Previous research reported that in processing structurally ambiguous sentences comprehenders often preserve an initial incorrect analysis even after adopting a correct analysis following structural disambiguation. One criticism is that the sentences tested in previous studies involved referential ambiguity and allowed comprehenders to make inferences about the initial interpretation using pragmatic information, suggesting the possibility that the initial analysis persisted due to comprehenders' pragmatic inference but not to their failure to perform complete reanalysis of the initial misanalysis. (...) Our study investigated this by testing locally ambiguous relative clause sentences in Japanese, in which the initial misinterpretation contradicts the correct interpretation. Our study using a self-paced reading technique demonstrated evidence for the persistence of the initial analysis with this structure. The results from an eye-tracking study further suggested that the phenomenon directly reflected the amount of support given to the initial incorrect analysis prior to disambiguating information: The more supported the incorrect main clause analysis was, the more likely comprehenders were to preserve the analysis even after the analysis was falsified. Our results thus demonstrated that the preservation of the initial analysis occurs not due to referential ambiguities but to comprehenders' difficulty to fully revise the highly supported initial interpretation. (shrink)

In patients with pain characterized by a painful focus and allodynia, the painful symptoms arise from altered central processing that is initiated and subsequently maintained by persistent input from nociceptive afferents. Treatments directed at this normal consequence of persistent input are inherently limited. The most efficacious treatments will target the pathology, the various sources of ongoing nociceptor input. [blumberg et al.; coderre & katz; dickenson].

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:P. Christopher Smith HEIDEGGER'S MISINTERPRETATION OF RILKE Certainly one of Heidegger's most important accomplishments is to have reminded us of the original unity of poetry and philosophy. The "metaphysical" philosophy which Heidegger calls into question is characterized by its sharp separation of itself from what it calls "unscientific" modes of discourse. But that, Heidegger shows, is a limitation which comes from its narrowed conception of itself as strict, (...) methodical science, and one need only turn to Parmenides before the tradition of metaphysics or Nietzsche at the end of that tradition to see that in fact Heidegger is right: philosophy and poetry are not necessarily to be dissociated. Indeed, the former can and should grow out of the soil of the latter. The point here is one which Heidegger might be said to have learned by experience: he found that the poetry of Hölderlin opened a way for philosophy out of the cul de sac into which phenomenological science had led it. And of course not only Hölderlin: Rilke was obviously important too. In fact to some, myself included, it seems that certainly as much as Hölderlin and perhaps even more, Rilke is the poet who displays the pre-metaphysical unity of poetry and philosophy. But that is not how Heidegger views Rilke. In respect to its philosophical value, Rilke's poetry, we are told, is inferior to Hölderlin's. There is, I suggest, a most puzzling blend of attraction and suspicion in Heidegger's interpretation of Rilke. On the one hand, Heidegger, perhaps better than anyone, is able to make clear the philosophical importance of Rilke's poetry and yet, having done that and having shown thereby the greatest sympathy for Rilke's thought, Heidegger goes on to portray Rilke as "metaphysical" and to claim for that reason that he is not the poet Hölderlin is. Is that assessment valid? And how did Heidegger arrive at it? It is to these questions that the following study is addressed. On my reading of "Wozu Dichter"1 the charge that Rilke persists in "metaphysical" thought has three dimensions. To begin with, the overriding consideration in the whole of the essay is that, like all "metaphysicians," Rilke is oblivious to the Being event. There are in 4 Philosophy and Literature turn two consequences which follow from that obliviousness: first, Rilke grounds all of what is in some highest existent, namely nature taken as will, and second, in turning inwards to consciousness he re-presents the original presencing of existents. The theme of grounding in a highest existent is worked out from page 256 (p. 100) to page 281 (p. 126) and that of the re-presentation in consciousness, from page 281 (p. 126) to page 294 (p. 141). It will become evident, I think, that the discussions of two other apparently separate questions, that of the Open and that of saying and singing, fit respectively into each of these major sections of the essay. Let us now consider the aspects of the charge that Rilke is "metaphysical" one by one. Just what does obliviousness to Being mean? It means obliviousness to the clearing or lighting {Lichtung). Heidegger, it must be kept in mind, distinguishes between what is and the event in which what is comes to be displayed as such. He refers to the event itself as the lighting and it is only in the light of the lighting, he tells us, that what is can be. Obliviousness to Being is obliviousness, not to some highest existent or even to the whole of beings, but to the Being event, to the lighting. "Metaphysics," in seeking the ontos on, the being which in being most truly underlies all other existents, forgets the event in which any being, even the highest, comes to be. Consequently, instead of experiencing temporal presencing, arising out of non-presence, das Nichts, "metaphysics" reduces anything which comes to be to something which always is in steady presence. Obliviousness to Being is, if seen in this way, obliviousness to the nicht-ist, das Nichts from which any ist originates. That shows up in Rilke in that for him beings are not "dissolved in void... (shrink)

While the underrepresentation of women in the fast-growing STEM field of computer science (CS) has been much studied, no consensus exists on the key factors influencing this widening gender gap. Possible suspects include gender differences in aptitude, interest, and academic environment. Our study contributes to this literature by applying student engagement research to study the experiences of college students studying CS, to assess the degree to which differences in men and women’s engagement may help account for gender inequity in the (...) field. Specifically, we use the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to evaluate in real-time the engagement of college students during varied activities and environments. Over the course of a full week in fall semester and a full week in spring semester, 165 students majoring in CS at two Research I universities were “beeped” several times a day via a smartphone app prompting them to fill out a short questionnaire including open-ended and scaled items. These responses were paired with administrative and over two years of transcript data provided by their institutions. We used mean comparisons and logistic regression analysis to compare enrollment and persistence patterns among CS men and women. Results suggest that despite the obstacles associated with women’s underrepresentation in computer science, women are more likely to continue taking computer science courses when they felt challenged and skilled in their initial computer science classes. We discuss implications for further research. (shrink)

Citizen participation is booming, especially the number of urban bottom-up initiatives where information and communication technologies (ICT) are deployed is increasing rapidly. This growth is good news for society as recent historical research shows that the more citizens actively and persistently interfere with public issues, the more likely a society will be resilient. And yet, at the same time, a growing number of scholars argue that due to the unprecedented impact of ICT, the public sphere is at stake. How to (...) understand both trends? How do the anti-'public sphere' developments relate to the growing number of citizens' initiatives using ICT? And if these citizen initiatives can indeed be understood as manifestations of public spheres, how can ICT foster or hinder the development of these public spheres? These questions will be explored by analyzing a Dutch citizen initiative called 'Buuv' (an online 'market' place for and by local residents) from a 'public sphere' perspective. The author will turn to 'The human condition' (1958) of Hannah Arendt in order to elaborate a 'public sphere' perspective. An Arendtian perspective (as any perspective) highlights, however, some aspects and underexposes other aspects. Furthermore, chances are that Arendt's thoughts are somewhat outdated, in the sense that we now live in a world where the online and the offline life intertwine - an experience that is referred to with the term 'onlife'. Bearing these remarks in mind, the author will elaborate on the value of Arendt's ideas to 1) the endeavor of understanding current trends in society-more urban bottom-up initiatives and anti-'public sphere' developments due to the broad uptake of ICT-and 2) the endeavor of revitalizing the public sphere in an onlife world. (shrink)

In this thesis I will defend a Reductionist criterion of personal identity, and show that that criterion supports certain commonsense claims about the morality and rationality of special concern and about the morality of the distribution of goods among persons. ;In Chapter 1 , I will introduce the problem of personal identity across time. We will see that a plausible theory of personal identity supports and motivates the commonsense claim that we should be specially concerned about our future selves and (...) intimates. ;In Chapter 2 , I will argue that we should reject a Non-Reductionist theory of personal identity. Non-Reductionism is unable to provide a coherent account of why persons persist through certain changes and not others, thereby committing us to a general skepticism about personal identity. Therefore, we should conclude that persons are not separately existing entities. ;In Chapter 3 , I present certain cases that suggest that we should reject our initial intuition that persons can swap bodies. I then consider whether we should accept the claim that it is not our identity that matters in our survival, and suggest that Reductionists can continue to claim that identity matters. ;In Chapter 4 , I defend the commonsense view of special concern. I claim that this commonsense view can be motivated and supported by the plausible Reductionist criteria discussed in Chapter 3. I show that the commonsense conception is more plausible than the Impersonalist view that tries to ground special concern in terms of impersonal values. ;In Chapter 5 , I show that Parfit's view of personal identity and what matters actually supports a moral theory in which the relationships in which persons stand to one another have intrinsic significance, rather than supporting the person-neutral theory of Utilitarianism. (shrink)

Tamil Siddhas, a loosely associated group of mystics belonging to the pan Indian Tantric tradition, recommend using the body and the mind as tools to surpass limited existence. They prescribe a method of yoga which utilizes the mind’s power to bring together dualities within a practitioner’s body to achieve kāya siddhi or a perfected, deathless body. The esoteric language and symbolism that the Siddhas use to convey their teachings have led to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of their philosophy and (...) methodology. This study aims to explain Tamil Siddha yoga and dispel some of the misconceptions about Tamil Siddhas using Siddha Agatthiyar’s composition, Antaraṅga dīkṣā viti, as the primary text. (shrink)

In the fall of 1991, voters in Washington state were asked to consider a public initiative that sought to legalize physician-assisted death: Initiative 119. Drafted by Washington Citizens for Death with Dignity, the initiative was intended to amend the existing state natural death act in several ways:1) expand the definition of “terminal condition” to include patients in irrevers ible coma or persistent vegetative state;2) specifically name “artificial nutrition and hydration” as life-sustaining medical procedures that could be refused or withdrawn;3) (...) legally allow mentally competent patients with certifiably terminal conditions to request and receive “aid-in-dying” from their physician as a medical service.The first two proposed amendments were widely acknowledged as timely and appropriate; a coalition of medical, religious, and community organizations had been actively working on such additions for several years. It was the proposal to legalize “aid-in-dying,” however, that represented a radical shift in the conduct of physicians towards their patients and a dramatic shift in social policy. (shrink)

Recent studies have been increasingly interested in the connections between popular culture – cinema in particular – and religion, and most particularly in how traditional mythologies and religious frameworks and practices are recycled and reinterpreted within modern media. These interactions can be ranged from opposition to dialogue and move towards appropriation and even replacement, in terms of functions and impact. Departing from a series of theories – mainly that of “implicit religion”, coined by Bailey but also developed by theorists like (...) Lyden – the article examines the issue of recycled myth and religious pattern in contemporary cinema, focusing on the Russian “New Wave” and more specifically on discussing Zvyagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie [The Return]. The article aims to decode the religious layers and symbolism of the film, which can find a coherent explanation in Eliade’s theories on the pattern of initiation, but also in those on the sacred camouflaged into the profane and most particularly on the hierophanies and initiation religious patterns. The paper also focuses on the function of religious archetypes and rituals as employed by contemporary storytellers like cinema, especially when such religious scripts are as articulated, although implicit, as in Zvyagintsev’s narrative. The article concludes that this return to religion and the sacred as worldviews and manners of understanding of the world can be explained as employed for their persistent function of myth structures as meaning and coherence providers. (shrink)

More than thirty-four years after the United States Supreme Court initially recognized a woman’s constitutional right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy (at least within the first two trimesters) in its landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, the issue of whether women ought to have this right continues to affect public debate. Presidential candidates are asked about the issue, and potential Supreme Court nominees and their prior judicial decisions, academic writings, and speeches are thoroughly scrutinized for any (...) inkling of how they would likely rule in a future case on the issue. Perhaps even more important is the way the debate over this issue has impacted federal funding for stem cell research in the United States. Because of moral concerns regarding the personhood status and level of dignity owed to the human embryo as a form of human life, in September of 1999, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommended against providing federal funding for the use and derivation of embryonic stem (ES) cells and embryonic germ (EG) cells except when obtained from “cadaveric fetal tissue” or “embryos remaining after infertility treatment.” In this article, I will suggest that the abortion debate and its offshoots into embryonic medical research persist because of a failure to properly separate human personhood from human biology. I will argue further that a proper analysis of the problem will not only enlighten the abortion and fetal tissue research debate, but will have implications for end-of-life issues as well. (shrink)

Wes Morriston contends that William Lane Craig's argument for the impossibility of a beginningless past results in an equally good argument for the impossibility of an endless future. Craig disagrees. I show that Craig's reply reveals a commitment to an unmotivated position concerning the relationship between actuality and the actual infinite. I then assess alternative routes to the impossibility of a beginningless past that have been offered in the literature, and show that, contrary to initial appearances, these routes similarly (...) seem to support the impossibility of an endless future. (shrink)

A patient is diagnosed with the persistent vegetative state (PVS) when they show no evidence of the awareness of the self or the environment for an extended period of time. The chance of recovery of any mental function or the ability to interact in a meaningful way is low. Though rare, the condition, considering its nature as a state outwith the realm of the conscious, coupled with the trauma experienced by the patient's kin as well as health care staff (...) confronted with painful decisions regarding the patient's care, has attracted a considerable amount of discussion within the bioethics community. At present, there is a wealth of literature that discusses the relevant neurology, that elucidates the plethora of ethical challenges in understanding and dealing with the condition, and that analyses the real-world cases which have prominently featured in the mainstream media as a result of emotionally charged, divergent views concerning the provision of care to the patient. However, there is scarcely anything in the published scholarly literature that proposes concrete and practically actionable solutions to the now widely recognized moral conundrums. The present article describes a step in that direction. I start from the very foundations, laying out a sentientist approach which serves as the basis for the consequent moral decision-making, and then proceed to systematically identify and deconstruct the different cases of discord, using the aforementioned foundations as the basis for their resolution. A major intellectual contribution concerns the fluidity of the duty of care which I argue is demanded by the sentientist focus. The said duty is shown initially to have for its object the patient, which depending on the circumstances, can change to the patient's kin, or the health care staff themselves. In conclusion, the proposed framework represents the first comprehensive proposal regarding the decision-making processes involved in the deliberation on the provision of life sustaining treatment to a patient in a PVS. (shrink)

In this article, Harvey notes the initial confusion about the statement made by the pope concerning artificial nutrition and hydration on patients suffering persistent vegetative states (PVS) due to misunderstanding through the translation of the pope's words. He clarifies and assesses what was meant by the statement. He also discusses the problems of terminology concerned with the subject of PVS. Harvey concludes that the papal allocution was in line with traditional Catholic bioethics, and that while maintaining the life (...) of a patient is favorable, in particular cases this presumption wanes when it is clear that this treatment modality would be futile or very burdensome. (shrink)

This target article examines the clinical and experimental evidence for a role of peripheral and central hyperexcitability in persistent pain in four key areas: cutaneous hyperalgesia, referred pain, neuropathic pain, and postoperative pain. Each suggests that persistent pain depends not only on central sensitization, but also on inputs from damaged peripheral tissue. It is instructive to think of central sensitization as comprised of both an initial central sensitization and an ongoing central sensitization driven by inputs from peripheral (...) sources. Each of these factors, initial sensitization, ongoing central sensitization, and inputs from peripheral sources, contributes to the net activity in dorsal horn neurons and thus influences the expression of persistent pain or hyperalgesia. Since each factor, peripheral inputs and central sensitization (initial or ongoing), can contribute to both the initiation and maintenance of persistent pain, therapies should target both peripheral and central sources of pathology. (shrink)

The essay refers to a concern for social justice in the origins of public health, borne in part by religious commitments, and to more recent expressions of a similar concern in debates about health equity. Equity, moreover, is affected by discursive power relations (dominant/hegemonic versus local/suppressed), which are discussed in relation to current research in the African Religious Health Assets Programme on the interaction of particular 'healthworlds' (a conceptual innovation) that shape the choices and behaviour of health-seekers. Two background theoretical (...) positions guide the argument: Amartya Sen's claim that development is linked to freedom (including religious freedom); and, building on Sen's and Martha Nussbaum's human capabilities theory, an asset-based community approach to the building or reconstruction of public health systems. On this basis, it is argued that health systems and health interventions are just to the extent that they mediate between the necessary leadership or polity from 'above' ( techné ) and the experience and wisdom ( métis ) of those who are 'below', taking into account the asymmetries of power that this equation represents. Because difference and diversity are so often expressed in what we might reasonably call 'religious' terms, I specifically emphasize the continuing persistence of religion and, hence, the importance of accounting for its pertinence in social theory generally, and in relation to discourses of health and justice in the African context specifically. Acknowledging the ambiguities of religion, I nevertheless argue that an appreciative alignment between public health systems and religious or faith-based initiatives in health promotion, prevention and care is crucial to sustainable and just health systems in Africa. (shrink)

Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness, also known as PPPD or 3PD, is a chronic functional vestibular disorder characterized by persistent sensation of rocking or swaying unsteadiness and/ or non-spinning dizziness without vertigo lasting at least 3 months. Symptoms typically worsen with upright posture, head or body motion and exposure to busy or visually rich environments. The article describes the application of Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback over 32 sessions on an unmedicated individual with symptoms related to PPPD that were still present 3 (...) years after the initial diagnosis. Along with significant reduction in those symptoms, other accompanying symptoms were markedly improved with ILF NFB. Consistent symptom tracking from session to session, as well as before and after CPT data were used to document reported changes with ILF NF. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetorical Definition:A French InitiativeNancy S. StrueverRhetoric as TheoryIl y a quelque chose de démesuré et de prématuré à entreprendre une histoire de la rhétorique dans I'Europe moderne(Fumaroli 1999).When in his preface to the Histoire de la rhétorique Marc Fumaroli states that the project itself is overambitious and premature, he proceeds to justify his judgment by listing the complications of rhetorical definition: rhetoric is Protean in nature, and in this (...) it simply matches the fluidity of the phenomena of speech, parole ; it is oxymoronic as the science of the uncertain, trying to ally incertitude of topic with intelligibility of explanation; it intricates theoria and ergon, the concept of parole with an engagement with parole in act. Long a part of early education, it generates grace in adult expression, finesse. It is as well a primary source for reflection on communication phenomena. It is manifest in works of genius, yet, it is democratic in its accessibility; it is perdurable, remarkably persistent through change; and, it recognizes that the sharing and abusing of parole are intimately bound together. Finally rhetoric stimulates, for it may illumine the contemporary "exile" of literature and the arts, an exile that poses for us the issue of, perhaps intractable, cultural decline (Fumaroli 1999, 2–3). [End Page 401]These disparate elements of rhetoric, I would argue, by their very complexity justify rhetoric as mode of inquiry, and prompt our continuing consideration of the investigative protocols of rhetoric as hermeneutic. Roman rhetoric, subdivided into three communicative tasks—docere, delectare, movere —sponsors three investigative tasks: instructing requires command of the strategies of argument; delighting sponsors an ecology of desire, and moving requires a socio-pathology of community assent and dissent. The rhetorical interest in discursive effect, then, sponsors a second-order inquiry, the task of reviewing the basic assumptions of the communicative community: the beliefs, doxa, the shared opinions, endoxa, habits, dispositions. Rhetoric collects assumptions; thus Aristotle's Rhetoric has been characterised as a compendium of the collective wisdom of the polis. Rhetorical topoi, commonplaces, are the rubrics that organize common sense, sensus communis. Rhetoric has the task of understanding the means of asserting, rejecting, altering beliefs, the transfer of theory into practice, dealing with the transformations of idea into ideology.Rhetorical interests, in the Habermasian sense of motives that color knowledge initiatives, can correct careers of inquiry; a shift to a rhetorical investigative focus is pragmatic, to a most distinctive engagement with practice. And thus Martin Heidegger's aphorism: "Rhetoric functions inside politics." Rhetoric is framed, compromised by politics defined in the generous sense of discursive negotiations within the communal domain of beliefs, shared opinions, habits of action, dispositions. Rhetorical inquiry has to identify the beliefs and habits of action of a community in its efforts to preserve and extend its identity, and rhetoric must analyze the discursive negotiations for affirmation and alteration of beliefs vital to the continued existence of the polity.The work of Marc Fumaroli is of intrinsic interest to the historian of rhetoric as an instantiation of rhetorical interests driving an entire career, a practice shaped by rhetorical tasks and habits of action in inquiry; the effect is that of a kind of alchemy, of the transformation, at every turn, of the history of culture into the history of cultural politics. "Cultural politics" does not denote, of course, an exclusive focus on state policy, dirigisme in culture. Rather, we have a combination of a compendious notion of culture as all our inventions, artifices—political, theological, affective, aesthetic—with a generous sense of politics as all our discursive negotiations of differences of public import, a combination that sets a topic that Fumaroli prefers to call a "politics of the spirit" (Fumaroli 1992a, 80–81).1 If we distinguish rhetoric as discipline, oratory as product, eloquence as value, we [End Page 402] see Fumaroli's career is exemplary of a modern initiative that links rhetoric as disciplined inquiry to the politics of value. Thus, he will give us a rhetorical definition of the Académie Française's communal, historical duty to French "eloquence," to a pursuit of a national excellence (Fumaroli 1996a, 304, 1992b, 78). And... (shrink)

The productive impacts of cash transfer (CT) programs have not been widely studied, though interest in this area is growing, with existing evidence generally pointing to rather positive findings. Notably, one key takeaway from the (limited) available research is the debunking of a common criticism drawn against cash transfers and social assistance, more in general – namely, the assumption that social programs disincentivize or discourage work. Even less is known about the sustainability of CT impacts, as these interventions are typically (...) designed as short-term programs. To address this gap, we conducted a quasi-experimental study of a universal unconditional cash transfer initiative in rural Uganda. Our study examined whether effects on savings, debt, investment, incomes, assets and labour allocation (if any) persisted after the end of the transfer. Despite the concurrent outbreak of COVID-19, our findings revealed several sustained impacts, particularly on savings, (agricultural) incomes and business ownership. (shrink)

As Malinowsky states, myth is closely related to rite, presenting the social and moral values that rite asserts in each cyclical repetition. Rite marks the threshold between the sacred and profane, allowing access to myth as an art form, as a narrative expression both of the sacred – in the extension of meaning Emile Durkheim introduced with the term ‘collective consciousness’ – and of the ‘collective unconscious’ as Jung defined it. If it is true that the rite of passage to (...) the adult world, the initiation rite, is one of the most archaic rites in aiming to protect society against the risk of cultural innovation inherent in the younger generations, then it is legitimate to ask what our new myths are regarding education. When technology accelerates the mechanisms eroding collective memory, which rites renew educational myths in everyday practice? When technology dematerializes the devices on which rite and its inherent techniques of control are based, what new forms does mythological narration assume? What roles do new media play in creating a direct channel between the collective consciousness and individual experience, between the nervous system and our environment, enveloping individuals in the telematic embrace Roy Ascott described in 2003, and which not only explains the concept of the Global Village that Marshall McLuhan introduced in 1966, but also delineates the space – time of students in contemporary learning processes? Reading the contemporary educational system through the lens of myth and rite, where new technologies play a central role, allows us to follow a path that traces the progressive impact of media on cognitive processes from the initial emergence of the concept ‘collective consciousness’ onwards, and that offers one of the most interesting interpretations of the ‘open school’ experience in Derrick de Kerkhove’s concept of ‘connective intelligence’ (analysed in my Ph.D. thesis). But myth also allows us to observe those cracks, breaks and discontinuities that mark the places in which contemporary knowledge is created, which is why we find Nietzsche (who dedicated much of his work to myth), Michel Foucault and Ivan Illich at the centre of International Debate on Education for the last decade due to their critical approach to institutions. (shrink)

Despite the separation between classical and modern theories of government, contributors to Aristotle and Modern Politics find Aristotle a useful interlocutor for assessing both possibilities and limitations in contemporary politics. In this collection, noted political scientists, theologians, and philosophers discuss the magnitude of Aristotle's presence in contemporary debate and demonstrate some of the ways in which Aristotle sheds new light on contemporary problems. This engaging book also exhibits the persistence of political philosophy at a time when the pervasive influence of (...) "ideology" and "historicism" lead many to deny its possibility. Although the authors of these essays differ on the nature of Aristotle's contribution, all are united by the conviction that he has something important to teach citizens of modern political societies. If the fundamental principles of modern politics were drawn from critical reflections of reason over and against the imposition of authority under its various guises, modern politics can best sustain itself by nurturing the critical attitude that initially brought it into being. Paradoxically, serious engagement with the "preliberal" thought of Aristotle can render contemporary debate more fruitful by bringing to light subtle limitations in the political discourse of any era, including our own. If the modern understanding of freedom is primarily freedom to speak and think for oneself, the essays in Aristotle and Modern Politics exhibit the persistence of political philosophy by thinking beyond limits often constricting contemporary paradigms. (shrink)

This chapter will be devoted to the itinerary of classical German thought, and especially Hegel, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. I begin by examining Merleau-Ponty’s initial use of Hegel’s systematic and metaphysicalmetaphysics ideas in phenomenological analyses of behavior and perception. Next, I examine Merleau-Ponty’s role in controversies regarding the existentialists’ interpretation and objections to Hegel’s system. I trace his attempts to surmount antinomiesantinomy between subjectivitysubjectivity and system that emerged in the existentialist’s anthropological reading of Hegel. Here Merleau-Ponty focused on linguistics and (...) more general analyses of institution and expression. Finally, I will view the renewed role that classical German philosophy, including Schelling and Hegel, played in his final works. Still reflecting these interests, his writings and lectures engaged in a wide-ranging dialogue with contemporary aesthetics, sciencescience, and philosophy, culminating in an attempt to formulate a new ontologyontology. (shrink)

O artigo objetiva refletir acerca dos embates vivenciados pelos acadêmicos do curso de Pedagogia, durante o momento de Estágio Supervisionado na Educação Infantil, buscando identificar a contribuição desta disciplina no curso de Pedagogia para a formação dos futuros profissionais. Para isso, partimos da importância do estágio supervisionado na formação inicial de professores e sustentamos a reflexão a partir da análise documental do plano de ensino da disciplina e de dezenove relatórios de estágio, no contexto de uma instituição pública de Ensino (...) Superior. As análises estão respaldadas em autores como Kishimoto, Pimenta, dentre outros que contribuem para pensarmos a relevância do estágio, como elemento formador. Dadas as necessidades e o franco desenvolvimento vivido pelas crianças na faixa etária da Educação Infantil, torna-se necessária uma formação inicial consistente em que os futuros docentes sejam capacitados a trabalhar fomentando nas crianças habilidades sociais, intelectuais, físicas e afetivas. Os dados evidenciaram um distanciamento entre o contexto estudado na universidade e o cotidiano nas instituições de Educação Infantil, condição que torna menos qualificada a experiência do estágio supervisionado, mas não reduz sua importância como momento de reflexão e aproximação com o campo de trabalho. Embora exista uma relação entre o plano de ensino da disciplina e os relatórios analisados, ainda persiste uma grande distância entre a formação oferecida no âmbito acadêmico e a prática das instituições. Isso, ao contrário de oferecer um descrédito à formação, demonstra uma necessidade de melhor preparo e espaço para as discussões acerca da Educação Infantil, nos cursos de formação de docentes. (shrink)

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. (...) Importantly, analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "cosmological natural selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of. (shrink)

Some initial motivations for the Guarded Fragment still seem of interest in carrying its program further. First, we stress the equivalence between two perspectives: (a) satisfiability on standard models for guarded first-order formulas, and (b) satisfiability on general assignment models for arbitrary first-order formulas. In particular, we give a new straightforward reduction from the former notion to the latter. We also show how a perspective shift to general assignment models provides a new look at the fixed-point extension LFP(FO) of (...) first-order logic, making it decidable. Next, we relate guarded syntax to earlier quantifier restriction strategies for achieving effective axiomatizability in second-order logic – pointing at analogies with ‘persistent’ formulas, which are essentially in the Bounded Fragment of many-sorted first-order logic. Finally, we look at some further unexplored directions, including the systematic use of ‘quasi-models’ as a semantics by itself. (shrink)

University program dropout is a problem that has important consequences not only for the student that leaves but also for the institution in which the withdrawal occurs. Therefore, higher education institutions must study the problem in greater depth to establish appropriate prevention measures in the future. However, most research papers currently focus primarily on the characteristics of students who leave university, rather than on those who choose to pursue alternative courses of study and therefore fail to take into account the (...) different kinds of abandonment. The aim of this paper is to identify the different types of dropout to define their characteristics and propose some recommendations. Thus, an ex post facto study was carried out on a sample of 1,311 freshmen from a university in the north of Spain using data gathered using an ad-hoc designed questionnaire, applied by telephone or an online survey, and completed with data available in the university data warehouse. A descriptive analysis was performed to characterize the sample and identify five different groups, including 1. Students persisting in their initiated degree 2. Students who change of program (within the same university) 3. Students transferring to a different university 4. Students enrolling in non-higher-education studies 5. Students that quit studying. Also, data mining techniques (decision trees) were applied to classify the cases and generate predictive models to aid in the design of differentiated intervention strategies for each of the corresponding groups. (shrink)

Several uncorroborated, false, or misinterpreted conceptions have for years been widely distributed in academic publications, thus becoming scientific myths. How can such misconceptions persist and proliferate within the inimical environment of academic criticism? Examining 613 articles we demonstrate that the reception of three myth-exposing publications is skewed by an ‘affirmative citation bias’: The vast majority of articles citing the critical article will affirm the idea criticized. 468 affirmed the myth, 105 were neutral, while 40 took a negative stance. Once misconceptions (...) proliferate wide and long enough, criticizing them not only becomes increasingly difficult, efforts may even contribute to the continued spreading of the myths. (shrink)

Some initial motivations for the Guarded Fragment still seem of interest in carrying its program further. First, we stress the equivalence between two perspectives: (a) satisfiability on standard models for guarded first-order formulas, and (b) satisfiability on general assignment models for arbitrary first-order formulas. In particular, we give a new straightforward reduction from the former notion to the latter. We also show how a perspective shift to general assignment models provides a new look at the fixed-point extension LFP(FO) of (...) first-order logic, making it decidable. Next, we relate guarded syntax to earlier quantifier restriction strategies for achieving effective axiomatizability in second-order logic – pointing at analogies with ‘persistent’ formulas, which are essentially in the Bounded Fragment of many-sorted first-order logic. Finally, we look at some further unexplored directions, including the systematic use of ‘quasi-models’ as a semantics by itself. (shrink)

A persistent problem in the dominant agricultural development model is the imposition of technologies without regard to local processes and cultures. Even with the recent shift towards sustainability and agroecology, initiatives continue to overlook local knowledge. In this article we provide analysis of agroecological soil management in the Maya-Achi territory of Guatemala. The Achí, subject to five decades of interventions and development, present an interesting case study for assessing the complementarities and tensions between traditional, generally preventative practices and external (...) initiatives which tend to be curative. Our findings reveal a complex farming system that continues to rely on ancestral knowledge and practices, many of which display a high potential for sustainability and are deeply embedded in local culture. While some new practices have been incorporated into the traditional system, abandonment rates are high, and some extension methods have been paternalistic. The Achí are thirsty for new ideas to help them confront their current, unprecedented challenges. However, future collaborations should be built on existing local knowledge, which has contributed to the development of preventative and restorative practices still in use. Introduced technologies must coincide with local needs and socioecological context in a manner that encourages beneficial synergies, as well as horizontal learning/teaching processes. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gray, Knickman, and Wegner present three experiments which they take to show that people perceive patients in a persistent vegetative state to have less mentality than the dead. Following on from Gomes and Parrott, we provide evidence to show that participants' responses in the initial experiments are an artifact of the questions posed. Results from two experiments show that, once the questions have been clarified, people do not ascribe more mental capacity to the dead (...) than to PVS patients. There is no reason to think that people perceive PVS patients as more dead than dead. (shrink)

The Modern Synthesis has dominated biology for 80 years. It was formulated in 1942, a decade before the major achievements of molecular biology, including the Double Helix and the Central Dogma. When first formulated in the 1950s these discoveries and concepts seemed initially to completely justify the central genetic assumptions of the Modern Synthesis. The Double Helix provided the basis for highly accurate DNA replication, while the Central Dogma was viewed as supporting the Weismann Barrier, so excluding the inheritance of (...) acquired characteristics. This article examines the language of the Modern Synthesis and reveals that it is based on four important misinterpretations of what molecular biology had shown, so forming the basis of the four Illusions: 1. Natural Selection; 2. The Weismann Barrier; 3. The Rejection of Darwin’s Gemmules; 4. The Central Dogma. A multi-level organisation view of biology avoids these illusions through the principle of biological relativity. Molecular biology does not therefore confirm the assumptions of the Modern Synthesis. (shrink)

1Preface: Malthus the Utilitarian vs. Malthus the Christian moral thinker. The chapter aims at reconstructing the deadlocks of Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. It argues that Bonar created out of nothing the myth of Malthus’s ‘Utilitarianism’, which carried, in turn, a pseudo-problem concerning Malthus’s lack of consistency with his own alleged Utilitarianism; besides it argues that such misinterpretation was hard to die and still persists in Hollander’s reading of Malthus’s work. ● -/- 2 Eighteenth-century Anglican ethics. The (...) chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown worked out a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number of possible sets of laws on the basis of a maximizing criterion, happiness for his creatures. ● -/- 3 Malthus’s meta-ethics. The chapter reconstructs the two ethical chapters of the second Essay. It argues that Malthus’s ethics is not dependent on Paley’s, but is derived from Cumberland, Butler, Gay, Brown. Besides, it argues that theodicy takes a new place in the 1803 Essays and ethics becomes a key to theodicy. The new solution is that, once it has been proved that passions can be mastered and that a world where passions are under control would be a comparatively happy place, a society where moral restraint prevailed would make the middling ranks more numerous, reduce dependence, and preserve liberty. ● -/- 4 Malthus’s early normative ethics: a morality of freedom. The chapter reconstructs young Malthus’s views on the foundations of ethics, proving his adhesion to voluntarist consequentialism. Then it reconstructs his treatment of political issues, whence a clear stance emerges in favour of traditional Whig concerns, such as political freedom, personal independence and dignity. Finally, it gives a fresh look at the theological argument in the two well-known final chapters, locating it in the context of consequentialism, voluntarism, and quasi-Leibnizian theodicy. ● -/- 5 Malthus’s intermediate normative ethics: a morality of prudence. Malthus’s normative ethics focuses on two main ‘natural’ virtues, benevolence and chastity, and three artificial virtues. These include love for equality and love for liberty. A special place is granted to another virtue, prudence, which is the link between natural and artificial virtues. This special virtue also provides an invisible link between the private and the public domains, in that it contributes to combine self-love with general happiness. This is granted by the unintended results mechanism, or “the happiness of the whole is to be the result of the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them. No cooperation is required”. ● -/- 6 Malthus’s mature normative ethics: a morality of humanity. The chapter describes reactions by Evangelicals, such as Gisborne, Sumner, and Chalmers, to Malthus’s theory and Malthus’s transformation of his own system in order to pave objections. This amounts to incorporating The Evangelicals’ ideas into his own system. The friendly controversy with his Evangelical fellow-travellers yielded several important changes in 1806, 1817, and 1826 editions of the second Essay in the formulation of Malthusian ethics, in the adoption of moral improvement instead of happiness as the variable to be maximised, in the adoption of generalized education as the main weapon in the war on poverty. ● -/- 7 Malthus’s applied ethics. The chapter reconstructs Malthus’s treatment of a few issues in ‘applied ethics’, sexual morality, public morality, poverty, and besides, war and slavery. On the first issue, he argues the duty to marry only at a time when one is ready to carry the burden of six children as a moral duty imposed by prudence and rejects birth control because of its alleged effect of encouraging ‘indolence’. On the second issue, he defends a peculiar kind of Whiggism as anti-Machiavellian politics centred on rights, equality, and dignity. On the third issue, his final approach is a kind of Institutional approach to poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and allowing for a subsidiary role for private beneficence. The goal to be aimed at is bringing about circumstances which tend to elevate the character of the lower classes of society and offer them a chance of being respectable, virtuous and happy. ● -/- 8 Conclusions: strengthening the theological foundation. Malthus’s criteria for policy appraisal were not utilitarian ones. His normative ethics and his politics were sharply different from Bentham’s. Utility is just one element in Malthus’s ethics, going with laws of nature and rights, and ironically, far from being a Benthamite insertion, is the most markedly theological element in Malthus’s system of ideas. ● -/- . (shrink)

The duty to protect patient welfare underpins undergraduate medical ethics and patient safety teaching. The current syllabus for patient safety emphasises the significance of organisational contribution to healthcare failures. However, the ongoing over-reliance on whistleblowing disproportionately emphasises individual contributions, alongside promoting a culture of blame and defensiveness among practitioners. Diane Vaughan’s ‘Normalisation of Deviance’ provides a counterpoise to such individualism, describing how signals of potential danger are collectively misinterpreted and incorporated into the accepted margins of safe operation. NoD is an (...) insidious process that often goes unnoticed, thus minimising the efficacy of whistleblowing as a defence against inevitable disaster. In this paper, we illustrate what can be learnt by greater attention to the collective, organisational contributions to healthcare failings by applying NoD to The Morecambe Bay Investigation. By focusing on a cluster of five ‘serious untoward incidents’ occurring in 2008, we describe a cycle of NoD affecting trust handling of events that allowed poor standards of care to persist for several years, before concluding with a poignant example of the limitations of whistleblowing, whereby the raising of concerns by a senior consultant failed to generate a response at trust board level. We suggest that greater space in medical education is needed to develop a thorough understanding of the cultural and organisational processes that underpin healthcare failures, and that medical education would benefit from integrating the teaching of medical ethics and patient safety to resolve the tension between systems approaches to safety and the individualism of whistleblowing. Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. (shrink)

Scientific disagreements sometimes persist even if scientists fully share results of their research. In this paper we develop an agent-based model to study the impact of diverging diagnostic values scientists may assign to the evidence, given their different background assumptions, on the emergence of polarization in the scientific community. Scientists are represented as Bayesian updaters for whom the diagnosticity of evidence is given by the Bayes factor. Our results suggest that an initial disagreement on the diagnostic value of evidence (...) can, but does not necessarily, lead to polarization, depending on the sample size of the performed studies and the confidence interval within which scientists share their opinions. In particular, the more data scientists share,the more likely it is that the community will end up polarized. (shrink)

The study is devoted to construct a typology of discourses about a miracle. Discourses are interpreted in this case not in a linguistic, but in a philosophical sense, as a certain “way of talking” about a chosen phenomenon. This includes the ontological and ideological position of the speaker (writer), emotional and value pathos, a communicative attitude or lack thereof, a message to the listener (reader) of specific views and beliefs. The author distinguishes three groups of discourses on the ideological basis: (...) 1) a miracle, understood as supernatural, but accessible for communication; 2) a miracle understood as a man-made, purely human phenomenon; 3) a miracle as the result of a “dual determination” coming from both the transcendent and the person himself. The miracle is initially interpreted in the article as a positive phenomenon that can be described and expressed in speech without directly naming the word itself. Within the first group of discourses, the following are considered: religious (Christian), mythological and fairy-tale discourse, and the fate-providentialist discourse is also highlighted. The second approach, connected with the denial of the supernatural, speaks of a miracle in the context of its scientific and technical creation, as well as hopes for a miracle within the framework of progressive and utopian concepts. The third type of discourses, combining the view of a miracle as coming from above and from the person himself, includes mystical-magical, existential and creativistic discourses - interpreting the theme of creativity. The mystical-magical discourse describes a miracle as the result of illumination and as a consequence of persistent spiritual searches. In the existential discourse, represented by fiction, there is also a place for describing a miracle as a magical nature and a magical fate. In creative discourse, the miracle is the very act of the birth of a new one. Summing up what has been said, the author emphasizes that he presents readers with nothing more than a sketch that requires further work and thematic disclosure. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Alzheimer's Disease, Aging, Chance, and RaceAtwood D. Gaines (bio)KeywordsAlzheimer’s disease, chance, mild cognitive impairment, racism, social constructionsThomas Kirkwood's comments are a welcome, articulate detailing of how and why we age with special reference to the brain. As well, his paper indicates clearly that processes reified as pathology and disease, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), are in fact common and inevitable as the human brain ages. Doubtless, this is the (...) reason that aging is by far the greatest risk factor for the development of AD. A key notion, briefly mentioned by Kirkwood, is that of chance. He points out that, "cells (will be) burdened with protein aggregates and similar materials that will increase with aging. Once again, which cells will experience this fate and which will continue to function healthily is strongly influenced by chance" (Kirkwood 2006, 80–81). This mention of chance is most important for our paper, "Building a Mystery," and for an understanding of science as well. In "Building a Mystery," Peter Whitehouse and I sought to show that the history of AD was not inevitable and demonstrates a variety of chance and singular decisive occurrences of encounters, interpretations, social movements, government initiatives, and technological developments. Such decisive moments do not occur by virtue of some (natural) lawful process that is unfolding, but rather, these are chance events that could have happened in other ways. Indeed, science has been viewed as human attempts to "tame chance" (Hacking 1990). However, it often does so by sleight of hand, misinterpretation, and the biomedical discourse of hope. Increasingly, we are learning that chance is a commonality, not a rarity, in social and biological domains. The biomedical approach assumes the opposite. For example, it seeks to tame the chance appearance of AD in the case of Auguste D, and does so in part by reifying differences that exist, as Kirkwood notes, along a continuum rather than as the discrete entities implied by the labels Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).We thus stand with Kirkwood's bold recognition of chance (see also Kirkwood 2003) in the biological domain and have applied the same idea to the social domain in which we consider the practice of biomedical science. We have elsewhere emphasized consensus statements in the making of AD (Gaines and Whitehouse 1998). In the present article, we add a number of other chance, decisive sociocultural moments to the mix of social processes producing AD and MCI. We have not considered in detail here a host of cultural features in the theory and practice of biomedicine with respect to AD. These include implicit, yet highly [End Page 83] implicative, cultural notions of bilateral kinship employed in genetic research on AD considered elsewhere (Gaines 1998).Bavidge's comments are cogent as well. With respect to the notion of my concept of the local biology of "race" (Gaines 2005), it is germane to point out here that such culturally constructed biologies are relevant to a discussion of AD and other dementias. Such constructions represent culture in science. We used the dramatic example of "race" in US biomedicine because it is experiencing a resurgence as an explanatory tool. For example, recently Haiman et al. (2006) presented research that suggests that "Among cigarette smokers, African Americans and native Hawaiians are more susceptible to lung cancer than whites, Japanese Americans and Latinos." The authors assert, as have many US studies, that their findings show differences relate to the alleged biology of the social groups concerned. Their problem and that of others, is that the groups are social, not biological, and most have mixed ancestry and do not stem from distinct groups. This is particularly true of African Americans and Latinos; both groups are substantially composed of individuals with European, West African, and Native American ancestry in widely varying proportions (Gaines 2005). Thus, they are different only in terms of their classification. Such work regularly overlooks influences, such as environmental racism, discrimination, poverty, and a lack of medical care, as well as other practices. These might include, in a study of smoking, pakalolo smoking (local marijuana) among Hawaiians, who themselves are usually part Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and or European... (shrink)

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) opens up two new forms of knowledge: (1) knowing about alternative pathways to one outcome (equifinality) and (2) perceiving nuances of necessary cause and sufficient cause. Several misunderstandings of QCA occur in the article by Lucas and Szatrowski (this volume, p. 1). First, there are minor problems with expressions. Second, there are differences between their philosophy of science (arguments 1, 2, and 3 below) and a realist approach. Third, they misinterpret what was meant by sufficient and (...) necessary cause (arguments 4 and 5 below). The minor problems with expressions arise in sections 2.2 and 3. In section 2.2, the authors define consistency, but here they miss out on two key points. First, they neglect to say that this particular measure of consistency is a measure of sufficiency of cause, not of necessary cause. Second, they ignore the way that the consistency level exists for each possible configuration of characteristics. A configuration can be shown in one row of a truth table, with n1 = 28, n2 = 17 within a larger sample of 155, and so on (see Byrne 2009:262). Using QCA’s definition of “consistency,” we can discern more about the pattern of causality than one might initially expect. This learning is possible whether N overall is 155, or just 39, or thousands of cases. The essential task is to simplify and rank the list of configurations (Ragin 2001, 2006). (shrink)

The data discussed strongly suggest that neural imaging does not unduly sway judges and jurors; in fact, it is often counterproductive. The percentage of appellate cases in which the decision was favorable to defendants with brain scan data mirrored those of decisions without such proffered evidence. Moreover, fully two-thirds of the scans admitted were either inconclusive or showed normal brain structures. In decisions referencing brain scans, judges mentioned defendant behavior significantly more often than they referred to the defendant’s brain. Finally, (...) in the actual decisions themselves, judges often ignored relevant imaging data in favor of case precedent or misinterpreted the data so that they would fit with the judges’ initial reactions and opinions. (shrink)

This article analyses existing biases – whether due to misinterpretation, culture or politics – in the application of women’s rights under Islamic Shari’a law. The paper argues that though in its inception, one purpose of Islamic law may have aimed at elevating the status of women in pre-Islamic Arabia, biases in interpreting such teachings have failed to free women from discrimination and have even added “divinity” to their persistent subjugation. By examining two case studies – Saudi Arabia and (...) Egypt – the article shows that interpretative biases that differ in application from one country to the other further subject women to the selective application of rights. Dictated by norms, culture and tradition rather than a unified Islamic law, the paper shows how culture and politics have contributed to such biases under the pre-text of Islamic dictate. As such, it proposes a re-examination of “personal status” laws across the region in light of international human rights norms. (shrink)

Despite the recent increase of interest in the work of Merleau-Ponty there is still a persistent tendency to overlook the uniqueness of the philosophical position he advances in Phenomenology of Perception. In this article I present a reading of Merleau-Ponty’s account of the phenomenological reduction that explains how it is original. I do this by contrasting his presentation of the reduction with that of the early Husserl, highlighting how his emphasis on the phenomenology of the ‘perceived world’ leads him (...) to reject Husserl’s conception of phenomenology as a ‘philosophical science,’ and the Kantian language in which the this account is framed. I go on to critically discuss the interpretations of the reduction advanced by Stephen Priest and Joel Smith as examples of readings that fail to fully grasp Merleau-Ponty’s account of the ‘natural attitude’ as resting on the inherent objectivizing structure that is built into perception itself. The way that these authors misinterpret Merleau-Ponty helps to make maximally clear the profound philosophical significance that he places on the phenomenology of the ‘perceived world’. (shrink)

Literature on racism, anti‐racism, whiteness, nursing education and nurse educators was reviewed and analysed for the development of race consciousness and application of anti‐racist pedagogy. The literature describes an oppressive educational climate for non‐white identifying people, a curriculum that does not attend to the social construction of difference, and a nursing culture that is not consciously situated in a broader sociopolitical context. A particular focus on studies of nurse educators demonstrates a stark need for personal and professional development towards effectively (...) delivering anti‐racist pedagogy and a deconstruction of white normativity and dominance amongst white faculty. The protection and reproduction of white privilege is identified through the scholarship itself through a lack of racial analysis, an externalization of the root of oppression and non‐specific study measures and outcomes. The persistence and pervasiveness of white dominance in nursing and the lack of anti‐racist competence in white educators, particularly, merits a shift in anti‐racist efforts away from short‐term skill acquisition initiatives towards the deconstruction of socialized white supremacy and enactments of white privilege in nurse educators themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hugh Bredin I. A. RICHARDS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL CRITICISM IN much of the English-speaking world, an essential component of literary studies is the exercise known as "practical criticism." The name, and to some extent the practice, originated in a book by I. A. Richards, Practical Criticism, 1 in which he described an experiment conducted by him at Cambridge and elsewhere. In the experiment, undergraduate students of English (...) were given a number of unfamiliar poems, whose authorship was not revealed, and were asked to read and to submit written comments upon them. The result, in the words of one account, "was horrifying. Magazine poetasters were extravagandy praised, Donne, Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti firmly damned; every felicity was ridiculed, and every absurdity praised, by large minorities and even majorities."2 Richards himself did not respond to his discoveries in quite such a marked fashion as this, but he did betray the concern of someone in whom a longheld fear had been confirmed. He suggested that members of the Royal Society of Literature would have fared no better, and argued in general that an ability to read successfully — that is, with correct understanding and appropriate sensuous and emotive response — was rare and intermittent in even the most highly educated products of our schools and universities. He discerned a worsening of language performance compared with a few generations earlier, and advocated, as a corrective measure, widespread study of the theory of interpretation, and widespread training in the techniques thereof. This project he initiated himself in a subsequent work, Interpretation in Teaching.3 Richards's recommendations have not been adopted in general education practice, but they have been extremely influential in the pedagogy of literature; and it is generally said about other writers, such as Leavis, 26 Hugh Bredin27 Empson, and Brooks, that they have reinforced this influence. Practical criticism, as a teaching device, means the close and attentive reading of literary texts, usually poetry, usually by a small group, under the guidance of a tutor. As an examination method, it means the kind of test originally undergone by Richards's undergraduates. The end result ofthe practice — a result which, presumably, may or may not occur in the examination hall — is alleged to be "an opening up of the poem for what it can really be for us: a unique and fascinating experience, carefully wrought by its maker, and fully available only to those with the patience, as well as the sensibility, to recreate."* Practical Criticism is a most interesting work. The variety and divergence of views on the poems used for the experiment reveal unexpected and musty corners of the human spirit. Richards's diagnosis of the factors which may lead to errors in judgment and understanding is acute. His proposals for remedial action win our approval. What is puzzling, however, is that the result of the experiment should be a cause of surprise or dismay to anyone. What other result could there have been? Richards himselfremarked that "the precise conditions ofthis test are not duplicated in our everyday commerce with literature," and upon "the difficulty of judging verse without a hint as to its provenance."5 Yet he makes no concession to the fact that these conditions, with their attendant difficulty, must bear primary responsibility for the failings displayed by his students. His conviction was that the conditions helped to reveal defects in reading, and not, as seems more likely, that they helped to produce them. Any written text requires a context if it is to be fully understood. This is of course true of spoken language as well; and the extra complexity of poetry makes it especially susceptible to misinterpretation and misjudgment if taken in isolation. The first thing that any competent teacher will do with a poem is to provide a context — a period, a chronology, a social, political, religious, and intellectual background, a body of similar and contrasting works, works by the same and by related authors, linguistic and stylistic conventions, the relevant conceptions ofart and literature and their role in the world — all of this, and more. He will take it for granted that, as the student grows more deeply familiar with context, a context which... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Inner Citadel. The Meditations of Marcus AureliusJames KerPierre Hadot. The Inner Citadel. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 351. Cloth, $45.00Marcus Aurelius has sometimes been viewed as a Stoic "half-way to Platonism," so overawed by the brevity of human life within the infinite procession of eternity that he "almost lost faith in his own existence" (J. (...) M. Rist). Hadot's book, however, in this excellent English translation (first published as La Citadelle Intérieure: Introduction aux "Pensées" de Marc Aurèle, Paris, 1992), argues not only that the Meditations are thoroughly Stoic in their doctrine, but that to call Marcus a Platonist (or a pessimist) is to misinterpret the techniques by which he seeks to live a Stoic life. For Hadot it is the teachings of the philosopher-slave Epictetus that explain the Meditations, and the bulk of the book is concerned with demonstrating that Marcus's writings are spiritual exercises by which the author seeks to instill in himself three basic Epictetan disciplines corresponding to the tripartite Stoic system of logic, physics, and ethics. Readers of Hadot's other works will already recognize his concern with the ancient conception of philosophy as a way of life [3]. This study aims to show how Marcus's self-therapy relates to specific elements of Stoic doctrine and to redefine our understanding of the Meditations as a literary work.The book begins by tracing Marcus's initiation into the philosophic life, with special emphasis on the role of statesman-philosopher Junius Rusticus, who introduced Marcus to the writings of his influential teacher, Epictetus. In Chapter Two Hadot approaches the text which we refer to as the Meditations and argues that they are better referred to as Marcus's "personal notes" (hypomnêmata): their characteristic features (discontinuity, repetition, self-address, and refined literary form) are due to their being the product of day-by-day exercises in which Marcus, focussed upon the definitiveness of the present moment, strove to keep the essential rules of life ever present in his mind. Marcus's constant repetition of familiar doctrine indicates that for him "the [End Page 116] essential thing was not to invent or to compose, but to influence himself and produce an effect upon himself" (244).Hadot is at pains in Chapter Three, however, to reveal that these exercises derive from the "highly rigorous conceptual system" which he calls "the true key to the Meditations," namely, a set of three dogmas that require (a) the regulation of judgment to assent only to what is objectively true; (b) the restriction of the desires to that which is in accordance with universal Nature and Destiny; and (c) the disciplining of one's impulse toward action to be just and altruistic, in agreement with one's human nature. According to Hadot, this systematic distinction between the disciplines of judgement, desire, and impulse, and the three dogmas on which they depend, is "a doctrine which is peculiar to Epictetus and which is not found in Stoicism prior to him" (70). Marcus, then, in organizing his spiritual exercises around these three disciplines, "was working with pre-existing materials" (52). Thus Chapter Five is dedicated entirely to explaining how the practical disciplines of judgment, desire, and impulse to action, which Hadot argues correspond respectively to logic, physics, and ethics, operate within "the Stoicism of Epictetus."There is a certain apparent tension generated by Hadot's argument concerning the Stoicism of Epictetus. Although he depicts him as a distinctive innovator, Hadot also states that Epictetus does not change the system of Zeno and Chrysippus but simply adds "color and tonality" (73)—a statement that allows him to classify both Epictetus and Marcus as authentic Stoics but thereby risks undermining his argument about Epictetus's distinctiveness. This real ambiguity could be explained by reference to the emphasis on originality in Stoicism, in which the embodiment of philosophy in each new Stoic establishes him as an independent authority. (As Seneca says to Lucilius, "Zeno said this. But what do you say?" Epistulae Morales 33.7.) Indeed Hadot illustrates how didactic procedures in particular were... (shrink)

Conspicuous in the Old Testament is the literary genre of blessing that is often construed in poetic forms. They are of various types and were significant to their initial audience. A careful analysis of their texts and contexts is indispensable for a correct understanding of their message. Conversely, in our times, these texts and their contents are misinterpreted for some subjective goals, which deviate greatly from what one can perceive as their original meaning and intention. Misinterpretation and incorrect (...) application of Biblical texts of blessings thrive in a society like ours where ills are perpetrated under the guise of religion. The text of Genesis 27:27–29, carefully inserted in the patriarchal narratives, contains a type of OT blessings portraying parents’ wishful desires for their offspring; this is common to all human cultures. It is chosen as a springboard for the study of other parental blessings in the OT. Employing a literary analysis with particular attention to the functions of poetic devices in the text, the study aimed at understanding the message contained therein and its relevance to our contemporary society. (shrink)

Christianity changed the world for the better through the development of education, charity organisations, art, music, law and medical care among others. However, not all changes initiated by Christianity were positive. The Christian religion was also responsible for division, death, destruction and war. Focusing on the positive changes, nearly 500 years after the reformation though, it seems as if Christianity has lost its renewing and transformative powers. It seems as if society, politics and the economy are pressurising Christianity to conform (...) to the world and not the other way round. Therefore, the research focuses on the question whether Christians can bring about positive change and transformation to the current problems in society. What can Christians do to provide a religious response to current persistent societal problems? Change agents - people who drive positive change - are capable and competent, make use of networks, are visible and contactable and are often also outsiders in the communities they serve. Examples of the work done by change agents - Christians within their local communities - through small-scale community projects are showcased here to suggest possible ways forward for dealing with persistent problems from a Christian point of view. (shrink)

This paper examines the ongoing challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in Machine Ethics (ME), particularly the integration of ethical decision-making capacities into AI systems. Despite increasing demands for ethical AI, ethicists often remain on the sidelines, contributing primarily to metaethical discussions without directly influencing the development of moral machines. This paper revisits concerns highlighted by Tolmeijer et al. (2020), who identified the pitfall that computer scientists may misinterpret ethical theories without philosophical input. Using the MACHIAVELLI moral benchmark and the Delphi artificial (...) moral agent as case studies, we analyze how these challenges persist. Our analysis indicates that the creators of MACHIAVELLI and Delphi “copy” ethical concepts and embed them in LLMs without questioning or challenging these concepts themselves sufficiently. If an ethical concept causes friction with the computer code, they only reduce and simplify the ethical concept in order to stay as close as possible to the original. We propose that ME should expand its focus to include both interdisciplinary efforts that embed existing ethical work into AI, and transdisciplinary research that fosters new interpretations of ethical concepts. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are crucial for creating AI systems that are not only effective but also socially responsible. To enhance collaboration between ethicists and computer scientists, we recommend the use of Socratic Dialogue as a methodological tool, promoting deeper understanding of key terms and more effective integration of ethics in AI development. (shrink)

Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

Animalism, according to its strongest proponents, is the view that human beings are ‘essentially or most fundamentally animals’. Specifically, ‘we are essentially animals if we couldn’t possibly exist without being animals’ (Olson 2008). Although contemporary animalism offers an account superior to its Lockean competitors, Olson’s ‘biological approach’ has certain limitations, particularly in its denial of any psychological continuity whatsoever as either necessary or sufficient for individual persistence through time. I propose a number of amendments towards a Thomistic variety of animalism (...) that avoids these difficulties. Although prone to misinterpretation, animalism understood properly is compatible with Aquinas’s theory of subsistent intellect. Against recent challenges, I defend the view that Thomistic animalism not only is intelligible, but is indeed crucial for understanding Aquinas’s view of human nature and rationality. (shrink)

: Daniel Dennett's philosophical abolition of mind is examined with reference to its methodology, intent, philosophic origins, and internal consistency. His treatment of the contents of perception and introspection is shown to be derivative from realist reductionist misinterpretations of physics, physiology, and phenomenology of perception. In order to rectify inconsistencies of that realistic paradigm devolved from psycho-neural identity theory of mid-twentieth century, Dennett radicalizes its logic and redefines even veridical phenomenology of exteroception to be "illusory." This measure in extremis still (...) does not save the appearances of his predecessors, nevertheless, for Dennett tacitly presupposes the existence of veridical phenomenology in his very treatment of non-veridical sensory phenomena that he uses to argue analogically from, to thereby suggest the plausibility of a parallel illusoriness of veridical phenomena of perception and introspection. This inhering inconsistency renders unsound Dennett's radical extension of the logic of identity theory, and ironically shows up the persistence of mental phenomenology that extant reductionism appears so desirous to argumentively eliminate. Nonetheless there is much to be learned from such an analysis of Dennett's purported elimination of mental contents, for a generalization of our critique throws light on the occult assumptions underlying realism and reductionism since early identity theory and its variants, and upon the possible viability of that programme as a whole., Someone does a sum in his head. He uses the result, let's say, for building a bridge or a machine[horizontal ellipsis]. There surely must have been calculation going on, and there was. For he knows that, and how, he calculated; and the correct result he got would be inexplicable without calculation.-But what if I said: "It strikes him as if he had calculated[horizontal ellipsis]." (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, [S] 364), My debt to Wittgenstein is large and longstanding. When I was an undergraduate, he was my hero[horizontal ellipsis]. I gave up trying to "be" a Wittgensteinian, and just took what I thought I had learned from the Investigations and tried to put it to work. ( Dennett, 1991, p. 463), (C) 2003 by the American Psychological Association. (shrink)

Unlike similar works, Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述 by the Italian Jesuit missionary Giulio Aleni sought to deliver the Christian doctrine into China by introducing Western medicine. The conflict between the Christian concept of the soul and the traditional psychic concept in China made the task difficult. Scholasticism rejects the idea that an individual’s soul may be physically divided or localized, whereas the Chinese tradition largely assumes the contrary and regards the heart as the center of one’s psychic powers or vitality. Aleni (...) addressed this conflict by reducing the mind to the function of the brain for sensitive memory. Chinese physicians accepted Aleni’s concept of brain-related memory. However, his claim of an immaterial soul was ignored, and the Western connection between brain and memory was misinterpreted and subjected to Chinese cardiocentrism; thus, the physically centered psychic concept that underlies Chinese philosophy persisted. (shrink)