In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENCE IN HINDU RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS Francis X. Clooney, SJ. Boston College Outline I.Violence, Sacrifice and Ritual 1. Some basic attitudes toward the killing of animals 2.Resolving the problem of sacrificial violence by internalization 3.Substitutions 4.Renunciation and nonviolence: an elite pathway 5.Violence andnonviolenceinrelation to vegetarianism: Hans Schmidt's theses?. Traditional Hindu Theorizations of Violence in Mimamsa Ritual Theory and Vedanta Theology 1. The ritual analysis (at Mimamsa Sutra (...) 1.1.2) of the Shyena rite which is performed in order to harm enemies 2.The Vedanta analysis (at Uttara Mimamsa Sutra 3.1.25) of ritual violence in relation to the prohibition of violence??. Violence in the Life of the State HOFrancis X. Clooney, S.J. 1. The royal power to punish (danda) 2.The synthesis of the ideals of brahmin and king a..The distribution and management of violence in the Laws ofManu (1st century CE) b. Policy toward warfare in the Arthashastra of Kautilya 3.The collapse of the brahmanical synthesis—and the emergence of a (seemingly) more nonviolent Hinduism 4.A comment on Gandhi (1 869-1948) and the contemporary emergence of post-Gandhian Hindu perspectives IV.Alternate Views from Outside the Sanskritic Tradition 1. Tamil Wisdom on Violence and Nonviolence: a.Tirukkural (c. 2nd century CE) b.Cilappatikaram (5th century CE) 2.Blood and Goddesses 3.From a Village Perspective a. Some Trouble with Cows b.Mahasweta Devi and the Literary Exposure of Violence V.The Question of a Christian Perspective on the Hindu Treatment of Violence and Religion: Are Victims Necessary? Some Presuppositions: • The following reflections, complex as they are, are governed by a reluctance to simplify Hindu teaching. I seek to avoid the view that the Hindu traditions had only one view of violence and nonviolence. • I use the term "Hindu" loosely and as a shorthand, without claiming that there is a single Hindu tradition, or a single creed shared by all Hindus, or a single attitude toward violence. But neither do I claim that there are simply many traditions without any common elements which justify the appellation "Hindu." • I am reluctant to idealize the Hindu traditions as if nonviolence must necessarily be taken as the epitome ofHindu thought. India's traditions are complex, and require complex treatment. • A serious artificiality of this paper is that I treat Hinduism without simultaneously lookinginto Buddhist andJain materials, though both were traditions with important and enduring commitments to nonviolence. Particularly with respect to the renunciant, marginal components of traditions, one ought not to make overly neat or decisive distinctions Violence and Nonviolence in Hindu Religious Traditions 1 1 1 between the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain theories and practices related to violence and nonviolence. • I attempt to give preference to indigenous discussions ofissues related to violence and nonviolence; the context and mode of thinking are important, notjust the conclusions drawn. I therefore avoid simply mining Hindu texts for an answer to a contemporary question, "What is the Hindu attitude toward violence and nonviolence?" • In most ofwhat follows we must distinguish contexts where "violence" indicates "physical action which causes pain to some living being," from contexts where "violence" indicates "an intention, rooted in anger or malice, to hurt someone." I use the word "violence" for both in order to highlight the complex issues of distinction involved. In considering the Sanskrit formulations, one likewise has to distinguish himsa as "causing pain" from himsa as "intending to harm." • It is often difficult to date ancient texts, and even when one narrows down a date—within 200-300 years—its significance still depends on other, often equally broadly stated dates. Nevertheless, I do offer dates throughout, as summarized here: •ancient Vedic sacrificial practices, from before 1200 BCE •Vedic ritual analyses and reformulations of sacrifices as ritualized acts, in the Brahmanas, from after 1000 BCE •the Upanishadic exploration of the deeper meanings of ritual and interiorized alternatives to ritual, from after 900 BCE •the Buddha, c. 500 BCE •key texts in the theorization of royal power, The Laws of Manu (beginning of Common Era) and Arthashastra (c. 150 CE) •the Tamil wisdom text Tirukkural (100 CE) •Goddess texts as evidenced in Sanskrit formulations, from after 500 CE... (shrink)

Background Biobank participants often do not understand much of the information they are provided as part of the informed consent process, despite numerous attempts at simplifying consent forms and improving their readability. We report the first assessment of biobank enrollees’ comprehension under an "integrated consent” process, where patients were asked to enroll in a research biobank as part of their normal healthcare experience. A number of healthcare systems have implemented similar integrated consent processes for biobanking, but it is unknown how (...) much patients understand after enrolling under these conditions. Methods: We recruited patients who enrolled in a biobank while in a healthcare setting when receiving ordinary care. We assessed knowledge of consent materials using 11 true/false questions drawn from a well-known biobank knowledge test. After reviewing the results from 114 participants, we revised the consent form and repeated the knowledge assessment with 144 different participants. Results: Participants scored poorly on the knowledge test in both rounds, with no significant differences in overall scores or individual items between the rounds. In Phase 1, participants answered 53% of the questions correctly, 25% incorrectly, and 22% “I don’t know.” In Phase 2, participants answered 53% of questions correctly, 24% incorrectly, and 23% “I don’t know.” Participants scored particularly poorly on questions about data sharing and accessing medical records. Conclusions: Enrollees under an integrated consent model had significant misunderstandings that persisted despite an attempt to improve information specifically about those topics in a consent form. These results raise challenges for current approaches that attribute misunderstanding to overly complex consent forms. They also suggest that the pressures of the clinic may compound other problems with patient understanding of biobank consent. As health systems increasingly blend research and care, they may need to rethink their approach to educating patients about participation in a biobank. (shrink)

Faces are complex stimuli that can be described via intuitive facial features like the eyes, nose, and mouth, “configural” features like the distances between facial landmarks, and features that correspond to computations performed in the early visual system (e.g. oriented edges). With regard to this latter category of descriptors, adult face recognition relies disproportionately on information in specific spatial frequency and orientation bands: Many recognition tasks are performed more accurately when adults have access to mid-range spatial frequencies (8-16 cycles/face) and (...) horizontal orientations (Dakin & Watt, 2009). In the current study, we examined how this information bias develops in middle childhood. We recruited children between the ages of 5-10 years old to participate in a simple categorization task that required them to label images according to whether they depicted a face or a house. Critically, children were presented with face and house images comprised either of primarily horizontal orientation energy, primarily vertical orientation energy, or both horizontal and vertical orientation energy. We predicted that any bias favoring horizontal information over vertical should be more evident in faces than in houses, and also that older children would be more likely to show such a bias than younger children. We designed our categorization task to be sufficiently easy that children would perform at near-ceiling accuracy levels, but with variation in response times that would reflect how they rely on different orientations as a function of age and object category. We found that horizontal bias for face detection (but not house detection) correlated significantly with age, suggesting an emergent category-specific bias for horizontal orientation energy that develops during middle childhood. These results thus suggest that the tuning of high-level recognition to specific low-level visual features takes take place over several years of visual development. (shrink)

The pull to coordinate with other individuals is fundamental, serving as the basis for our social connectedness to others. Discussed is a dynamical and ecological perspective to joint action, an approach that embeds the individual’s mind in a body and the body in a niche, a physical and social environment. Research on uninstructed coordination of simple incidental rhythmic movement, along with research on goal‐directed, embodied cooperation, is reviewed. Finally, recent research is discussed that extends the coordination and cooperation studies, examining (...) how synchronizing with another, and how emergent social units of perceiving and acting are reflected in people’s feelings of connection to others. (shrink)

Es ist ein aufHilliger Zug in der heutigen intellektuellen Welt, daß an vielen Orten und in vielen Zusammenhängen die Rolle und die Wichtigkeit der Sprache betont oder neu hervorgehoben wird. Die Reaktionen auf dieses gestiegene und noch weiter steigende Interesse sind, soweit es die eigentlich sprachorientierten Disziplinen betrifft, unterschied lich: Die neueren Philologien haben immer dann, wenn sie in modernerer Ausrichtung betrieben und vertreten werden, die sprachlichen Gegebenheiten ihrer Objektbasis, also ihrer kulturrelevanten Texte, mitzuberücksichtigen versucht; die Sprachwissenschaft selbst hat im (...) Rahmen ihrer speziellen Ausprägung einer Allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft ex officio mit der Sprache als solcher zu tun und z. B. in der Erforschung sprachlicher Universalien bestimmten universellen und generellen Zügen Rechnung getragen; die Philosophie schließlich hat nicht nur im Rahmen sprachphilosophischer Fragen über Sprache reflektiert, und innerhalb der Sprachphilosophie selbst hat sich die Erkenntnis durchzusetzen begonnen, daß eine Anerkennung und Berücksichtigung allgemein-lingu istischer Ergebnisse auch für philosophische Sprachreflexionen von Wert sein kann. Die vorliegende Arbeit gehört in diese letztgenannte Gruppe und verbindet philosophische Problem-mit linguistischer Sachkenntnis. Die Arbeit erhält damit einen besonderen Wert: Kann sie einerseits zu einer Modifi kation und Differenzierung philosophischer Problemstellungen anregen, so kann sie andrerseits zu einer Erweiterung des linguistischen Gesichtspunktspektrums beitragen. über die Konsequenzen philosophischerseits werden diejenigen urteilen, aus deren Be reich die Arbeit hervorgegangen und zu deren Anregung sie geschrieben ist, d. h. die Philosophen als Sachwalter spezifisch philosophischer Thematik. (shrink)

Summary This study continues in calculating formulas of the first order logic. Whereas the preceding part delt with monadic predicates, the present part treats polyadic predicates. The presumptions were supplied analogously.

SJ Schmidt als bekannter Geisteswissenschaftler und Walter Schwertl Praktiker im Bereich Business-Coaching nähern sich in Dialogform der Frage, wie ein Geisteswissenschaftler und ein Praktiker eine hinreichend gemeinsame Konzeption von Kommunikation erarbeiten können. Gerade zwischen hoch abstrakten Theorien selbstreferentieller Systeme und dem, was als systemische Praxis bezeichnet wird, erscheint die Kluft unüberwindbar. Die Autoren spannen einen Bogen zwischen philosophischen Diskursen und Fragen alltäglichen Handelns. Der Hinweis auf die Vorgeschichte des Buches lässt erahnen, dass die Protagonisten Neugierde auf die Argumente des (...) Anderen, Vertrauen und respektvollen Kommunikationsstil der Kluft erfolgreich entgegensetzen. (shrink)

Siegfried J. Schmidt is closely associated in Germany with the cross-disciplinary research programme of Radical Constructivism. In Histories & Discourses he carries out a change of perspective from media and communication studies to studies of culture and the philosophy of language.His ‘rewriting’ of constructivism shows that classical constructivism shares some fundamental assumptions with realism, and he creates a new vocabulary which allows us to understand how we construct truth, identity, ethics, etc., without using any point of reference which lies (...) beyond our culture. (shrink)

Political theorist Wendy Brown has argued recently that contemporary neoliberalism, with its relentless obsession on the economy, has all but undone the tenets of democracy. This book suggests one way of thinking out of the current moment, and it does so by looking to a perhaps unlikely figure: Niccolo Machiavelli. Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr. argues that if we imitate Machiavelli's interpretive method in reading The Prince and Discourses of Livy, we can find in them solutions to the neoliberal problems (...) Brown warns about. (shrink)

Problem: An answer to the question of whether or not Radical Constructivism RC can or will become a mainstream endeavour is difficult, because what is called RC is a bundle of quite divergent approaches and not a homogenous (super) theory. Therefore the article concentrates upon “classical” RC as developed first of all by von Glasersfeld, von Foerster and Maturana and Varela. The pros and cons of their approaches are discussed and evaluated. Solution: In order to overcome the most obvious problems (...) of RC, a strict process-oriented kind of argumentation is developed that replaces is/is not assertions with descriptions of processes and their results, thus answering the question of what might reasonably be called “construction.” Benefit: The paper presents a way of rewriting RC, i.e., avoiding its evident problems, without abandoning the insights that RC thinkers have gained in the past. (shrink)

In this illuminating work, Dennis J. Schmidt examines tragedy as one of the highest forms of human expression for both the ancients and the moderns.