It is facile and factually incorrect to represent suicide terrorists as simply seeking mass destruction, as demented or believing that they will be rewarded by "seventy-two virgins in paradise". In my book The Myth of the Closed Mind: Understanding How and Why People are Rational I felt it was important to deal with the issue of terrorism by consulting explanatory theories of human behaviour and the substantial research on the strategic pattern of terrorist incidents over the decades, led principally (...) by Professor Robert Pape of Chicago University. -/- To defeat your enemy, you must first understand him. Strangely, we must first grant that, though morally depraved, terrorists are rational: they concoct and execute detailed plans with definite strategic goals in mind. Only once we have granted the terrorist a rational mind can we, in the end, create peace. My argument is that while religion may have a small role in terrorism, it is principally politics, or the logic of territorial control, that is the key to understanding the threat we face. -/- This extract from my book is principally about Al Qaeda, but a similar analysis applies to ISIS, the current greatest threat to our peace in the west. -/- The strategic goal of Al Qaeda was simply to repulse what they saw as foreign intervention. ISIS has the same goal, but in order to continue its growth as a state in the sense of a monopoly of coercion over a given geographical area. -/- ISIS, a rogue state that arose in ungoverned space created unintentionally by foreign intervention in Iraq, is now lashing out at foreign governments that have severely shrunk the territory ISIS occupies. Before October 2015, ISIS confined its terrorism to the goal of extending its territory in Iraq and Syria, and there were no significant ISIS-led or inspired suicide terrorist attacks outside Iraq and Syria. But now, as their territory collapses, they are attacking the countries that have strangled their control of territory in Iraq and Syria: the coalition of western governments – Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, the U.S.A. and others – exactly the countries that have recently seen an explosion of suicide terrorism. (shrink)

Physiologically accurate mouse models of cancer are critical in the pre‐clinical development of novel cancer therapies. However, current standardized animal‐housing temperatures elicit chronic cold‐associated stress in mice, which is further increased in the presence of tumor. This cold‐stress significantly impacts experimental outcomes. Data from our lab and others suggest standard housing fundamentally alters murine physiology, and this can produce altered immune baselines in tumor and other disease models. Researchers may thus underestimate the efficacy of therapies that are benefitted by immune (...) responses. A potential mediator, norepinephrine, also underlies stress pathways common in mice and humans. Therefore, research into mechanisms connecting cold‐stress and norepinephrine signaling with immune depression in mice could highlight new combination therapies for humans to simultaneously target stress while stimulating anti‐tumor immunity. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments may be a robust framework for the measurement, management and development of wellbeing. While the original PERMA framework made great headway in the past decade, its empirical and theoretical limitations were recently identified and critiqued. In response, Seligman clarified the value of PERMA as a framework for and not a theory of wellbeing and called for further research to expand the construct. To expand the framework (...) into organizational contexts, recent meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews showed that physical health, mindset, physical work environments and economic security could be seen as essential contextually relevant building blocks for work-related wellbeing and are therefore prime candidates to expand the PERMA framework for use within organizational contexts. Through expanding the original PERMA framework with these four factors, a new holistic approach to work-related wellbeing and work performance was born: the PERMA+4. As such, the purpose of this brief perspective paper is to provide a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance which extends beyond the predominant componential thinking of the discipline. Specifically, we aim to do so by providing: a brief historical overview of the development of PERMA as a theory for wellbeing, a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as a holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance, empirical evidence supporting the usefulness of PERMA+4, and charting a course for the second wave of positive organizational psychological research. (shrink)

Given immunity’s general role in the organism’s economy—both in terms of its internal environment as well as mediating its external relations—immune theory has expanded its traditional formulation of preserving individual autonomy to one that includes accounting for nutritional processes and symbiotic relationships that require immune tolerance. When such a full ecological alignment is adopted, the immune system becomes the mediator of both defensive and assimilative environmental intercourse, where a balance of immune rejection and tolerance governs the complex interactions of the (...) organism’s ecological relationships. Accordingly, immunology, which historically had affiliated with the biology of individuals, now becomes a science concerned with the biology of communities. With this translocation, the ontological basis of the organism is undergoing a profound change. Indeed, the recent recognition of the ubiquity of symbiosis has challenged the traditional notions of biological individuality and requires a shift in the metaphysics undergirding biology, in which a philosophy of the organism must be characterized by ecological dialectics “all-the-way-down.”. (shrink)

In this book, Scott Soames illuminates the notion of truth and the role it plays in our ordinary thought as well as in our logical, philosophical, and scientific theories. Soames aims to integrate and deepen the most significant insights on truth from a variety of sources. He powerfully brings together the best technical work and the most important philosophical reflection on truth and shows how each can illuminate the other. Investigating such questions as whether we need a truth predicate (...) at all, what theoretical tasks it allows us to accomplish, and how we are to understand the content of any predicate capable of accomplishing these tasks, Soames organizes his discussion into three parts. Part I addresses crucial foundational issues as it identifies the bearers of truth, provides a basis for distinguishing truth from other notions, and formulates positive responses to well-known forms of truth-skepticism. Part II explicates the formal theories of Alfred Tarski and Saul Kripke and evaluates the philosophical significance of their work. It discusses their treatments of the Liar paradox, the relationship between truth and proof, the notion of a partially defined predicate, the concepts of logical truth and logical consequence, and the connection between truth and meaning. Part III extends important lessons drawn from Tarski and Kripke into new domains: vague predicates, the Sorites paradox, and the development of a larger, deflationary perspective on truth. Throughout the book, Soames examines a wide range of deflationary theories of truth, and attempts to separate what is correct and worth preserving in them from what is not. In doing so, he seeks to clear up many of the most significant philosophical doubts about truth. Written for a general audience while offering engaging material to the specialist, this rich study will be profitably read by both. (shrink)

This essay explores the universal cognitive bases of biological taxonomy and taxonomic inference using cross-cultural experimental work with urbanized Americans and forest-dwelling Maya Indians. A universal, essentialist appreciation of generic species appears as the causal foundation for the taxonomic arrangement of biodiversity, and for inference about the distribution of causally-related properties that underlie biodiversity. Universal folkbiological taxonomy is domain-specific: its structure does not spontaneously or invariably arise in other cognitive domains, like substances, artifacts or persons. It is plausibly an innately-determined (...) evolutionary adaptation to relevant and recurrent aspects of ancestral hominid environments, such as the need to recognize, locate, react to, and profit from many ambient species. Folkbiological concepts are special players in cultural evolution, whose native stability attaches to more variable and difficult-to-learn representational forms, thus enhancing the latter's prospects for regularity and recurrence in transmission within and across cultures. This includes knowledge that cumulatively enriches (folk expertise), overrides (religious belief) or otherwise transcends (science) the commonsense ontology prescribed by folkbiology. Finally, the studies summarized here indicate that results gathered from “standard populations” in regard to biological categorization and reasoning more often than not fail to generalize in straightforward ways to humanity at large. This suggests the need for much more serious attention to cross-cultural research on basic cognitive processes. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic put a large burden on many healthcare systems, causing fears about resource scarcity and triage. Several COVID-19 guidelines included age as an explicit factor and practices of both triage and ‘anticipatory triage’ likely limited access to hospital care for elderly patients, especially those in care homes. To ensure the legitimacy of triage guidelines, which affect the public, it is important to engage the public’s moral intuitions. Our study aimed to explore general public views in the UK on (...) the role of age, and related factors like frailty and quality of life, in triage during the COVID-19 pandemic. We held online deliberative workshops with members of the general public. Participants were guided through a deliberative process to maximise eliciting informed and considered preferences. Participants generally accepted the need for triage but strongly rejected ‘fair innings’ and ‘life projects’ principles as justifications for age-based allocation. They were also wary of the ‘maximise life-years’ principle, preferring to maximise the number of lives rather than life years saved. Although they did not arrive at a unified recommendation of one principle, a concern for three core principles and values eventually emerged: equality, efficiency and vulnerability. While these remain difficult to fully respect at once, they captured a considered, multifaceted consensus: utilitarian considerations of efficiency should be tempered with a concern for equality and vulnerability. This ‘triad’ of ethical principles may be a useful structure to guide ethical deliberation as societies negotiate the conflicting ethical demands of triage. (shrink)

Complex technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) can cause harm, raising the question of who is liable for the harm caused. Research has identified multiple liability gaps (i.e., unsatisfactory outcomes when applying existing liability rules) in legal frameworks. In this paper, the concepts of shared responsibilities and fiduciary duties are explored as avenues to address liability gaps. The development, deployment and use of complex technologies are not clearly distinguishable stages, as often suggested, but are processes of cooperation and co-creation. At (...) the intersections of these stages, shared responsibilities and fiduciary duties of multiple actors can be observed. Although none of the actors have complete control or a complete overview, many actors have some control or influence, and, therefore, responsibilities based on fault, prevention or benefit. Shared responsibilities and fiduciary duties can turn liability gaps into liability overlaps. These concepts could be implemented in tort and contract law by amending existing law (e.g., by assuming that all stakeholders are liable unless they can prove they did not owe a duty of care) and by creating more room for partial liability reflecting partial responsibilities (e.g., a responsibility to signal or identify an issue without a corresponding responsibility to solve that issue). This approach better aligns legal liabilities with responsibilities, increases legal certainty, and increases cooperation and understanding between actors, improving the quality and safety of technologies. However, it may not solve all liability gaps, may have chilling effects on innovation, and may require further detailing through case law. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

In Algorithms & Autonomy, Rubel, Castro, and Pham (hereafter RCP), argue that the concept of autonomy is especially central to understanding important moral problems about algorithms. In particular, autonomy plays a role in analyzing the version of social contract theory that they endorse. I argue that although RCP are largely correct in their diagnosis of what is wrong with the algorithms they consider, those diagnoses can be appropriated by moral theories RCP see as in competition with their autonomy based theory. (...) Most notably, proponents of consequentialism and virtue ethics can appropriate RCPs insights. This is good news because RCP’s social contract theory is vulnerable to a well known class of counterexamples. The most significant contribution of RCP, if I am right, is in their identification, presentation, and evaluation of concrete cases involving algorithms and not in the more controversial claims about theoretical ethics that RCP themselves see as central to what they are doing. (shrink)

This book addresses the challenges of living together after empire in many post-colonial cities. It is organized in two sections. The first section focuses on efforts by people of multiple faiths to live together within their contexts, including such efforts within a neighborhood in urban Manchester; the array of attempts at creating multi-faith spaces for worship across the globe; and initiatives to commemorate divisive conflict together in Northern Ireland. The second section utilizes particular postcolonial methods to illuminate pressing issues within (...) specific contexts—including women’s leadership in an indigenous denomination in the variegated African landscape, and baptism and discipleship among Dalit communities in India. In the context of growing multiculturalism in the West, this volume offers a postcolonial theological resource, challenging the epistemologies in the Western academy. (shrink)

Subjects enrolled in studies testing high risk interventions for incurable or progressive brain diseases may be vulnerable to deficiencies in informed consent, such as the therapeutic misconception. However, the definition and measurement of the therapeutic misconception is a subject of continuing debate. Our qualitative pilot study of persons enrolled in a phase I trial of gene transfer for Parkinson disease suggests potential avenues for both measuring and preventing the therapeutic misconception. Building on earlier literature on the topic, we developed and (...) tested an interview guide that focuses on how the subjects decided to participate, emphasizing the integration of subjects’ various statements that are relevant to assessing the therapeutic misconception, rather than evaluating them as isolated statements. The results indicate that a subject’s understanding of the purpose of research is best explored in juxtaposition to the subject’s motivation for participating. (shrink)

Despite the 1970s middle-class feminist dream that women could have it all—families characterized by equitable distributions of household labor and interesting careers—the decades since have told a different story. In the U.S. context of a neoliberal labor market and privatized systems of family care, mothers still struggle to negotiate the conflicting demands of family and employment, particularly when caring for children with disabilities. Though an extensive literature examines labor market participation for mothers of children with disabilities, few scholars have examined (...) the emotional impact of their altered career plans. Drawing from a sample of 40 single- and two-parent families, the author examines mothers’ accounts of care for children with disabilities, focusing on their emotional experiences of their changed employment trajectories. (shrink)

May God may be understood and referred to as a “person”? This is a live debate in contemporary theological and philosophical circles. However, despite the attention this debate has received, the vital question of how to account for God’s trinitarian nature has been mostly overlooked. Due to trinitarian concerns about the unqualified use of “person” as an analogy for the Godhead, I intervene in this debate with a two-fold proposal. The first is that proponents of using a person as an (...) analogy for the Godhead will be better served by using a psychologically informed analogy of a “self” instead. In particular, the Dialogical Self model of a person holds much promise. In what follows, I argue that the “Dialogical Self Analogy” for the Godhead is more likely to uphold God’s trinitarian nature, avoid trinitarian confusion and related problems than “person” analogies do. The primary benefit of speaking of God as a Dialogical Self is that it offers a psychologically modelled analogy for God, whilst avoiding the language of person, yet strongly taking into account God’s trinitarian nature. This has the important benefit of preserving the concept and language of “person” for the trinitarian persons, and hence avoiding the linguistic, conceptual and ecumenical confusion that arises when referring to the Godhead as a person. The strength of using the model and language of a Dialogical Self as an analogy for the Godhead is demonstrated by showing its compatibility with Erickson’s criteria for describing the Trinity. (shrink)

This paper replies to Fred Ablondi’s discussion of Descartes’s treatment of madness in the Meditations. Against Ablondi’s interpretation that Descartes never seriously takes on board the skeptical hypothesis that he might be mad, because to do so would be for him to undermine the logical thought processes required to realize his agenda in the Meditations, I contend that Descartes does employ madness as a skeptical device, by assimilating its skeptical essentials into the dream argument. I maintain that while Descartes does (...) not use madness to undermine logical processes, he does adduce other considerations that reveal him to be prepared to see those processes undermined. On the question why Descartes abandons madness in the Meditations, I argue that, despite its attractiveness as a skeptical device, the madness hypothesis involves methodological shortcomings that render it unfit for service in the doubt. (shrink)

Suicide attack is the most virulent and horrifying form of terrorism in the world today. The mere rumor of an impending suicide attack can throw thousands of people into panic. This occurred during a Shi‘a procession in Iraq in late August 2005, causing hundreds of deaths. Although suicide attacks account for a minority of all terrorist acts, they are responsible for a majority of all terrorism-related casualties, and the rate of attacks is rising rapidly across the globe. During 2000–2004, there (...) were 472 suicide attacks in 22 countries, killing more than 7,000 and wounding tens of thousands. Most have been carried out by Islamist groups claiming religious motivation, also known as jihadis. Rand Corp. vice president and terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has found that 80 percent of suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after the September 11 attacks, with jihadis representing 31 of the 35 responsible groups. More suicide attacks occurred in 2004 than in any previous year, and 2005 has proven even more deadly, with attacks in Iraq alone averaging more than one per day, according to data gathered by the U.S. military. The July 2005 London and Sinai bombings, a second round of bombings at tourist destinations in Bali in October, coordinated hotel bombings in Jordan in November, the arrival of suicide bombings in Bangladesh in December, a record year of attacks in Afghanistan, and daily bombings in Iraq have spurred renewed interest in suicide terrorism, with recent analyses stressing the strategic logic, organizational structure, and rational calculation involved. Whereas they once primarily consisted of organized campaigns by militarily weak forces aiming to end the perceived occupation of their homeland, as argued by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, suicide attacks today serve as banner actions for a thoroughly modern, global diaspora inspired by religion and claiming the role of vanguard for a massive, media-driven transnational political awakening. Living mostly in the diaspora and undeterred by the threat of retaliation against original home populations, jihadis, who are frequently middle-class, secularly well educated, but often “born-again” radical Islamists, including converts from Christianity, embrace apocalyptic visions for humanity's violent salvation. In Muslim countries and across western Europe, bright and idealistic Muslim youth, even more than the marginalized and dispossessed, internalize the jihadi story, illustrated on satellite television and the Internet with the ubiquitous images of social injustice and political repression with which much of the Muslim world's bulging immigrant and youth populations intimately identifies. From the suburbs of Paris to the jungles of Indonesia, I have interviewed culturally uprooted and politically restless youth who echo a stunningly simplified and decontextualized message of martyrdom for the sake of global jihad as life's noblest cause. They are increasingly as willing and even eager to die as they are to kill. The policy implications of this change in the motivation, organization, and calculation of suicide terrorism may be as novel as hitherto neglected. Many analysts continue to claim that jihadism caters to the destitute and depraved, the craven and criminal, or those who “hate freedom.” Politicians and pundits have asserted that jihadism is nihilistic and immoral, with no real program or humanity. Yet, jihadism is none of these things. Do we really understand the causes of today's suicide terrorism? Do suicide attacks stem mainly from a political cause, such as military occupation? Do they need a strong organization, such as Al Qaeda? What else could be done to turn the rising tide of martyrdom? (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to illustrate how Ebrahim Moosa's method of “contrapuntal reading” can be applied fruitfully to the Sunni hadith literature. My case study is the set of penalties (hudud) for illicit sex, which include flogging, stoning, and banishment. I propose a fresh reading of these sacred texts that brings to the fore the ethical dimension of Prophet Muhammad's conduct, especially his strong reluctance to apply these measures. I conclude by identifying four ethical problems that the stoning (...) penalty raises and suggest how the hadith literature can be read to argue against the validity of this specific punishment. (shrink)

In the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli claims that writers who are afraid to condemn Caesar instead criticize Catiline. I argue that Machiavelli follows this advice by inverting it. He openly condemns Caesar and the empire he founded while signaling that he has in mind another inimical example: the Church. He signals his intention by echoing Cicero’s fourth Catilinarian oration, imitating Cicero’s image of the ruin of Rome if Catiline’s conspiracy were to succeed through his own vision of the Italy wrought (...) by wicked Roman emperors who succeeded Caesar. The reader of Machiavelli who recognizes this echo is in a position to see Machiavelli’s own Catilinarian oration against another successor of Caesar. In making my argument, I draw on Rex Stem’s treatment of the functions of exemplementarity as employed by authors of texts and as received by their readers. (shrink)

The Ostrogothic king Theoderic I (a.d.475–526) drew on his experience of ruling post-imperial Italy when he famously remarked that ‘The poor Roman imitates the Goth and the rich Goth imitates the Roman’. Written well after the fall of the western Roman empire, these words have prefaced many discussions of the process of Roman and barbarian assimilation and mutual acculturation. This topic has long captured the imagination of scholars, who have approached the topic from many different angles, such as archaeology, religion, (...) prosopography and literature. (shrink)

Within the last decade a new crop of theories of probabilistic causality has taken root. While these theories differ from each other in small ways, the basic principles underlying them are the same. These common principles form what I call the received view of probabilistic causality. ;In the first four chapters of the dissertation I examine and criticize the work of three proponents of the received view: Nancy Cartwright, Ellery Eells, and Paul Humphreys. Due to a number of epistemic and (...) pragmatic problems that each of these theories face, I argue that they are inadequate theories of probabilistic causality. ;In chapter six I examine the minimal set of principles that underlie these three theories--the received view of probabilistic causality. I show that the received view is an inadequate basis for a theory of probabilistic causality. The central problem for the received view is due to the interpretation of probability that the received view adopts--a physical-propensity interpretation of the probability calculus. I show that there are four problems with using the propensity interpretation of probability in a theory of probabilistic causality. I also argue that a theory of probabilistic causality should use relative frequencies in place of propensities. ;In the final chapter of the dissertation, I sketch an epistemic theory of probabilistic causality that has a number of advantages over the received view. First, the epistemic theory takes seriously and responds to the epistemic and pragmatic problems raised against Cartwright, Eells, and Humphreys' theories of probabilistic causality. Second, the epistemic theory adopts a relative frequency interpretation of probability and avoids the problems associated with using a propensity interpretation of probability. Finally, the epistemic theory provides an account of how we can make justified inferences regarding causal relations. ;I support my theory with examples from contemporary medical science. In particular, I provide a detailed historical examination of the attempt by medical scientists to determine whether Helicobacter pylori is a causal factor for various forms of gastric illness. (shrink)

This Handbook re-examines the concept of early modern history in a European and global context. Volume I addresses social and cultural identity, examining structural factors such as climate, printing and the revolution in information, economic developments, and religion, including chapters on Orthodoxy, Judaism and Islam.

Hospitals and businesses regularly utilize the services of ethics consultants—experts who help resolve ethical problems/dilemmas, provide guidance concerning ethical issues, and assist in the development of policies designed to increase the likelihood that ethically difficult or challenging situations that arise in the future will be resolved satisfactorily. Surprisingly, universities do not employ ethics consultants. In this essay, I will explore the idea of university ethics consultants.

Descartes is typically interpreted as asserting two related theses: 1) that the will is absolutely free in the sense that no bodily state can compel it or restrain its activity; and 2) that error is always avoidable, no matter what the condition of the body. On the basis of Descartes’s discussions of insanity and dreaming, I argue that both of these interpretive claims are false. In other words, Descartes acknowledged that a diseased or otherwise out of sorts body can compel (...) the will to affirm obscure and confused perceptions. After marshalling textual evidence for this conclusion, I go on to show how Descartes’s acknowledgment of physically induced impaired judgment can be squared with his unqualified assertions of free will, his commitment to the non-deceptiveness of God, and his epistemology. (shrink)

I describe several historical cases of engineers or inventors obsessed with perfecting their products, illustrating how in some of those cases the perfectionist impulse led to tremendously valuable innovation, while in others to disaster, or at least to failure of the project to make the mark in history it otherwise could have. The psychological tendency towards perfecting an instrument for achieving some telos beyond what is pragmatically necessary or even desirable was diagnosed by Adam Smith, and may always be a (...) source of mixed blessings. (shrink)

In the middle of the twentieth century a dispute erupted between the chief architect of Logical Empiricism, Rudolf Carnap, and Logical Empiricism’s chief reformer, Willard van Orman Quine -- who was attempting to save what he took to be its main insights by recasting them in a more acceptable form. Though both eschewed metaphysics of the traditional apriori sort, and both were intent on making the investigation of science the center of philosophy, they disagreed about how to do so. Part (...) of the disagreement involved the nature of ontological disputes. The central documents in the debate are: (i) Quine’s 1948 article, “On What There Is,” which tells us how to discern ontological.. (shrink)

Photomontage, the combining of two or more negatives, can be traced back to the 1850s. Scott Mutter is a modern master of the art. His subtle images have enthralled viewers in exhibitions and galleries, mainly in the Midwest, for a decade. "The response has been overwhelming," curator Martin Krause commented of an exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. "I've had people calling me on the telephone telling me what a great show this is. That happens so rarely. For (...) whatever reason, Scott's work is connecting with people." In the past year his work has attracted attention nationwide, and his posters are now available in galleries from coast to coast. Richly and immediately accessible, yet deeply resonant, Mutter's photomontages provoke strong responses: curiosity, awe, laughter, and then contemplation. They are creative fusions of elements that draw us irresistibly to look again at what first appears unbelievable. Boundaries dissolve miraculously; the impossible becomes seductively tangible. But the logic of his images is exact, reasoned - in his own term, "surrational." Although his work shares the recursive wit of Rene Magritte and M. C. Escher, Mutter never relies simply upon ironic effects. With precision and authority his art explores the ideals and mythologies of our culture, history, language, and art, both lamenting and celebrating contemporary civilization. "From the very beginning," states Mutter, "I tried to make images that people would find accessible and exciting. Art is no idle thing; people want to see something and be held in wonder." In short, he is a master at turning a glance into a gaze. In his foreword Martin Krause reviews the hundred-year history of photomontage and examines Mutter's unparalleled influence within that tradition. (shrink)

WilliamsThe disagreement between William Hasker and myself includes discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian theology, the relevance of Conciliar Trinitarianism for evaluating models of the Trinity, and the defensibility of my Latin Social model of the Trinity. I respond to Hasker’s recent objections regarding all three areas. I contest Hasker’s interpretation of Gregory and argue that Gregory is indeed a “one-power” theorist. I make historical connections between Gregory’s Trinitarian theology and Pope Agatho’s “one-power” statements that were endorsed by the Sixth (...) Ecumenical Council (680-681ce); and I make explicit the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s interest in the general issue of how “ousia” and “hypostasis” pertain to the Trinity and the Incarnation. Lastly, I defend and develop the Latin Social model in response to Hasker’s five objections. In light of my findings in the Sixth Council, I retire the name “Latin Social Trinity” for my model and replace it with a name more apt for my model, that is, the “Conciliar Social Trinity.”. (shrink)

There is a section in Samuel Delany’s magnificent autobiographical meditation, The Motion of Light in Water, that dramatically raises the problem of writing the history of difference, the history, that is, of the designation of “other,” of the attribution of characteristics that distinguish categories of people from some presumed norm.1 Delany recounts his reaction to his first visit to the St. Marks bathhouse in 1963. He remembers standing on the threshold of a “gym-sized room” dimly lit by blue bulbs. The (...) room was full of people, some standing, the rest an undulating mass of naked, male bodies, spread wall to wall. My first response was a kind of heart-thudding astonishment very close to fear. I have written of a space at certain libidinal saturation before. That was not what frightened me. It was rather that the saturation was not only kinesthetic but visible.2Watching the scene establishes for Delany a “fact that flew in the face” of the prevailing representation of homosexuals in the 1950s as “isolated perverts,” as subjects “gone awry.” The “apprehension of massed bodies” gave him a “sense of political power”:what this experience said was that there was a population—not of individual homosexuals … not of hundreds, not of thousands, but rather of millions of gay men, and that history had, actively and already, created for us whole galleries of institutions, good and bad, to accommodate our sex. [M, p. 174] 2. Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965 , p. 173; hereafter abbreviated M. Joan W. Scott is professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She is the author, most recently, of Gender and the Politics of History and is currently at work on a history of feminist claims for political rights in France during the period 1789-1945 as a way of exploring arguments about equality and difference. (shrink)

I argue that a well-known argument concerning moral luck supports something like the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), despite the attacks on PAP by Harry Frankfurt and John Martin Fischer.

The focus of this research paper concerns the dialogue between science and theology. The current state of the dialogue involves a wide range of points of intersection that both pose and provoke questions concerning the very viability and coherence of such a dialogue. In particular, this paper examines the physicist/theologian, Robert John Russell's 'Creative Mutual Interaction' (CMI). The significance of the CMI diagram is that it names the basic interactions between science and theology and theology and science. These interactions are (...) presented as pathways, 8 in all, 5 of which flow from science to theology and 3 of which flow from theology to science. These pathways integrate a number of philosophical assumptions. These pathways can make scientists, theologians, and philosophers more aware of the philosophical assumptions at work between both theology and science. Russell, in his CMI, provides 8 paths to this interaction; 5 pathways where science informs theology and 3 by which theology informs science. In this thesis, I examine a test case of Russell's where he interacts the concepts of cosmology, eschatology, and bodily resurrection as it applies to Jesus Christ in New Testament Studies. (shrink)