This essay reflects on 25 years since Christian Bioethics began publication and, in somewhat autobiographical fashion, engages two core concerns. First, although “non-ecumenism” may often appear a pretext for contention and division, I suggest that a respectful non-ecumenism may provide the opportunity for dialogue and the occasion for employing certain tools from religious studies. Second, although many are skeptical about the possibilities of identifying a “common morality,” a defense of that notion provides a plausible explanation for the development of limited (...) consensus on some issues in bioethics. (shrink)

Searle has recently used two adaptations of his Chinese room argument in an attack on connectionism. I show that these new forms of the argument are fallacious. First I give an exposition of and rebuttal to the original Chinese room argument, and then a brief introduction to the essentials of connectionism.

Extensive research has documented the harmful effects associated with working for a narcissistic supervisor. However, little effort has been made to investigate ways for victims to alleviate the burdens associated with exposure to such aversive persons. Building on the tenets of conservation of resources theory and the documented efficacy of functional assets to combat job-related stress, we hypothesized that subordinates’ resource management ability would buffer the detrimental impact of narcissistic supervisors on affective, cognitive, and behavioral work outcomes for subordinates. We (...) found support for our hypotheses across three independent samples of US workers. Specifically, higher levels of subordinate resource management ability attenuated the harmful effects of supervisor narcissism on employee-reported emotional exhaustion, job tension, depressed mood, task performance, and citizenship behavior. Conversely, these relationships further deteriorated for subordinates with lower levels of resource management ability. Overall, our research contributes to the literature that, although extensively documenting the harmful ramifications of narcissism in organizations, has neglected to investigate potentially mitigating factors. (shrink)

Chaos theory is a rapidly growing field. As a technical term, chaos refers to deterministic but unpredictable processes being sensitively dependent upon initial conditions. Neurobiological models and experimental results are very complicated and some research groups have tried to pursue the neuronal chaos. Babloyantz's group has studied the fractal dimension (d) of electroencephalograms (EEG) in various physiological and pathological states. From deep sleep (d=4) to full awakening (d>8), a hierarchy of strange attractors paralles the hierarchy of states of consciousness. In (...) epilepsy (petit mal), despite the turbulent aspect of a seizure, the attractor dimension was near to 2. In Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, the regular EEG activity corresponded to an attractor dimension less than the one measured in deep sleep. Is it healthy to be chaotic? An active desynchronisation could be favourable to a physiological system. Rapp's group reported variations of fractal dimension according to particular tasks. During a mental arithmetic task, this dimension increased. In another task, a P300 fractal index decreased when a target was identified. It is clear that the EEG is not representing noise. Its underlying dynamics depends on only a few degrees of freedom despite yet it is difficult to compute accurately the relevant parameters.What is the cognitive role of such a chaotic dynamics? Freeman has studied the olfactory bulb in rabbits and rats for 15 years. Multi-electrode recordings of a few mm2 showed a chaotic hierarchy from deep anaesthesia to alert state. When an animal identified a previously learned odour, the fractal dimension of the dynamics dropped off (near limit cycles). The chaotic activity corresponding to an alert-and-waiting state seems to be a field of all possibilities and a focused activity corresponds to a reduction of the attractor in state space. For a couple of years, Freeman has developed a model of the olfactory bulb-cortex system. The behaviour of the simple model without learning was quite similar to the real behaviour and a model with learning is developed. (shrink)

This article examines the impact that the interplay between workplace, the welfare state and global working life has on female workers when they become pregnant. By focusing on two highly educated Norwegian female workers, it explores how this change process takes place in two companies operating in the global market located in different countries: Norway and the US. Pregnancy contributes to transforming the neutralized bodiless female worker into an embodied worker with gender. The female workers' experiences and negotiations represent forms (...) of global action on local stages. This is illustrated by four processes: `married to work', `pregnant and still married to work', `negotiating separation from work' and `excluding mothering'. The findings indicate the significance of taking welfare state and workplace policy approaches into consideration in studies of global effects on employees. (shrink)

Do we remember what pain feels like? Investigations into this question have sometimes led to ambiguous or apparently contradictory results. Building on research on pain memory by Rohini Terry and colleagues, I argue that this lack of agreement may be due in part to the difficulty researchers face when trying to convey to their study’s participants the type of memory they are being tasked with recalling. To address this difficulty, I introduce the concept of ‘qualitative memory’, which, arguably, is the (...) sort of memory we have of what red looks like yet lack with respect to pain. I also briefly address a number of consequences the acknowledgment of qualitative memory would potentially have for philosophy, arguing that if we fail to have qualitative memories of certain sensations, such as pain, the standard philosophical accounts of experience, rational choice, and the sources of moral action may all need revision. (shrink)

El jesuita mexicano del siglo XVIII Clavigero fue considerado como el pensador más distinguido de su tiempo. Aquí se investiga su contribución a la introducción en México de la física moderna, considerada en su época como filosofía moderna.