Individuals with a balanced time perspective, which includes good thoughts about the past, awareness of present constraints and adaptive planning for a positive future, are more likely to report optimal wellbeing. However, people who have had traumas such as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are likely to have less balanced time perspectives and lower overall wellbeing when compared to those with fewer or no ACEs. Time perspective can be improved viatime-travel narrativesthat support people in feeling connected to a wise and loving (...) future version of themselves, an approach that has until now only been provided in counseling contexts. Our team used an iterative inclusive design process to shape a scalable time-travel narrative tool – a responsive and progressive web application calledTime Machine.Among other functionalities, Time Machine allowed people to record and listen to messages as if they were from and to their past and future selves. Using pre-planned as well aspost-hocanalyses, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data from 96 paid design partners (participants) who were taken through a 26-day pilot study of the technology. Among other effects, the results revealed: (1) high engagement throughout the design process, (2) improvements in self-reported time perspective and overall wellbeing scores that were greater for those using Time Machine during an optional-use period, (3) twice as much improvement in overall wellbeing scores for design partners with high ACEs (16%) versus low ACEs (8%), and (4) feelings of unconditional love apparently mediating the relationship between scores on time perspective and overall wellbeing measures. We discuss the limitations of these results as well as implications for the future role of spiritually informed scalable time-travel narrative technologies in healthcare and wellness. (shrink)

The authors outline a theory of conditionals of the form If A then C and If A then possibly C. The 2 sorts of conditional have separate core meanings that refer to sets of possibilities. Knowledge, pragmatics, and semantics can modulate these meanings. Modulation can add information about temporal and other relations between antecedent and consequent. It can also prevent the construction of possibilities to yield 10 distinct sets of possibilities to which conditionals can refer. The mental representation of a (...) conditional normally makes explicit only the possibilities in which its antecedent is true, yielding other possibilities implicitly. Reasoners tend to focus on the explicit possibilities. The theory predicts the major phenomena of understanding and reasoning with conditionals. (shrink)

In this book, Bonnie Lander Johnson explores early modern ideas of chastity, demonstrating how crucial early Stuart thinking on chastity was to political, medical, theological and moral debates, and that it was also a virtue that governed the construction of different literary genres. Drawing on a range of materials, from prose to theatre, theological controversy to legal trials, and court ceremonies - including royal birthing rituals - Lander Johnson unearths previously unrecognised opinions about chastity. She reveals that early (...) Stuart theatrical and court ceremonies were part of the same political debate as prose pamphlets and religious sermons. The volume also offers new readings of Milton's Comus, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Henrietta Maria's queenship and John Ford's plays. It will appeal to scholars of early modern literature, theatre, political, medical and cultural history, and gender studies. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that moral requirements are based on a standard of rationality he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative” (CI). Immorality thus involves a violation of the CI and is thereby irrational. Other philosophers, such as Locke and Hobbes, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality. However, these standards were either desirebased instrumental principles of rationality or based on sui generis rational intuitions. Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason (...) will reveal only the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles. Yet he argued that conformity to the CI (a non-instrumental principle) and hence to moral requirements themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to rational agency. This argument was based on his striking doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it. The fundamental principle of morality — the CI — is none other than the law of an autonomous will. Thus, at the heart of Kant's moral philosophy is a conception of reason whose reach in practical affairs goes well beyond that of a Humean ‘slave’ to the passions. Moreover, it is the presence of this self-governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth and deserving of equal respect. (shrink)

EVEN more than the separation of church and state, the separation between church and laboratory is supposed to be absolute. Science is to concentrate on describing how the universe works, leaving questions of who or what created it and why it exists to the dens of the metaphysicians. Once they agree to play by these rules, scientists the world over can worship different gods while contemplating the same equations.

Johnson (English, U. of Kansas) explores the present crisis in education, especially in the US, by surveying broad changes in recent curricular and pedagogical theory and practice. These changes entail a shift from teaching to instructing from students learning what the teacher knows to learning.

Van der Henst argues that the theory of mental models lacks a pragmatic component. He fills the gap with the notion that reasoners draw the most relevant conclusions. We agree, but argue that theories need an element of “nondeterminism.” It is often impossible to predict either what will be most relevant or which particular conclusion an individual will draw.

These inquiries do not diminish or overshadow the power and importance of the gift that isThe Embers and the Stars. It must be counted among the richest, most eloquent, original, and challenging new works of philosophy to appear in recent years, standing alongisde the best of the authors Kohák admires most, like Marcel and Ricoeur. It must be read. Moreover, we must press Kohák for both the philosophical theology and philosophical inquiry into the moral sense of artifacts toward which this (...) work points. Once there was a man, once there was a raccoon, once there was a work. That is the miracle, that is the point. (shrink)

It is true that Hartshorne apparently softens the impact of his criticism by the word "rather." However, the accused begs leave to defend himself against the charge of being arbitrary and of perpetrating a misdeed.

This essay explores the idea of just war in two ways. Part I outlines the formation, early development, and substantive content of just war tradition in its classic form, sketches the subsequent development of this idea in the modern period, and examines three benchmarks in the recovery of just war thinking in American thought over the last four decades. Part II identifies and critiques several prominent themes in contemporary just war discourse, testing them against the context, purpose, and content of (...) the just war idea in its classic form. My argument throughout is that the historical substance of just war tradition needs to be respected in contemporary just war discourse, both to discipline that discourse and to engage contemporary moral reflection with the values embodied in just war tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 44, no. 1. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 125 Corey Hickner-Johnson The Color Run On the path to North Liberty, it was gray and was sallow as I pounded 400s on the hills. My body was lethargic, unwilling at first, and then, after I felt sick, I ran even harder. I was claiming some last home for my heart out there—there in those anemic, gray (...) prairie fields—some thing I did not know but could make for myself, some masterpiece no one would ever see but that I could store up in my ribs to pulse against the world. After weeks of intellectual plodding, letters saying “no,” scraps of thoughts that find me in the night while I’m dreaming about concrete, I wanted a run that would nearly break me. I wanted to feel my body—to feel my own sovereignty, if that is even a thing left in this world. With lactic acid oozing in my mouth, a wrench in my belly, I broke through on the second interval. I knew then on the path, that my viscera had colors, and if they could be seen, I would be like an oil-painted smear to the cars on the highway. I knew that if my banging heart were to explode, it would be red, and my liver kind of blue, and if my guts were to spill out my mouth to the ground, they would be green and maybe yellow. My bones would be white, forged in a melancholy I caught in the womb, my muscles purple and brown. My sweat not a color, but maybe a shimmer. My back and neck like chrome. I wanted to see myself, a tiny fire on that prairie like the Monet with the little sun on the gray, gray water. And when I knew I was enough alive, when I felt my belly start to swirl, my brain start to blink, I turned around after the little hill to make more intervals, and to feel more like a sun. When I got back home, I felt sleepy again, but not faded, because I had made something. And I wrapped it all up in my skin, feeling its warmth and sickness, color and pain, and I went back to the gray dream, knowing there are colors beneath my surface.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Note on Thomas and the Divine MercyMark JohnsonA PUZZLING THING about the topic of the divine mercy as presented in the early part of the Prima pars, especially in light of the detailed commentaries presented by Cessario and Cuddy, 1 is how relatively little Thomas speaks about it. Pope Francis devoted the entire 2016 year to a Jubilee of Mercy. The Catholic Theological Society of America followed suit (...) by devoting its 2016 conference to the topic. Yet Thomas does not devote a single Scholastic question to it in the Summa. The topic of the divine names gets question 13 (12 articles), the divine knowledge gets question 14 (16 articles), and the divine will gets question 19 (12 articles). Our anchor text, question 21, is a four-article-long question that emerges from the larger issue of God’s will in itself (absolute). Yet the question is not about the divine mercy on its own, but is rather about features or properties of the divine act of love, a topic to which the whole of question 20 is devoted. God’s justice and mercy are considered in question 21 as quasi-virtues that perfect the divine act of love (question 20), which in turn is the proper act of God’s will (question 19).2 The divine will of question 19 [End Page 355] is Halley’s Comet, and mercy is the tail of dust trailing in its wake. When God’s mercy does appear it seems to vie with God’s justice for our attention.Cessario and Cuddy help us understand why this is, both with their two-part structure and with the sources they employ, the commentators. My focus here will be on the original text in its own light, before the varnish of the commentators. Thomas’s original is a dense chiaroscuro, which both raises questions and offers opportunities.First, while Thomas is still well within the consideration of the divine being and action (STh I, qq. 3–26), he is sensitive to our human understanding. For us humans an element of suffering seems to be built into any consideration of mercy. It is the first hurdle that needs to be jumped in question 21, article 3; objection 1 frets about mercy because it is a subset, a species, of sorrow—and that cannot be in God. In the body of the article, Thomas alludes to sorrow via a consideration of the quid nominis of mercy. The term misericordia means having a miserum cor, a heart afflicted by the sufferings of another. Thomas dismisses this right away; in the body of the article he says “being saddened at the misery of another does not befit God” (tristari... de miseria alterius non competit Deo). He does not say more. Similarly, in addressing the first objection he notes that the objection was invoking mercy as a kind of “being affected by suffering” (obiectio illa procedit de misericordia, quantum ad passionis affectum). Again, he gives no further commentary.3 [End Page 356]With the concern about God’s “co-suffering” with us dispatched, Thomas addresses a second objection, the satisfying of which will allow for the existence and procedure of the next article (a. 4). The objection focuses upon the divine justice and worries that mercy seems to mean some kind of “loosening up” of the divine justice (relaxatio iustitiae), in which God seems to act contrary to himself, to his utterances or dictates (dicta sua). Thomas addresses this concern head-on; there is no loss or relaxation of the divine justice, but rather a fulfilling and indeed exceeding of the dictates of divine justice. An example both explains and foreshadows: the man who owes someone a hundred dollars but who fulfills the debt when he pays him two hundred dollars of his own money, has both met the demands of justice and acted with liberality and mercy. He has acted above and beyond justice (supra iustitiam operando). 4 Remembering that objection 2 had included a concern about acting against one’s own self and dictates, Thomas adds that remitting an offense made against oneself by another—he may have had peccatum originale originans in mind—has the... (shrink)

Advancing civic learning and competence remains a fundamental objective in social studies education. Persistent civic performance outcome gaps, similar to other educational achievement disparities, are influenced by race, class, and other social constraints. Charter schools, known for their innovative structures and curricula, are often proposed as a solution for enhancing civic outcomes, particularly for Black and Hispanic youth. This study analyzes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2014 and 2018 Civics Grade 8 results using a multilevel regression model to (...) assess whether charter schools improve civic outcomes compared to traditional public and private schools. Key variables examined include race/ethnicity, school type, and teacher credentials. The findings reveal that charter schools perform comparably to traditional public schools in fostering civic knowledge and skills. Teacher time spent on civics instruction nor teacher credentials relate to student civic performance outcomes. (shrink)

This article highlights local government responses to the opioid crisis in Northern Kentucky through a series of interviews with county-level officials. The author's discussions with civic leaders reflect the challenges faced by local communities and the new approaches implemented to stem the epidemic.

Anthropologists tell us that every known culture has had something that we would recognize as religion, and that this has been true for at least 50,000 years. The best explanation for this is a genetic predisposition for religious sympathy and practice, hard-wired into the human brain by the forces of natural selection; it is part of our basic human nature. We can therefore treat religion as a natural kind--similar to gold or water--and attempt to articulate this neurobiological essence in everyday (...) language. Such an articulation would yield an empirically driven definition of religion. (shrink)

Serres thought that humans had become the world’s parasites and that we must seek a more reciprocal partnership with our host. He put forward a legal justification for writing a new social contract that encompassed the more-than-human. Serres associated the foundation of the “natural contract” with the story of evolution, the biological relation between symbiosis and the parasite. Closely aligned to his proposal, Serres also envisioned the gathering together of a universal history revealed by the knowledge of the diverse sciences (...) of matter and life and stories from the humanities and religion. He thought the “Grand Narrative” would bring people to an intimate understanding of our relation to the living world and the need for a contract of symbiosis. Serres referred to Molière’s Tartuffe, the fables of La Fontaine, the adventures of Tintin and Livy’s history of Rome to describe an underlying parasitical logic. Crossing social, medical, communicative and historical practices, the parasite is portrayed by Serres as an acquisitive guest, a contagious microbe, a confusing noise and part of ritualistic feasts. Crossing these specific examples, Serres depicts how the general operation of the parasite works in close partnership with the symbiotic. For instance, germs can both invade the body and strengthen immunity. As evolutionary biologists recognise, there is no simple division between parasitic and symbiotic processes. In this paper, I explore the biological–parasitic–symbiotic framework that Serres applies in the context of the ecological crisis and his proposal for a contract of symbiosis. I focus on pioneering research into the history of bacteria carried out by microbiologist Lynn Margulis and associated studies on the evolution of fungi and moss. I describe how this research contributes to Serres’s formulation of a universal story and at the same time helps both to supplement and critically engage with Serres’s thought on the natural contract. Specifically, I describe how Margulis’s contentions about the abilities of micro-organisms differ from Serres’s conception of the technology of “nature.” I also examine how his notion of the “Biosum,” a body that integrates all the perceptions and senses of the living world, informs his understanding of the divergent evolution of humankind. I conclude that Serres’s natural contract seeks to reinvent rather than imitate the rest of nature and briefly consider how his vision of inclusive global stories offers a glimpse of a new politics. (shrink)

For evolutionary biologists, the concept of chance has always played a significant role in the formation of evolutionary theory. As far back as Greek antiquity, chance and "luck" were key factors in understanding the natural world. Chance is not just an important concept; it is an entire way of thinking about nature. And as Curtis Johnson shows, it is also one of the key ideas that separates Charles Darwin from other systematic biologists of his time. Studying the concept of (...) chance in Darwin's writing reveals core ideas in his theory of evolution, as well as his reflections on design, purpose, and randomness in nature's progression over the course of history.In Darwin's Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin, Curtis Johnson examines Darwin's early notebooks, his collected correspondence, and most of his published writing to trace the evolution of his ideas about chance in evolution. This proved to be one of Darwin's most controversial ideas among his reading public, so much so that it drew hostile reactions even from Darwin's scientific friends, not to mention the more general reader. The firestorm of criticism forced Darwin to forge a retreat, not in terms of removing chance from his theory--his commitment to it was unshakable--but in terms of how he chose to present his theory. Briefly, by changing his wording and by introducing metaphors and images, Darwin succeeded in making his ideas seem less threatening than before without actually changing his views. Randomness remained a focal point for Darwin throughout his life. Through the lens of randomness, Johnson reveals implications of Darwin's views for religion, free will, and moral theory. Darwin's Dice presents a new way to look at Darwinist thought and the writings of Charles Darwin. (shrink)

J C Glass, W Johnson; Lakatosian Methodology and the Practical Implementation of a Liberal Notion of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, I.

There was more than one response to the nuclear age. Countering well-documented attitudes of protest and pessimism, Muriel Howorth (1886–1971) models a less examined strain of atomic enthusiasm in British nuclear culture. Believing that the same power within the atomic bomb could be harnessed to make the world a ‘smiling garden of Eden’, she utilized traditionally feminine domains of kitchen and garden in her efforts to educate the public about the potential of the atom and to ‘safeguard’ it on their (...) behalf. Boldly entering an overtly masculine arena in which, as a woman and a layperson, she was doubly an ‘other’, Howorth used a variety of publications, organizations and staged events to interpret atomic science and specifically to address women. Her efforts, dating roughly from 1948 to 1962, preceded but had broad overlaps with official Atoms for Peace programmes, and culminated in the formation of the Atomic Gardening Society in 1960 to promote the cultivation of gamma-irradiated seeds by British gardeners. (shrink)

: According to the long orthodox interpretation of Kant's theory of motivation, Kant recognized only two fundamental types of motives: moral motives and egoistic, hedonistic motives. Seeking to defend Kant against the ensuing charges of psychological simplism, Andrews Reath formulated a forceful and seminal repudiation of this interpretation in his 1989 essay “Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant's Principle of Happiness.” The current paper aims to show that Reath's popular exegetical alternative is untenable. His arguments against the traditional view miss the mark, (...) and his revisionist interpretation of Kant's theory of motivation cannot bear the considerable weight of the countervailing evidence. (shrink)

Kant famously argued in the Groundwork that our fundamental moral obligation is simply to respect the humanity in persons. However, his fuller view, found in the Metaphysic of Morals, is that the humanity in persons not only demands our respect, but also our love. Neither of these demands, of course, requires that we feel anything for others, and Kant is much more specific here about what constitutes respect between persons. But in elaborating this position he also claims that these demands (...) are somehow opposed, as though love were a sort of moral gravity and respect a sort of moral centrifugal force, which together create a cohesive moral/social bond, but alone would allow “nothingness (immorality)... [to] drink up the whole kingdom of (moral) beings” (MdS 6:449). Marcia Baron, in her illuminating paper, argues that this and related remarks are surely an exaggeration. After all, respect sometimes requires that we come closer and love sometimes imposes limits. And not only does Kant ground all duties in respect, but this is the same philosopher who, early on in the Groundwork, claimed that the Christian command to “love our neighbor” must be understood as commanding, not a feeling, but “beneficence from duty” (G 4:399). Since acting from duty is acting out of respect, “practical” love itself requires respect. So why does he think that they are opposing forces? (shrink)

This book offers a sustained engagement with the political philosophy of Paul Ricoeur and demonstrates both the significance of the political in his own thinking throughout his career, and how his understanding of the political offers something valuable to current discussions of issues in political philosophy.