How does cultural knowledge shape the development of human minds and, conversely, what kind of species-specific social-cognitive mechanisms have evolved to support the intergenerational reproduction of cultural knowledge? We critically examine current theories proposing a human-specific drive to identify with and imitate conspecifics as the evolutionary mechanism underlying cultural learning. We summarize new data demonstrating the selective interpretive nature of imitative learning in 14-month-olds and argue that the predictive scope of existing imitative learning models is either too broad or too (...) narrow to account for these findings. We outline our alternative theory of a human-specific adaptation for ‘pedagogy’, a communicative system of mutual design specialized for the fast and efficient transfer of new and relevant cultural knowledge from knowledgeable to ignorant conspecifics. We show the central role that innately specified ostensive-communicative triggering cues and learner-directed manner of knowledge manifestations play in constraining and guiding selective imitation of relevant cultural knowledge that is both new and cognitively opaque to the naive learner. (shrink)

The two main domains of high culture - the arts and the sciences - seem to be completely different, simply unrelated. Is there any sense then in talking about culture in the singular as a unity? A positive answer to this question presupposes that there is a single conceptual scheme, in terms of which it is possible to articulate both the underlying similarities and the basic differences between these domains. This article argues that - at least in respect of ‘classical’ (...) modernity - there is such a framework: the normatively conceived Author-Work-Recipient relation. It allows the disclosure of the paradoxical unity of culture: its two main realms are constituted as polar opposites and thus as strictly complementary. Through such an organization, culture could fulfil an affirmative, compensatory role. At the same time however, it also allowed culture to acquire the character of social critique, a function realized through the antagonistically opposed projects of Enlightenment and Romanticism - projects whose illusions are now evident. (shrink)

Classical verse work on the Advaita philosophy and meditation.

Collection of published and unpublished 48 works of Śaṅkarācārya.

The term “principle of sufficient reason” (PSR) was coined by Leibniz, and he is often regarded as its paradigmatic proponent. But as Leibniz himself often insisted, he was by no means the first philosopher to appeal to the idea that everything must have a reason. Histories of the principle attribute versions of it to various ancient authors. A few of these studies include—or at least do not exclude—medieval philosophers; one finds the PSR in Abelard, another finds it in Aquinas. And (...) while Leibniz retains pride of place in these histories, Spinoza is sometimes said to precede him “in appreciating the importance of the Principle and placing it at the center of his philosophical system.” In this paper, the author argues that the same should be said of the Islamic philosopher Avicenna. Writing 600 years before his early modern counterparts, Avicenna routinely and consistently appeals to the PSR in generating his metaphysical system. The paper aims first to establish that Avicenna deserves a position of prominence in histories of the PSR, and then to consider how he addresses certain challenges to the PSR, especially the threat posed by necessitarianism. (shrink)

V. 1, Catuḥsūtryantapūrṇānandīyavyākhyāsaṃhitayā Śrīgovindānandapraṇītayā Ratnaprabhayā samanvitam; v. 2, Śrīgovindānandapraṇītayā Ratnaprabhayā samanvitam.

From the late seventeenth century on the idea of culture underwent a gradual transformation. Originally this concept referred essentially to the “refined” way of life of the ruling social elite. Popular culture, on the other hand, refers to the usually collective practices of groups of rural and urban workers taking the form of performance. They were not only excluded from refined culture, but it was regarded as completely unsuitable for them, potentially creating dangerous social aspirations. It is with the great (...) social transformation from feudal to bourgeois society that the idea of refined culture was replaced by that of “high culture” encompassing both the arts and the sciences: works claiming universal human significance. This “high culture” for a considerable time coexisted with the remnants of popular culture. It has been only due to the great technical advances that its true opposite, “mass culture” emerged, at the turn to twentieth century, claiming an empirical universality: being understandable and truly interesting to everyone. In economic respect, there is a competitive relation between high and mass culture. However, it is argued that there can be no cultural competition between them. For they posit differing and potentially co-existing receptive attitudes. The characterisation of this difference and the discussion of the seeming exceptions to the so-articulated conceptual scheme occupies the concluding part of this essay. (shrink)

This article analyzes the comparative history of the law and practice of abortion and assisted reproduction in the United States to consider the interplay between medical paternalism and legal paternalism. It supplements existing critiques of paternalism as harmful to women's equality with the medical perspective, as revealed through the writings of Alan F. Guttmacher, to consider when legal regulation might be warranted.

The two main domains of high culture - the arts and the sciences - seem to be completely different, simply unrelated. Is there any sense then in talking about culture in the singular as a unity? A positive answer to this question presupposes that there is a single conceptual scheme, in terms of which it is possible to articulate both the underlying similarities and the basic differences between these domains. This article argues that - at least in respect of ‘classical’ (...) modernity - there is such a framework: the normatively conceived Author-Work-Recipient relation. It allows the disclosure of the paradoxical unity of culture: its two main realms are constituted as polar opposites and thus as strictly complementary. Through such an organization, culture could fulfil an affirmative, compensatory role. At the same time however, it also allowed culture to acquire the character of social critique, a function realized through the antagonistically opposed projects of Enlightenment and Romanticism - projects whose illusions are now evident. (shrink)

Festschrift for Maḍiniyavela Śrī Mēdhaṅkara, Sri Lankan Buddhist monk; contributed articles chiefly on economic and ethical aspects of Buddhism.

The book addresses the constitution of the high culture of modernity as an uneasy unity of the sciences, including philosophy, and the arts. Their internal dynamism and strain is established through, on the one hand, the relationship of the author - work - recipient, and, on the other, the respective roles of experts and the market.

Exposition of Advaita based on selections from the Vedāntaparibhāsā by Dharmarājādhvarindra, 17th cent., Yatīndramatadīpikā by Śrīnivāsadāsa, 17th cent., and Śrībhāsya by Rāmānuja, 1017-1137; with profuse quotations.

“Desiderius Erasmus sprang from the seed of a priest who refused to follow his vow of celibacy. He himself became a monk against his will, found he had to flee the monastic atmosphere, and scrounged for the wherewithal to study. In time, he became the greatest classical scholar of his day, and wrote a book called Anti-Barbari which speaks to the 1970’s, though it was written nearly half a millennium ago. Like the youth of today, Erasmus lived during a period (...) of intense political, intellectual, and religious change. Burgundy warred with France, the humanists clashed with the medieval order, and Luther destroyed Christian unity. Against this background, Erasmus, whose name is derived from the Greek root meaning “to love,” was able to develop and sustain a profound philosophy of tolerance and pacifism.Erasmus could compromise with the Princes of Church and State, and even flatter them, but he never compromised his beliefs. In an age we think of as fraught with superstition and intolerance, Erasmus summoned his greatness to the side of reason; his integrity speaks to us now, when we can no longer comfort ourselves with the belief that we are living in an age of reason. This grand biography will have added meaning for a generation of students who are trying to revive “humane” as a guideline for human interchange.”- Publisher. (shrink)

The current study examined youths’ and their parents’ perceptions concerning participation in an investigation of spontaneous and induced pain during recovery from laparoscopic appendectomy. Youth and their parents independently completed surveys about their study participation. On a scale from 0 to 10, both parents and youth rated their experience as positive. Among youth, experience ratings did not differ by pain severity and survey responses did not differ by age. Most youth reported that they would tell another youth to participate. Ethical (...) issues regarding instigation of pain in youth for research purposes are examined. (shrink)

The complex and dynamic nature of systems pose a particular challenge to researchers and require the use of a research methodology designed to deal with such systems. The properties of fit, relevance, understandability, generality, control, workability, generalizability, and modifiability make Glaserian grounded theory and grounded action particularly well suited for studying systems. These methods are innovative, systemic, and sophisticated enough to reveal the underlying complexities of systems and plan actions that address their complex, dynamic nature while remaining grounded in what (...) is occurring within the systems as they change over time. (shrink)

Lukács, G. Statt eines Vorworts, ein Brief.--Heller, A. Theorie und Praxis, ihr Verhältnis zu den menschlichen Bedürfnissen.--Vajda, M. Marxismus, Existentialismus, Phänomenologie.--Márkus, G. Der Mensch als gesellschaftliches und bewusstes Naturwesen.--Márkus, M. Hegedüs, A. Gemeinschaft und Individuum.--Heller, A., Vajda, M. Familienform und Kommunismus.--Hegedüs, A. Zur Untersuchung von Alternativen der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung.--Fehér, F. Ist der Roman eine problematische Gattung?

In At the Roots of Causality, Francesco Omar Zamboni examines several doctrines related to Avicenna’s writings on existence, contingency, and causality, which generated debate in the two hundred ye...

György Lukács first published the original Hungarian language version of Soul and Form in 1910. It included eight of the ten essays later to be published in subsequent German, Italian, and English editions. This current centennial edition adds to the mix one additional Lukács essay, "On Poverty of Spirit", written at roughly the same time as the others and bearing a vital relationship to them. Finally, in this edition we have added to the Lukács material an important introductory essay by (...) Judith Butler, as well as a concluding essay, by Katie Terezakis, which draws out connections between the Lukácsian concept of form and its elaboration and critique in Lukács’s own work and in works of critical theory and philosophy up to the present. (shrink)

We analyze a frequent but undertheorized form of structural injustice, one that arises due to the difficulty of reaching numerically equitable representation of underrepresented subgroups within a larger group. This form of structural injustice is significant because it could occur even if it were possible to completely eliminate bias and overt discrimination from hiring and recruitment practices. The conceptual toolkit we develop can be used to analyze such situations and propose remedies. Specifically, based on a simple mathematical model, we offer (...) a new argument in favour of quotas, explore implications for policy-making, and consider the wider philosophical significance of the problem. We show that in order to reach more equitable representations, quota-based recruitment may often be practically unavoidable. Assuming that members of groups in statistical minority are more likely to quit due to their marginalization, their proportions can stabilize at a low level, preventing a shift towards more equal representation and conserving the minority status of the subgroup. We show that this argument has important implications for addressing, preventing, and remediating the structural injustice of unfair representation. (shrink)

The concept of efficient causation originates with Aristotle, who states that the types of cause include ‘the primary source of the change or rest’. For Medieval Aristotelians, the scope of efficient causality includes creative acts. The Islamic philosopher Avicenna is an important contributor to this conceptual change. In his Metaphysics, Avicenna defines the efficient cause or agent as that which gives being to something distinct from itself. As previous studies of Avicenna's ‘metaphysical’ conception of the efficient cause attest, it takes (...) God as a model agent. This essay considers whether Avicenna's ‘metaphysical’ conception of the efficient cause applies to natural agents. It ultimately argues that Avicenna offers a unified view of the efficient cause, which includes both divine and natural agents. On this view, an efficient cause gives being to another and is simultaneous with its effect. While Avicenna's defence of this view is an important chapter in the history of the concept of the efficient cause, it is also of interest in its own right. By appeal to a version of the principle of sufficient reason, it challenges a widespread view that causes are temporally prior to their effects. (shrink)

Complete works of Śaṅkarācārya, Hindu philosopher; with commentary and Bengali translation.

The ArgumentContemporary natural sciences succeed remarkably well in ensuring a relatively continuous transmission of their cognitively relevant traditions and in creating a widely shared background consensus among their practitioners – hermeneutical ends seemingly achieved without hermeneutical awareness or explicitly acquired hermeneutical skills.It is a historically specific – emerging only in the nineteenth century – cultural organization of the Author-Text-Reader relation which endows them with such an ease of hermeneutical achievements: an institutionally fixed form of textual and intertextual practices, normatively posited (...) ways of adequate reception and criticism, etc. The same organization also explains a number of their often-discussed epistemic and cultural characteristics: their depersonalized objectivity, the social closure of their discourse and their reduced cultural significance, the shallow historical depth of their activated traditions, etc.The cognitive structure and the social function of contemporary natural sciences are intimately interwoven with a set of sui generis cultural relations that are partially fixed in the textual characteristics of their literary objectivations. A comparative hermeneutical analysis of natural sciences as a specifically constituted and institutionalized cultural genre or discourse-type brings into relief those contingent cultural conditions and relations to which some of their fundamental epistemological characteristics are bound, or at least with which they are historically closely associated. (shrink)

Boolos's proof of incompleteness is extended straightforwardly to yield simple “diagonalization-free” proofs of some classical limitative theorems of logic.

Background: Attention to ethical leadership in nursing has diminished over the past several decades. Objectives: The aim of our study was to investigate how frontline nurses and formal nurse leaders envision ethical nursing leadership. Research design: Meta-ethnography was used to guide our analysis and synthesis of four studies that explored the notion of ethical nursing leadership. Participants and research context: These four original studies were conducted from 1999-2008 in Canada with 601 participants. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval from the original studies (...) covered future analysis. Findings: Using the analytic strategy of lines-of-argument, we found that 1) ethical nursing leadership must be responsive to practitioners and to the contextual system in which they and formal nurse leaders work, and 2) ethical nursing leadership requires receiving and providing support to increase the capacity to practice and discuss ethics in the day-to-day. Discussion and conclusion: Formal nurse leaders play a critical, yet often neglected role, in providing ethical leadership and supporting ethical nursing practice at the point of patient care. (shrink)