In ordinary life we think that we know many things about the world. I know that I am sitting here. I know that it is not raining. I know that Reagan is President--and many more interesting things. We also think that we know things of a more general sort, e.g., that there are tables, chairs, physical objects, other people. Most of the time, we believe that we have good reasons for our beliefs. Descartes, Hume and Russell, however, as a result (...) of philosophical reflection, discover that we cannot know, nor do we have any good reason for our beliefs. ;Thomas Reid and G. E. Moore reject the sceptic's negative conclusions. They think scepticism is absurd, ridiculous and contrary to common sense. It is contrary to what we believe in ordinary life. These commonsense philosophers do not find the sceptical arguments compelling. They argue that scepticism is not as well supported as the ordinary view that we do know. ;A large part of my dissertation is a defense of scepticism against these commonsense philosophers' objections. I argue that Reid and Moore fail to appreciate the power and significance of scepticism. They fail to understand the relation between philosophical scepticism and ordinary life. A proper understanding of Humean scepticism thwarts any attempt to argue from ordinary life against scepticism. ;Still, I argue that Hume was concerned, indeed distressed, by the conflict between scepticism and ordinary life. But he does not think that conflict casts doubt on the truth of scepticism. I argue that Hume feels "philosophical melancholy" over his discoveries about human nature and the human condition. But his distress is totally at the philosophical level. That is because the recognition of the conflict between ordinary life and philosophical reflection is distressing at the philosophical level. I argue that Hume is right to feel the distress that he does, but I also maintain that he should be dissatisfied with his negative appraisal of our epistemic position, just as we are. ;Reid and Moore are right to be dissatisfied with scepticism, even though their attempts to legitimize that dissatisfaction fail. Their failure to appreciate the nature and importance of scepticism, however, is instructive because it forces us to explain why there is thought to be a problem about knowledge. They force us to express what is indeed difficult to express, namely, what it is that we want to understand when we undertake a philosophical investigation of knowledge. . . . UMI. (shrink)

The author argues that there is no problematic conflict in Hume between philosophical reflection and ordinary life but among "conflicting intuitions at the philosophical level." The return to ordinary belief is not a satisfactory outcome for Hume because Hume thinks that the sceptical stance should be adopted in ordinary life. His realization that he holds unjustifiable beliefs is a philosophical issue that throws light on the nature of belief.

In the last two decades the composition of the labor force in the United States has changed significantly. Today, most employeesare mothers or fathers of children under eighteen in families where both parents are employed or where the employed parent is a single mother. This represents a reversal of the older family ideal in which a father worked to provide income and a mother performed the domestic work that sustained families. The practices of business and much of the attention of (...) business ethicists have assumed the older ideal. However, the wage work of mothers raises serious concerns about how business should view their parent-employees. Business has responded with family friendly corporate policies. This article analyzes these policies in light of two particular values: The social equality of women and the well-being of families. Finding current policies inadequate to meet these values, this paper calls for renewed ethical attention to the issues of time demands on employees and just wages. (shrink)

CONCERN ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF FAMILIES HAS BEEN A CONSTANT refrain in the history of the United States. Change in family forms often has been regarded as a breakdown of the family and a harbinger of social decay. In each historical period, a family form has been identified as an ideal in contrast to which other forms of family have been found deficient, even dysfunctional. Social policies have been designed to reward "good" families and discourage "bad" ones. Today, the increase (...) in single-mother families, the high divorce rate, and the percentage of children living in poverty often are cited as evidence of the breakdown of the family and abandonment of family values because of a culture of "inordinate individualism." The Marriage Movement particularly represents this view. In this essay I first describe this approach to family values, its use of social science to support its claims, and the influence of this perspective on certain liberal Christian proposals for family ideals. I argue that family ideals assume race, gender, and economic privileges that are not available to all. By ignoring socioeconomic realities for many people, these ideals may mask and reinforce unjust inequalities. In fact, the themes and policies of the defense-of-marriage movement fit nicely with the neoliberal political economy that developed in the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that church and social policies that value families must connect the well-being of all families with a commitment to gender equality and economic justice. (shrink)

A partir de una encuesta por correo electrónico a estudiantes de Ingeniería en el SAI de la UAMA en un contexto de enseñanza remota forzado por la pandemia, se caracteriza la gestión de la docencia, desde la visión de los estudiantes, se realiza un diagnóstico de los aspectos relacionados. Es un estudio transversal con un análisis cualitativo y descriptivo de las respuestas. La gestión docente se ve afectada por factores inherentes al proceso, así como también por factores externos. Los resultados (...) obtenidos muestran que fue impactada fuertemente al realizarse el proceso totalmente vía remota especialmente, la comunicación e interacción alumno-profesor. (shrink)

Increasingly, taxonomies are being developed and used by industry practitioners to facilitate information interoperability and retrieval. Within a single industrial domain, there exist many taxonomies that are intended for different applications. Industry specific taxonomies often represent the vocabularies that are commonly used by the practitioners. Their jobs are multi-faceted, which include checking for code and regulatory compliance. As such, it will be very desirable if industry practitioners are able to easily locate and browse regulations of interest. In practice, multiple sources (...) of government regulations exist and they are often organized and classified by the needs of the issuing agencies that enforce them rather than the needs of the communities that use them. One way to bridge these two distinct needs is to develop methods and tools that enable practitioners to browse and retrieve government regulations using their own terms and vocabularies, for example, via existing industry taxonomies. The mapping from a single taxonomy to a single regulation is a trivial keyword matching task. We examine a relatedness analysis approach for mapping a single taxonomy to multiple regulations. We then present an approach for mapping multiple taxonomies to a single regulation by measuring the relatedness of concepts. Cosine similarity, Jaccard coefficient and market basket analysis are used to measure the semantic relatedness between concepts from two different taxonomies. Preliminary evaluations of the three relatedness analysis measures are performed using examples from the civil engineering and building industry. These examples illustrate the potential benefits of regulatory usage from the mapping between various taxonomies and regulations. (shrink)

Prior research supports the learnability of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition Alternative Model of Personality Disorders. However, researchers have yet to compare novice ratings on the AMPD’s Level of Personality Functioning Scale and the 25 pathological personality traits with expert ratings. Furthermore, the AMPD has yet to be examined with the idiographic Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure. We compared the aggregated AMPD clinical profile of a group of psychology doctoral students who learned the AMPD to high levels (...) of reliability to that of an expert rater using the crucible of the classical case of “Madeline G.” Examination of AMPD and SWAP ratings of “Madeline G.” revealed excellent overall concordance but suggests that novice raters tend to perceive lower levels of personality impairment. (shrink)

Cet article fait valoir que la recherche sur le développement international devrait être soumise à la surveillance des comités d’éthique de la recherche dans les pays où les données seront collectées. Cela inclut les personnes ayant un statut qui leur permet de se soustraire des lignes directrices ou des politiques d’éthique, telles que les personnes engagées par des organisations non gouvernementales. L’argument repose sur une compréhension de la justice sociale qui reconnaît que ne pas rechercher l’approbation éthique au niveau local (...) peut être un affront au mouvement de décolonisation et peut entraîner des dommages directs importants pour les participants. La supervision éthique au niveau local favorise une meilleure prise en compte des législations locales, des règlements, des priorités et du contexte. Par exemple, un comité d’éthique de la recherche local est souvent mieux placé qu’un comité étranger pour évaluer si un projet proposé comporte des risques spécifiques au contexte donné. En outre, le fait de soumettre un projet à un comité d’éthique de la recherche local permet de reconnaître la légitimité des autorités locales, prenant ainsi position contre l’histoire de la perte de pouvoir en lien avec la colonisation. La supervision locale permet d’accroître la responsabilité des chercheurs travaillant à l’étranger : si l’autorité locale et l’adaptation au contexte spécifique doivent être respectées, il doit y avoir des mécanismes pour s’assurer que la recherche qui ne satisfait pas à ces exigences ne peut avoir lieu. Les objections fondées sur la capacité limitée de supervision dans certains pays et sur les préoccupations liées à la politisation du processus d’évaluation sont abordées. Enfin, les rôles et les responsabilités des différentes parties prenantes dans la mise en œuvre d’une plus grande supervision éthique au niveau local sont définis. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning How to Innovate as a Socio-epistemological Process of Co-creation: Towards a Constructivist Teaching Strategy for Innovation” by Markus F. Peschl, Gloria Bottaro, Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Katharina Rötzer. Upshot: The target article describes a programme of study in enterprise education based on radical constructivism (RC. There are a number of issues that arise: the RC approach emphasises student learning rather than preparation for teaching, this type of course can have an impact on the (...) other courses in the programme, and the nurturing of student uncertainty requires particular skills in any group by both teachers and students. (shrink)

Israel Kirzner cautions us that, because commodity price arbitrage as such does not operate outside commodity markets, the logic of Pareto-improving entrepreneurship does not provide a “copybook example” for explaining the evolution of social institutions in general. He characterizes Menger’s theory of the emergence of money as non-entrepreneurial; by implication, while it assures us that some monetary standard will emerge, it does not assure us that a superior monetary standard will spontaneously emerge. I argue that entrepreneurial opportunities for private gain (...) do in fact drive the Mengerian evolution from barter to money, and systematically promote the emergence of superior monetary standards, though not necessarily the best conceivable standards. In choosing among potential exchange media to accept and offer, a pre-monetary trader has a private incentive to choose commodities that have whatever properties other traders prefer in their exchange media.Israel Kirzner nous met en garde sur le fait que parce que l’arbitrage des prix des marchandises en soi n’opère pas hors des marchés des produits, la logique de l’amélioration de l’esprit d’entreprise ne procure pas un “exemple classique” pour expliquer l’évolution des institutions sociales en général. Il caractérise la théorie mengerienne de l’émergence de la monnaie comme étant non entrepreneuriale; l’implication en est que si cette théorie nous assure qu’un certain étalon monétaire va émerger, elle ne peut affirmer avec certitude que cet étalon monétaire spontané sera supérieur.L’article suggère que des opportunités entrepreneuriales de gains privés orientent en effet l’évoluti- on décrite par Menger d’une situation de troc vers une économie monétaire et promeuvent systéma- tiquement l’émergence d’étalons monétaires supérieurs, bien que pas nécessairement les meilleurs étalons concevables. En choisissant parmi les intermédiaires d’échange potentiels lequel accepter ou offrir, un négociant d’avant l’ère monétaire a une insitation privée à choisir les marchandises dotées de propriétés que les autres négociants préfèrent dans le cadre de leurs échanges. (shrink)

Wegen der engen Symbiose zwischen Mutter und Kind, die charakteristisch für die Schwangerschaft ist, können sich Interessenskonflikte zwischen den beiden Individuen entwickeln. Konflikte, bedingt durch die Bedrohung der mütterlichen Gesundheit einerseits und das Recht des Fetus auf Leben, stellen Ausnahmesituationen dar und können in der Regel ohne Opferung der Fetus gelöst werden. Bei unerwünschten Schwangerschaften stellt sich die Frage nach der Priorität von dem Recht der Mutter auf Autonomie und Wahrung ihrer psychosozialen Gesundheit und dem Recht auf Leben des Fetus. (...) Auch die frühzeitige Diagnose eines kranken Fetus mit Aussicht auf ein schwerbehindertes Kind kann – bedingt durch die psychische Belastung – als Bedrohung der mütterlichen Gesundheit aufgefaßt werden. Die gesetzlichen Vorgaben zur Lösung dieser Konflikte variieren zwischen verschiedenen Ländern und unterliegen ihrerseits Anpassungen und Veränderungen. In Anbetracht der verschiedenen kulturellen und religiösen Einflüsse moderner Gesellschaften kann es keinen übergreifenden Konsens zur Lösung dieser Konflikte geben, und die Entscheidung wird im Einzelfall in Abhängigkeit von den moralischen und religiösen Auffassungen der Betroffenen unter Beachtung der rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen gefällt. In der Schweiz ist nach wie vor eines der ältesten und restriktivsten Gesetze über den Schwangerschaftsabbruch gültig, das eine Unterbrechung nur in Situationen ernsthafter Bedrohung des Lebens oder der Gesundheit der Mutter nach entsprechender Bestätigung durch einen medizinischen Fachexperten zuläßt. Die Anwendung bzw. die Auslegung des Gesetzes hat in den letzten 50 Jahre eine erhebliche Ausweitung erfahren und in der Mehrzahl der Kantone wird die psychosoziale Notlage im Zusammenhang mit einer unerwünschten Schwangerschaft als ernste Bedrohung der Gesundheit der Mutter akzeptiert, so daß der Schwangerschaftsabbrucht straffrei ist. Dem Parlament liegt eine neue Initiative zur Anpassung des Gesetzes an die herrschende Rechtspraxis vor, in dem der straffreie Schwangerschaftsabbruch bis zu 14 Wochen nach der letzten Periode auf Wunsch der Frau gefordert wird. Jenseits dieses Zeitpunkt wird dem Recht des Fetus auf Leben zunehmend Gewicht eingeräumt, so daß die Priorität des Rechtes der Mutter auf Autonomie und Selbstbestimmung nicht mehr gegeben ist. Der Schwangerschaftsabbruch beschränkt sich jenseits von 14 Wochen in der Regel auf Fälle mit schwerer nachgewiesener Pathologie des Fetus. Nach Erreichen der extrauterinen Lebensfähigkeit des Fetus (22–24 Wo-chen) wird der Abbruch auch bei nachgewiesener Pathologie des Fetus zunehmend restriktiv gehandhabt und beschränkt sich auf die Fälle mit schwerer Pathologie ohne Aussicht auf ein extrauterines Überleben oder ein Minimum an kognitiver Entwicklungsfähigkeit wie etwa bei Trisomie 13, 18, Anencephalus oder beidseitiger Nierenagenesie.Durch die Fortschritte der pränatalen Diagnostik ist eine präzise Abklärung fetaler Erkrankungen mit detaillierter Beurteilung der Prognose möglich. Die Methoden der Molekularbiologie ermöglichen den Nachweis oder Ausschluß von genetischen Erkrankungen wie auch von Virusbefall fetaler Zellen, so daß die Entscheidung für einen Schwangerschaftsabbruch in diesen Fällen nicht mehr auf Grund von Wahrscheinlichkeitsangaben, sondern abgestützt auf den definitiven Nachweis diskutiert werden kann.Die fetalen Erkrankungen, die einer intrauterinen Behandlung zugängig sind, bilden eine zunehmend länger werdende Liste, die mit der Transfusion von Blut bei Hämolyse wegen Rhesusinkompatibilität begonnen hat. Dazu kommt eine Reihe chirurgischer Eingriffe wie die Laserkoagulation kommunizierender Gefäße beim Zwillingstransfusionssyndrom oder die Ableitung von Flüssigkeit aus verschiedenen Körperhöhlen des Fetus in die Amnionhöhle. Diese Eingriffe werden unter Ultraschallsicht durchgeführt. Größere Eingriffe, die eine Eröffnung des Uterus erforderlich machen, beschränken sich auf Zwerchfellhernien, die Entfernung großer Teratome sowie auch die Behebung obstruktiver Uropathien. Die Erfolgsrate dieser invasiven Eingriffe, die nur in wenigen Zentren durchgeführt werden, bleibt begrenzt. Medizinische Behandlungen des Fetus können durch Verabreichung von Medikamenten an die Mutter mit transplazentarem Übertritt zu dem Fetus oder durch direkte Injektion in Nabelschnurgefäße erfolgen. Die häufigste Indikation stellen Tachyarrhythmien mit Herzinsuffizienz des Fetus dar. (shrink)

On 17 November 1820 there appeared a Dutch translation of Oersted's pamphlet concerning the discovery of the effect of an electric current on a magnetic needle suspended in the earth's magnetic field . In the Netherlands a number of physicists were immediately interested in the electromagnetic and electrodynamic discoveries made by Oersted and the French physicists. They repeated and extended the experiments, and constructed new modifications of the galvanic battery for better results. They made no fundamental discoveries in this field (...) of physics, but the fact that their work was important follows from the experiments of van Beek, which confirmed Amp`ere's theory of molecular magnetic currents. Van Beek as well as Speyert van der Eyk corresponded with Amp`ere about electromagnetic and electrodynamic phenomena. In the Utrecht Universiteitsmuseum there is an unpublished letter of Amp`ere to van Beek, which is published at the end of this article. (shrink)

The last decade has experienced a vivid enthusiasm to unravel the mystery of consciousness believed to be one of the major puzzles of human kind. We share this enthusiasm. Still, we feel that current models are incomplete suffering from a problem that we call the “small network argument”.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 525 "an awareness of its perfection in perfect sell-identity" stems from his own theological bias: if God is to be connected with the world, His thinking cannot be merely a thinking about itself; His mind must also contain the Ideas of the sensible world. The inconsistency is quite apparent in the concluding paragraph of the introductory chapter three on "SellKnowledge ": If we study chapters seven and (...) nine of Book Lambda against the background of these texts on the meaning of friendship, it becomes apparent that a fortiori God's thinking must concern his own being and that "the thinking of thinking" is the supreme form of self-knowledge. Far from being an objectless returning to oneself, this knowledge concerns the very being of the First Principle. It would also seem to fot|ow that iust as knowing a friend is a certain degree of self-knowledge because of the ontological kinship between the self and a friend, God, in knowing himself, also knows, to a certain degree, the essential principles of things in so far as he is the first being encompassing within himself the perfections which other beings possess. This would, however, not imply that the first being would know the world as distinct from himself or as dependent on himself (pp. 33-34). How can God (the Unmoved Mover) think only of Himself, and at the same time, to a certain degree (whatever this means) know also the essential principles of things, the perfections which other beings possess? And what textual justification is there for attributing this position to Aristotle? There are a number of errors in the text. Some of them are as follows: (1) On p. 21 Elders quotes from Laws 987b, in spite of the fact that the Laws ends on 969c. The passage referred to would have to be in Epinomis, but at 987b there is nothing of the text he quotes, to wit, vo~g ~v n0ooXQf3o0oa~E~0~tv 6006g 0~tv. (2) On p. 24, note 41, he correctly gives the text at 432a4 as ~ ~oggdSEo~xotg do0n~o~g x6 vo~x6 ~oxt but makes it mean: '~ere are phantasmata in which the intelligible things are contained." Evidently he confuses this with the passage at 431b1--4. (3) On p. 279, p~.~oxr should read p~i~.t~r (4) On p. 5, ~oo~v should read 6.~ao6v. K. W. Hsaa~oroN Emery University In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. Two Volumes. By Charles Trinkaus. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. 985. $22.50) I. Since the appearance of Burckhardt's classic essay more than a century ago, three schools of thought have grown up around the problem of the nature and extent of humanism 's relationship to Christianity. The classic position, represented by Burckhardt, Symends, Dilthey, Gentile, Cassirer, Saitta, and others, has interpreted humanism as an essentiaUy anti-Christian, anti-scholastic, rationatistic, and individualistic phenomenon caught up in an overwhelming concern for attaining to historical greatness in this world. If religion has been considered at all (and it is usually left to take care of itself), it has been so reinterpreted as to become consistent with the interests of emerging secularism, liberalism, and modern science. Opposing the Burckhardtian position, however, is one originally associated with the work of Giuseppe Toffanin and, more recently, Hiram Haydn. Here, Renaissance humanism is seen to be fundamentaUy Catholic, orthodox, and traditional---the two movements joined in perfect harmony by a common concern for antiquity and universaiism, for Latinity, faith, and corporate elitism, and by a common opposition to democratic particularism, heresy, individualism, modernity, and the vernaculars. What makes these two positions extreme, however, is the existence of the largest, most 526 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY moderate, and most diversified camp. Originating with Thode, Pastor, Olgiati, and Joachimsen, among a host of others, it has encompassed the general view that humanism and Christianity are separate yet interrelated. For some, medieval Catholicism is not the antithesis but the fountainhead of Renaissance humanism--the religious cause of a secular effect. For others, humanism is a novel intellectual movement, but one yet operating within a still... (shrink)

Professor C. G. Hempel (known to a host of admirers and friends as 'Peter' Hempel) is one of the most esteemed and best loved philosophers in the If an Empiricist Saint were not somewhat of a Meinongian Impos world. sible Object, one might describe Peter Hempel as an Empiricist Saint. In deed, he is as admired for his brilliance, intellectual flexibility, and crea tivity as he is for his warmth, kindness, and integrity, and does not the presence of so many (...) wonderful qualities in one human being assume the dimensions of an impossibility? But Peter Hempel is not only possible but actual! One of us (Hilary Putnam) remembers vividly the occasion on which he first witnessed Hempel 'in action'. It was 1950, and Quine had begun to attack the analytic/synthetic distinction (a distinction which Carnap and Reichenbach had made a cornerstone, if not the keystone, of Logical Em piricist philosophy). Hempel, who is as quick to accept any idea that seems to contain real substance and insight as he is to demolish ideas that are empty or confused, was one of the first leading philosophers outside of Quine's immediate circle to join Quine in his attack. Hempel had come to Los Angeles (where Reichenbach taught) on a visit, and a small group consisting of Reichenbach and a few of his graduate students were gath ered together in Reichenbach's home to hear Hempel defend the new posi tion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 31.1 (2007) 189-196MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Fiction and Theory of Mind: An ExchangeLisa Zunshine University of KentuckyBrian Boyd's review of my new book, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) engages a large variety of issues.1 I would like to address an important question about the integration of scientific methodology with literary analysis suggested by Boyd's discussion.2 As (...) I argue below, two different perspectives of this integration may mark two different—indeed, incompatible—ways of formulating the disciplinary goals and philosophy of the new field of cognitive literary theory.Why We Read Fiction makes a case for admitting the recent findings of cognitive psychologists into literary studies by showing how their research into the ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mind can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts. Using as my case studies novels ranging from Richardson's Clarissa, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, I advance and explore a series of hypotheses about cognitive cravings that are satisfied—and created!—when we read fiction.Although my study draws on the already well-established as well as forthcoming work of numerous cognitive scientists (including Simon Baron-Cohen, Clark H. Barrett, Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Christopher Frith, Uta Frith, Paul Bloom, Susan Carey and Elizabeth Spelke, Peter Carruthers, Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, Alison Gopnik, Francesca Happe, Paul [End Page 189] Harris, Lawrence Hirschfeld, Stanley Klein, Alan Leslie, Andrew Meltzoff, Robert Mitchell, Keith Oatley, Gloria Origgi, Oliver Sacks, Dan Sperber, James Stiller, and Endel Tulving), it makes a point of being accessible to non-specialist readers. Cognitive science can be incredibly complicated and so can literary criticism, but I wanted to write a book on cognitive literary theory that does not scare anybody away with unnecessary jargon, knotty sentences, and overlong quotations. (Ironically, I must have succeeded too well in making my book reader-friendly and tucking my references in the endnotes since Boyd observes that I rely on only "a few findings" of cognitive scientists in my discussion.)The book consists of three parts. The first part, "Attributing Minds," introduces the first key theoretical concept of this book: mind-reading, also known as Theory of Mind. Drawing on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen (Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind), I suggest that fiction engages, teases, and pushes to its tentative limits our mind-reading capacity. Building on the recent research of Robin Dunbar and his colleagues, I then consider one particular aspect of Woolf's prose as an example of spectacular literary experimentation with our Theory of Mind. Finally, I turn to Steven Pinker's controversial analysis of Woolf in The Blank Slate to discuss the possibilities of a more profitable dialogue between cognitive science and literary studies.Of particular importance to this part of my argument is my belief that fictional narratives endlessly experiment with rather than automatically execute our evolved cognitive adaptations. When cognitive scientists succeed in isolating a certain regularity of our information-processing—for example, a constraint on the number of mutually reflecting minds that we can process with ease—we can take that constraint and see how it plays itself out in a fictional narrative. What we discover is that where there is a cognitive constraint, there is a "guarantee" of sorts that writers will intuitively experiment in the direction of challenging that constraint, probing and poking it and getting around it. The exact forms of such probing and poking will depend on specific cultural circumstances, including the mind-reading profiles of individual writers and their readers. The cognitive "limits" thus present us with creative openings rather than with a promise of stagnation and endless replication of established forms. This realization marks the possibility of a genuine interaction between cognitive psychology and... (shrink)

The eme r gence of the concept of pr o g ress is cu r rent l y associated with th e Enlightenment o r , going som e w hat further back, with the que r elle des anciens et des modernes in the 1 7 t h centu r y . Y et the notion of pr o g ress can be traced back to a signi f icant l y earlier period: the foundations of a possi b (...) le Christian pr o g ress i vism w ere, in m y opinion, laid b y St. Augustine; this ess a y e xplores its guidelines. J . G. Herde r ' s reaction a g ainst the notion of pr o g ress proposed b y the Enlightenment possesses also a Christian inspiration. While Enlightened pr o g ress i vism conce i v es past cultures as o v ercoming steps in a rising staircase, Herde r , in turn, claims that each of them amounted to a "self-centered sphere" and w as therefore v alua b le in its o wn right. The sense of the e xistence of past generations cannot lie in p a ving the w a y for future ful f illment as this w ould be incompati b le with d i vine l o v e, w hich estimates each of its creatures in its o wn right, as an unrepeata b le ind i vidual. In contrast to Enlightened a r r o g ance (contempt for the "obscurantist" past), Herder presents a "democratic" vi e w of History within w hich all epochs h a v e the same v alue. (shrink)

Prescriptive rules guide human behavior across various domains of community life, including law, morality, and etiquette. What, specifically, are rules in the eyes of their subjects, i.e., those who are expected to abide by them? Over the last sixty years, theorists in the philosophy of law have offered a useful framework with which to consider this question. Some, following H. L. A. Hart, argue that a rule’s text at least sometimes suffices to determine whether the rule itself covers a case. (...) Others, in the spirit of Lon Fuller, believe that there is no way to understand a rule without invoking its purpose — the benevolent ends which it is meant to advance. In this paper we ask whether people associate rules with their textual formulation or their underlying purpose. We find that both text and purpose guide people’s reasoning about the scope of a rule. Overall, a rule’s text more strongly contributed to rule infraction decisions than did its purpose. The balance of these considerations, however, varied across experimental conditions: In conditions favoring a spontaneous judgment, rule interpretation was affected by moral purposes, whereas analytic conditions resulted in a greater adherence to textual interpretations. In sum, our findings suggest that the philosophical debate between textualism and purposivism partly reflects two broader approaches to normative reasoning that vary within and across individuals. Keywords: , the concept of law, rules, legal psychology, Hart, Fuller. (shrink)

The paper questions the effectiveness of the United Kingdom Central Council's (UKCC's) Code of Professional Conduct upon the moral climate of nursing. It challenges the claim that the empowerment of nurses is significantly enhanced by the Code or that it necessarily makes them more accountable for their practice. The position is taken that the Code, in the absence of an effective support network for whistle-blowers, places an unreasonable burden upon nurses in its exhortations to report unprofessional conduct. The paper acknowledges (...) the need to retain the Code, but with more modest claims being made concerning its empowering qualities. It is argued that unless more attention is focused on ways to support potential whistle-blowers, the Code will come to be seen as an irrelevance. Cet article met en question l'effet du Code du UKCC sur le climat moral des soins infirmiers. Il conteste l'affirmation que les infirmiers/ères sont considérablement plus fort à cause du Code ou qu'il les rend plus responsables dans leur pratique. La position est prise que le Code, en l'absence d'un réseau efficace de soutien pour les 'Whistleblowers' (personnes qui dévoilent un système), met un fardeau excessif sur les infirmiers/ères dans ses exhortations de signaler une conduite contraire au Code professionnel. Cet article reconnâit la nécessité de retenir le Code, mais avec des demandes plus modestes concernant ses pouvoirs de rendre fort. Il est soutenu que si non plus d'attention est concentré sur les moyens de soutenir les 'Whistlebowers', le Code va devenir hors de propos. Dieser Artikel bezweifelt die Wirksamkeit des Kodex des UKCC über das moralische Klima der Krankenpflege. Er stellt die Behauptung in Frage, dass der Kodex das Pflegepersonal bedeutend ermächtigt, oder dass er es mehr verantwortlich macht für seine Praxis. Die Position ist hier, dass der Kodex, in der Abwesenheit von effektiver Unterstützung für 'Whistleblowers' (d.h. Leute, die ein System verpfeifen), zu viel vom Pflegepersonal verlangt, in seiner Ermahnung, berufswidrige Praxis zu melden. Dieser Artikel anerkennt die Notwendigkeit, den Kodex zu behalten, aber mit kleineren Ansprüchen für seine ermächtigenden Qualitäten. Wenn nicht mehr Aufmerksamkeit gelegt wird, auf welche Weise die 'Whistleblowers' unterstützt werden können, dann wird der Kodex als eine Nebensächlichkeit verurteilt. (shrink)

"Sommes-nous entrés dans l'ère du déclin démocratique, voire dans un âge postdémocratique? Admettons au moins l'existence d'une triple déception : la démocratie libérale souffre d'une terrible crise de la représentation, d'une grave impuissance publique et d'un profond déficit de sens. Autrement dit, elle aurait perdu, en cours de route, à la fois le peuple qui la fonde, le gouvernement qui la maintient et l'horizon qui la guide. " P.-H. T. Pour Pierre-Henri Tavoillot, ce que nous avions pris pour un progrès (...) acquis — la démocratie — se révèle en réalité un vertigineux chantier. Avec ce livre qui renoue avec la tradition oubliée des traités d'art politique, il nous invite à réfléchir à ce qui fait le secret de l'obéissance volontaire. Car, en démocratie, l'art de gouverner est surtout un art d'être gouverné. Comment l'envisager aujourd'hui? Entre le cauchemar de l'impuissance publique et le spectre de l'autoritarisme, comment réconcilier la liberté du peuple et l'efficacité du pouvoir? (shrink)

Perhaps no technological innovation has so dominated the second half of the twentieth century as has the introduction of the programmable computer. It is quite difficult if not impossible to imagine how contemporary affairs—in business and science, communications and transportation, governmental and military activities, for example—could be conducted without the use of computing machines, whose principal contribution has been to relieve us of the necessity for certain kinds of mental exertion. The computer revolution has reduced our mental labors by means (...) of these machines, just as the Industrial Revolution reduced our physical labor by means of other machines. (shrink)

This essay argues that schooling in Israel is tied too closely to ideology. This results in an indoctrinary orientation that contributes to divisiveness and imperils Israeli democracy. After reviewing and critiquing the roots of this orientation, I advance an alternative that understands education as an agent of the good rather than ideology. Israeli schooling requires a vision of goodness broad enough to encompass competing conceptions of Jewish life espoused by the majority as well as non-Jewish orientations affirmed by various minorities. (...) Such a vision can be grounded, I contend, in a democratic Jewish theology that emphasizes God as teacher rather than tyrant. (shrink)