In this opinionated review, I draw attention to some of the contributions reinforcement learning can make to questions in the philosophy of mind. In particular, I highlight reinforcement learning's foundational emphasis on the role of reward in agent learning, and canvass two ways in which the framework may advance our understanding of perception and motivation.

An agent exercises instrumental rationality to the degree that she adopts appropriate means to achieving her ends. Adopting appropriate means to achieving one’s ends can, in turn, involve overcoming one’s strongest desires, that is, it can involve exercising synchronic self-control. However, contra prominent approaches, I deny that synchronic self-control is possible. Specifically, I draw on computational models and empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience to describe a naturalistic, multi-system model of the mind. On this model, synchronic self-control is impossible. Must we, (...) then, give up on a meaningful conception of instrumental rationality? No. A multi-system view still permits something like synchronic self-control: an agent can control her very strong desires. Adopting a multi-system model of the mind thus places limitations on our conceptions of instrumental rationality, without requiring that we abandon the notion altogether. (shrink)

Hohwy et al.’s (2008) model of binocular rivalry (BR) is taken as a classic illustration of predictive coding’s explanatory power. I revisit the account and show that it cannot explain the role of reward in BR. I then consider a more recent version of Bayesian model averaging, which recasts the role of reward in (BR) in terms of optimism bias. If we accept this account, however, then we must reconsider our conception of perception. On this latter view, I argue, organisms (...) engage in what amounts to policy-driven, motivated perception. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Almost all philosophers recognize the fundamental importance of the Phenomenology of Spirit. But Hegel's way of thinking and speaking—which he names, “speculative”—needs explaining. The example of “the speculative sentence” is helpful—for here, speculating means implying, that is, neither bringing meaning to presence nor keeping it in absence; but rather, speaking and thinking by implication. If the history of philosophy, however, overlooks what is implied, then it cannot grasp what is, and what is thought and said in the speculative sentence. (...) Luckily, there is another way: implying that which can neither be said nor left unsaid, neither thought nor unthought. Reinterpreting Hegel's speculative sentence, therefore, for implication, for what is implied—and neither present nor absent—Haas demonstrates how to think and speak speculatively about thinking and speaking, substance and subject, being and becoming, whether in philosophy or not, even if we implicate ourselves thereby. (shrink)

Throughout its history, the renowned Kaṭha Upaniṣad has often been described as being both incoherent and contradictory. The aim of this paper is to show to what purpose the text was created. To this end, it discusses the connection of the three paths to salvation depicted in the text, viz. the Agnicayana (a powerful Vedic fire-ritual), the Upaniṣadic method of self-knowledge, and yoga. The first part retraces how in the Upaniṣads, the Agnicayana was transformed into a non-material or mental ritual (...) and linked with self-knowledge. The second part analyses how the various salvation goals (heaven, the World of Brahman, liberation from rebirth) could be related to each other. First, the authors redefined the Agnicayana’s salvation goal, heaven, to make it identical with liberation. Secondly, they introduced self-knowledge and yoga as alternative and equally powerful means to the same end. In practice, however, the new and world-negating methods were implied to be superior to the costly ritual from which they had drawn their authority. Thus, the authors of the Upaniṣad were more concerned with showing continuity between different religious approaches than upholding consistency of content. (shrink)

Are slurring statements, when applied to members of the slurred group, true, false, or a little bit of both? Intuitions are mixed. And investigating more truth-value judgments is unlikely to cure the stalemate we find ourselves in. Truth-value judgments are just not up to the task. In their place, I propose we look to judgments of lying instead. This change in focus provides a new and better tool for understanding the complex semantics and pragmatics of slurs. As I argue, it (...) also suggests that slurring statements encode, conventionally implicate and presuppose the same information as statements with the slur's neutral counterpart. I then briefly apply this style of argument to the semantics and pragmatics of evaluative language more generally. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a reading of Plotinus Enneads VI.1-3 [41-43] On the genera of being which regards this treatise as a coherent whole in which Aristotle's Categories is explored in a way that turns it into a decisive contribution to Plotinus' Platonic ontology. In addition, I claim that Porphyry's Isagoge and commentaries on the Categories start by adopting Plotinus' point of view, including his notion of genus, and proceed by explaining its consequences for a more detailed reading of (...) the Categories. After Plotinus' integration of the Categories into the Platonic frame of thought Porphyry saw the possibilities of exploiting the Peripatetic tradition both as a means to support the Platonic interpretation of the Categories and as a source for solutions to traditional questions. His allegiance to a division of being into ten, and his emphasis on semantics rather than ontology can be explained from this orientation. In the light of our investigation the alleged disagreement between Plotinus and Porphyry on the Categories changes its appearance completely. There are differences, but these can be best explained as confirmation and extension of Plotinus' perspective on the Categories and its role in Platonism. (shrink)

Digital artifacts often fail to perform as expected. It has recently been argued that this should not be analyzed as software malfunctioning. Rather, every case that is not the result of hardware failures would be due to design errors. This claim, which hinges on the notion of ‘implementation’, highlights a potential fundamental difference between software and other technical artifacts. It also implies that software engineers have more extensive responsibilities than creators of other artifacts. After reconstructing the argument, we show that (...) it rests on two presuppositions regarding the nature of software and the activities of its creators, which we call ‘complete control’ and ‘self-containedness’. Software is taken to be a self-contained unit through which the software engineer exerts complete control over a machine’s behavior. These two presuppositions as well as the usage of implementation and strong claims regarding responsibility can be found throughout the literature on software engineering. Still, we argue that the presuppositions are untenable in light of current practices. For one thing, software engineers cannot exert complete control because software has become too complex for any technique to reliably locate every fault in it. For another, the creation and running of software are nowadays heavily mediated processes involving many agential activities. As a result, the performance of digital artifacts may vary, often in undesirable ways, without either hardware failures or design errors. This undermines the conclusion that software cannot malfunction, while also revealing the complications in developing a metaphysical account of software that fits contemporary practices. (shrink)

Joshua May responds to skepticism about moral knowledge via appeal to empirical work on moral foundations. I demonstrate that the moral foundations literature is not able to do the work May needs. It demonstrates shared moral cognition, not shared moral judgment, and therefore, May's attempt to defeat general skepticism fails.

Thomas Urquhart (1611–1660), celebrated for his English translation of Rabelais’ Gargantua et Pantagruel, has earned some notoriety for his eccentric, putatively incomprehensible early book on trigonometry The Trissotetras (1645). The Trissotetras was too impractical to succeed in its own day as a textbook, since it lacked both trigonometric tables and sample calculations. But its current bad reputation is based on literary authors’ amplifications of the verdict prefaced to its 19th century reprinting by one mathematician, William Wallace, who lacked the background (...) to appreciate the book’s historical context. Considering that context (including seventeenth century ‘copious’ prose, and medieval logic and ‘art of memory’), the bad reputation is undeserved: the book is mathematically clear, clever (e.g. in superimposing 16 problems into one diagram), and complete. The Trissotetras may thus be viewed as simply one more of Urquhart’s polymathic projects and involvements – which included education, rise of the middle class, religious and class conflicts, development of science and mathematics, search for patronage, universal language construction, and development of English prose – which serve to make him a lively and instructive intellectual Everyman for his time. (shrink)

William Haas (1883-1956) was born in Nuremberg and received his PhD. at Munich in 1910. He traveled widely throughout the Middle East and taught at universities in Germany, Iran and the United States. After a lifetime studying the thoughts and cultures of the East, he formulated the thesis laid out here in his final book: that East and West are not mere geographical or even racial distinctions, but two radically different types of consciousness, two fundamentally different orientations and ways (...) of thinking. "Professor Haas attacks-and I believe, demolishes-an assumption that underlies almost all modern theories of history: that the minds of all human beings, if not defective or disordered, work in essentially the same way.... [He] has, I believe, done for the study of comparative history what Böhr did for atomic physics." - Revilo Oliver. (shrink)

Arnold Clapmarius’ ‘Traineeship in politics’. Practical Experience and the Semblance of Practical Experience as a Qualification in the Field of Political Science around the Year 1600. In 1600, Arnold Clapmarius was appointed the first professor for Public Law and Political Science in the Holy Roman Empire by the University of Altdorf. He received this professorship though he had not yet published anything because he was a protégé of Landgrave Maurice the Learned of Hesse-Kassel. Two newly discovered letters which were written (...) by Clapmarius to Maurice show that the young scholar did a traineeship at the Landgrave's court to gather practical experience in politics. This was probably the reason for his appointment in Altdorf. Nevertheless, he hushed up this traineeship because it did not comply to the kind of experience that were expected from a ‘politicus’ at that time, id est military service, educational journeys, foreign languages and regional studies. Thus, this paper fills a gap of Arnold Clapmarius’ biography, and provides a new perspective on the value of practical experience in the field of political science in the Early Modern Period. (shrink)

This volume collects Late Ancient, Byzantine and Medieval appropriations of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, addressing the logic of inquiry, concept formation, the question whether metaphysics is a science, and the theory of demonstration.

Jaap Mansfeld and Frans de Haas bring together in this volume a distinguished international team of ancient philosophers, presenting a systematic, chapter-by-chapter study of one of the key texts in Aristotle's science and metaphysics: the first book of On Generation and Corruption. In GC I Aristotle provides a general outline of physical processes such as generation and corruption, alteration, and growth, and inquires into their differences. He also discusses physical notions such as contact, action and passion, and mixture. These (...) notions are fundamental to Aristotle's physics and cosmology, and more specifically to his theory of the four elements and their transformations. Moreover, references to GC elsewhere in the Aristotelian corpus show that in GC I Aristotle is doing heavy conceptual groundwork for more refined applications of these notions in, for example, the psychology of perception and thought, and the study of animal generation and corruption. Ultimately, biology is the goal of the series of enquiries in which GC I demands a position of its own immediately after the Physics. The contributors deal with questions of structure and text constitution and provide thought-provoking discussions of each chapter of GC I. New approaches to the issues of how to understand first matter, and how to evaluate Aristotle's notion of mixture are given ample space. Throughout, Aristotle's views of the theories of the Presocratics and Plato are shown to be crucial in understanding his argument. (shrink)

Sam Berstler has recently argued for a fairness-based moral difference between lying and misleading. According to Berstler, the liar, but not the misleader, unfairly free rides on the Lewisian conventions which ground public-language meaning. Although compelling, the pragmatic and metasemantic backdrop within which this moral reason is located allows for the generation of a vicious explanatory circle. Simply, this backdrop entails that no speaker has ever performed an assertion. As I argue, escaping the circle requires rejecting Berstler’s fairness-based reason against (...) lying. The problem is a general one: the wrong of lying cannot be founded on the goods of language. (shrink)

Tense is the clue to the discovery of the meaning of time. Speaking hints at thinking, and language suggests a way to conceive of philosophical concepts. Here, the universality of temporality is that out of which the grammar of tense and the concept of time first come. Temporality, however, is not simply present in tense or time. On the contrary, temporality’s way of being—like being’s—is implication: tense is implied by how the verbality of verbs can be spoken; time, by how (...) temporal beings come to presence—just as being is implied in Greek, and many other languages. But then, the habits of modern Western language and philosophy must be radically reformed in order to learn how to imply again, and to think and speak about time and being as implications. (shrink)

Khandro Rinpoche: A Needle Compassionately Sticking Out of a Cushion -- Dagmola Sakya: From the Palace to the Blood Bank -- Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry): Sandpaper for the Ego -- Sangye Khandro (Nanci Gay Gustafson): Enlightenment Is a Full-time Job -- Pema Chödrön (Deirdre Blomfield-Brown): Relaxing into Groundlessness -- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel: A Wonder Woman Hermit -- Chagdud Khadro (Jane Dedman): Like Iron Filings Drawn to a Magnet -- Karma Lekshe Tsomo (Patricia Zenn): Surfing to Realization -- Thubten Chodron (Cherry Greene): (...) A Rebel in Robes -- Roshi Joan Halifax: Fearless, Fierce, and Fragile -- Tsultrim Allione (Joan Rousmanière Ewing): The Enlightened Feminist -- Khandro Tsering Chödron: The Queen of Dakinis. (shrink)

Casey, in Supernatural, alludes to one of the oldest and most resilient arguments against the existence of God, the problem of evil. This problem arises from an apparent conflict between the existence of evil and the attributes that Western theists attribute to God. Casey's challenge to the existence of God is called the logical problem of evil by philosophers. Casey's problem of evil focused on an apparent logical inconsistency between believing in a God that is all‐powerful, all‐knowing, and all‐good, while (...) at the same time believing that evil exists. The soul‐making defense doesn't appear to be enough to solve the problem for Dean. While it seems true that an all‐powerful, all‐good, all‐knowing God would have the power to create a universe with soul‐growth, containing significantly less evil and suffering than the universe of Supernatural, that's just not Dean's world. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the ways in which Alexander of Aphrodisias employs and develops so-called ‘common notions’ as reliable starting points of deductive arguments. He combines contemporary developments in the Stoic and Epicurean use of common notions with Aristotelian dialectic, and axioms. This more comprehensive concept of common notions can be extracted from Alexander’s commentary on Metaphysics A 1–2. Alexander puts Aristotle’s claim that ‘all human beings by nature desire to know’ in a larger deductive framework, and adds weight (...) to Aristotle’s use of the common understanding of the notion of ‘wisdom’. Finally I will indicate how these upgraded common notions are meant to play an important role in the general framework of metaphysics as a science. (shrink)

Being can no longer be thought, for Plato, in accordance with Parmenides’ either/or; rather, it is both/and, both present in and absent from things, which is how they can come-to-presence and go-out-into-absence. But as the Parmenides demonstrates, Greek grammar hints at a fundamental ontological truth: the expression, “one one,” ἓν ἕν, shows that being can be implied, neither present nor absent—for being is an implication. But then participating must be rethought in terms of implying: being is implied in everything that (...) is and is one, which is how it is present in beings and absent therefrom. But this understanding of participation—as Aristotle insists—is contradictory. Luckily, there is another way: implication qua belonging—being no longer participates-in, but belongs-to things, which is how it is one with them, distinct but inseparable. But this too, betrays implication, fails to grasp being’s way of being, and the meaning of being qua implied, and so cannot illuminate how being and beings are and are one—for as the suspension of presence and/or absence, implying is irreducible to participating or belonging. Rather, if being is implied, it is because implication is suspension, which is why it is so suspenseful. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Economists not only failed to anticipate the financial crisis; they may have contributed to it—with risk and derivatives models that, through spurious precision and untested theoretical assumptions, encouraged policy makers and market participants to see more stability and risk sharing than was actually present. Moreover, once the crisis occurred, it was met with incomprehension by most economists because of models that, on the one hand, downplay the possibility that economic actors may exhibit highly interactive behavior; and, on the other, (...) assume that any homogeneity will involve economic actors sharing the economist’s own putatively correct model of the economy, so that error can stem only from an exogenous shock. The financial crisis presents both an ethical and an intellectual challenge to economics, and an opportunity to reform its study by grounding it more solidly in reality. (shrink)

This important new book offers the first full-length interpretation of the thought of Martin Heidegger with respect to irony. In a radical reading of Heidegger's major works (from Being and Time through the ‘Rector's Address' and the ‘Letter on Humanism' to ‘The Origin of the Work of Art' and the Spiegel interview), Andrew Haas does not claim that Heidegger is simply being ironic. Rather he argues that Heidegger's writings make such an interpretation possible - perhaps even necessary. Heidegger_begins_ Being (...) and Time with a quote from Plato, a thinker famous for his insistence upon Socratic irony. The Irony of Heidegger takes seriously the apparently curious decision to introduce the threat of irony even as philosophy begins in earnest to raise the question of the meaning of being. Through a detailed and thorough reading of Heidegger's major texts and the fundamental questions they raise, Haas reveals that one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century can be read with as much irony as earnestness. The Irony of Heidegger attempts to show that the essence of this irony lies in uncertainty, and that the entire project of onto-heno-chrono-phenomenology, therefore needs to be called into question. >. (shrink)

The concept of struggle is essential for understanding the relationship between fate and freedom, past and present and future, individuality and community. But the words and grammar for thinking the struggle are lacking. Luckily, taking a hint from Heidegger, the language of “implication” suggests how to think struggle as justice – and thus, to speak to the question of the meaning of being, of beings such as ourselves and of our struggle to be.

In 2006, young people were flocking to MySpace, discovering the joys of watching videos of cute animals on YouTube, and playing online games. Not many of them were watching network news on television; they got most of their information online. So when NBC and MIT launched iCue, an interactive learning venture that combined social networking, online video, and gaming in one multimedia educational site, it was perfectly in tune with the times. iCue was a surefire way for NBC to reach (...) younger viewers and for MIT to test innovative educational methods in the real world. But iCue was a failure: it never developed an audience and was canceled as if it were a sitcom with bad ratings. In _The More We Know_, Eric Klopfer and Jason Haas, both part of the MIT development team, describe the rise and fall of iCue and what it can teach us about new media, old media, education, and the challenges of innovating in educational media. Klopfer and Haas show that iCue was hampered by, among other things, an educational establishment focused on "teaching to the test," television producers uncomfortable with participatory media, and confusion about the market. But this is not just a cautionary tale; sometimes more can be learned from an interesting failure than a string of successes. Today's educational technology visionaries might keep this lesson in mind. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a reading of Plotinus Enneads VI.1-3 [41-43] On the genera of being which regards this treatise as a coherent whole in which Aristotle's "Categories" is explored in a way that turns it into a decisive contribution to Plotinus' Platonic ontology. In addition, I claim that Porphyry's Isagoge and commentaries on the "Categories" start by adopting Plotinus' point of view, including his notion of genus, and proceed by explaining its consequences for a more detailed reading of (...) the "Categories." After Plotinus' integration of the "Categories" into the Platonic frame of thought Porphyry saw the possibilities of exploiting the Peripatetic tradition both as a means to support the Platonic interpretation of the "Categories" and as a source for solutions to traditional questions. His allegiance to a division of being into ten, and his emphasis on semantics rather than ontology can be explained from this orientation. In the light of our investigation the alleged disagreement between Plotinus and Porphyry on the "Categories" changes its appearance completely. There are differences, but these can be best explained as confirmation and extension of Plotinus' perspective on the "Categories" and its role in Platonism. (shrink)

In this article we revisit two different temporal phases related to the main publication of Serge Moscovici's book La Psychanalyse, son image et son public together with two key promissing notions of the theory, cognitive polyphasia and anchoring. The first phase, initiated by the durkheimian cercle, will give us the occasion to retrieve the traces of the fascinating intellectual debate about collective psychology that was involved in producing ¨frontier¨ propositions and renewing their perspectives in today's light, namely throught cognitive polyphasia. (...) The second phase, more recent, inspired by classical and modern research into the social representation's field, will serve us as a basis for a new hypothesis about anchoring. We will attempt to suggest that traditional familiarization allocated to anchoring can also work in the opposite sense, transmitting and guaranteeing the non-familiar, establishing strangeness. Finally, we are arguing that social representations are more than a simple theory, just as the symbol is always more than what it symbolizes. (shrink)

Franz Huber’s book addresses beliefs and counterfactuals and their relationship. Using a normative approach, the author explores how agents should believe and change their beliefs, given they have...

The mouthparts of anuran tadpoles are highly derived compared to those of caecilians or salamanders. The suprarostral cartilages support the tadpole's upper beak; the infrarostral cartilages support the lower beak. Both supra‐ and infrarostral cartilages are absent in other vertebrates. These differences reflect the evolutionary origin of a derived feeding mode in anuran tadpoles. We suggest that these unique cartilages stem from the evolution of new articulations within preexisting cartilages, rather than novel cartilage condensations. We propose testing this hypothesis through (...) a search for similarities in the development of the suprarostral and infrarostral cartilage articulations and of the primary jaw joint. In Xenopus, the gene zax is expressed in a region corresponding to the infrarostral cartilage. This gene is related to the bapx1‐gene, which regulates jaw joint development. Further investigation of these genes, as well as other genes with joint‐related functions, in anuran craniofacial development may provide a connection between the morphological diversity seen in the vertebrate head and the corresponding diversity in genetic regulatory processes. We believe that the evolution of larval jaws in anurans may shed light on the general evolutionary mechanisms of how new articulations, not only in the jaw region, could have arisen in the vertebrate skull. BioEssays 27: 526–532, 2005. © 2005 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

I defend a hard-line reply to Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument. Pereboom accuses compatibilists who take a hard-line reply to his manipulation argument of adopting inappropriate initial attitudes towards the cases central to his argument. If Pereboom is correct he has shown that a hard-line response is inadequate. Fortunately for the compatibilist, Pereboom’s list of appropriate initial attitudes is incomplete and at least one of the initial attitudes he leaves out provides room for a revised hard-line reply to be successfully (...) mounted against the multiple-case argument. (shrink)

Here eight outstanding scholars from the U.S. and Europe reflect upon the issues. They are Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ralph McInerny, Robert Spamann, Servais Pinckaers, Wojciech Giertych, Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, Carlo Cafarra, and John M. Haas. Anyone interested in the advancement of human, moral, and spiritual values will welcome this clarifying book.

Each thinker, according to Heidegger, essentially thinks one thought. Plato thinks the idea. Descartes thinks the cogito . Spinoza thinks substance. Nietzsche thinks the will to power. If a thinker does not think a thought, then he or she is not a thinker. He or she may be a scholar or a professor, a producer or a consumer, a fan or a fake, but he or she would not be a thinker. Thus, if Heidegger is a thinker, he essentially thinks (...) one thought. What is Heidegger’s one thought? It is neither life nor death, neither me nor you. It is neither technology nor art. It is neither spirit nor language. Heidegger’s one thought is being—or more precisely, the question of the meaning of being. And what is being? Neither presence nor absence--but rather, an ambiguous uncertainty. (shrink)

This study explores company support for men's participation in child care in Sweden, where the government promotes gender equality. The authors investigate the influence of two ideologies about gender, the doctrine of separate spheres and masculine hegemony, on the responsiveness to fathers shown by Sweden's largest corporations. Father-friendly companies had adopted values associated with the private sphere and prioritized entrance of women into the public sphere. Companies with less masculine hegemony provided some informal but no formal support to fathers. Following (...) social justice theory, future research could focus on how fathers come to perceive the lack of corporate responsiveness as unfair. (shrink)

In The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II encouraged organ donation as a genuine act of charity. Some Catholics reject the notion of vital organ transplantation and the use of neurological criteria to determine a donor’s death before organs are extracted. This article reviews Church teaching on the use of neurological criteria for determining death—including statements by three popes, a number of pontifical academies and councils, and the U.S. bishops—to show that Catholics may in good conscience offer the gift (...) of life through the donation of their organs after death as determined by those criteria, and may in good conscience receive such organs. This article is not a defense of the legitimacy of neurological criteria for determining death but rather a presentation of the moral guidance currently offered by the Church on the legitimacy of organ donation after death has been determined by their use. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.2 (Summer 2011): 279–299. (shrink)

Ever since Calvin wrote his Institutes of the Christian Religion, admonishing the reader that “it would not be difficult for him to determine what he ought especially to seek in Scriptures, and to what end he ought to relate its contents,” scholars have endeavoured to identify a doctrine or theme at the heart of his theology. In his landmark book The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics, Guenther Haas concludes that the concept of equity is the theme of central (...) importance in Calvin’s social ethic, in a similar way that union with Christ lies at the heart of his theology. Haas provides, in Part One, a brief survey of the development of the concept of equity from Aristotle to the scholastics, and as it was used by Calvin’s contemporaries. Haas also examines the influences on Calvin’s thinking before and after his conversion to Protestantism, with special attention paid to those influences that employed the concept of equity. In the heart of this study, Part Two, “Equity in Calvin’s Ethics,” Haas presents a thorough exposition and analysis of the extensive role the concept of equity plays in Calvin’s ethics, demonstrating that Calvin’s approach to ethics is not restricted to meditation of Scripture text. This book will force a re-examination of approaches to Calvin studies that have not appreciated the historical context and background of Calvin’s thought. The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics establishes that the Protestant tradition in Christian ethics, founded by Calvin, has a distinctive and vital contribution to make to Christian ethics, as well as to the broader discussion of social ethics as they are practised today. (shrink)

This article reviews three recent books that enhance our understanding of the work of French feminist Luce Irigaray: Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche and The Irigaray Reader, and Philosophy in the Feminine, a commentary on Irigaray's work by Margaret Whitford. The author emphasizes a dynamic reading of Irigaray's philosophy and integrates theoretical concepts with poetic/utopian passages from the works.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Human Rights and the Ethics of Globalization by Daniel E. Lee and Elizabeth J. LeeGuenther "Gene" HaasHuman Rights and the Ethics of Globalization Daniel E. Lee and Elizabeth J. Lee Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 264 pp. $27.99While there have been numerous books written on the nature of rights in a world of globalization, this book fills a gap by presenting a thoughtful and balanced discussion that is (...) firmly grounded in ethical theory yet takes into account the concerns of both nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the realities of the business world. The authors acknowledge that there can be naive troublemakers in NGOs and greedy people in business as well as socially concerned people in both groups.The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the philosophical foundations for addressing ethical issues in business within the context of globalization. Here the authors advocate for a limited, carefully defined notion of rights, properly noting that not everything of ethical significance falls under the notion of rights. The important distinction they make is between negative rights (the rights to life and freedom), which oblige us never to harm others, and positive rights (rights of entitlement, such as education, medical care, housing), which depend upon the various types of relationships, voluntary or involuntary, in which people find themselves. The former apply universally to neighbors near and far; the latter, because they are defined by relationships, apply primarily to neighbors near to us. With globalization distant neighbors often become near neighbors—for example, when a company builds a production facility in another country. In view of this, the authors argue that the Enlightenment’s individualistic understanding of rights is incomplete. A fuller version of rights (rooted in Aristotle) situates all humans in social communities where mutual charitable treatment is better suited to promoting human flourishing. With this in mind, the authors use the second form of Kant’s categorical imperative (“Always treat others as ends”) to map out some helpful practical guidelines for multinational corporations that are conducive to human well-being. Such guidelines seek to take into consideration all the constituencies that these organizations are called to serve—including shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, and communities of location.In part 2 the authors draw on these philosophical foundations and practical guidelines to discuss ethical issues related to business practices in four different [End Page 198] countries: respect for human rights in China given the widespread practice of outsourcing; the condition of workers in Liberia where Firestone is the largest employer; free trade and fair trade issues related to coffee growers in Ethiopia; and the question of whether low-wage factories (maquiladoras) in Mexico exploit workers or provide economic opportunity for them. The authors provide a fair evaluation of each situation rooting their discussion in the nature of each respective business and the conditions over which it has direct control.Part 3 deals with the possibilities and challenges of dealing with multinational corporations that do not respect human rights. Although many argue for sanctions and treaty provisions, the authors argue that these approaches have their limitations. As an alternative, they recommend the Alien Tort Claims Act as the most promising means of enforcing human rights standards among American multinational corporations with overseas operations.This is an insightful and balanced book on human rights and social ethics precisely because it has a positive view of markets and is optimistic about achieving greater social responsibility in the business world. It will be helpful to all committed to promoting ethical business practices in a growing global economy—not only in the church and academy but also in the legal community and business world and in NGOs.Guenther HaasRedeemer University CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Résumé Dans les Entretiens, Félibien dit d’Annibal Carrache qu’il a renouvelé la peinture après une phase de décadence en se tournant vers les grands maîtres du passé. Il postule ce faisant une continuité dans la signification des « parties » de la peinture comme le « dessin », le « coloris », l’« expression » etc. En réalité, il ne peut être question d’une continuité, du moins si les « concepts fondamentaux » de Woelfflin, qui distinguent d’une façon très radicale (...) les styles du XVI e et du XVII e siècle, ont un sens quelconque. L’étude détaillée du terme « dessein » (« disegno ») montre qu’il correspond à des réalités techniques très différentes chez Raffaël et Le Brun par exemple et que ce glissement dont les théoriciens du XVIIe siècle ne sont pas conscients produit une théorie de l’art, à caractère polémique et « académique », basée structuralement sur la méconnaisance. La « dispute du coloris»s’en ressent fortement. Cette méconnaissance intervient au moment même où la théorie de l’art prend un essor nouveau avec l’apparition du spécialiste d’art de profession, dont Félibien est lui-même un des exemples les plus saillants. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom ed. by Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinga Elizabeth Berry, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel, and: Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in Christian Practice by Craig HoveyGuenther “Gene” HaasReview of Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom EDITED BY BRUCE ELLIS BENSON, MALINGA ELIZABETH BERRY, AND PETER GOODWIN HELTZEL Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 225 pp. $35.00Review of Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in (...) Christian Practice CRAIG HOVEY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. 258 pp. $27.00Christian thought and practice in North America—especially in the evangelical world—has undergone significant changes in recent years. Prophetic Evangelicals and Bearing True Witness deal with two areas where this is evident: first, the attention many evangelicals are now giving to social justice and peace and, second, their determination to witness to the truth about Christ in a manner consistent with the Christian gospel. Prophetic evangelicals is the name the editors apply to a new generation of evangelicals who believe that the gospel of Christ requires a commitment to proclaim and embody “the just and peaceable kingdom” (2). These evangelicals view Jesus as inaugurating “a new social order that is a radical alternative to the order of empire” (7).This trend among evangelicals to move beyond the preaching of the gospel in a narrow sense (over against the liberals’ emphasis on social justice) is the culmination of a trend that has been happening since the publication in 1947 of Carl Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. What is new about many younger evangelicals in recent decades is their embrace of the Anabaptist perspective on justice and peace. It is clear in the introductory and concluding chapters by the editors—with their appeals to John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas and their references to the “cultural captivity” of the church—that this is the trend they have in mind. One also reads hints of liberation theology in the editors’ references to the needs of the people being “holy” (12), to God’s being on the side of—and the gospel always being in favor of—the “least” (47), and to a critique of “the order of empire” (7). Of course, [End Page 221] non-Anabaptist evangelicals are also concerned with these themes as part of their commitment to justice and peace. But it is the distinctive emphasis of this book—with some exceptions among the contributors—that it highlights the ways Anabaptist evangelicals are prophetic.The chapters consist of expositions on the following biblical themes: creation, shalom, justice, kingdom, news, Mary, the cross, church, freedom, reconciliation, resurrection, and hope. The authors include a wide range of evangelicals: from a Kuyperian (Vincent Bacote on creation) to a committed Anabaptist (David Gushee on shalom), to postcolonial Christians (Gabriel Salguero on the cross, and Raymond Alfred on freedom). Although the term is slippery, the inclusion of two contributors raises the question about who the editors consider to be an “evangelical”: Helen Slessarov-Jamir (on justice) agrees with her students’ desire not to learn theology from “dead white men” (77) and embraces religious pluralism (85); Pamela Lightsey (on reconciliation) embraces liberalism and liberation theology and calls herself a “womanist theologian” (169).The chapters contain a diversity of contributions in length and quality. Some are good, short expositions of themes: creation (Bacote), kingdom (Christian Collins Winn), Mary—actually about suffering—(Ruth Padilla DeBorst), church (John Franke), and resurrection (Cherith Fee Nordling). Gushee’s chapter contains a good exposition of the Anabaptist view of shalom, along with typical sweeping statements about the “Constantinian compromise” and the evangelical compromise with the state (72). Two chapters deserve special recognition. Chris Boesel’s chapter, “News,” is an excellent account of the Christian call to justice as part of the full goodness of the gospel. He criticizes both liberal-progressive and evangelical-conservative assumptions about the church’s mission and calls for a “recovering evangelical faith” that pursues justice with repentance, humility, and a reliance on the Holy Spirit. Telford Work’s chapter, “Hope,” also articulates a perceptive critique of the activism of both the Christian Right and the Christian Left. Rejecting all alignments with worldly power, he calls on the... (shrink)

This text argues that Hegel's Concept, insofar as it has already deconstructed all opposed and fixed standpoints, supersedes deconstruction. Reducing the Logic and Phenomenology to the same kind of schematic formalism for which Hegel criticized his predecessors (Fichte and Schelling), Derrida misses the ways in which Absolute Spirit shows itself as the bacchanalian revel wherein no member is not drunk. Thus, this article defends Hegel against Derrida on Derrida's terms.

The aim of the current study was to investigate important pathways of the Environmental Stress Hypothesis concerning the role of peer relations. First, we examined (1) the mediating role of peer problems in the association between the motor performance in daily activities and internalizing problems as a main pathway of the Environmental Stress Hypothesis. Furthermore, we explored the role of (2) children’s popularity as a mediator and (3) best friendship quality as a moderator path of the effect of motor performance (...) on both peer problems and internalizing problems. The non-clinical sample of the present study consisted of 189 children (48.6% females) aged nine to eleven years (Mage = 9.69, SDage = 0.46). Parents reported on their child’s motor performance in daily activities by completing the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire. In addition, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to assess peer problems as well as internalizing problems. The Self Description Questionnaire provided a measure of children’s self-reported popularity. Finally, the Friendship Quality Questionnaire was used to investigate children’s best friendship quality. Results of a structural equation model suggest that peer problems fully mediated the association between the motor performance in daily activities and both popularity and internalizing problems. However, no evidence for the mediating effect of popularity in the association between peer problems and internalizing problems was found. Further, best friendship quality had small but non-significant positive moderating effect on the relation between peer problems and internalizing problems. The mediating role of peer problems highlights the importance of peer relations in the motor performance of daily activities. Possible reasons for the lack of some of the expected mediating and moderating effects as well as practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag geht von der These aus, dass Goethes Arbeit an der ›klassischen‹ Dramenform sich einer tieferen Einsicht in die zeitliche wie rechtliche Problematik der ›tragédie classique‹ verdankt als allgemein angenommen. Dabei dürfte es maßgeblich die Französische Revolution gewesen sein, die eine neue Attraktivität der ›alten‹ Form bewirkte. Das zeigt sich vor allem an Die Natürliche Tochter, einem Stück, in dessen Entstehungszeit nicht zufällig Goethes Übersetzungen zweier Dramen Voltaires fallen. Figurationen politischer Gründung und Legitimation bildeten das Zentrum des ›klassischen‹ Dramas (...) bereits bei Corneille und stellten es zuverlässig auf eine um 1800 für konservative Autoren aktuelle Zerreißprobe. Die forciert gelassene Präsentation legitimer Herrschaft unter der Berufung auf Zeitkontinuität und lang währende ›Gewohnheiten‹ stand in der ›tragédie classique‹ nämlich in massiver Spannung zur normativen Forderung der ›Einheit‹ der Zeit, die das Drama auf eine disziplinierte Zeitökonomie und idealerweise sogar auf die Synchronisierung von dargestellter Zeit und Zeit der Darstellung verpflichtete. Dort, wo Corneille solche Spannungen entweder zu kaschieren oder politisch zu nutzen versuchte, reißt Goethe in Die Natürliche Tochter zwischen Figurenrede und Dramaturgie eine unüberwindbare Kluft und lässt ursprüngliche Funktionen der ›klassischen‹ Zeitökonomie konsequent leerlaufen. Sein Drama betreibt demnach keine restaurative Formpolitik, sondern führt die historische Uneinholbarkeit der ›klassischen‹ Form angesichts zeitgenössischer politischer Entwicklungen vor.The contribution is prompted by the observation that Goethe had deep insight into the temporal and legal problems of the ›tragédie classique,‹ which was fundamental to his work on the ›classical‹ drama. It was most likely the upheaval in the wake of the French Revolution that rendered the ›old‹ form more attractive. This is especially true for Die Natürliche Tochter. The play was, not coincidentally, written at the same time as Goethe’s translations of two of Voltaire’s dramas. Meanwhile, figurations of political foundation and legitimation had already advanced to the centre of ›classical‹ drama in Corneille’s work. The enforced serene presentation of legitimate rule of the ›tragédie classique,‹ with its reference to the continuity of time and age-old ›habits,‹ was in massive tension with the normative demand for the ›unity‹ of time, which committed the drama to a disciplined economy of time – ideally even to a synchronization of time represented and the time of representation. Where Corneille attempted to either conceal or politically exploit such tensions, Goethe in Die Natürliche Tochter forces an insurmountable chasm between dramaturgy and the speech of the characters and consistently allows the original functions of the ›classical‹ economy of time to run dry. Thus, his drama does not pursue a restorative politics of form, but rather demonstrates the historical unassailability of the ›classical‹ form in the face of contemporary political developments. (shrink)

This is a description of an avian-shaped feature that rests below a network of cellular structures found on a mound within the Argyre Basin of Mars in Mars Global Surveyor image M14-02185, acquired on April 30, 2000, and released to the public on April 4, 2001. The area examined is located near 48.0° South, 55.1° West. The formation is approximately 2,400 meters long from the tip of its beak to the tip of its farthest tail feather. There is a minimum (...) of six different variations in appearance of the surface material over this small area. Utilizing the public targeting request form provided on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) website, co-author Miller secured a second image of the area that was obtained on July 3, 2006, showing this feature under different conditions S20-00165. The new image was then released to the public on August 11, 2006. A third image of the formation identified as MGS S13-01480 was acquired on December 15, 2005, and although officially processed on June 20, 2006, it was not made available to the public until August 22, 2009, on NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) website. All three of the MGS images reveal defining aspects of this avian feature, including a head, beak, body, eye, leg, foot, toes, wing, and feathers. When taken together, these components induce the visual impression of an avian-shaped formation that exhibits a unique set of proportional features. Adjoining this formation is a composite of complex cellular features that form a compartmentalized infrastructure. The three authors who are veterinarians provide a critical analysis of the avian features, and the geologist and geoscientist authors examine natural mechanisms that could contribute to the formation of this feature. An extensive search of comparable regions within and beyond the area of the Argyre Basin was conducted. A list of these sites is provided, and terrestrial comparisons are also offered. (shrink)