Restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid shift toward remote qualitative recruitment and data collection. This shift generated considerable opportunities to conduct qualitative research, but also introduced novel challenges to data integrity in the form of inauthentic participants. While newer literature describes potential strategies that may be deployed to target concerns related to inauthentic participation, an explicit focus on equity and ethical considerations has been largely absent from current discourse. Here we describe our experiences and challenges (...) conducting a study aimed at exploring reasons for recent firearm acquisition among Black Americans. We describe the mitigation strategies we implemented, as well as the ethical challenges and potential consequences that emerged. Our team identified three specific ethical considerations: identity and processes of categorization, trust and mistrust in research engagement, and privacy and honoring sensitive context. These considerations are critical to consider in conducting qualitative research, especially among marginalized groups, and expand the current literature on qualitative research ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, religious studies has undergone an ethnographic turn. More and more, scholars attend to the social location and significance of religious practice. This approach foregrounds the self-understandings of religious communities and practitioners and raises the question of the relation between ethnography and philosophical analysis. For instance, Saba Mahmood, in The Politics of Piety, draws from ethnographic study so as to critique philosophy’s universalizing claims regarding subjectivity, enabling a recognition of the diverse forms feminist subjectivity and political agency may (...) take within religious traditions and practice.2 Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized likewise shifts the terrain of .. (shrink)

Novices face a problem when it comes to forming true beliefs about controversial issues that they cannot assess themselves: Who are the trustworthy experts? Elizabeth Anderson offers a set of criteria intended to allow novices to form reliable assessments of expert trustworthiness. All they need to assess experts is a high-school education and access to the internet. In this paper, I argue that novices face a much harder time using her criteria effectively than we would expect or hope. This problem (...) is amplified when novices hold the wrong opinions. Such novices need her criteria the most and are the least likely to use them correctly. Such novices lack knowledge necessary for using the criteria accurately, and are likely to resist correction of their wrong opinions due to cognitive biases. After providing reasons to be skeptical of the effectiveness of her criteria, I propose some supplemental criteria to increase their effectiveness: metacognitive reliability conditions aimed at getting novices to assess themselves in the way that they assess experts. Although these additional criteria show promise, we should be reserved in our optimism. (shrink)

This book sets out to identify the nature and implications of a proper understanding of pluralism in a original and illuminating way. Isaiah Berlin believed that a recognition of pluralism is vital to a free, decent and civilised society. By looking below at the often neglected foundations of Berlin’s celebrated account of moral pluralism, Lyons reveals the more philosophically profound aspects of his undogmatic and humanistic liberal vision. He achieves this by comparing Berlin’s core ideas with those of several of (...) his most distinguished philosophical contemporaries, an exercise which yields not only a deeper grasp of Berlin and several major twentieth-century thinkers, principally A. J. Ayer, J. L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, Bernard Williams and Quentin Skinner, but, more broadly, a keener appreciation of the power of history and philosophy to help us make sense of our predicament. (shrink)

Trust is critical for social life, and yet it is alarmingly fragile. It is easily damaged and difficult to repair. Philosophers studying trust have often noted that basic kind of trust needs to be in place in order for social life to be possible. Although philosophers have suggested that basic trust must exist, they have not tried to describe in explicit terms what this basic trust looks like, or how it comes to be. In this article I will identify and (...) describe a basic form of trust that I call recognition trust. It is a latent expectation we have in others to respect our moral status as persons. By conceptualizing recognition trust, I can explain why trust is not just a useful tool for social cooperation: having our personhood recognized is necessary for living a minimally decent human life, and trust is a necessary element of recognition. First, I motivate the need for conceptualizing a basic form of trust by looking at cases of moral injury and our inherent vulnerability. Such injuries involve the betrayal of an expectation we have in others to recognize us as persons with moral status. Second, I dig deeper into this basic human need of recognition that is thwarted in moral injuries. I argue that fulfilling this basic need requires a particular kind of trust that others will not morally injure us. Third, I give shape to recognition trust by describing its core features, showing why it is a candidate for basic trust. Finally, I defend my concept of recognition trust against a pair of objections. (shrink)

This manuscript is the introductory article for the special issue of the Journal of Social Studies Research titled Teaching Disciplinary Thinking, Literacy, and Argumentation Skills. In it, the authors provide an historical overview of disciplinary thinking as outlined by Edwin Fenton and Sam Wineburg. They talk about how the C3 Framework is a melding of a focus on disciplinary thinking outlined by Fenton and Wineburg with the emphasis on preparing K-12 students for their future roles as democratic citizens as stressed (...) by scholars like Shirley Engle. Then, the focus of the manuscript shifts to highlight the underdeveloped areas of disciplinary thinking in civics, geography, and economics. The authors define economic, civic, and geographic thinking and provide habits of mind for each of these disciplines along with classroom activities for each. They close with arguments for why K-12 social studies teachers and social studies education scholars should focus on developing K-12 students’ civic, economic, and geographic thinking skills. (shrink)

This paper discusses a challenge to normative ethics motivated by experimental philosophy. Experimental philosophers object to the perceived “armchair” or a priori nature of philosophy, claiming it should rather be empirical or naturalistic. The paper investigates the application of this claim to normative ethics. Dubbing the application of the experimental philosophers’ contention to normative ethics “the Armchair Claim,” I distinguish descriptive and normative versions of this challenge, and consider their merits as comments on the method of normative ethics (descriptive versions), (...) and as comments on how normative ethics should be done (normative versions). Characterizing normative ethics as essentially involving the use of the method of reflective equilibrium, I show how the versions of the Armchair Claim that I distinguish either misconstrue normative ethics, or are committed to metaethical views that are controversial. To bring home the latter point, I contrast two meta-ethical positions, and show how, on one such view, naturalism, the descriptive version could be correct, whereas on another, intuitionism, it would be false. The normative version, in turn, is consistent with naturalism, but begs the question against the intuitionist since she argues that normative ethics cannot be empirical. The upshot is that a conclusive assessment of the Armchair Claim will have to await the resolution of disputed issues in meta-ethics. However, normative ethicists can get on with their work since reflective equilibrium is unaffected by such debates. (shrink)

This book reminds readers of the insatiable attraction of the “blue highway”—“But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk—times neither day or night—the old roads return to the sky some of its color.

How does trust operate under conditions of oppression? Little attention has been paid to how distrust may be both necessary and costly to its bearer. Distrust is clearly warranted under certain conditions, but do those conditions contribute to a reduction in one's overall well-being? More importantly, is there something about distrust itself (rather than the conditions that warrant it) that contributes to this reduction in well-being? In this essay, I explore these questions in depth. I explain what the costs of (...) distrust are and how they impede our well-being. I argue that the weakened development of trust through oppression has some important downstream consequences: namely, it requires the cultivation of skepticism as a virtue of distrust, which I argue should be included as one of Lisa Tessman's burdened virtues—those that are required for survival but that do not necessarily lead to the agent's flourishing. (shrink)

Persuasive design draws on our basic psychological makeup to build products that make our engagement with them habitual. It uses variable rewards, creates Fear of Missing Out, and leverages social approval to incrementally increase and maintain user engagement. Social media and networking platforms, video games, and slot machines are all examples of persuasive technologies. Recent attention has focused on the dangers of PD: It can deceptively prod users into forming habits that help the company’s bottom line but not the user’s (...) wellbeing. But PD is not inherently immoral. We can take advantage of our psychological biases to make beneficial changes in ways that enhance our agency rather than limit it. Knowing that a tool is persuasively designed is a consideration in favor of using it when we are trying to break bad habits, such as smoking. How are we to conceptually distinguish between ethical and unethical uses of PD? In this paper, I argue that unethical uses of PD betray or erode our trust. Annette Baier offers a moral test for trust: If gaining knowledge about what other parties do with our trust in them would lead us to stop trusting, then that trusting relationship is immoral. I apply this test to the case of PD. Using trust as a litmus test for ferreting out unethical PD has several advantages, one of which is that it reveals how the harm of unethical PD extends beyond the individual to her wider social network. I close the paper by investigating these cascading effects. (shrink)

[Andrew Williams] It is difficult for prioritarians to explain the degree to which justice requires redress for misfortune in a way that avoids imposing unreasonably high costs on more advantaged individuals whilst also economising on intuitionist appeals to judgment. An appeal to hypothetical insurance may be able to solve the problems of cost and judgment more successfully, and can also be defended from critics who claim that resource egalitarianism is best understood to favour the ex post elimination of envy (...) over individual endowments. /// [Michael Otsuka] Inequality is intrinsically bad when and because it is unfair. It follows that the ideal of equality is not necessarily realised by a distribution of resources which is envy-free prior to the resolution of risks against which people have an equal opportunity to insure. Even if the upshot of such an ex ante envyfree distribution is just, it is not necessarily fair. (shrink)

[Michael Williams] A response to Sosa's criticisms of Sellars's account of the relation between knowledge and experience, noting that Sellars excludes merely animal knowledge, and hopes to bypass epistemology by an adequate philosophy of mind and language. /// [Ernest Sosa] I give an exposition and critical discussion of Sellars's Myth of the Given, and especially of its epistemic side. In later writings Sellars takes a pragmatist turn in his epistemology. This is explored and compared with his earlier critique of (...) givenist mythology. In response to Michael Williams, it is argued that these issues are importantly independent of philosophy of language or mind, and that my own take on them does not commit me to any absurd radical foundationalism on language or mind. My own take is in line with Descartes' two-level epistemology of cognitio and scientia, a bifurcation that protects him from vicious circularity, and is adaptable for an epistemology naturalized, whether in the way of Quine, or Moore, or Davidson. (shrink)

This semester-long research project examined the use of social studies trade books to thematically teach about six individuals who served as change agents in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Three of the individuals were African American men, Robert Smalls, Frederick Douglass, and John Roy Lynch, who took civic action to address racial discrimination faced by the Black community in the half century following the U.S. Civil War. The other three indivduals were women women, (...) Ida B. Wells, Clara Lemlich, and Jane Addams, who challenged social inequities and injustices within their communities. Over the course of the semester-long research project, sixth-grade U.S. history students read selected trade books, examined primary sources, completed graphic organizers, and crafted writing assessments about each of the six individuals. Students demonstrated complex historical thinking, integrated economic and civic thinking, and communicated thematic ideas of systemic oppression of minorities, women, and the poor. They struggled to make connections between examples of historic oppression and contemporary examples of societal oppression. (shrink)

Recent corporate legal and ethical meltdowns suggest that avoiding such harms to companies and to society requires a significant culture change within the organization. This paper addresses the issue of what it takes to change a corporate culture. While conventional wisdom may suggest that a change requires only the institution of an ethics office with proper reporting paths and an ethics code, such an approach is only a beginning. Many large corporations, especially those in danger of legal and ethical catastrophes, (...) need to undertake multiple initiatives to generate a new culture that manifests new values and new vocabularies. A cultural change accomplished by changing large numbers of personnel is expensive in financial and human terms. One component of a less costly approach is to tell new and different stories within the corporation because stories establish the cultural DNA that gives organizations, families, and individuals their identities. Such changes in individual firms, however, are influenced by the ideological assumptions within which and under which the industry and the society operates. (shrink)

This book provides brief expositions of the central concepts in the field of Global Studies. Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev says, “The book is intelligent, rich in content and, I believe, necessary in our complex, turbulent, and fragile world.” 300 authors from 50 countries contributed 450 entries. The contributors include scholars, researchers, and professionals in social, natural, and technological sciences. They cover globalization problems within ecology, business, economics, politics, culture, and law. This interdisciplinary collection provides a basis (...) for understanding the concepts and methods within global studies and for accessing lengthier and more technical research in the field. The articles treat such important topics as the biosphere, ozone depletion, land resources and pollution, world health challenges, education, global modeling, sustainable development, war, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism. The book also promotes academic cooperation, political dialogue, and mutual understanding across diverse traditions and national identities that are needed to engage successfully the many daunting challenges of globalization. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to hold the view that virtual surrogates for the things that are good in life are inferior to their actual, authentic counterparts, including virtual education, virtual skill-demanding activities and virtual acts of creativity. Virtual friendship has also been argued to be inferior to traditional, embodied forms of friendship. Coupled with the view that virtual friendships threaten to replace actual ones, the conclusion is often made that we ought to concentrate our efforts on actual friendships rather than (...) settle for virtual replacements. The purpose of this paper is to offer a balanced and empirically grounded analysis of the relative prudential value of actual and virtual friendship. That is, do actual and virtual friendships differ when it comes to enhancing our subjective well-being? In doing so, I will discuss a number of presuppositions that lie behind common criticisms of virtual friendship. This will include, among other considerations, their potential for replacing actual friendship, as well as the possibility for self-disclosure, trust, sharing and dynamic spread of happiness in virtual worlds. The purpose is not to arrive at a firm, normative conclusion, but rather to introduce a number of considerations that we should take into account in our individual deliberations over which role virtual friendships ought to have in our unique life situations. (shrink)

Kant hace uso de la idea de un contrato originario para legitimar el Estado y el Derecho, el cual, sin embargo, no muestra las razones o motivos para el establecimiento de ambos. Se afirma que, para saber cuáles son estas razones, se debe analizar el concepto de estado natural. Este concepto no se l..

J. M. Bernstein argues that to capture the depths of the harm of torture, we need to do away with the idea that we possess intrinsic and inviolable worth. If personhood is inviolable, then torture can inflict only apparent harm on our standing as persons. Bernstein claims that torture is a paradigm of moral injury because it causes what he calls “devastation”: The victim experiences an actual degradation of his or her personhood. Bernstein argues that our value is given to (...) us through mutual recognition and hence can be lost. In this paper, I argue that if our human value can be lost, then it first must be built up. If it must be built up, then the question of our status before the building begins must be answered. Bernstein faces a problem of human beings who fall outside relations of mutual recognition and hence are valueless. His best option for answering this problem is to point to the centrality of the body in his account of recognition, but doing so reveals a notion of intrinsic worth implicit in his account. I call for a revision of Bernstein's account that can hold on to devastation without eschewing intrinsic worth. (shrink)

The internal structure of ability emotional intelligence tests at item level has been hardly studied, and if studied often the predicted structure did not show. In the present study, an a priori model for responses to EI ability items using Likert response scales with a Situational Judgement Test format is investigated with confirmatory factor analysis. The model consists of a target EI ability factor, an acquiescence factor, which is a method factor induced by the Likert response scales, and design-based error (...) covariances, which are induced by the SJT format. It is investigated whether this a priori model can account for the observed associations between the raw item responses of the Components of Emotion Understanding Test-24. The CEUT-24 is a new test developed to assess emotion understanding, a key aspect of the EI ability construct, based on the componential emotion framework. The sample consisted of 1184 participants from four European countries speaking four different languages. Findings showed that the a priori model fitted the data well in all four languages. Furthermore, measurement invariance testing gave evidence for a well-fitting configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance model. The conclusion is that within a regular CFA framework using raw observed items responses, method factors can be disentangled from the targeted EI ability factor. (shrink)

There are at least two passages in the jamesian corpus where he seems to establish a topology of "regional ontologies", or to set up multiple "language games". the first of these is "the principles of psychology" when he talks about "the many worlds", or "...sub-universes commonly discriminated from each other...", the second is in "pragmatism", where he notes that there "are...at least three well-characterized levels, stages, or types of thought about the world we live in..." two questions immediately come to (...) mind about these levels. first, is each of these areas of equal importance, epistemologically and ontologically speaking? second, how, if at all, are these regional areas related to each other? each of these questions has a seemingly obvious answer. to wit, the world of perception is more important than any of the other areas; and second, the regional areas are related in terms of the disjunctive and conjunctive transitions which james so strenuously upholds, resulting in an overall "concatenated" picture. i argue that both of these responses are insufficient, and that the issue is more complicated than it first appears. (edited). (shrink)

When it comes to the question of what kind of moral claim an intelligent or autonomous machine might have, one way to answer this is by way of comparison with humans: Is there a fundamental difference between humans and other entities? If so, on what basis, and what are the implications for science and ethics? This question is inherently imprecise, however, because it presupposes that we can readily determine what it means for two types of entities to be sufficiently different—what (...) I will refer to as being “discontinuous”. In this paper, I will sketch a formal characterization of what it means for types of entities to be unique with regard to each other. This expands upon Bruce Mazlish’s initial formulation of what he terms a continuity between humans and machines, Alan Turing’s epistemological approach to the question of machine intelligence, and Sigmund Freud’s notion of scientific revolutions dealing blows to the self-esteem of mankind. I will discuss on what basis we should regard entities as (dis-)continuous, the corresponding moral and scientific implications, as well as an important difference between what I term downgrading and upgrading continuities—a dramatic difference in how two previously discontinuous types of entities might become continuous. All of this will be phrased in terms of which scientific levels of explanation we need to presuppose, in principle or in practice, when we seek to explain a given type of entity. The ultimate purpose is to provide a framework that defines which questions we need to ask if we argue that two types of entities ought (not) to be explained (hence treated) in the same manner, as well as what it takes to reconsider scientific and ethical hierarchies imposed on the natural and artificial world. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to stress the importance of pragmatic arguments if we are to reach overlapping consensuses across cultural and disciplinary borders. An analytical distinction is made between, on the one hand, arguments based on socio-political or philosophical presuppositions, and on the other hand, pragmatic arguments. The latter are detached from culture-specific or disciplinary presuppositions. I will mainly focus on the issue of regulation and surveillance on the Internet, and put forward a selection of pragmatic arguments for (...) why widespread regulation and surveillance ought to be avoided. These arguments are intended to reach the same conclusion as arguments that are based on socio-political and philosophical presuppositions, with the aim of creating overlapping consensuses. (shrink)

In “Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity,” I objected to William Hasker’s Social Model of the Trinity on the grounds that it does not secure the necessary agreement between the divine persons. Further, I developed a Latin Social model of the Trinity. Hasker has responded by defending his Social Model and by raising seven objections against my Latin Social Model. Here I raise a new objection against Hasker on the grounds that it is inconsistent with (...) Conciliar Trinitarianism, and I respond to the seven objections and in so doing further develop the Latin Social Model. (shrink)

A few years back, well-known skeptic Michael Shermer and I were speakers at Baylor’s The Nature of Nature conference. During evening refreshments, we discussed how we could generate funds for our respective causes—he to promote skepticism and debunk people like me, and me to promote intelligent design and debunk Darwinism (which underwrites Shermer’s brand of skepticism). We agreed that we should start a highly visible campaign against each other in which we argue the dangers of the other’s position. Having escalated (...) the conflict between us, we could then go to our natural constituencies and urge them to fund each of us against the other. Of course, nothing ever came of that conversation. But we had a chuckle. And both our causes have since done quite well financially. (shrink)

William P. Alston's book, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience , challenges the contemporary view that religious experience is purely subjective. He theorizes that a direct experiential awareness of God can produce immediately justified beliefs about God. Accordingly, this dissertation critically assesses the problem of subjectivism thought to taint Alston's epistemology of religious experience. ;Upon disclosing the prevalence of subjectivity, and identifying the potential for objectivity in religious experience, this treatise produces a viable resolve for objectivity in mystical perception. (...) It accomplishes this task through several considerations. ;Through an historical analysis of evidentialism's influence in empiricism and analytic philosophy of religion, we can determine the extent to which Alston's epistemology succumbs to this influence. Although finding evidentialism to be prevalent, Alston's theory of "reliabilism," namely the reliability of sensory perception, attempts to overcome evidentialism's predilection toward subjectivism. Nevertheless, it will be demonstrated that the object of consciousness in the perceptual act is still a mental entity. Thus subjectivism persists. Having identified that Alston's phenomenology of perception in particular, does very little to overturn the verdict of subjectivism, this study proceeds to identify an alternative phenomenology. ;Merleau-Ponty's "primacy of perception" seems a likely candidate for providing a richer phenomenological description of perception than Alston's. Once issues of relevancy have been satisfactorily addressed, it will be proposed that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, i.e. "reversibility thesis," accentuates a "genuine" objective moment in perception. One in which we are able to appropriate to Alston's concept of mystical perception. This phenomenological revision to Alston's epistemology of religious experience does much to counter the charge of subjectivism. ;The above proffering is rendered in six chapters. Chapter I provides a close reading of Perceiving God. Chapter II succinctly puts forth what exactly Alston's epistemology responds to in classical British empiricism and analytic philosophy of religion. Chapter III places Alston in the contemporary discussion in analytic epistemology. Chapter IV points to where Alston's epistemology of religious experience is vulnerable to the charge of subjectivism. Chapters V and VI provide an alternative phenomenology based on Merleau-Pontian insights, which are applied to Alston's epistemology of religious experience. (shrink)

Both the scholarly and certainly the popular literatures surrounding information and computing ethics make frequent reference to one or more revolutions. To be sure, in an age that has witnessed—and is increasingly driven by—rapid technological innovation and diffusion, it is tempting to believe that new technologies cannot help but to transform our lives and worlds in radical, dramatic, and thus revolutionary ways.

Although william james wrote no complete philosophy of science, nonetheless there exist in his writings several references to scientific procedure. furthermore, these are anti-positivistic in tone. these references include: 1) a rejection of the old baconian model for science; 2) an assertion that competing conceptual models of experience exist, each one of which can account for the empirical data in question; 3) nonetheless, a refusal either to reduce different conceptual theories to one conceptual outlook, or to reduce conceptual models as (...) a whole to sensory experience; and 4) an assertion that the scientist is an active transformer of his environment. in this paper i discuss these issues. (shrink)

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference "Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium" held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.

William James's essay, "The Will to Believe," is interpreted as a philosophical argument for two conclusions: (l) Some over-beliefs—i.e., beliefs going beyond the available evidence—are rationally justified under certain conditions; and (2) "The Religious Hypothesis" is justified for some people under these conditions. Section I defends viewing James as presenting arguments, Sections II-III try to formulate the dual conclusions more precisely, and Section IT defends this reading against alternative interpretations. Section 7, the heart of the paper, elaborates five logically distinct (...) arguments (or approaches) implicit in "The Will to Believe" with regard to non-evidential justification. Section VI examines "The Religious Hypothesis," and Section VII concludes by noting that while James's particular arguments are largely unsuccessful nevertheless the project of finding non- evidential or "practical" rational warrants for religious over-beliefs seems promising. Two appendices supplement the body of the text. The first considers some formal aspects of the so-called "ethics of belief" in order to clarify James's desired conclusions) in "The Will to Believe," and the second shows that and how James's own "technical distinctions" are both obscure and largely irrelevant to his central task. (shrink)

The purpose of my Masters thesis was to develop a conceptual framework for analysing the relation between human beings (moral persons) and other entities that share a subset of our properties. The background for this project was MIT historian Bruce Mazlish’s claim that humans are continuous with machines, in the same way that we are continuous with animals and the world at large. Rather than focusing explicitly on whether humans are indeed unique or not, my aim was to reach a (...) better understanding of what such a claim amounts to. This is important since the uniqueness of man has important implications for our conception of ourselves, our relation to other entities, and our corresponding moral obligations. The sometimes paradoxical claims about human uniqueness is perhaps best illustrated by animal experimentation, which on the one hand rests on the assumption that there is a continuity between man and animals (i.e. the experimental results are relevant for humans) but, on the other hand, that there is a discontinuity between man and animals when it comes to moral obligations. (shrink)

Scott Williams’s Latin Social model of the Trinity holds that the trinitarian persons have between them a single set of divine mental powers and a single set of divine mental acts. He claims, nevertheless, that on his view the persons are able to use indexical pronouns such as “I.” This claim is examined and is found to be mistaken.

William james is often thought of as a philosopher who rejected language as incapable of dealing with the unfinished character of the universe. Actually, There are two different complementary uses of language in james' texts. Sometimes he does reject language as inadequate; but at other times he presents a surprisingly "modern" view of language. Specifically, James recognized that meanings vary from context to context; that some words have an "intentional" aspect, And that language cannot be viewed as consisting of substantive (...) words strung together by neutral logical connectives. In this paper, I try to "unpack" these two different natures of uses language found in james' works. (shrink)

The american philosopher william james has been accused of being both a positivist and a romantic intuitionist. in the present paper, i wish to defend james from both charges. first, an analysis of the james texts will indicate that: 1) he refuses to distinguish clearly sensation, percept and concept; 2) he recognizes the ontological status of concepts; and, 3) he uses the word "perceptual" in two different ways. this two-fold use of the word has been the source of much difficulty (...) and forces us to deal, secondly, with the issue of james' opinion of language. he is often thought of as a romanticist, as someone who believed that life was beyond all language. we shall try to show that this view also is wrong, and that there exist two different views of language in his texts. (shrink)

The selected papers of William Phelps Allis are gathered here in celebration of his elevation from Professor to Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This gathering was arranged as a surprise tribute to Professor Allis and was prepared under conditions of conspiring silence. The presentation was held at M.I.T. on May 10, 1967. The papers selected here are a worthy extension of the man himself, in their directness and essential simplicity. And in their abiding value. In (...) the words of his editor, student, and colleague Sanborn C. Brown, "he has succeeded in leading a whole generation of Physicists with such a timeless approach that this volume should be considered not as a look backward but as a compilation of fundamental insights upon which to build future progress.". (shrink)

A new process philosophy of signs, where process becomes primary, and fixed relation secondary'Behind Red Doors - Signs, Process and the Political' - a post by James Williams on the Edinburgh University Press blogWhat is a sign? We usually think that it is a fixed relation: a red light signifies 'Stop'. In his bold new book, James Williams now argues that signs are varying processes: seeing the red light triggers a creative response to the question, Should I stop? (...) class='Hi'>Williams develops this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model, in contrast to earlier structuralist definitions. He draws on the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, criticises earlier work on the sign in biology by Jakob von Uexküll, and connects to contemporary work on process in the philosophy of biology by John Dupré.The process model has wide applications in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and informs their critical debates with science. In defining the sign as essentially political, this radical definition of the sign opens up new possibilities for social and political critique.". (shrink)

Tractatus de Successivis attributed to William Ockham divides in three parts: on motion, on place and on time. Considerations given in the third part, on time, plays important role in conceptualistic metaphysical theory of time. Study on Ockham prepares important conclusions concerning critical Aristotelianism in 14th century. Our translation gives also an example of the late scholastic logic and epistemology.

Tractatus de Successivis attributed to William Ockham divides in three parts: on motion, on place and on time. Considerations given there plays important role in conceptualistic metaphysical theory of motion, place and time. Study on Ockham prepares important conclusions concerning critical Aristotelianism in XIV century. Our translation gives also an example of the late scholastic logic and epistemology.

In periods of social crisis, policymakers become particularly vulnerable to interest groups mobilizing to compete for scarce funds. At this point, legislators are no longer able to address the specific needs of their primary constituency directly, but rather are forced to do so in pretext only. New, unfamiliar technologies provide ample ammunition for astute interest groups to take advantage of times of economic turmoil and maneuver for policy support through dramatic campaigns of “salesmanship.” By publicizing a crisis situation, dramatizing it (...) effectively, and advertising an innovation as the solution to the crisis, legislators may be effectively persuaded to give priority to interest group pressures above and beyond those of the local constituency. Iowa's attempts to address the farm crisis through economic development strategies relying on biotechnology is examined in this paper. The results of extensive surveys of Iowa's legislators and farmers are examined and the consequences for Iowa's policy process of using biotechnology under the auspices of economic development are discussed. (shrink)