Burns, C. R. Introduction.--Antiquity: Margalith, D. The ideal doctor as depicted in ancient Hebrew writings. Edelstein, L. The Hippocratic oath. Edelstein, L. The professional ethics of the Greek physician. Michler, M. Medical ethics in Hippocratic bone surgery. Maas, P. L., Oliver, J. H. An ancient poem on the duties of a physician.--The medieval era: Levey, M. Medical deontology in ninth century Islam. Bar-Sela, A., Hoff, H. E. Isaac Israeli's fifty admonitions of the physicians. Rosner, F. The physician's prayer attributed (...) to Moses Maimonides. MacKinney, L. C. Medical ethics and etiquette in the early middle ages, the persistence of Hippocratic ideals. Welborn, M. C. The long tradition, a study in fourteenth-century medical deontology.--The modern period: Larkey, S. V. The Hippocratic oath in Elizabethan England. Pleadwell, F. L. Samuel Sorbiere and his Advice to a young physician. Clark, G. Bernard Mandeville, M.D., and eighteenth-century ethics. Burns, C. R. Thomas Percival, medical ethics or medical jurisprudence? Burns, C. R. Reciprocity in the development of Anglo-American medical ethics, 1765-1865. Williams, T. F. Cabot, Peabody, and the care of the patient. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Philosophical Assessment of Theology: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Copleston. Edited by Gerard J. Hughes. Language, Meaning and God: Essays in Honour of Herbert McCabe OP. Edited by Brian Davies. God Matters. By Herbert McCabe. Philosophies of History: A Critical Essay. By Rolf Gruner. The ‘Phaedo’: A Platonic Labyrinth. By Ronna Burger. Lessing's ‘Ugly Ditch’: A Study of Theology and History. By Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. Peirce. By Christopher Hookway. Frege: Tradition and Influence. (...) Edited by Crispin Wright. The Private World. Selections from the Diario Íntimo and Selected Letters 1890–1936. By Miguel de Unamuno, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, Allen Lacy, Martin Nozick. A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe. Philosophical Papers. By Charles Taylor. 2 vols. Principles of Language and the Mind. By T.P. Waldron. The Principle of Double Effect: A Critical Appraisal of its Traditional Understanding and its Modern Reinterpretation. By L.I. Ugorji. Human Rights: Fact or Fancy By Henry B. Veatch. Enlightenment and Alienation: An Essay towards a Trinitarian Theology. By Colin Gunton. Only Human. By Don Cupitt. The Roots of the Modern Christian Tradition. Edited by E. Rpzanne Elder. ‘Africanische Theologie’: Darstellung und Dialog.. By Heribert Rücker. African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes. By Emefie Ikenga Metuh. The Destiny of Man: Dagaare Beliefs in Dialogue with Christian Eschatology. By Edward Kuukure. The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival. By E. Milingo. Theology in Africa. By Kwesi A. Dickson. The Future of Anglican Theology. Edited by M. Darrol Bryant. Reconciling. By John Coventry. The Genesis of Faith: The Depth Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel. By John C. Merkle. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. By Wolfhart Pannenberg. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion. Volume II: The Social Sciences. Edited by Frank Whaling. American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions. By Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman. A Critical Theory of Religion: The Frankfurt School. By Rudolf J. Siebert. The Anthropology of Evil. Edited by David Parkin. The Wealth of Christians. By Redmond Mullin. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. By Michael Fishbane. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. By Lawrence Boadt. Old Testament Theology: Its History and Development. By John H. Hayes and Frederick C. Prussner. God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. By John Day. Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul. By Eckhard J. Schnabel. The Order of the Synoptics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels? By Bernard Orchard and Harold Riley. The Making of Mark. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. Argumentation bei Paulus. By Folker Siegert. Christians and the Military: The Early Experience. Edited by Robert J. Daly. Origienes' Eucharistielehre im Streit der Konfessionen; Die Auslegungsgeschichte seit der Reformation. By Lothar Lies. L'église de Cappadoce au IVe siècle d'après la correspondance de Basile de Césarée. By Benpit Gain Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia. By Lyn Rodley. Augustine of Hippo, Selected Writings. Translated with an Introduction by Mary T. Clark. Wisdom from St Augustine. By Vernon J. Bourke. A History of Religious Ideas, Vol. 3: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms. By Mircea Eliade. Les Lectionnaires Copies Annuels: Basse‐Egypte. By Ugo Zanetti. Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany. By James H. Overfield. Wyclif. By Anthony Kenny. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth Century France. By Penny Shine Gold. Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth‐Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. By Richard Kieckhefer. Luther: Theologian for Catholics and Protestants. Edited by George Yule. La Réforme Catholique: Le Combat de Maldonat. By Paul Schmitt. Roman Catholicism in England: From the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council. By Edward Norman. The Life of David Brainerd. Edited by Norman Pettit. Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West. Edited by Ninian Smart, John Clayton, Patrick Sherry and Steven T. Katz The Significance of Jesus Christ in Asia. By Hans Staffner. Is the Virgin Mary Appearing at Medjugorje? By René Laurentin and Ljudevit Rupčić. Mary Queen of Peace: Is the Mother of God Appearing in Medjugorje? By Lucy Rooney and Robert Fancy. (shrink)

Interest in science and math plays an important role in encouraging STEM motivation and career aspirations. This interest decreases for girls between late childhood and adolescence. Relatedly, positive mentoring experiences with female teachers can protect girls against losing interest. The present study examines whether visitors to informal science learning sites differ in their expressed science and math interest, as well as their science and math stereotypes following an interaction with either a male or female educator. Participants were visitors to one (...) of four ISLS in the United States and United Kingdom. Following an interaction with a male or female educator, they reported their math and science interest and responded to math and science gender stereotype measures. Female participants reported greater interest in math following an interaction with a female educator, compared to when they interacted with a male educator. In turn, female participants who interacted with a female educator were less likely to report male-biased math gender stereotypes. Self-reported science interest did not differ as a function of educator gender. Together these findings suggest that, when aiming to encourage STEM interest and challenge gender stereotypes in informal settings, we must consider the importance of the gender of educators and learners. (shrink)

We examine the interface of entrepreneurship and society by considering a novel source of gender bias (public opinion) and a novel expression of it (affective evaluations). We posit that women-led teams displaying success will trigger a “penalty for success” bias, and this will be inhibited if the team receives a “stamp of approval” from a gender congruent individual (i.e., an investor who is a man). Analysis from our first study, based on archival data, indicated that other mechanisms might be at (...) play that we could not tease apart in our archival data, so we conducted a follow-up experimental study to further examine our initial findings. Results jointly indicate that women are viewed unfavorably unless either (a) they are validated by success or endorsement from a man, or (b) they fail but are “warm and accommodating” about it. We also find that while men benefit from being validated by success or endorsement of an opposite-gender investor, they do not face a similarly steep penalty absent that validation. (shrink)

Locke bases his moral and political philosophy on his doctrine of the ‘law of nature’. Scholars have debated the content and grounding of this law and its relationship to Christian theology. The ambiguities of the Lockean natural law’s content are traceable to an unclear grammatical construction in a crucial passage of the Treatises of Government, which can be resolved by following out a related set of arguments in that work. The ambiguities of the Lockean natural law’s grounding can then be (...) resolved by the hypothesis, strongly supported by textual evidence, that Locke relies tacitly on the reasoning of a parallel passage in Hobbes. Lockean natural law rests on neither atheistic nor specifically Christian premises but on a hypothetical natural theology. Locke’s conclusions from that natural theology represent an attempt to follow out Hobbesian logic while also tightening it up on one important point on which Hobbes himself appears to vacillate. (shrink)

Throughout the two-thousand-year span of Christian history, believers in Jesus have sought to articulate their faith and their understanding of how God works in the world. How do we, as we examine the vast and varied output of those who came before us, understand the unity and the diversity of their thinking? How do we make sense of our own thought in light of theirs? The Christian Understandings series offers to help. In this exciting volume, Charlene Burns offers (...) a brief but thorough tour through more than two millennia of thought on the nature of evil. Starting with the contexts of the Hebrew Bible and moving forward, Burns outlines the many ways that Christian thought has attempted to deal with the reality of evil and suffering. From a personal Satan and demonic activity, to questions of free will and autonomy, to the nature of God and Gods role in suffering, Burns offers a clear and compelling overview. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 87-100 [Access article in PDF] "Soul-Less" Christianity and the Buddhist Empirical Self:Buddhist-Christian Convergence? Charlene Burns University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Buddhist-Christian dialogue seems to founder on the shoals of theological anthropology. The Christian concept of the soul and concomitant ideas of life after death appear to be diametrically opposed to the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, no-self. The anthropological terminology, with its personalist implications in (...) Christianity and its impersonal meanings for Buddhism offers perhaps the greatest challenge to interreligious understanding. The two traditions have built up stereotypical interpretations of one another's (and their own) vocabularies to such an extent that "personal" and "impersonal" have at times operated in dialogue as "party slogans and fighting words. " 1In this paper I explore the plausibility that new interpretations of the human being in both traditions may overcome this problem. There is no agreement across denominations on the meaning of soul for Christianity and likewise no single orthodox interpretation of no-self for all forms of Buddhism. There are of course basics for both traditions that serve as the starting point for all interpretations, and these will be identified below. During the last decade interesting and innovative ways of elaborating on the basics for both Buddhism and Christianity approach something of a middle ground in religious anthropology. It is my thesis that the moves made by Christian theologians toward emphasis on the person as a body-soul unity, and by at least one Buddhist scholar toward the idea of an empirical (not metaphysical) self, are closing what has been perhaps the most problematic gap between the two traditions. The State of the Personal Soul in Christianity The stereotype of Christian anthropology is of the human constituted by a separable body and soul. Although there have been important voices expressing otherwise in history, for the average believer the immaterial soul separates from the physical body at the moment of death, and most assume that the soul goes immediately to its eternal reward or punishment. 2 (While the issue of the timing and nature of resurrection is an important and contested one, attention cannot be given to it here, since the present issue is the soul before death. ) [End Page 87]Early Christians agreed that the human being is more than just a physical body. However, there has never been agreement on the number and kind of "ontological ingredients" it takes to make a person. 3 Trichotomy, dichotomy, and monism have all been proposed at one time or another. The trichotomist position, usually attributed to Paul, was first popular among Greek and Alexandrian Christians. In this view, the human is made up of body, soul, and spirit: the parts function in concert, with soul mediating between the spirit and body. Here, the spirit is the essential self that exists in relationship to God. Dichotomists say that we are made of two substances, body and soul/spirit. This dualism of separable metaphysical substances with soul animating the body came to dominate the Western theological scene, in part due to Augustine's influence. Although there are significant differences in detail between trichotomist and dichotomist positions, what matters for our purposes is the underlying common anthropological assumption that "persons survive apart from their bodies. " 4Strong challenges to dualist anthropologies came in the seventeenth century in the form of materialism and monism. Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argued for materialism, saying that there is no such thing as incorporeal substance. Nothing survives death, he said: it is through divine grace that we will be resurrected into eternity. Present-day descendants of materialism include psychological behaviorism, brain-mind identity theory, and epiphenomenalism. The second strong challenge to dualism took the shape of monism, as in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. He believed that reality is a single substance, and matter and spirit are properties of it. All of creation manifests the absolute substance, God. Each entity exists as idea in the mind of God, and so the soul can be said to be eternal when it becomes one with the mind... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychiatric Hospitalization—Bridging the Gap Between Respect and ControlPaul P. ChristopherIntroductionThis issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics offers varied and somewhat unique perspectives on the experience of psychiatric hospitalization. This commentary highlights a number of salient themes that emerge from reading these essays and attempts to explore how they relate to the broader academic literature on psychiatric hospitalization, particularly with regard to ethical considerations. In reading these narratives, each several (...) times, I was repeatedly struck by the courage required of the authors, both to share their stories publicly and to endure the challenges that the writing process no doubt demanded of them—revisiting and suspending themselves in deeply emotional and, at times, traumatic experiences in order to share the most compelling narrative. Their hard work clearly paid off—the stories are at once intimate and indelible. Still, in many instances, I found myself wanting to know more; to enter the story and sit with the individual through these events; to ask what they were thinking or feeling in a particular situation; to see and hear the world in which they found themselves. Such is the nature of good story telling—the reader, left with the lingering vision created in his mind, turns over the last page, eagerly hoping for more.Narrative ThemesI. Loss of Autonomy or ControlPerhaps the most notable theme had to do with the loss of control or freedom that followed from hospitalization. On first consideration, it may seem odd that this issue appears so often since patient autonomy constitutes one of the fundamental principles of medical ethics. Only under specific circumstances—e.g., when there is a risk of imminent harm—may autonomy be curtailed, and even then only to the extent that is minimally necessary. Yet, as these narratives highlight, there are a multitude of ways in which psychiatric hospitalization engenders actual or perceived restrictions in freedom (Newton-Howes & Mullen, 2011).Consistent with prior research (Goodwin et al., 1999), many of the authors describe a fear or the actual experience of not being able to leave the hospital freely, even when the admission seems to have been voluntary. For example, one writer worries, “I was so afraid that if I ever went ‘in,’ I would never get ‘out’... I thought I would never taste freedom again... alive.” Another describes:When it came time for my possible discharge they told me that I might not get discharged because I was ‘acting up the previous evenings.’ My anxiety level at this point went through the roof. The only reason I was discharged was because my father knew some politicians. If not [End Page 29] for him I would have been a patient there for perhaps years and my life would have been ruined.A third gives this example: “When I asked to sign the form to leave after three days, [the psychiatrist] told me if I did that she would have me committed.” Another writer fears not having any control of how the psychiatrist might approach the treatment: “... I was totally vulnerable... would the doctors blame me, drug me, shock me, kill me?”Somewhat surprising, however, was the fact that so few of the narratives take issue with the decision to hospitalize. This omission is especially striking in light of the fact that prior reports consistently note that a substantial minority (up to nearly half) of voluntarily admitted patients nevertheless experience their admission as coerced (Bonsack & Borgeat, 2005; Hiday et al., 1997; Katsakou et al., 2010; Rogers et al., 1993; Sheehan & Burns, 2011). Because many of these narrators had been hospitalized more than once, the relative absence of expressed resistance to being hospitalized seems strange, particularly when earlier hospital experiences or their aftermath are often described as negative. For example, one individual characterized the time after being released from the hospital as, “My sense of self was questioned. I felt as if I lost my soul.” Another put it this way:When I got out of the private hospital, I felt like my soul had been ripped out of me. I felt like I had a gaping hole in the center of my body... I felt psychically raped, dazed, and confused.Given these... (shrink)

Part I Philosophic Traditions Introduction to Part I 3 1 Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience 7 CORNEL WEST 2 African-American Existential Philosophy 33 LEWIS R. GORDON 3 African-American Philosophy: A Caribbean Perspective 48 PAGET HENRY 4 Modernisms in Black 67 FRANK M. KIRKLAND 5 The Crisis of the Black Intellectual 87 HORTENSE J. SPILLERS Part II The Moral and Political Legacy of Slavery Introduction to Part II 107 6 Kant and Knowledge of Disappearing Expression 110 RONALD A. T. JUDY 7 (...) Social Contract Theory, Slavery, and the Antebellum Courts 125 ANITA L. ALLEN AND THADDEUS POPE 8 The Morality of Reparations II 134 BERNARD R. BOXILL Part III Africa and Diaspora Thought Introduction to Part III 151 9 “Afrocentricity‘: Critical Considerations 155 LUCIUS T. OUTLAW, JR. 10 African Retentions 168 TOMMY L. LOTT 11 African Philosophy at the Turn of the Century 190 ALBERT G. MOSLEY Part IV Gender, Race, and Racism Introduction to Part IV 199 12 Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought 205 PATRICIA HILL COLLINS 13 Radicalizing Feminisms from “The Movement Era‘ 230 JOY A. JAMES 14 Philosophy and Racial Paradigms 239 NAOMI ZACK 15 Racial Classification and Public Policy 255 DAVID THEO GOLDBERG 16 White Supremacy 269 CHARLES W. MILLS Part V Legal and Social Philosophy Introduction to Part V 285 17 Self-Respect, Fairness, and Living Morally 293 LAURENCE M. THOMAS 18 The Legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson 306 MICHELE MOODY-ADAMS 19 Some Reflections on the Brown Decision and Its Aftermath 313 HOWARD McGARY 20 Contesting the Ambivalence and Hostility to Affirmative Action within the Black Community 324 LUKE C. HARRIS 21 Subsistence Welfare Benefits as Property Interests: Legal Theories and Moral Considerations 333 RUDOLPH V. VANTERPOOL 22 Racism and Health Care: A Medical Ethics Issue 349 ANNETTE DULA 23 Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition 360 ANGELA Y. DAVIS Part VI Aesthetic and Cultural Values Introduction to Part VI 373 24 The Harlem Renaissance and Philosophy 381 LEONARD HARRIS 25 Critical Theory, Aesthetics, and Black Modernity 386 LORENZO C. SIMPSON 26 Black Cinema and Aesthetics 399 CLYDE R. TAYLOR 27 Thanatic Pornography, Interracial Rape, and the Ku Klux Klan 407 T. DENEAN SHARPLEY-WHITING 28 Lynching and Burning Rituals in African-American Literature 413 TRUDIER HARRIS-LOPEZ 29 Rap as Art and Philosophy 419 RICHARD SHUSTERMAN 30 Microphone Commandos: Rap Music and Political Ideology 429 BILL E. LAWSON 31 Sports, Political Philosophy, and the African American 436 GERALD EARLY. (shrink)

The term action of consciousness is used to refer to an influence, such as psychokinesis or free will, that produces an effect on matter that is correlated to mental intention, but not completely determined by physical conditions. Such an action could not conserve energy. But in that case, one wonders why, when highly accurate measurements are done, occasions of non-conserved energy (generated perhaps by unconscious PK) are not detected. A possible explanation is that actions of consciousness take place within the (...) limits of the uncertainty principle. Two models are reviewed that, using the latter assumption, propose that consciousness can originate an action potential in the brain. One (that of Eccles) uses the latter assumption only, and the other (that of Burns) additionally assumes that consciousness acts, within those limits, by ordering quantum fluctuations. (shrink)

The possibility of empirical test is discussed with respect to three issues: (1) What is the ontological relationship between consciousness and the brain/physical world? (2) What physical characteristics are associated with the mind/brain interface? (3) Can consciousness act on the brain independently of any brain process?

It is shown that entropy increase in thermodynamic systems can plausibly be accounted for by the random action of vacuum radiation. A recent calculation by Rueda using stochastic electrodynamics (SED) shows that vacuum radiation causes a particle to undergo a rapid Brownian motion about its average dynamical trajectory. It is shown that the magnitude of spatial drift calculated by Rueda can also be predicted by assuming that the average magnitudes of random shifts in position and momentum of a particle correspond (...) to the lower limits of the uncertainty relation. The latter analysis yields a plausible expression for the shift in momentum caused by vacuum radiation. It is shown that when the latter shift in momentum is magnified in particle interactions, the fractional change in each momentum component is on the order of unity within a few collision times, for gases and (plausibly) for denser systems over a very broad range of physical conditions. So any system of particles in this broad range of conditions would move to maximum entropy, subject to its thermodynamic constraints, within a few collision times. It is shown that the spatial drift caused by vacuum radiation, as predicted by the above SED calculation, can be macroscopic in some circumstances, and an experimental test of this effect is proposed. Consistency of the above results with quantum mechanics is discussed, and it is shown that the diffusion constant associated with the above Brownian drift is the same as that used in stochastic interpretations of the Schrödinger equation. (shrink)

Two forms of independent action by consciousness have been proposed by various researchers – free will and holistic processing. (Holistic processing contributes to the formation of behavior through the holistic use of brain programs and encoding.) The well-known experiment of Libet et al. (1983) implies that if free will exists, its action must consist of making a selection among alternatives presented by the brain. As discussed herein, this result implies that any physical changes mind can produce in the brain are (...) very small, and this in turn implies that holistic processing would also act to select among brain programs. The latter process would contribute to flexibility of behavior, which would therefore be an indication of the possible presence of consciousness in an animal. Because locomotion requires response to varying and unpredictable conditions, the above conclusions support the idea that simple forms of consciousness appear very early in the evolutionary line of the animal kingdom. (shrink)

Even if all of the content of conscious experience is encoded in the brain, there is a considerable difference between the view that consciousness does independent processing and the view that it does not. If all processing is done by the brain, then conscious experience is unnecessary and irrelevant to behavior. If consciousness performs a function, then its association with particular aspects of brain processing reflect its functional use in determining behavior. However, if consciousness does perform a function, it cannot (...) be described entirely by known physical laws. Rather, even if the content of conscious experience follows physical encoding in the brain, consciousness must then be governed in part by a principle which is different from any known physical principle. (shrink)

While nowhere does he use the term to refer to his own theory, Aristotle is often thought to exemplify an early correspondence theory of truth. In the paper, I examine the textual evidence used to support the idea that Aristotle holds a correspondence theory of truth, and to infer the nuances of this theory. I hold that Aristotle’s theory of truth can account for terms that signify non-existent things, i.e., that on Aristotle’s account, an assertion is not automatically false given (...) its subject term’s “failure to refer”. Terms do not refer for Aristotle, they signify. (shrink)

Esta é uma pesquisa sobre representação temática de folhetos de cordel, utilizando a o Percurso Gerativo de Sentido e seus processos. O objetivo geral é propor a aplicação da análise de assunto - leitura técnica e extração de conceitos - em cordéis de J. Borges, com base nos procedimentos semânticos de tematização e figurativização do percurso gerativo de sentido. Trata-se de uma pesquisa do tipo documental com abordagem qualitativa, tendo como lócus, o Memorial J. Borges. O corpus da pesquisa foi (...) constituído por 10 títulos de cordéis, dos 48 títulos disponíveis no Memorial, tendo como critério de escolha, as obras mais citadas de J. Borges, nos diferentes meios de comunicação. A análise dos cordéis escolhidos foi realizada da seguinte forma: a) leitura integral dos cordéis; b) identificação das figuras; c) reprodução da sextilha, setilha ou décima onde a figura foi identificada, no quadro referente à obra; d) enquadramento da figura ao tema pertinente. Os resultados apontam que a utilização dos procedimentos de tematização e figurativização do percurso gerativo de sentido em conjunto com a análise de assunto, possibilitou resultados satisfatórios nas ações de leitura técnica e extração de conceitos que, por sua vez, trará eficiência e qualidade no processo da representação temática. (shrink)

Recent models of consciousness are reviewed which explore the relationship of consciousness to physical laws; many of these also explore the relationship of consciousness to biological findings. Issues investigated by these models are discussed, with the issues framed in a general way in order to provide a comparison between the models. In Part II the issues discussed include: Does all of the information content of consciousness correspond to neural coding in the brain? Does consciousness follow the brain passively, or can (...) it act independently? Is independent processing by consciousness compatible with the second law of thermodynamics? (shrink)

Amy Schumer’s feminist revolt is a rejection of the feminine mystique – that is to say, a rejection of the idea that certain aspects of the experiences of women should remain mysterious. Through persistent honesty, Schumer’s comedy and other works contribute to the feminist goal of revising patriarchal concepts of femininity by expanding those concepts to include a more complex representation of women and our experience. Her portrayals of women’s physicality, women’s sexuality, and of woman as a social being demand (...) a reconceptualization of woman as a moral and rational entity (i.e., a full-blown human). Her work laughs at the dehumanizing social constructs that define woman as something less-than, and in doing so reduce woman’s alienation by reconciling concepts of women as we are and women as we are perceived. (shrink)

In Plato’s texts, and especially in the Apology, the Platonic Socrates refers to a daimonion, or daimonion sēmeion that appears only to contradict Socrates in some course of action on which he is about to embark. Socrates infers, as well, that its not interfering is a sign that what he is doing is right. I argue that the Socrates’ daimonion is not a divine spirit in its own right, i.e., the Greek daimōn. Daimonion is used in an adjectival or diminutive (...) sense, describing Socrates’ sign; it is a human reflection of a divinity, the divine in the human, the culmination of Socrates’ participation in the reasoning of the divine. As a “demonic man”, Socrates maintains a relation to the divine, having become habituated to the same reasoning. (shrink)

Human languages typically employ a variety of spatial metaphors for time (e.g., “I'm looking forward to the weekend”). The metaphorical grounding of time in space is also evident in gesture. The gestures that are performed when talking about time bolster the view that people sometimes think about regions of time as if they were locations in space. However, almost nothing is known about the development of metaphorical gestures for time, despite keen interest in the origins of space–time metaphors. In this (...) study, we examined the gestures that English‐speaking 6‐to‐7‐year‐olds, 9‐to‐11‐year‐olds, 13‐to‐15‐year‐olds, and adults produced when talking about time. Participants were asked to explain the difference between pairs of temporal adverbs (e.g., “tomorrow” versus “yesterday”) and to use their hands while doing so. There was a gradual increase across age groups in the propensity to produce spatial metaphorical gestures when talking about time. However, even a substantial majority of 6‐to‐7‐year‐old children produced a spatial gesture on at least one occasion. Overall, participants produced fewer gestures in the sagittal (front‐back) axis than in the lateral (left‐right) axis, and this was particularly true for the youngest children and adolescents. Gestures that were incongruent with the prevailing norms of space–time mappings among English speakers (leftward and backward for past; rightward and forward for future) gradually decreased with increasing age. This was true for both the lateral and sagittal axis. This study highlights the importance of metaphoricity in children's understanding of time. It also suggests that, by 6 to 7 years of age, culturally determined representations of time have a strong influence on children's spatial metaphorical gestures. (shrink)

Programmatic concepts have elements that point in a valued direction or name a desired goal. We provide a detailed analysis of the nature of programmatic concepts and cite examples of the programmatic elements found in conceptions of scientific literacy. Next we describe what values underlie these elements and what theories of value might be brought to bear in assessing them. We present an analysis of approximately 70 conceptions of scientific literacy found in the literature since the year 2000. We identify (...) the goals that each of these conceptions of scientific literacy implies and uncover the programmatic elements that are used to justify these goals. Our purpose is to present a sufficiently wide range of views to have a good representation of goals and programmatic elements. Third, we point to a number of pitfalls in any attempt to make preferential selections among the programmatic elements of conceptions of scientific literacy. (shrink)

It is not known whether consciousness can affect the physical world, as a result of a free will action or in some other way. To do so, it must be able to produce physical changes that cannot be accounted for by physical laws, an ability we will refer to as causal action, and several issues relevant to this possibility are discussed. 1) Until recently it was thought that the conservation laws of physics would prohibit causal action. It has now been (...) found that such is not the case, but other problems remain. 2) Observations of brain activity show that most of the process for determining a decision is done by the brain. However, the question of whether the final determination is done by mind or the brain is still open. The issue then arises that given the large amount of processing the brain can do, why would mind do this final step and if it does, why would the amount done by mind be so small? (shrink)