Inspired by the effective altruism movement, The Impactful Vegan teaches readers how to audit their impact and follow methods that have been scrutinized, evaluated, and determined to do the most good for animals.

In 1826 Americans witnessed the spectacle of President John Quincy Adams and Vice-President John C. Calhoun taking to the press to debate the nature of power and liberty under the pseudonyms "Patrick Henry" and "Onslow". In the course of this exchange some of the most salient issues within American politics and liberty are debated, including the nature of political order, democracy, and the diffusion of political power.

Robert Fulghum’s new book begins with a question we’ve all asked ourselves: “What on Earth have I done?” As Fulghum finds out, the answer is never easy and, almost always, surprising. For the last couple of years, Fulghum has been traveling the world - from Seattle to the Moab Desert to Crete - looking for a few fellow travelers interested in thinking along with him as he delights in the unexpected: trick-or-treating with your grandchildren dressed like a large rabbit, (...) pots of daffodils blooming in mid-November, a view of the earth from outer space, the mysterious night sounds of the desert, every man's trip to a department store to buy socks, the raucous all-night long feast that is Easter in Greece, the trials and tribulations of plumbing problems and the friendship one can strike up with someone who doesn't share the same language. What on Earth Have I Done? is an armchair tour of everyday life as seen by Robert Fulghum, one of America’s great essayists, a man who has two feet planted firmly on the earth, one eye on the heavens and, at times, a tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Fulghum writes to his fellow travelers, with a sometimes light heart, about the deep and vexing mysteries of being alive and says, “This is my way of bringing the small boat of my life within speaking distance of yours. Hello…”. (shrink)

The concept of "terrorism" is problematized and argued to be at one end of a continuum of behavior that can be characterized as "compulsion." This approach to conflict is explained in terms of Transactional Analysis and the inadequacy of compulsion as a means of managing human affairs (politics) is explored in relation to the use of power that it requires, and to the responses it generates. An alternative behavior, based on "turning the other cheek" and Satyagraha (confronting), is advocated in (...) the expectation that it will prove more fruitful in managing conflict and reducing terrorist outrages. (shrink)

In a recent essay of the AJTP, Wesley Wildman takes his reader through a three-step program—indeed, a “user-friendly guide”—for apprehensive theologians who are looking for a means to deny the indeterminacy of God against Robert C. Neville’s systematic and elegant argument for it.1 The “path of resistance” isn’t one that Wildman himself takes seriously—to be sure, his tongue is firmly in cheek throughout the short essay—but he thinks it could have some therapeutic potential for the beleaguered theologian who is (...) struggling with Neville’s challenge. Upon completing the program, the theologian can rest easy that her preferred view of God can be sustained. Of course, if this is the final position of the theologian, she... (shrink)

Wir sind Teil einer Natur, die uns übersteigt - Grund genug, die Natur wieder zum Gegenstand philosophischer Reflexionen zu machen. Durch den Essentialismus-Verdacht schien der Begriff bereits für die Philosophie disqualifiziert. Doch Robert Hugo Ziegler zeigt, gestützt unter anderem auf Lukrez und Spinoza, dass die Natur, sobald man sie ernsthaft ins Auge fasst, alles andere als essentialistisch ist. Er ordnet das philosophische Problem der Natur damit in eine Wiederentdeckung metaphysischer Fragestellungen ein, die er originell vorantreibt - und beweist, dass (...) sich die Philosophie dadurch nicht nur zur bloßen Kommentatorin der Naturwissenschaften machen muss. (shrink)

This paper couples the variation and selection analogy utilized in evolutionary epistemology with the hermeneutical insight that novel data and theoretical texts are obscure in meaning. Dissensus must be valued as a distancing mechanism of variation on the space of possible meanings while argumentation attacks the initial obscurity. The objection that evolutionary accounts can only describe practice is countered by indicating how dissensus has normative purchase wherever science is producing novel text.

Subjective experience suggests that we continuously observe, perceive, and evaluate the environment as we make decisions and intentional actions. The percept of continuity of our cognition, however, is an illusion. In the past decades, ample experimental evidence has been accumulated indicating that cognition evolves through a sequence of discontinuities and transients, and there are discernable neural processes correlating with the cognitive sequences. These discontinuities are crucial in the intentional action-perception cycle, as they mark the cognitive 'aha' moment of deep understanding (...) and conscious insight. Walter Freeman developed a hierarchical model to describe these physiological findings, culminating in the cinematic theory of cognition. Following the traditions of metastability, transient neurodynamics, and brain chaos, discontinuities are described as phase transitions in the cortical neuropil. This approach not only leads to deep theoretical insights of neural correlates of cognition and consciousness, but it also helps to form a conceptual framework to create artificially intelligent devices that are in harmony with humans and serve peaceful development of humanity. (shrink)

The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an (...) empirical study of opinion in Utah and New Jersey. A survey of business students was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest. Scores were compared between samples to determine whether the responses were significantly different. (shrink)

Whenever we make a claim about a fictional entity, we seem to embroil ourselves in familiar problems of reference. This appearance is misleading, because what a sentence is about bears a greater resemblance to a Fregean sense than to a reference. All previous attempts to define 'about' consist of two approaches: "metalinguistic" theories of 'about', proposed by Ryle and Carnap, which fail to counterexamples wherein transparent contexts generate paradoxical consequences; and "semantic" theories of 'about' proposed by Putnam and by Goodman, (...) which fail to counterexamples wherein no term refers to that which the sentence is about. ;An untried alternative is to replace 'S is about k ' with 'S is about k for person p '. Clearly, such a definition need not confine itself to sentences, but may apply to works of art as well. A detailed examination of how one actually goes about arguing to an audience that some work of art W is about some topic, yields a definition that approximates normal usage, yet avoids many problematic notions, such as 'beliefs', 'ideas', and 'intentional states'. Necessary and sufficient truth conditions for 'W is about k for p at time T' turn out to include as major elements a causal chain leading from W to a set of "explicit thoughts" and dispositions, and the lack of an "aesthetic environment" which excludes W. (shrink)

Abstrak: Artikel ini merupakan analisis terhadap hubungan antara Israel dan bangsa-bangsa lainnya dengan menggunakan pemikiran tentang “liyan.” Dalam masyarakat multikultural kehadiran liyan tidak terhindarkan dan menuntut tanggapan yang sungguh-sungguh. Keadaan ini pada gilirannya akan menciptakan ambiguitas, sebagaimana yang dialami oleh Israel. Penemuan arkeologis akhir-akhir ini membuktikan bahwa hubungan antara Israel dengan bangsa-bangsa lain ternyata tidak seperti yang dilukiskan oleh Alkitab. Israel bukanlah sebuah bangsa yang pada suatu masa datang ke Kanaan yang sudah berpenduduk, tetapi mereka muncul secara bertahap dari antara (...) bangsa Kanaan sendiri. Maka, Israel memiliki banyak kesamaan dengan bangsa-bangsa lain itu. Pada pihak lain, Israel juga menumbuhkan sebuah ideologi yang lama-kelamaan akan membentuk mereka menjadi sebuah bangsa. Telah disarankan agar hubungan antara Israel dengan bangsa-bangsa lain itu dipandang sebagai hubungan interkultural. Meskipun pandangan itu masuk akal, namun penulis hendak mengajukan cara pandang lain. Cara pandang itu adalah hibriditas relasional. Dalam pandangan ini, Israel dilihat sebagai sebuah bangsa yang bersifat hibrid, namun bukan dalam arti yang statis. Hibriditas di sini dipandang sebagai sebuah keadaan yang menuntut tanggapan aktif. Dengan kata lain, kesamaan dan perbedaan antara Israel dengan bangsa-bangsa lainnya tidak boleh dianggap sebagai sebuah kondisi yang sudah jadi melainkan terus-menerus dalam proses pembentukan. Kata-kata kunci: Liyan, ambiguitas, budaya, interkultural, agama, kesamaan, perbedaan, hibriditas relasional. Abstract: This article will analyze the relationship between Israel and other nations using the concept of “the other.” In a multicultural society, the presence of the other is unavoidable and demands a serious response. This, however, creates ambiguity, as experienced by Israel. Recent archeological findings have proven that the relationship between Israel and other nations mentioned in the Bible was unlike the description provided by the Bible. Israel was not a separate nation that came into an already occupied land of Canaan, but rather, it gradually emerged as agroup from within the people of the land. Therefore, it can be expected that this nation shared many similarities with its cohabitants. On the other hand, it also developed a distinctive ideology which over time formed Israel as a separate nation. It has been suggested to consider the relationship between Israel and the others through the lens of interculturality. This article proposes another perspective, that is, a relational hybridity. From this perspective, Israel is seen as a hybrid nation. The hybridity is understood as a state of life, but, as one that always demands an active response. In other words, it is a process continously evolving. Keywords: The other, ambiguity, intercultural, religion, similarity, difference, hybridity, relational. (shrink)

Reality -- Religion -- Knowledge -- Self -- Mind and body -- Freedom -- Ethics -- Justice.

Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus have made some valuable suggestions about the important but (in philosophy) much neglected concept of entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur, in the classical economists? lexicon, is a person who founds, organizes, and manages a business. In more modern conversation, he or she is a business hero or heroine. Nowhere is the new emphasis on entrepreneurship more evident than in our largest corporations. The authors analyse the entrepreneur not as an eccentric or a maverick but in terms a specific (...) way of operating within existing social practices. They reject the still prevalent caricature of the avaricious entrepreneur in the grip of greed as well as the too ?genius'?oriented conception of the inventor who cannot manage his own affairs, much less a corporation. An entrepreneur, on their account, is someone who knows how to notice and ?hold on to? an anomaly and creates a market, sometimes where there was no market at all. They argue that entrepreneurship essentially involves conversation. It is not mere inventiveness. This ?reconfiguration? of entrepreneurship explains a great deal about what many corporations ? at considerable expense ? are learning about their own activities and operations, and many established and successful companies are struggling to transform themselves in just the direction that Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus have outlined. (shrink)

The CLASH model proposed in the target article is plausible but less than parsimonious. I suggest that statistical analysis probably would find slower life history strategy, greater focus on the future, and greater self-control to be highly correlated and perhaps unifactorial, because they are all manifestations of a single underlying variable, namely, intelligence. I suggest how intelligence as a state variable plausibly could explain the differences observed by the authors.

This commentary focuses upon two issues raised by Davey's target article: (1) whether there are certain core features of stimuli we learn to fear, rather than specific types of objects or situations, which implies some element of innateness; and (2) whether expectancy biases serve to maintain rather than generate anxiety.

What strikes one first about two recent books in philosophy of science is that they seem to be polar opposites in all important respects. Bridgman, of course, typifies the hard-headed and skeptical physical scientist, whose interest in the broad “philosophic” questions of scientific methodology stems largely from current problems in theoretical physics, but he is, nevertheless, very much concerned to extend the salutary effects of operational analysis to other intellectual disciplines. Jung, on the other hand, not only is a psychiatrist—and (...) therefore professionally committed to a certain gullibility about mental phenomena—but he also is deeply convinced of the importance for science of such subjects as astrology and alchemy; and Pauli, although a distinguished physicist in his own right, has clearly been influenced by Jung's conception of archetypal ideas in the collective unconscious. (shrink)