This book is a philosopher's examination of the dispute, which raged amongst cognitive psychologists in the 1970s, and has continued to sputter on since, about the nature of mental imagery. As Tye sees things (and, indeed, as the textbooks generally have it) on the one side of the issue we find Stephen Kosslyn and certain close associates, arguing that mental images are best understood on analogy with pictures; and on the other side we find Zenon Pylyshyn, ably seconded by Geoffrey (...) Hinton, arguing that the pictorial analogy is thoroughly misleading, and should be replaced by an analogy to descriptions. Tye's consideration of this debate, attempting to clarify and arbitrate a tangled mess of argument and to explore the implications of what he takes to be the proper outcome, is generally excellent. If you want to understand the strengths of the arguments of Kosslyn, Pylyshyn, and their allies, then this book is to be recommended very warmly. (shrink)

During the past decade some of the most provocative and controversial disputes concerning the philosophy and history of science have centered about the work of Thomas Kuhn and Sir Karl Popper. One, therefore, looks with anticipation to this volume which is based on a symposium held in July, 1965 where Kuhn, Popper and several of Popper's former students met for an intellectual confrontation. But the result is depressing. The volume is an editorial mess. Two of the main scheduled (...) speakers never appeared at the symposium, although papers by them are published here. Some of the remarks published here seem to be those spoken on the day the symposium was held while others, like Kuhn's answer to his critics, were written four years after the symposium. The result is a confusing and distracting editorial unevenness. While Kuhn's fair-minded opening paper raises some of the most important issues to be confronted, one quickly senses that the Popperians are not really very much interested in discussing Kuhn's work but rather in pushing their own pet theses. Kuhn puts this rather generously when he labels it an example of "talking-through-each-other." Most of the Popperians seem to be obsessed with Kuhn's understanding of normal science and neglect the much more interesting questions concerning his views on scientific revolutions, the sense in which science does and does not make progress, the criteria involved in adjudicating among competing theories. It is almost with relief that one reads Margaret Masterman's remark that it is a "crashingly obvious fact" that there is normal science. Ironically, Masterman's article which is basically sympathetic to Kuhn's work is the most illuminating and the most critical. More successfully than any of other contributors she shows the ambiguities involved in Kuhn's idea of a paradigm. One's wishes that the Popperians would take a good hard look at themselves and what they are doing as it is so disastrously illustrated here. Although ostensibly dedicated to serious critical rationalism, they seem more eager to score points than to understand what they are criticizing. Although they supposedly abhor clubiness, they are rapidly forming themselves into a scholastic circle where the object seems to be to show how brilliant or how stupid some other student of Popper is. Although they scorn the quest for origins, they are almost compulsive in attempting to show that anything worthwhile was previously said by Sir Karl. This book illustrates the faults of the Popperians at their worst and few of their virtues. There is much heat and wit, but little light.--R. J. B. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 253 Sonja Thomas The Women’s Wall in Kerala, India, and Brahmanical Patriarchy On January 1, 2019, a human chain of women, between three and five million strong and 385 miles long, gathered to protest the barring of menstruating women from entering Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, India. The so-called Women’s Wall received widespread news coverage; in the United (...) States, NPR, the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times all had stories on it. Debra Messing, Kerry Washington, and Rose McGowan tweeted about it. As a scholar of caste, gender, and religion in Kerala, India, I watched the news and international attention with a good deal of interest and a bit of unease about how the intersections of casteism and patriarchy (brahmanical patriarchy) were glossed over in the reporting. The issues surrounding the Women’s Wall reveal the ways in which certain groups invest in the protection of brahmanical patriarchal power; a power that is reflected in political tensions between the Kerala state and the Indian central government that may come to a head in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Casteism and religious divides in Kerala are rarely discussed in depth because Kerala is largely seen as a progressive state, with a 94 percent literacy rate. Other development indicators also point to the assumption that Kerala is exceptional: low infant mortality rates, low maternal mortality rates, low fertility rates, and a population where there are more women than men. Kerala is seen as secular because there is a large number of both Christian and Muslim religious minorities. In 1957, 254 News and Views Kerala made history by democratically electing a communist government and initiating a set of far-reaching (although not all-encompassing) land distribution policies. The state is seen as transgender friendly with a transgender beauty pageant and support for trans surgery. The “feminist ” Women’s Wall protest fits in quite neatly within the dominant narrative that Kerala is exceptional, progressive, and thus a model for other Indian states and for countries in the Global South to follow. However, even as “progressive” Kerala is celebrated today, it is not clear that women in the state are necessarily as empowered as commonly believed. The state has some of the highest rates of violent crime in the nation and violence against women is widespread.1 Kerala’s suicide rates are two times the national average, and Kerala leads all other states in India in the number of family murder/suicides.2 Women are vastly underrepresented in politics.3 Although women are educated, the female workforce participation rate is one of the lowest in India.4 There is evidence to suggest that educated, nonworking women are using their education toward securing a better marriage match rather than for employment or empowerment.5 Kerala has a history of extremely repressive caste practices. This area of India once not only practiced untouchability, but what is known as “distance pollution.” A Dalit (the most oppressed caste in the caste hierarchy) was not allowed within sixty feet of a Brahmin (the most privileged caste), and the mere shadow of a Dalit falling upon a dominant-caste person could result in a Dalit’s death.6 Dalit Bahujans were prohibited 1. See Swapna Mukhopadhyay, ed., The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007). 2. Jocelyn Lim Chua, In Pursuit of the Good Life: Aspiration and Suicide in Globalizing South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 3. J. Devika and Binitha V. Thampi, New Lamps for Old? Gender Paradoxes of Political Decentralisation in Kerala (New Delhi: Zubaan: 2012). 4. Praveena Kodoth and Mridul Eapen, “Looking Beyond Gender Parity: Gender Inequities of Some Dimensions of Well-Being in Kerala,” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 30 (2005): 3278. 5. Sonja Thomas, “Education as Empowerment? Gender and the Human Right to Education in Postcolonial India,” in Human Rights in Postcolonial India, ed. Om Prakash Dwivedi and V. G. Julie Rajan (New York: Routledge, 2016), 82; Ritty A. Lukose, Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 104. 6... (shrink)

What today divides analytical from Continental philosophy? This paper argues that the present divide is not what it once was. Today, the divide concerns the styles in which philosophers deal with intellectual problems: solving them, pressing them, resolving them, or dissolving them. Using ‘the boundary problem’, or ‘the democratic paradox’, as an example, we argue for two theses. First, the difference between most analytical and most Continental philosophers today is that Continental philosophers find intelligible two styles of dealing with problems (...) that most analytical philosophers find unintelligible: pressing them and resolving them. Second, when it comes to a genuine divide in which not understanding the other side’s basic philosophical purposes combines with disagreement on fundamental questions of doctrine, the only such divide today is that between those analytical philosophers who tend to solve problems and those Continental philosophers who tend to press problems. It is among these subgroups that there is a real philosophical divide today. So the analytical–Continental divide is more a matter of style than of substance; but as we try to show, differences in style shape differences over substance. (shrink)

Drawing on aspects of Foucauldian feminist theory Thomas Hardy, Femininity and Dissent offers original and detailed readings of six critically under-valued novels: Desperate Remedies, A Pair of Blue Eyes, The Hand of Ethelberta, A Laodicean, Two on a Tower and The Well-Beloved, demonstrating Hardy's peculiarly modern appreciation of how individuals negotiate the forces which shape their sense of self. Tracing his interest in the evolutionary debate and the woman question this book reveals a new politically engaged rather than a (...) grimly pessimistic Hardy. (shrink)

Countless academic books have been written about how to interpret literary texts. From reader response criticism to Marxist hermeneutics and beyond, the scholarship on interpretive methods is vast. Yet all these books fail to address a more fundamental question: Why should we read in the first place? Or, to put it another way, why is reading an important thing to do? In order to answer these questions, Thomas J. Millay turns to the wisdom of Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard. In (...) this the first book to be written on Kierkegaard's philosophy of reading, Millay finds that reading does have a specific purpose: it is supposed to change your life. With lucid, nontechnical prose, Millay both establishes the definitive interpretation of Kierkegaard's philosophy of reading and explores the various concrete practices Kierkegaard recommended for its implementation"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Experiencing mixed emotions, a combination of two oppositely-valenced emotions, has been shown to reduce bias in decision making and improve the accuracy of judgements made. However, most previous...

The temporal orientations of any sociocultural grouping are major factors comprising its central identity. The manner in which the past (memories), the present (perception), and the future (anticipation/expectation) are commonly articulated also concern cultural identity. The identity of a cultural group is altered by developmental changes in time keeping and related objective, scientific temporalities.Three modes of temporality, objective, narrative, and transcendental, congruent with different kinds of brain processes, are common throughout our planet. Objective temporality tends to alter and replace traditional (...) narrative and transcendental (spiritual) time, timing, and tempos. Objective temporality is concerned with what is transitory, modern and “progressive”. Objective time is not a traditional form of cultural time; it is a derived Westernized scientific imposition, rather than any cultural formation. This essay develops a new conception of how semiosis occurs. All information is essentially rhythmic, transduced through sensory systems as signals in a space-time domain, but deposited for use into a spectral thermodynamic domain in the human cortex.A “chronemic” perspective, (temporality as it is based in semiotic processes related to human communication) is assumed throughout. Such a perspective appears to be somewhat novel in both communication and semiotic studies. (shrink)

The Abased Christ is the first monograph to be devoted exclusively to Søren Kierkegaard’s Christological masterpiece, Practice in Christianity. Alongside an argument for a new translation of the work’s title, it offers detailed textual commentary on a series of themes in Practice in Christianity, such as the person of Christ, contemporaneity, imitation, and Kierkegaard’s philosophy of history. Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Practice in Christianity, presents to his readers a uniquely challenging understanding of who Christ is and what it means (...) to follow him. The Christ of Anti-Climacus is not the glorious Christ who abides with the Father in heaven, but the abased Christ who is poor, marginal, offensive, and persecuted. Throughout Practice in Christianity, we are called not only to perceive the abased Christ, but to follow after him. The Abased Christ aims to enrich historical theologians’ appreciation of Kierkegaard’s Christology. However, it concludes by grappling with questions of power, agency, and sacrifice which have been at the forefront of contemporary theology in the 20th and 21st centuries, thereby suggesting how we might make sense of Kierkegaard’s Christology today. (shrink)

Labeling theory as ideology and as science: Scheff, T. J. Schizophrenia as ideology. Scheff, T. J. On reason and sanity. Scheff, T. J. The labeling theory of mental illness. Greenley, J. R. Alternate views of the psychiatrist's role. Temerlin, M. K. Suggestion effects in psychiatric diagnosis. Rosenhan, D. L. On being sane in insane places.--Changing the system: Scheff, T. J. Labeling, emotion, and individual change. Schatzman, M. Paranoia or persecution: the case of Schreber. Sidel, R. Mental diseases in China and (...) their treatment. Obeysekere, G. The idiom of demonic possession. (shrink)

We assess the current state of sociology of religion, particularly in the United States, for the extent to which a “critical sociology of religion” currently exists and how it might look if it did. We focus particular attention on two areas of inquiry: religion and health; and religion and violence.

High quality images sell products. Here's how you do it. From cereal boxes to billboards to photos on Amazon, product photos have a strong impact on viewers. Now you can master the secrets of effective product photography with this essential guide. Author J. Dennis Thomas guides you through the basics, from selecting the right equipment and practicing different lighting techniques to controlling exposure, using backgrounds and props, and much more. Whether it's jewelry, food, fashion, or other products, learn how (...) to photograph for effective selling, while building the skills and tools you need for a career. Explains how to produce quality photos for product or commercial photography, including fashion, food, jewelry, technology, and more The author is a professional photographer whose work has been published in major U.S. magazines including Rolling Stone, Elle, W Magazine, and US Weekly Covers choosing the right equipment, practicing different lighting techniques, controlling exposure, using backgrounds and props, and more Gives new and even experienced photographers the tools they need to build careers in product photography Take photographs that impress, intrigue, dazzle, and sell with The Art and Style of Product Photography. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan's ambitious study of human knowledge, based on his theory of consciousness, is among the major achievements of twentieth-century philosophy. He challenges the principles of contemporary intellectual culture by finding norms and standards not in external perceptions or reified concepts, but in the dynamism of consciousness itself. _Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence_ explores the implications of Lonergan's approach to the philosophy of history in a number of distinct but related contexts, covering a variety of intellectual disciplines. Each (...) chapter can be read independently, but the series of chapters provides a coherent unfolding of Lonergan's case that the norms of inquiry endure as a standard of human thought and action amid continuous changes and fluctuations in politics, morals, religion, science, and scholarship. The book explains how Lonergan's idea of development follows from his theory of consciousness and how his treatment of human development inevitably focuses on historical development. The central theme of the book is that Lonergan's philosophy of history makes a pronounced distinction between historicity and historicism. McPartland relates Lonergan's work to existentialist themes and, in the last chapters, to the work of Eric Voegelin. The book addresses the existentialist themes of dread, suffering, guilt, shame, and _resentiment_—within overall themes of history, philosophy, and religion. McPartland argues that Lonergan's unique perspective on scientific method, epistemology, metaphysics, and critical theory can illuminate what seem to be the quite alien topics of reason as religious experience, the anxiety of existence, the existential roots of bias, and mythopoesis and mystery. Here there is a remarkable parallel to the philosophy of history of Eric Voegelin. The concluding chapters of the book show how the equivalence of the two philosophies offers a mutually enriching dialogue between Lonergan's critical realism and Voegelin's existential exegesis. (shrink)

The potential negative impacts of biological pest control on non-target species have become the focus of a contentious debate. In this article, we use examples from both classical and augmentative biological control of fruit fly pests in Hawaii to address several important factors in assessing non-target risks of fruit fly parasitoids. Several fruit fly parasitoids have been introduced to Hawaii and contribute substantially to the reduction of pest populations in the state's farms and forests. However, an historical lack of host-specificity (...) testing of these parasitoids with non-target species has raised concerns about their impact on non-pest fruit flies, including some flies deliberately introduced for biological control of weeds and others that are endemic Hawaiian species. When developing protocols to assess risks of introduced fruit fly parasitoids, we need first to define an appropriate range of species against which host specificity should be tested. For assessing susceptibility of a non-target species to parasitoids, behavioral tests are as important as suitability tests. Experimental factors, such as host-exposure substrate, absence or presence of preferred hosts, and laboratory vs. natural conditions, are shown to affect the results of host-specificity tests and risk analysis. Still, assessing long-term, indirect ecological impacts of parasitoids and weighing potential risks and benefits in multiple dimensions (besides dollar values) remains a challenge to environmentalists, conservationists, applied ecologists, and biocontrol practitioners. (shrink)

Religion for a Secular Age provides a transnational history of modern Ved nta through a comparative study of two of its most important exponents, Friedrich Max Muller (1823 1900) and Swami Vivekananda (1863 1902). This book explains why Ved nta's appeal spanned the ostensibly very different contexts of colonial India and Victorian Britain and America, and how this ancient form of thought was translated by Muller and Vivekananda into a modern form of philosophy or religion. These religiously-committed men attempted to (...) reconcile religion with modernity by appealing to Advaita (literally, 'non-dualistic') Ved nta's monistic interpretation of reality. The 'scientific' study of religion allegedly demonstrated the evolutionary superiority of Ved nta and the possibility of religion's survival in 'the light of modern science'. They believed Ved nta could also provide the religious basis for moral engagement in this world, even as the hold of orthodox Christianity and traditional Hinduism appeared to be weakening. Ved nta thus served as a way of articulating a form of religion suitable for a secular age religion which has embraced modern forms of thought while breaking away from creeds, scriptures and institutions to thrive in the spheres of public debate of London, Calcutta and New York.". (shrink)

Chloride channels are probably found in every cell, from bacteria to mammals. Their physiological tasks range from cell volume regulation to stabilization of the membrane potential, signal transduction, transepithelial transport and acidification of intracellular organelles. These different functions require the presence of many distinct chloride channels, which are differentially expressed and regulated by various stimuli. These include various intracellular messengers (like calcium and cyclic AMP), pH, extracellular ligands and transmembrane voltage. Three major structural classes of chloride channels are known to (...) date, but there may be others not yet identified. After an overview of the general functions of chloride channels, this review will focus on these cloned chloride channels: the CLC chloride channel family, which includes voltage‐gated chloride channels, and the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR), which performs other functions in addition to being a chloride channel. Finally, a short section deals with GABA and glycine receptors. Diseases resulting from chloride channel defects will be specially emphasized, together with the somewhat limited information about how these proteins work at the molecular level. (shrink)

The 21st Century Cures Act is a major act of legislation that contains numerous changes to drug and device regulation. The House of Representatives passed the Act after considerable interest group lobbying, but the bill and the key changes made during its drafting remain controversial. Using publicly disclosed records of written comments on the bill, we reviewed the key areas of lobbying activity and the compromises made in the final text. We focused on legislative provisions relating to management of the (...) National Institutes of Health, incentives for medical product development, and approval standards for new drugs and devices. By the end of the first comment period, the Committee received 118 comments. Most respondents were patient organizations, professional societies, and pharmaceutical and device companies. Overall, the majority of public comments were positive, although public health and consumer organizations were underrepresented in the number of submitted comments. As the legislative process continued, the draft bill underwent several changes relating to NIH funding, market exclusivity provisions, and scrutiny of regulatory evidentiary standards. Understanding the key statutory provisions and how they have evolved could help patients, researchers, and advocates make more informed comments on the bill and future health care legislation. (shrink)

Researches over many years have examined whether levonorgestrel emergency contraception has a postfertilization effect. In a recent article in the Catholic Health Association’s journal Health Progress, Sandra Reznik, MD, asserts that “levonorgestrel acts to prevent pregnancy before, and only before, fertilization occurs.” A companion article by Ron Hamel, PhD, argues for the moral certainty that Plan B is not an abortifacient. Reznik fails to address the principal model supporting a potential postfertil­ization mechanism of action, specifically, that preovulatory administration of levonorgestrel (...) disrupts the delicate ratio of estrogen and progesterone essential to healthy endometrial development and induces the equivalent of luteal phase insufficiency, thereby jeopardizing implantation. Hamel’s argument for moral certitude is similarly inadequate. This article critically reviews both articles and the sources on which they rely. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 : 741–772. (shrink)

Students of culture have been increasingly concerned with the ways in which cultural values are 'inscribed' on the body. These essays go beyond this passive construal of the body to a position in which embodiment is understood as the existential condition of cultural life. From this standpoint embodiment is reducible neither to representations of the body, to the body as an objectification of power, to the body as a physical entity or biological organism, nor to the body as an inalienable (...) centre of individual consciousness. This more sensate and dynamic view is applied by the contributors to a variety of topics, including the expression of emotion, the experience of pain, ritual healing, dietary customs, and political violence. Their purpose is to contribute to a phenomenological theory of culture and self - an anthropology that is not merely about the body, but from the body. (shrink)

Uptalk is the use of a rising, questioning intonation when making a statement, which has become quite prevalent in contemporary American speech. Women tend to use uptalk more frequently than men do, though the reasons behind this difference are contested. I use the popular game show Jeopardy! to study variation in the use of uptalk among the contestants’ responses, and argue that uptalk is a key way in which gender is constructed through interaction. While overall, Jeopardy! contestants use uptalk 37 (...) percent of the time, there is much variation in the use of uptalk. The typical purveyor of uptalk is white, young, and female. Men use uptalk more when surrounded by women contestants, and when correcting a woman contestant after she makes an incorrect response. Success on the show produces different results for men and women. The more successful a man is, the less likely he is to use uptalk; the more successful a woman is, the more likely she is to use uptalk. (shrink)