The dominant view of the ventral and dorsal visual systems is that they subserve perception and action. De Wit, Van der Kamp, and Masters suggested that a more fundamental distinction might exist between the nature of information exploited by the systems. The present study distinguished between these accounts by asking participants to perform delayed matching , pointing and perceptual judgment responses to masked Müller–Lyer stimuli of varying length. Matching and pointing responses of participants who could not perceptually judge stimulus length (...) at brief durations remained sensitive to veridical stimulus length , but not the illusion , which was effective at long durations. Distinct thresholds for egocentric and allocentric information pick up were thus evident irrespective of whether perception or action responses were required. It was concluded that the dorsal and ventral systems may be delineated fundamentally by fast egocentric- and slower allocentric information pick up, respectively. (shrink)

This study focuses on the prediction of the engagement of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in environmental management practices, based on a random sample of 689 SMEs. The study finds that several endogenous factors, including tangibility of sector, firm size, innovative orientation, family influence and perceived financial benefits from energy conservation, predict an SME’s level of engagement in selected environmental management practices. For family influence, this effect is found only in interaction with the number of owners. In addition to empirical (...) research on SMEs’ environmental behavior, this article draws on the ecological modernization literature as well as the theory of planned behavior. (shrink)

The harmful impact of an adverse event ripples beyond injured patients and their families to affect physicians, nurses, and other health care staff that are involved. These “Second Victims” may experience intense feelings of anxiety, guilt, and fear. They may doubt their clinical competence or ability to continue working at all. Some go on to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.Medical institutions long ignored this problem, preferring to believe that adverse events, or “errors,” occur due to incompetence — the unfortunate (...) work of a few “bad” practitioners who deserve, if anything, a reprimand for their negligence. Study after study has rejected this attribution and shown that adverse events in health care stem primarily from systemic flaws, not “bad apples.” Devastating errors, in other words, can, do, and always will happen in the care of competent, well-trained, and caring practitioners. (shrink)

It has been argued that organizational structures (the way tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated) can influence moral agency in organizations. In particular, low values on different structural parameters (functional concentration, specialization, separation, and formalization) are said to foster an organizational context (allowing for relating to the goals and output of the organization, moral deliberation, and social connectedness) that is conducive to moral agency. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the organizational structure and moral agency in the case (...) of a.s.r. (a large Dutch insurance company). While our empirical results fit the thesis that low values on structural parameters positively relate to moral agency, they also refine our understanding of the influence of structural parameters. In particular, our data suggest that the influence of functional concentration not only depends on whether it is low, but also on the type of criterion used for identifying business units; they suggest that the specific organizational context may put a limit to lowering design parameters and points at several non-structural factors that have an influence on the relation between structure and moral agency. In all, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of the conditions conducive to moral agency in organizations. (shrink)

It has been argued that organizational structures (the way tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated) can influence moral agency in organizations. In particular, low values on different structural parameters (functional concentration, specialization, separation, and formalization) are said to foster an organizational context (allowing for relating to the goals and output of the organization, moral deliberation, and social connectedness) that is conducive to moral agency. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the organizational structure and moral agency in the case (...) of a.s.r. (a large Dutch insurance company). While our empirical results fit the thesis that low values on structural parameters positively relate to moral agency, they also refine our understanding of the influence of structural parameters. In particular, our data suggest that the influence of functional concentration not only depends on whether it is low, but also on the type of criterion used for identifying business units; they suggest that the specific organizational context may put a limit to lowering design parameters and points at several non-structural factors that have an influence on the relation between structure and moral agency. In all, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of the conditions conducive to moral agency in organizations. (shrink)

Objectives To evaluate whether the requirement of “minimal risk and burden” for paediatric research without direct benefit to the subjects compromises the ability to obtain data necessary for improving paediatric care. To provide evidence-based reflections on the EU recommendation that allows for a higher level of risk. Design and setting Systematic analysis of the approval/rejection decisions made by the Dutch Central Committee on Research involving Human Subjects (CCMO). Review methods The analysis included 165 proposals for paediatric research without direct benefit (...) that were reviewed by the CCMO between January, 2000, and July, 2007. A separate, in-depth analysis of all drug studies included 18 early phase drug studies and nine other drug studies without direct benefit. Results 11 out of 165 studies were definitively rejected because the CCMO did not regard the risk and/or burden to be minimal. In three of these 11 cases (including two early phase drug studies) the requirement of minimal risk and burden was cited as the only reason for rejection. Four other early phase drug studies also involved risks and/or burdens that were not regarded to be minimal but were nevertheless approved. Conclusions The requirement of minimal risk and burden, aiming to protect research subjects, occasionally leads to rejection of protocols. Early phase drug studies relatively often do not comply with the requirement. Committees may find ways to approve important studies that formally should be rejected, but that is not a desirable solution. The regulatory framework should be revised to make such occasional exceptions to the requirement legitimate and transparent. (shrink)

The proposal that there is an illusion of conscious will has been supported by findings that priming of stimulus location in a task requiring judgements of action-authorship can enhance participants’ experience of agency. We attempted to replicate findings from the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ task [Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. M. . On the inference of personal authorship: enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 439–458]. We also examined participants’ performance on this task in relation (...) to self-reported passivity experiences and hallucination-proneness. We found a significant effect of priming, with primes being found to increase the experience of agency. An interaction between gender and priming was also found, with priming enhancing feelings of agency in women but not in men. There were no significant correlations between levels of self-reported passivity experiences or hallucination-proneness and participants’ susceptibility to the priming effect on ratings of agency. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to a prominent model of passivity experiences. (shrink)

Pediatric oncology has a strong research culture. Most pediatric oncologists are investigators, involved in clinical care as well as research. As a result, a remarkable proportion of children with cancer enrolls in a trial during treatment. This paper discusses the ethical consequences of the unprecedented integration of research and care in pediatric oncology from the perspective of parents and physicians. An empirical ethical approach, combining (1) a narrative review of (primarily) qualitative studies on parents' and physicians' experiences of the pediatric (...) oncology research practice, and (2) comparison of these experiences with existing theoretical ethical concepts about (pediatric) research. The use of empirical evidence enriches these concepts by taking into account the peculiarities that ethical challenges pose in practice. Analysis of the 22 studies reviewed revealed that the integration of research and care has consequences for the informed consent process, the promotion of the child's best interests, and the role of the physician (doctor vs. scientist). True consent to research is difficult to achieve due to the complexity of research protocols, emotional stress and parents' dependency on their child's physician. Parents' role is to promote their child's best interests, also when they are asked to consider enrolling their child in a trial. Parents are almost never in equipoise on trial participation, which leaves them with the agonizing situation of wanting to do what is best for their child, while being fearful of making the wrong decision. Furthermore, a therapeutic misconception endangers correct assessment of participation, making parents inaccurately attribute therapeutic intent to research procedures. Physicians prefer the perspective of a therapist over a researcher. Consequently they may truly believe that in the research setting they promote the child's best interests, which maintains the existence of a therapeutic misconception between them and parents. Due to the integration of research and care, their different ethical perspectives become intertwined in the daily practice of pediatric oncology. Increasing awareness of what this means for the communication between parents and physicians is essential. Future research should focus on efforts that overcome the problems that the synchronicity of research and care evokes. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 29-31, June 2011.

The first European settlements in the new world faced technical issues with the help of the XVI century scientific advances. Besides briefly exposing the scientific and technological situation, this paper explores, with the help of reverse engineering, two singular mechanical wits representative of the technological advances introduced in America to overcome different problems. Firstly, a pump, based on an alternative movement system through crankshafts and pistons used against the continuous flooding suffered in the Ciudad de México valley. Although flooding remained (...) a problem (it was solved in the XX century), hydraulic pumps were essential for continuous soil drainage. Secondly, a port crane for handling cannons, military devices, and construction materials during the Lima fortification in the XVII century. For both cases, reverse engineering, through engineering methods, Computer-Aided Design CAD programs, and additive manufacturing, provides virtual and/or tangible mockups that help to analyze and improve our knowledge about the dimensions, materials, and functions of used (and currently lost) mechanical systems during the American colonization. (shrink)

Reimagining the call to teach: A witness to teachers and teaching, by David T. Hansen, Teachers College Press, 2021, 192 pp., USD29.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-0807765463David Hansen and the call the teach:...

This paper aims to assess medieval terminism, particularly supposition theory, in the development of Aristotelian thought in the Latin West. The focus is on what the present author considers the gist of Aristotle’s strategy of argument, to wit conceptual focalization and categorization. This argumentative strategy is more interesting as it can be compared to the modern tool known as ‘scope distinction’.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:M. C. Dillon LOVE IN WOMEN IN LOVE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Despite his sexism, his turgid prose, and his antiquated social conscience, Lawrence is on every bookshelf. This is not merely because of the vicarious erotic entertainment to be found in the saga of John Thomas and Lady Jane, but because Lawrence remains a major guru of romance. We take him seriously, look to him for guidance, measure ourselves (...) against Ursula and Birkin. If he is on our shelves—and his thoughts not far from our pillows—then his ideas starid in need of scrutiny. Women in Love is as much a treatise as a novel: we witness more talking about than making of love. The agon of ideas engulfs the agon of flesh. Hence, the book suits the present purpose. It cannot be taken as Lawrence's definitive statement on love—later works, notably Lady Chatterly's Lover, move in different directions—but it is his most philosophical treatment and, I think, most clearly expresses his conceptual framework, the parameters which define and limit his thinking. What he says about love in Women in Love may therefore illumine his depictions of the behavior of lovers in other works. Lawrence is a romantic. In the popular sense of the word he is one who makes of romance or erotic adventure a dominant life value. Lawrence is also a romantic in another sense insofar as he takes the transcendence or unattainability of the other as essential to the project of loving. These two senses are conceptually compatible but existentially in conflict. That is, if one's major undertaking in life is to seek erotic satisfaction, and if one desires only so long as the object is beyond reach, then one has established the groundwork for continual frustration. This, I will try to show, is what Lawrence has done. I Many writers have tried to bring the ideas implicitly present in and constitutive of romantic love to the level of explicit reflective awareness. 190 M.C.Dillon191 The most successful treatment I know is given by a writer who did not know—or at least did not say—that he was writing about romantic love. Sartre purports to reveal the inner structures of love itself—the unqualified, unrestricted essence of love. As I have tried to show elsewhere,1 he fails at this. But he succeeds admirably in unveiling the inner contradictions of romantic love. Our project here is to draw upon Sartre's insights: first, to develop a conception of romantic love, and then to discern the model of Eros which informs Women in Love. The key idea in romantic love is transcendence. Something is transcendent when it is beyond me, when I cannot adequately prehend it conceptually or master it with my will. The role of transcendence in romantic love is demonstrated clearly in Denis de Rougemont's book on Love in the Western World.2 There he shows that Tristan's passion for Iseult is directly proportional to her distance from him: he is increasingly attracted as she becomes further removed. On the other hand, when through various deeds of gallantry and subterfuge, he succeeds in winning her to his side, he loses interest and must create circumstances which put her again beyond his reach. The culmination of romantic love, according to de Rougemont, is death—it sets the other absolutely beyond reach. It also arrests and preserves at their apices the youth and beauty of the lovers and the intensity of the erotic relationship. It is, I believe, this complex of ideas that led Kierkegaard to this cynical reflection on the nature of romantic love: "When two beings fall in love with one another and begin to suspect that they were made for each other, it is time to have the courage to break it off; for by going on they have everything to lose and nothing to gain."3 The same idea, qualified by increased optimism, underlies Stendhal's notion of crystallization in his book On Love.* Love is predicated on the attribution of perfection to the beloved. Just as a plain bough emerges from the salt-saturated waters of the Salzburg mines encrusted with beautiful crystals... (shrink)

Witnessing to the strong present-day interest in the formation of the great scholastic syntheses of the thirteenth century are the large number of studies devoted to the lesser thinkers of the preceding century. The English-born Robert of Melun is one of these so far largely neglected authors. Despite the edition of his major works in Louvain by R. M. Martin, little has been written on this gifted pupil of Abelard. Horst cuts a large and central piece out of Robert's "system": (...) the doctrines of the Trinity and of God. After a detailed analysis of the sources of his thinking, the Trinity is dealt with and then God. Under the pen of Robert, the sharp dialectical method of Abelard serves to elaborate Augustine's speculation on the Trinity. Yet the author—in line with the contemporary interest in trinitology—is not satisfied to expound the subtle distinctions Robert made but strives to show also how they can have a bearing on the "economy of salvation." There is a rather liberal dose of lengthy Latin quotes, footnotes mushroom, and secondary literature is quoted by the yard. To sum up: this is a serious and articulate treatment of two central questions of scholastic theology and we are glad to read the promise of a continuation treating Robert's anthropology, angelology, and his views on the First Man.—M. J. V. (shrink)

The De Officiis, written hurriedly not long before Cicero's death, has always commanded attention. It is based on the moral philosophy of the Greek Stoic Panaetius; but Cicero adapted the material to his audience in such a way that the book stands as an invaluable witness to Roman attitudes and behaviour. This new edition is based on a more systematic examination of the vast manuscript tradition than has previously been attempted, and exploits fresh evidence for the poorly represented X branch. (...) The apparatus shows with new clarity the major contribution to the emendation of the text made by scribes and readers of the later manuscripts, both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. (shrink)

This is the second volume of the author's ambitious attempt at outlining the history of the dogma of original sin from its beginning to our days. The reader of the first volume witnessed a concerted attack against the dogma and especially against its Augustinian formulation. The second volume deals with perhaps the most obscure period of this dogma's development: the one between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. In the West—thanks to Augustine's undisputed authority—the dogma became accepted as an integral (...) part of Christian theology, even though those theologians of the Dark Ages tried to "humanize" its original, savage formulation. The Christian East, however, would never have accepted it, and took a rather ambiguous position towards the meaning of the "curse of Adam." This is, briefly, the author's thesis, and to prove it he marshals an impressive array of quotes and references, fruits of a wide and often really impressive scholarship. Yet, the whole book is written in the same spirit of crusading, shallow rationalism as was the preceding volume. The speculative issues are not really treated and the whole work lacks that synthetical approach which is so indispensable for an enterprise of such magnitude.—M. J. V. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Free as a Bird: Varro De Re Rustica 3C. M. C. GreenMarcus terentius varro is a most difficult writer to assess. The very high regard in which he was held by the greatest writers of his—or any—time is supported by a fragmentary structure made up of a mass of tantalizing titles, excerpts, and allusions gathered from later authors, the reflection of his Res Divinae in Augustine, the extant books (...) of his De Lingua Latina, and De Re Rustica. The last of these, De Re Rustica, is the only complete work of Varro’s we possess, and therefore on it must be tested all our theories and suppositions about Varro as a writer. Unhappily, the artistic weaknesses of this work seem only too apparent. 1 The subject—managing a villa economy—is not one to readily attract most readers in and of itself, and Varro’s undeniable learnedness is exhibited to us in a narrative full of “hasty remarks, conversational language, rhetorical nostalgia, and, crowning all, the anacoluthons,” all of which muddle his discussion, and produce a prose “style” that defies categorization, if not description. 2It is truly unsettling, then, that the opening of each of the books of [End Page 427] De Re Rustica presents to us a Varro whose urbane wit and literary skill are much more in accord with our expectations from the immensely learned friend of all the great writers of the late Republic, and particularly from the author of Menippean Satires. Such is the disparity between the charm of the dialogues’ setting and the dry exposition of the factual material, and so indifferently are they linked, that one could suppress the first, as Boissier suggests, 3 without noticeably affecting the second. The result, a learned and somewhat tedious discussion of agriculture, would be understandable: practicality and Cato’s crabbed example would naturally excuse Varro from the higher artistic requirements. Yet the dramatic dialogue suggests that the author intended more than a dry exposition of material—though it is a suggestion which is left unfulfilled and, at first sight, seems to do little more than demonstrate its irrelevance.My aim in this essay is to suggest that we have been taking Varro at once too seriously, and, paradoxically, not seriously enough. That is, we have been reading De Re Rustica so intently as a (lady-)farmer’s vade mecum—Varro began the project, he says, at the request of his young wife who wanted to know how to manage her new estate (1.1.1–4)—that we have not given its author’s wit and literary subtlety the attention they deserve. The ruthless either/or of academic categorization has misled readers; either Varro is joking, they tend to assume, or he is serious. That he might be both at the same time is an idea that needs more help than we have so far been given. It is my contention that his wit is more carefully wrought, and is reaching toward far more serious matters than the details of how to farm.If we begin, first, by allowing the possibility that Varro had a purpose beyond packaging some important agricultural information in a decent volume; and if we then proceed by taking the paradoxes of De Re Rustica as being intentional, and therefore having meaning, we may at least open the door to new observations. The genre is defined (or so it seems) immediately by the opening of book 1, the dedication to Fundania; it is a handbook, since that is what Varro’s bride asked for. Yet the dialogue form signals some kind of philosophical genre, taken more or less seriously. We look, therefore, to Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, in which Ischomachus and Socrates discuss farming and, in particular, Ischomachus’ [End Page 428] fifteen-year-old wife’s management of her part of the oikos. 4 Then there is the dramatic framing of the three books, each with a very distinctive and rather unphilosophical setting, and dates that are mutually discordant. 5 This, combined with the enchanting name-play lavished on most of the characters in the dialogue, 6 suggests a comedic influence. The whole mixed bag taken together—handbook, philosophical... (shrink)

The 17th century witnessed a remarkable religious revival in France which rapidly assumed a very definite mystical trend. Historians are quick to point out that it was in fact a continuation of the mystical flowering which characterised the Spanish church in the previous hundred years. Side by side with the large number of ‘mystics’, both clerical and lay, male and female, went the powerful group of the ‘anti-mystics’—mainly clerical—who distrusted all that ‘Dionysian balderdash’, to quote the words of Father Binet (...) in 1624. Even the great Teresa of Avila fell into disrepute and the Carmelites were more often than not embarrassed by the mystical experiences recounted in the life of John of the Cross. (shrink)

Experiments witnessing the entanglement between two particles interacting only via the gravitational field have been proposed as a test whether gravity must be quantized. In the language of quantum information, a non-quantum gravitational force would be modeled by local operations with classical communication, which cannot generate entanglement in an initially unentangled state. This idea is criticized as too constraining on possible alternatives to quantum gravity. We present a parametrized model for the gravitational interaction of quantum matter on a classical spacetime, (...) inspired by the de Broglie–Bohm formulation of quantum mechanics, which results in entanglement and thereby provides an explicit counterexample to the claim that only a quantized gravitational field possesses this capability. (shrink)

The Modern Library, which used for its 1941 monolingual edition of the combined Pensées and Provincial Letters the Trotter translation of the former work, has chosen for this bilingual edition of the Pensées the artful translation of H. F. Stewart. The work is divided by Stewart into a major Apology and chronologically arranged Adversaria which he considers to lie outside the scope of the original work. Stewart's scholarly introduction surveys both the incredibly confused situation of existing manuscripts and the evolution (...) of Pascal's thought. Stewart has arranged the material in accordance with Pascal's own plan, which was reconstructed by Filleau de la Chaise and by Pascal's nephew the abbé Périer. One could argue, as does Brunschvicg, whose own arrangement reveals a prime consideration of accessibility to the modern reader rather than historical accuracy, that the authority of Filleau de la Chaise and the abbé Périer is indeed questionable. For their reconstruction of the plan was made some eight years after Pascal had announced it in a lecture at Port Royal in 1658. Moreover, this initial arrangement could not take into account modifications made while writing during the last four years of the author's life. Stewart has nevertheless relied on both the Brunschvicg facsimile of the autographed manuscript and the Tourneur reading of the First Copy, and has consulted several editions of the Pensées. The result is certainly the best edition in English of this momentous work. Stewart's translation is superb, reproducing eloquently Pascal's paradoxical, contrapuntal phrases without losing any of his delightfully subtle wit.—C. M. R. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical WorksAndrew M. RiggsbyJohn Dugan. Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. x + 388 pp. Cloth, $120.The title somewhat undersells this book in two respects. First, in addition to treating several of the rhetorica (De Oratore, Brutus, Orator), it also offers readings of two actual orations (Pro Archia and In Pisonem). (...) Second, and more importantly, self-fashioning in the narrow sense is only half of the project Dugan analyzes. As interested as Cicero was in offering versions of himself to a variety of audiences, he seems to have been at least as interested in fashioning an audience that would evaluate those versions properly (that is, positively). The theatrical character some have noted in much of Roman culture might lead one not to be surprised to find late Republican interest in self-fashioning; and, as Dugan points out, a "new" man such as Cicero would have been particularly self-conscious about the matter. One might even have expected that attempts to change the rules on the fly would be fair game (cf. Pliny Ep. 4.17.3, 6.17.4, 7.4.10). Still, the scale of Cicero's enterprise seems to have no classical parallel and was badly in need of description and analysis. This is the work carried out effectively by Dugan's book. The Cicero being fashioned is in part the togate general and hero of the Catilinarian affair. He is also, however, the cultural producer who tests cultural limits and standards of acceptability and is eventually displaced by his own product.The first chapter argues that Pro Archia adopts an essentially epideictic form to exploit, on the one hand, the ludic associations of that genre and, on the other, its proximity to the aristocratic laudatio funebris. The former licenses Cicero's valuation of literary polishing (roughly, ornatus), explicitly in poetry, but also in history and oratory. The latter co-opts a highly traditional mode of fashioning for a new man who might not have literal access to it. The speech is both an argument for a certain set of values and a demonstration of Cicero's possession of the same: the value of cultural production to the community, the [End Page 473] value of formal polish and aestheticization to that production, the role of texts in processes of exchange, personal auctoritas as the ultimate guarantor of value, and semiotic transparency. This speech and its hoped-for responses would be able to canonize Cicero's version of the Catilinarian conspiracy, a version in which he was the hero. In Pisonem attempts to canonize a vice-ridden Piso by similar means and also sets him in a world where the same values (especially transparency) break down.The second chapter reads De Oratore as a defense of a novel, Ciceronian construct of the ideal orator as in fact traditional. The key to the new aesthetic (beyond its being an aesthetic in sometimes moralizing terms) is "controlled transgression," that is, a tolerance for the metaphorical, the theatrical, the humorous, and in general the potentially indecorous and effeminate. This is made tolerable by a variety of strategies. The overt arguments of the text constantly police the boundaries of decorum (even if they protest too much). The whole is projected back onto ancestors who are automatically respectable and from whom Cicero personally can construct an intellectual genealogy. (Here again we have potential contact with the laudatio funebris.) At the same time, parts of the reputations of some of those maiores are cleaned up to suppress potential controversy. The dialogue form displaces responsibility for any particular claim of characters in the text, even though Cicero does in places stress his own authorship of the whole. Not only are Cicero's would-be weaknesses (such as his perhaps over-ready wit) justified, but he also assumes the role of the regulator. Heavy use of bodily metaphors and refusal of the conventional form/content distinction serve to naturalize Cicero's preference for risking effeminacy for the sake of ornatus.Brutus, the topic of chapter 3, gives a "history" of oratory with a point... (shrink)

This contribution offers a detailed presentation of the commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s De anima by Walter of Wervia. Walter wrote his commentaries between 1445 and 1472 at the University of Paris. Both works bear witness to the influence of John Duns Scotus and Scotism on Parisian Masters of Arts.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Many scholars have contended that Clare of Assisi’s original intention upon leaving her family home to take up religious life sometime around 1211 was to lead a life essentially like that of the mendicant friars.1 She and the women who soon joined her would be not only poor and penitential, but also itinerant and apostolic. Like the friars their life would be marked by both insertion into the world (...) and seclusion from it as they alternated between active service and recollected contemplation. The important proof text for this claim is a passage in a letter composed by Jacques de Vitry in 1216, just five years after Clare’s conversion. Many scholars, including Paul Sabatier, Luigi Pellegrini, Roberto Rusconi, Marco Bartoli, Ingrid Peterson, Chiara Frugoni, Giovanni Boccali, and Chiara Augusta Lainati believe the text to be the earliest witness to the manner of life led by Clare and her followers during their initial years.2 The letter has been used to argue further that the women were explicitly grouped together with the Lesser Brothers, were known by the parallel title of “Lesser Sisters,” and had the freedom to come and go as they wished during their early years in San Damiano.Since claims about the women’s early likeness to the friars’ mendicant way of life are often made as brief assertions resting on Jacques’s letter, I think it important to consider in a more detained fashion the provocative passage thought to support them. Closer scrutiny of Jacques’s text shows that while none of these claims can be entirely ruled out, importantly, none can be supported with any solid evidence. I agree essentially with scholars such as Lilly Zarncke, Ernest McDonnell, Maria Pia Alberzoni, Jacques Dalarun, and Lezlie Knox who consider the letter’s language too general to know if it refers specifically to Clare and her sisters.3 I suggest, furthermore, that there are reasons to conclude that this is certainly unlikely if the passage is interpreted to mean, specifically, that Clare and her sisters carried on an active apostolate outside of San Damiano.Jacques de Vitry is generally recognized as one of the most astute and forward-thinking observers of his time in terms of recognizing the importance of new religious groups. A Parisian master, canon regular, and bishop, Jacques had the opportunity to live in a variety of settings, including his native France, the Low Countries, Italy, and the holy land.4 In 1216, he traveled from Liège in the Low Countries to Perugia to be consecrated bishop by Honorius III, who himself had just been elevated to the papacy.5 Along with observations about other matters, Jacques shared the following comment about religious men and women in a letter that he sent almost certainly to a group of his friends back in Liège. He was writing in the early days of October 1216 as he was leaving Italy on a boat that would carry him to his new episcopal see in Acre. The letter, the first of six that survive, is prized not only for its reference to the Lesser Sisters, but also as the very first written testimony regarding the Franciscan movement in general. The great nineteenth-century historian Paul Sabatier thought it provided a more vivid and precise description of Francis’s ministry than any single passage contained in his early biographies.6 The passage, which represents less than seven percent of the entire letter, is rendered thus in a widely available English translation:I found one consolation in those parts, nevertheless: many men and women [multi enim utriusque sexus], rich and worldly, after renouncing everything for Christ, fled the world. They are called Lesser Brothers and Lesser Sisters [fratres minores et sorores minores]. They are held in great esteem by the Lord Pope and the cardinals. They do not occupy themselves with temporal affairs, but work each day with great desire and.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In light of the careful work of Joshua Benson who argues that the De reductione is the second part to Bonaventure's inception sermon, this article will date the De reductione by determining when he incepted. This is not an easy task because the date of his inception has been a point of confusion within Bonaventurian scholarship. Scholars date it as early as 1248 and as late as 1257. Within (...) those nine years they assign various scenarios regarding his status as regent master. For example, the most common scenario has Bonaventure incepting in 1253 or 1254 and assuming the Franciscan Chair in theology, but only teaching in the Franciscan convent, unrecognized by the university until either 1256 or 1257.My thesis is that Bonaventure incepted in April 1254 to replace William of Middleton who relinquished the Franciscan chair in the wake of the Lenten riot of 1253. To argue this thesis, the paper divides into three parts. The first will briefly present the various dating for Bonaventure's inception. The second will examine all the thirteenth and fourteenth century sources that are used for determining Bonaventure's chronology so as to establish the evidence for calculating his inception. And third, building upon the evidence gleaned from those witnesses, I will present a narrative chronology that details events surrounding Bonaventure's inception in April 1254.I. Various Dating of Bonaventure's inception as MasterScholars assign various dates to his inception, which has caused much confusion. The Quaracchi editors of the Opera omnia, Robinson, Gilson, Moorman, and Crowley claim Bonaventure incepted in 1248; Robson alone gives a 1252 date; Callebaut, Longpré, the Spanish editors of the Obras de San Buenaventura, Abate, Bonafede, the earlier Brady, the later Hayes, and Hammond give a date of 1253; Pelster, Glorieux, the Quaracchi editors of the Opera theologica selecta, Veuthey, the earlier Bougerol, Cousins, Schlosser and Delio opt for 1253 or 1254; the later Bougerol, Quinn, the earlier Hayes, Noone, Hauser, and Cullen hold for a 1254 date; the later Brady posits a 1255 date; Bettoni and Dufeil push the inception back to 1257.Table 1 highlights the disparity between the last two studies that focus specifically on Bonaventure's chronology during his time at Paris. Click for larger viewTable 1. Disputed dates in Bonaventure's ChronologyAt least the two studies have one date in common, and with that one fixed date of 1257, we turn to examine the thirteenth and fourteenth century witnesses so as to dispel the disparity.II. Examining the SourcesEven though the dating for Bonaventure's inception spans nine years, there are only seven sources that scholars can use to calculate those dates. More specifically, the majority of scholars support a 1253 or 1254 dating, with the year discrepancy likely deriving from how they calculate the dates in the sources according to medieval/modern calendars. Thus, to sort through the tangle of dating, all the evidence will first be presented in full. Then, in light of all the evidence, a scenario for dating Bonaventure's inception can be advanced.The thirteenth and fourteenth century sources fall into four groups: the Chronica fratris Salimbene de Adam ; the two independent, short lists of General Ministers: Series Magistrorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum , and Chronicon Abbreviatum de Successione Generalium Ministrorum ; the three interdependent texts of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum,Catalogus XV Generalium , and the Chronica XXIV Generalium , which contain significant variances from one another; and the Chronica Franciscis Fabrianensis . As will become clear, scholars who advance a 1248 date read Salimbene in light of Fabriano, while those who favor 1253 or 1254 read Salimbene in light of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum and related texts. Those who favor a 1257 dating, seem to.. (shrink)

Can gene editing and agroecology be complementary? Various formulations of this question now animate debates over the future of food systems, including in the UN Committee on World Food Security and at the UN Food Systems Summit. Previous analyses have discussed the risks of gene editing for agroecosystems, smallholders, and the concentration of wealth by and for agro-industry. This paper takes a different approach, unpacking the epistemic, socioeconomic, and ontological politics inherent in complementarity. I ask: How is complementarity understood? Who (...) is asking and defining this question? What are the politics of entertaining the debate at all? I sketch the epistemic foundations of science and technology that organize different notions of evidence used in agroecology and genetic engineering. On this base, I offer 8 angles on the compatibility question, exploring the historical contradictions that complementarity discourses reveal and the contemporary work they do. I work through questions of (1) technological neutrality, (2) “root cause” problems, (3) working with nature, (4) encoding racism, and dilemmas of (5) ownership and (6) access. These questions, I argue, require a reckoning with (7) ontologies of coloniality-modernity, which help us get underneath—and beyond—the complementarity question. Finally, I offer (8) a framework for thinking about and working toward technology sovereignty. (shrink)

Narratives of seed ‘loss’ and ‘persistence’ remain at loggerheads. Crop genetic diversity is rapidly eroding worldwide, we are told, and numerous studies support this claim. Other data, however, suggests an alternative storyline: far from disappearing, seed diversity persists around the world, resisting the homogenizing forces of modern capitalism. Which of these accounts is closer to the truth? As it turns out, crop biodiversity is more easily invoked than measured, more easily wielded than understood. In this essay, I contend that the (...) impasse reveals an error in the asking. We must, instead, look to the ontological, epistemic, and narrative dimensions of agrobiodiversity—and to the science, politics, and cultures of each. How is diversity empirically defined and measured? Who creates and categorizes diversity? Who does not? How is such knowledge mobilized in the accounts and narratives of different interest groups? Where, when, and why does a narrative hold true? This multi-dimensional view of agrobiodiversity makes space for a greater understanding of how diversity is created, maintained, and renewed. It suggests policy and institutional support for systems that engender such renewal of diversity, both in and ex situ. (shrink)

This book presents an analysis of how speakers of typologically diverse languages report present-time situations. It begins from the assumption that there is a restriction on the use of the present tense to report present-time dynamic/perfective situations, while with stative/imperfective situations there are no such alignment problems. Astrid De Wit brings together cross-linguistic observations from English, French, the English-based creole language Sranan, and various Slavic languages, and relates them to the same phenomenon, the 'present perfective paradox'. The proposed analysis is (...) founded on the assumption that there is an epistemic alignment constraint preventing the identification and reporting of events in their entirety at the time of speaking. This book discusses the various strategies that the aforementioned languages have developed to resolve this conceptual difficulty, and demonstrates that many of the features of their tense-aspect systems can be regarded as the result of this conflict resolution. It also offers cognitively plausible explanations for the conceptual structures underlying the interactions attested between tense and aspect. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel measure of civic norm compliance. We combine the literature on norm compliance from institutional economics and social philosophy. Institutional economics draws on survey data to measure civic norms, whereas social philosophy offers a theoretical framework that proves fruitful when used to operationalize civic norms. This paper shows that significantly different results emerge when the operationalization of civic norms in institutional economics draws on the theoretical framework that social philosophy offers. Furthermore, this study is relevant for (...) social philosophy too, as it shows the potential of survey data as a test-bed for philosophical theories of norm compliance. (shrink)

Live streaming platforms such as Twitch that facilitate participatory online communities have become an integral part of game culture. Users of these platforms are predominantly teenagers and young adults, who increasingly spend time socializing online rather than offline. This shift to online behavior can be a double-edged sword when coping with difficult periods in life such as relationship issues, the death of a loved one, or job loss. On the one hand, platforms such as Twitch offer pleasure, distraction, and relatedness (...) with others to help with coping, and the increased sense of anonymity and control could stimulate self-disclosure. However, the prevalence of trolling and memes may also discourage people from opening up, and relationships that are built online—especially those with microcelebrity streamers—could be perceived as more meaningful than they actually are. To create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a new media platform embedded in game culture, and how users perceive its potential as a coping mechanism, we have conducted a first exploration by means of a survey. The questions focused on general Twitch behavior, the difficult period in life, and the role of Twitch during this period. It was distributed online among people who considered themselves active Twitch users, and who had gone through a difficult period. Eighty-four participants completed the entire survey. The majority of participants indicated that Twitch helped them cope, and that it became a larger part of their lives during the difficult period compared to regular viewing. Recurring themes were the entertainment, distraction, and sense of community Twitch offers. Viewing behavior during difficult periods appears to remain largely the same in terms of the streamers that are watched, although time spent viewing increases, and there is a change toward more time spent actively watching rather than having the stream on in the background. With this work, we aim to create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a platform, and its importance for gamers that are going through difficult periods in life. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, the traditional and famous ‘culture of tolerance’ in the past few years surprisingly became associated with the laxity, half-heartedness, even negligence and indifference with regard to serious problems in a multi-ethnic society. For the time being, a polemical use of the term dominates: tolerance as an aspect of our western ‘superiority’ against barbaric fundamentalism. To regain some grip on the – at least in the Netherlands – apparently ‘hollow’, even politically and morally dubious concept of tolerance, the (...) author returns to the genealogical ‘founding forge’ of the term, the civil war fought in the name of religion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. He demonstrates that tolerance was a key-category in a tiring, centuries-old process during which a ‘Gordian knot’ – the congruence of political power and religious faith – was being abandoned. The historical case-study of the dissident preacher John Bunyan and the early Quakers in seventeenth-century England shows, that during the Age of religious Discord political, social and religious themes are inseparably intertwined, not only from the point of view of the defenders of the status quo, but also from the standpoint of the religious dissidents and their ‘illegal’ preaching. In the intellectual history one can witness the birth of the early-modern concept of a minimal, political concept of tolerance. In a negative sense, this was a departure from attempts to uphold or restore the unity of ‘true faith’ by political coercion. In a positive sense it implied the sufferance of dissident faith and religious practices by a political power ‘in order to prevent the worse from happening’. In this process, political power became more and more an autonomous institution, above society. This minimal, political concept of tolerance has been surpassed by the state-sanctioned, juridical freedom of religion. This implies the democratic disjunction of truth and justice, that is, the recognition of an equal, reciprocal right of everyone to live and articulate his or her own truth. This legislation must be supported by a civic and social culture in which tolerance as an ethical virtue is being practiced and cherished. The most exacting form of tolerance is an attitude which tries to overcome the democratic disjunction of truth and justice, in the direction of an ‘oikoumene of religions’ or a ‘fusion of horizons’. But this subtle attitude can easily slip into an ‘idolatry of difference’ and a laissez faire-tolerance, as seemed to have happened in the Netherlands. In the final parts of this introductory essay the author presents the four articles in this thematic edition of Bijdragen: studies on Cusanus, Spinoza and Leibniz regarding tolerance, and an essay on the problems of dealing with alterity. The author concludes with the contemporary dilemma of tolerance. Should the future form of tolerance be based on universalism accompanied with the political neutralization and privatization of religion, nation, culture? Or should tolerance in a globalizing world be fed from particular traditions and sources? (shrink)

Whereas the concept of ‘tolerance’ was a marginal category from the end of the sixteenth century, it has become a political key concept today. Have we not all become strangers and foreigners? As such the concept of ‘strangeness’ has lost its relevance. In recent times we witness a new turn in the dialectics of tolerance. It becomes a political and polemical category allowing for a distinct segregation between ‘them’ and ‘we’. The concept explains ‘why we are civilized and they are (...) barbarian’ . Therefore we must ask ourselves how tolerance can be saved. (shrink)

During the decades following the publication of Darwin's Origin of species in 1859, religious belief in England and in particular the Church of England experienced some of the most intense criticism in its history. The early 1860s saw the appearance of Lyell's Evidence of the antiquity of man , Tylor's research on the early history of mankind , Renan's Vie de Jésus , Pius IX's encyclical, Quanta cura, and the accompanying Syllabus errarum, John Henry Newman's Apologia , and Swinburne's notorious (...) Atalanta in Calydon ; it was in this period also that Arthur Stanley was appointed Dean of Westminster, and that Bills were introduced in Parliament to amend or repeal the ‘Test Acts’ as they affected universities. They were the years that witnessed Lyell present the case for geology at the British Association at Bath , the first meeting of the X-Club , and the award of the Royal Society's Copley Medal to Charles Darwin. These were the years in which, as Owen Chadwick has put it, ‘the controversy between “science” and “religion” took fire’. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

De geopolitieke spanningen aan het begin van de eenentwintigste eeuw hebben een nieuwe interesse in het werk van Carl Schmitt gewekt. Dat geldt ook voor zijn benadering van het vraagstuk van de relatie tussen religie en politiek. Schmitt zoekt hierbij aansluiting bij zulke uiteenlopende en incompatibele auteurs als Juan Donoso Cortes en Thomas Hobbes. Vooral recent onderzoek heeft duidelijk gemaakt dat Schmitts juridisch-politieke denken inderdaad steunt op een aantal politiek-theologische premissen. Toch moeten we de actualiteit van zijn werk vooral zoeken (...) bij zijn politiek-filosofische probleemstelling die aanhaakt bij Thomas Hobbes. Schmitt kan ons vooral leren dat de privatisering van de religies als middel voor hun politieke neutralisering haar grenzen heeft, vooral in een democratische politieke orde. (shrink)

In the past few years in the Netherlands and other multi-ethnic democratic states we hear sharp political and intellectual criticism on the philosophical idea of a ‘multicultural society’. In this article, the author questions the criticism of several liberal and conservative political philosophers, who in their approach give attention to the genealogy of multiculturalism. While a liberal as Brian Barry sees multiculturalism as a regression, the conservative Roger Scruton on the other hand considers this political and intellectual phenomenon as a (...) bridge too far, a symptom of the disintegration of the modern nation. The author argues that these criticisms are forcing us to abandon a form of multiculturalism that considers ‘toleration’ as the highest principle. The ‘toleration-multiculturalist’ gets entangled in inconsistencies and moral paradoxes, as soon as he wants to determine his position towards intolerant and immodest variations of the Volksgeist, the cultural homogeneity and identity. The underlying problem in the discussion among liberals, conservatives and multiculturalists is the ontological vulnerability of cultures. This vulnerability has to do with the fact that cultures, traditions and identities are dependant on the constructive work of autonomous interpreters. Therefore a permanent dialogue with the past is necessary. While nationalists and multiculturalists are inclined to eliminate this vulnerability by fixating and immunizing the cultural and national identity, the liberals are neutralizing the cultural loyalties of people through the privatisation of identities. In contrast to these positions the author pleads for a form of democracy in which the rituals of democracy mediate the permanent dissensus about the meaning of nevertheless being a national community. (shrink)

I. The Seduction of Immanence The vocabulary of humanism—in which concepts such as “man,” “humane,” and “humanity” figure prominently—has always been contentious. The sarcasm of the nineteenth-century Catholic conservative thinker Joseph de Maistre with regard to the abstraction-tainted works of revolutionary thinkers, has become famous: “In my life I have met Frenchmen, Italians, and Russians, but Man, I solemnly declare, I have never met before; perhaps he exists, but not to my personal knowledge.”1These concepts acquire a practical, political, and even (...) polemical meaning when acted upon in the name of man, human rights, and finally humanity against “inhuman” practices…. (shrink)