I want them to have grounding in God, but I can’t decide how much I believe in God anymore, and I am fixated on the idea that I don’t want to be hypocritical or lie to [End Page 210] them. I don’t want them to see me worshipping in a way that is not really authentic to me.My husband is agnostic—literally—on the issue. He is open to introducing a loving, kind, forgiving God, but unsure about a God incarnate. We both worry about the identity with a particular religion usurping the actual relationship with God: I am [religion], therefore I believe [this], therefore my God does [this] or is [this].And so all of these fears and doubts have led us to live with no religion, and no outward faith. Our children attend a parochial nursery school run by a religion other than one where we were raised, and they have an apparently happy but neutral opinion of religion and God. They understand ceremonies. At age four, they have a more active faith life than I do, since they attend weekly services at school. But then, they have fewer choices than I do. They do what the teachers tell them. They would do what I told them to do, if I could ever decide what I believed in.I spend so many hours a week with my patients that they have become my main source of demonstration of active, living faith. I know that they share mostly good parts with me. I see so much of the good because I mostly see patients who get to choose how to practice their own religions; they don’t feel oppressed by religious or culturo–religious demands or expectations. It’s interesting that I see the positive sides of their faith, not the struggle, because I otherwise see a lot of the struggling parts of their lives. I see the flinty, edgy woman, the patient who has spent more time in the hospital in the past month than I have, the woman who is sick of her low platelet count that keeps her from living a normal life. And every day she has some message of faith: she tells our medical team what Bible passage is keeping her strong, she tells us how God watches over her when we tell her that her counts are better, she tells us to have a blessed day. Sometimes she curses at the hospital or her condition or at her medications, sometimes at us. So far her faith is unshaken.I take care of a woman who has burning mouth syndrome, a chronic condition that causes her lips, her tongue, and her palate to feel as though they are on fire. Eating makes it worse, drinking makes it worse, breathing makes it worse... (shrink)

Studies have shown that performance‐dependent monetary rewards facilitate visual perception. However, no study has examined whether such a positive effect is limited to the rewarded task or may be generalized to other tasks. In the current study, two groups of people were asked to perform two visual perception tasks, one being a reward‐relevant task and the other being a reward‐irrelevant task. For the reward‐relevant task, the experimental group received performance‐dependent monetary rewards, whereas the control group did not. (...) For the reward‐irrelevant task, both groups were not rewarded. The two tasks were randomly intermixed trial by trial (Experiment 1) or presented block by block (Experiment 2) or session by session (Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c). Results showed that performance‐dependent monetary rewards improved participants' performance on the relevant task in all experiments and impaired their performance on the irrelevant task in Experiments 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c. These results suggested that monetary rewards might incur a cost on reward‐irrelevant tasks. Finally, the benefit of monetary rewards disappeared when they were no longer provided during the final session. This is the first study that reveals both the bright and dark sides of the performance‐dependent monetary rewards in visual perception. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the impact of Machiavellian rhetoric on fundraising within the increasingly important context of online crowdfunding. The “all-or-nothing” funding model used by the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, may be an attractive context in which entrepreneurs can utilize Machiavellian rhetoric to reach their funding goal, lest they get no funding at all. This study uses data from 76,847 crowdfunding projects posted on kickstarter.com and develops a dictionary for computer-aided text analysis (CATA) of Machiavellian rhetoric to measure (...) the relationship between the frequency of Machiavellian rhetoric use and crowdfunding performance, operationalized as either reaching a funding goal or the number of backers who funded the project. Machiavellian rhetoric is segregated into eight facets, which are categorized into hard and soft influence tactics. Hard tactics include revenge, intimidation, betrayal, and manipulation. Soft tactics include ingratiation, supplication, self-disclosure, and persuasion. Results reveal that signals of revenge, self-disclosure, and intimidation have negative effects, whereas signals of ingratiation and persuasion have mixed positive effects on crowdfunding performance. Ingratiation is found to increase the number of backers, but not funding success. Conversely, persuasion is found to increase funding success, but not the number of backers. Surprisingly, betrayal rhetoric is positively related to both measures of crowdfunding performance. Thus, this article complements the literature on backer decision-making, entrepreneurial methods, reward-based crowdfunding, and ethics in entrepreneurship by demonstrating how the displays of potentially negative phenomena, such as Machiavellianism, have complex consequences for entrepreneurial outcomes. (shrink)

This book was undertaken before the terms 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' were coined and the further escalation of America's ideological civil war. It was prompted by deep wonderment at the way people tend to be wholly enclosed within their ideological frames and deaf to claims about reality that come from the opposite camp, no matter how valid they might be. Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative (...) vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book does not focus on the normative aspect of ideology, which is largely subjective, but on its factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, the normative commitment. After theorists around 1960 proclaimed the 'death of ideology', ideological divides and clashes have reemerged with renewed intensity throughout the world, including in the liberal democracies. In the United States they have become particularly venomous. The other side is widely viewed as malicious, irrational or downright stupid, and, often, as barely legitimate. The zeal of the opposing sides is often scarcely less than that which characterized the religious ideologies of old. Indeed, historical religious ideologies have largely been replaced by 'secular religions' or 'religion substitutes'. The book is not another survey of past and present ideologies. It is an attempt to understand the cognitive, emotional and social roots of ideology and ideological fixation. It combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities with a broad sweep through history. It proceeds from the Stone Age to the rise of civilization, the great religions and modernity, to a critique of fundamental factual premises that underlie some of the major debates dominating today's liberal democracies. (shrink)

Rewards are reinforcement mechanisms that organizations use to shape desirable employee behaviors. However, rewards may also have unintended consequences, such as building expectations for receiving extra benefits and weakening employee barriers to unethical acts. This article investigates the dark side of the reward–behavior association, and exploring what is referred to as the reward–theft parity effect (RTPE). The authors hypothesize that receiving rewards induces a corresponding type of theft. In Study 1, survey results (n = 634) show initial (...) support for the RTPE between rewards and same‐category theft, and that perceptions of procedural justice attenuate this association. Study 2 involved a 2 (reward) × 2 (theft opportunity) between‐subjects experimental design (n = 300) and provides further support for the RTPE by revealing greater theft under a reward–theft parity condition than under a reward–theft disparity condition. Study 3 replicates these findings in a field experiment (n = 285) and finds that the RTPE is exacerbated when the reward–behavior task is perceived as unjust. Collectively, these findings provide new theoretical insights while also giving managers a more complete understanding of the dark side of behavioral reinforcement mechanisms. (shrink)

Managers and others have long debated the merits of different reward systems, such as piecework, hourly rates, bonuses, stock options, and the like. They have usually focused on the efficiency of these systems, but they have also had to consider their side effects on relationships, trust, and calls for fair treatment. Such debates local to every organisation play out the issues of rewards and equity in market-based societies as a whole. This paper examines the concept of equity in (...) the distribution of resources in a society of capitalists. It begins with a discussion of the nature of individual capitalism in modern societies. Then, using production and consumption as the two basic functions of a society, it presents a schema for analysing equity. It concludes with a suggestion for overcoming income inequity. (shrink)

The reward infrastructure in science centres on publication, in which journal editors play a key role. Reward distribution hinges on value assessments performed by editors, who draw from plural value systems to judge manuscripts. This conceptual paper examines the numerous biases and other factors that affect editorial decisions. Hybrid and often conflicting value systems contribute to an infrastructure in which editors manage reward through editorial review, commissioned commentaries and reviews and weighing of peer review judgments. Taken together, (...) these systems and processes push the editor into a role resembling censorship. Editors and authors both experience this phenomenon as an unintended side-effect of the reward infrastructure in science. To work towards a more constructive editor-author relationship, we propose a conversation, an exchange between editor and author in which value is collectively assessed as obligatory passage points in the publishing process are traversed. This paper contributes to the discourse on editorial practices by problematising editorial paradigms in a new way and suggesting solutions to entrenched problems. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) to different sites allows interfering with dysfunctional network function implicated in major depression. Because a prominent clinical feature of depression is anhedonia--the inability to experience pleasure from previously pleasurable activities--and because there is clear evidence of dysfunctions of the reward system in depression, DBS to the nucleus accumbens might offer a new possibility to target depressive symptomatology in otherwise treatment-resistant depression. Three patients suffering from extremely resistant forms of depression, who did not respond to pharmacotherapy, (...) psychotherapy, and electroconvulsive therapy, were implanted with bilateral DBS electrodes in the nucleus accumbens. Stimulation parameters were modified in a double-blind manner, and clinical ratings were assessed at each modification. Additionally, brain metabolism was assessed 1 week before and 1 week after stimulation onset. Clinical ratings improved in all three patients when the stimulator was on, and worsened in all three patients when the stimulator was turned off. Effects were observable immediately, and no side effects occurred in any of the patients. Using FDG-PET, significant changes in brain metabolism as a function of the stimulation in fronto-striatal networks were observed. No unwanted effects of DBS other than those directly related to the surgical procedure (eg pain at sites of implantation) were observed. Dysfunctions of the reward system--in which the nucleus accumbens is a key structure--are implicated in the neurobiology of major depression and might be responsible for impaired reward processing, as evidenced by the symptom of anhedonia. These preliminary findings suggest that DBS to the nucleus accumbens might be a hypothesis-guided approach for refractory major depression. (shrink)

People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence. The current study examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence, and determining the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions. Participants reported their moral convictions about a variety of sociopolitical issues prior to undergoing (...) functional MRI scanning. During scanning, they were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of violent protests that were ostensibly congruent or incongruent with their views about sociopolitical issues. Complementary univariate and multivariate analytical strategies comparing neural responses to congruent and incongruent violence identified neural mechanisms implicated in processing salience and in the encoding of subjective value. As predicted, neuro-hemodynamic response was modulated parametrically by individuals’ beliefs about the appropriateness of congruent relative to incongruent sociopolitical violence in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and by moral conviction in ventral striatum. Overall moral conviction was predicted by neural response to congruent relative to incongruent violence in amygdala. Together, these findings indicate that moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm. (shrink)

Honeybees show lateral asymmetry in both learning about odours associated with reward and recalling memory of these associations. We have extended this research to show that bees exhibit lateral biases in their initial response to odours: viz., turning towards the source of an odour presented on their right side and turning away from it when presented on their left side. The odours we presented were the main component of the alarm pheromone, iso-amyl acetate (IAA), and four floral (...) scents. The significant bias to turn towards IAA odour on the right and away from it on the left is, we argue, a lateralization of the fight-flight response elicited by this pheromone. It contrasts to an absence of any asymmetry in the turning response to an odour of the flowers on which the bees had been feeding prior to testing: to this odour they turned towards when it was presented on either the left or right side. Lemon and orange odours were responded to differently on the left and right sides (towards on the right, away on the left) but no asymmetry was found in responses to rose odour. Our results show that side biases are present even in the initial, orienting response of bees to certain odours. (shrink)

Organizations have increasingly relied on team-based reward systems to boost productivity and foster collaboration. Drawing on the literature on ethics and justice as well as appraisal theories of emotion, we examine how team-based reward systems can have an insidious side effect: They increase the likelihood that employees remain silent when observing a team member engage in unethical behavior. Across four studies adopting different methods, measures, and samples, we found consistent evidence that people are less likely to report (...) (i.e., speak up or provide anonymous feedback about) a team member’s unethical behavior in team-based than in individual-based reward systems. Furthermore, our research reveals that this effect is primarily driven by a decrease in the experience of moral anger, which subsequently leads to a decreased likelihood of reporting unethical behavior when it benefits the team rather than the individual. We do not find support for perceived indirect benefit or envy as alternative explanations, suggesting that the decision to report a team member’s unethical behavior is not driven by calculative and selfish motives, but by moral motives. Finally, we establish that the effect is contingent on the observer and the perpetrator being members of the same team; it dissipates when the observer and the perpetrator are part of different teams. Our work contributes to research on reward systems and business ethics and provides practical implications for human resource practices. (shrink)

In this paper we consider one-to-many matching problems where the preferences of the agents involved are represented by monetary reward functions. We characterize Pareto optimal matchings by means of contractual exchange stability and matchings of maximum total reward by means of compensational exchange stability. To conclude, we show that in going from an initial matching to a matching of maximum total reward, one can always provide a compensation schedule that will be ex-post stable in the sense that (...) there will be no subset of agents who can all by deviation obtain a higher reward. The proof of this result uses the fact that the core of an associated compensation matching game with constraints is nonempty. (shrink)

This paper reviews the severe visual focus problems of health economists–they have developed a one-sided fixation with equity issues, neglecting the efficiency agenda. The problems of meeting need are not just about access–they will vary with cost and supply. Economists in fact developed a more balanced agenda in the 1970s but have failed to follow it up. The paper defines the triple nationalisation of the National Health Service , and presents evidence that pluralism, using the purchaser/provider split, has become (...) more efficient in long term care, home care and services for people with learning difficulties. Health economics has failed to explore options for using the dynamic forces of choice and competition for improving health services. The paper makes the case for a decision rule that “we should seek the process of health care service supply and development which maximises the delivery of high quality, lower cost user relevant services”. (shrink)

PurposeWe conducted a driving simulator study to investigate the effects of monitoring intersection cross traffic on gaze behaviors and responses to pedestrians by drivers with hemianopic field loss.MethodsSixteen HFL and sixteen normal vision participants completed two drives in an urban environment. At 30 intersections, a pedestrian ran across the road when the participant entered the intersection, requiring a braking response to avoid a collision. Intersections with these pedestrian events had either no cross traffic, one approaching car from the side (...) opposite the pedestrian location, or two approaching cars, one from each side at the same time.ResultsOverall, HFL drivers made more of cross-traffic on both the blind and seeing sides. They made more numerous and larger gaze scans when they fixated cars on both sides and had lower rates of unsafe responses to blind- but not seeing-side pedestrians. They were more likely to demonstrate compensatory blind-side fixation behaviors when there was no car on the seeing side. Fixation behaviors and unsafe response rates were most similar to those of NV drivers when cars were fixated on both sides.ConclusionFor HFL participants, making more scans, larger scans and safer responses to pedestrians crossing from the blind side were associated with looking at cross traffic from both directions. Thus, cross traffic might serve as a reminder to scan and provide a reference point to guide blind-side scanning of drivers with HFL. Proactively checking for cross-traffic cars from both sides could be an important safety practice for drivers with HFL. (shrink)

This chapter argues that virtue is a component of wellbeing. It argues on the “virtue is its own reward” side; specifically, the claim is that moral virtue is an intrinsic prudential benefit. Virtues are often classified as ‘self‐regarding’ and ‘other‐regarding’ depending on whether the primary benefit of the virtues accrues to the virtuous agent, or some other. Applying the method of difference argument shows that moral virtue is a benefit to the agent. A different means of assessing whether (...) moral virtue ought to be included on our objective list has been suggested by Brad Hooker, who applies the sympathy test to the question of whether moral virtue is a benefit to the agent. There are limitations to the sympathy test: specifically, the test seems to track matters other than wellbeing. Besides, the author believes a better application of the sympathy test will reveal that moral virtue is an intrinsic benefit. (shrink)

Decision making in any brain is imperfect and costly in terms of time and energy. Operating under such constraints, an organism could be in a position to improve performance if an opportunity arose to exploit informative patterns in the environment being searched. Such an improvement of performance could entail both faster and more accurate (i.e., reward-maximizing) decisions. The present study investigated the extent to which human participants could learn to take advantage of immediate patterns in the spatial arrangement of (...) serially presented foods such that a region of space would consistently be associated with greater subjective value. Eye movements leading up to choices demonstrated rapidly induced biases in the selective allocation of visual fixation and attention that were accompanied by both faster and more accurate choices of desired goods as implicit learning occurred. However, for the control condition with its spatially balanced reward environment, these subjects exhibited preexisting lateralized biases for eye and hand movements (i.e., leftward and rightward, respectively) that could act in opposition not only to each other but also to the orienting biases elicited by the experimental manipulation, producing an asymmetry between the left and right hemifields with respect to performance. Potentially owing at least in part to learned cultural conventions (e.g., reading from left to right), the findings herein particularly revealed an intrinsic leftward bias underlying initial saccades in the midst of more immediate feedback-directed processes for which spatial biases can be learned flexibly to optimize oculomotor and manual control in value-based decision making. The present study thus replicates general findings of learned attentional biases in a novel context with inherently rewarding stimuli and goes on to further elucidate the interactions between endogenous and exogenous biases. (shrink)

The search for new ideas often frustratingly cycles back to old ones, a phenomenon known as fixation. Recent research has shown ways to kick‐start finding new uses for familiar objects, a prototypical creativity task: wandering in the mind or the world or working on a messy desk. Those techniques seem to succeed by helping break fixation, but do not guide the search for new ideas. The perspective‐taking or human‐centric or empathic mindset championed by many in HCI and in (...) design firms does provide a search strategy. We compared the mind‐wandering mindset to a perspective‐taking mindset, the latter priming thinking of ways that people in different roles (gardener, artist, etc.) might use the objects. In two studies, the Perspective‐Taking mindset yielded more ideas and more original ideas than Mind‐Wandering, which did not differ from a No‐Mindset control. Original ideas came late, rewarding persistence. The perspective‐taking mindset is productive for problem‐solving, forecasting, and social interactions as well as innovation. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the ethical side of whistleblowing and to identify the main dilemmas generated by its practice. In the first part, the social dimension of whistleblowing has been outlined, and the defining features of reporting misconduct internally have been identified through contrasting them with those of external whistleblowing. This is followed by an attempt at an ethical evaluation of whistleblowing. The second part of this paper has been devoted to the analysis of two (...) important questions raised by the consideration of whistleblowing as a managerial instrument. Should whistleblowing be rewarded financially? Is whistleblowing not only an employee’s right, but also duty? (shrink)

Poor working conditions remain a serious problem in supplier facilities in developing countries. While previous research has explored this from the developed buyers’ side, we examine this phenomenon from the perspective of developing countries’ suppliers and subcontractors. Utilizing qualitative data from a major knitwear exporting cluster in India and a stakeholder management lens, we develop a framework that shows how the assumptions of conventional, buyer-driven voluntary governance break down in the dilution of buyer power and in the web of (...) factors rooted in suppliers’ traditions, beliefs, local demands and resource dependency. We reveal out how success in governing collaborative global supply chains often falls short within the subcontracting stage, where a stakeholder management mindset is elusive to most participants. We suggest that success in governing collaborative global supply chains is dependent on concepts of stakeholder utility and the presence of shared value that is often at odds with the realities of power, information asymmetry and compliance/reward systems inherent in the non-market coordination of global supply chains. Our findings offer important insights for delineating the concepts of value creation from CSR concepts and practices, and for modifying the basic assumptions of conventional supply chain governance. (shrink)

Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly--few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn (...) Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues--instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others--have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass. This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore. (shrink)

It is often believed that attentional bias for food is a stable trait of certain groups, like restrained eaters. However, empirical evidence from this domain is inconsistent. High-calorie foods are double-faceted, as they are both a source of reward and of weight/health concern. Their meaning might depend on the food-related context, which in turn could affect AB for food. This study primed 85 females with hedonic, healthy, and neutral contexts successively and examined whether food-related context affected AB for food (...) and if effects were moderated by dietary restraint. Both the mean tendencies of AB for food and variability of AB for food were assessed in a food dot-probe task with a recording of both reaction times and eye movements. Contrary to our hypotheses, AB for food was not significantly affected by either context or the interaction between context and dietary restraint. Instead, liking of the presented food stimuli was related to longer initial fixations and longer dwell time on the food stimuli. In addition, in line with prior research, body mass index was correlated with variability of AB for food instead of mean AB for food. In conclusion, this study did not find any support that AB for food is dependent on food-related context, but interestingly, reaction time-based variability of AB for food seems to relate to BMI, and eye movement-based mean AB seems to relate to appetitive motivation. (shrink)

The field of war ethics changes its focus, and grows, in reaction to salient conflicts of the day – and this is how things should be. World War II made the deficiencies of contemporary law and policy crystal clear, remaining the obvious reference point up to this day. It was in reaction to the atrocities of the Vietnam War that Michael Walzer and others made just war theory relevant again, featured in military academies and politician’s speeches. The Iraq War inspired (...) the so-called revisionists in just war theory and fixated military ethicists’ glance on the complex conundrums of counterinsurgency, while G.W. Bush’s War on Terror ignited debates on torture, use of private military contractors and targeted killing. Had these wars been different, contemporary ethics of war would have dealt with different problems, or at the very least it would apportion attention and expertise differently. Consequently it is no surprise that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched clandestinely in April 2014 and escalated in February 2022, has generated its own ethical problems. A rare large scale, conventional, inter-state conflict, fought both with legacy Soviet systems and cutting edge contemporary technologies, the Russo-Ukrainian War is different from the asymmetrical, low-end (though not low harm) conflicts of the last thirty years. It is also marked by the almost complete disregard shown by the aggressor side to the issues of justice, both ad bellum and in bello ones. Indeed, as I write these words, use of nuclear weapons in offensive warfare is being openly threatened, and one is to assume, considered, by the Kremlin. Both frost and hunger are being weaponized against civilians, with the inhabitants of Ukraine being far from the only target, or casualty, of such policies. In a globalized world, the suffering is also global. While the issue of ad bellum justice is uncharacteristically straightforward, many other questions are anything but answered. Nuclear blackmail, and nuclear-backed imperialism, stand out as theoretically underappreciated yet vastly important problems. So does the role of the global community in limiting the spillover effects of the war from hurting the most vulnerable. Devising an appropriate international response to crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed by a nuclear power, yet by conventional means, offers another set of stark problems. These heavyweight questions are just the very first ones that spring to mind when one contemplates the events of the current war. Russian attacks on power plants and heating stations, conducted at the verge of winter, unfortunately may be said to have some precedent in the actions of Western powers in Serbia and Iraq. Whether such attacks are legal under international laws of armed conflict, and, if they are legal, whether the laws should change is another subject ripe for debate. So is the issue of POW’s notorious vulnerability to wanton and needless cruelty, once again exposed by this war. The internment of Mariupol garrison commanders in Turkey seems to offer a glimpse of a solution far more civilized than the current system. As far as the ethics of novel military technologies are concerned, the widespread use of armed drones, permeating to ever lower levels of military organization has major, though unclear implications both for the future of drones and that of autonomous weapons. Does the wildfire proliferation of armed drones prove the attempts to frame them as illegitimate, morally suspect weapons were naïve and futile? Or does it prove ethicists should double down their efforts to shackle such technologies in their infancy? The general problem is far from the only one. What about the use of drones or autonomous weapons that cannot be tied to a particular actor against critical infrastructure, such as the Nord Stream pipelines? How are such attacks to be responded to or deterred? Regarding technology, this is also the first conflict of this size followed almost in real time by a truly global audience of sympathizers, spectators and trolls capable of impacting political and military outcomes through influence campaigns, donations, volunteer online work etc. It is clear that trying to sway one’s government to increase or cease support for a side of this conflict is not morally neutral, nor is transferring money for the war effort. How should we think of these new forms of extended participation in conflict? And given their importance, how should those who report the truth about the ugly realities of war proceed? What about pundits and commentators with large audiences – what are their responsibilities, and what standards can we expect of them? The questions that may be asked about the behavior of essentially private citizens may of course also be asked about the behavior of governments – and corporations. What degree of assistance to the victim state may be required? What degree of involvement with the aggressor state is permissible? What these and many other conundrums placed in the spotlight by the Russian invasion have in common is that they need answers – most quite urgently. Consequently we invite a variety of learned and considerate voices to opine on these in our journal’s special issue. Among questions and doubts, one thing is certain – when confronted with the evils of war, we cannot stay silent, and we cannot cease to reflect. (shrink)

Despite various studies examining intertemporal choice with hypothetical rewards due to problematic real reward delivery, there remains no substantial evidence on the effect of the incentives on the decision confidence and cognitive process in intertemporal choice and no comprehensive exploration on the loss domain. Hence, this study conducts an eye-tracking experiment to examine the effect of incentive approach and measure participants' decision confidence using a between-subject design in both gain and loss domains. Results replicated previous findings which show incentives (...) do not affect intertemporal choice in the gain domain. In contrast, in the loss domain, participants in the incentivized group were more likely to choose the larger-later options than those in the non-incentivized group. Furthermore, the decision confidence and the mean fixation duration differed between the incentivized and non-incentivized groups in both gain and loss domains. These findings allow for a better understanding of the effect of incentives on intertemporal choice and provide valuable information for the design of incentives in future intertemporal experiments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.3 (2003) 277-300 [Access article in PDF] Toward a Fragmatics, or Improvisionary Histories of Rhetoric, the Eternally Ad Hoc Cornelia Wells "Even historical truths are on the move, or truth is not the question." —my self "We don't / know much, and are / professors of it." —from Heather McHugh, "Professional Hazard," in McHugh (1987) In writing a history of rhetoric, we might want to know (...) before anything else both what rhetoric is and why we should care to be writing about it. Or we might begin with a notion of or motive for history or, more precisely, for doing or writing (a) history or histories (as opposed of course to History with a capital H, History proper, the "true whole" story and nothing else) of, specifically, rhetoric. 1 Or we might begin with a notion of subjectivity, of who this we is that concerns itself with this writing activity. Or we might focus on the writing itself, asking the question What is writing? or Who can do it? or What can it do? or What is it about? all of which may be much like answering or debating similar questions frequently asked about/of/through rhetoric. Indeed, rhetoric and writing, rhetoric and discourse, tend to be confused, or ecstatically intermingled, terms.Or fixating, as history so frequently does, on the oxymoronic notion of "final" origins, which function backward(ly) as destinations, we might begin with the question/justification of where or when rhetoric itself geographically/historically began and therefore establish the "proper" beginning place for our story of rhetoric to start. But as the contemporary poet Heather McHugh suggests, "where" may be "a narrow inquiry," and also when, for something always came before and generally from somewhere else, so that, ultimately, when and where never can be finally arrived at. 2 So we might, and probably will, follow the indirection or dereliction (as [End Page 277] opposed to direction) of the goddess Dike to Parmenides: "It is all one to me where I begin, for I shall return again." 3 Like Robert Frost, however, I doubt if I shall ever come back. Or not by the same road, believing with Heraclitus, "One cannot step twice into the same river" (or, perhaps less obviously, twice onto the same road) and that anyway it is "weariness to toil at the same tasks and be always beginning," at least beginning in the same place(s) (1979, Fragments LI and LIII). As they commonly say in Australia, a change is as good as a holiday. And anyway change arrives inevitably.So we may as well (as well as not) change our mind and change our route before it changes itself or us. We may as well turn away, before returning, pause from thinking about writing this particular history of rhetoric, about how or where or why to begin such a task in the "first" place (as if we have never previously occupied any other task or place), and consider instead some of the ways that histories of rhetoric have already been written or told or invented. But why should we make this turn? Well, for reconnaissance, I suppose. To get the lay of the land. To see the other side of the mountain. To show we've done our research. Or because a discipline demands continual recounting. To remain intact or stay in touch. Or for auld lang syne. Or so that improvisionarily, at least, "we shall have agreement on [']known['] premises, and the pursuit of further knowledge" (Rorty 1984, 67). Or to take stock. To see what's missing (as if we could say when the universe is full). Or to justify a point of departure. Or a point of entry into a conversation that preceded and therefore necessarily in some residual sense preempted or determined us. Or for just (only?) or unjust (not only?) cause. Or to establish ethos. Or just because. To show we "know." Auguring or augering (not arguing) a procedure Perhaps the best turn is to turn this essay, literally my attempted say, inside out... (shrink)

Chapter one is an introduction. In chapter two, I argue that, due to a lack of knowledge of Newton, Hume is unable to use the "Science of Man" to provide a foundation for the other sciences. Hume's account of causality and the missing shade of blue receive special attention. Hume tries, without paying attention to scientific practice, to constrain what science can be about. ;In chapter three, I reconstruct Adam Smith's epistemology. The major theoretical concept of Smith's moral psychology, the (...) "Impartial Spectator," illuminates his views on the articulation and reception of scientific theories; it brings out the open-ended, social and norm-governed nature of science. Sentiments motivate inquiry, but adopting its results can still be reasonable. After Newton, Smith is not a skeptic, but a realist. ;In chapter four, I explain Smith's methodology in Wealth of Nations . Smith employs a model to enable observed deviations from expected regularities to uncover genuine social causes and aid in improving theory in a potentially open-ended process of successive approximation. I draw on The History of Astronomy where Smith attacks Descartes for trying to explain away deviations from general rules. ;In Chapter five, I explain the political aims of Smith's WN. Smith is an Incremental Redistributionist . Smith's reform proposals and the values that guide his theorizing are in aid of the working poor. I attack a possible political counter-argument against this by attending to Smith's historical understanding of property; Smith's defense of property rights, following Hume's critique of Locke, is by no means absolute. Yet, Smith's appeals to "humanity" appear without justification in WN. ;In chapter six, I investigate the purpose of philosophy in commercial society. In the debate between Rousseau and Hume on philosophic self-understanding, between self-sufficiency and independence, Smith sides with the latter. Smith emphasizes, however, that once basic needs are met, friendship among equals is a more valuable than wealth; it provides happiness and is within every one's reach. Philosophers can enjoy immortality after death if they attempt to be benefactors to humanity, but Smith believes that philosophic friendship is its own and highest reward. (shrink)

Cultural routines, such as reading and writing direction (script direction), channel attention orientation. Depending on one's native language habit, attention is biased from left‐to‐right (LR) or from right‐to‐left (RL). Here, we further document this bias, as it interacts with the spatial directionality that grounds time concepts. We used a spatial cueing task to test whether script direction and the grounding of time in Portuguese (LR, Exp. 1) and Arabic (RL, Exp. 2) shape visuomotor performance in target discrimination. Temporal words (e.g., (...) tomorrow, yesterday) were presented as cues in two modalities: visual (Exp. 1–2) and auditory (Exp. 1). Gaze movement (Exp. 1) and speed of discrimination decisions (Exp. 1–2) of targets presented to the left or right sides of the screen were assessed. As predicted, the interaction between target location and time concepts was significant across both modalities and linguistic communities. Additionally, LR participants detected the target on the right side of the screen faster after a future word than the target on the left side of the screen after a past word cue. In contrast, RL participants detected the target on the left side of the screen faster when the cue word was a future word than the target on the right side of the screen cued by a past word. In both modalities, the initial eye‐gaze movement (Exp. 1) was responsive to the cue's time referent, further confirming that time orients attention. An additional bias was observed for the first fixation onset, which landed earlier on the target set that matched habitualized spatial routines. We conclude that scanning regularities are shaped by writing habits and bodily grounded categorical features. (shrink)

Experimental aesthetics has shed light on the involvement of pre-motor areas in the perception of abstract art. However, the contribution of texture perception to aesthetic experience is still understudied. We hypothesized that digital screen-based art, despite its immateriality, might suggest potential sensorimotor stimulation. Original born-digital works of art were selected and manipulated by the artist himself. Five behavioral parameters: Beauty, Liking, Touch, Proximity, and Movement, were investigated under four experimental conditions: Resolution (high/low), and Magnitude (Entire image/detail). These were expected to (...) modulate the quantity of material and textural information afforded by the image. While the Detail condition afforded less content-related information, our results show that it augmented the image’s haptic appeal. High Resolution improved the haptic and aesthetic properties of the images. Furthermore, aesthetic ratings positively correlated with sensorimotor ratings. Our results demonstrate a strict relation between the aesthetic and sensorimotor/haptic qualities of the images, empirically establishing a relationship between beholders’ bodily involvement and their aesthetic judgment of visual works of art. In addition, we found that beholders’ oculomotor behavior is selectively modulated by the perceptual manipulations being performed. The eye-tracking results indicate that the observation of the Entire, original images is the only condition in which the latency of the first fixation is shorter when participants gaze to the left side of the images. These results thus demonstrate the existence of a left-side bias during the observation of digital works of art, in particular, while participants are observing their original version. (shrink)

In this much-anticipated revision and translation of Scienza e Retorica, Marcello Pera argues that rhetoric is central to the making of scientific knowledge. Pera begins with an attack of what he calls the "Cartesian syndrome"--the fixation on method common to both defenders of traditional philosophy of science and its detractors. He argues that in assuming the primacy of methodological rules, both sides get it wrong. Scientific knowledge is neither the simple mirror of nature nor a cultural construct imposed by (...) contingent interests, thus we must replace the idea of the scientific method with that of scientific rhetoric. Pera proposes a new dialectics of science to overcome the tension between normative and descriptive philosophies of science by focusing on the rhetoric in the proposition, defense, and argumentation of theories. Examining the uses of rhetoric in debates drawn from Galileo’s Dialogues, Darwin’s Origins, and the Big Bang-Steady State controversy in cosmology, Pera shows how the conduct of science involves not just nature and the inquiring mind, but nature, the inquiring mind, and a questioning community which, through the process of attack, defense, and dispute, determines what is science. Rhetoric, then, is an essential element in the constitution of science as the practice of persuasive argumentation through which results gain acceptance. (shrink)

What makes the rule of law so special that it is to conscientiously punish the â oebadâ doers and reward the â oegoodâ onesâ "such that, where there is the rule of law, peace and order are to be expected, so that â oethe rule of law is better than the rule of any individualâ? Take the case of international law, as an illustration. While different international courts have been busy going after the killers of innocent victims in Rwanda (...) and Liberia, they have turned a blind eye to the major powers which have killedâ "on a much larger and more brutal scale, by comparisonâ "innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, just to cite two current examples. Contrary to the conventional wisdom conveniently held by many in human history, the rule of law has its other side which has not yet been systematically understood, such that the rule of law is neither possible nor desirable to the extent that the defenders of legal institutions in human history would like us to believe. Lest any misunderstanding hastily occur, this is not to imply that the rule of law is absolutely useless, or that the literature in jurisprudence (and other related fields like political philosophy, ethics, law and economics, and the sociology of law) should be dismissed because of its scholarly irrelevance. Of course, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, this book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of law, in relation to its necessity and contingency in the context of justiceâ "while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). In the process, this book offers a new theory to transcend the existing approaches in the literature in a new directionâ "in that, in the end, there is no justice without injustice and that it will be transcended too. This seminal project, if successful, will fundamentally change the way that we think about the nature of law, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its â oepost-humanâ fate. (shrink)

Let me attempt a drastic summary, or symbolic reduction, of Mr. Foss's adeptly metaphorical exposition. The use of the copula is, implicit in the appositive series, will do some violence to the complexity of the argument, but since causes and parts are frowned on by the same argument, the simpler arrangement cannot be altogether out of keeping. In logical and grammatical terms, we have on two sides of a profound ledger: "symbolic reduction," the divisive subject and predicate,--and "metaphoric process," the (...) underlying and unifying energy of the proposition, the subjectum. The negations of dialectic operate to show the insufficiency of symbolic concepts and are the "door to philosophic truth." And in ontological terms, we have on the one hand number, time, space, cause and effect, coincidence and contingency; and on the other the different, the naught, the apeiron, the potential, the tension of process, freedom and necessity in metaphoric lawful unity. There are two closely similar extremes of reduction between which one locates the transcendent philosophy of metaphor: that of sensationalism, the philosophy of the brute and atomic, and that of rationalism, the philosophy of expedient action. And in more or less theological terms, we have on the one hand the environment and its complement the ego, purposive and possessive; on the other, World, the I and the Thou, prayer, sin and grace in the metaphorical unity of consciousness, the widening power of personality in intercession or metaphorical representation. On the one hand, birth and death, past and future, and a present extending ad libitum into either; on the other, the eternal present of the integrated process stretching over past and future, expressed in its purest form in art. And so in aesthetic terms: on the one hand catharsis, a rationalized mixture of the ego's pleasure and pain, asceticism and hedonism, play; on the other, drama--especially tragedy, which par excellence action--Eudaimonia, purification, artistic distance, stylization, imagination, conscience, love. On the one hand, comedy in the sense of farce, environment symbolically reduced, actions and persons according to type, the mechanism of means and ends, rules, rituals, tricks, chance, the caricature of symbolic fixation--producing laughter: on the other hand, true and great comedy, the attempt to understand life in all its contradictions, producing the smile. (shrink)

In this study, the term of ‘blessing’, which is a basic Qurʾānic concept, is analyzed. In this regard, the study focuses on the definition of ‘blessing’, its different meanings in the various contexts, synonyms and antonyms and its leading individuals to the dimensions of faith, worship and morality. These subject matters are studied by taking into consideration of the meanings of ‘blessing’ in the Qurʾān and commentators’ explanations about the word. The expression of the ‘blessing’ in the Qurʾān indicates that (...) the word has an extensive and constructive meaning. The fact that having an extensive meaning demonstrates that the points the word encompasses can be determined to some extent. It is exemplified in the Qurʾān what can be regarded as ‘blessing’. Furthermore, the commentators determine various meanings to the word by considering the contexts in which the word is used. It is understood that the aim of using the word in the Qurʾān is to lead the individuals to the dimensions of the faith, worship and morality. It is possible for people to be grateful to God by making this aim more visible in their lives. -/- SUMMARY The word blessing mentioned in the Qurʾān has a general meaning. This type of words contains more than one subject inside them. The fact that the blessing contains more than one subject may be seen in the Qurʾānic attributions of it as well as seen in its dictionary and term meaning. Also, the way of explaining a part of subjects, which are in its content, points out this aspect. Thus, in the Qurʾān, the new ones are being added in another place to things referred as blessing in one place. Also, sometimes the blessings with entirely different contents are included. For example, the blessing of God upon Muslims is His support on a battle. In another place rendering them as brothers is a blessing. This is also an example that blessing was partially explained in the Qurʾān. The explanation of the word is sometimes in the same context and sometimes in different contexts. For example, in the verse 47 of the Surah al-Baqara, the blessing given to Jews in the time of Moses is mentioned. Starting from the next verse, between the verses 49-61, these blessings are aligned. Moreover, the blessing that was given to prophets, martyrs and righteous (siddiq) can be an example for the explanation of blessing in the different verses of the Qurʾān. These people who have been given blessing are mentioned side by side in the verse 69 of al-Nisā’. However, it is not explained that what the blessing given to them is. Each blessing mentioned is explained in different places in the Qurʾān. While some part of blessing is determined by the Qurʾān itself, the other part is attempted to be determined by commentators. Given that the explanations in the Qurʾān and commentaries, the subjects that affected by blessing can be divided into two as tangible and intangible blessings. The resources offered for humans to maintain their lives, emancipation a slave, the wind that helps the ship to move forward and Muhammad himself as a prophet are the tangible ones. Faith, miracle, mercy, reward, retrieving safety, the place where all kind of resources and ease, peace and happiness exist (Heaven) can be commentated as intangible blessings. The subjects included in the concept of blessing in the Qurʾān are changing according to the context. The blessing from God upon believers is “the faith granted by God on the earth” in one place, and “the Heaven bestowed in the afterlife” in another place. When determining the close and opposite meanings of the word, it should not be ignored this aspect of the blessing. In other words, it changes according to the context. For example, if the content of blessing is “the resource presented to human beings”, the close meaning of it in the Qurʾān is “compassion”, the opposite meaning of it is “harm”. However, if the thing that fell within blessing is “reward”, the close meaning will be “good deed”, opposite meaning will be “torment”. The blessing changes according to the addressed person as well. It is the all kind of resource that God presents to humans if the human kind is in question. If it is for a believer, it means moral support and every kind of reward as well as the resources offered. However, if it is relevant to a prophet, the prior meaning is prophethood as well as the meanings above. The expression of blessing in the Qurʾān helps us to have more opinion about it. For example, blessing has a positive meaning according to the Qurʾān. The word’s positive aspect is emphasized by comparing things that cannot be blessing to negative person types. The perception of blessing of Pharaoh and a hypocrite that is expressed in the Qurʾān can be evaluated in this content. According to the Qurʾān, the blessing they qualify is not in the context of blessing. Another aspect that draws attention in the expression of blessing in the Qurʾān is the relationship between the blessing giver and receiver. This relationship between God and servants takes place both in the earth and the afterlife. First, God has presented blessing to humans by considering that he/she is worth creating. Human beings show ingratitude or gratitude for being created and all other blessings. Here, the blessing is a test tool for humans. God responds according to the behaviors of human beings in test. He gives this response either only in the afterlife or both in the afterlife and the earth. If the humans respond the blessing with gratitude, God puts him/her to the heaven full of blessings in the afterlife. The blessing here is the result of the test on the earth. So the purpose of expression of blessing in the Qurʾān is to direct the humans to exhibit the behavior with that God is pleased, gain His contentment, deserve His heaven full of blessings. This is the reason that prophets remind the blessings of God to humans while they invite them to religion. Prophets invite people to believe, worship and be moral toward God as a response to these blessings. -/- Even though the content of blessing changes according to addressed person and time, the principle of the relationship between God and His servants does not change. Blessing and gratitude or blasphemy shall continue to exist as long as mankind exists. Here, the principle of “Every blessing’s gratitude is its own type” can be remembered. This principle recommends that giving thanks to God by tongue only for blessings will not be enough. Because of that, how should be grateful for different blessings should be exemplified. These definitions containing examples help us to understand better the purpose of expression of blessing in the Qurʾān. For example, the gratitude for humans’ own equipment can be through remembering always Him who gave that equipment, obey and worship Him constantly. Gratitude for children and good fortune happens by directing them towards God’s sake. As for the gratitude for the blessing of the universe, that contains signs of the existence of God, can be through recognizing his/her Creator and maintaining its existing order. If human beings break this order, he/she would be ungrateful because this would be an attitude against the one who created this order. Just as a servant might be ungrateful to God when he/she does not appreciate the blessing of prophet that reminds us God, exhibiting negative attitude against the universe that points out the existence of God is a kind of ungratefulness against God as well. So that, the blessing carries humans to faith and worship dimensions and also to moral dimension in terms of relationship between himself/herself and other things. The modern-day people need this Qurʾānic perspective. A human being should review his/her relationship between himself/herself, God, other people and the nature, then he/she should try to reach the Qurʾānic dimension by being grateful properly for blessings that he/she has. (shrink)

To those who know little about the Middle Ages, the copying of manuscripts of “the ancients” (whether classical, such as the Roman poet Horace, or Christian, such as Saints Jerome or Augustine) often seems either a laudable act of preserving the past or an unfortunate fixation on repeating the words of others rather than penning new and original compositions. Even scholars of the Middle Ages appear sometimes more interested in new types of works such as fabliaux or courtly romances (...) written in the vernacular; when they study the practice of copying, they often concentrate on identifying prototypes or legacies. Finding old wine in old bottles has been a fairly constant theme in medieval studies; sometimes, we must admit, medievalists have just thrown out the old bottles and moved on to something completely new. In this context, it may seem strange to find a work about medieval Latin manuscript commentaries titled “The Birth of the Author,” responding to Roland Barthes's well-known essay “The Death of the Author,” published in 1984 and cited repeatedly since. What can it mean to see new, self-conscious awareness of the act of personal creation in works that are copies by scribes of other works that themselves comment on yet earlier works, often of a certain age or canonicity? Yet in this intelligent, engaging, and beautifully produced book, art historian Jeffrey Hamburger not only shows how those who wrote commentaries came to suggest that anyone who composes a work (even the scribe who copies it) could be considered a creator of meaning but also that the images in commentaries themselves sometimes make statements—indeed, statements more radical than those in the text—about the author of the work being illustrated. Long known as one of the relatively rare historians of medieval art equipped with a wide knowledge of theology and hence of how images respond to and reflect text, Hamburger here shows himself possessed of a shrewd eye for the image itself. He studies illuminated prefaces to, among other texts, the prose and poetic works of Horace as used in the medieval classroom, copies of the major biblical commentary of the High Middle Ages, the Glossa ordinaria, and Rupert of Deutz's erotically charged commentary on the Song of Songs. Changing the lens through which scholars have usually viewed such texts, Hamburger argues that images of authors of commentaries sometimes go beyond anything in the text to assert the authority not only of the author of the text commented on and of the commentator but occasionally even of the scribe.The Birth of the Author is a work of complicated analysis, and its full power demands close attention. Understanding how images construct claims that go beyond the text involves a good deal of careful looking. Hamburger is a patient and clear guide, but the reader must be prepared to flip back and forth between the magnificent colored images the publisher provides and to follow what are often painstaking arguments from comparison of small visual differences or puzzling identifications of seemingly strange details. The result of doing so is, however, to gain not only the reward of Hamburger's ingenious conclusions but also a lesson in how to look. For example, in a discussion of Gilbert Universalis's commentary on the Lamentations of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, Hamburger shows how Gilbert not only identifies Jeremiah as a “divine rhetorician” but also assimilates his own act of authorship to Jeremiah's prophetic speech. In the only extant copy of Gilbert's text that has a program of illustrations, the artist constructs both Jeremiah's speech and Gilbert's interpretation as similar acts of creation by framing both authors in parallel architectural images that evoke the Old Testament temple and a Christian church. Or to give a final example of Hamburger's interpretive reach: the book concludes not with yet another medieval preface but with an example of the far less usual manuscript epilogue. Here not only commentator, scribe, and illustrator but even the medieval reader construct themselves. Reception becomes interpretation, illustration becomes construction. In a commentary by the Carolingian figure Sedulius Scotus (fl. 840–60) on the Roman grammarian Donatus (mid-fourth century), the illustrator depicts Donatus as author and scribe (thus assimilating author into copier and vice versa). On the same folio, a later medieval reader constructs himself as reader/author in a charming marginal doodle that seems to entrap Donatus in a sort of hangman's noose. Thus, a bit wryly perhaps, Hamburger—himself teacher, commentator, and consummate scholar—seems to suggest that even frustrated students can construct themselves as interpreters and, yes, authors. Behind the seeming repetition and backward glance of the images in medieval commentaries lies radical and forward-looking self-awareness of the acts of authoring, interpreting, reading, and imagining. In Hamburger's analysis, the most seemingly conventional of medieval genres—the preface to commentaries on the texts of others—is a locus of the birth in illustration of the self-conscious and self-expressive author and reader. (shrink)

This book is the first monograph in German dealing exclusively with F.C.S. Schiller, until now and even given today‘s "Renaissance of Pragmatism" the most neglected of the classical pragmatists. It tries for the first time to analyse aspects of his oeuvre as a "twofold Humanism": consisting of a more descriptive "methodical humanism" on the one side and a more normative "prophetic humanism" on the other side. These two and irreducible perspectives of Schiller's writing allow him to take into (...) account the human condition not, as most of the interpreters suggest, in a radical but in a holistic manner: man existing as an individual and as a member of society, as an I in relation to God, as a biological fact and as a still not yet realized ideal in the light of multiple forms of criticism and reform. Thus it becomes clear that Schiller's complex thought - logical, ethical, social, educational and metaphysical - cannot be confined to individual aspects, particularly not to the topos of the "theory of truth" as the common "reading" of his writing stereotypically insinuates. Rather, it revolves around the most fundamental question of philosophy as such: concerned with the meaning of life in its entirety, especially in the light of the modern threat of nihilism and pessimism. -/- Table of Contents (translated) -/- 1. Oversight 2. The Philosophically Designated Path into the Abyss 2.1. Agnosticism 2.2. Scepticism 2.3. Pessimism 3. The Methodical Humanism as Possibilism – The Conversion of Thought from Destinity to Possibility 3.1. In the Antechamber of Practice 3.2. Excursion: William James' Concept of the "Will to Believe" 3.3. "All that has become has History" 3.4. The Ethical Unmasking of Knowledge 3.5. Bertrand Russell's Critique of Pragmatism – Ennobling the Human by Degrading him 3.6. "Problems of Belief" – The Complexity of the Person 3.7. The Bilocal Fixation of Philosophy – as Public Office and Private Poetry 3.8. On the Half-Way – Retrospect and Prospect 4. The Prophetic Humanism Consisting in Personalistic Speculation and Genetic Manipulation 4.1. The Speculative Humanism 4.1.1. Naturalizing the Human as Humanizing the Nature 4.1.2. Excursion: The "Personal Idealism" of George Holmes Howison 4.1.3. Schiller's Theatrum Mundi – The World as a Pedagogical Play between God and Man 4.2. The Eugenical Humanism 4.2.1. Putting it on its Feet – Schiller's Political Diagnosis 4.2.2. The Eugenically Reformist March Through the Institutions 4.2.3. Excursion: The Humanistic Mobilization of Religious Reserves in John Dewey's "A Common Faith" 5. Follow-up. (shrink)

Different immunotherapeutic approaches are in the pipeline for the treatment of drug dependence. “Drug vaccines” aim to induce the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to drugs and prevent them from inducing rewarding effects in the brain. Drugs of abuse currently being tested using these new approaches are opioids, nicotine, cocaine, and methamphetamine. In human clinical trials, “cocaine and nicotine vaccines” have been shown to induce sufficient antibody levels while producing few side effects. Studies in humans, determining how (...) these vaccines interact in combination with their target drug, are underway. However, although vaccines can become a reasonable treatment option for drugs of abuse, there are several disadvantages that must be considered. These include i) great individual variability in the formation of antibodies, ii) the lack of protection against a structurally dissimilar drug that produces the same effects as the drug of choice, and iii) the lack of an effect on the drug desire that may predispose an addict to relapse. In addition, a comprehensive overview of several crucial ethical issues has not yet been widely discussed in order to have not only a biological approach to immunotherapy of addiction. Overall, immunotherapy offers a range of possible treatment options: the pharmacological treatment of addiction, the treatment of overdoses, the prevention of toxicity to the brain or the heart, and the protection of the fetus during pregnancy. So far, the results obtained from a small-scale experiment using vaccines against cocaine and nicotine suggest that a number of important technical challenges still need to be overcome before such vaccines can be approved for clinical use. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prelude to Tackling Contemporary Crises: William James and a Psychological Springboard to Political ChangePaul Croce (bio)“That selective industry of the mind,... incessantly deciding, among many things,... which ones for it shall be realities.”—William James, 1892 (PBC, 167)“[N]either the whole of truth, nor the whole of good, is revealed to any single observer.”—William James, 1899 (TT, 149)The modern world has witnessed tremendous increases in prosperity, and that material abundance has (...) spurred great achievements. But these successes have also brought enormous and troubling side effects. Climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, and more problems have grown into crises with potential to challenge the achievements themselves. Alongside these challenges, many outstanding proposals have also emerged for dealing with our present crises. The crises and the insights for addressing them are in a harrowing competition, reminiscent of what H. G. Wells called “a race between education and catastrophe.” During recent chapters of this contest, especially in the United States, sound suggestions for halting or reversing environmental deterioration and for reducing class and racial inequities have gained some public and political support but have also met considerable resistance.1 While direct work to [End Page 26] address the crises is important, those efforts can be supported with understanding of the people and ideologies resisting that work. In fact, neglect of these impediments, which can further enable them to reduce abilities or willingness to address problems or even notice them, may be the biggest crisis of all.Just as medication can directly heal an illness while rest and self-care can build up general strength to support recovery, so coping with crises calls for both grappling with them directly and also consideration of the impediments that reduce the strength of those steps toward social healing. The inquiry here serves as a complement to sound proposals for immediate action by diagnosing what has hindered their realization. Outcries against injustice and creative interventions address the acute conditions of current crises, while cultural assessments of ways those responses gain or lose attention serve as prescriptions for addressing the chronic conditions that have exacerbated the crises through distraction. As with medical issues, long-term and preventive care of chronic problems can support acute treatment, even as they do not displace the need for immediate action.This article confronts a puzzle about why so many people do not pay attention to such large problems in nature and society and what steps can be taken to bridge that divide between the committed and the distracted. The emphasis here on attention shifts focus away from ideological differences and toward the values selections that drive the ideological differences. This article portrays James’s own path as he learned from differences before explaining how his theories offer insights on how selective choices shape the assumptions supporting ideologies that so often form into hostile contrasts.2 In addition to these alerts about the challenges of disagreement, he also presents methods to encourage listening across differences for chances to turn some of those commitments into constructive possibilities rather than treating them as reasons [End Page 27] to fight. These ways to evaluate cultural and political debates and increase understanding about selective choices can shed light on how so many people have been unwilling or unable to pay attention to the mounting problems, and through encouragement of more listening with respect, these methods can encourage more support for addressing the crises themselves.I. Jamesian Ways to Listen Across DifferencesCharles Taylor calls William James (1842–1910) “our great philosopher of the cusp.” This brief, elegant expression depicts a borderland thinker adept at mediating contrasting ideas. James’s often-difficult experiences in development toward that way of thinking and that reputation provide more depth about the contrasts that he experienced on the way toward his creative syntheses in psychology and philosophy.3 His wrestling with different interpretations serves as a microcosm for the challenges and rewards of listening for potential insights on each side of even hostile contrasts. He designed deliberate ways to reckon with differences, considering each to be a partial yet valuable window into the human condition. In his youth, he was torn between the competing perspectives of religious thought... (shrink)

The participants in the present study had to make speeded elevation discrimination responses to visual targets presented to the left or right of central fixation following the presentation of a task-irrelevant auditory cue on either the same or opposite side. In Experiment 1, the cues were presented from in front of the participants (from the same azimuthal positions as the visual targets). A standard crossmodal exogenous spatial cuing effect was observed, with participants responding significantly faster in the elevation (...) discrimination task to visual targets when both the auditory cues and the visual targets were presented on the same side. Experiment 2 replicated the exogenous spatial cuing effect for frontal visual targets following both front and rear auditory cues. The results of Experiment 3 demonstrated that the participants had little difficulty in correctly discriminating the location from which the sounds were presented. Thus, taken together, the results of the three experiments reported here demonstrate that the exact co-location of auditory cues and visual targets is not necessary to attract spatial attention. Implications of these results for the design of real-world warning signals are discussed. (shrink)

In an item-method directed forgetting paradigm, participants were required to attend to one of two colored words presented on opposite sides of a central fixation stimulus; they were instructed to Remember or Forget the attended item. On a subsequent recognition test, the Attended words showed a typical directed forgetting effect with better recognition of Remember words than Forget words. Our interest was in the fate of the Unattended words. When the study display disappeared before the memory instruction, there was (...) no effect of that instruction on unattended words; when the study display remained visible during presentation of the memory instruction, there was a reverse directed forgetting effect with better recognition of unattended words from Forget trials than from Remember trials. Incidental encoding of task-irrelevant stimuli occurs following presentation of a Forget instruction – but only when those task-irrelevant stimuli are still visible in the external environment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art and Evolution:Spiegelman's The Narrative CorpseBrian BoydIHas art evolved, like opposable thumbs and the whites of our eyes? If it has, will knowing so help us understand better not just art in general but particular works, even works of avant-garde art? Over recent decades many have come to accept that not only have humans evolved from other animals but that many features of their minds and behavior can be (...) explained by the deep past of evolution.1 Yet art remains a puzzle for biocultural analysis. How can we explain art in the hard-nosed terms of biological advantage, especially if it lacks analogies or precursors in other species and seems so pleasurably part of being distinctly human?2Nevertheless we have good reasons to examine whether art might be an adaptation. All cognitively normal individuals in all known societies engage in some form of art, actively or at least passively: music and dance, story, visual art. No one has to be pressured into listening to music on a radio or an iPod. And like language but unlike reading and writing, art develops reliably to a basic level without special training.Art could be what evolutionary biologists call a byproduct, a mere side-effect of our bigger brains or of culture. Yet that seems unlikely. Byproducts by definition do not offer advantages in terms of survival and reproduction: a bodily or behavioral feature whose design offers such advantages we classify as an adaptation. But if art were a byproduct, if it offered on average no advantage in terms of survival and reproduction, many generations of intense evolutionary competition would have eliminated it. If art offered no benefits but exacted the costs it does in time, [End Page 31] energy and resources, it would over many generations have been selected against through the superior fitness of those less inclined to pay such costs, those who preferred to devote their time and energy to securing material or social advantage or simply to save energy by resting.We can understand art in all its varieties, I suggest, as cognitive play with pattern, with multiple, high-intensity patterns. Play exists throughout much of the animal kingdom: in all mammals in which it has been looked for, in birds, and even in invertebrates like octopi. Play, like sleep and dreaming, puzzles and fascinates biologists because it is so widespread and so highly conserved (evolutionary lineages in which play has arisen do not lose it as they continue to evolve) that it must fulfill some function, because it has high costs in energy and risk, and because its functions are not as evident as those of "serious" behavior.3The amount of play in a species correlates highly with the flexibility of its behavior. In all species in which it occurs, play seems remarkably self-rewarding. Animals like pigs and rats play compulsively. In fact this seems the core of play: the self-rewarding nature of play makes animals engage in exuberant, intense behaviors that, under conditions of relative security, allow them to extend their capacities and improve their competence in situations of minimal risk. The skills honed will prove of advantage in real world situations where it is too late to learn on the job, in situations like fight or flight. Because play is compulsive, animals engage in it again and again, incrementally altering their neural wiring, strengthening and speeding up synaptic pathways, improving their capacity and performance.Humans uniquely inhabit what has been called "the cognitive niche":4 we gain most of our advantages from intelligence. We have an appetite for information, and especially for pattern, for information that falls into meaningful arrays from which we can make rich inferences. We therefore like bright, distinct colors, crisp outlines, complex shape or surface design: think of our special fondness for butterflies and flowers. And we have an appetite for open-ended pattern, new kinds of patterns, not only the patterns we have evolved to detect automatically. Vervet monkeys signal to one another in different ways when they see snakes, or leopards, or eagles, because they need to react in different ways to different threats, but they never learn to associate... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 475-477 [Access article in PDF] A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life, by André Comte-Sponville, trans. Catherine Temerson; x & 352 pp. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001. Of two minds, I mirror the two sorts of audience this book's twenty-four translations have sought: "students" and "readers" (p. 5), those for whom the scholarly content and apparatus may (...) be of interest and those hopefully many more who wish to become better, to become virtuous. Although "students" will not find sustained engagement with this book rewarding, its bright virtues will raise "readerly" smiles among them.Reasons for Small's great popularity since its 1995 PUF release derive not from essaying eighteen virtues in its eighteen chapters. Its allure is its dance with love's piquant absences, a dance with virtues as "feeble approximations of love" (p. 98). Indeed, chapter 1 teaches that politeness "is not a virtue but a simulacrum that imitates virtue (in adults) and paves the way for it (in children)" (p. 13). And since love, "the alpha and omega of all virtue" (p. 226), is not itself clearly a virtue, then perhaps at most fifteen virtues are treated. For as all readers will pleasurably discover, purity (chapter 14) is really refractions of love's qualities.The virtues are multiply interconnected, not unified as Socrates thought. This idea finds graceful expression, among other places, at the conclusion of "Generosity" (chapter 7). "Combined with courage, it turns out to be heroism. Joined by justice, it becomes equity. Coupled with compassion, it becomes benevolence. In league with mercy, it becomes leniency" (p. 102). And chap-ter 9's mercy? "Because hatred is a sadness, mercy (like the process of mourning, which it resembles and might even require, since to forgive is to bid farewell to our hatred) is on the side of joy. When it is not yet joyous, it is forgiveness; when it already is, it is love" (p. 131). Simone Weil's meditations on God's absence, or "withdrawal," occasion insights into authentic parental love. [End Page 475] God does not fill the world since "were he to do so, there would be only God and no world"; similarly, "more often than one might think, parents withdraw, step back, cede their space to their children, and refrain from exercising all the power at their disposal. Why? Because they love them" (p. 274).Unfortunately, love's flowers, potted in this garden of Adonis (Phaedrus 276b), must contend with "student" scrutiny from without and a suffocating lack of concision from within. This "student's" efforts failed to disentangle ambivalences about the loving ego in the long, concluding love chapter. Organized into three sections—eros, philia, agape—the first has no patience for subtleties of the Symposium's eros. "Have I begged the question?... So be it," since Plato confuses "love—in all its forms—with [ego's] want" (p. 243). Philia "is a different way of [ego's] possessing, of enjoying" (p. 277). Finally, agape, universal and disinterested love, is simply one's genuine conatus, one's true power of existing (pp. 270f). So ego loves three ways—desire, possession, power—but each is about ego. Eros "usually" (p. 262) intermixes with philia: "we are forever hesitating, oscillating, fluctuating between the two affects [desire and joy] and the two truths (Plato's and Spinoza's), between want and capacity, hope and gratitude, passion and action, religion and wisdom, between the love that desires only what it does not have and wants to possess (ero \ s), and the love [philia] that, since it desires only what is, has everything it desires and finds pleasure and joy in it" (p. 253). Nevertheless, philia without excess Platonic eros is about and for ego, not alter. For the friend per se gives ego joy: ego's joy is the definiens of philia (pp. 249ff). Disconcertingly, there are a few contrary formulations of philia as loving "the other for the other's benefit" (p. 262). If "metaphysics is the... (shrink)

Insect vision is nothing if not active. The regular head movements, called saccades, enable the fly Drosophila to keep a straight path in flight despite inequalities in the thrust of the wings. Using their own motion, bees in flight measure the ranges of nearby objects. A long history of research shows that bees discriminate visually in ways that depend on their activity or task, so we must distinguish between vision during flying, fixating or hovering and landing.Bees return again and again (...) for a reward of sugar solution and use their eyes to find their way. In an apparatus that makes them discriminate between two simulataneously visible but regularly interchanged targets, seen at a distance of 27 cm, bees are able to distinguish a remarkable number of simple patterns, but they fail in certain critical cases. The results can be explained with the hypothesis that bees have several broadly tuned overlapping filters with large fields that respond to the predominant orientation in a region of the image, and others for radial and circular patterns. Together with colour, these filters are independent of range. Bees prefer to use landmarks where they can, then global pattern at the largest scale, and lastly the detail around the goal. The way that discrimination of one visual feature is independent of other variables can be explained by models analogous to the colour triangle in colour discrimination. (shrink)

Background: Facial attractiveness influences our perceptions of others, with beautiful faces reaping societal rewards and anomalous faces encountering penalties. The purpose of this study was to determine associations of visual attention with bias and social dispositions toward people with facial anomalies. -/- Methods: Sixty subjects completed tests evaluating implicit bias, explicit bias, and social dispositions before viewing publicly available images of preoperative and postoperative patients with hemifacial microsomia. Eye-tracking was used to register visual fixations. -/- Results: Participants with higher implicit (...) bias scores fixated significantly less on the cheek and ear region preoperatively (P = 0.004). Participants with higher scores in empathic concern and perspective taking fixated more on the forehead and orbit preoperatively (P = 0.045) and nose and lips (P = 0.027) preoperativel. -/- Conclusions: Participants with higher levels of implicit bias spent less visual attention on anomalous facial anatomy, whereas participants with higher levels of empathic concern and perspective taking spent more visual attention on normal facial anatomy. Levels of bias and social dispositions such as empathy may predict layperson gaze patterns toward those with facial anomalies and provide insights to neural mechanisms underlying the "anomalous is bad" paradigm. (shrink)

Philosophy in nature strips away the pomp of institutions and the ideal of athleticism while creating an opportunity for a basic human exchange that is all too rare – it sets people side by side on the land to talk things over and think things through. Like any endeavor, operating philosophy tours has distinctive challenges and rewards. Doing philosophy in nature is a tour of the land and of ideas. Taking this into account might make the idea of (...) a “philosophy tour guide” sound more plausible and less bizarre. These tours usually happen on public lands, and so it is grounded in the political realities in which we live. Doing philosophy in nature is a unique opportunity to allow the amazing natural environment to facilitate personal growth and insight. (shrink)

In his classic work The Mind and its Place in Nature published in 1925 at the height of the development of quantum mechanics but several years after the chemists Lewis and Langmuir had already laid the foundations of the modern theory of valence with the introduction of the covalent bond, the analytic philosopher C. D. Broad argued for the emancipation of chemistry from the crass physicalism that led physicists then and later—with support from a rabblement of philosophers who knew as (...) much about chemistry as etymologists—to believe that chemistry reduced to physics. Here Broad’s thesis is recast in terms more familiar to chemists. In the hard sell of particle physics, several prominent figures in chemistry—Hoffmann, Primas, and Pauling—have had their views interpreted to imply that they were sympathetic to greedy reductionism when in fact they were not. Indeed, being chemists without physicists as alter egos, they could not but side with Broad’s contention that chemistry, as a science that deals primarily in emergent phenomena which are beyond the purview of physicalism, owes no acquiescence to particle physics and its ethereal wares. Historically, among the most widely used expediencies in chemistry and materials science are additivity or mixture rules and their cohort transferability, all of which are devised and used under the mantle of naive reductionism. Here it is argued that while the transfer of functional groups between molecules works empirically to an extent, it is strictly outlawed by the no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics. Several illustrative examples related to chemistry’s irreducibility to physics are presented and discussed. The failure of naive reductionism exhibited by the deep-inelastic scattering of leptons by A > 2 nuclei is traced to the same flawed reasoning that was the original basis of Moffitt’s ‘atoms in molecules’ hypothesis, the neglect of context, nuclei in the case of high-energy physics and molecules in the case of chemistry. A non-exhaustive list of other contexts from physics, chemistry, and molecular biology evidencing similar departures from the ideal of additivity or reductionism is provided for the perusal of philosophers. Had the call by the mathematician J. T. Schwartz for developments in mathematical linguistics possessed of a less single, less literal, and less simple-minded nature been met, perhaps it might have persuaded scientists to abandon their regressive fixation with unphysical reductionism and to adapt to new methodologies that engender a more nuanced handling of ubiquitous emergent phenomena as they arise in Nature than is the case today. (shrink)

In this article I argue the relevance of natural law for framing and addressing ethical issues raised by the practice of business in a global context. There are historical, as well as systematic reasons for this. On the historical side, it can be argued that the origin of modern economics is linked to a cultural context, still influenced by modern natural law theories. Thus, even if Hume’s moral theory is everything but a natural law theory, either in the traditional (...) or the modern sense, his “laws of nature” (fixation of property, rules for its transference, and promises) represent a systematization of the rules of justice necessary to preserve the space of economic freedom required for development of a commercial society. This systematization is in line with the classical approach to natural law, which nevertheless presents further advantages for developing an ethical approach to economic activity, since it brings with itself a conception of economic agency richer than that of Hume: a conception that is not necessarily linked to pursuit self-interest, but rather is inspired by ethical motives right from the start. Indeed, on the systematic side, the classical natural law is seen as the law of practical reason: a set of principles in charge of inspiring both virtuous action and legal practice, so that we can realize the human good. Assuming the embodied and social nature of human beings, as well as the various cultural realizations of humanity, a natural law approach to ethics is in a position to stimulate a dynamic and bottomup articulation of the personal and common good, concern for progress and sustainable development, universal principles and cultural variations. (shrink)

The influence of John Locke's thought in Europe and America rests largely on his articulation and defence of a liberal political philosophy, and in his formulation of a theory of knowledge where experience and environment provide the exclusive starting points in the educational process. Generally he continues to be associated with the eighteenth-century 'Age of Reason' or Enlightenment, where the malleability of human nature, together with the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual, were placed at the forefront of reform (...) efforts on both sides of the Atlantic. This book argues that while Locke's concern for the enhancement of individual autonomy, religious toleration, and constitutional government was indeed fundamental to later generations, Locke himself viewed the improvement of the human condition in terms of its relationship to the ancient Christian story. In particular, Locke's larger integration 'project' was to assist his contemporaries in their efforts both to recognise and to secure the greatest happiness. Locke, in other words, was chiefly interested in life beyond the grave, in salvation, and his recommendations for the reform of politics, education and religion were all viewed by the author as instrumental to the chief business of humankind. Locke's universe was a God-directed one, where human's were set specific tasks and where reward was contingent upon behaviour in this life. Locke viewed himself as a defender of the historical faith, and his work was devoted to broadening the opportunities for individual salvation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Daoism, Practice, and Politics:From Nourishing Life to Ecological PraxisEric S. Nelson (bio)I. Daoism's Multiple ModelsManhua Li, Yumi Suzuki, and Lisa Indraccola have offered evocative insights, questions, and alternatives in their contributions concerning the arguments of Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life (Nelson 2021). The present brief response and sketch of the book will not address every point in their essays, but I will strive to reply, directly and indirectly, (...) to their primary concerns.First, it should be noted that I take a pluralistic conception of 'Daoisms' as my point of departure. This is necessary since Daoist studies have been hampered by overly ahistorical and one-sided definitions that prioritize one philosophical or religious moment (such as skepticism or mysticism) in historically complex and varied transmissions that encompass a multiplicity of texts and perspectives. Due to the fact of the plurality of incompatible kinds of Daoism in Chinese antiquity and in subsequent history, my text considers a range of early Daoist and Daoist-related perspectives in the context of their potential consequences for environmental philosophy, ethics, and politics. Consequently, my approach is primarily philosophical without limiting any text to being exclusively philosophical, religious, or rigidly committed to one perspective, which would be untrue to the sources themselves.Second, examining distinctive tendencies (modifying Graham 1989 and Liu 1994) in the Daodejing 道德經, the Zhuangzi 莊子, and related texts enables us to articulate distinctive and conflicting ecological, ethical, and political paradigms. In place of constructing a mythologizing ideological construction of 'Chinese culture' and Daoism as intrinsically 'Green', a familiar essentializing tendency that has provoked skepticism regarding the very possibility of Daoist environmental philosophy, my book provides a different 'critical Daoist' strategy. This alternative entails that Daoist exemplars can be deployed as therapeutic models in the present, while at [End Page 792] the same time confronting their ideological codifications and uses. Early Daoist sources have roamed on long intercultural journeys. The Daodejing and the Zhuangzi have provided elements for European thinking about civilization, technology, and nature from Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger (Nelson 2017) to Peter Sloterdijk's 'Euro-Taoism' (Sloterdijk 1989) to contemporary progressive Green movements (Joshi 2022) and even ecofascism (Lubarda 2020). Similarly, in the current Chinese context, Green Daoism has both critical and authoritarian ideological functions in visions of 'ecological civilization' (shengtai wenming 生態文明) (Schönfeld and Chen 2019) and fears of a 'green leviathan'. Accordingly, it is not accidental that my anarchistic and participatory democratic interpretation of one key thread, which I call 'ziranist' and clarify below, in early Daoist and Wei-Jin mysterious-learning (xuanxue 玄學) discourses, has led to the most intense discussions and controversies about this book. These include the contributions by Li, Suzuki, and Indraccola that propose questions and alternative possibilities concerning agency and responsiveness, authority and self-determination, freedom and fate, and adaptation and intervention, as well as purposive techniques and anti-purposive uselessness.Third, this hermeneutical strategy points toward the tertiary aspect of our preliminary definition of Daoism. It does not primarily name a philosophical theory or a religious worldview. It concerns shifting, overlapping, and diverging ensembles of discourse and practice. This is not the vague ahistorical idea of 'a way of life' but rather refers to how philosophy is enacted through a specific configuration of—to adopt early Greek expressions—logos as dis-course (e.g., argumentation, hermeneutics, logic, rhetoric), ethos (e.g., comportment, orientation, a way of dwelling), and praxis (practices of the self, with others, and with things and nature). Thus, the Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi collections can be analyzed textually and conceptually as having multiple threads (drawing on a variety of authors and sources) that form constellations in the received texts with better and worse historical, practical, and conceptual readings. My interpretive strategy in this discussion, which does not exclude other approaches, is that these texts express forms of practical instead of merely speculative philosophy. They are suggestive of an ethos of relational freedom, irreducible to rules and techniques, which dismantles hypostatized experiential and linguistic fixations, including moralistic fixations, in order to freely encounter the myriad things and enact and practice the dao in one's own singular way.'Critical Daoism', therefore, serves as a pluralistic, diagnostic, and practical designation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Till Death Do Us Part”? Buddhist Insights on Christian MarriageWioleta PolinskaHigh divorce rates and declining marriage rates in Western societies draw the attention of many scholars to the fragility of contemporary marriages.1 Rampant individualism, permissive divorce law, and softening stance on divorce by mainstream Christian denominations are all listed as culprits responsible for the current marriage crisis.2 These conventional accounts, however, overlook important insights gathered by historians of marriage, (...) insights that point to a dramatic shift in the concept of marriage that occurred more than two hundred years ago. According to Stephanie Coontz, “the invention of the historically unprecedented idea that marriage should be based on love and mutual affection” 3 is responsible for greater fragility, but also for creating good, satisfying marriages that bring much happiness to people’s lives.4 Thus, the very source of fragility (the search for love and mutual affection) is also a source of deep connections and lasting relationships. While the fragility accompanying contemporary marriage is here to stay, our efforts to build strong unions need to be carefully evaluated. In what follows, I will address Christian and Buddhist approaches that aim at protecting the stability of marriage. To strengthen marriage, Christianity, from early on, focused on the permanence of marriage whether understood as a sacrament or, later on, as a covenant. Christian wedding vows that promise love, care, and enduring partnership “till death do us part” capture well the prevailing theology of Christian marriage. In contrast, Buddhism employs a concept of impermanence that implies an ever-changing reality that warrants no finality. Recent studies in psychology of mindfulness meditation show that such Buddhist concepts can translate well into effective skills for those in loving relationships. I will suggest that Christian theology might become more successful at preserving the stability of marriage by becoming less focused on the finality of couples’ bonds, and instead attending to the present reality of couples’ relationships.It is well documented that before the seventeenth century marriages were arranged by parents and fulfilled primarily political, economic, and social functions rather than individual needs. Marriage was seen as a means of enlarging one’s economic enterprise, acquiring powerful in-laws, strengthening military alliances, or (for the less [End Page 29] privileged) enlarging the family’s labor force.5 This is not to say that the notion of romantic love was unknown until the seventeenth century, but that it was not closely associated with marriage.6 In aristocratic courts of southern France, for example, romantic love appeared between an unmarried man and a married woman, and it should have been either unconsummated or adulterous.7 As late as the eighteenth century, a “sudden falling head over heels in love, although a familiar enough psychological phenomenon, was thought of as, a mild form of insanity” and an unreasonable basis for marriage.8 Romantic love became widely accepted only in the nineteenth century under the influence of Enlightenment thought, ideals of the French and American Revolutions and of the romantic movement.9Romantic love as an expression of an individual’s desire for fulfillment has its dark side, as it can unleash selfish concerns. Thus, Robert A. Johnson, a Christian theologian, defines romantic love as “airy, fantasy, projections, and an evanescent high. It is fundamentally egotistical—fixated on its own wants and whims. It can never lay the foundation for personal commitments.” 10 The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh (b. 1926) states that love can become a kind of sickness when it forms an attachment, similar to drug dependency. When we are under its spell, we are preoccupied with the object of our love and we desire to control and possess the other. To Ven. Hạnh, this is not true love since “it is only the willingness to make use of the other person in order to satisfy our own needs.” 11 Both Johnson and Ven. Hạnh while criticizing romanticized concepts of love are not giving up on possibility of intimate love. Johnson calls this intimate connection with another person a “human love,” a love that affirms and appreciates another person as she or he actually is, in their totality. Instead of prizing... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nobel Rhetoric; or, Petrarch's PendulumPhilippe-Joseph SalazarVery many authors who have their roots in other countries work in Europe, because it is only here where you can be left alone and write, without being beaten to death. It is dangerous to be an author in big parts of Asia and Africa.1The ceremony of [Petrarch's] coronation was performed on the Capitol, by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the (...) republic... and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of Rome, he knelt before the throne and received from the senator a laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit."(Gibbon 1952, 2:573)§1.I would like to address a simple question: what is a Nobel laureate's speech?2 With a corollary: how does it provide an opportunity to perform as a public intellectual, a "philosopher" of sorts? And a further corollary: what does it say about intellectual compliance or resistance? There is a play on words in the title of this essay, made to draw attention to the rhetorical construction of a commonplace, mass media-induced belief: that Nobel laureates are, in essence, "noble minds."3 For brevity's sake this essay focuses mainly on the literature prizes and, to a lesser extent, the peace prizes. [End Page 373]§2.At face value, a Nobel Prize is a rhetorical event (from the time the winner is announced to the moment of the Nobel address): over the recent years, rituals attached to the Nordic apotheosis have attracted growing media interest—they belong to "breaking news"—lending laureates a public exposure that, in turn, has led them to perform a public role or to publicly decline this performance, literally to "dispose of " it—"disposure" as the antistrophe of exposure. The public is usually aware of the announcement of the name of the winner, who instantly becomes a global "brand." Publicity and news programs follow suit, and if a recipient's ethical qualities resonate with the ethical preoccupations of the day (gender is one) the better the news value. Arguments are built on the announcement and often recur when, in early December, recipients deliver their Nobel addresses.This rhetorical event may indeed take the shape of a "rhetorical situation" if national pride or state concerns impose an exigency onto laureates—it is interesting to note that the media are complicit in stressing the national value of an award. The exigency resembles the one applied by them to sport performances. However, while the practices of public reward and public performance no longer allow a sportsperson to decline a medal or to express personal views on a podium to the public strains of a national hymn,4 they do still allow Nobel laureates to absent themselves, as André Gide did in 1947 (this strategy gave him the opportunity, in a terse banquet speech read on his behalf, to express his view that Paul Valéry had been overlooked by the Nobel, thus turning the award into a muted invective; see Gide 1947), to say they don't care, that their country of origin did little for them, and even, although rarely, to decline or to express amusement at the award.5 In short, beside "disposure," they can perform "exposure" through acceptance or dismissiveness, thus drawing a merciful line between reward (in sport) and award (the Nobel).A rhetorical situation is indeed created when a Nobel winner is seen as betraying state or nation by accepting the prize. In one reverse case, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was berated for not accepting it (in 1964), in spite of the fact that, at that time, his philosophy and political engagement made clear to the French state and the French public that he abhorred them both. In 2003, South Africans learned at their expense how reward and award are borderline and therefore not on the same side: they failed to thank J. M. Coetzee for his temperance, when, having resettled in Australia at the time of his award, he waited for a while before taking Australian citizenship.6 The Nobel Foundation's rightful insistence on disregarding [End Page 374] nationality does not mean nationality... (shrink)