Laurel Schneider takes the reader on a vivid journey from the origins of "the logic of the One" - only recently dubbed monotheism - through to the modern day, where monotheism has increasingly failed to adequately address spiritual, scientific, and ethical experiences in the changing world. In Part I, Schneider traces a trajectory from the ancient history of monotheism and multiplicity in Greece, Israel, and Africa through the Constantinian valorization of the logic of the One, to medieval and modern (...) challenges to that logic in poetry and science. She pursues an alternative and constructive approach in Part II: a "logic of multiplicity" already resident in Christian traditions in which the complexity of life and the presence of God may be better articulated. Part III takes up the open-ended question of ethics from within that multiplicity, exploring the implications of this radical and realistic new theology for the questions that lie underneath theological construction: questions of belonging and nationalism, of the possibility of love, and of unity. In this groundbreaking work of contemporary theology, Schneider shows that the One is not lost in divine multiplicity, and that in spite of its abstractions, divine multiplicity is realistic and worldly, impossible ultimately to abstract. (shrink)

Laurel Schneider takes the reader on a vivid journey from the origins of "the logic of the One" - only recently dubbed monotheism - through to the modern day, where monotheism has increasingly failed to adequately address spiritual, scientific, and ethical experiences in the changing world. In Part I, Schneider traces a trajectory from the ancient history of monotheism and multiplicity in Greece, Israel, and Africa through the Constantinian valorization of the logic of the One, to medieval and modern (...) challenges to that logic in poetry and science. She pursues an alternative and constructive approach in Part II: a "logic of multiplicity" already resident in Christian traditions in which the complexity of life and the presence of God may be better articulated. Part III takes up the open-ended question of ethics from within that multiplicity, exploring the implications of this radical and realistic new theology for the questions that lie underneath theological construction: questions of belonging and nationalism, of the possibility of love, and of unity. In this groundbreaking work of contemporary theology, Schneider shows that the One is not lost in divine multiplicity, and that in spite of its abstractions, divine multiplicity is realistic and worldly, impossible ultimately to abstract. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Political scientist James Fishkin has devised “deliberative polling” as a means to better informed, more autonomous, and more reflective participant opinion. After a deliberative poll, this improved form of public opinion can be disseminated to the general public and to policy makers so as to influence public opinion (as it is normally construed) and public policy. Close examination of the results of deliberative polling, however, suggests no evidence of a normatively desirable gain in informed, autonomous, or considered opinion—as opposed (...) to minor gains in participants' general political knowledge and in ideological constraint, which is likely attributable to the pre-packaged “expert” views set forth in the briefing materials provided to the participants. (shrink)

This article examines the theoretical motivations underlying the conflicting beliefs in support of and against responsible investment and presents unique quantitative evidence to illustrate how such conflicting logics produce a curvilinear relationship between screening intensity and two measures of risk. First, I argue that, whereas limiting the investable universe by using RI screening criteria increases the risk specific to the portfolio, very high screening intensity can reduce this risk. This is due to the fact that information benefits enable fund managers (...) to be more selective, allowing them to select less risky firms. Second, by drawing on behavioral studies, I argue that this same curvilinear relationship occurs when examining the flow of money coming in and out of a fund. That is, high RI screening makes ethical investors “stickier” and less likely to pull money out of a fund because they are attracted to its ethical properties. I test my hypotheses using a data set of all known European RI screening equity mutual funds. I generally find strong support for both hypotheses. This has an important implication for investors: For high screening intensity and meaningful RI practices, RI is associated with a significant risk reduction. (shrink)

Playing with correct intonation is one of the major challenges for a string player. A player must learn how to physically reproduce a target pitch, but before that, the player must learn what correct intonation is. This requires audiation- the aural equivalent of visualization- of every note along with self-assessment whether the pitch played matches the target, and if not, what action should be taken to correct it. A challenge for successful learning is that much of it occurs during practice, (...) typically without outside supervision. A student who has not yet learned to hear correct intonation may repeatedly practice out of tune, blithely normalising bad habits and bad intonation. The real-time reflective nature of intonation and its consistent demand on attention make it a ripe target for technological intervention. Using a violin augmented to combine fingerboard sensors with audio analysis for real-time pitch detection, we examine the efficacy of three methods of real-time feedback for improving intonation and pitch learning. The first, aural feedback in the form of an in-tune guide pitch following the student in real-time, is inspired by the tradition of students playing along with teachers. The second is visual feedback on intonation correctness using an algorithm optimised for use throughout normal practice. The third is a combination of the two methods, simultaneously providing aural and visual feedback. Twelve beginning violinists, including children and adults, were given four in-situ 20-30 minute lessons. Each lesson used one of the intonation feedback methods, along with a control lesson using no feedback. We collected data on intonation accuracy and conducted interviews on student experience and preference. The results varied by player, with evidence of some players being helped by the feedback methods but also cases where the feedback was distracting and intonation suffered. However interviews suggested a high level of interest and potential in having such tools to help during practice, and results also suggested that it takes time to learn to use the real-time aural and visual feedback. Both methods of feedback demonstrate potential for assisting self-reflection during individual practice. (shrink)

This article brings together two case studies that examine how nontransgender people, “gender normals,” interact with transgender people to highlight the connections between doing gender and heteronormativity. By contrasting public and private interactions that range from nonsexual to sexualized to sexual, the authors show how gender and sexuality are inextricably tied together. The authors demonstrate that the criteria for membership in a gender category are significantly different in social versus sexual circumstances. While gender is presumed to reflect biological sex in (...) all social interactions, the importance of doing gender in a way that represents the shape of one's genitals is heightened in sexual and sexualized situations. Responses to perceived failures to fulfill gender criteria in sexual and sexualized relationships are themselves gendered; men and women select different targets for and utilize gendered tactics to accomplish the policing of supposedly natural gender boundaries and to repair breaches to heteronormativity. (shrink)

Central to the message of Christianity is the doctrine of suffering as redemptive; therefore, this doctrine must continue to occupy a central place in the discourse about human suffering. Narrative—like suffering itself—has a unique epistemic value and the power to exert a humanizing influence in this discourse. This presentation, though neither strictly systematic nor exhaustive, illustrates narrative’s illuminative capacity in relation to the concepts and propositions that have been part of the discussion of redemptive suffering. Beginning with the present context, (...) it provides justification for the use of narrative, discusses narrative’s place in the Catholic tradition, and then offers three narrative portraits accompanied by brief reflections on the various propositions that each narrative elucidates. (shrink)

Significant criticisms have been raised regarding the ethical and psychological basis of living wills. Various solutions to address these criticisms have been advanced, such as the use of surrogate decision makers alone or data science‐driven algorithms. These proposals share a fundamental weakness: they focus on resolving the problems of living wills, and, in the process, lose sight of the underlying ethical principle of advance care planning, autonomy. By suggesting that the same sweeping solutions, without opportunities for choice, be applied to (...) all, individual patients are treated as population‐level groups—as a theoretical patient who represents a population, not the specific patient crafting his or her individualized future care plans. Instead, advance care planning can be improved through a multimodal approach that both mitigates cognitive biases and allows for customization of the decision‐making process by allowing for the incorporation of a variety of methods of advance care planning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.1 (2002) 61-87 [Access article in PDF] (Un)Sympathetic Magic: A Study of Heroides 13 Laurel Fulkerson In the Ovidian Corpus, reading and writing are dangerous if not done with great care. Ovid's Laodamia, both hypersensitive and unlucky, is no exception: she shows herself to be an uncritical reader who misconstrues language in a fatal way. She is also a writer, and her carmen (Her. (...) 13) is the "wrong" kind of carmen. The letter that she writes to her husband, Protesilaus, is intended to encourage him to return from the Trojan War, but (along with some of her other behaviors) it precipitates a chain of events that is fraught with supernatural, perhaps even deadly, coincidences. Laodamia's suspicious nature leads her to create by her very words the situation she most fears. She is, ironically, a superstitious woman in a story full of events that serve only to increase her superstition. 1 Yet she herself contributes to these circumstances, most notably by creating a statue of her still-living husband and worshiping it. Because she loses control over her text, the multiple representations that Laodamia creates prove catastrophic for both Protesilaus and herself.This essay explores the literary use of erotic magic imagery in Ovid's Heroides 13 and suggests that the ambiguity of the word carmen ("poem, magic spell") seduces its protagonist into unwittingly replicating (and perhaps even causing) the death of her husband. The key to unlocking the magical referents of the poem lies in the wax imago 2 of Protesilaus and in Laodamia's account of her behavior during his absence. Commentators and critics have often marked her actions as peculiar, but few offer convincing interpretations, and the imago has received infrequent treatment. Most discussions of the poem to date treat isolated actions of Laodamia and therefore fail to make sense of the poem as a whole. [End Page 61] Sources and Background In Heroides 13, the newly wed Laodamia is writing to her husband Protesilaus, commander of the Thessalian ships sent to Troy. 3 Laodamia thinks that the ships are still at Aulis, awaiting a favorable wind, and Ovid offers no reason to doubt this, despite the fact that his heroines are often "incorrect" about specific details of their stories. 4 Laodamia worries about her husband's safety at war, repeatedly urging him to take care of himself and reminding him that her life depends on his. Readers with mythological and etymological knowledge know that she worries with good reason, because, as Laodamia herself notes, an oracle had stated that the first Greek to set foot on Trojan soil would die first (93-94). As a result none of the Greeks was willing to disembark once the ships arrived. 5 Protesilaus scoffed at the oracle and leapt from his boat; he was accordingly the first to die, and a hero cult was established for him in the Chersonesus, near his tomb.In their versions of the story, Eustathius and Hyginus concur with these elements of the tale but disagree on Laodamia's subsequent fate. According to Eustathius, the deceased Protesilaus (at either his request or Laodamia's) 6 is granted permission by Hades to appear to his wife and tell her of his fate. 7 When she hears the news, she kills herself. Eustathius says that she runs a sword through herself; other sources give different accounts of the means she chose, ranging from the sword and [End Page 62] hanging to immolation. 8 Hyginus tells the story twice: first, a brief mention of Laodamia's death, and then a more detailed version (secs. 103-4). The elaborated version serves our analysis better. In it, Laodamia creates a statue of him to fondle after she hears of Protesilaus' death. 9 A servant sees her "Protesilai simulacrum tenentem atque osculantem" ("holding and kissing the image of Protesilaus"), assumes she is committing adultery, and summons her father, who discovers the truth. He orders the statue to be burnt and Laodamia, "dolorem non sustinens" ("not able to bear the pain"), throws herself onto the pyre and... (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough social anxiety symptoms are robustly linked to biased self-evaluations across time, the mechanisms of this relation remain unclear. The present study tested three maladaptive emotion regulation strategies – state post-event processing, state experiential avoidance, and state expressive suppression – as potential mediators of this relation. Undergraduate participants rated their social skill in an impromptu conversation task and then returned to the laboratory approximately two days later to evaluate their social skill in the conversation again. Consistent with expectations, state post-event (...) processing and state experiential avoidance mediated the relation between social anxiety symptoms and worsening self-evaluations of social skill, particularly for positive qualities. State expressive suppression did not mediate the relation between social anxiety symptoms and cha... (shrink)

Both notional and grammatical number affect agreement during language production. To explore their workings, we investigated how semantic integration, a type of conceptual relatedness, produces variations in agreement (Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004). These agreement variations are open to competing notional and lexical-grammatical number accounts. The notional hypothesis is that changes in number agreement reflect differences in referential coherence: More coherence yields more singularity. The lexical-grammatical hypothesis is that changes in agreement arise from competition between nouns differing in grammatical number: More (...) competition yields more plurality. These hypotheses make opposing predictions about semantic integration. On the notional hypothesis, semantic integration promotes singular agreement. On the lexical-grammatical hypothesis, semantic integration promotes plural agreement. We tested these hypotheses with agreement elicitation tasks in two experiments. Both experiments supported the notional hypothesis, with semantic integration creating faster and more frequent singular agreement. This implies that referential coherence mediates the effect of semantic integration on number agreement. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

The medieval computus was intended primarily for literate and numerate ecclesiastical users; reading the Latin computus required a good knowledge of technical Latin, while understanding its calculations presupposed some formal education in arithmetic and astronomy. By the mid-thirteenth century, users would have included a small group of literate and numerate laymen; by the mid-fifteenth century, users would have included the less educated and even semiliterate, as a consequence of a more extensive range of computus material made available for the purpose (...) in the vernacular. (shrink)

Feminist thought characterizes women's sexuality as both a source of freedom and a source of exploitation. Central to the feminist research agenda on women's sexuality is the analysis of strategies that women use to increase their sexual autonomy and reduce their sexual constraints. One such strategy is the sexual liaison between single women and married men. In this article, liaisons between single women and married men are examined from the perspective of the single woman. Data come from intensive interviews with (...) 65 single women who have been or are involved with a married man. Gender norms play a significant role in transforming a platonic relationship into a sexual one, but once a liaison is established those norms can be curtailed. In these liaisons, single women experience greater control over their sexuality than they do in socially approved relationships because they feel freer to repudiate their sexual repressions, to abstain, to have safe sex, and to explore their sexual preferences. The article concludes with a discussion of these liaisons as strategies women adopt to achieve sexual autonomy within the constraints of androcentric institutions. (shrink)

The Planteome project provides a suite of reference and species-specific ontologies for plants and annotations to genes and phenotypes. Ontologies serve as common standards for semantic integration of a large and growing corpus of plant genomics, phenomics and genetics data. The reference ontologies include the Plant Ontology, Plant Trait Ontology, and the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology developed by the Planteome project, along with the Gene Ontology, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest, Phenotype and Attribute Ontology, and others. The project also provides (...) access to species-specific Crop Ontologies developed by various plant breeding and research communities from around the world. We provide integrated data on plant traits, phenotypes, and gene function and expression from 95 plant taxa, annotated with reference ontology terms. (shrink)

An ongoing study examining the discursive negotiation of ethnic and gendered embodied identities of adolescent girls in Japan with Japanese and `white' mixed-parentage is extended to also investigate and compare boys. This study draws on Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis which views women and girls as `simultaneously positioned as relatively powerless within a range of dominant discourses on gender, but as relatively powerful within alternative and competing social discourses'. Here, this is taken further by also giving voice to boys. Furthermore, ethnic (...) discourses are examined alongside of gender discourses. Not only girls constructed the `idealized Other', within discourses of femininity, but boys similarly viewed their bodies against a model of idealized masculinity within discourses of masculinities. The boys revealed a feminized, narcissistic body consciousness where they struggled to resist a `discourse of foreign grotesqueness' and instead worked to embody themselves within a positive `discourse of foreign attractiveness', as did the girls. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Have We Been Careless with Socrates' Last Words?:A Rereading of the PhaedoLaurel A. Madison (bio)In section 340 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche offers what he believes will be received as a scandalous interpretation of Socrates' last words. "Whether it was death or the poison or piety or malice—something loosened his tongue at that moment and he said: 'O Crito, I owe Asclepius a rooster.' This ridiculous and terrible 'last (...) word' means for those who have ears: 'O Crito, life is a disease.'"1 Nietzsche might be surprised, however, to discover just how many readers "have ears" to hear the pessimism and resentment in Socrates' voice as he bids farewell to his life. Indeed, this interpretation has become standard among both Plato scholars and non-scholars, taking on the air of orthodoxy.2Not only is this "Nietzschean" reading widespread, it also has a significant impact on how we understand Plato's project in general and, ultimately, whether or [End Page 421] not we believe that Plato still has something to teach us. This commonly accepted interpretation reinforces the view that Socrates and Plato were ascetics of the worst kind, hostile to life and the body in particular. As a consequence, significant portions of Plato's thought are treated as woefully unenlightened. Indeed, how can we take seriously the views of such a dualist who denigrates our earthly existence and urges us to deny and repress our passions, instincts, desires, and drives—i.e., to live for death?It is assumed correctly, I think, that Socrates' last words speak volumes about both his and Plato's view of the nature and task of human existence. However, the meaning of these words, I will argue, has been seriously misinterpreted and their intended significance fundamentally obscured. Thus it is time to take another, closer look at what is arguably Socrates' most important statement—a statement uttered with his last breath:Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget.3How are we, as readers of this dialogue, to interpret Socrates' last words? What is the meaning of his final thought, his dying wish and command? According to the standard reading of this passage, Socrates awaits the termination of his life with gratitude and relief. As death closes in on him, he asks Crito to make an offering to Asclepius, the god of healing. By invoking this god, Socrates appears to be calling attention to the recovery from an illness. But what is the illness and what is the cure? At the moment these words are uttered, Socrates is on the brink of death and it is assumed that he views his death as the cure to the illness of life. This reading is substantiated by an earlier passage where Socrates argues that "the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death" (64a3-4). The body, Socrates argues, obscures our pursuit of the truth and the sooner we can separate our soul from this hindrance (i.e., in death) the better off we will be, for "as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil we shall never adequately attain what we desire, which we affirm to be the truth" (66b3-5). From the philosopher's perspective, then, the body is something to "disdain" (, 65d1) and "despise" (, 68c11)—indeed, to "flee" from (, 65d1). Thus given the disparagement of our bodily existence in this earlier passage, how else can we interpret Socrates' final statement?4Because this "Nietzschean" reading of Socrates' last words appears to be based in large part upon the discussion of philosophy as preparation for death, any examination of it must include an analysis of the earlier passage as well.5 However, [End Page 422] to adequately interpret the discussion of philosophy as preparation for death (or any passage in the dialogues, for that matter), we must first place it in its context within the drama of the dialogue, the philosophical significance of which has been argued at length elsewhere.6 Let us then turn to the opening scene of the dialogue, for... (shrink)

A skew in sex ratio at birth occurs across much of Asia and North Africa. The resulting gender imbalance in favor of men in the adult population causes a number of serious social problems, including increased violence against women and an increasing number of “forced bachelors” in many areas. Here we concentrate on the sex ratio at birth in China and model two causal factors specific to Chinese culture: a traditional preference for sons over daughters and a preference for brides (...) to move to their husband’s natal home (virilocal marriage). We use cultural niche construction models to explore the interacting effect of both son preference and marriage-type preference on the demography of the region. Finally, we discuss the implications of this model for policy interventions in the future. (shrink)

As emphasized in early cultural evolutionary theory, understanding heritability of human traits – especially, behavioural traits – is difficult. The target article describes important ways that culture can enhance, or obscure, signatures of heritability in genetic studies. Here, we discuss the utility of calculating heritability for behavioural traits influenced by cultural evolution and point to conceptual and technical complications to consider in future models.

This essay focuses on the Portraits Not Made (1970) by Robert Filliou, a French artist of the postwar neo-avant-garde and a founding member of the international transdisciplinary art movement Fluxus. Interrogating originality and authorship, these ‘Intermedia’ works ‘depict’ artists: George Brecht, Dieter Rot, Dorothy Iannone, Irmeline Lebeer, Josef Beuys, Andy Warhol, John Cage, Arman, and Toi (you). Though virtually blank, they translate between binaries: visual/textual, material/immaterial, made/not made, artist/viewer. Inherently performative, Filliou’s portraits draw the viewer into a ‘poetic economy’ based (...) on three systems: Permanent Creation, the Eternal Network, and the Principle of Equivalence (well made, badly made, not made). Drawing on economic theory shaped by Fluxian absurdity and a Zen-like understanding of reality as at once empty and full, Filliou’s works undermine hierarchies – artistic and political – that privilege individual genius and art as capital exchange. His works propose alternative systems of value by acknowledging the viewer as co-creator. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan. By Torquil Duthie. Brill’s Japanese Studies Library, vol. 45. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xx + 444. €49, $63.

This article is a narrative account of my search for knowledge about the nature of consciousness, and the implications of my findings for research and education. For over three decades, I accepted the dominant script presented to me through my education, both formal and informal, which assumes that the brain creates consciousness. Further, when the brain dies, consciousness dies with it. However, the unexpected death of my partner pushed me to investigate these assumptions. Through reading consciousness studies research, I learned (...) of considerable empirical evidence that challenges the materialist paradigm taken for granted in the educational and social cultures in which I was raised. An analysis of the literature, combined with the learning gained from my own experiences, transformed my understanding of reality. This led me to radically question the ontological and epistemological assumptions of mainstream educational and social research. I end with a call for the development of an integral framework for consciousness education that would liberate researchers and educators from the materialist paradigm that is so deeply embedded in Western culture and contribute to an emerging postmaterialist worldview. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prophecy and Authority in the TrachiniaiLaurel Bowman(Tr. 1278)When deianeira goes silently offstage to her death at line 812 of Trachiniai, she removes herself from her husband's story. Her mistake was in thinking it was hers. Despite her emotionally riveting presence at center stage for well over half the play, her focus (and thus that of her audience) is always on Herakles, absent or present. Her only concern, throughout the (...) play, is Herakles' whereabouts, his welfare, and his relationship to her. But the prediction1 which Deianeira thinks she understands, and on which she acts so fatally, concerns his fate and not her own. Even though the prophecies concerning Herakles depend on Deianeira's actions for their resolution, none mention her; their focus is the end of Herakles' labors, and once she has performed her function in their fulfillment her further actions are irrelevant. Her death, like Klytemnestra's in Sophocles' Elektra, is not significant enough to warrant a prophecy of its own. The prophecies of Trachiniai concern only the fates of males.2 [End Page 335]My focus in this essay is the use of predictive speech in Trachiniai. I will show that the speech of Nessos to Deianeira functions as a parallel to the prophecies in the play. A prediction is authorized as a "prophecy" by the same social mechanism which defines a child as "legitimate." Relying on an unauthorized prediction is thus, in Trachiniai, represented as analogous to stepping outside authorized marital bonds. Deianeira's attempt at independent action, in that it relies on the speech of Nessos, is equivalent to infidelity and is therefore destructive, a definition which is strengthened by the description of her behavior as destructive in specifically feminine ways. The final prophecy of the play negates Deianeira's role in previous events. Prophecy in Trachiniai is thus used both to define independent action in women as destructive, and ultimately, to exclude them from it.There are two sources of predictive speech in the play, but only one, Zeus, is said to produce "prophecy" (, 77, 1165). The predictive speech of the other, Nessos, is simply called instructions, or laws (, 568–69;, 682). are a particular kind of predictive speech–act; the term is used in Sophocles and elsewhere to refer specifically to those predictions which come from a source with the appropriate authority for making. In Homer the term is used once (Od. 12.272), of a prophecy made by Tiresias, who is elsewhere (e.g., OT 410) described as inspired by Apollo. In Herodotus and Thucydides only responses from oracular shrines (usually Delphi) are termed (e.g., Hdt. 1.46–1.53, 1.91; Thuc. 1.25, 1.28, and elsewhere). In the tragedians are likewise either responses from oracular shrines (e.g., Aesch. Eum. 716, Eur. Hipp. 236, IT 1255), or, more rarely, speeches of seers inspired by Apollo (Aesch. Ag. 1215, of Kassandra). Sophocles outside the Trachiniai follows the same usage: are most frequently responses from an oracular shrine, usually Delphi (e.g., OT 21, 149, 407, 481, 857; OC 453), or, more rarely, are predictive speeches of an Apollo–inspired seer (OT 394, of Tiresias). To be [End Page 336] termed, in short, it is not enough that predictive speeches come true; they must also have a divine or explicitly divinely inspired source. Just as a child is defined as "legitimate" by reason of his relationship to a father who is authorized3 to produce legitimate children, and who acknowledges the children as his, so predictive speeches become through their relationship to an authorized and acknowledging source. are predictive speeches to which a constructed legitimacy has been attached.Zeus is constructed in the Trachiniai as an authorized source of legitimate predictions,. He occupies the position at the pinnacle of the hierarchical structure in the play, both as ruler of the gods and as Herakles' father. As ruler of the gods in general, and more specifically as the god most nearly concerned with the events represented in Trachiniai, he is called upon more often than any other divinity in the play.4 Zeus is called "father of all" (, 275). He is the god most often invoked in prayer... (shrink)