Foreword by Hans Urs von Balthasar Near the end of a long career as one of the most widely read popular Thomistic philosophers of the twentieth century, Josef Pieper has himself compiled an anthology from all his works. He has selected the best and most representative passages and arranged them in an order that gives sense to the whole and aids in the understanding of each excerpt. Pieper's reputation rests on his remarkable ability to restate traditional wisdom in (...) terms of contemporary problems. He is a philosopher who writes in the language of common sense, presenting involved issues in a clear, lucid and simple manner. Among his many well-known works included in this anthology are selections from Leisure: The Basis of Culture, The Four Cardinal Virtues, About Love, Belief and Faith, Happiness and Contemplation, and Scholasticism. Below is a list of the selection titles: Human Authenticity The Two Sides of the Coin That Is Truth The Freedom of Philosophy and Its Adversaries Free Space in the World of Work Truths-Known and Believed The Reality of the Holy "Finis" Means Both End and Goal. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency--the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources while others (...) focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action-oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesus H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout. (shrink)

With the progress of science we become more and more aware of the undiscovered, and of our feebleness to visualize or express what is dimly known to us. Geologists estimate that man evolved some 1,000,000 years ago on an earth which astronomers say is some 2,000,000,000 years old. Caution is required in accepting such figures, for we must remember how far out Lord Kelvin was in estimating the age of the earth—before the discovery of radium. Man has been civilized for (...) some 5,000 years, and Galileo, with his telescope and revolutionary ideas, lived some 300 years ago. There may be, we are told, a million million years before the sun grows weak and the earth becomes farther from the sun so that all life freezes. Long before this man may use up the metals available for his machines, and those ready sources of energy now so wastefully used, by which he at present multiplies and swarms in cities. In such case he will return through birth control or famine, or both, to a simple, uncrowded, pastoral existence. There is little likelihood of his being able to use atomic energy, other than that which reaches the earth as sun radiation and is available directly or as energy stored in water-power, wood, coal, and oil. (shrink)

In the real world, there are choices between large, delayed, punctate rewards and small, more immediate rewards as well as choices between patterns and acts. A common element in these situations is the choice between long- and short-term interests. Key issues for future research appear to be how acts are restructured into larger patterns of behavior, and whether, as Rachlin implies, pattern perception is the cause of pattern generation.

Biochar is a soil—improving substrate made from phytomass pyrolysis. In Southeast Asia, its application decreases due to the long-term growth of biochar cost and thus caused further prolongation of the payback period. In the Euro-American civilization the biochar application is already almost forgotten once it has been much earlier recognized that the crop yields can be increased much faster with higher doses of nutrients and other agrochemicals. The payback period can be expected in decades. Such a long-time investment (...) into soil fertility raises also many ethical questions. The final decision combines issues of social responsibility, risk and other financial indicators as well as personal preferences and more. The attitudes of Western and Central European decision makers in the agriculture business segment were analyzed on the basis of electronic questionnaire survey and a subsequent interview through their local unions. According to the data, most of them did not know about the possibilities of a more environmentally friendly approach to soil enhancement based on the addition of a fertilizer in the form of biochar. Among others, the collected data also shows that the decision makers from Western Europe have a much different ethical approach to the land and financial indicators than the Central Europeans. (shrink)

Which artificial intelligence (AI) systems are agents? To answer this question, I propose a multidimensional account of agency. According to this account, a system's agency profile is jointly determined by its level of goal-directedness and autonomy as well as is abilities for directly impacting the surrounding world, long-term planning and acting for reasons. Rooted in extant theories of agency, this account enables fine-grained, nuanced comparative characterizations of artificial agency. I show that this account has multiple important virtues and is (...) more informative than alternatives. More speculatively, it may help to illuminate two important emerging questions in AI ethics: 1. Can agency contribute to the moral status of non-human beings, and how? 2. When and why might AI systems exhibit power-seeking behaviour and does this pose an existential risk to humanity? (shrink)

Thought-intrusions, automatic inferences, and other unintended thought are beginning to play an important role in the study of psychiatric disease as well as normal thought processes. We examine one method for study of task-unrelated imagery and thought . TUIT likelihood was shown to be reliably measured over a wide range of vigilance tasks, to have high short-term and long-term test-retest reliability, and to be sensitive to information processing demands. Likelihood of TUITs was shown to be different as a function (...) of aging, hyperactivity, time of day, and level of depression. Thus, we now can reliably measure the influence of endogenous and exogenous influences on TUITs. In addition, TUIT measurement was proposed as a minimally interfering and natural second task for determining resource utilization in a primary task. Finally, this method was offered as a reliable approach to quantification of such mental states as obsessions and drug craving and addiction. (shrink)

Drawing on a career-long exploration of 1960s French philosophy, Leonard Lawlor seeks a solution to 'the problem of the worst violence'. The worst violence is the reaction of total apocalypse without remainder; it is the reaction of complete negation and death; it is nihilism. Lawlor argues that it is not just transcendental violence that must be minimised: all violence must itself be reduced to its lowest level. He offers new ways of speaking to best achieve the least violence, (...) which he creatively appropriates from Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari as 'speaking-freely', 'speaking-distantly' and 'speaking-in-tongues'. (shrink)

I agree with Jecker et al that “the headline-grabbing nature of existential risk (X-risk) diverts attention away from immediate artificial intelligence (AI) threats…”1 Focusing on very long-term speculative risks associated with AI is both ethically distracting and ethically dangerous, especially in a healthcare context. More specifically, AI in healthcare is generating healthcare justice challenges that are real, imminent and pervasive. These are challenges generated by AI that deserve immediate ethical attention, more than any X-risk issues in the distant future. (...) Almost 50 years ago, John Knowles edited a volume titled Doing Better and Feeling Worse: Health in the United States. We are ‘doing better’ because numerous advances in medical technologies are saving more lives and improving the quality of our lives. But we are ‘feeling worse’ because the additional costs are unsustainable, are threatening funding for other social goods and are increasing injustices regarding the allocation of those resources. This is precisely the situation we are faced with regarding AI in medicine today. Exploding healthcare costs have generated increasing pressure to control those costs, often with unjust consequences. AI is touted as a critical mechanism for controlling healthcare costs, often with little thought given to justice-relevant consequences. Consider, for example, …. (shrink)

Abstract:This article addresses the issue of whether and to what extent moral values can be attributed to collective actors. The paper starts from the premise that business ethics as the ethics of an organization is to be distinguished from the virtues of its members. This point is elaborated in both economic- and organization-theoretic terms within the framework of the New Economics of Organization. The result is the development of a concept of governance ethics. The ethics of governance is about the (...) incorporation of moral conditions and requirements in the management, governance, and control structures of a firm. This is the contextual precondition for the long-lasting and beneficial effects of the virtues of individuals within the organizations. (shrink)

New Mutualisms. Politics, Needs and Emancipation. According to the research hypothesis that forms the backdrop of this contribution, the most diverse forms of mutualism represent variants of political action born of, among, and for subjects in need. In contrast to the hypothesis of an uncritical valorization of these experiences, however, it is not necessarily the case that these collective actions of solidarity reciprocity also express the same need for renewal of institutional politics. The reconstruction of the different stages of the (...) modern history of mutualism will allow to question the alleged mutually exclusive relationship between politics and needs theorized by a long and authoritative philosophical tradition and, paradoxically, reaffirmed precisely by its fiercest critics such as Hannah Arendt. Following this operation of historical and conceptual contextualization it will become possible to identify the main differences between mutualism and other forms of civic engagement of the charitable or assistentialist kind, and then to draw an idealtypical classification of the different degrees of politicalness openly claimed or, in fact, expressed, by its contemporary manifestations. (shrink)

Charles Mills makes visible in the world of mainstream philosophy some of the crucial issues of the black experience. Ralph Ellison's metaphor of black invisibility has special relevance to philosophy, whose demographic and conceptual "whiteness" has long been a source of wonder and complaint to racial minorities. Mills points out the absence of any philosophical narrative theorizing and detailing race's centrality to the recent history of the West, such as feminists have articulated for gender domination. European expansionism in its (...) various forms, Mills contends, generates a social ontology of race that warrants philosophical attention. Through expropriation, settlement, slavery, and colonialism, race comes into existence as simultaneously real and unreal: ontological without being biological, metaphysical without being physical, existential without being essential, shaping one's being without being in one's shape. His essays explore the contrasting sums of a white and black modernity, examine standpoint epistemology and the metaphysics of racial identity, look at black-Jewish relations and racial conspiracy theories, map the workings of a white-supremacist polity and the contours of a racist moral consciousness, and analyze the presuppositions of Frederick Douglass's famous July 4 prognosis for black political inclusion. Collectively they demonstrate what exciting new philosophical terrain can be opened up once the color line in western philosophy is made visible and addressed. (shrink)

Since its development about 15 years ago, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become the leading research tool for mapping brain activity. The technique works by detecting the levels of oxygen in the blood, point by point, throughout the brain. In other words, it relies on a surrogate signal, resulting from changes in oxygenation, blood volume and flow, and does not directly measure neural activity. Although a relationship between changes in brain activity and blood flow has long been speculated, (...) indirectly examined and suggested and surely anticipated and expected, the neural basis of the fMRI signal was only recently demonstrated directly in experiments using combined imaging and intracortical recordings. In the present paper, we discuss the results obtained from such combined experiments. We also discuss our current knowledge of the extracellularly measured signals of the neural processes that they represent and of the structural and functional neurovascular coupling, which links such processes with the hemodynamic changes that offer the surrogate signal that we use to map brain activity. We conclude by considering applications of invasive MRI, including injections of paramagnetic tracers for the study of connectivity in the living animal and simultaneous imaging and electrical microstimulation. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This article delves into Captain Samuel Alfred Warner’s dogged campaign to sell two inventions – his submersible mine and “long range” missile – to the British government in the 1840s and 1850s. Departing from a historiography that dismisses Warner as a fraudster, it clarifies how he managed to generate widespread interest in his weapons technologies for nearly twenty years. I therefore analyze three key elements of his self-promotion: his personal branding, his pitch, and his simultaneous embrace and rejection of (...) publicity. Neither elite nor highly educated, Warner ran up against a culture of “polite science” that distinguished disinterested practitioners from profit-minded schemers. To establish his credentials, he emphasized his practical maritime experience and represented himself as a martyr willing to bear the scorn of a disbelieving establishment. In pitching his devices, Warner capitalized on alarmism over border security and the integrity of the empire; he declared that they could hobble France’s modernizing navy and quickly end colonial conflicts. When skeptics began to fret over the proliferation of his destructive weapons, Warner flipped the script and lauded the threat of mutual annihilation as a deterrent to needless warfare. The issue of publicity, however, would ultimately be Warner’s professional undoing. Despite successful demonstrations, his clashes with official investigators and his refusal to disclose his chemical secrets led critics to dispute the originality of his discoveries. An examination of Warner’s self-promotional strategies, his fraught interactions with the British state, and the ambivalent public reaction to his contraptions provides insight into how scientific authority was acquired and lost in this period. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education by Stephanie PittsLeonard TanStephanie Pitts, Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)In Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education, Stephanie Pitts investigates the lifelong effects of music education by examining the place of music in the lives of more than a hundred adults. Cast in seven chapters, this qualitative study (...) includes six pairs of interludes inserted between the chapters as well as a concluding postlude. Following a brief summary of the book, I will offer my critical response.In Chapter One, Pitts lists the six primary aims of the study: to examine the impact of musical learning during childhood on lifelong engagement with music; to assess the role that school music plays in lifelong involvement in music and attitudes to music; to investigate the influence of various locations for learning; to discuss particular strengths of music education; to probe into the problems of music education systems; and to proffer ways in which knowing more about the long-term implications of music education can help inform practice. She then presents the life history methodology she employs to accomplish these aims, detailing how she gathers retrospective accounts of formative musical experiences by British classical musicians, supplemented by accounts from British popular musicians and Italian respondents. These accounts constitute the data that are [End Page 102] analyzed from different perspectives later in the book. A brief survey of international approaches to music education and outline of the chapters to follow conclude the chapter.In Chapter Two, Pitts sketches a brief overview of twentieth century British music education before analyzing trends in the formative musical experience of British respondents from the 1930s to the 1990s. In an attempt to determine generational trends, Pitts groups the written responses according to six categories of musical influences: classroom music, music outside the classroom, teacher attitudes, music in the home, parent attitudes, and lifelong involvement. For each decade, Pitts presents a rank ordering of the six musical influences, revealing the increasing importance of music outside the classroom through the decades. Pitts then examines the various locations where musical learning takes place, such as the school, the home, and the church, in Chapter Three. Here, she surveys the characteristics of supportive musical environments, examines extracurricular music making, and discusses self-learning in music. Pitts concludes the chapter by analyzing findings from the Italian participants, drawing attention to the fact that in its emphasis on specialist training, the Italian music education system differs from the generalist approaches of its British counterpart.Pithily titled “Inspiring, Affirming, Challenging,” Chapter Four explores the characteristics of memorable and significant music teachers and role models. Among the many themes considered, Pitts notes that inspiring teachers are those who provide constant support to their students and possess advanced musical skills; teachers who were recollected negatively, on the other hand, were associated with being negligent, incompetent, dismissive, or fearsome. In addition, Pitts also explores the role of parents, siblings, extended family, and friends as musical mentors, role models, and sources of musical learning. With these foundations for musical learning established, Pitts analyzes the life history accounts of the respondents by musical outcome in Chapter Five. She discusses how adults make music in community settings, educational settings, worship settings, self-directed groups, and private homes, and describes how adults learn music and attend concerts as a form of lifelong musical involvement. From the data, Pitts surmises that even after leaving school, the participants often desire to improve musically; they frequently concentrate their efforts not only on participating in musical activities, but also on developing their musical skills further.In Chapter Six, “Rhetoric and Reality,” Pitts assesses the degree to which the participants’ experiences corroborate contemporary claims for the value and effects of musical learning. Drawing on the rich data of life history accounts, Pitts concludes that there is “compelling evidence for the lifelong impact of musical education” (p. 173), further arguing that the musical skills, attitudes, and values acquired during school years do have a long-term influence on musical engagement [End Page 103] in later years. Chapter Seven, aptly titled “Chances, Choices, and Conclusion... (shrink)

Blindness has been a pervasive theme throughout Derrida’s career. But Derrida uses the word “blindness” only once in the title of one his works. This text is, ofcourse, Memoirs of the Blind, Mémoires d’aveugle, an essay he wrote for the catalogue for an exhibition he organized at the Louvre in 1990. I argue that Memoirs of the Blind is more than just a phase in Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. Instead, it opens a larger, more ambitious project that (...) we can call “the deconstruction of Christianity.” The article ends with a consideration of a new form of vitalism. (shrink)

Phytomass cultivation for energy use is increasingly popular in Europe for high profits guaranteed by subsidy. Although public interest in ecology is on an increasing level, direct combustion is still preferred even though scholars have been warning about formations of hazardous compounds for a long-time. However, the reduction of subsidies would negatively affect an already bad situation in Czech agriculture, since most farmers became fully dependent on subsidies due to quotas, restrictions, and other unequal business conditions in European Union. (...) It was proved in a commercial scale that an alternative phytomass energy utilizing technology consisting of steam explosion and subsequent anaerobic fermentation may be run solely on the waste heat without any further addition of chemicals. Behavior analysis of present and future agriculture decision-makers showed that none of the farmers who visited the facility cared about ecological consequences. On the other hand, ost students from the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of the Economy answered the questionnaire with higher environmental responsibility. We assume this is caused by high average age of farmers in Czech Republic who are more aware of the ongoing economical difficulties and perceive differently the risk of higher acquisition costs. (shrink)

Prior to 1980, researchers rarely studied intuition in education. Those in the behaviorist tradition discounted studies of teacher thinking, and regarded all talk of intuition as mysterious nonsense. Since then, however, the cognitive revolution has triumphed. Studies of thinking are commonplace, and have contributed to our understanding of how novices and expert teachers perceive, understand, and act. The current consensus is that novices require explicit rules when carrying out the tasks of teaching, while experts, through years of experience and learning, (...) store an abundance of cases in long term memory, which they draw upon to perceive salient features of situations. This enables them to act intuitively in... (shrink)

The American Meditation Institute founder Leonard Perlmutter shares his extraordinary knowledge of the world's oldest and most practical mind/body medicine. As one of the West's foremost guides to understanding the nature of consciousness, Leonard gently leads you to a realization of the profound wisdom and power that you already possess. As modern medicine rediscovers and systematically documents the physical, mental and emotional benefits of Yoga, millions of Americans from all walks of life are incorporating the timeless practices of (...) this ancient science into their lives. Whether you are a beginner or a long-time student, Leonard provides loving support and valuable insights to advance your understanding and nurture your Selftransformation. Yoga Science promises that through the process of personal experimentation you too can access an inner reservoir of creativity to make every relationship rewarding - no matter what. The Heart and Science of Yoga. (shrink)

Coiled‐coils are found in proteins throughout all three kingdoms of life. Coiled‐coil domains of some proteins are almost invariant in sequence and length, betraying a structural and functional role for amino acids along the entire length of the coiled‐coil. Other coiled‐coils are divergent in sequence, but conserved in length, thereby functioning as molecular spacers. In this capacity, coiled‐coil proteins influence the architecture of organelles such as centrioles and the Golgi, as well as permit the tethering of transport vesicles. Specialized coiled‐coils, (...) such as those found in motor proteins, are capable of propagating conformational changes along their length that regulate cargo binding and motor processivity. Coiled‐coil domains have also been identified in enzymes, where they function as molecular rulers, positioning catalytic activities at fixed distances. Finally, while coiled‐coils have been extensively discussed for their potential to nucleate and scaffold large macromolecular complexes, structural evidence to substantiate this claim is relatively scarce. (shrink)

Do terminally ill patients who have exhausted all other available, government-approved treatment options have a constitutional right to experimental treatment that may prolong their lives? On May 2, 2006, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a startling opinion, Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. Von Eschenbach, held “Yes.” The plaintiffs, Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs and Washington Legal Foundation, sought to enjoin the Food and Drug (...) Administration from refusing to allow the sale of investigational new drugs that had not yet received FDA approval. The terminally ill plaintiffs contended that they quite literally could not wait that long for the drugs. With no other treatment options available, the plaintiffs urged the court to recognize a fundamental, constitutional right to take potentially life-saving or life-prolonging drugs, even though the treatment had not been fully tested through human trials for safety and effectiveness and could not be legally marketed to the public. (shrink)

"Pre-modern philosophy" means the line of reflection that started with Plato andvAristotle, passed through Augustine and Boethius, and reached its acme in Aquinas, Scotus, and Suarez. The whole line was harshly judged by Descartes, then mocked by the empiricsts of the 18th Century. Why, then, did Pope Leo XII make a determined effort to revive it? And, more importantly, why was the revival a stunning success by the middle of the 20th Century? The answers to both questions are found in (...) a famous German book, Philosophie der Vorzeit by Josef Kleutgen, now available for the first time in English. Pre-ModernPhilosophy Defended shaped and strengthened Pope Leo's resolve. It showed how inaccurate the harsh judgments had been and how sadly inferior the modern replacements from Descartes to Hegel had turned out to be in many respects. Not in all. Kleutgen was no knee-jerk reactionary. He made no bones about the obsolete status of pre-Newtonian physics and cosmology. Rather, he focused on the central boast of "modern" thought, namely, that it had turned at least to the "subject" and had provided a long-needed thing called a "critique of knowledge." This book is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. But most of all, it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the "light" of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen's name and hated this book. Here is the first English translation (from the German) of the master work of Josef Kleutgen, the nineteenth century social philosopher whose thought lies at, or near, the heart of Catholic Social Thought. Kleutgen is widely and rightly seen as the shadow author of the social encyclicals of Leo XII. Leo's Rerum Novarum remains the origin and constant reference point of all Catholic Social Teaching. And Popes since have dated their own social encyclicals from Rerum Novarum - hence, Quadragesimo anno and Centesimus annus. --Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre Dame Pre-Modern Philosophy Defended is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. And it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the 'light' of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen's name and hated Philosophie der Vorzeit (Pre-Modern Philosophy Defended). (shrink)

The second volume of A Handbook of Traditional Living continues the project of the first: to resurrect perennial values for a Traditionalist lifestyle in an anti-Traditional world, and to provide concrete and desperately needed advice for those who wish to break free of the spell of a deadening and desert-like modernity. Deeply inspired by Julius Evola, René Guénon, and the Traditionalism of which they were foremost exponents, A Handbook of Traditional Living: Style and Ascesis confronts the fundamental questions of family, (...) friendship, work, genders and marriage, religion and spirituality, and what it means to be a militant of the Tradition in today's increasingly confused and fragmented society. The result is a treasure trove of wisdom, concisely providing the practical and theoretical bedrock for the Traditionalist worldview and ethic in one's day-to-day life, thereby giving new breath to a lifestyle, vision and philosophy that has too long been lacking from our world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:George J. Leonard EMERSON, WHITMAN, AND CONCEPTUAL ART The widespread abandoning of the art object at the end of the 1960s was taken as something radically, even frighteningly, new, by critics and artists alike. Objects, concept artist Joseph Kosuth was asserting by 1969, are "irrelevant" to art. Though an artist might choose, as in the past, to "employ" objects, "all art is finally conceptual." In fact it was (...) now time that the object, nothing more than the "physical residue" of the artist's mental activity, was dispensed with.1 "We / open our eyes and ears seeing life / each day excellent as it is," John Cage chanted: "This / realization no longer needs art...."2 Aestheticians as disparate as Murray Krieger and Harold Rosenberg reacted to this "transfiguration of the commonplace," as Arthur Danto has called it. Danto has gained a wide scholarly audience for his ideas about the 1960s as "the end of art," or at least as the beginning of "post-historical art."3 We know from such works as Renato Poggioli's TL· T^ry oftL· Avant-Garde that, in this century, particular movements have routinely declared themselves to be art's climax.4 Critics like Jacques Barzun and artists like Amedee Ozenfant had been saying for years that art was exhausted. Yet conceptualism's attack on the object struck most critics as something both alarming and new: Irving Sandler wrote in a special edition of the College Art Association's Art Journal devoted to the problem that it demolished "every notion of what art should be,"5 and Murray Krieger feared that this "leap beyond Pop Art" would "complete the obliteration of the realm of art, its objects, its museums...."6 But the conceptualist attacks on the art object were, in fact, not new. One can find attacks as scathing in Emerson and Whitman; so scathing, that criticism has rarely taken them seriously. The attacks the concep297 298Philosophy and Literature tualists mounted in the 1960s were only the culmination ofan intellectual tendency which appeared throughout the West one hundred and sixty years before. It has long been a scholarly commonplace that after 1800 an "intellectual tendency"—as M. H. Abrams finallytermed it—extolling the possibilities of this world emerged in all parts of Western culture. When itappears in literature we nowusually call it, withAbrams, Natural Supernaturalism; or, with Harold Bloom, the "visionary company." Man, Wordsworth decreed, can and must learn to find "Paradise" in "the common day."7 Surprisingly litde work has been done on what happened when this intellectual tendency, Natural Supernaturalism, confronted the art object. Emerson and Whitman can stand for many who were necessarily ill at ease with the idea of art objects as elite objects superior to the common things it was their mission to extol. Wordsworth works before these two; Ruskin develops similar ideas into greater complexity; but since Emerson writes clear expository prose and avoids fanciful terminology, he makes a good place to enter this dark wood. Let us begin with some straightfor-ward, overdue interdisciplinary history, reading Emerson on the art object, noticing similar passages in Whitman, and noting where Emerson has reworked Hegel for his own ends. For Emerson objects are but thought's "inert effect," as for the concept artist Kosuth they would be but the "physical residue" of the artist's activity. Emerson and Kosuth, opposite Shakespeare, do not applaud the art process as the giving to an airy nothing a local habitation and a name; rather they disdain the stuff as petrifactions, as dead mud footprints left by living thoughts diat have raced away.8 In his essay "Circles," Emerson derides our admiration for a work of architecture, directing us to the "litde waving hand" that built it, for "that which builds is better than that which is built." By the same logic, the invisible thoughts which truly wrought the object were even better than the hand and "nimbler."9 When such passages are discussed at all, they are usually considered Platonic,10 but, in his essay "Art," Emerson envisions a use for art objects Plato would have blinked at. For the time being, art objects have a particular "office" to fill. That office, Emerson wrote in... (shrink)

Rerum Novarum, the papal encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, has had a major impact on Catholic thinking. Issued in 1891 it immediately received much public attention. This was especially the case in the United States where it was seen as the response re-affirming the sanctity of private property long sought by the American bishops in the public debates with Henry George and his supporters. George was a central public figure in the United States, England and Ireland, whose speeches and (...) writings supported free market ideas, especially free trade. But, George's main idea was that the sole tax should be a singletax on land values.His justification seemed to place the sanctity of private property in doubt. Since some Catholics were strong supporters of George, the Catholic bishops were anxious that the Pope clearly state the morality of private property. Rather than condemn the writings of George directly, Leo XIII prefered to reaffirm the sanctity of private property in a positive form. The American origins of Rerum Novarum had not been appropriately recognized.Rerum Novarum, l’encyclique papale de Léon XIII, a eu un impact majeur sur la pensée catholique. Publiée en 1891 elle reçut immédiatement une très grande attention. Ce fut spécialement le cas aux Etats-Unis où elle fut prise comme une réponse réaffirmant le caractère sacré de la propriété privée longtemps recherchée par les évêques Américains dans leurs débats publics avec Henry George et ses partisans. George était un personnage public central aux Etats-Unis, en Angleterre et en Irlande, dont les discours et les écrits étaient en faveur des idées du libre marché et notamment celles qui concernent l’échange libre. Mais, l’idée majeure de George était que le seul impôt qui devait exister était celui sur la valeur des terrains.Sa justification semblait émettre des doutes à l’égard du caractère sacré de la propriété privée. Alors que quelques Catholiques étaient de forts partisans de George, les évêques catholiques tenaient beaucoup à ce que le Pape se positionne clairement sur la moralité de la propriété privée. Plutôt que de condamner directement les écrits de George, Léon XIII préféra réaffirmer le caractère sacré de la propriété privée de manière positive. Les origines américaines de Rerum Novarum n’ont pas été reconnues à leur juste valeur. (shrink)

This personal narrative tugs at the heart strings. However, personal narratives are not sufficient to justify public funding for any screening policy. We have to take seriously the ‘just caring’ problem. We have only limited resources to meet virtually unlimited health care needs. No doubt, screening tests often save lives. The author wants public funding for prostate-specific antigen screening for prostate cancer. However, why only prostate cancer? Numerous cancers at various stages can be screened for. Are all of them equally (...) deserving of public funding? What about screening for a very long list of other life-threatening medical disorders? There is nothing ethically special about cancer. Where does the money come from to pay for all these screening tests? Do we reduce expensive life-prolonging care for patients in late-stage diseases? Ultimately, a balance must be struck between saving statistical lives through screening and saving identifiable lives in the intensive care unit. Achieving a just balance requires rational democratic deliberation as justification for these choices, not personal narratives. (shrink)

The Art of a Democracy of Emotions There is a long discussion in philosophy about the relationship between reason, emotions and politics. Today the adequate question is not whether, but to what extent and in which sense emotions normatively have to play a role in democracy. My first thesis is that there are three central answers to that question which can be brought down to the nominators ‘presentation’, ‘compensation’ and ‘transformation’. Within a political context, emotions ask for a contemporary (...) form of presentation, for a tempering or balancing compensation, and for a meaningful transformation. And my second thesis is that this threefold reaction can be achieved either with the aid of, or even in an excellent way by, aesthetic experiences. In detail I focus on a brief analysis of the modern political meaning of impertinence; the current situation concerning the philosophical discussion on democracy, emotions and aesthetics (with an accent on Martha Nussbaum); and finally on my own suggestion, supported by I. Kant and J. Dewey, concerning the concept of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Before going further, it will be helpful to consider briefly the notion that novelty per se is a fundamental human need. Experiments with human beings, as well as with animals, indicate that the maintenance of normal, successful behavior depends upon an adequate level of incoming stimulation—or, as some have put it, of novelty.2 But lumping all novelty together is misleading. At least three kinds of novelty need to be distinguished. Some novel patterns arise out of, or represent, changes in the (...) fundamental rules governing the organization of musical processes and structures. By significantly weakening our comprehension of the musical relationships presented—undermining not only our understanding of what is past but our ability to envisage what is to come—such systemic change seriously threatens our sense of psychic security and competent control. Far from being welcome, the insecurity and uncertainty thus engendered is at least as antipathetic, disturbing, and unpleasant as stimulus privation. Novel patterns may also result from the invention of a new strategy that accords with prevalent stylistic rules. Though they may initially seem to threaten existing competencies, the function and significance of novel strategies within the larger set of stylistic constraints can usually be grasped without too much delay or difficulty. For a while the tensions produced by strategic innovation may seem disturbing. But in the end, when our grasp of the principles ordering events is confirmed and our sense of competency is reestablished and control is reinforced, tension is resolved into an elation that is both stimulating and enjoyable. Most novel patterns—original themes, rhythms, harmonic progressions, and so forth—involve the innovative instantiation or realization of an existing strategy or schema .3 Novelties of this kind not only enhance our sense of control—a feeling that we know how things really “work”—but provide both the pleasure of recognition and the joy of skillfully exercising some competency. We enjoy novelty—the stimulation of surprise, the tension of uncertainty—as long as it can be accommodated within a known and understandable set of constraints. When the rules governing the game are abrogated or in doubt—when comprehension and control are threatened—the result is usually anger, anguish, and desperation.These responses to novelty are consequences of fundamental and poignant verities of the human condition: the centrality of choice in human behavior. Because only a minute fraction of human behavior seems to be genetically specified, choice is inescapable.While in lower organisms, behavior is strictly determined by the genetic program, in complex metazoa the genetic program becomes less constraining, more “open” as Ernst Mayr puts it, in the sense that it does not lay down behavioral instructions in great detail but rather permits some choice and allows for a certain freedom of response. Instead of imposing rigid prescriptions, it provides the organism with potentialities and capacities. This openness of the genetic program increases with evolution and culminates in mankind.4The price of freedom is the imperative of choice. Human beings must choose were to sow and when to reap, when to work and where to live, when to play and what to build. Intelligent, successful choices are possible only if alternative courses of action can be imagined and their consequences envisaged with reasonable accuracy. 2. For further discussion, see my Music, the Arts, and Ideas , p. 50.3. Rules are transpersonal but intracultural constraints—for instance, the pitch/time entities established in some style, as well as grammatical and syntactic regularities. Strategies are general means for actualizing some of the possibilities that are potential in the rules of the style. The rules of a style are relatively few, while the number of possible strategies may, depending upon the nature of the rules, be very large indeed. The ways of instantiating a particular strategy are, if not infinite, at least beyond reckoning.4. François Jacob, The Possible and the Actual , p. 61. See also Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin , p. 257. (shrink)

Contents/Inhalt: Preface. Vorwort. Abbreviations/Siglen. I. JASPERS ON WORLD PHILOSOPHY AND WORLD HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY/JASPERS ÜBER WELT-PHILOSOPHIE UND WELTGESCHICHTE DER PHILOSOPHIE. Nekrolog von Karl Jaspers selbst verfaßt. Obituary by Karl Jaspers himself. Karl JASPERS: Weltgeschichte der Philosophie - Zweites Buch: Geschichte der Gehalte: Einleitung. Karl JASPERS: World History of Philosophy - Second Volume: History of the Substantive Contents of Philosophic Thought. Introduction. II. INTRODUCTION/EINLEITUNG. Leonard H. EHRLICH: Opening Remarks. Introduction of Jeanne Hersch, Honorary President of the Conference. Jeanne HERSCH: Von (...) der Wirkung einer "philosophia negativa". III. LEGACY AND TASK. VERMÄCHTNIS UND AUFGABE. Leonard H. EHRLICH: Ausblick: Vernunft, Geist, Geschichte. Sawako HANYU: the Concept of the "Encompassing" in World Philosophy. Andreas RINOFNER: Periechontologie und Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. Systematische Bemerkungen zu einem aufschlußreichen Verhältnis. Richard WISSER: Projekt und Vision einer "Weltgeschichte der Philosophie" und "Weltphilosophie" als Folgen der "Grundverfassung" von Karl Jaspers. IV. DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNICATION/RÄUME DER KOMMUNIKATION. Andreas CESANA: Grenzen der Rationalität und Kommunikation. Brenio ONETTO-BÄCHLER: Existentielle Kommunikation bei Jaspers. Czes_awa PIECUCH: Es ist gleichgültig, wer die Wahrheit ausspricht. Über die Uneigennützigkeit der existentiellen Kommunikation. Oswald O. SCHRAG: Existence, Existenz, and Social Organization. Vladimir KATASONOV: The Gadfly, Stinging the Sluggish Horse: The Socratic Mission of Jaspers's Philosophy. V. COMMUNICATIVE WORLD HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY/KOMMUNIKATIVE WELTGESCHICHTE DER PHILOSOPHIE. Albrecht KIEL: Die Weisen des Umgreifenden, die der Mensch ist: Wege zu Jaspers' Periechontologie. Maria Luisa BASSO: K. Jaspers - N. Berdiaeff: une confrontation entre deux philosophies de l'histoire. Convergence et divergence d'affirmations. Inigo BOCKEN: Kommunikation und Mutmaßung. Versuch eines Vergleichs zwischen Jaspers' Idee einer Philosophie der Kommunikation und Nikolaus von Kues' Kunst der Mutmaßungen. Boles_aw ANDRZEJEWSKI: Jaspers' Stellung zur Romantik im Lichte seiner Sprachphilosophie. Endre KISS: Karl Jaspers' Auslegung Nietzsches als eines Metaphysikers der Immanenz. Danièle MOYAL-SHARROCK: Genie et Folie selon Jaspers. Milan UZELAC: The World and Existence. Pablo LÓPEZ-LÓPEZ: Das Studium der Philosophie als Studium der Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. VI. COMMUNICATIVE WORLD PHILOSOPHY: EAST AND WEST/KOMMUNIKATIVE WELTPHILOSOPHIE: OST UND WEST. Wonjae LEE: Karl Jaspers und das Weltproblem des interreligiösen Dialogs. Silvia MARZANO: Comunicazione mondiale, kantismo e frattura dell'essere in Karl Jaspers. Una "terza via" fra Occidente e Oriente? Indu SARIN: Jaspers's Quest for Existential Communication. Mohammed MARUF: Jaspers and Iqbal on Self, Freedom and Communication. Subhadr PANYADEEP: Ich und Nicht-Ich bei Jaspers und im Buddhismus. Kazuteru FUKUI: Das Wesen des Buddhismus und Jaspers' Philosophie. Yukio MASUBUCHI: Jaspers und Nishida. Eine Theorie des "Topos" in der Lehre von der Kommunikation. Hans SANER: Weltphilosophie und Globalkultur im interkulturellen Vergleich mit den Konzepten "Weltmusik" und "Weltkunst". Gerhard RAUCHE: The Paradox of " Das Scheitern " as a World Formula. VII. COMMUNICATIVE WORLD PHILOSOPHY: FREEDOM AND TOLERANCE/KOMMUNIKATIVE WELTPHILOSOPHIE: FREIHEIT UND TOLERANZ. Anna MASÓ-MONCLÚS: Libertad y autoridad en Hannah Arendt y Karl Jaspers. Otmar KLEIN: "Weltverabsolutierung" und Verantwortungsverlust. Kurt SALAMUN: Grenzen der Toleranz. Zum Offenheits- und Toleranzparadigma in der Philosophie von Karl Jaspers. Giorgio PENZO: Politik als Ethos und das Problem der Freiheit bei Jaspers. Gerhard KNAUSS: Von der Weimarer Republik zur Weltpolitik. Wandlungen in Jaspers' Auffassung und Wertung der Politik von der Heidelberger Frühschrift "Die geistige Situation der Zeit" bis zu den Basler Spätschriften. Hermann-Josef SEIDENECK: Freiheit und Wiedervereinigung auf dem Prüfstand. Prognose und Ergebnis unter dem Blickwinkel von existentieller Kommunikation im Welthorizont. Appendix/Anhang. (shrink)

In long Midwestern winters, two things are certain: snow and basketball. But two things that you cannot count on are snow day school closures and a home-team collegiate basketball championship. In Kansas last winter, we had both. Winter precipitation was much above average, resulting in a rare invocation of the University's inclement weather policy to cancel classes in early February. And the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team brought home the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship trophy for the first time in (...) two decades. The Chancellor commemorated the achievement with a campuswide celebration, including all-day class cancellation. This is all well and good. I am all for respecting Mother Nature's forces and celebrating remarkable athletic accomplishments.But the combination of events does leave law professors nearing the end of the semester in a bit of a quandary. How to make up the cancelled classes to ensure compliance with American Bar Association accreditation instructional hours requirements? How to cover the missed course content? How to find mutually agreeable make-up class times and locations with a group of busy, upper-level law students? (shrink)

Cortical reverberations may induce synaptic changes that underlie developmental plasticity as well as long-term memory. They may be especially important for the consolidation of synaptic changes. Reverberations in cortical networks should have particular significance during development, when large numbers of new representations are formed. This includes the formation of representations across different sensory modalities.

'A truly revolutionary idea.... Clear, tight, disciplined, beautifully structured, and brilliantly reasoned.'--Ayn Rand. Self-sacrifice, oriental mysticism, racial 'truth,' the public good, doing one's duty -- these are among the seductive catchphrases that circulated in pre-Nazi Germany. Objectivist author and philosopher Leonard Peikoff was Ayn Rand's long-time associate. In The Cause of Hitler's Germany -- previously published in The Ominous Parallels -- Peikoff demonstrates how unreason and collectivism led the seemingly civilized German society to become a Nazi regime.

This essay assesses Kelly Oliver’s long publication career by focusing on two novel ideas we find in her work. Both are ideas belonging to the new kind of ethics Oliver envisions. On the one hand, there is the idea of dependency. Through dependency, she aims to ground an obligation to care for the ones who provide the care to the dependents. The second idea is sublimation. Through her studies of psychoanalysis, Oliver shows that sublimation allows the subject to distance (...) herself from the violence of the drives. Sublimation is Oliver’s response to constitutive violence. In regard to Oliver’s ethical vision, I raise two questions. The first concerns the kind of obligation Oliver grounds; it seems to be hypothetical and not categorical. The second question concerns constitutive violence, whose existence Oliver seems to argue against. I conclude my essay by arguing that we must recognize the constitutive violence in all experience, and find a response to it. (shrink)

Interpreting VTA dopamine activity as a facilitator of affective engagement fits Depue & Collins's agency dimension of extraverted personality and also Watson's and Tellegen's (1985) engagement dimension of state mood. Serotonin, by turning down the gain on dopaminergic affective engagement, would permit already prepotent responses or habits to prevail against the behavior-switching incentive-simulation-driven temptations of the moment facilitated by fickle VTA DA. Intelligent switching between openly responsive affective engagement and constraint by long-term plans, goals, or values presumably involves environment-sensitive (...) balancing of these neuromodulators, such as socially dominant primates may show. (shrink)

"During the last months of the war, Josef Pieper saw the realization of a long-cherished plan to escape from the "lethal chaos" that was the Germany of that time, "plucked," he writes, "as was Habakkuk, by the hair of his head... to be planted into a realm of the most peaceful seclusion, whose borders and exists were, of course, controlled by armed sentries." There he made contact with a friend close-by, who possessed an amazing library, and Pieper hit (...) upon the idea of reading the letters of Goethe from that library. Soon, however, he decided to read the entire Weimar edition of fifty volumes, which were brought to him in sequence, two or three at a time." "It was precisely in the seclusion, the limitation, the silence of Goethe that made the strongest impact on Pieper. Here was modern Germany's quintessential conversationalist intellectual, but the strength of his words came from the restraint behind them, even to the point of purposeful forgetting." --Book Jacket. (shrink)

An important research direction in cognitive science consists of cross-comparing the forms of organization exhibited by different cognitive systems, with the long-range aim of ascertaining the overall character of human cognitive organization. Relatively distinct major cognitive systems of this sort would seem to include: perception, motor control, affect, reasoning, language, and cultural structure. The general finding is that some properties of organization are shown by only one system, some by several, and some by all. This arrangement is called the (...) "overlapping systems model of cognitive organization". This paper demonstrates the model by comparing properties of organization across language and vision. Language is first shown to represent certain features of cognitive organization not well realized in vision, such as the representation of "reality status", with such member notions as factual, conditional, potential, and counterfactual. In turn, vision is shown to represent certain features of organization not well realized in language, such as symmetry, rotation, dilation, and pattern of distribution. Finally, both language and vision are shown to represent certain features of organization in common, such as the schematization of spatial relations between objects. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}. (shrink)

The purpose of this commentary is to present and respond to the gap that currently exists in providing culturally inclusive residential long-term care options for Indigenous peoples in Ontario. After presenting statistics regarding the Indigenous population and long-term care options, we argue that we have an ethical responsibility to offer more culturally inclusive long-term care.

Leonard Krieger has long been revered as a contemporary master historian. With an eye toward placing his critical achievements before an expanded readership, he helped compile this core collection of his most important essays. Together these essays bring under a single cover the key themes and ideas of his life's work to serve as a handbook for intellectual history and historians of every stripe. This book reflects Krieger's conviction that the value of intellectual history is as a source (...) of orientation in a world of information overload. In Krieger's hands, intellectual history has stressed "thinking-through" the relations between ideas and events rather than the compilation and recapitulation of mere facts and historical categories. The essays in this collection cover a range of topics, including history of ideas, intellectual history, early modern political history, German political history, Hegel, Marx, and more. Many of these essays are already classics of historical scholarship. With the demise of the Soviet Union and state-sponsored Marxism, and with the reunification of Germany, Krieger's history takes on new relevance and a renewed importance. With a splendid introduction by Michael Ermath, and an extensive bibliography of Krieger's most important books and essays, this is a "must read" for every serious student of modern history. Leonard Krieger was University Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Chicago until his death in 1990. (shrink)

Comparisons of Japan with Western countries have long been used to explore the relationship between technology and culture. In the 1950s and 1960s such work sought to determine if technological imperatives were diminishing cultural differences. In the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s many sought to identify aspects of Japanese culture that might lie at the root of Japan’s technological successes. This article argues that we should now undertake more micro and more systematic comparative studies that are more directly grounded (...) in theory. Studies concentrating on engineers and the practice of engineering would seem to be an especially promising starting point. (shrink)

Primary sexual traits, those structures and processes directly involved in reproduction, are some of the most diverse, specialized, and bizarre in the animal kingdom. Moreover, reproductive traits are often species-specific, suggesting that they evolved very rapidly. This diversity, long the province of taxonomists, has recently attracted broader interest from evolutionary biologists, especially those interested in sexual selection and the evolution of reproductive strategies. Primary sexual characters were long assumed to be the product of natural selection, exclusively. A recent (...) alternative suggests that sexual selection explains much of the diversity of. (shrink)

Psychiatry has long struggled with the nature of its diagnoses. This book brings together established experts in the wide range of disciplines that have an interest in psychiatric nosology. The contributors include philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, historians and representatives of the efforts of DSM-III, DSM-IV and DSM-V.

In several studies, knowledge is witnessed as one of the foundations of long-term competitive edge and is also a basic source of new product development (NDP) performance. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of knowledge management capabilities (KMC) in new product development performance with the mediating role of organizational agility. Additionally, this study also intends to examine the moderating role of business model innovation on the relationship of KMC with organizational agility. This study was conducted (...) on the Chinese automobile sector, and the NPD project managers, supervisors, and engineers of the sector were respondents of this study. A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data from 201 respondents, and data were analyzed using the Smart PLS 3 software. The findings of this research, although limited to the automobile industries, indicate that knowledge sharing and knowledge application have significant and positive effects on the development of new products. Organizational agility significantly mediates the relationship of KMC with NPD. The results found that business model innovation has a significant moderating role in the relationship between KMC and organizational agility. Moreover, the results of this study will assist the managers in developing a modern competitive business environment by implicating KMC in the process of NPD. Lastly, organizations may improve the sustainability of their product and their overall performance by using organizational agility and modern ways of value delivery. (shrink)

The discussion of whether people understand themselves and others by using theories of behaviour (theory theory) or by simulating mental states (simulation theory) lacks conclusive empirical evidence. Nichols et al. (1996) have proposed the Langer effect (Langer, 1975) as a critical test. From people's inability accurately to predict the difference in the subjective value of lottery tickets in choice and no‐choice conditions, they argued that people do not simulate behaviour in such situations. In a series of four experiments, we consistently (...) failed to replicate the original difference between choice and no‐choice under the conditions used by Nichols et al. We conclude that the replicability of the effect depends on an unknown combination of factors. As long as the target effect is not better understood and under better experimental control, it is difficult to use it as a yardstick against which the accuracy of simulation can be assessed. (shrink)

Rerum Novarum, the papal encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, has had a major impact on Catholic thinking. Issued in 1891 it immediately received much public attention. This was especially the case in the United States where it was seen as the response re-affirming the sanctity of private property long sought by the American bishops in the public debates with Henry George and his supporters. George was a central public figure in the United States, England and Ireland, whose speeches and (...) writings supported free market ideas, especially free trade. But, George's main idea was that the sole tax should be a singletax on land values.His justification seemed to place the sanctity of private property in doubt. Since some Catholics were strong supporters of George, the Catholic bishops were anxious that the Pope clearly state the morality of private property. Rather than condemn the writings of George directly, Leo XIII prefered to reaffirm the sanctity of private property in a positive form. The American origins of Rerum Novarum had not been appropriately recognized.Rerum Novarum, l’encyclique papale de Léon XIII, a eu un impact majeur sur la pensée catholique. Publiée en 1891 elle reçut immédiatement une très grande attention. Ce fut spécialement le cas aux Etats-Unis où elle fut prise comme une réponse réaffirmant le caractère sacré de la propriété privée longtemps recherchée par les évêques Américains dans leurs débats publics avec Henry George et ses partisans. George était un personnage public central aux Etats-Unis, en Angleterre et en Irlande, dont les discours et les écrits étaient en faveur des idées du libre marché et notamment celles qui concernent l’échange libre. Mais, l’idée majeure de George était que le seul impôt qui devait exister était celui sur la valeur des terrains.Sa justification semblait émettre des doutes à l’égard du caractère sacré de la propriété privée. Alors que quelques Catholiques étaient de forts partisans de George, les évêques catholiques tenaient beaucoup à ce que le Pape se positionne clairement sur la moralité de la propriété privée. Plutôt que de condamner directement les écrits de George, Léon XIII préféra réaffirmer le caractère sacré de la propriété privée de manière positive. Les origines américaines de Rerum Novarum n’ont pas été reconnues à leur juste valeur. (shrink)

This is a review essay on Véronique Fóti’s Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty. It attempts to display the pattern that constitutes “the in filigree tracings” of Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty. In other words, it reconstructs the conceptual features that go into the “unthought” of expression that Véronique Fóti has given us. The reconstruction takes place in two steps. The first reconstructs the concept of expression itself as Fóti sees it in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. Here, we follow Fóti’s analysis and resolution of what (...) Merleau-Ponty himself called “the paradox of expression.” Fóti’s “resolution” of the paradox takes us then to a second step, in which we determine Fóti’s “radicalization” of the paradox. The radicalization of the paradox takes place through specific criticisms that Fóti levels against Merleau-Ponty’s writings on painting. These criticisms allow us to see that the unthought of expression lies in nascency. Fóti’s new concept of expression revolves around the idea of nascency. Nascency allows Fóti not only to envision a metaphysics of expression but also and especially an ethics. However, Fóti’s stress of nascency raises a difficult question that she does not pose. While the word “nascency” appears countless times in Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty, the word “death,” as far as I can tell, appears only twice in the entire book. I argue that the absence of death in Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty conjoined with the stress of nascency opens out onto the question of memory, hence the title of my presentation, “Nascency and Memory.” Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty exhibits a compelling combination of modesty and ambition. Undoubtedly, the modesty results from Fóti’s long-standing devotion to Merleau-Ponty’s thought. This devotion, however, did not stop her from recognizing the “failures” of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. The ability to see beyond the thinking to which one is most devoted is truly one of the marks of a great philosopher. (shrink)

This article offers a novel reconstruction of Foucault’s methodology that emphasises his respect for the natural sciences. Foucault’s work has long been suspected of reducing knowledge to power, and thus collapsing into unconstrained relativism and methodological incoherence. These concerns are predicated on a misunderstanding of Foucault’s overall approach, which takes the form of a historico-critical project rather than a normative epistemology. However, Foucault does sometimes make normative epistemological judgements, especially about the human sciences. Furthermore, there are outstanding questions about (...) what secures the descriptive rigour of the genealogical method. To address these issues, I develop two claims that will significantly enrich our understanding of Foucault’s methodology. The first is that Foucault’s respect for the natural sciences is crucial in making sense of his normative epistemological judgements. The second is that the descriptive rigour of his genealogical method derives from the fact it is modelled on empirical inquiry. (shrink)

Buddhism has long been recognized as a religion of peace and non-violence. In today’s world, various conflicts take place between nations, religions, and ethnic groups. Buddha saw that people can live together freely as individuals, equal in principle, and therefore responsible for each other. Buddha explains that every member of the human family, man and woman alike, has an equal right to liberty. He recognized that each of us is just a human being like everyone else. The Buddha has (...) given this example in his own monasteries. The monks who belonged to different castes were given the opportunity to spend time together in the same monastery, which included holding meetings altogether, irrespective of ethnicity, caste, or religion, walking together in the Pindapātha, and holding Dhamma discussions together in the one Dhamma hall. The objective of this study is to identify Buddha’s teaching on social and ethnic harmony throughout the Buddhist scriptures (Pāli Canon) and consider its application in conflict resolution. Special attention will be paid to the doctrine preached by the Buddha which can be applied to build mutual understanding, relationships, and peace. The study method in this study is historical texts (Sutta Pitaka) content analysis and is carried out using the library survey methodology. (shrink)