What if we began to speculate that intelligent things have an ethical agenda? Could we then imagine ways to move past the moral divide ‘human vs. nonhuman’ in those contexts, where things act on our behalf? Would this help us better address matters of agency and responsibility in the design and use of intelligent systems? In this article, we argue that if we fail to address intelligent things as objects that deserve moral consideration by their relations within a broad social (...) context, we will lack a grip on the distinct ethical rules governing our interaction with intelligent things, and how to design for it. We report insights from a workshop, where we take seriously the perspectives offered by intelligent things, by allowing unforeseen ethical situations to emerge in an improvisatory manner. By giving intelligent things an active role in interaction, our participants seemed to be activated by the artifacts, provoked to act and respond to things beyond the artifact itself—its direct functionality and user experience. The workshop helped to consider autonomous behavior not as a simplistic exercise of anthropomorphization, but within the more significant ecosystems of relations, practices and values of which intelligent things are a part. (shrink)

Studies in philosophy: I. Tufts, J.H. On moral evolution. II. Willcos, W.F. The expansion of Europe in its influence upon population. III. Woods, R.A. Democracy a new unfolding of human power. IV. Sharp, F.C. An analysis of the moral judgment. V. Woodbridge, F.J.E. The problem of consciousness. VI. Norton, E.L. The intellectual element in music. VII. Raub, W.L. Pragmatism and Kantianism. VIII. Lyman, E.W. The influence of pragmatism upon the status of theology.--Studies in psychology: IX. Delabarre, E.B. Influence of surrounding (...) objects on the apparent direction of a line. X. Swift, E.J. Beginning a language; a contribution to the psychology of learning. XI. Pierce, A.H. An appeal from the prevailing doctrine of a detached subconsciousness. XII. Woodworth, R.S. The cause of a voluntary movement. XIII. Burnett, C.T. An experimental test of the classical theory of volition. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will discuss three key ethical issues related to data collected in stakeholder-engaged research: (1) data ownership, (2) deciding how data are used, and (3) deciding what is published. We begin with the legal and regulatory policies of universities and sponsors around data ownership and data sharing. We then discuss the role of principal investigator(s) in a study and/or partnership leaders as data stewards for the development and implementation of partnership practices for data decision-making. We examine the (...) implications of funding and timing since many decisions related to data use and sharing often happen after the project has ended. Finally, we discuss the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders (e.g., funder, researcher, and nonacademic partner) and offer lessons to be learned and resources for partnerships. (shrink)

Examines how the practice of both art and faith necessarily order man to transcendent fulfillment, yet do so in very different ways. The book examines the analogical nature of art and faith; reflects on the nature of art as a virtue perfecting human creativity; contemplates the purpose of the work of art as revelatory of truth; and explores how the arts become debased when their practice rejects the goal of beauty.

This book argues that human rights are not anathema to MacIntyre’s vision of practices, virtue, and tradition, but rather are necessary to stop that vision being appropriated in problematic ways and to help it take those outside one’s own community seriously. This work brings MacIntyre into extended conversation with historians such as Brian Tierney and Charles Reid as well as with postcolonial thinkers and theologians such as Edward Said and Willie James Jenning, demonstrating that each has something to say (...) to MacIntyre about the limits of virtue’s vision. MacIntyre’s readings of historical theologians, including Ockham and Vitoria, are brought into question, with each being shown to demonstrate how rights can act to complete, rather than undermine MacIntyre’s program. What emerges is a MacIntyrean understanding of rights in which they act as historically discerned constraints against the excesses of institutional power. (shrink)

We perceive relevance by virtue of inference habits, which may be expressed as Pierce's leading principles or as Toulmin's warrants. Hence relevance in a descriptive sense is a ternary relation between two statements and a set of inference rules. For a normative sense, the warrants must be properly backed. Different types of warrant to empirical generalizations, we introduce L.J. Cohen's notion of inductive support. A to empirical generalizations, we introduce L.J. Cohen's notion of inductive support. A generalization H is (...) supported by evidence E to degree i/in iff E indicates that H passes canonical test i, where there are n canonical tests. In a canonical test, one or more relevant variables, factors which may falsify H, are varied. H passes a test if it is not falsified. The tests are cumulative. Degree of support is relative to the canonical test, and may be modeled as relative to a point in a dialectical situation. A value of a variable at which H is falsified is a rebutting value. A is normatively relevant to B with respect to W iff sup[associated generalization(W), E] = i/n and for j > i, there is a presumption that the values of j are non-rebuting. (shrink)

Pragmatism has affected American historical writing since the early twentieth century. Such contemporaries and students of Peirce, James, and Dewey as Frederick Jackson Turner, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Harvey Robinson, Charles Beard, Mary Beard, and Carl Becker drew on pragmatism when they fashioned what was called the “new history.” They wanted to topple inherited assumptions about the past and replace positivist historical methods with the pragmatists' model of a community of inquiry. Such widely read mid-twentieth-century historians (...) as Merle Curti, Henry Steele Commager, and Richard Hofstadter embraced the perspectivalism, fallibilism, and instrumentalism of the pragmatists, thereby helping to sustain the tradition during its nadir in American philosophy departments. Many historians have been drawn to the study of pragmatism during its recent renaissance; others have advanced pragmatist-inspired philosophies of history. Through such prominent contemporary historians as Thomas Haskell, David Hollinger, and Joyce Appleby, the ideas of Pierce, James, and Dewey continue to influence the historical profession. (shrink)

The pleasure of burning books consumed Montag, consumed him until the day the books burned back, their possibilities enflaming his curiosity to the point of existential immolation. Yet from these ashes, he rises. Fahrenheit 451 is a novel of ascent, an ascent to freedom that can be found only in knowledge. Superficially, the relationship between freedom and knowledge seems antagonistic; however, examining Bradbury’s novel in Plato’s light—particularly focusing on the images of the Cave and Line—can provide piercing insights into the (...) inherent harmony uniting knowledge and freedom, rendering this antagonism illusory. (shrink)

Western analytic philosophers tend to confine themselves almost exclusively to a discussion of William James’s pragmatism, when thirty years ago John McDermott determined that the core of James’s metaphysics was actually radical empiricism. James, in fact, developed a tripartite metaphysics of pragmatism, pluralism, and radical empiricism, which constituted the actualization of his philosophical legacy inherited through Henry James Sr’s Swedenborgianism and Ralph Walled Emerson’s transcendentalism, both of which he opposed, which he tempered through his contacts with (...) Charles Sanders Pierce, Chancy Wright, and others in the early years of the Metaphysical Club, until his own ideas began to come to maturity by the late 1890s. It is conjectured that, seeing as how James frequently built some of his major ideas by retailing the more cryptic philosophy of Peirce, the tripartite nature of James’s metaphysics was an attempt to model Peirce’s three categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. The international success of pragmatism, however, prevented James from articulating the full nature of his philosophy, which he tried to do in the closing decade of his life, but alas, he left us with only an unfinished arch. There is enough there, however, to state emphatically that if modern psychologists and philosophers persist in talking only about James’s pragmatism without reference to pluralism and radical empiricism, they are not really talking about William James. (shrink)

Concentrating on the era when American academic philosophy was nearly equated with Harvard, the ideas, lives, and social milieu of Pierce, James, Royce, Whitehead, and others are critically analyzed.

ABSTRACT : Alfred Fouillee's doctrine of ideas-forces approximates historically and intellectually William James’s theory of will. But Fouillee's criticism of pragmatism also has connections with Pierce's emphasis on the real and the analysis of concepts, and shows an influence of tychism approaching mysticism. -/- .

Explores the intellectual contributions of eight great American thinkers (Edwards, Franklin, Adams, Emerson, Pierce, James and Dewey).

The author was moved to write this book by reason of his deep concern over contemporary man’s loss of a sense of God’s reality. This situation can be partly attributed to the way in which faith has been presented. Proclamation merely confronts the mind of the hearer; it does not penetrate the total life-pattern and experience as religious truth demands. Interpretation is necessary so that the listener may see the truth in its concreteness. Professor Smith, in the tradition of (...) class='Hi'>Pierce, James, and Dewey, holds for a reconstructed view of experience which is the cumulative and meaningful result of a many faceted encounter between a concrete person and all of reality. Experience has many dimensions, moral, aesthetic, scientific, and religious, which give the life of a person direction and purpose. Some of these experiences are of such a kind as to carry with them direction and purpose in regard to life as a whole. He argues that religion is at the center of experience; and experience is at the center of religion. Professor Smith sees himself in the tradition of "faith seeking understanding." He does not attempt to provide a proof for God’s existence because religion does not really live at the level of proof. Religion, however, cannot remain living without understanding and commitment to those ideas which are morally fruitful and illuminating of experience. Christian conceptions must be presented in experiential terms. Otherwise they will neither be understood nor accepted. This approach requires that we begin with man rather than, as has been traditional, with God. (shrink)

Today, there is a family of celebrated police strategies that teach the importance of cracking down on petty crime and urban nuisance as the key to effective crime control. Under the “broken windows” appellation, this strategy is linked in the public mind with New York City and the alleged successes of its police department in reducing the rate of crime over the past two decades. This paper is critical of such order maintenance approaches to policing: I argue that infringements of (...) civil liberty by such departments could be reduced if the departments looked at law more as a good to be served for its own sake and less as an instrument for the promotion of order. In other words, a shot of legalism is the correct medicine to reduce police misconduct that pierces the law’s protections of citizen freedom. -/- This Article contributes to the critical literature on broken windows policing by reassessing the work of the famous Harvard scholar (James Q. Wilson) who fathered it. The Article takes Wilson’s work and turns it on its head, drawing very different prescriptive conclusions than he did himself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 81-96 [Access article in PDF] Pragmatism:The Unformulated Method of Bishop Berkeley Lesley Friedman 1. Introduction THOUGH WELL KNOWN AS A SCIENTIST, logician, and metaphysician, Charles Sanders Peirce is perhaps best remembered as the founder of Pragmatism. Surprisingly, Peirce attributes this way of thinking—often taken as a uniquely American contribution—to Bishop George Berkeley. According to Pierce, Berkeley should be regarded as (...) the author of that method of modern pragmatism (RFB, 96): 1 Pragmaticism is... a method of thinking.... Of those who have used this way of thinking Berkeley is the clearest example.... (CP, 8.206, c.1905) Berkeley on the whole has more right to be considered the introducer of pragmatism into philosophy than any other one man.... (1903 letter to William James)In a metaphysical Club, I used to preach this principle as a sort of logical gospel, representing the unformulated method followed by Berkeley, and in conversation about it I called it 'Pragmatism.' (CP, 6.482, 1908) [End Page 81]While it is acknowledged that Peirce believed Berkeley to be "a very distinguished master of the pragmatist mode of thinking," just why Peirce makes this claim is not altogether clear. In significant ways Berkeley blundered metaphysically, according to Peirce (MS, 322, c.1907). 2 He overlooked the reality of possibility (and thus realism about generals), misunderstood the nature of existence and the ordinary notion of matter, and had an inadequate view of perception. 3 In his early work, Peirce goes so far as to criticize what looks to be Berkeley's attempt at the pragmatic method: "A better rule [than Berkeley's] for avoiding the deceits of language is this: Do things fulfil the same function practically? Then let them be signified by the same word. Do they not? Then let them be distinguished" (CP, 8.33, 1871). Moreover, while Peirce cites the Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision as using the "medium of pragmatism," others have criticized Berkeley in this very work for drawing conclusions without any experimentation. 4 Since it is precisely the pivotal role of experience and experiment that distinguish the method of pragmatism, it is puzzling that Berkeley is chosen as worthy of the title that Peirce bestows on him. My hope in this paper is to shed some light on this question. I beginwith an explication of Peirce's pragmatism and then move on to offer an account ofhow Berkeley uses this method, though never formulates it. Next, I discuss the positions Peirce understood to be consequences of the view, including critical common-sensism, fallibilism, and scholastic realism. I suggest that, although he erred on several corollary positions, Berkeley foresaw the aims, purpose, and essential points of the methodological, though not the "metaphysical side" of pragmatism. 5 2. Peircean Pragmatism Pragmatism 6 is not a metaphysical doctrine: it does not aim to ascertain the truth of things; it does not attempt to throw any "positive light on any problem" (CP, 5.464, 1907). Rather, it offers a means of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate [End Page 82] hypotheses, so that verbal disputes—those that so often arise simply because the disputants do not understand meanings in the same way—can be resolved. It is thus "only a method of thinking"(CP, 8.206, c.1905, emphasis added).... pragmatism proposes a certain maxim which, if sound, must render needless any further rule as to the admissibility of hypotheses to rank as hypotheses, that is to say, as explanations of phenomena held as hopeful suggestions; and furthermore, this is all that the [logical] maxim of pragmatism really pretends to do.... (CP, 5.195, 1903) Seeking to lay "the dust of pseudoproblems," pragmatism allows "us to discern what pertinent facts the phenomena may present. But this is a good half of the task of philosophy" (CP, 8.186, 1903). It is worth pausing to mention that philosophy, as Peirce understands it, does not stand apart from science in the way it does today, but rather is the second of the three sciences of discovery, all of which... (shrink)

In The Revenge of Gaia, James Lovelock provides a memorable description of what the future might hold for us in a world severely blighted by climate change. In this scenario the human population has been pushed to the high Northern latitudes: Meanwhile in the hot arid world survivors gather for the journey to the new Arctic centres of civilization; I see them in the desert as the dawn breaks and the sun throws its piercing gaze across the horizon at (...) the camp. The cool fresh night air lingers for a while and then, like smoke, dissipates as the heat takes charge. Their camel wakes, blinks and slowly rises on her haunches. The few remaining members of the tribe mount. She belches, and sets off on the long .. (shrink)

Truth matters for organization studies, but it has been neglected as a topic of research. Positivist scholars do not tend to question assumptions about the relationship between knowledge and the world, while critical theorists tend to view ‘truth’ as an outdated, metaphysical way to describe it. However, the pragmatic philosophical tradition of inquiry into truth has not yet received enough attention within organization studies. This essay presents a genealogical account of that tradition by conducting a close reading of texts by (...) C.S. Pierce, William James, Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty. Following this reading, we identify pragmatic truths that pertain to the qualitative v. quantitative, rigor v. relevance, and positivist v. critical tensions that currently animate our field. (shrink)

This book explores Wittgenstein's conception of ethics, religion and philosophy. It aims at providing us with the tools necessary for assessing to what extent the Austrian philosopher can be considered an anti-Enlightenment thinker. The articles collected in this volume explore the relationship between Wittgenstein's thought and that of several authors who were, in various ways, key to the counter-enlightenement, authors such as Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, James and Pierce. One of the central issues examined here is Wittgenstein's opposition (...) to the Cartesian method of doubt a cornerstone of the enlightened movement against prejudice and superstition.". (shrink)

Is the nonexistence of God conceivable? By St. Anselm.--Five proofs of God's existence, by St. Thomas Aquinas.--Comments on St. Thomas' Five ways, by F. C. Copleston.--Two proofs of God's existence, by A. E. Taylor.--God's existence as a postulate of morality, by I. Kant.--The existence of God, by J. J. C. Smart.--The problem of evil, by D. Hume.--The experience of God, by J. Baille.--Instinct, experience, and theistic belief, by C. S. Pierce.--The ethics of belief, by W. K. Clifford.--The will to (...) believe, by W. James.--Faith as passionate commitment, by S. Kierkegaard.--God as projection, by L. A. Feuerbach.--Bibliographical essay (p. 205-208). (shrink)

What have Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, George Santayana and Willard Van Orman Quine contributed to American philosophy? Edwards is without rival as the greatest philosopher/theologian of colonial America. Before Emerson, no other thinker remotely approaches Edwards in intellectual endowment, range of interests, or depth and subtlety of treatment of a variety of philosophical topics. Emerson and Thoreau together represent the high point of American transcendentalism. Charles (...) Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey--the Big Three of American pragmatism--form a constellation of philosophers whose like has been seen neither before nor since their time. The brilliant, irascible Peirce may well be the greatest philosopher America has produced. Philosophical idealism reached its American zenith in Josiah Royce, a thinker whose vast erudition and formidable intelligence breathed new life into a point of view widely thought to be moribund. George Ssantayana is, with Emerson, the poet of American philosophy. Quine is one of America’s most distinguished living philosophers and very proudly the most influential. (shrink)

A central concern of nearly every environmental ethic is its desire to extend the scope of direct moral concern beyond human beings to plants, nonhuman animals, and the systems of which they are a part. Although nearly all environmental philosophies have long since rejected modernity’s conception of individuals as isolated and independent substances, few have replaced this worldview with an alternative that is adequate to the organic, processive world in which we find ourselves. In this context, Brian G. Henning argues (...) that the often overlooked work of Alfred North Whitehead has the potential to make a significant contribution to environmental ethics. Additionally inspired by classical American philosophers such as William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce and environmental philosophers such as Aldo Leopold, Peter Singer, Albert Schweitzer, and Arne Naess, Henning develops an ethical theory of which the seminal insight is called “The Ethics of Creativity.” By systematically examining and developing a conception of individuality that is equally at home with the microscopic world of subatomic events and the macroscopic world of ecosystems, _The Ethics of Creativity_ correctly emphasizes the well-being of wholes, while not losing sight of the importance of the unique centers of value that constitute these wholes. In this way, _The Ethics of Creativity_ has the potential to be a unique voice in contemporary moral philosophy. (shrink)

Hefty and serious—that is how this book feels when you pick it up. That was my subjective aesthetic experience anyway. Aesthetic judgment is, after all, one key to assessing our thoughts and perceptions. More on that soon, as you might expect.Hefty and serious also describes the questions with which the volume grapples: Is there, or can there be, a clear American Aesthetics, not merely aesthetics practiced by Americans? What would that look like? How would such a process affect the minds (...) and actions of Americans?The answers? It's complicated.The twenty essays in this volume trace the possibility of an American Aesthetics from foundational ideas of the past to the contemporary landscape. The goal is not only articulating an aesthetics that is distinctively American—aesthetics as a method for examining the arts and the artful—but also the possibility of aesthetics as a dynamic tool for pursuing a flourishing life within our hyper-capitalist, consumerist culture.Constant amongst the scholars gathered here is the assertion that aesthetics is not an abstract academic pursuit interesting only to the privileged and interested few but rather that aesthetics is the key element in the human pursuit of meaning and purpose in our lives. Aristotle would approve!Speaking of ancestors, the scholars here trace the work of grandparents such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Pierce, and William James, and parents such as the pragmatist John Dewey and the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. (Whitehead is from the UK but “American” in that he died in the US after a long career at Harvard and wrote his magnum opus, Process and Reality, in the US.) From these ancestors, the scholars gathered in this volume see a path forward: Art as conscious experience, as Dewey posited, and/or art as committed immersion in the process, as Whitehead claimed.Whitehead's process approach—process aesthetics—reminds us that each moment of our experience in this at once mundane and amazing world is an occasion of beauty and a telos—each moment is in the larger process of reality quite literally our last.William James attempted to map how we might free ourselves from the everyday and from everyday-ness: “We are stuffed with abstract conceptions, and glib verbalities and verbosities and in the culture of these higher functions the peculiar sources of joy connected with our simpler functions often dry up” (109). Yet, according to James, there is hope due to the fact that we human beings seek art and do art first and foremost because we enjoy it.Enjoyment was not the angle from which John Dewey approached the subject. According to Dewey our aesthetic reactions and interactions create the experience of art (and life) that re-accesses “an underlying harmony... that we vaguely remember” (112). For pragmatists, noticing a “thing” is entering a relationship with that thing, what David Strong terms in his essay, “correlational coexistence” (371).From these building blocks the scholars assembled propose ways to change US culture from one prone to ask, “What does it do?” into one in which it is increasingly possible to ask, “What does it mean?” This would be a fundamental shift in the dominant paradigms in US culture.How to get there? Randall E. Auxier offers a concise definition of “bad”—bad is something that is “lifeless and too much indebted to the actual.” My attempts at singing fall into that category, as do many American experiences conceived in the mode of what they do, not what they mean.That works of art escape or repel descriptions of their constitutive elements has proven to be a persistent philosophical conundrum through the centuries, as has the question of whether human feelings create an object or an object creates feelings, or both/and—Dewey's interaction of “organism and environment.” From whichever philosophical direction we approach this crux, aesthetic thinking can lead us to recognize and experience the inwardness of what we view as things—objects—and this examination can realign our personal axiology—our personal valuation of reality—the “ten thousand things” of ancient Chinese philosophy.Several authors cite Suzanne Langer's theory of symbol, broadening the scope of “art” well beyond Art with a capital A into the aesthetic and the ritualistic.The scholars gathered here are optimistic that aesthetic examination can create more of those rare moments (moments art can reliably create) in which our very being adjusts to the reality of existence, and we feel exhilarated and a part of the whole process of existence. We call this “nirvana” or “enlightenment.”That is another thing that feels hefty about this volume: the persistent optimism among the scholars that psychic wholeness and human flourishing are possible for more Americans. Robert S. Corrington terms this the “selving process,” roughly what Carl Jung termed “individuation.” This collection adds up to much more than the sum of its parts, as one idea inflected in a particular way by one author sparks off the same idea approached from a different perspective in another. This collection contains scholars on the cutting edge of process theology, pragmatism, aesthetics, and religion, many of whom are adept at crossing the traditional fences between academic fields. The US needs an American Aesthetics. As American poet William Carlos Williams wrote,It is difficultto get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lackof what is found there. (shrink)

James McCosh, the Scottish philosopher, graduated from the University of Glasgow, spent some time as a minister in the Church of Scotland but then returned to philosophy and spent most of his career at Princeton University. The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment had many influential philosophers at its core. In this book, first published in 1875, McCosh outlines the theories of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers and identifies Scottish philosophy as a distinct school of thought. He summarises both the merits and the (...) possible criticisms of each philosopher's work and also gives detailed biographical information. Among the philosophers discussed are the influential David Hume, Thomas Reid and Adam Smith. The final chapter focuses on Sir William Hamilton, a philosopher who greatly influenced McCosh. (shrink)

John Dewey (1859-1952) es reconocido por dar continuidad al legado de las primeras elaboraciones del pragmatismo de Charles Pierce y Williams James y a su vez por desarrollar su propio análisis sobre la dimensión social y política de este movimiento filosófico, aporte que sustenta las contribuciones a otros campos del saber y de manera especial a la pedagogía. La reflexión sobre la educación representa un asunto central en el pensamiento del filósofo estadounidense, desde el desarrollo teórico reflejado en (...) su prolífica obra clasificada como pedagógica y en su actividad política en el movimiento progresista. La doble arista de la vida de Dewey es coherente con uno de los principios pedagógicos promulgados por él: la unión indisociable entre la dimensión moral e intelectual en la formación humana a través de la experiencia, aspecto que fundamenta su crítica a la educación tradicional de su tiempo, la cual propende por el desarrollo de capacidades intelectuales hacia un fin último (apropiación de asignaturas escolares o preceptos morales), fenómeno que se evidencia en la imagen del ciclo escolar como proceso que prepara al niño para la vida adulta por encima, o mejor, a pesar de su experiencia presente. El análisis sobre dicha relación es tratado ampliamente en el texto Moral Principles in Education, publicado por primera vez por Dewey en 1909 bajo el auspicio de la firma Houghton Mifflin Company, de ee uu., y difundido en 2008 en su versión electrónica por el Proyecto Gutenberg, de donde se extraen los fragmentos originales que en esta edición se traducen al español. Por las razones señaladas, se considera fundamental para la filosofía de la educación contemporánea la difusión de la citada obra en lengua castellana, por la vigencia de sus planteamientos en la reflexión del papel de la escuela, pero sobre todo de la educación, en la formación moral del sujeto, no como un asunto del futuro ciudadano, sino como un aspecto inherente a la vida escolar cotidiana. (shrink)

Patients -- Clients -- Welfare assessment -- Clinical choices -- Achieving animal welfare goals -- Beyond the clinic.

Our lives are dominated by technology. We live with and through the achievements of technology. What is true of the rest of life is of course true of medicine. Many of us owe our existence and our continued vigour to some achievement of medical technology. And what is true in a major way of general medicine is to a significant degree true of psychiatry. Prozac has long since arrived, and in its wake an ever-growing armamentarium of new psychotropics; beyond that, (...) neuroscience promises ever more technological advances for the field. -/- However, the effect of technology on the field of psychiatry remains highly ambiguous. On the one hand there are the achievements, both in the science and practice of psychiatry; on the other hand technology's influence on the field threatens its identity as a humanistic practice. In this ambiguity psychiatry is not unique - major thinkers have for a long time been highly ambivalent and concerned about the technological order that now defines modern society. For the future, the danger is that the psychiatrically real becomes that which can be seen, the symptom, and especially that which can be measured. Disorders and treatments might become reduced to what can be defined by diagnostic criteria and what can be mapped out on a scale. -/- This book exams how technology has come to influence and drive psychiatry forward, and considers at just what cost these developments have been made. It includes a range of stimulating and thought-provoking chapters from a range of psychiatrists and philosophers. (shrink)

James Allen was one of the most popular writers in the fields of inspiration and spirituality at the turn of the 20th century, and here, in this 1912 work, he tackles the myriad problems facing the world and all its people from a perspective of mind over matter. Shining a light of plain-spoken wisdom on everything from the personal (a sense of proportion, good manners and refinement) to the global (war and peace, diversities of creeds), he motivates us all (...) the take a hand in making the world a better place... for ourselves and for everyone. British author and pop philosopher JAMES ALLEN (1864-1912) retired from the business world to pursue a life of writing and contemplation. Best known for As a Man Thinketh, he authored many other books about the power of thought including The Path to Prosperity, The Mastery of Destiny, and Entering the Kingdom. (shrink)

A PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY FOR WAR TIME BY THE AUTHOR OF STREAMLINE YOUR MIND A Personal Philosophy for War Time JAMES L. MURSELL Professor of Education Teachers ...

Along the highways of Burma there is placed, at regular distances away from the dust of the road, and under the cool shade of a group of trees, a small wooden building called a "rest-house", where the weary traveller may rest a while, and allay his thirst and assuage his hunger and fatigue by partaking of the food and water which the kindly inhabitants place there as a religious duty.Along the great highway of life there are such resting places; away (...) from the heat of passion and the dust of disappointment, under the cool and refreshing shade of lowly Wisdom, are the humble, unimposing "rest-houses" of peace, and the little, almost unnoticed, byways of blessedness, where alone the weary and footsore can find strength and healing.Nor can these byways be ignored without suffering. Along the great road of life, hurrying, and eager to reach some illusive goal, presses the multitude, despising the apparently insignificant "rest-houses" of true thought, not heeding the narrow little byways of blessed action, which they regard as unimportant; and hour by hour men are fainting and falling, and numbers that cannot be counted perish of heart-hunger, heart-thirst, and heart-fatigue.But he who will step aside from the passionate press, and will deign to notice and to enter the byways which are here presented, his dusty feet shall press the incomparable flowers of blessedness, his eyes be gladdened with their beauty, and his mind refreshed with their sweet perfume. Rested and sustained, he will escape the fever and the delirium of life, and, strong and happy, he will not fall fainting in the dust, nor perish by the way, but will successfully accomplish his journey.James Allen. (shrink)

_What is this thing called Philosophical Methodology?_ is the ideal introduction for students challenged with the idea of ‘doing’ philosophy for the first time. This textbook explores this socially-engaged and collaborative discipline in an accessible and comprehensive way by carefully weighing up the costs and benefits of philosophical theories, embracing new tools for philosophical progress, and scrutinizing the practice of philosophical methodology to help improve philosophy for generations to come. James Andow encourages newcomers to think carefully about the nature (...) and value of the various philosophical methods introduced and provides a way into contemporary metaphilosophical debates about philosophical methods. Chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction for students grappling with this topic for the first time. (shrink)

As scholars have observed and analyzed Herodotus's sophistication, the father of history has been recognized as a complex and profound moral historian. How would Herodotus's contemporaries have responded to his recounting of the past? And what enduring lessons does Herodotus have for us? James A. Arieti attempts to discover, as far as possible, Herodotus's purpose in writing, and reveals how in the History of the Persian Wars Herodotus shapes his narrative in order to advise the troubled Greek world of (...) his day. Arieti's reading is an interpretive study, exploring the philosophical, literary, and historical richness of the history--in short, examining why it is a classic. Discourses on the First Book of Herodotus is an important work for historians, classicists, and philosophers. (shrink)

Do you think that philosophy is an activity for old men in sandals with long white beards? Or people who sit under trees and wait to be struck on the head by apples? If so, then you owe it to yourself to explore the insights of this book. In conversational yet artful prose, James H. Hall reveals the many ways that you can actually enjoy and use philosophy in the course of your everyday experience. Rather than presenting philosophy as (...) an endless list of ancient truths revealed by geniuses, or as instant wisdom, Hall presents philosophy as a concrete, practical enterprise that, once you've seen how it works, you can continue on your own. (shrink)

In Roman Catholic Political Philosophy author James V. Schall tries to demonstrate that Roman Catholicism and political philosophy—-revelation and reason—are not contradictory. It is his contention that political philosophy, the primary focus of the book, asks certain questions about human purpose and destiny that it cannot, by itself, answer. Revelation is the natural complement to these important questions about God, human being, and the world. Schall manages to avoid polemicism or triumphalism as he shows that revelation and political thought (...) contribute to a fuller understanding of each other. (shrink)

By 1999, the Falun Gong religious movement had spread widely and broadly throughout China. While on the surface its ideology of spiritual and physical cultivation did not seem threatening, the Chinese government felt otherwise. That year, the government cracked down hard on the movement, and its successful repression of it over a six year period is a textbook example of how the Chinese state operates in the face of perceived internal threats. Its success in containing the movement speaks volumes about (...) the regime's resilience as well. Revenge of the Forbidden City is the definitive account of China's response to Falun Gong. As James Tong shows, the episode also tells us a great deal about the Chinese state's political institutions, its media apparatus, and its formidable ability to crush dissent. The result is a book that will be essential for any scholar interested in how the Chinese state actually operates. (shrink)

I remember the first time that I heard James Cone's voice. A well-established, white scholar had just given what I thought to be a solid presentation on Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion of the "beloved community." When he had finished, Cone was one of the first to speak in the question and answer period. His strong tenor was piercing: "You can't talk about the dream, if you're not going to talk about the nightmare." He went on to clarify his (...) worry that the heart of King's message was too often lost when white scholars failed to put his thought in the context of the history and reality of the oppression of and violence against blacks in America. I have become afraid that my own thinking and writing about King's... (shrink)

This paper makes use of recent empirical results, mainly from experimental economics, to expore the conditions under which people will cooperate and to assess competing explantions of this cooperation. It is argued that the evidence supports the claim that people differ in type, with some being conditional cooperators and others being motivated by more or less sophisticated forms of self-interest. Stable cooperation requires, among other things, rules and institutions that protect conditional cooperators from myopically self-interested types. Additional empirical features of (...) the behavior of conditional cooperators also imply that rules and institutions are required to produce stable cooperation. (shrink)

"In the midst of the world, darkened with many sins and sorrows, in which the majority live, there abides another world, lighted up with shining virtues and unpolluted joy, in which the perfect ones live. This world can be found and entered, and the way to it is by self-control and moral excellence. It is the world of the perfect life, and it rightly belongs to man, who is not complete until crowned with perfection. The perfect life is not the (...) far-away, impossible thing that men who are in darkness imagine it to be; it is supremely possible, and very near and real. Man remains a craving, weeping, sinning, repenting creature just so long as he wills to do so by clinging to those weak conditions; but when he wills to shake off his dark dreams and to rise, he arises and achieves." - JAMES ALLEN - A Complete and Unabridged edition of James Allen's book "The Life Triumphant." Part of The Works of James Allen Series. Other Works by James Allen:- Above Life's Turmoil All These Things Added As a Man Thinketh Byways of Blessedness Entering the Kingdom (Part of- "All These Things Added") From Passion to Peace From Poverty to Power Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success James Allen's Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year Light on Life's Difficulties Man: King of Mind, Body and Circumstance Men and Systems Morning and Evening Thoughts Out from the Heart (Sequel to "As a Man Thinketh") Poems of Peace The Divine Companion The Eight Pillars of Prosperity The Heavenly Life (Part of-"All These Things Added") The Mastery of Destiny The Path to Prosperity (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") The Shining Gateway The Way of Peace (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") Through the Gate of Good. (shrink)