Sex differences in reproductive strategy and the sexual division of labor resulted in selection for and maintenance of sexual dimorphism across a wide range of characteristics, including body size, hormonal physiology, behavior, and perhaps spatial abilities. In laboratory tasks among undergraduates there is a general male advantage for navigational and mental-rotation tasks, whereas studies find female advantage for remembering item locations in complex arrays and the locations of plant foods. Adaptive explanations of sex differences in these spatial abilities have focused (...) on patterns of differential mate search and routine participation in distinct subsistence behaviors. The few studies to date of spatial ability in nonindustrial populations practicing subsistence lifestyles, or across a wider age range, find inconsistent results. Here we examine sex- and age-based variation in one kind of spatial ability related to navigation, dead-reckoning, among Tsimane forager horticulturalists living in lowland Bolivia. Seventy-three participants (38 male) aged 6–82 years pointed a handheld global positioning system (GPS) unit toward the two nearest communities and the more distant market town. We find no evidence of sex differences in dead reckoning (p = 0.47), nor do we find any evidence of age-related decline in dead-reckoning accuracy (p = 0.28). Participants were significantly more accurate at pointing toward the market town than toward the two nearest villages despite its being significantly farther away than the two nearest communities. Although Tsimane do show sexual dimorphism in foraging tasks, Tsimane women have extensive daily and lifetime travel, and the local environment lacks directional cues that typically enhance male navigation. This study raises the possibility that greater similarity in mobility patterns because of overlapping subsistence strategies and activities may result in convergence of some male and female navigation abilities. (shrink)

This paper theorizes two dialectic moments in which art is situated. The hypothetical dialectic is based on Hal Foster’s explication of the relationship between the neo-avant-garde and the historical avant-garde which forms the thesis of his text The Return of the Real. This dialect is comprised of an initial moment that delineates the terms of our enunciative and perceptive condition followed by a second that “comprehends,” not completes, the first. I forward Slavoj Žižek’s notion of the stain to characterize this (...) first moment. By looking at the stain, we see the make-up of the whole field of symbolic relations attempting—but ultimately failing—seamlessly to incorporate it. I give Diane Arbus’s use of the stain as a subject as an illustration of this first moment. Further, I posit Žižek’s notion of the act as a method to redialecticize art stuck in this initial moment and made stagnant through cynicism. Acts are moments of absolute freedom, that “[temporarily suspend] the field of ideological meaning” (Enjoy Your Symptom 35). However, I qualify the act in art as a “spectre” of the real: “The Real which returns [as]… an image, a semblance, an ‘effect,’ which, at the same time, [delivers] ‘the thing itself’” (Welcome to the Desert of the Real 18). I use recent collage paintings by Albert Oehlen as illustrations to stage the latter part of my argument. (shrink)

Abstract: When things go badly, we notice that something is amiss, figure out what went wrong and why, and attempt to repair the problem. Artificial systems depend on their human designers to program in responses to every eventuality and therefore typically don’t even notice when things go wrong, following their programming over the proverbial, and in some cases literal, cliff. This article describes our work on the Meta-Cognitive Loop, a domain-general approach to giving artificial systems the ability to notice, assess, (...) and repair problems. The goal is to make artificial systems more robust. (shrink)

Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.

It is an unresolved question in quantum mechanics whether quantum states apply to individual quantum systems, or to ensembles of quantum systems. We show by way of a thought experiment that quantum states apply only to ensembles of quantum systems. A further unresolved question is whether quantum systems possess ontic states. If a quantum state is the state of an ensemble, as we claim, the answer to this question is that quantum states are not ontic. However, a notable recent result (...) in quantum foundations shows that if there are any ontic states at all, then the quantum state must be ontic. Collectively, these two results imply that there are no ontic states. We examine the assumptions required for these results, and suggest that the retrospective effect on state preparations by entangling measurements provides good reason for relaxing the assumption of preparation independence at the ontic level. (shrink)

Lieder and Griffiths rightly urge that computational cognitive models be constrained by resource usage, but they should go further. The brain's primary function is to regulate resource usage. As a consequence, resource usage should not simply select among algorithmic models of “aspects of cognition.” Rather, “aspects of cognition” should be understood as existing in the service of resource management.

Objective: Compassion has been associated with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior, and has been regarded as a virtue, both historically and cross-culturally. However, the psychological study of compassion has been limited to laboratory settings and/or standard survey assessments. Here, we use an experience sampling method (ESM) to compare naturalistic assessments of compassion with standard assessments, and to examine compassion, its variability, and associations with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior. -/- Methods: Participants took a survey which included standard assessments of compassion and eudaimonia. (...) Then, over four days, they were repeatedly asked about their level of compassion, eudaimonia, and situational factors within the moments of daily life. Finally, prosocial behavior was tested using the Dual Gamble Task and an opportunity to donate task winnings. -/- Results: Analyses revealed within-person associations between ESM compassion and eudaimonia. ESM compassion also predicted eudaimonia at the next ESM time point. While not impervious to situational factors, considerable consistency was observed in ESM compassion in comparison with eudaimonia. Further, ESM compassion along with eudaimonia predicted donating behavior. Standard assessments did not. -/- Conclusion: Consistent with virtue theory, some individual’s reports displayed a probabilistic tendency toward compassion, and ESM compassion predicted ESM eudaimonia and prosocial behavior toward those in need. (shrink)

Today, DIY -- do-it-yourself -- describes more than self-taught carpentry. Social media enables DIY citizens to organize and protest in new ways and to repurpose corporate content in order to offer political counternarratives. This book examines the usefulness and limits of DIY citizenship, exploring the diverse forms of political participation and "critical making" that have emerged in recent years. The authors and artists in this collection describe DIY citizens whose activities range from activist fan blogging and video production to knitting (...) and the creation of community gardens. Contributors examine DIY activism, describing new modes of civic engagement that include Harry Potter fan activism and the activities of the Yes Men. They consider DIY making in learning, culture, hacking, and the arts, including do-it-yourself media production and collaborative documentary making. They discuss DIY and design and how citizens can unlock the black box of technological infrastructures to engage and innovate open and participatory critical making. And they explore DIY and media, describing activists' efforts to remake and reimagine media and the public sphere. As these chapters make clear, DIY is characterized by its emphasis on "doing" and making rather than passive consumption. DIY citizens assume active roles as interventionists, makers, hackers, modders, and tinkerers, in pursuit of new forms of engaged and participatory democracy. _Contributors_Mike Ananny, Chris Atton, Alexandra Bal, Megan Boler, Catherine Burwell, Red Chidgey, Andrew Clement, Negin Dahya, Suzanne de Castell, Carl DiSalvo, Kevin Driscoll, Christina Dunbar-Hester, Joseph Ferenbok, Stephanie Fisher, Miki Foster, Stephen Gilbert, Henry Jenkins, Jennifer Jenson, Yasmin B. Kafai, Ann Light, Steve Mann, Joel McKim, Brenda McPhail, Owen McSwiney, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Graham Meikle, Emily Rose Michaud, Kate Milberry, Michael Murphy, Jason Nolan, Kate Orton-Johnson, Kylie A. Peppler, David J. Phillips, Karen Pollock, Matt Ratto, Ian Reilly, Rosa Reitsamer, Mandy Rose, Daniela K. Rosner, Yukari Seko, Karen Louise Smith, Lana Swartz, Alex Tichine, Jennette Weber, Elke Zobl. (shrink)

For John Forrester, the ‘case’, particularly in its psychoanalytic version, makes possible a science of the particular – knowledge open to the differences of individuals and situations. This article takes up that aspect of Forrester’s account that linked the psychoanalytic case with forms of autobiography – new narrations of that particular self. After Freud, many authors – literary and psychoanalytic – have taken up the challenge of narrating subjectivity in new forms, engaging a quasi-psychoanalytic framework (H. D., Walter Benjamin, Frantz (...) Fanon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick are examples). Focusing on Luisa Passerini’s text Autobiography of a Generation, which deals with the Italian experience of 1968, the article examines some of the features of such hybrid texts, and argues that psychoanalysis makes a contribution not just to the forms of self-investigation they pursue, but more significantly to the search for a radically new methodology of narration. Such models end up as ‘impossible’ cases, but in so doing they explore new interdisciplinary means for understanding the historical shaping of subjectivity. (shrink)

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

In his essay on 'Broad on Induction and Probability' (first published in 1959, reprinted in this volume), Professor G. H. von Wright writes: "If Broad's writings on induction have remained less known than some of his other contributions to philosophy . . . , one reason for this is that Broad never has published a book on the subject. It is very much to be hoped that, for the benefit of future students, Broad's chief papers on induction and probability will (...) be collected in a single volume . . . . " The present volume attempts to perform this service to future students of induction and probability. The suggestion of publishing a volume of this kind in Synthese Library was first made by Professor Donald Davidson, one of the editors of the Library, and was partly prompted by Professor von Wright's statement. In carrying out this suggestion, the editors of Synthese Library have had the generous support of Professor Broad who has among other things supplied a new Addendum to 'The Principles of Problematic Induction' and corrected a number of misprints found in the first printings of this paper. The editors gratefully acknow ledge Professor Broad's help and encouragement. A bibliography of Professor Broad's writings (up to 1959) has been compiled by Dr. C. Lewy and has appeared in P. A. Schilpp, editor, The Philosophy of C. D. Broad (The Library of Living Philosophers), pp. 833-852. (shrink)

Several commentators have recently attributed conflicting accounts of the relation between veridical perceptual experience and hallucination to Husserl. Some say he is a proponent of the conjunctive view that the two kinds of experience are fundamentally the same. Others deny this and purport to find in Husserl distinct and non-overlapping accounts of their fundamental natures, thus committing him to a disjunctive view. My goal is to set the record straight. Having briefly laid out the problem under discussion and the terms (...) of the debate, I then review the proposals that have been advanced, disposing of some and marking others for further consideration. A.D. Smith’s disjunctive reading is among the latter. I discuss it at length, arguing that Smith fails to show that Husserl’s views on perceptual experience entail a form of disjunctivism. Following that critical discussion, I present a case for a conjunctive reading of Husserl’s account of perceptual experience. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Une forme d'art comprend-elle le critère de son acceptation ou de son rejet par la société dans laquelle elle prend forme? Le public auquel une oeuvre d'art s'adresse possède-t-il la compétence de faire l'exploration qu'elle lui propose? La Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles de Rousseau et la Conférence de Schiller : « Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubùhne eigentlich wirken ? » donnent chacune réponse à ces deux questions par la caractérisation d'une manière de sentir et d'agir propre aux (...) protagonistes du domaine esthétique. Je propose d'examiner si les principes sur lesquels l'un appuie sa condamnation de la représentation théâtrale, l'autre son apologie de l'efficace de la scène, ont leur source et leur valeur dans l'expérience du plaisir du théâtre.Does a kind of art hold in itself the criterion of its acceptance or of its reject by the society in which it takes shape ? Is the public to whom a work of art is aimed enabled to make the exploration it suggests to him ? The Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles by Rousseau and the lecture of Schiller: "Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubùhne eigentlich wirken?" give each one answer to both questions by the caractérisation of a way of feeling and working proper to aesthetic protagonists. I suggest to examine if the principles on which lay the reproof of the theatrical representation by Rousseau and the justification of the stage's efficacious by Schiller stem from and are worth according to the experience of theatrical enjoyment. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the claim that value-free science is impossible. After applauding the observation of Colombo et al. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7: 743–763, that this is at least to a considerable extent a psychological question, and should therefore be studied using the methods of psychological science, the studies performed by these authors were examined and unfortunately found seriously wanting in various respects. Beyond the merits or demerits of that particular piece of work, the discussion lead to a (...) conclusion likely relevant to the entire discussion about the alleged impossibility of value-free science: Showing the impossibility of value-free science would entail at least a) defining what the term science is intended to cover, b) providing high level evidence that few if any scientists in the relevant area are immune to non-epistemic influences, c) that these influences meaningfully bias the results of science, d) that there is no way to correct for these influences, and e) explain why – unlike epistemic appraisal in science – the epistemic appraisal of this argument can be trusted. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface “Africa Reconfigured,” the cluster in this issue on recent scholarly and creative work on Africa, displays a variety of cultural, artistic, and linguistic approaches to decolonizing gender. Originating in disparate fields, each article in this cluster presents examples of how new meanings of gender are produced that defy dominant definitions. Xavier Livermon examines the cultural and political context of postapartheid South Africa, arguing that redefinitions of “tradition”—not just (...) legal rights—have led Black South Africans to “queer” marriage practices. Busi Makoni pushes the boundaries of feminist linguistics to consider how young women creatively relate to the prevailing lexicon of body parts in southern African languages and, in doing so, how they challenge normative gender identities. Cheryl Toman offers an account of writer, playwright, and performer Werewere Liking’s distinctive lifelong fusing of performance art and social activism in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali and how Liking’s plays, prose, and poetry enact decolonization in unique ways. Nigerian artist Peju Alatise, whose work is featured in our art spread, presents an array of ideas, materials, and genealogies that deeply question European and US aesthetics, as the art essay by Moyo Okediji explains. Concluding “Africa Reconfigured” are critical perspectives on Euro-American gender orders found in Olumide Popoola’s except from a novel and the poems by Gabeba Baderoon. Two articles in the second half of this issue reconsider a specific moment of US women’s history: women’s liberation in the 1960s and early 1970s. Sara M. Evans challenges the stereotyping of the women’s liberation movement as white, middle class, and antisex, arguing that this is a myth fostered by academic theory, the movement’s opponents, and the mistaken notion that women ’s liberation rejected its New Left roots. Complementing Evans’s argument, Agatha Beins addresses the issue of racism in that same historical moment of women’s liberation in the United States by revisiting images 8Preface of revolutionary women of color in US feminist periodicals of the time, arguing that we have to understand the use of these images in the context of mainstream and New Left portrayals that demeaned feminism as being not serious about politics. Also in this issue is Mark Schuller ’s analysis of gender-based violence in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake of 2010, in which he examines how international humanitarian organizations are not always fully aware of how structural violence operates in the country. In our forum “Teaching about Ferguson,” Feminist Studies offers our readers reflections on the pedagogical challenges and opportunities in taking up the issue of state-sanctioned violence against people of color in the United States. All the articles and essays in this issue emphasize that the specificities of transnational, historical, and political contexts—rather than abstract invocations of globalization —are essential for understanding the changing meanings of gender identities and hierarchies as well as the political goals of women ’s organizations. The first article in our cluster on “Africa Reconfigured” takes on a popular Western assumption about South Africa, which is that the constitutional changes that acknowledged and legalized same-sex partnerships replaced intolerant “traditional” practices among Black South Africans. Xavier Livermon challenges this assumption by demonstrating how Black South Africans engage tradition in creative nonheteronormative ways. He closely follows how Black South Africans redefine autochthonous cultural practices in order to create new meanings and practices for marriage. Just as the very definitions of gender have been continuously in flux, so have the definitions of marriage, and Livermon demonstrates how marriage and long-standing coupling practices have become queered and reconstituted in contemporary Black South Africa. In line with Livermon’s interest in redefinitions of sexuality and gender in a postapartheid context, Busi Makoni explores the relationship between the naming of genitalia and gender positionings. Studying both men’s and women’s uses of the lexicon for body parts in multiple Southern African languages, Makoni concludes that women engage in a process of dis-identification with, and reappropriation of, socially inscribed language for their bodies. Women use the same name labels, but assign them completely different meanings, thereby creating counternarratives of feminine identity. Preface 9 The ability to create new meanings permeates the art... (shrink)

En apparence l'enjeu est clair, il s'agit de dépasser la métaphysique ou de la déconstruire pour retrouver la question primordiale du sens de l'être. Comment faut-il entendre la nécessité de ce " dépassement de la métaphysique "? Heidegger a répondu à ces questions en mentionnant, de manière explicite, le " tournant " (Kehre) propre de sa pensée, lequel permet moins d'effectuer le " dépassement " (Überwindung) que l' "appropriation " (Verwindung) de la métaphysique. Après cet épisode du " tournant " (...) que l'on peut faire remonter à 1930, Heidegger se dé-tournera de la métaphysique pour se consacrer à la pure pensée de l'être, dans laquelle la poésie, celle de Hölderlin en particulier, jouera désormais un rôle déterminant. Le poète précède toujours le penseur au cœur de cette forêt profonde qu'est l'Être. Pour Heidegger comme pour Dante, l'homme est un poème qui s'achève sous le regard scintillant d'une étoile. (shrink)

Nous vivons une période étrange, probablement même périlleuse à bien des égards. Les avancées de la science, de la médecine et des technologies sont telles qu'elles posent désormais la question de l'avenir de notre commune humanité. Mon corps est-il ma personne ou est-il une chose? S'agit-il simplement d'un ensemble de pièces que l'on peut remplacer, ou d'une enveloppe que l'on pourrait changer? Notre destin est-il, tout entier, inscrit dans nos gènes? Avec le développement des techniques de procréation médicalement assistée, l'enfant (...) demeure-t-il un sujet de droit ou devient-il un objet auquel on aurait droit? L'aventure humaine est-elle réellement menacée par le posthumanisme? Que penser enfin des promesses d'un homme manipulé et amélioré par le transhumanisme, grâce aux nanotechnologies, aux biotechnologies, à l'informatique et aux sciences cognitives... Jean-François Mattei nous propose un retour à une culture du doute, nécessaire pour armer notre pensée face aux défis à venir. Nous invitant à une réflexion éthique, philosophique et politique, il nous amène à nous demander si, modifiant notre humanité, nous pourrions néanmoins rester humains... (shrink)

Des présocratiques à Plotin en passant par Socrate, Platon, Aristote, Epicure et les stoïciens, Jean-François Mattéi nous convie à un voyage initiatique dans la philosophie antique. C'est à cette source que la raison occidentale se nourrit depuis des siècles. On y assiste à la naissance de la philosophie, de la physique, des mathématiques, de la politique : éblouissant feu d'artifice de la pensée comme l'histoire en a peu connu depuis lors, et qui continue de résonner dans les débats d'aujourd'hui. En (...) fin pédagogue, Jean-François Mattéi construit des ponts entre hier et maintenant, fidèle à la formule qui fait le succès de la série "Une histoire personnelle de...". (shrink)

Despite the enormous progress made in the advancement of health technologies over the last century, infectious diseases continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Neglected diseases are a subset of infectious diseases that lack treatments that are effective, simple to use, or affordable. Neglected diseases primarily affect populations in poor countries that do not constitute a lucrative market sector, thus failing to provide incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to conduct R&D for these diseases. Of the treatments that (...) do exist for neglected diseases, most are completely out-dated, with poor side-effect profiles, cumbersome logistics of administration, and inadequate efficacy. Historically, the impetus for a majority of neglected disease research was driven by early 20th-century colonialism, and in the post-colonial era, these diseases have been virtually ignored. Of the 1556 New Chemical Entities brought to market during the 30-year period from 1975 to 2004, only 20 — less than 0.02% — were for neglected diseases. (shrink)

Summary Using the neurological syndrome kuru as a frame, Warwick Anderson examines the social dynamics and material culture of its medical investigation among the Fore people conducted by D. Carleton Gajdusek beginning at midcentury. The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into White Men uses a postcolonial framework to complicate dominant/subordinate binaries and diffusionist accounts of indigenous contacts with medical science. Anderson proposes that colonies are specific sites of production of medical knowledge. He draws a distinction between traditional and (...) advanced economies in regard to individual rights to make an argument in support of context-specific ethical regulation for medical research and suggests a role for historians of science in interrogating the process of globalisation. (shrink)

Aristotle began his great study on causes, which he called Metaphysics, with a simple connection to physics: "All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses." Catholic high school physics teacher Matt D'Antuono makes a similar connection in his own teaching. While discussing the nature of science with his physics students, Matt pointed out that their topic of conversation was technically not science any more. Instead, when they were (...) talking about the nature of science, they were doing philosophy. The students then wanted Matt to teach them some philosophy, and Philosophy Fridays became a classroom tradition. Every secondary school teacher will find within this book the kind of practical wisdom that enlightens the young mind and engages their students in the act of contemplating all the wonders of our world, both physical and metaphysical. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context-dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the stimuli with (...) the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's model of Stroop task performance. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934, this book presents the content of an inaugural lecture delivered by the British philosopher Charles Dunbar Broad (1887-1971), upon taking up the position of Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge University. The text presents a discussion of the relationship between determinism, indeterminism and libertarianism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Broad and the history of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MOLTMANN'S POST-MODERN MESSIANIC CHRISTOLOGY: A REVIEW DISCUSSION 1 PAUL D. MOLNAR St. Johns University Jamaica, New York 0 VER TWENTY-FIVE years ago Jiirgen Moltmann's response to Karl Barth's suggestion that it might be wise to " accept the doctrine of the immanent trinity of God " 2 indicated the future of his theology: " in studying C.D. at these points I always lost my breath. I suspect you are (...) right but I cannot as yet or so quickly enter into this right." Moltmann believed he could present the " economic Trinity " in such a way that " in the foreground, and then again in the background, it would be open to an immanent Trinity... the Holy Spirit is first the Spirit of the raising of the dead and then as such the third person of the Trinity." 3 Moltmann's The Way of Jesus Christ reflects the same onesidedness that Barth had criticized in his theology of hope, and this predicament leads to his own distinct messianic christology, as we shall see. This third volume in Moltmann's systematic theology, following his Trinity and the Kingdom and God in 1 The Way of Jesits Christ: Christology fo Messianic Dimensions. By Jiirgen Moltmann. Translated by Margaret Kohl (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 1990). Pp. vii + 388. $24.95. This volume has a name index only. The Way of Jesits Christ will henceforth be cited in the text of this article by page numbers within parentheses, without further qualification. 2 Karl Barth Letters 1961-1968, ed. Jurgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt, trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981)' p. 175. 3 Ibid., p. 348. Barth's Church Dogmatics is usually abbreviated as C.D. 669 670 PAUL D. MOLNAR Creation,4 is intended to lead to a fourth volume on Redemption. Like Moltmann's other works it is tightly written, difficult, intriguing and informative. His writing is clear and his position certainly is developed with a commendable systematic rigor. Throughout this book, which contains seven chapters with clear headings indicating the topics to be treated, the reader is compelled to admire Moltmann's ability to weave together immense amounts of scriptural and systematic data without losing his own position in the process. While the wealth of information alone makes this book worth studying, there is much more than information here. Yet the problem with this book is apparent throughout, i.e., Moltmann attempts to reconceive christology not from a superior knowledge of the person and work of Jesus Christ as presented in scripture but from the community's experience of Jesus Christ in the present. Hence he begins his own " pneumatological christology " with the experience of discipleship (xiv) and argues against the traditional christologies, on the basis of " Christopraxis " which he says is "the source from which christology springs " (41). But can we say that our discipleship is the "source" of christology when, according to Matt. 16 :17, flesh and blood did not disclose who Jesus was-rather, this was revealed by God? This substitution of experience for a real action of the trinity within history is the weakness of Moltmann's bold attempt to revise christology.5 I hope to show how this problem affects Moltmann's method and conclusions. While I agree with Moltmann's intention to present a christology which makes sense in a post-modern environment, I hope to illustrate that by beginning with experience rather than with the Word of God revealed, 4 Jiirgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), pp. xv-365. Hereafter cited within the text of the article as Creation. J iirgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981), pp. xvi-256. Hereafter cited within the text of the article as Trinity. 5 As I indicated in Theological Studies vol. 51 (p. 684), this is also a serious predicament in his theology of the trinity and of creation. MOLTMANN'S POST-MODERN CHRISTOLOGY 671 he is unable to escape the " Jesuology " which he criticizes in Rahner and the metaphysical view that... (shrink)

According to anthropological philosopher René Girard, an important human adaptation is our propensity to victimize or scapegoat. He argued that other traits upon which human sociality depends would have destabilized primate dominance-based social hierarchies, making conspecific conflict a limiting factor in hominin evolution. He surmised that a novel mechanism for inhibiting intragroup conflict must have emerged contemporaneously with our social traits, and speculated that this was the tendency to spontaneously unite around the victimization of single individuals. He described an unconscious (...) tendency to both ascribe blame and to imbue the accused with a sacred mystique. This emotionally cathartic scapegoat mechanism, he claimed, enhanced social cohesion, and was the origin of religion, mythology, sacrifice, ritual, cultural institutions, and social norms. It would have functioned by modifying the beliefs and behaviors of the group, rather than of the accused, making the act of accusation more important than the substance. This article aims to examine the empirical evidence for Girard’s claims, and argues that the scapegoat hypothesis has commonalities with several other evolutionary hypotheses, including Wrangham’s execution hypothesis on self-domestication, Dunbar’s hypothesis on the role of storytelling in maintaining group stability, and DeScioli and Kurzban’s hypothesis on the role of non-consequentialist morality in curtailing conflict. Potential implications of the scapegoat hypothesis for evolutionary psychology and psychiatry are discussed. (shrink)

Mucchielli clearly and systematically reviews the history of theories of psychosomatic medicine, criticizing the dominant modern ideas such as "conversion," "régression," and "inadaptation." The failure to eliminate dualisms has been chiefly the failure to discern distinct levels of existence and the complex relations between them: to assert a difference between the organic level and the conscious level need not lead us into an impass of dualism. Mucchielli shows that not all psychosomatic disorders are psycogenetic, but that there are organic illnesses (...) with definite organic etiology. He uses Descartes as a model for style and organization, and revives the relatively ignored Descartes of "the third idea of medicine" and "the union of soul and body," showing how and why Descartes himself did not develop an adequate medical theory of psychosomatic illness. The critical discussions of Dunbar, Alexander, Freud, Pavlov, Boss and others are sharp and convincing.—C. D. (shrink)

From US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’s 1933 judgement in Louis K Liggett Co v Lee to Matt Wuerker’s satirical cartoon “Corpenstein”, the use of Frankenstein’s monster as a metaphor for the modern corporation has been a common practice. This paper seeks to unpack and extend explicitly this metaphorical register via a recent filmic and graphic interpretation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein myth. Whilst Frankenstein has been read as an allegorical critique of rights—Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a monstrous body, reflecting (...) the figurative construction of a body by rights discourse—the metaphoric notion of reanimating a ‘soulless corpse’ resonates with Edward’s Thurlow’s description of the corporation as having ‘no soul to damn’. By exploring the figurative and optical representations of this process of reanimating the body in Scott Beattie’s film I, Frankenstein and Kevin Grevioux’s companion graphic novel I, Frankenstein: Genesis, I would like to extend this metaphoric register, by examining the theological origin and nature of the corporate form. This theology is explicitly referenced in the film and graphic novel via the battle between Gargoyles and Demons, which dominates the plot and backstory. The role of Frankenstein’s monster—now called Adam—however, is about enabling the reanimation of thousands of corpses without souls for possession by the demon hoard headed by Prince Naberius, who in his alternative persona Charles Wessex, controls the Wessex Institute and Wessex Industries. This ‘corporate baron’ himself has devoted his ‘life’ to enabling the rediscovery of Frankenstein’s ability to reanimate the dead for the purposes of gaining immortality. This mythic framing, however, renders explicitly visible the nature and purpose of the corporate form itself—of capturing and reanimating life in a form of immortality via the mechanisms of perpetual succession. This visual rendering, of a metaphoric framing goes to show the way in which the optical nature of the dominant forms of popular culture—film, television, comic books—provide a means for seeing law’s metaphorical images and for thus unpacking, interrogating and rendering them anew. It argues for a shift from the image of the corporation as a monstrous body to one which involves relations of reciprocity, gratuitousness and gift. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934, this book presents the content of an inaugural lecture delivered by the British philosopher Charles Dunbar Broad, upon taking up the position of Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge University. The text presents a discussion of the relationship between determinism, indeterminism and libertarianism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Broad and the history of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, editors. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. International Archives of the History of Ideas. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. Pp. xvii + 325. Cloth, $168.00. When James Force and Richard Popkin published their Essays on the Context, Nature, and (...) Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology in 1990, they launched a new sub-genre in Newton studies. Their seminal work opened up new scholarly vistas in the study of Newton's antitrinitarian theology, his millenarian prophetic hermeneutics, the relations between his theology and his natural philosophy, and the historical legacies of these until recently under-researched aspects of his thought. Force and Popkin have excelled particularly in leading the attack on the two variants of the "two-Newton" thesis: first, that Newton's theological and alchemical works were the result of a putative post-middle-aged madness or the meandering mind of an old man and, second, that Newton somehow disassociated his "pure" science from the problematic contaminations of alchemy and theology. This new volume of thirteen essays is the latest product of this effort to restore unity to Newton's life and thought.The first paper, by Deborah Harkness, outlines the work of the Elizabethan magus John Dee for the purpose of suggesting possible analogies with Newton. In the second essay, Allison Coudert seeks to update the Yates thesis: the proposal that modern science received an early and powerful stimulus from occult philosophy. Unlike Yates, who focused on Hermeticism, Coudert sees the main occult impetus to the rise of science in a renewed Gnosticism that emphasized the need to recover the original prisca sapientia (ancient wisdom). Coudert locates Newton in this latter tradition. In the third paper, James Bono sets out to revise and extend William Ashworth's 1990 study of the impact on the history of science of the "emblematic" world view. Bono seeks to show that Newton retained a commitment to the unity of the Books of Nature and Scripture, even while rejecting what he saw as the corruption and idolatry of man-made systems of symbols in favor of a program of discovering God's hand at work in creation.In the fourth and fifth papers, Justin Champion and Rob Iliffe detail aspects of Newton's engagement with Catholicism. Champion skillfully demonstrates how and why Newton appropriated what he saw as acceptable elements of the incipient textual criticism of the Catholic priest Richard Simon. Notwithstanding his use of this product of Catholic scholarship, Newton's virulent anti-Catholicism is detailed in a sophisticated account by Iliffe, who shows that it extended well beyond Newton's already explicated anti-papist prophetic exegesis.The sixth, seventh, and ninth essays examine Newton's study of history. In the sixth paper, Robert Markley shows how Newton deployed universal history in his quest to trace the origin and subsequent corruption of pure religion. Continuing the theme of religious apostasy, in the seventh essay Matt Goldish examines Newton's ecclesiastical history "Of the Church." Goldish describes how Newton's painstaking research uncovered the corruption of primitive religion by paganism, gnosticism, kabbalism, emanationist doctrines, and other such human interventions. The ninth paper by Kenneth Knoespel contains a study of Newton's ponderous and often impenetrable manuscript Theologiae gentilis origins philosophicae. Knoespel argues that this document helps illustrate Newton's belief that his Principia not so much represented a discovery of new knowledge as it embodied a recovery of ancient revealed truth.The eighth, tenth, and thirteenth papers feature accounts of Newton's prophetic exegesis and millenarian thought. The eighth and thirteenth papers, by Sarah Hutton and Reiner Smolinski respectively, make great strides in the understanding of the unity of Newton's theology by illustrating how crucial aspects of his heterodox doctrine helped shape his prophetic thought. Hutton focuses on the impact of Newton's Arian Christology on his exegesis of Revelation, while Smolinski relates Newton's mortalism and rejection of evil spirits to... (shrink)

In a recent article Paul Cartledge and Matt Edge argue that the modern republican tradition offers a useful framework for understanding the Athenian concept of freedom, and that within this framework the Athenians protected their freedoms without reference to a concept of rights. This paper agrees with both of these conclusions but identifies and corrects three assumptions behind Cartledge and Edge’s argument: that the only purpose of rights is to protect individual freedoms against the state; that rights have no (...) place at all in the republican tradition; and that the ancient Greeks did not understand rights. In fact the Athenians did have an understanding of rights but they did not use rights to protect freedoms. The reason for this is that the protected freedom is a very modern and particularly sophisticated application of the concept of rights. (shrink)

A review of Matt Cook's book Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy.

Charlie Dunbar Broad is one of the most important philosophers of this century. I know that this may sound like a very irresponsible -- even whimsical -- thing to say; so I better make a strong case for this assertion. Right away, philosophers who share other sympathies may start listing more famous philosophers as prima facie evidence against my apparently rash opinion.