This paper presents the intelligent virtual animals that inhabit Omosa, a virtual learning environment to help secondary school students learn how to conduct scientific inquiry and gain concepts from biology. Omosa supports multiple agents, including animals, plants, and human hunters, which live in groups of varying sizes and in a predator-prey relationship with other agent types (species). In this paper we present our generic agent architecture and the algorithms that drive all animals. We concentrate on two of our animals to (...) present how different parameter values affect their movements and inter/intra-group interactions. Two evaluations studies are included: one to demonstrate the effect of different components of our architecture; another to provide domain expert validation of the animal behavior. (shrink)

Sports are an excellent venue for demonstrating evolutionary principles to audiences not familiar with academic research. Team sports and sports fandom feature dynamics of in-group loyalty and intergroup competition, influenced by our evolved coalitional psychology. We predicted that reactions to expressions signaling mutual team/group allegiance would vary as a function of the territorial context. Reactions should become more prevalent, positive, and enthusiastic as one moves from the home territory to a contested area, and from a contested area to a rival’s (...) territory during active rival engagement. We also predicted that men would be more responsive than women based on sex differences in evolved coalitional psychology. The research team visited public places immediately prior to 2016–2017 collegiate football and basketball games. A male research confederate wore a sweatshirt displaying the logo of one of the competing university teams and vocalized the team’s most popular slogan when he saw a fan displaying similar logos. Observers followed 5 m behind, recording reactions and response positivity/enthusiasm. Reaction tone was most positive in the rival territory, least positive in the home territory, and intermediate in the periphery and contested territory. Rates of “no reaction” were lowest in the rival territory but were highest in the periphery. Men had higher reaction rates and more positive and enthusiastic reaction tones than women. Reactions generally followed predictions based on expected signal value. This project provides evidence that coalitional psychology influences dynamics related to university sports team rivalries and that context matters for expressions of alliance. (shrink)

ObjectiveHead and neck cancer treatments are known to significantly affect functionality and appearance, leading to an increased risk for body image disturbances. Yet, few longitudinal studies exist to examine body image in these patients. Based on a conceptual model, the current study aimed to determine, in patients newly diagnosed with HNC: the prevalence, level, and course of body image concerns; correlates of upon cancer diagnosis body image concerns; predictors of immediate post-treatment body image concerns; and association between body image concerns (...) and levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, support, and alcohol and drug misuse.MethodsTwo hundred and twenty-three, newly diagnosed with a primary HNC were assessed using structured clinical interviews and psychometric measures at three, and 6 months after diagnosis. Primary outcome was 3-month, as it was most salient to body image disturbance. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted on the potential body image predictors, based on the model.ResultsSixty-eight percent of patients with HNC presented some level of body image concerns. Body image concerns at baseline and post-treatment were significantly related and significantly increased from pre- to post-treatment. Immediately post-treatment, 89% presented some level of body image concerns. Correlates of body image concerns in patients with HNC at baseline included: physical symptom burden, difficulties with communication and eating, coping with the cancer diagnosis using denial, suicidal ideation, and having had a past anxiety diagnosis. When controlling for sociodemographic and medical variables, body image concerns in patients with HNC in the immediate post-treatment were predicted by: baseline body image, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism.ConclusionThis longitudinal study helps identify patients more susceptible to experience body image disturbance following head and neck cancer. Clinicians ought to pay special attention to body image concerns upon cancer diagnosis, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism, and may want to target these factors in future preventive interventions. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

Chomsky, meanwhile, has long expressed great reluctance even to recommend reading material to his audiences, let alone how they ought to vote, on the basis that they shouldn’t be substituting his judgment for their own. At the same time he has equally consistently maintained that elections are an elaborate PR charade unworthy of more than the briefest attention, a stance he somehow considers consistent with the petition’s call to put the presidential elections at the top of our list of concerns (...) this year. Fortunately, these two fine dissidents haven’t joined in the vilification of Nader that has become all the rage among Democrats and all-too-many progressives, at least not yet. (shrink)

Voor het eerst hebben jongeren onder de achttien in Duitsland en België deze maand gestemd, bij de Europese verkiezingen. Nederlandse leeftijdsgenoten hebben dit recht (nog) niet. Te beïnvloedbaar, ze kunnen nog niet verantwoord stemmen, klinkt het. Deze tegenwerpingen zijn oneerlijk. Ze gelden ook voor miljoenen anderen die al wel stemrecht hebben.

How surprising is the insight, that being equals I in the 15th lecture of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II? It might have been indeed an unexpected turn for his contemporaries in Berlin listening to Fichte for the first time, but should it be surprising for us, having at least since 2012 (the year the last volume of [Gesamtausgabe] appeared) access to all his published and unpublished works? I want to propose a way of reading Fichte, which bypasses two popular and (...) contradictory interpretations of his philosophy in the post-Jena period: (a) the Absolute is the new first principle (hence the I is just a shadow of the much higher being) and (b) his system basically remains unchanged (hence the being is nothing more than the I). At first, I analyze the functions of later Fichte’s improved version of the Kantian and Reinholdian abstract subject-object-symbolism and assign specific content to it. This will shed light on the structure and the first principle of the Doctrine of Science 1804/II. In the second section I give reasons why Fichte calls both God and I “absolute” and “pure being” and explain their relation to each other referring to a thought experiment sometimes used by Kant—an analogy between the divine and human (pure) reason. The analogical thinking of this kind remains within the borders of transcendental philosophy as long as it is used only for certain didactic purposes. (shrink)

This dialogue (trilogue) is an attempt to critically discuss the technoscientific convergence that is taking place with biodigital technologies in the postdigital condition. In this discussion, Sarah Hayes, Petar Jandrić and Michael A. Peters examine the nature of the convergences, their applications for bioeconomic sustainability and associated ecopedagogies. The dialogue paper raises issues of definition and places the technological convergence (‘nano-bio-info-cogno’) – of new systems biology and digital technologies at the nano level – in an evolutionary context to speculate, (...) on the basis of the latest research, future possibilities. The paper also reviews these developments within familiar landscapes of posthumanism and postmodernism, raises the question of political bioeconomy and the role of postdigital education within it. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect has a firm, respected position within Roman Catholic medical ethics. Neil M. Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, believes that this doctrine also enjoys a central place within U.S. law. This essay examines and assesses Gorsuch’s thesis. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 31–40.

In 1939, under pressure to take a more definitive political position, the editors of the literary journal Scrutiny, under the leadership of F. R. Leavis, convened a symposium titled “The Claims of Politics,” on the question of whether political advocacy had a place in a journal dedicated to literature and the arts. This remains a salient question to the present day. This paper considers the circumstances that led to the symposium and specifically considers the contribution of conservative political philosopher (...) class='Hi'>Michael Oakeshott and his position that the introduction of politics into the arts would serve neither well. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems MICHAEL TROCCHIA SEE FOR YOURSELF The gods, in effect, have given Euenius the gift of inner vision…because he has lost his outer vision. —Michael Attyah Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece Come to a field of stones baking in the late sun. Drop your knee to the groundup earth and feel the warmth climb your thigh. Run your finger across a palm-sized stone, as if (...) inspecting the liver of the shegoat, the white one who follows you everywhere, always. Follow that old vision of yourself, its light dying in your eye as you look and look for one last rock one last time, its edge weathered into a fine and deadly thing. Hold the stone high—a red sun sinking behind you— and count down to the day’s complete darkness and in that completion between you and what will be arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 64 two poems a darker endlessness, carve out the gift of sight, hearing only shivers of your own body, hooves running off. YOUNG CALCHAS SLEEPS And down he sat again as Calchas rose among them, Thestor’s son, the clearest by far of all the seers. —Homer, The Iliad Calchas, you dream of children dreaming of the sparrow’s head, of the bird’s eye deadened into view, of flutter and firelight, of the nest shredded at your feet and then spring again, berry, and leaf-meal and petalwind and whole glossaries of bone and egg bloodied in the hollow of your hand. But never a sure sign, no second sight clear and bright within the first order of things. No opening widening out of wing or song. Just the nearness of living, a feather suspended by a string, the halfmeaning of seeing the whole world suffer and sway— youth divined and past and forecast into the fray and saying this ruin and sacrifice again, this blueness sailing back in with the breeze. The world circles outside our window and light gives way to more light and you sleep soundly in a bed of down. Rise, Calchas, rise and walk out of the god’s mouth and see image after image fall away. See this life lifting out of one dream and into no other. Michael Trocchia 65... (shrink)

Russ Schafer-Landau’s ‘Moral judgement and normative reasons’ is admirably clear and to the point (Schafer-Landau 1999). He presents his own version of the argument for the practicality requirement on moral judgement – that is, for the claim that those who have moral beliefs are either motivated or practically irrational – that I gave in The Moral Problem (Smith 1994), and he then proceeds to identify several crucial problems. In what follows I begin by making some comments about his presentation of (...) the argument. I then confront the problems. (shrink)

Let K be a finite set of finite structures. We give a syntactic characterization of the property: every element of K is injective in ISP(K). We use this result to establish that A is injective in ISP(A) for every two-element algebra A.

The contribution deals with the sources of Kant's criticism of the historical knowledge of philosophy. This criticism is an important motif in Kant's thought. Its contents are directed against Wolffianism. Nevertheless it was Christian Wolff who gave Kant the concept of the historical knowledge of philosophy. This concept is of great importance for Wolff, too. It can be traced back to the fight against Aristotelian scholastic philosophy. The reading of the traditional handbooks was criticized early, and the individual's own meditation (...) was challenged. Wolff formulated these intentions in his term: the historical knowledge of philosophy. Christian Thomasius and his followers, on the other hand, continued to criticize learning with the help of the memory, and they demanded the individual's own meditation. From this the slogan 'Selbstdenken' originated. Because of the opposition between the Wolffians and their opponents, for a long time 'self-thinking' and 'historical knowledge of philosophy' were treated side by side and independently of each other. Kant was the first to connect them definitively. He acknowledges the clarity of Wolff's terminology, but fills it up with the old content. (shrink)

Chapter One distinguishes the early, individualistic, writings from the later, more socially conscious ones. The metaphysical language of impermeable surfaces and levels, and rigid hierarchies, is consonant in James's writing with the assumption of what Dewey calls an individual/society split. ;Chapter Two focuses upon the relational self from the Principles of Psychology. The central pair of terms is that of strength/fragility, in which a self is revealed that is both functionally efficacious through activities of emphasis, selection, and negation, and permeable (...) to context. ;Chapter Three discusses the "social organism" and the "intellectual republic" from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. James uses more socially conscious metaphors, and discusses the public and the private; "inner" and "outer" tolerance; and the "personal contribution," "X," which must be added to the "world," "M." ;Chapter Four discusses the "nucleus" of relations from Essays in Radical Empiricism. The personal aspect of social experience falls within the realm of "co-conscious relations" and the public falls within the sphere of the "conterminous." The strong side of the self, from Chapter Two; the private, or personal; inner tolerance; and the personal contribution, "X," from Chapter Three, belong to the sphere of co-conscious relations, as discussed in Chapter Four, just as the fragile side, the public; outer tolerance; and the world, "M," all belong to the sphere of conterminous relations. ;Chapter Five discusses the metaphor of Papini's corridor from Pragmatism. The adjoining rooms can be seen to symbolize the sphere of co-conscious relations, and the corridor of conterminous ones. The metaphysics of background and foreground points to an instrumentalist interpretation of the self, which represents a complete departure from James's early individualism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE CURRICULAR ROLE OF RUSSELl?S SCEPTICISM MICHAEL J. ROCKLER Interdisciplinary Studies in Education / National-Louis Universiry Evanston, 1L 60201, USA I n The Prospects of IndustriaL CiviLization, written in collaboration with his wife Dora, Bertrand Russell wrote: The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I (...) disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.· This passage reflects Russell's views on scepticism and education; he sought an educational system that would avoid indoctrination and would produce sceptical students. Scepticism, a central aspect of much of Russell's philosophic work, was a primary organizing principle of his writings on education. Russell, a major contributor to educational theory, produced two volumes on education that continue to have considerable relevance for teaching and learning in contemporary society. The first, Education and the Good Life (1926),2 inspired by the births of John and Katharine, focused on the education of young children. In Education and the Good Life, Russell identified the aims of education. These included the development ofvitality, the promotion of courage (which entails the absence of fear), sensitiveness and intelligence. When schools accomplish these ends, they produce young men and women of character who are able to contribute to the well-being of society. 1 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1923), p. 252. 2 Published in Britain as On Education: Especially in Early Childhood. The CurricuLar Role ofRusselL's Scepticism 51 Russell, who once stood for Parliament as suffragist candidate, believed in equality of education for both men and women. This position was well advanced for its time; it still encounters resistance today. As the Russells' children approached school age, he and Dora confronted the problem of their education. Russell did not want John and Katharine to experience the loneliness of education by tutors that he had faced as a child. He and Dora also wished to avoid conventional public schools because they wanted their children to be educated in a manner consistent with their sense of scepticism about society and about religion. Russell felt that exposure to any kind of traditional learning would cause his children to be indoctrinated with patriotic and religious points of view. On the other hand, he felt that the progressive schools that were available-including A. S. Neill's Summerhill-lacked intellectual rigour. As a result of these feelings and because of Dora Russell's interest in education, the Russells leased the estate of Bertrand's brother at Telegraph House in Sussex and founded what came to be known as Beacon Hill School in September 1927. With his experience at Beacon Hill in mind, Russell published a second book on education in I932-Education and the Modern WorLd.3 It argued against the notion of progressive educators that schooling should simply allow for natural growth. Russell rejected Rousseau's approach to teaching and learning, and he distanced himself from some of Dewey's early work as well. In Education and the Good Life, and in other early essays on learning theory, Russell had seemed impressed by the growing role of behaviourism in education. However, his experience at Beacon Hill and his reading ofpsychoanalytic literature weakened his acceptance of behaviourism. In Education and the Modern World Russell called for more awareness of the role of emotion in learning as well as an examination of the way in which repressed feelings affect action. Russell argued that conditioning cannot effectively develop character. Education and the Modern World ends on a discouraging note. Russell concludes that schools can only provide for full individual development if the state identifies its own interest with that of the 3 Published in Britain as Education and the Social Order. russell: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives M.Masrer University Libraty Press n.s. 12 (summer 1992): 50-60 ISSN 0036-01631 52 MICHAEL J. ROCKLER child. Russell was pessimistic about this possibility. For this to take place, a number of things had to occur. First, farge scale wars had to be eliminated. Second... (shrink)

_From the president of Wesleyan University, an illuminating history of the student, spanning from antiquity to Zoom “[Roth] has a clear vision for what it ought to mean to be a student: Learn what you love to do, get better at it, and then share it with others.”—David Perry, _Washington Post__ In this sweeping book, Michael S. Roth narrates a vivid and dynamic history of students, exploring some of the principal models for learning that have developed in very different (...) contexts, from the sixth century BCE to the present. Beginning with the followers of Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus and moving to medieval apprentices, students at Enlightenment centers of learning, and learners enrolled in twenty-first-century universities, he explores how students have been followers, interlocutors, disciples, rebels, and children becoming adults. There are many ways to be a student, Roth argues, but at their core is developing the capacity to think for oneself by learning from others, and thereby finding freedom. In an age of machine learning, this book celebrates the student who develops more than mastery, cultivating curiosity, judgment, creativity, and an ability to keep learning beyond formal schooling. Roth shows how the student throughout history has been someone who interacts dynamically with the world, absorbing its lessons and creatively responding to them. (shrink)

Can punishments ever meaningfully be proportioned in severity to the seriousness of the crimes for which they are imposed? A great deal of attention has been paid to the general justification of punishment, but the thorny practical questions have received significantly less. Serious analysis has seldom delved into what makes crimes more or less serious, what makes punishments more or less severe, and how links are to be made between them. In Of One-eyed and Toothless Miscreants, Michael Tonry has (...) gathered together a distinguished cast of contributors to offer among the first sustained efforts to specify with precision how proportionality can be understood in relation to the implementation of punishment. Each chapter examines scholarly and lay thinking about punishment of people convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on "making the punishment fit the crime." The contributors challenge the most prevalent current theories and emphasize the need for a shift away from the politicized emotionalism of recent decades. They argue that theories that coincided with mass incarceration and rampant injustice to countless individuals are evolving in ways that better countenance moving toward more humane and thoughtful approaches.0Written by many of the leading thinkers on punishment, this volume dissects previously undeveloped issues related to considerations of deserved punishment and provides new ways to understand both the severities of punishment and the seriousness of crime. (shrink)

Rationalism, Platonism and God comprises three main papers on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It provides a significant contribution to the exploration of the common ground of the great early-modern Rationalist theories, and an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. -/- John Cottingham identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes's cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and 'contemplative', the (...) other modern and 'controlling'. He finds the same tension in Descartes's moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. -/- Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? Michael Ayers argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes's Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology - like the physics - is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. -/- Robert Merrihew Adams focuses on the Rationalists' arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of 'the priority of the perfect', i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. He finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz's for consideration. -/- These papers receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza. (shrink)

Catherine Malabou est l'auteure d'une quinzaine d'ouvrages prenant principalement pour objet la philosophie dite continentale, avec un double objectif : proposer une nouvelle lecture des grands auteurs modernes et contemporains, tels que Hegel, Heidegger, Kant ou encore Freud et Derrida ; et, à travers ces lectures, révéler dans ces systèmes des concepts qui, d'une part, préservent leur pertinence face aux dernières découvertes scientifiques concernant le fonctionnement du cerveau, et d'autre...

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphorical Pharmacology of Cannabis Cannabis Effects and Meanings Applied.

This chapter emphasizes four crucial differences that serve to distinguish the proto-Marxist interpretation from the standard post-Kantian framework. The first and foundational difference involves the existence of final causality or internal purposiveness in nature. The now-standard post-Kantian interpretation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel presupposes Sellars's core distinction between the realm of "empirical description" and the "space of reasons", a distinction that necessarily presupposes the absence of final causality in nature. The proto-Marxist framework approaches Hegel as the first modern philosopher to (...) overcome the strained but stubbornly persistent fantasy of pure mechanism and to recognize the ineliminable role of Aristotelian final causes in even the most basic domains of nature. The third difference involves the nature of Hegel's dialectic. Fourth, these competing frameworks provide divergent accounts of the constitution of the object. The post-Kantian framework plainly acknowledges Hegel's tendency to talk about organisms, artworks, and institutions as purposively structured wholes that cannot be properly explained in terms of causal laws. (shrink)

Both the authorship and the dating of the so-called “Diktat für Schlick” (DFS), once attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein and assigned by Georg Henrik von Wright to the Wittgenstein Nachlass as item 302, are debated topics in Wittgenstein and Vienna Circle research. Schulte (Waismann as Spokesman for Wittgenstein. In: McGuinness B (ed). Friedrich Waismann - causality and logical positivism. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 15. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 225–242, 2011) and Manninen (Waismann’s testimony of Wittgenstein’s fresh starts 1931–35. In: McGuinness B (ed). (...) Friedrich Waismann - causality and logical positivism. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 15. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 243–265, 2011) hold that DFS was authored by Friedrich Waismann rather than Wittgenstein. Applying techniques from computational stylometry to the authorship question, the paper concludes that DFS is located stylometrically in the middle between Waismann’s and Wittgenstein’s writings, but slightly closer to Wittgenstein, and so Wittgenstein authorship is hence stylometrically still not unlikely. The paper concludes by presenting a number of factors that speak in favour of the view that DFS might originally indeed have been dictated by Wittgenstein. For the computational stylometry component, the paper uses the Eder et al.’s (Stylometry with R: a package for computational text analysis. R Journal 8/1:107–121. Accessed 21 Oct 2021. https://journal.r-project.org/archive/2016/RJ-2016-007/index.html, 2016) “Stylometry with R” package; the degree of similarity and dissimilarity between documents is calculated by Burrows’ Delta measure; and the results are displayed using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Principal Components Analysis. For the text corpus part, the paper uses texts authored by Schlick, Waismann and Wittgenstein. For the archival research part, the paper refers to materials form the Schlick Nachlass in the North Holland Archives, the Waismann Nachlass in the Bodleian Libraries, the Rose Rand Nachlass in the Pittsburgh Archives of Scientific Philosophy, the Ludwig Wittgenstein Nachlass in the Trinity College Cambridge Wren Library, and the Cornell copy of the Ludwig Wittgenstein Nachlass. The paper is a follow-up on Oakes and Pichler (Computational stylometry of Wittgenstein’s ‘Diktat für Schlick’”. In: Hareide L, Johannson C, Oakes M (eds). The many facets of corpus linguistics in Bergen: In honour of Knut Hofland. Bergen Language and Linguistics Series (BeLLS), Bergen, pp 221–240, 2013); for the current paper we have extended the Waismann text corpus with more texts written under the influence of Wittgenstein, a.o. Logik, Sprache, Philosophie (1976). (shrink)

Written primarily in Latin, 1989 edition.

This book examines the origins of ancient Greek science using the vehicles of blood, blood vessels, and the heart. Careful attention to biomedical writers in the ancient world, as well as to the philosophical and literary work of writers prior to the Hippocratic authors, produce an interesting story of how science progressed and the critical context in which important methodological questions were addressed. The end result is an account that arises from debates that are engaged in and "solved" by different (...) writers. These stopping points form the foundation for Harvey and for modern philosophy of biology. Author Michael Boylan sets out the history of science as well as a critical evaluation based upon principles in the contemporary canon of the philosophy of science--particularly those dealing with the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Deforming American Political Thoughtoffers an alternative to the dominant American historical imagination, treating issues that range from the nature of Thomas Jefferson's vision of an egalitarian nation to the persistence of racial inequality. Presenting multifaceted arguments that transcend the myopic scope of traditional political discourses, Michael J. Shapiro summons disparate disciplines and genres - architecture, crime stories, novels, films, and jazz/blues music to provide approaches to the comprehension of diverse facets of American political thought from the founding to the (...) present. The book's various investigations disclose that there have always been dissenting voices, articulated in diverse genres of expression that cast doubt on the moral purpose and exceptionalism of the American mind. This highly anticipated updated second edition features a preface focusing on aesthetic theory and the contributions of artistic genres for political analysis, and a completely new chapter on critical thinking about the US western and urban encounters afforded by the two HBO series, Deadwood and The Wire respectively. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that autonomous thought and decision-making are attained through respectful parenting and are blighted or destroyed when the parenting is disrespectful or abusive. However, it can be argued that young children are already capable of thinking and deciding things for themselves, so when sexist or abusive parenting leads to an adult incapable of such autonomy, the parenting or other social influences have destroyed what was originally there. It turns out, too, that the thinking and deciding sides of autonomy (...) are actually inseparable aspects of one and the same personal trait/virtue, and it can be shown that the other major human virtues—and human rationality as a whole—also have this dual aspect. We can go on to see that this duality is best interpreted in terms of the indissoluble complementarity of yin 陰 and yang 陽. (shrink)