Summary The need for education in moral values is increasingly being recognised today, but how is it to be conducted in schools? In particular we consider the appropriateness or otherwise of a teacher assuming the role of a neutral chairperson in discussion. Advocacy of such a stance is especially associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who saw neutrality as a procedural device in order to empower students? own involvement. We point out many of the insights of Stenhouse's approach, but also some of (...) its disadvantages which subtly encourage a popularist form of relativism. We suggest the substitution of procedural neutrality with a different approach, that of critical affirmation. Here the teacher advocates a stance alongside everyone else. This, however, is done in a way that affirms pupils, and their right to personal views, whilst subjecting all views, including the teacher's own, to a close scrutiny, especially regarding implications for the views of others. (shrink)

Brenda Watson asks where moral and religious indoctrination ends and education begins, and tackles the arguments of some liberals.

The search for common ground is hugely important and it depends on understanding in as fair a way as possible how words are being used by opponents in debate – in this case naturalism and theism.

Reginald Williams in (Think Autumn 2011) argued that the psychological need offers for endorsing atheism over theism. My article outlines six objections to his thesis, questioning how empirically verifiable the evidence he adduces is, and pointing out various logical fallacies such as illicit use of generalizations and begging the question. It concludes that atheism needs defending on stronger grounds.

A response to Lataster's article defending Jesus’ agnosticism in Think 43Export citation.

Starting from support for James's critique of Clifford's dictum, the article argues for holding beliefs, whether secular or religious, firmly but provisionally, remaining open to fresh experience. This consideration prompts reflection on the debate following the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Alternative beliefs were opposing each other with seemingly equal certainty. The justification for insistence on the right to free speech itself requires scrutiny. The article finishes by noting the baleful effects of the intellectual apartheid which has tended to be practised (...) in the West which presumes that religion and reason have nothing to do with each other. (shrink)

The need for education in moral values is increasingly being recognised today, but how is it to be conducted in schools? In particular we consider the appropriateness or otherwise of a teacher assuming the role of a neutral chairperson in discussion.Advocacy of such a stance is especially associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who saw neutrality as a procedural device in order to empower students’ own involvement. We point out many of the insights of Stenhouse's approach, but also some of its disadvantages (...) which subtly encourage a popularist form of relativism.We suggest the substitution of procedural neutrality with a different approach, that of critical affirmation. Here the teacher advocates a stance alongside everyone else. This, however, is done in a way that affirms pupils, and their right to personal views, whilst subjecting all views, including the teacher's own, to a close scrutiny, especially regarding implications for the views of others. (shrink)

Retroviral lineage tracing experiments suggest that the cortical ventricular zone is composed of a mixture of precursor cell types. The majority generate a single cell type (neurones, astrocytes or oligodendrocytes) and the remainder generate neurones and a single type of glial cell. Pluripotential precursor cells, that have the ability to generate all three cell types, are not observed. A recent paper, however, reports that when single ventricular zone cells are cultured in isolation, a small percentage of these cells are pluripotential(1). (...) This review will discuss what this knowledge tells us about cortical development. (shrink)

We consider the strongest forms of enumeration reducibility, those that occur between 1- and npm-reducibility inclusive. By defining two new reducibilities which are counterparts to 1- and i-reducibility, respectively, in the same way that nm- and npm-reducibility are counterparts to m- and pm-reducibility, respectively, we bring out the structure of the strong reducibilities. By further restricting n1- and nm-reducibility we are able to define infinite families of reducibilities which isomorphically embed the r. e. Turing degrees. Thus the many well-known results (...) in the theory of the r. e. Turing degrees have counterparts in the theory of strong reducibilities. We are also able to positively answer the question of whether there exist distinct reducibilities ≤y and ≤a between ≤e and ≤m such that there exists a non-trivial ≤y-contiguous ≤z degree. (shrink)

Giovanny Sartori, en su texto titulado ¿Qué es la democracia?, nos habla de las posibles definiciones de las que se puede sustentar la democracia. Así mismo se interroga ¿la teoría de la democracia es una, o es múltiples? ¿Muchas teorías sobre muchas democracias o una teoría sobre una democracia? La respuesta depende en gran parte del nivel de abstracción del discurso.1 Ante tal cuestión, Sartori sostiene la tesis unitaria. Por lo que, cree que las democracias se declaran como tales, al (...) comparar la teoría con la práctica en ellas, definir la democracia, muchas veces, se conflictúa al comparar los hechos descriptivos con lo prescriptivo. (shrink)

This comparative case analysis contrasts two nations – Viet Nam and The United States of America (U.S.) – in terms of processes each employed and results each achieved in respective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a general theory of teaching to contrast the countries in terms of their approaches to COVID public health education. Viet Nam followed the recommendations of the theory. The U.S. did not. While our analysis does not and cannot prove educational theory acted as the (...) sole causal factor in realization of the disparate results in the countries, our case study does illustrate that the different approaches to public health education used by the countries may be counted among factors contributing to wide differences in the contrasting cases. The argument proceeds by 1) describing differences in relevant statistics between Viet Nam and the U.S., 2) outlining the theory of teaching we use to analyze differences in public health education in the two contexts, and 3) discussing successful implementation of the theory in Viet Nam and failure to implement in the U.S. Finally, we 4) dismiss competing explanations of differences between the countries and 5) offer considerations about how the U.S. may educate citizens away from turning the pandemic into a pan(en)demic. (shrink)

Brenda Cohen; IV*—Principles and Situations: The Liberal Dilemma and Moral Education, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 76, Issue 1, 1 June 1976.

This article focuses on the experiences of social care workers during the first wave of the Covid pandemic. The method involved analyzing diaries kept by 65 professionals in 8 French regions during the first lockdown in France in the spring of 2020. As a form of non-binding, narrative expression, keeping diaries breaks with traditional models of reporting common in social care structures and allowed professionals to reflect on the experience as it was lived. In the diaries, professionals explored how the (...) crisis disrupted and challenged their personal and professional values but also allowed innovation in care practices for vulnerable populations that will continue beyond the pandemic period. Five care values were put to forefront by professionals: (1) spontaneity/flexibility; (2) respect for persons; (3) team reflexivity; (4) innovation; (5) solidarity. Mobilizing philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s ideas on recognition, Payet and Laforgue’s analysis of weak actors, as well as research on moral distress, we discuss how these values were tested during the crisis and what effect they had on professionals’ and users’ vulnerabilities. We will also elaborate the interest of keeping account of social care work through narrative methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dante in Deutschland: An Itinerary of Romantic Myth by Daniel DiMassaBrenda Deen SchildgenDaniel DiMassa. Dante in Deutschland: An Itinerary of Romantic Myth. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2022. 242 pp., hardcover, $150.00. ISBN 9781684484195.Dante in Deutschland is an eloquently written study of the "itinerary," as the author labels it, of the myth of Dante's personage and his works in Germany from the Romantic period to the Second World War. (...) The latest book in Bucknell University Press's series New Studies in the Age of Goethe, edited by John B. Lyon, the book's central argument is that "to the Romantics, the Commedia was more than a touchstone—it was a lodestar, its author no less vital to them than Shakespeare had been to the Sturm und Drang" (3). This premise lays the foundation for a reception study that is a model of Comparative Literature research. As Daniel DiMassa explains, his approach does not just examine "the Romantics' attempt at a mythology, but their attempt at a Dantean mythology" (5). Combining philology, hermeneutics, and history, he promises to [End Page 276] "open new interpretations of Romantic works" and to "trace an itinerary of Romantic myth, highlighting the waystations of a path that has remained in obscurity" (5–6). Indeed, the book succeeds in this endeavor.In terms of utopian studies, this is not a consoling literary story, for as DiMassa demonstrates, this study turns our "attention to a familiar yet puzzling trajectory of Romanticism—its move from radicality and revolution to Catholicism and conservatism" (9) in Germany. But, in contrast to Lukács's "straight line from Schelling to Hitler," DiMassa proposes a Romanticism inflected by the myth of Dante and "culminat[ing] in a trio of figures who embodied one form of fascism or another—Hauptmann, Borchardt, and George" (9). In highlighting this trajectory, DiMassa provokes thought about the dangers of utopian ideologies as well as how to confront them.Following an introduction that succinctly lays out the argument and the methodology, DiMassa historically situates, in six thoughtful and thoroughly researched chapters, pivotal figures in German Romanticism and the neo-Romanticism of the twentieth century. He then provides close readings of their major texts to show how Dante and his Commedia are "recovered, repurposed, revered, and reduplicated" to shape "the origins of German Romanticism and the attempts at its rehabilitation" in the twentieth century (177). This review of the book cannot do justice to such a complex and fascinating argument, so this cursory overview of some of the chapters is intended as a recommendation to read the study in its entirety.Chapter 1, "Discovering Dante and Theorizing Myth," examines the "Schlegel Brothers and the Origins of the Romantic Project." The eighteenth century was the nadir of Dante's reception, even in Italy, but the "myth of Dante" burst onto the stage of cultural and political history in the nineteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth century, according to DiMassa, writers such as Bodmer, Herder, and Goethe had prepared the way for a new reception of long neglected "barbarians" like Dante. Signaling this imminent change in taste, framed in nationalistic terms, in a 1772 essay, "On German Architecture," having recently revisited Strasbourg Cathedral, Goethe exclaimed, "This is German architecture! Our architecture!"1 He insists, "what unexpected emotions seized me when I finally stood before the edifice! My soul was suffused with a feeling of immense grandeur."2 Earlier, Goethe had labeled medieval buildings "barbaric," he admits in the same essay,3 but his experience of the cathedral awakened a nationalist intensity suggestive of utopian emotion. A. W. Schlegel's projection of [End Page 277] Dante "as a man of action who, in an age devoid of political leadership, had drafted a poetry teeming with manliness and vitality" (25) smacks of the same Romantic enthusiasm, but A. W. Schlegel was eager to celebrate the once "barbaric" Dante as the apogee of an emerging "Weimar Classicism and Jena Romanticism" (25), an idyll of the contemporary romantic enthusiasm. In a decade, the work of early German Romantics, including A. W. Schlegel's translations, Schelling's lectures, and Friedrich Schlegel's advocacy, buried Dante's so-called barbarism... (shrink)

This empirical study reports the implementation and assessment of service learning in management education. Principles of Management students worked in teams to support Campus Kitchens, a national program affiliated with colleges and universities, in recovering surplus food and delivering it to community members. Student perceptions regarding civic engagement and social responsibility, application of skills, and professional development were assessed. Two complete cycles of implementation and assessment are chronicled. The sample size for Cycle 1 was 123 students and for Cycle 2 (...) the sample size was 91 students. The authors describe how empirical as well as anecdotal data drove the changes made to improve the service-learning experience. (shrink)

Brenda Cohen; Equality, Freedom and Independent Schools, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 12, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 121–128, https://doi.org/10.

In a previous article, we projected the future accumulation of profiles belonging to deceased users on Facebook. We concluded that a minimum of 1.4 billion users will pass away before 2100 if Facebook ceases to attract new users as of 2018. If the network continues expanding at current rates, on the other hand, this number will exceed 4.9 billion. Although these findings provided an important first step, one network alone remains insufficient to establish a quantitative foundation for further macro-level analysis (...) of the phenomenon of online death. Facebook is but one social media platform among many, and hardly the most representative in terms of their policy on deceased users. In this study, we use the same methodology to develop a complementary analysis of projected mortality on Instagram. Our models indicate that somewhere between 767 million and 4.2 billion Instagram users will die between 2019 and 2100, depending on the network’s future growth rate. Although the number of deceased Instagram profiles will likely be fewer than those on Facebook, we argue that they are nonetheless part of a shared digital cultural heritage, and should hence be curated with careful consideration. (shrink)

§ 1. Apparent philosophical disagreement: a philosophical problem. Philosophers are frequently criticized for their remarkable inability to reach consensus. “‘The same problems,’ we hear it often, ‘the same disputes, the same sheer failure. Why not abandon it and come out? Is there nothing else more worth your labour?’”. In science there are established results and generally accepted theories. Philosophy, by contrast, seems to breed only disagreement and controversy. Unless philosophers are simply a peculiarly argumentative lot, we are told, the fact (...) that philosophy is marked by widespread disagreement must indicate something about the nature of the philosophical enterprise. And the usual conclusion is that either it is intrinsically flawed or it is not as it has appeared to be, a search for truth. (shrink)

Richard A. Watson - Descartes: A Biography - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 159-161 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Richard Watson Washington University Desmond M. Clarke. Descartes: A Biography. New York-Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 507. $40.00. This is an excellent critical and contextual presentation of the development of Descartes's thought in its historical context. No recent biographer has done as well in providing names, dates, (...) and outlines of the ideas and positions of thinkers contemporary with Descartes who influenced, criticized, and annoyed him. The persona that emerges from this study is that of an irascible, belligerent egotist of colossal proportions: a man who never admitted a mistake, who sometimes was almost clinically paranoid, who picked fights well beyond reasonable cause and need, who trashed two of the intellectual giants of his day , who tried to take credit for the conception of Pascal's experiment concerning the weight of the atmosphere (in fact, lots of people.. (shrink)

Commentators on Epode 11 generally begin by comparing the opening couplet with Archilochus : κα μ' οτ' μβων οτε τερπωλων μλει, and sometimes also Catullus 68. 1–40. In both of these the poet explains that grief at the death of a loved one has expelled all desire to compose verses. According to the comparison, Horace, in 1–2, is stating that the onset of love has, similarly, so absorbed his attention that he cannot write verse. The translation will then run ‘Pettius, (...) I have no pleasure any longer in writing verse, smitten as I am with a heavy love’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Breakdown of C i M phy " artes an eta sacs RICHARD A. WATSON WITHIN CARTESIANISMthere arose many problems deriving from conflicts between Cartesian principles. Inadequate attempts to solve these problems were crucial reasons for the breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The major difficulties derived from the acceptance of a dualism of substances seated in a system which included epistemological and (...) causal likeness principles plus an ontological framework in which the categories of substance and modification were exhaustive. The major solutions involved either denying the likeness principles or altering the ontological framework. The first led to unintelligibility ; the second, culminating in Hume, opened the way to non-Cartesian metaphysics. The first section of this study contains a characterization of late seventeenth -century Cartesian metaphysics. The second is an exposition of Foucher 's four major criticisms of this system. In the third section, monistic solutions suggested in Descartes and by Spinoza, Foucher, Leibniz, and Locke are considered; in the fourth, the dualistic solutions of the orthodox Cartesians Rohault, R~gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Le Grand, and Arnauld; and in the fifth, the occasionalist solution of Malebranche. The sixth section is an analysis of these orthodox and occasionalist solutions, showing how each ultimately fails because of dependence upon the ontology of substance and modification. The seventh section is a consideration of Berkeley and Hume in the Cartesian context. A consideration of their systems as offering solutions to Cartesian problems illuminates in new light both the systems and the problems. In broad terms, this study moves from a consideration of problems arising from an ontology of two substances, to a consideration of problems arising from the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The Cartesians were concerned with relationships between two substances, but they saw no difficulties connected with the relationship between a substance and its modifications (or properties). Berkeley's treatment (deriving from Male- [177] 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY branche) of the relationships between mind and idea, and between mind and notion, is illuminated by a consideration of the extent to which he took these relationships for granted in the Cartesian way, and of the extent to which he saw difficulties in the relationship between substance and modification. The Berkeleian solution to Cartesian problems, like that of Malebranche before him, was not successful; Malebranche belittled, and Berkeley denied the dualism of substances, but neither philosopher could break entirely with the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The final breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics came with Hume, who, in providing the culmination of a most important trend in modern philosophy, opened the way to new metaphysics and became the father of contemporary philosophy. I A model late seventeenth-century Cartesian metaphysical system. The last grand expositor of the Cartesian philosophy was Antoine Le Grand who in 1694 published An Entire Body of Philosophy. The characterization of the late seventeenth-century Cartesian system given below follows Le Grand's exposition more closely than others, but it also incorporates elements from those of Rohault, R6gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Malebranche, and Arnauld.1 None of these philosophers professed a system of exactly the sort this characterization pictures, nor is it implied here that they do. The guide and rationale for drawing from them such a model Cartesianism is the polemical writing of Simon Foucher. Foucher's series of attacks upon Cartesianism (of which the second is his criticism of Malebranche of 1675, Critique de la Rdcherche de la veritd) give clearly the most important objections against Cartesian metaphysics.2The system outlined below, while more com1Le Grand, Antoine, An Entire Body of Philosophy According to the Principles of the Famous Renate des Cartes (London, 1694); Rohault, Jacques, Traitd de physique (Paris, 1671); R6gis, Pierre-Sylvain, Syst~me de philosophie, contenant la logique, la mdtaphysique, la physique et la morale (Lyon, 1690); Desgabets, Robert, Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la veritd, oCt l'on decouvre le chemin qui conduit aux connoissances solides. Pour servir de rdsponse gtla Lettre d'un academicien (Paris, 1675); La Forge, Louis de, Traitd de l'dme humaine, de ses facultds et fonctions et de son union avec le corps, d'apr~s les principes de... (shrink)

In Issue 7 of Think, Brendan Larvor criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, for suggesting that atheism and humanism ought not to be taught in schools alongside the religious faiths. In Issue 9, Brenda Watson defended the Archbishop's view. Here, Larvor replies to Watson. The numbers below refer to numbered points in Watson's piece.

v. 1. Cosmology - exploration -- v. 2. The Origin of Life: The Miller-Urey Experiment - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 142-143 [Access article in PDF] Wright, John P. and Paul Potter, editors. Psyche and Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 298. Cloth, $72.00. The mind-body problem has a long history that begins well before Descartes made it extreme by presenting mind as unextended active thinking and (...) matter as unthinking passive extension. This absolute division was motivated in some part by the desire to present the soul as an entity that can survive the death of the body. This is difficult to maintain if the soul is merely the form or the vital force motivating a human body. But the advance of physiology has led more and more to the conclusion that the functions often attributed to the soul are actually carried out by the brain. Thinking may be as natural (and perhaps as determined) a function of the body as is digestion. And if digestion does not survive the death of the body, maybe thinking does not either.This collection of studies provides a detailed introduction to both medical and metaphysical views and theories concerning the relation of mind to body. In particular, the first article by Beate Gundert on Hippocratic Medicine sets the stage by showing that "mind and body in the Hippocratic writings, while distinguished empirically by being related to different types of phenomena, are both ultimately accounted for by the same explanatory model: Human nature (physis), which embraces the totality of bodily structures, physiological processes, and psychic events" (35). T. M. Robinson shows that Plato admits of no solution as to how mind and body interact, and Philip J. van der Eijk argues that "to detach the essence of man completely from his physical make-up would run counter to Aristotle's biological approach to man as a natural living being, the ultimate implication of his view on the divinity of nous is that the fullest realization of what it is to be a human being is to go beyond the limits of corporeality and mortality, and to become, if only temporarily, a god" (77). Heinrich von Staden covers Epicurus, Herophilus, Erasistratus, the Stoics, and Galen, concluding that "The discovery of the nerves entailed the first significant erosion of the vast territory ruled by the soul in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, an erosion accompanied by an expansion of the rule of 'nature,' visible not only in medicine, but also in philosophy" (116). Theo K. Heckel discusses Saint Paul's insistence upon the whole person, and Gareth Matthews shows that, prior to Descartes, Augustine presents "a radically new argument for mind-body dualism... an internalist argument... that proceeds from what, allegedly, the mind can know concerning itself to the conclusion that the mind is incorporeal" (145). Emily Michael discusses Pomponazzi's view that we know the immortality of the soul only by faith and the scholastic attempts to show that the soul is a substantial form. Guillaume Lamy, for example, criticized Descartes for having a soul only of thinking, whereas the soul must be of life. Steven Voss shows how at the end of his life, Descartes did discuss in detail how thinking affects the body, particularly in the management of health and the curing of disease. But Descartes does not solve the problem of how this interaction takes place. Thomas Lennon discusses the views of Bayle on Leibniz's monadic forces and Locke's fideism. And Francois Duchesneu continues the discussion of Stahl and Leibniz, to [End Page 142] conclude that "Leibniz attempts to discover the formal foundation of the organism, which he locates in the capacity of perception-appetition proper to the dominant monad" (235).John P. Wright gives an exposition of a very important distinction between Cartesian dualism and the functional dualism that came to dominate medical thought, that is, the question of how the brain and vital organs interact. Roselyn Rey carries this discussion on to the development of theories... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 1, pp 35 - 53 In a letter written at the end of July 1930, Jean Cavaillès singled out two of his successful students at the _Ecole Normale_, Merleau-Ponty and Lautman, “full of interest in the philosophy of mathematics”. While both would play an important role in French philosophy in the coming decades, one almost never thinks of their names together. Indeed, only rarely do we think of Merleau-Ponty and Cavaillès together. This paper will argue (...) against this rarity. Cavaillès would write a treatise on logic that in retrospect is often viewed to advance French philosophy—but precisely at the expense phenomenology. I will argue that this evaluation is overblown. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, on the other hand, is often viewed in opposition to this as defending a Husserlian account of perception, a view equally too narrow. Between them, instead, I argue, we can see both transforming the Husserlian account of a transcendental logic and a transcendental aesthetic. Both provide resources for understanding phenomenology as a dialectical and historically emergent theory. Notwithstanding Cavaillès initial characterization of Husserl’s “exhorbitant use of the Cogito”, or his “aggressive” description of acts, to use Merleau-Ponty’s term, the result, in both cases, focuses on phenomenology as an emergent experience of philosophy as an “architecture” of signs. (shrink)

First, two aspects of the partiality issue are identified: (1) Is it right/reasonable for professionals to favour their clients interests over either those of other individuals or those of society in general? (2) Are special non-universalisable obligations attached to certain professional roles?Second, some comments are made on the notions of partiality and reasonableness. On partiality, the assumption that only two positions are possible – a detached universalism or a partialist egoism – is challenged and it is suggested that partiality, e.g. (...) to family members, lies between these two positions, being neither a form of egoism, nor of impersonal detachment. On reasonableness, it is pointed out that reasonable is an ambiguous concept, eliding the notions of the morally right and the rational. (shrink)

As machine learning has gradually entered into ever more sectors of public and private life, there has been a growing demand for algorithmic explainability. How can we make the predictions of complex statistical models more intelligible to end users? A subdiscipline of computer science known as interpretable machine learning (IML) has emerged to address this urgent question. Numerous influential methods have been proposed, from local linear approximations to rule lists and counterfactuals. In this article, I highlight three conceptual challenges that (...) are largely overlooked by authors in this area. I argue that the vast majority of IML algorithms are plagued by (1) ambiguity with respect to their true target; (2) a disregard for error rates and severe testing; and (3) an emphasis on product over process. Each point is developed at length, drawing on relevant debates in epistemology and philosophy of science. Examples and counterexamples from IML are considered, demonstrating how failure to acknowledge these problems can result in counterintuitive and potentially misleading explanations. Without greater care for the conceptual foundations of IML, future work in this area is doomed to repeat the same mistakes. (shrink)

The paper gives an account of Rāmakaṇṭha’s (950–1000) contribution to the Buddhist–Brāhmaṇical debate about the existence or non-existence of a self, by demonstrating how he carves out middle ground between the two protagonists in that debate. First three points of divergence between the Brāhmaṇical (specifically Naiyāyika) and the Buddhist conceptions of subjectivity are identified. These take the form of Buddhist denials of, or re-explanations of (1) the self as the unitary essence of the individual, (2) the self as the substance (...) to which mental properties belong, (3) the self as the agent of both physical actions and cognitions. The difference of Rāmakaṇṭha’s position from both Nyāya and Buddhism is then elaborated. He posits a self, but not one that is an eternally unchanging substance, nor one that is anything other than consciousness. Hence his difference from Nyāya. He falls with Buddhism in holding that consciousness does not require anything other than itself to inhere in, but departs from Buddhism in holding that consciousness is not momentary but enduring. The guiding metaphor here is light, but light considered as a dynamic, qualitatively unchanging repetition of the action of illumination. (shrink)

The problem of academic dishonesty is as old as it is widespread – dating back millennia and perpetrated by the majority of students. Attempts to promote academic integrity, by comparison, are relatively new and rare – stretching back only a few hundred years and implemented by a small fraction of schools and universities. However, the past decade has seen an increase in efforts among universities to promote academic integrity among students, particularly through the use of online courses or tutorials. Previous (...) research has found this type of instruction to be effective in increasing students’ knowledge of academic integrity and reducing their engagement in academic dishonesty. The present study contributes to this literature with a natural experiment on the effects of the Academic Integrity Course (AIC) at The University of Auckland, which became mandatory for all students in 2015. In 2012, a convenience sample of students (n= 780) had been asked to complete a survey on their perceptions of the University’s academic integrity polices and their engagement in several forms of academic dishonesty over the past year. In 2017, the same procedures and survey were used to collect data from second sample of students (n= 608). After establishing measurement invariance across the two samples on all latent factors, analysis of variance revealed mixed support for the studies hypotheses. Unexpectedly, students who completed the AIC (i.e., the 2017 sample) reported: (1) significantly lower (not higher) levels of understanding, support, and effectiveness with respect to the University’s academic integrity policies; (2) statistically equivalent (not higher) levels of peer disapproval of academic misconduct, and; (3) significantly higher (not lower) levels of peer engagement in academic misconduct. However, results related to participants’ personal engagement in academic misconduct offered partial support for hypotheses – those who completed the AIC reported significantly lower rates of engagement on three of the eight behaviors included in the study. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed as well as possible future directions for research. (shrink)

Tumor suppressor genes represent a broad class of genes that normally function in the negative regulation of cell proliferation. Loss‐of‐function mutations in these genes lead to unrestrained cell proliferation and tumor formation. A fundamental understanding of how tumor suppressor genes regulate cell proliferation and differentiation should reveal important aspects of signalling pathways and cell cycle control. A recent report describing the Drosophila tumor suppressor gene warts has implications in the study of the human myotonic dystrophy gene(1). These genes encode members (...) of a cyclic AMP‐dependent protein kinase subfamily that includes other plant and animal orthologues. (shrink)

This two-part study analyzed some of the ethical choices made by founding entrepreneurs during the creation and development of their ventures in order to identify the areas in which founding entrepreneurs must make decisions related to ethics or social responsibility during venture creation and development. Content analysis was used to identify decisions with ethical components and/or implications from in-depth interviews with 10 successful business founders. The research for part one of the study was guided by the following research question: In (...) what areas must entrepreneurs make decisions with ethical and/or social responsibility implications during new venture creation and development? The authors identified four distinct categories of decisions where ethical or social responsibility components exist: (1) individual entrepreneurial values-related decisions, (2) organizational culture/employee well-being decisions, (3) customer satisfaction and quality decisions, and (4) external accountability decisions. In the second part of the study, the decisions identified in part one were analyzed using a framework derived from prior research in ethics. This framework was developed from the work of Kant (1964) who theorized about human morals and Rawls (1971) who developed theories about justice. Part two of the study was guided by the following research questions: Do entrepreneurs have values and ethics similar to those held by society in general? If they don’t, how do their values and ethics differ? The comparison revealed that the ethics and/or values that the entrepreneurs either explicitly or implicitly acknowledged were in fact similar to those of society in general. (shrink)

Unlike emotions, existential feelings are not directed towards an object or specific situation, but are the affective background through which experience as a whole is structured. Furthermore, existential feelings are bodily feelings. In that vein, this paper aims to present the theory of existential feelings developed by Matthew Ratcliffe in Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, psychiatry and the sense of reality (2008) and its link to the concept of bodily doubt developed by Havi Carel in Phenomenology of illness (2016) in order (...) to exhibit the importance of bodily feelings in understanding the experience of illness. This paper is divided into three sections: 1) Characterization of the nature of emotions and feelings; 2) Characterization of existential feelings based on the phenomenology of tactile experience, as well as the distinction between existential feeling, emotion and mood; 3) An analysis of the alteration of existential feelings by bodily doubt. (shrink)

In contemporary Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind, "attention" is a burgeoning field, with ever-increasing amounts of empirical research and philosophical analysis being directed toward it.1 In this essay I make a first attempt to contrast how Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas2 and Buddhists would address some aspects of attention that are discussed in that literature. The sources of what I attribute to "Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas" are the sections dealing with the manas in the Nyāyabhāṣya, Nyāyamañjarī, and Praśastapādabhāṣya. The words "Buddhist" and "Buddhism" in this essay (...) refer specifically to the Sautrāntika Buddhism of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmako-śabhāṣya.3 A comparison... (shrink)

A reciprocity framework is presented as an analysis of morality, and to explain and justify the attribution of moral rights and duties. To say an entity has rights makes sense only if that entity can fulfill reciprocal duties, i.e., can act as a moral agent. To be a moral agent an entity must (1) be self-conscious, (2) understand general principles, (3) have free will, (4) understand the given principles, (5) be physicallycapable of acting, and (6) intend to act according to (...) or against the given principles. This framework is foundational both to empirical and supernatural positions which distinguish a human milieu, which is moral, from a nonhuman milieu, which is not. It also provides a basis for evaluating four standard arguments for the rights ofnonhuman animals and nature-the ecological, the prudential, the sentimental, and the contractual. If reciprocity is taken as being central to the general concepts of rights and duties, then few animals, and no natural objects or natural systems, have rights and duties in an intrinsic or primary sense, although they may be assigned them in an extrinsic or secondary sense as a convenience in connection with human interests. Nevertheless, there are some animals besides humans - e.g., especially chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, and dogs - which, in accordance with good behavioral evidence, are moral entities, and sometimes moral agents. On the grounds of reciprocity, they merit, at aminimum, intrinsic or primary rights to life and to relief from unnecessary suffering. (shrink)

In this engrossing double volume, the work and thought of Nicolas Malebranche is examined through the eyes of Simon Foucher and Dortous de Mairan. Part 1 consists of Richard A. Watson’s translation of the first published critique, by Simon Foucher, of Malebranche’s main philosophical work, _Of the Search for the Truth. _In the second part, Marjorie Grene presents a meticulous translation of the long correspondence between Malebranche and Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan that ended shortly before Malebranche’s death. Both Watson and (...) Grene provide insightful introductions to their translations. The influence of the works of Malebranche has been extensive, as has the influence of the lesser works of his first critic, Simon Foucher. Although Foucher was a minor philosopher of the seventeenth century, he provided arguments that led to a crucial turning point in modern philosophy. Listened to with care and treated with respect by Leibniz, Foucher’s arguments were utilized by Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume toward the destruction not only of Cartesian metaphysics but of substance philosophy as well. In this translation of Foucher’s work, it is now possible for readers of Malebranche’s _Of the Search for the Truth _to evaluate the immediate response of a young philosopher about town to one of the most important philosophical works of his day. The correspondence between Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan, an obscure provincial, and Nicolas Malebranche has usually been viewed as a small addendum to the works of Malebranche. Marjorie Grene, however, in her translation of this correspondence, considers it not only a contribution to the Malebranchian corpus but also an example of a reaction to Spinoza. Born at Béziers in the south of France in 1678, Mairan went to Paris in 1698, where he studied mathematics with Malebranche. Their correspondence began four years later when Mairan returned to Béziers to accept a position with the local bishop. In his letters to Malebranche, Mairan reveals himself to be one of no more than a handful of known readers of Spinoza who, in the early eighteenth century, admitted fascination with Spinoza’s presentation of his thoroughly unorthodox God and his equally unorthodox nature. (shrink)