Several facts about organ donation and transplantation are not in dispute: (1) there is a shortage of available organs; (2) many potential organ donors die after authorized withdrawal of life-susta...

Patient decision aids enable patients to be better informed about the potential benefits and harms of their healthcare options. Certification of patient decision aids at the national level in the United States is a critical step towards responsible governance—primarily as a quality measure that increases patients’ safety, as mandated in the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Certification would provide a verification process to identify conflicts of interest that may otherwise bias the scientific evidence presented in decision aids. (...) Certification also benefits clinicians who may otherwise face malpractice claims based on harm to patients caused by possible reliance on patient decision aids that are inaccurate, incomplete, or presented in a manner that biases the patient’s decision. Existing work by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards Collaboration could guide the establishment of a certification process within the U.S. This article argues for national certification of patient decision aids and discusses how that may be achieved. (shrink)

As interest in working memory is increasing at a rapid pace, an open discussion of the central issues involved is both useful and timely. This new volume compares and contrasts conceptions of working memory, with contributions from proponents of different views.

Hegel has had a remarkable, yet largely unremarked, role in Canada's intellectual development. In the last half of the twentieth-century, as Canada was coming to define itself in the wake of World War Two, some of Canada's most thoughtful scholars turned to the work of G.W.F. Hegel for insight. Hegel and Canada is a collection of essays that analyses the real, but under-recognized, role Hegel has played in the intellectual and political development of Canada. The volume focuses on the generation (...) of Canadian scholars who emerged after World War Two: James Doull, Emil Fackenheim, George Grant, Henry S. Harris, and Charles Taylor. These thinkers offer a uniquely Canadian view of Hegel's writings, and, correspondingly, of possible relations between situated community and rational law. Hegel provided a unique intellectual resource for thinking through the complex and opposing aspects that characterize Canada. The volume brings together key scholars from each of these five schools of Canadian Hegel studies and provides a richly nuanced account of the intellectually significant connection of Hegel and Canada. (shrink)

A model of information technology (IT) ethical work climates is presented. Using these ethical work climates and data collected from a national mail survey of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) members, empirical measures were developed and evaluated. A mailing of 2446 questionnaires was sent to ACM members and 136 usable responses were returned (5.6%). Using these data, an exploratory factor analysis was performed using principle components analysis to identify the IT ethical work climates from the data. Six of these work (...) climates were identified as predicted by the model. Two ethical work climates that were combinations of the proposed climates were also identified.From the results of the exploratory factor analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed using Calis in PC SAS version 8. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the overall fit of these measures to the data and evaluate the psychometric properties of the measures. The fit of the IT ethical work climates model was acceptable. The psychometric properties of these measures were good. Based on these results, conclusions, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are proposed. (shrink)

The dead donor rule (DDR) has facilitated the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives. Recent advances in heart donation, however, have exposed how DDR has limited donation of all organs. We propose advancing the moment in the dying process at which death can be determined to increase substantially the supply of organs for transplantation. We justify this approach by identifying certain flaws in the Uniform Determination of Death Act and proposing a modification of that law that permits earlier procurement (...) of healthier organs in greater numbers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We argue that in societies like our own the prevailing view that parents have both special responsibilities for and special rights over their children fails to give a proper understanding of the autonomy both of parents and of children. It is our claim that there is a logical priority of the separable interests of a child over the autonomy of its parents in the fulfilment of their special responsibilities for and the exercise of their special rights over their children. (...) However, we believe that in acknowledging the child as a distinct locus of interests appropriate weight can still be given to parental autonomy. In particular, since raising a child is a long‐term commitment which plays a central role in the life‐plans of many adults it will be a legitimate exercise of an adult's autonomy strongly to influence the future of any children involved in such a plan. Such influence will be quite separate from paternalistic concern for those children. But the logical priority of the child's interests will at the same time show why parents are not entitled to behave proprietorially toward their children, even when paternalistic concern is called for. (shrink)

There is a longstanding definition of instantaneous velocity. It saysthat the velocity at t 0 of an object moving along a coordinate line is r if and only if the value of the first derivative of the object's position function at t 0 is r. The goal of this paper is to determine to what extent this definition successfully underpins a standard account of motion at an instant. Counterexamples proposed by Michael Tooley (1988) and also by John Bigelow and (...) Robert Pargetter (1990) are reinforced and illuminated by considering the presence or absence of changes to the object's motion. (shrink)

Is time travel just a confusing plot device deployed by science fiction authors and Hollywood filmmakers to amaze and amuse? Or might empirical data prompt a scientific hypothesis of time travel? Structured on a fascinating dialogue involving  ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S IDEAS In the eighteenth century, there was widespread acceptance of a physiological basis for cognition. Some writers even argued for a rather detailed correlation between awareness and physiological changes, suggesting that (a) the former could be adequately explained in terms of the latter or, in some few instances, (b) that the former are the latter. David Hartley may come to mind as fitting one or the other of (...) these alternatives, but Robert Hooke had earlier argued for ideas as brain impressions, as of course did Descartes in his early scientific treatises. There was also one medical doctor in the eighteenth century, Dr. Astruc, who seems (on the basis of what Chambers reports) to have attempted a very specific correlation between specific forms of awareness and specific states and changes in physiology. There were also writers in this century who warned against the dangers of using physical-object vocabulary when talking about the mind and acts of awareness. Berkeley is one such writer,- Thomas Reid at the end of the century traced, to the use of this vocabulary, what he took to be the indirect realism of the way of ideas. Hume is writing in both these traditions: the tradition of using physical language for characterizing mental operations and the tradition of physiological explanations and correlations. The phrase used by Alexander Pope and Hume, 'the anatomy of the mind', seems to be a mixed metaphor, but it is a phrase which I take as an indication that Hume is doing what we would call 'cognitive psychology'. Another phrase used by Hume (this time in the Enquiry), 'mental geography', may capture his enterprise better: 'geography' still sounds physical, but it is modified by 'mental'. Hume is engaged in mental mapping. I want to take a look at the use of the term 'idea' in Hume's writing (mainly in the Treatise) in order to see 2. whether Hume's text enables us to say anything about the nature of his ideas, to discover what role they play in his mental geography. As far as I can determine, there are three possible candidates for the nature of ideas in Hume: images, brain impressions, and cognitive contents. The first of these is, I think, the standard reading of Hume's ideas. Professor Anderson has presented strong argument and evidence to support the second. I will be suggesting that the third is the best candidate, given the full range of the text of the Treatise. Of course, the correct answer 4 may be all three of these. The Treatise opens by dividing all perceptions of the human mind into two kinds. Impressions and ideas differ in the degree of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind. Even though the language of 'force' and 'liveliness' may be borrowed from physical talk, it is the mind, not the brain, on which perceptions strike. The examples of impressions are sensations, passions, and emotions. Ideas are said to be the faint images of these impressions in thinking and reasoning. The term 'image' throughout the eighteenth century never receives any clear explication. Its inheritance from optical treatises always hangs about it. We should look to the examples cited by Hume, in order to see whether we can construct a meaning for that term when used in these psychological contexts. Let us look first at his very first example of 'ideas': all the perceptions excited by the present discourse. (Tl) He explicitly excludes from these perceptions those which arise from the sight and touch, as well as the immediate pleasure or uneasiness his discourse may excite in us. The perceptions which are thus excluded are sensations and emotions, the impressions he has just distinguished. The only candidate left for ideas would seem to be what this discourse says, our thoughts about it, my understanding of what it says. The distinction is not one Hume thinks is difficult to follow: Every one of himself will readily perceive the difference betwixt feeling and thinking. (Tl-2) Last week I was sad, today I recall that feeling of sadness/ the difference between being sad and remembering that I was sad. Hume gives a different example: the perceptions formed when... (shrink)

Presented here are the cases of two secondary social studies teachers who were participants in a larger research endeavor designed to examine the enduring effects of a preservice teacher preparation program rooted in problem-based historical inquiry (PBHI) on their in-service beliefs and practices. The study was designed to revisit graduates of this teacher preparation program after they completed their induction into the profession. The two teachers selected for closer examination in this piece had relatively similar preservice teacher experiences and taught (...) in the same city school system. Findings indicate that the preservice program continued to impact both to some extent. However, their current beliefs about social studies teaching and their typical classroom practices differed greatly. Evidence suggests that these differences may be attributed to their personal dispositions and their conceptions of the role of the teacher. (shrink)

Reform of the federal income tax system has become a perennial item on the domestic policy agenda of the United States, although there is considerable uncertainty over specifics. Indeed the recent report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended not one but two divergent policy directions. In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the (...) answers are known, unknown--or unknowable. The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. The book opens with chapters that discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and political feasibility of these options. Other chapters consider the effect of tax reform on businesses, especially their investment behavior, and include a discussion of possible problems in any transition to a consumption-based tax; international taxation issues arising in an era of globalization; and individual behavioral response to tax reform, including a view of the topic from the perspective of the relatively new field of behavioral economics. ContributorsRosanne Altshuler, Alan J. Auerbach, John W. Diamond, Harry Grubert, Arnold C. Harberger, Kevin A. Hassett, Thomas J. Kniesner, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Edward J. McCaffery, Kathryn Newmark, David Rapson, Daniel Shaviro, Joel Slemrod, James P. Ziliak, George R. ZodrowDiscussants James Alm, Henry J. Aaron, Charles L. Ballard, Leonard E. Burman, Robert S. Chirinko, Robert D. Dietz, Malcolm Gillis, Roger H. Gordon, Jane G. Gravelle, Timothy S. Gunning, James M. Poterba, Thomas S. Neubig, Alan Viard, George Yin John W. Diamond is Edward and Hermena Kelly Fellow in Tax Policy and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University. George R. Zodrow is Professor of Economics and Rice Scholar at the Baker Institute and International Research Fellow at the Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University. (shrink)

The just war tradition is an evolving body of tenets for determining when resorting to war is just and how war may be justly executed. Rethinking the Just War Tradition provides a timely exploration in light of new security threats that have emerged since the end of the Cold War, including ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, threats of terror attacks, and genocidal conflicts within states. The contributors are philosophers, political scientists, a U.S. Army officer, and a senior analyst at (...) the Center for Defense Information. They scrutinize some familiar themes in just war theory from fresh and original angles, and also explore altogether new territory. The diverse topics considered include war and the environment, justice in the ending of war, U.S. military hegemony, a general theory of just armed-conflict principles, supreme emergencies, the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, child soldiers, the moral equality of all soldiers, targeted assassination, preventive war, right authority, and armed humanitarian intervention. Clearly written and free of jargon, this book illustrates how the just war tradition can be rethought and applied today. Contributors include Mark Woods, Eric Patterson, Harry van der Linden, John Lango, Frederik Kaufman, Pauline Kaurin, Reuben Brigety II, Rachel Stohl, Michael Brough, Whitley Kaufman, Jordy Rocheleau, Hartley Spatt, and Robert Hoag. (shrink)

The current ethical norms of genomic biobanking creating and maintaining large repositories of human DNA and/or associated data for biomedical research have generated criticism from every angle, at both the practical and theoretical levels. The traditional research model has involved investigators seeking biospecimens for specific purposes that they can describe and disclose to prospective subjects, from whom they can then seek informed consent. In the case of many biobanks, however, the institution that collects and maintains the biospecimens may not itself (...) be directly involved in research, instead banking the biospecimens and associated data for other researchers. Moreover, the future uses of biospecimens may be unknown, if not unknowable, at the time of collection. Biobanking may thus stretch the meanings of inform and consent to their breaking point: if you cannot inform subjects about what their biospecimens will be used for, what can they consent to? Given that informed consent by individual subjects is the ethical gold standard, the seeming dilution of the concept in the context of biobanking is a profound problem. (shrink)

In three volumes, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts contribute essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The range of the essays, as well as their originality, and their critical and historical depth, pay tribute to the extraordinary scope of Professor Cohen's intellectual interests, as a scientist-philosopher and a humanist, and also to his engagement in the world (...) of social and political practice. In Science, Politics and Social Practice, (Volume II of Essays in Honor of Robert S. Cohen), an international group of scholars -- philosophers, sociologists, historians, and political scientists -- discuss issues at the cutting edge of contemporary social and political thought, and its bearing on science. Several essays discuss the relations of Marxism to science, and specifically, to the philosophies of science of Carnap and Popper, as well as Soviet Marxism, and the effects of Stalinism on Soviet science. There are also essays on the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences, on questions of method and aim in historical narrative, on the issue of cultural relativism, and more. (shrink)

(1997). Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools. Educational Studies: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 3-14.

With this issue we initiate the policy of expanding the scope of Tulane Studies in Philosophy to include, in addition to the work of members of the department, contributions from philosophers who have earned advanced degrees from Tulane and who are now teaching in other colleges and universities. The Editor THE LOGIC OF OUR LANGUAGE ROBERT L. ARRINGTON Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that "logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. " 1 In (...) line with his suggestion that a proposition is a 'picture', Wittgenstein argued that propositions 'show' the logical structure of the real. He was insistent, however, that "the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one. " 2 As a result of this we can misunderstand the structure of fact. Philosophical problems arise just when "the logic of our language is mis understood. " 3 It is common knowledge that much of this view of logic was rejected by Wittgenstein himself in the Philosophical Investi gations. There we are told that language has no ideal or sublime 4 logic which mirrors the structure of the extra-linguistic world. Consequently, inferences from the structure of language to the structure of that extra-linguistic world are invalid. Reality can be 'cut up' in any of a number of ways by language. Wittgenstein adopted a view of philosophy which would render that discipline a non-explanatory, non-critical study of the multiple ways in which language can be used. (shrink)

Galileo's refutation of the speed-distance law of fall in his Two New Sciences is routinely dismissed as a moment of confused argumentation. We urge that Galileo's argument correctly identified why the speed-distance law is untenable, failing only in its very last step. Using an ingenious combination of scaling and self-similarity arguments, Galileo found correctly that bodies, falling from rest according to this law, fall all distances in equal times. What he failed to recognize in the last step is that this (...) time is infinite, the result of an exponential dependence of distance on time. Instead, Galileo conflated it with the other motion that satisfies this ‘equal time’ property, instantaneous motion. (shrink)

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of (...) small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. Key Words: altruism; cooperation; cross-cultural research; experimental economics; game theory; ultimatum game; public goods game; self-interest. (shrink)

Tax compliance is a concern to governments around the world. Prior research (Alm, J. and I. Sanchez: 1995, KYKLOS 48, 3–19) has attributed unexplained inter-country differences in compliance rates to differences in social norms. Economics researchers studying tax compliance in the United States (U.S.) (see for example J. Andreoni et al.: 1998, Journal of Economic Literature 36, 818–860) have called for more attention to social (as opposed to economic) influences on tax compliance. In this study, we extend this prior research (...) by explicitly examining the role of social norms [Cialdini, R. and M. Trost: 1998, The Handbook of Social Psychology (Oxford University Press, New York)] on tax compliance in three different countries. We test our research hypotheses using a hypothetical compliance scenario, which was administered in Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. There were differences in compliance rates and social norms among the three countries. Factor analysis of the social norm questions identified three distinct social norm constructs. Two of these factors were significant in explaining tax compliance behavior. The first and most influential factor was taxpayers’ own personal moral beliefs, along with the beliefs of those close to them (e.g., friends and important others). The second significant factor represented societal views of proper behavior. We conclude that social norms help to explain tax compliance intentions and why tax compliance rates are higher than would be predicted by strictly economic models. (shrink)

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient (...) to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators. (shrink)

Can corporations remain socially responsible in today's fiercely competitive global economy? For several decades after World War II, companies like IBM, which exemplified what journalist Robert J. Samuelson called the 'good corporation,' poured forth material comforts and technological ideas while guaranteeing full employment and adequate retirement. In the 1980s all of that changed, as corporations moved to 'downsize' and become lean, mean global competitors. In this collection, thirteen prominent scholars in business ethics, finance, management, and religion and six corporate (...) leaders respond to a new essay by Samuelson that sounds the death knell of the 'good corporation.' They propose new approaches to corporate integrity and social responsibility in the global economy. The book will be useful in corporate workshops and will make an excellent business ethics text in philosophy departments and business schools. (shrink)

The Imperial Web and the War on Terrorism: U.S. Military Bases and Empire. The attacks of September 11,2001 and the subsequent global War onTerrorism directed by the United States have made it clear that the world is now dominated by an American Empire, which extends far beyond the British Empire of old. The extent of U.S. imperial ambitions is perhaps best understoood in terms of the history of its military bases, which are now located in around 60 countries. These bases (...) are not to be understood as a purely military phenomenon but as part of a larger system of economic, political and military power rooted in the hegemonic position of U.S. capitalism in the world economy as a whole. [Article adapted from the March 2002 issue of Monthly Review, vol. 53, no. 10]. (shrink)

Although the influence of Homer on Western literature has long commanded critical attention, little has been written on how various generations of readers have found menaing in his texts. These seven essays explore the ways in which the Illiad and the Odyssey have been read from the time of Homer through the Renaissance. By asking what questions early readers expected the texts to answer and looking at how these expectations changed over time, the authors clarify the position of the Illiad (...) and the Odyssey in the intellectual world of antiqueity while offering historical insight into the nature of reading. The collection surveys the entire field of preserved ancient interpretations of Homer, beginning with the fictional audiences portrayed within the poems themselves, proceedings to readings by Aristotle, the Stoics, and Aristarchus and Crates, and culminating in the spritiualized allegorical reading current among Platonists of the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. The influence of these ancient interpretations is then examined in Byzantium and in the Latin West during the Renaissance. Contributors to this volume are Robert Browning, Anthony Grafton, Robert Lamberton, A.A. Long, James Porter, Nicholas Richardson, and Charles Segal. Robert Lamberton is Assistant Professor of Classics and John J. Keaney is Professor of Classics, both at Princeton University. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Big Data’s calculative ontology relies on and reproduces a form of hyperindividualism in which the ontological unit of analysis is the discrete data point, the meaning and identity of which inheres in itself, preceding, separate, and independent from its context or relation to any other data point. The practice of Big Data governed by an ontology of hyperindividualism is also constitutive of that ontology, naturalizing and diffusing it through practices of governance and, from there, throughout myriad dimensions of everyday life. (...) In this paper, I explicate Big Data’s ontology of hyperindividualism by contrasting it to a coconstitutive ontology that prioritizes relationality, context, and interdependence. I then situate the ontology of hyperindividualism in its genealogical context, drawing from Patrick Joyce’s history of liberalism and John Dewey’s pragmatist account of individualism, liberalism, and social action. True to its genealogical provenance, Big Data’s ontological politics of hyperindividualism reduces governance to the management of atomistic behavior, undermines the contribution of urban complexity as a resource for governance, erodes the potential for urban democracy, and eviscerates the possibility of collective resistance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre And Why It Matters Now W. ROBERT CONNOR We live surrounded by maxims, often without even noticing them. They are easily dismissed as platitudes, banalities or harmless clichés, but even in an age of big data and number crunching we put them to work almost every day. A Silicon Valley whiz kid says, Move Fast and Break Things. Investors try to (...) Buy Low and Sell High. Investigative reporters Follow the Money. Others Follow their Bliss. The lavish host thinks, The More the Merrier, while the Modernist architect is sure that Less is More. Captains of Industry whisper to themselves, Me First; captains of sinking ships shout, Women and Children First. Be Prepared was the Boy Scouts’ marching song, while the Proud Boys Stand Down and Stand By, awaiting their marching orders. Maxims are perhaps the smallest members in a large family of speech acts, which among the Greeks included proverbs, oracles, riddles, blessings, curses and lamentations. Not all of these continue in use, but maxims have found companions—mottos, mantras, advertising tag lines and jingles, slogans, political rallying cries, hashtags, three- or four-letter acronyms and 280 character tweets from the goddess Twitter. Familiarity, however, can breed contempt, or at least inattentiveness to the full range of their influence. Sometimes what sounds at first like empty verbiage turns into action. Bruce Lee adapted an old Taoist saying when he said, Be Water, and thereby provided what was for a while a surprisingly effective strategy for protesters in Hong Kong. arion 28.3 winter 2021 6 unmasking the maxim Maxims empower, for good or ill. In the hands of bigots or ideologues, they can turn deadly. Sic Semper Tyrannis shouted John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln. A manufacturer of assault rifles urged potential customers to Earn Your Man Card. How better to earn it than to obey 8chan, a web site favored by white nationalists, with its own maxim, Embrace Infamy. A devotee of the site did just that, perpetrating a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Maxims, then, should not be lightly dismissed. Since the ancient Greeks so relished maxims, they should surely be interrogated to help us better understand the power of these often underestimated speech acts. Before turning to the Greeks, however, the English word maxim needs a closer look. english “maxim” english borrowed maxim from a Latin phrase and boiled it down for everyday use. In Latin writings about logic, the expression maxima propositio, biggest proposition, denoted a statement that did not need to be proved, but could provide the basis for proof of other, lesser propositions. This phraseology goes back at least to Boethius in the sixth century of our era. It’s the equivalent of the generalizations that serve as the major premises in syllogistic logic. If this makes maxims sound like the axioms of geometry, that is historically right. The starting points of plane geometry are propositions that deserve to be accepted; even without proof that they are worthy of belief. That’s the meaning of the term axiōma. No one needs to prove that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Think about it; after a while it seems self-evident. It is worthy of assent. We might equally well call such an axiom a maxim; indeed, the earliest (1426) attested use of maxim in English is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “an axiom; a self-evident proposition assumed as a premise in mathematical, or dialectical reasoning.” W. Robert Connor 7 This usage is now obsolete, but Thomas Jefferson understood the idea behind it, since he believed that there were such truths, waiting to be put to work in building a society where all people were equal and possess certain inalienable rights. He did not feel he had to prove these propositions; they were in his view self-evident. In using these ideas in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he was, in effect, transferring to politics what Euclid had done in geometry. It was a swift, strategic stroke on his part, for, since self-evident truths require no argument or explanation, they focus discussion not on... (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

To push the edges of the known, to look at the accepted in novel ways, is indeed to stand at the frontiers of a field. In Frontiers in American Philosophy thirty-five contemporary scholars explore classical American thought in bold new ways. An extraordinary range of issues and thinkers is represented in these pages--from such core themes as metaphysics and social philosophy, which receive primary attention, to some consideration of American philosophers' technical accomplishments in mathematical logic and philosophical analysis. The authors (...) also offer new perspectives on the work of the leading American philosophers, including George Herbert Mead, William James, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Emma Goldman. Not surprisingly perhaps, a great deal of the discussion revolves, either directly or indirectly, around that great axis of intellectual issues commonly known as the "realism/idealism" controversy. It seems fitting that so much attention is devoted to the possibility of some sort of middle position between "external realism" and its antipode in some form of relativistic subjectivism. For, in the last analysis, such a middle position is for the American philosophers the core meaning of "pragmatism.”. (shrink)

In an interdependent world of overlapping political memberships and identities, states and democratic citizens face difficult choices in responding to large-scale migration and the related question of who ought to have access to citizenship. In an influential attempt to provide a normative framework for a more just global order, The Law of Peoples , John Rawls is curiously silent regarding what his framework would mean for the politics of migration. In this piece, I consider the complications Rawls’s inattention to (...) these issues creates for his broader vision of global justice. Yet I also attempt to show how these aspects of Rawls’s theory emerge from an underlying tension which confronts all liberal democratic conceptions of justice, both in theory and in practice. In my conclusion, I sketch an alternative rooted in the insights of agonistic pluralism, which “breaks” the Rawlsian silence and actively theorizes the democratic legitimation of political borders. (shrink)

What have Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, George Santayana and Willard Van Orman Quine contributed to American philosophy? Edwards is without rival as the greatest philosopher/theologian of colonial America. Before Emerson, no other thinker remotely approaches Edwards in intellectual endowment, range of interests, or depth and subtlety of treatment of a variety of philosophical topics. Emerson and Thoreau together represent the high point of American transcendentalism. Charles Sanders (...) Peirce, William James, and John Dewey--the Big Three of American pragmatism--form a constellation of philosophers whose like has been seen neither before nor since their time. The brilliant, irascible Peirce may well be the greatest philosopher America has produced. Philosophical idealism reached its American zenith in Josiah Royce, a thinker whose vast erudition and formidable intelligence breathed new life into a point of view widely thought to be moribund. George Ssantayana is, with Emerson, the poet of American philosophy. Quine is one of America’s most distinguished living philosophers and very proudly the most influential. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans (...) H. Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

A significant feature of John Stuart Mill's moral theory is the introduction of qualitative differences as relevant to the comparative value of pleasures. Despite its significance, Mill presents his doctrine of qualities of pleasures in only a few paragraphs in the second chapter ofUtilitarianism, where he begins the brief discussion by saying:utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly … in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature.… [B]ut they might have (...) taken the … higher ground with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact, that somekindsof pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone (U, II, 4). (shrink)

In this reply, we respond to the comments of Palmerino and Laird on our article, "Galileo's Refutation of the Speed Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated," published in the same issue of Centaurus.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Strands of System: The Philosophy of Charles PeirceRobert W. BurchStrands of System: The Philosophy of Charles Peirce, by Douglas R. Anderson; xiv & 204pp. West Layfayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1995, $24.95 cloth, $13.95 paper.The Purdue University Press Series in the History of Philosophy was created to “present well-edited basic texts to be used in courses and seminars and for teachers looking for a succinct exposition of the (...) results of recent research.” Anderson’s contribution to this series matches the aim of the series to near perfection.Strands of System is a general introduction to both the life and the work of the American scientist-mathematician-philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Many, though by no means all, of the main themes of Peirce’s philosophy are touched. Anderson’s exposition is succinct and—usually—at a basic, introductory level; virtually no specialist knowledge of Peirce’s thinking is required to follow it. References to recent research on Peirce are ample and up-to-date. Anderson’s account falls well within the mainstream of current understanding of Peirce, and accordingly it should occasion no distasteful surprises for the teacher who desires a solid introductory survey.Besides a preface and appendices, the book contains four chapters. The first is a biographical sketch; the second is an overview of certain themes in Peirce’s philosophy; the third is the full text of and a commentary upon the rather early essay “The Fixation of Belief”; and the fourth chapter is the full text of and a commentary upon the rather late essay “A Neglected Argument for the Existence of God.”Chapter Two, entitled “Strands of System,” is perhaps the heart of Anderson’s [End Page 384] exposition of what he regards as Peirce’s somewhat-less-than-monolithic philosophical system—a system in which, as Anderson sees it, a host of diverse themes start and stop, twist and turn, and cross and recross each other like the different strands making up a rope. A wide variety of Peircean topics are briefly discussed: the classification of the sciences, mathematics, philosophy, phenomenology, normative sciences, aesthetics, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Most of the major concepts of Peircean thought are taken up: synechism, tychism, the categories of firstness and secondness and thirdness, the theory of signs, and some features of the notion of semeiosis.Despite its apparent thoroughness, Anderson’s book mostly lacks a presentation of the technical-scientific-mathematical-logical side of Peirce’s thought. In ignoring this side of Peirce’s intellectual endeavor, however, Anderson is not very different from most other contemporary discussants of Peirce; and the omission is perhaps justified in an introductory survey. All in all, Anderson’s volume should make an excellent, if somewhat partial, introduction to the thought of Peirce, an introduction that I can highly recommend for use in a first course or seminar in the thought of this extremely important American thinker.Robert W. BurchTexas A&M UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Introduction, W G Runciman Social Evolution in Primates: The Role of Ecological Factors and Male Behaviour, Carel P van Schaik Determinants of Group Size in Primates: A General Model, R I M Dunbar Function and Intention in the Calls of Non-Human Primates, Dorothy L Cheney & Robert M Seyfarth Why Culture is Common, but Cultural Evolution is Rare, Robert Boyd & Peter J Richerson An Evolutionary and Chronological Framework for Human Social Behaviour, Robert A Foley Friendship and (...) the Banker?s Paradox: Other Pathways to the Evolution of Adaptations for Altruism, John Tooby & Leda Cosmides The Early Prehistory of Human Social Behaviour: Issues of Archaeological Inference and Cognitive Evolution, Steven Mithen The Emergence of Biologically Modern Populations in Europe: A Social and Cognitive ?Revolution??, Paul Mellars Responses to Environmental Novelty: Changes in Men?s Marriage Strategies in a Rural Kenyan Community, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder Genetic Language Impairment: Unruly Grammars, M Gopnik, J Dalalakis, S E Fukuda, S Fukuda & E Kehayia The Emergence of Cultures among Wild Chimpanzees, Christophe Boesch Terrestriality, Bipedalism and the Origin of Language, Leslie C Aiello Conclusions, John Maynard Smith. (shrink)

There was a time in the history of philosophy that the phrase “public philosophy” would have been redundant. In this chapter, the authors survey the debate about the professionalization and institutionalization of philosophy between Scott Soames and Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle. They present an exploration of an example of how professional and non‐professional philosophers may benefit each other. The authors argue that nonprofessional philosophers (whom we might also call “outsider philosophers”) can offer new ways of looking at the (...) canon and broaden the subject matter of philosophy. They present a look forward to the future of interactions between professionalized and outsider philosophers. In an effort to make possible a future where such collaboration is normalized within the broader activity of philosophizing, the authors elucidate both the opportunities and challenges for collaboration. (shrink)

In three volumes, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts contribute essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The range of the essays, as well as their originality, and their critical and historical depth, pay tribute to the extraordinary scope of Professor Cohen's intellectual interests, as a scientist-philosopher and a humanist, and also to his engagement in the world (...) of social and political practice. Science, Mind and Art, Volume III of Essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen focuses on issues in contemporary epistemology, aesthetics, and philosophy of mind as well as on the relations of science and human values in ethical and religious thought. It also has important new work in contemporary metaphysics, as well as in the history of philosophy, and on questions of multiculturalism in science education. Contributors include Paul Feyerabend, Adolf Grünbaum, Joseph Margolis, Joëlle Proust, Erazim Kohak, Elie Wiesel, Miriam Bienenstock, and John Silber, among others. (shrink)

The proceedings of the Seventh Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference at the University of Nottinghamin April 1997. Contents: Material culture abd the question of social continuity in Roman Britain ( M. Grahame ); Motivation and ideologies of Romanization ( R. Haussler ); The Romanization of Italy: global accluaturation or cultural bricolage? ( N. Terrenato ); Social change and architectural diversity in Roman period Britain ( S. Clarke ); Reflections in the archaeological record of social developements of Lepcis Magna, Tripolitania ( F. (...) Condron ); Theoretical influences on two reports of Romano-British land division ( J. W. M. Peterson ); Phenoemological perspectives on roads in the landscape ( P. Rush ); The ancient monument in Romano-British ritual practices ( C. Forcey ); The sequence of ritual in cremation burials of the Roman period ( J. Pearce ); Burial and gender in alte and sub-Roman Britain ( D. Petts ); Brooches and identity in 1st century AD Britain ( S. Jundi and J. D. Hill ); A persional view of archaeology and equal opportunities' ( E. Scott ); Clavus annalis, defixiones and minski ( D. Dungworth ); Pottery and paradigms in the early western empire ( J. W. J. Hawthorne ). (shrink)

With the discovery in 1995 of the first planet orbiting another star, we know that planets are not unique to our own Solar System. For centuries, humanity has wondered whether we are alone in the Universe. We are now finally one step closer to knowing the answer. The quest for exoplanets is an exciting one, because it holds the possibility that one day we might find life elsewhere in the Universe, born in the light of another sun. Written from the (...) perspective of one of the pioneers of this scientific adventure, this exciting account describes the development of the modern observing technique that has enabled astronomers to find so many planets orbiting around other stars. It reveals the wealth of new planets that have now been discovered outside our Solar System, and what this means in terms of finding other life in the Universe. (shrink)