This chapter introduces the idea that computation is a key tool that can help us understand how the human brain works. Recent years have seen a revolution in the kinds of tasks computers can perform. Underlying these advances is the burgeoning field of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, which aims at creating machines that can act without being programmed, learning from data and experience. Rather startlingly, it turns out that the same methods that allow us to make intelligent (...) machines also appear to hold the key to explaining how our brains work. In this chapter, we explore this exciting new field and some of the questions that it raises. (shrink)

According to a growing trend in theoretical neuroscience, the human perceptual system is akin to a Bayesian machine. The aim of this article is to clearly articulate the claims that perception can be considered Bayesian inference and that the brain can be considered a Bayesian machine, some of the epistemological challenges to these claims; and some of the implications of these claims. We address two questions: (i) How are Bayesian models used in theoretical neuroscience? (ii) From the use of Bayesian (...) models in theoretical neuroscience, have we learned or can we hope to learn that perception is Bayesian inference or that the brain is a Bayesian machine? From actual practice in theoretical neuroscience, we argue for three claims. First, currently Bayesian models do not provide mechanistic explanations; instead they are useful devices for predicting and systematizing observational statements about people's performances in a variety of perceptual tasks. That is, currently we should have an instrumentalist attitude towards Bayesian models in neuroscience. Second, the inference typically drawn from Bayesian behavioural performance in a variety of perceptual tasks to underlying Bayesian mechanisms should be understood within the three-level framework laid out by David Marr ( [1982] ). Third, we can hope to learn that perception is Bayesian inference or that the brain is a Bayesian machine to the extent that Bayesian models will prove successful in yielding secure and informative predictions of both subjects' perceptual performance and features of the underlying neural mechanisms. (shrink)

Xu Bing ranks among the most recognized contemporary Chinese artists in the world today. His lifelong interest in word and image paired with his experiences as part of the Chinese diaspora have made him the subject of numerous publications dedicated to exploring culture and communication. With Xu Bing and Contemporary Chinese Art, editors Hsingyuan Tsao and Roger T. Ames bring a welcome addition to this corpus. Compiling seven essays from scholars of art history and philosophy, this volume in the SUNY (...) series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture offers a remarkable range of approaches for thinking about not only Xu Bing's work but also contemporary art and culture at large.In their introduction, the editors foreground .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Masafumi Ogawa, “Music Teacher Education in Japan: Structure, Problems, and Perspectives”Peggy WheelerMasafumi Ogawa's paper presents challenge after challenge facing the teacher and the teacher educator in Japan. One has the sense that a lifetime of frustrations with the national curriculum, the set-up of student teaching, and the definition of music as a school subject each made its way into the paper. Even choosing to focus on (...) teacher training still leaves a very broad topic for a relatively short paper. The central challenge seems to be the curriculum. How does the curriculum impact the teacher and the teacher training process? How does the underlying definition of music as well as the purpose that definition implies affect the curriculum? His paper also identifies a series of dualities or tensions that exist between two important components: the curriculum or teacher education. The fact that Japanese and American music education systems seem to be at opposite ends of some of these dualities is a compelling reason for exploring and discussing them.In the arena of teacher preparation, the dualities as they appear in their relative proportion of the teacher education curriculum are (1) performance versus academic music courses, such as history, theory, and composition, and (2) education versus music courses—a familiar lament among music education students. In student teaching, modeling in the classroom by the cooperating teacher is contrasted with providing opportunities for the student teacher to experiment with the teaching process. Evaluation of student teaching is a three-way tension involving the student teacher, the cooperating teacher, and the university professor.In his discussion of the school curriculum, Ogawa deplores the triumph of attitude over skill, and pleads for discernment in the application of national standards to meet the needs of the community and students. He returns to the nature of music and music education at several points in his paper, expanding the meaning and function of music beyond music as art. His dissatisfaction with the seemingly teacher-proof curriculum peaks when he advocates for the autonomy of the teacher in the classroom. Giving teachers the opportunity to devise their own curriculum seems to go to the other extreme. Having taught with colleagues who had virtually no training in music, a standard curriculum at the district or national level provides some essential boundaries.Ogawa's discussion of the impact of the national Course of Study on Japanese music education was particularly intriguing. As teacher certification in the United [End Page 205] States has begun to promote and reward National Board Certification, it is striking to consider the restrictions and disempowerment that Ogawa describes and credits to the omnipresent Course of Study. For someone unfamiliar with the Japanese system of education, some of the descriptions were enticing but brief. Other descriptions were a bit confusing, but after visiting the MEXT website, I think most of this confusion is due to translation. It is difficult to take any phrase that is packed with meaning in one culture and find a suitable phrase in another culture that will convey the associations that are connected with it. I would recommend quoting complete descriptions or including an appendix. A reference to the history of Japanese music education on Kensho Takeshi's website would also provide more context, particularly for the connection between emotion, music, and ethics.I want to thank Ogawa for stimulating me to consider issues of curriculum including how I have changed my views of curriculum since I returned to school teaching. First, I will describe my change of perspective. Then I would like to close by describing an aspect of curriculum and teacher education that has surfaced this past year. I would call this the meta-curriculum, and I wonder how we can prepare new teachers for this part of teaching. It seems to me that the world of philosophy is the quintessential and perhaps the only appropriate arena for this preparation.Beyond Curriculum in the ClassroomLike the first spring rain on newly cut grass, music education has a fresh and vital look to me. I returned to public school teaching this year after a hiatus of seventeen years. After focusing on viola performance and liberal arts... (shrink)

Addressing Education: Purposes, Plans, and Politics is the first in the 10-volume series, Lynchburg College Symposium Readings, 3rd edition. Each volume presents primary texts organized around an interdisciplinary, liberal arts theme such as education, politics, social issues, science and technology, morals and ethics. The series has been developed by Lynchburg College faculty for use in the Senior Symposium and the Lynchburg College Symposium Readings Program (SS/LCSR). While these programs are distinctive to Lynchburg College, the texts are used on many college (...) campuses across the nation, as well as by readers interested in significant original texts on important topics. Addressing Education: Purposes, Plans, and Politics offers primary source readings on a wide range of topics in education. Here are the original writings that readers often only read about. In this volume, the educators speak for themselves in selections and excerpts from Plato (360 B.C. E.) to Paolo Freire (1968). Familiar luminaries Mann, Rousseau, DuBois, Keller, Jefferson, 21 in all gather together all in one volume to deliver these pivotal ideas with incomparable impact. Whether consumed cover-to-cover or piece-by-piece, the volume invites useful, critical debate on this important topic. (shrink)

This book consists of a series of essays that all turn around questions of the address of speech or writing. They argue and demonstrate that meaning is not just a matter of the active intention of a subject (for example, speaker, writer, or other signatory of a meaningful act) but also of its reception at another's address. The book's main concern is therefore with a theory of meaning and of action that is not centered on the intentional, self-conscious subject. The (...) fifteen chapters explore this problematic within three broad areas: love, jealousy, and sexual difference; fiction or literature; and political or public discourse. The book engages principally with contemporary French thought and includes important new readings of work by Jacques Derrida, He;lène Cixous, Maurice Blanchot, and Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

As the initial book in the Feminist Constructions series, Feminists Doing Ethics broaches the ideas of critiquing social practice and developing an ethics of universal justness. The essays collected within explore the intricacies and impact of reasoned moral action, the virtues of character, and the empowering responsibility that comes with morality. These and other essays were taken from Feminist Ethics Revisited: An International Conference on Feminist Ethics held in October of 1999. Waugh and DesAutels bring to light in these pages (...) work discussed at this conference that extends our understanding of morality and ourselves. Visit our website for sample chapters! (shrink)

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST). The topics covered herein-from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism-are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. The topics covered herein—from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism—are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

In this newest installment in Chicago’s series of Jacques Derrida’s seminars, the renowned philosopher attempts one of his most ambitious goals: the first truly philosophical argument against the death penalty. While much has been written against the death penalty, Derrida contends that Western philosophy is massively, if not always overtly, complicit with a logic in which a sovereign state has the right to take a life. Haunted by this notion, he turns to the key places where such logic has been (...) established—and to the place it has been most effectively challenged: literature. With his signature genius and patient yet dazzling readings of an impressive breadth of texts, Derrida examines everything from the Bible to Plato to Camus to Jean Genet, with special attention to Kant and post–World War II juridical texts, to draw the landscape of death penalty discourses. Keeping clearly in view the death rows and execution chambers of the United States, he shows how arguments surrounding cruel and unusual punishment depend on what he calls an “anesthesial logic,” which has also driven the development of death penalty technology from the French guillotine to lethal injection. Confronting a demand for philosophical rigor, he pursues provocative analyses of the shortcomings of abolitionist discourse. Above all, he argues that the death penalty and its attendant technologies are products of a desire to put an end to one of the most fundamental qualities of our finite existence: the radical uncertainty of when we will die. Arriving at a critical juncture in history—especially in the United States, one of the last Christian-inspired democracies to resist abolition—_The Death Penalty_ is both a timely response to an important ethical debate and a timeless addition to Derrida’s esteemed body of work. (shrink)

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST). The topics covered herein-from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism-are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

Little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in lesser developed countries. In order to address this knowledge gap, we used Chile as a test case and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of CSR initiatives. We also did an Internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data. We discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of CSR in developed countries, there are distinct differences (...) as well. In particular, we found that different sectors drive CSR in Chile. In contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for CSR efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key actors in Chile. MNCs imported their CSR beliefs, skills, and processes into Chile. Their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle. Once large domestic firms felt pressured by their MNC rivals, they too adopted CSR initiatives. The ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of CSR in Chile. Using network theory as a lens, we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether CSR efforts will be authentic. Based on these contentions, we suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

As the frequent use of metaphors like friendship or relationship in academic and colloquial discourse on serial television suggests, long-term narratives seem to add something to the spectator's engagement with fictional characters that is not fully captured by terms such as empathy and sympathy. Drawing on philosophical accounts of friendship and psychological theories on the formation of close relationships, this article clarifies in what respect the friendship metaphor is warranted. The article proposes several hypotheses that will enhance cognitive theories of (...) character engagement. Spectators tend to like what they have been exposed to more, and the feeling of familiarity is pleasurable. Familiar characters are powerful tools to get the spectator hooked. Furthermore, by generating an impression of a shared history, television series activate mental mechanisms similar to those activated by friendship in real life. These factors, and several others, create a bond with characters in television series that tends to be described in everyday language as a sort of friendship. (shrink)

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. The topics covered herein_from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism_are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1, the University of Chicago Press inaugurates an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1 launches the series with Derrida’s exploration of the persistent association of bestiality or animality with sovereignty. In this seminar (...) from 2001–2002, Derrida continues his deconstruction of the traditional determinations of the human. The beast and the sovereign are connected, he contends, because neither animals nor kings are subject to the law—the sovereign stands above it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. He then traces this association through an astonishing array of texts, including La Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Hobbes’s biblical sea monster in Leviathan, D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake,” Machiavelli’s Prince with its elaborate comparison of princes and foxes, a historical account of Louis XIV attending an elephant autopsy, and Rousseau’s evocation of werewolves in The Social Contract. Deleuze, Lacan, and Agamben also come into critical play as Derrida focuses in on questions of force, right, justice, and philosophical interpretations of the limits between man and animal. (shrink)

This volume brings together some of the most well-known and highly respected commentators on the work of Jacques Derrida from Britain and America in a series of essays written to commemorate the life and come to terms with the death of one of the most important intellectual presences of our time. Derrida’s thought reached into nearly every corner of contemporary intellectual culture and the difference he has made is incalculable. He was indeed controversial but the astonishing originality of his work, (...) always marked by the care, precision and respect with which he read the work of others, leaves us with a philosophical, ethical and political legacy that will be both lasting and decisive. The sometimes personal, always insightful essays reflect on the multiple ways in which Derrida’s work has marked intellectual culture in general and the literary and philosophical culture of Britain and America in particular. The outstanding contributors offer an interdisciplinary view, investigating areas such as deconstruction, ethics, time, irony, technology, location and truth. This book provides a rich and faithful context for thinking about the significance of Derrida’s own work as an event that arrived and perhaps still remains to arrive in our time. Contributors: Derek Attridge, Thomas Baldwin, Geoffrey Bennington, Rachel Bowlby, Alex Callinicos, David E. Cooper, Simon Critchley, Robert Eaglestone, Simon Glendinning, Marian Hobson, Christopher Johnson, Peggy Kamuf, Michael Naas, Nicholas Royle. (shrink)

When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With _The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1_, the University of Chicago Press inaugurates an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. _The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1_ launches the series with Derrida’s exploration of the persistent association of bestiality or animality with sovereignty. In this seminar (...) from 2001–2002, Derrida continues his deconstruction of the traditional determinations of the human. The beast and the sovereign are connected, he contends, because neither animals nor kings are subject to the law—the sovereign stands above it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. He then traces this association through an astonishing array of texts, including La Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Hobbes’s biblical sea monster in _Leviathan_, D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake,” Machiavelli’s _Prince_ with its elaborate comparison of princes and foxes, a historical account of Louis XIV attending an elephant autopsy, and Rousseau’s evocation of werewolves in _The Social Contract_. Deleuze, Lacan, and Agamben also come into critical play as Derrida focuses in on questions of force, right, justice, and philosophical interpretations of the limits between man and animal. (shrink)

This dialogue introduces the concepts of colonization and decolonization of nursing knowledge, the harms that have come from colonization, and the importance of engaging in the processes of decolonization as a means of achieving social justice and humanization for all. Specific options to decolonize nursing knowledge are discussed.

This paper offers a philosophical `history' of the nature of`public discourse' – a basic element of human rights. It beginswith Enlightenment views from Condorcet and Jefferson, turns to Dewey,and then to Habermas. Over a couple of centuries not only does thecentral character of discourse change but so too does the definition ofa public person.

Proto‐oncogene products may be multi‐functional proteins with various roles in cell differentiation as well as cell proliferation. The molecular biology of the gene products of three well characterized proto‐oncogenes (c‐fos, c‐myc and c‐src) are described, and the roles of three other proto‐oncogene products, involved in hormone and growth factor reception, are reviewed.

The criticalness of soil health to agricultural production and conservation has been well documented in certain areas of the US and among certain farmers. Yet, other agricultural lands and producers in the US remain largely understudied in regards to soil health, particularly agricultural production systems in the Intermountain West. Using results of in-depth interviews with farmers and ranchers in Utah participating in the Utah Soil Health Network On-Farm Soil Health Demonstration Project on their agricultural lands, we begin to fill these (...) gaps in the social science research by focusing on the motivations of these farmers and ranchers for participating in the soil health trial and the challenges they face to implementing soil health conservation practices on their land. The findings show these farmers and ranchers understand the importance of soil health and are wanting knowledge of soil health practices. They see the gap in research on soil health in their geographical region—and they feel the gap. They are well aware of the uniqueness of their land, and that soil health practices used in other parts of the country do not always work nor are necessarily a good idea in their geographical landscape. Yet, they are motivated to attempt soil health practices for their own benefit and so that others can learn from them. Understanding these motivations and challenges are important if measures toward improving soil health are to continue and move beyond limited areas of the US and extend to all forms of agricultural producers. (shrink)

This is the first feminist special issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Introduction written by Brand [Weiser] and Korsmeyer with essays by Hilde Hein, Paul Mattick, Jr., Timothy Gould, Joanne B. Waugh, Joseph Margolis, Mary Devereaux, Noel Carroll, Flo Leibowitz, Anita Silvers, Elizabeth Ann Dobie, Renee Cox, and Ellen Handler Spitz. A fuller publication from Indiana University Press followed in 1995 edited by Brand [Weiser] and Korsmeyer entitled, Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics.

Résumé La fondation anthropologique de la fonction critique – socialement endossée par l’imaginaire utopique – et son lien dynamique avec la tâche intégrative de l’idéologie permettent à Ricœur de repenser sur le plan socio-politique la double nécessité du soupçon et de l’espérance. En reliant l’analyse de la structure contradictoire et analogisante de l’imaginaire social aux perspectives antérieurement développées sur “la liberté selon l’espérance,” notre propos vise à expliciter ses enjeux émancipateurs. Les apories auxquelles les médiations symboliques contraignent l’agir doivent nourrir (...) la double nécessité d’un “devoir de vigilance” et d’une “timide espérance”: telle est à la fois la difficulté irréductible et la force critique de l’analyse ricœurienne de l’imagination socialisante. Mots-clés: imaginaire social, critique, idéologie, utopie, espérance.The anthropological foundation of the critical function—endorsed by the utopian imaginary—and its dynamic relation with the integrative task of ideology allow Ricœur to rethink, at a social and political level, the necessity of both suspicion and hope. Linking Ricœur’s analysis of the contradictory and analogizing structure of the social imaginary to perspectives on “freedom in the light of hope,” which were developed earlier, it is my intention to make explicit certain emancipatory issues. The aporiae to which symbolic mediations constrict acting must provide for the necessity of both an “obligation for vigilance” and a “tentative hope.” Such is the irreducible difficulty but also the critical force of Ricœur’s analysis of the socializing imagination. Keywords: Social Imaginary, Criticism, Ideology, Utopia, Hope. (shrink)

Through the analysis of forty ethical dilemmas drawn from real-life situations, _Ethics in Action_ guides the reader through a process of moral deliberation that leads to the resolution of a variety of moral dilemmas. Fosters critical thinking by evaluating the reasons people give to support their choices and actions Challenges the paradigm of moral relativism that often impedes efforts to resolve moral dilemmas Incorporates international perspectives often lacking in texts published for a U.S. audience.

This essay proceeds from the assertion that Derrida’s work has consistently been concerned with translation. This has been clearly evident since “Plato’s Pharmacy”. This concern comes to the fore in Geschlecht III, where countless features of Heidegger’s language are underscored as untranslatable. This does not prevent Derrida from proposing re-translations, of doing what he describes as “harassing” Heidegger’s language “with wave after wave of touches, caresses, and blows.” Untranslatability, as he argues here and elsewhere, is simply a matter of economy, (...) of the one-word-for-one-word principle, according to which standard every text is untranslatable. But translation is also for Derrida a touchstone for the broadest questions posed by or to philosophy. One such important question or problem is hospitality, which, as he asserts in his 1995–1996 seminar on the topic, is “basically the same problem” as translation. This confluence of the questions of hospitality and translation is particularly relevant for his reading of Heidegger’s essay on Trakl, “Die Sprache im Gedicht.”. (shrink)