Contending discourses underlie many of the worlds most intractable conflicts, producing misery and violence. This is especially true in the post-9/11 world. However, contending discourses can also open the way to greater dialogue in global civil society and across states and international organizations. This possibility holds even for the most murderous sorts of conflicts in deeply divided societies. In this timely and original book, John Dryzek examines major contemporary conflicts in terms of clashing discourses. Topics covered include the alleged (...) clash of civilizations; societies divided by ethnicity, nationality, or religion; economic globalization versus resistance; plus an in-depth discussion of the 'war on terror'. Dryzek concludes by highlighting the limitations of current neoconservative and cosmopolitan approaches, arguing that only deliberative global politics offers unprecedented new possibilities for democratic engagement in the international system. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, politics, philosophy, and sociology. (shrink)

This is a book about how politics, government - and much else - needs to change in response to the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the emerging epoch of human-induced instability in the Earth system and its life-support capacities.

Features Covers the philosophical and historical development of the concept of "species" Documents that variation was recognized by pre-Darwinian scholars Includes a section on the debates since the time of the New Synthesis Better suited to non-philosophers Summary Over time the complex idea of "species" has evolved, yet its meaning is far from resolved. This comprehensive work is a fresh look at an idea central to the field of biology by tracing its history from antiquity to today. Species is a (...) benchmark exploration and clarification of a concept fundamental to the past, present, and future of the natural sciences. In this edition, a section is added on the debate over species since the time of the New Synthesis, and brings the book up to date. A section on recent philosophical debates over species has also been added. This edition is better suited non-specialists in philosophy, so that it will be of greater use for scientists wishing to understand how the notion came to be that living organisms form species. (shrink)

The Byzantine rite of ordination to the presbyterate culminates in the conferral of a portion of the Eucharist upon the newly-ordained by the bishop. After reviewing the historical roots of this rite, this article examines the philological and biblical background of the term. Parakatathêkê coincides with the notion of paradosis but goes beyond it in personal and eschatological senses. Three simultaneous but distinct acts of personal transmission are highlighted: the personal participation of the newly-ordained in the apostolic ministry of the (...) bishop; the handing over of Christ personally present in the Eucharist to the newly-ordained; and the corresponding personal surrender of the new priest to Christ, to whom he will render an account of his own realization of Christ's priesthood in the service of His Mystical Body, the Church. (shrink)

I sin udmærkede kommentar til vores artikel «En etisk diskussion af screening for kræftsygdomme» beskriver Geir Hoff den udtalte mangel på evidens vedrørende nytteværdien af screeningsprogrammer for kræftsygdomme baseret på randomiserede studier. Ydermere fremhæver Geir Hoff misforholdet mellem den manglende evidens ved screening og de strenge krav, der er til evidensen i den farmaceutiske industri. Dette er en velkommen kritik, pga. en udtalt ukritisk og uvidenskabelig tilgang til anvendelse af screening for denne eller hin sygdom eller risikofaktor.

The Nature of Classification discusses an old and generally ignored issue in the philosophy of science: natural classification. It argues for classification to be a sometimes theory-free activity in science, and discusses the existence of scientific domains, theory-dependence of observation, the inferential relations of classification and theory, and the nature of the classificatory activity in general. It focuses on biological classification, but extends the discussion to physics, psychiatry, meteorology and other special sciences.

"--Joel Cracraft, American Museum of Natural History "This is not the potted history that one usually finds in texts and review articles.

In this book, John Dryzek criticizes the dominance of instrumental rationality and objectivism in political institutions and public policy and in the practice of political science. He argues that the reliance on these kinds of politics and to technocracies of expert cultures that are not only repressive, but surprisingly ill-equipped for dealing with complex social problems. Drawing on critical theory, he outlines an alternative program for the organization of political institutions advocating a form of communicatively rational democracy, which he (...) terms discursive democracy, that stresses the importance of active citizenship and public discourse. He draws out the limitations of instrumental rationality and investigates how policy analysis and political science may be reformed to help constitute and comprehend democracy. Discursive Democracy examines how the political process can be made more vital and meaningful. At the same time it shows how such an invigorated process will serve as a more effective agent for social problem solving. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe historical process underlying Darwin’s Origin of Species did not play a significant role in the early editions of the book, in spite of the particular inductivist scientific methodology it espoused. Darwin’s masterpiece did not adequately provide his sources or the historical perspective many contemporary critics expected. Later editions yielded the ‘Historical Sketch’ lacking in the earlier editions, but only under critical pressure. Notwithstanding the sources he provided, Darwin presented the Origin as an ‘abstract’ in order to avoid giving sources; (...) a compromise he acknowledged and undertook to set right in later editions, yet failed to provide throughout the six editions under his supervision. Darwin’s reluctance to publish the historical context of his theory and his sources, particularly sources which were also ‘precursors’, may be attributed as much to the matter of intellectual ownership as science, or even good literary practice. Of special concern to Darwin were issues of priority or originality over ‘descent with modification’ and especially over Natural Selection. Many later historians have argued that Darwin was unaware of the work of his precursors on Natural Selection. Darwin’s theory was an example of independent discovery, albeit along with such obscure precursors as Matthew or Wells, who were unknown to Darwin until after the publication of the Origin. Both Matthew and Wells had a medical education, like James Hutton or Erasmus Darwin earlier in the eighteenth century, or even Charles Darwin. Evolutionary theory, at least in Britain was a product largely of the medical evolutionists rather than the natural historians which ‘history’ has chosen to select for the focus of attention; and among the medical evolutionists the figure of John Hunter stands out as theorist, experimentalist and teacher: the medical evolutionists were predominantly the product of Hunter’s legacy or of the medical profession and particularly the Scottish Universities. Much recent Darwin scholarship has focused on the private Notebooks, to establish Darwin’s discovery of Natural Selection around 1837–1838 and demonstrate Darwin’s ignorance of his precursors; requiring an explicit acknowledgement by Darwin as the legitimate substantiation of any claim to prior influence. The precursors have been categorized as uniformly obscure or irrelevant to the science of evolution which may be defined exclusively as ‘Darwinian’. The inclination to acknowledge influences, however was not something Darwin was gratuitously given to doing, especially on matters of priority. The Notebooks are not Darwin’s private thoughts; from an early stage he considered them incipient public documents and later sought to protect them as proof of his originality. William C. Wells was not an obscure thinker, but a celebrated scientist whom Herschel, Darwin’s guide to scientific methodology, had recommended as providing a model of scientific method. Darwin discovered Wells through Herschel, and quickly acquired a copy of Wells’ recommended work, no later than 1831, and held it thereafter in his library at Down House. This book, the 1818 edition of Wells’ Two Essays contains a third essay, Wells’ account of Natural Selection. Later, in the Descent of Man Darwin acknowledged his separate discovery of the correlation of colour and disease immunity in man, also earlier recounted by Wells. (shrink)

Recent interpretations of Michel Foucault's work have leaned heavily on a reading that can be traced back to the 'vital ist/mechanist' debate in the philosophy of science from earlier in this century. Friends (Gilles Deleuze) and enemies (Jürgen Habermas) both read Foucault as a kind of vitalist, championing repressed and unrealized life-forces against a burdensome facticity. This reading of Foucault, however, comes with a prohibitively high cost: the giving up of Foucault's most trenchant insights regarding the nature of power. In (...) fact, Foucault has a quite different relation to the history and philosophy of science than the one ascribed to him by critics. Key Words: Bergson • Canguilhem • Foucault • opposition • vitalism. (shrink)

In 1988, David Hull presented an evolutionary account of science. This was a direct analogy to evolutionary accounts of biological adaptation, and part of a generalized view of Darwinian selection accounts that he based upon the Universal Darwinism of Richard Dawkins. Criticisms of this view were made by, among others, Kim Sterelny, which led to it gaining only limited acceptance. Some of these criticisms are, I will argue, no longer valid in the light of developments in the formal modeling of (...) evolution, in particular that of Sergey Gavrilets’ work on adaptive landscapes. If we can usefully recast the Hullian view of science as being driven by selection in terms of Gavrilets’ and Kaufmann’s view of there being “giant components” of high-fitness networks through any realistic adaptive landscape, we may now find it useful to ask what the adaptive pressures on science are, and to extend the metaphor into a full analogy. This is in effect to reconcile the Fisherianism of the Dawkins–Hull approach to selection and replicators, with a Wrightean drift account of social constructionist views of science, preserving, it is to be hoped, the valuable aspects of both. (shrink)

Clara Zetkin was a socialist activist from 1878, first with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, then with the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, and finally with the Communist Party of Germany. During the period of antisocialist laws in Germany 1 she was exiled in Switzerland and France, and she assisted with the organization of the 1889 founding congress of the Second International in Paris. Indeed, she attended every congress of the Second International, acting as translator at them all (...) and speaking at several. In 1890 she returned to Germany and became editor of Die Gleichheit, the.. (shrink)

The Buddha’s final illness, brought on by his last meal prior to his death, was traditionally seen as one of a set of ailments suffered by him at various points during his lifetime. This paper looks at different Buddhist explications of the causes of these ailments and applies them to the episode of the Buddha’s final illness. In both instances, three explanatory strategies are detected: the first stresses the causative importance of the Buddha’s own negative karmic deeds in past lives; (...) the second looks to the negative deeds and karma of others than the Buddha; the third offers non-karmic explanations. The first two engendered two rather different kinds of j?taka stories; the last did not involve any j?takas but highlighted various kinds of ‘natural’ explanations. (shrink)

The terms red, green, yellow, and blue are both necessary and sufficient to describe our chromatic experience. Their uniqueness and opponent nature is supported by evidence obtained under supra-threshold conditions, especially hue cancellation. These constraints are nontrivial. How some electrophysiologically identified mechanisms contribute to colour appearance is not known, but their complexities do not refute our experience of elemental hues.

NATURES AND FUTURES FOR POLITICAL THEORY John S. Nelson What are the problematics, histories, forms, aims, conditions, methods, and topics proper to political theory? Plainly, these change from one context to another; and yet they may ...

The reviews of this book which greeted its appearance in America, where it won a Catholic Press Association Religious Book Award, speak for themselves. 'The real core of the book is the question that is raised - the demanding bone-crushing question we all face - alone - at one time - the question of death/life and immortality. In these few pages we set out on a journey - one that winds its way among ancient stories and myths ... one's constant (...) disturbing companion is death - a reality that keeps breaking in upon our imes, our friends, our dreams and hopes and even our changing and becoming. The richness of the book lies in the questioning and some of the answers other men's times have given in attempt to live with this probing. We meet Kazantzakis, Homer, Melville, Hegel, Dante in their humanness in the face of death and in their timeless answers' (National Catholic Reporter). From the Protestant side, Martin Marty commented how John Dunne, 'perhaps the most intuitive and natively talented Catholic around, has cast a new spell', and The Critic remarked: 'As a meditation ought to be, it is simple and profound at once. And it is beautifully done, in some ways the richest of John Dunne's works.' All of which amounts to an invitation to join the author as he poses the timeless dilemma of the human condition and seeks to resolve it through stories of adventures, journeys and voyages inspired by man's encounter with death; stories of childhood, youth, manhood and age; and finally stories of God and of man wrestling with God and the unknown. (shrink)

Swedenborg's Principles of Usefulness presents a possibly unsuspected historical undercurrent that further evidences Emanuel Swedenborg's pervasive influence on a whole host of historical figures-from poets and artists to philosophers and statesmen-whose contributions to the evolution of self and society have resonated throughout time and into the present. Besides having an impact on individual thinkers, Swedenborg's ideas worked their way into the various social reform traditions that vitalized the American landscape during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. His concept of usefulness, best (...) demonstrated in the competing worldviews of the nation's liberal and conservative traditions, involved a commitment made by Swedenborgians, New Church members, and others to energize the nation and its people by envisaging the possibility of a much-desired Universal Human. (shrink)

PART VII: PUBLICS AND MOVEMENTS. - PART VIII: GOVERNMENT RESPONSES. - PART IX: POLICY INSTRUMENTS. - PART X: PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS. - PART XI: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE. - PART XII: RECONSTRUCTION.

Translation previously published in: The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Species concepts for bacteria and other microbes are contentious, because they are often asexual. There is a Problem of Homogeneity: every mutation in an asexual lineage forms a new strain, of which all descendents are clones until a new mutation occurs. We should expect that asexual organisms would form a smear or continuum. What causes the internal homogeneity of asexual lineages, if they are in fact homogeneous? Is there a natural “species concept” for “microbes”? Two main concepts devised for metazoans (...) and metaphytes have been applied to bacteria. One is the Recombination Concept, a revised form of the Biological Species Concept in which the homogenizing mechanism is the sharing of genome fragments, somewhat akin to sexual recombination. The other is the Ecological Species Concept, in which the ecological niche is that which maintains lineages as cohesive. In this paper I will discuss these two concepts, and offer an underlying model that conjoins them, and consider the implications for species concepts in general. In short, my argument is that asexual species are instances of the most primitive and underived notion of species, which I will call “quasispecies”, following Eigen, and that sexual species are merely one derived kind of species. Moreover, I will argue that there is a continuum of recombination from simple viral models in which each strain is a clone, through to obligate recombination of 50% of the parents’ genome, and that consequently there is no sharp division between “microbial” and more familiar species. (shrink)

Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today provides excerpts and commentary on the definition of «species from source material ranging from the ...

Workplace violence in healthcare has become a crisis in and of itself. Before COVID, more than three-quarters of all US workplace violence injuries were against healthcare professionals with some s...

This paper is published as part of special issue on the theme of ‘justice without retribution’. Any attempt to consider how justice may be achieved without retribution has to begin with a consideration of what we mean by justice. The most powerful pleas for justice usually come from those who feel that they have been harmed by the wrongful acts of others. This paper will explore this intuition about justice and will argue that it arises from the central importance of (...) reciprocity, in the form of equity, balance and fairness, in human relationships. This is expressed in our image of justice, one of whose core symbols is a set of scales. I will use a clinical case to illustrate what can happen when criminal harm is not followed by any form of restitution. In this case, the punitive impulse was internalised in the victim and turned against herself in the form of deliberate self harm and, ultimately, death by suicide. I will argue that human relationships largely consist of reciprocal acts of good or harm and that we constantly strive for a balanced reciprocity in our relationships with others. This theme has been played out throughout human history in personal relationships, social customs, legal systems, religion and culture. It is also seen in higher primates. When someone is a victim of wrongful harm, there is a need to take measures to restore the balance which has been lost. I will attempt to draw a distinction between retributivism as the term is usually understood and the application of the principle of reciprocity in criminal justice. This distinction is one that has found expression in what has become known as ‘restorative justice’ as opposed to conventional justice. There are two cardinal features of restorative justice in this context. The first is that it brings offender and victim into a relationship with the aim of repairing the harm that has been caused. The second is that it gives the offender the opportunity to give something back to his victim. I will conclude that our responses to criminal wrong-doing should be based on restorative principles and that punishment can sometimes be part of the process by which moral harm is made good. (shrink)

In this paper the coherence of the precautionary principle as a guide to public health policy is considered. Two conditions that any account of the principle must meet are outlined, a condition of practicality and a condition of publicity. The principle is interpreted in terms of a tripartite division of the outcomes of action . Such a division of outcomes can be justified on either “consequentialist” or “deontological” grounds. In the second half of the paper, it is argued that the (...) precautionary principle is not necessarily opposed to risk–cost–benefit analysis, but, rather, should be interpreted as suggesting a lowering of our epistemic standards for assessing evidence that there is a link between some policy and “special bad” outcomes. This suggestion is defended against the claim that it mistakes the nature of statistical testing and against the charge that it is unscientific or antiscientific, and therefore irrational. (shrink)

This paper informally summarizes a two-day symposium held at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., September 5–6, 2002. The issue was to what extent the progress of science and societal capacity for continued technological innovation are threatened by excessive protection of intellectual property. Excessive protection creates disadvantages not only for scientists and inventors but also for educators/students and for librarians/clientele. Speakers from a variety of disciplines and institutions agreed unanimously that scientific and technological progress is, indeed, under (...) serious threat. Various opinions were expressed about the degree of threat, currently and prospectively, as well as what counter-measures are best suited to resist undue restrictions on creative uses of scientific and technical data and information. This summary is based entirely on the author’s notes from the symposium, and the commentary offered is his alone. My apologies to the speakers if this paper does not accurately reflect the primary intent of their presentations. The “Suggested Readings” offered at the end are not specific to the speakers’ statements but rather are offered as a general resource to aid further research. The definitive record of the symposium is planned to be available from the National Academies Press as a Proceedings publication in the summer of 2003. (shrink)

Intelligent design theorist William Dembski hasproposed an ``explanatory filter'' fordistinguishing between events due to chance,lawful regularity or design. We show that ifDembski's filter were adopted as a scientificheuristic, some classical developments inscience would not be rational, and thatDembski's assertion that the filter reliablyidentifies rarefied design requires ignoringthe state of background knowledge. Ifbackground information changes even slightly,the filter's conclusion will vary wildly.Dembski fails to overcome Hume's objections toarguments from design.

This chapter contains sections titled: Progress and the Tree of History Discovering the Past Teleological Thinking References and Further Reading.