This paper takes the form of a ‘performative’ dialogue, a recounting of scenes, which alternate, in the mode of a cinematic montage, with academic analysis of the interfaces between boxing, art, and space. In his book Body and Soul: Notebooks on an Apprentice Boxer, sociologist Loïc Wacquant mixes three genres: analytic sociology, depictive ethnography, and short story. He argues that he used this unorthodox methodology ‘to make the reader simultaneously feel and understand how boxers are “gripped” by their craft and (...) viscerally tied to it’. Similarly, in this paper, the overlapping voices of its two authors engage in both performative, creative and intellectual ways with the critiques and social rituals surrounding boxing, ultimately finding that an understanding of boxing as an epistemological encounter gives rise to interesting ways to think through the relationships between art and urban space itself. The paper ranges widely over each author’s personal experience of boxing, analyses of specific artworks both ancient and modern, and an analysis of the psychogeography of urban space, and in particular, Johannesburg. The form of the paper, as it incorporates narrative experience and analytic mode, can be seen as a text that re-enacts the ‘performance’ of boxing and art-making in which the traditional opposition between the two is integrated, if not suspended. (shrink)

The financial market is a highly complex and dynamic system that has great commercial value; thus, many financial elite are drawn to research on the subject. Recent studies show that machine learning methods perform better than traditional statistical ones. In our study, based on the characteristics of financial sequence data, we propose a wrapped ensemble approach using a supervised learning algorithm to predict stock price volatility of China’s stock markets. To check our new approach, we developed an intelligent financial forecast (...) system and used the Hushen 300 index data to test our model; it proves that our model performs better than a single algorithm. We also compared our model with the famous ensemble approach of bagging, and the result shows that our model is better. (shrink)

Although virtual reality, video entertainment, and computer games are dependent on the three-dimensional reproduction of sound, it remains unclear whether 3D-audio formats actually intensify the emotional listening experience. There is currently no valid inventory for the objective measurement of immersive listening experiences resulting from audio playback formats with increasing degrees of immersion. The development of the Immersive Music Experience Inventory could close this gap. An initial item list was derived from studies in virtual reality and spatial audio, supplemented by researcher-developed (...) items and items extracted from historical descriptions. Psychometric evaluation was conducted by an online study. The N = 222 Participants were recruited via mailing lists and via a panel provider. Based on controlled headphone playback, participants listened to four songs/pieces, each in the three formats of mono, stereo, and binaural 3D audio. The latent construct “immersive listening experience” was determined by probabilistic test theory and by means of the many-facet Rasch measurement. As a result, the specified MFRM model showed good model fit. The final one-dimensional inventory consists of 10 items and will be made available in English and German. (shrink)

(2010). A Review of “Zen Wrapped in Karma, Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma”. World Futures: Vol. 66, No. 1, pp. 69-72.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare comes with opportunities but also numerous challenges. A specific challenge that remains underexplored is the lack of clear and distinct definitions of the concepts used in and/or produced by these algorithms, and how their real world meaning is translated into machine language and vice versa, how their output is understood by the end user. This “semantic” black box adds to the “mathematical” black box present in many AI systems in which the underlying (...) “reasoning” process is often opaque. In this way, whereas it is often claimed that the use of AI in medical applications will deliver “objective” information, the true relevance or meaning to the end‐user is frequently obscured. This is highly problematic as AI devices are used not only for diagnostic and decision support by healthcare professionals, but also can be used to deliver information to patients, for example to create visual aids for use in shared decision‐making. This paper provides an examination of the range and extent of this problem and its implications, on the basis of cases from the field of intensive care nephrology. We explore how the problematic terminology used in human communication about the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of concepts of intensive care nephrology becomes a much more complicated affair when deployed in the form of algorithmic automation, with implications extending throughout clinical care, affecting norms and practices long considered fundamental to good clinical care. (shrink)

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, 1482, the priest says that, alas, ‘this will destroy that’, meaning that the book upon which his hand was placed would destroy the building opposite. He is looking out of a window at the immense Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Hugo, 1967, p. 197). If the cathedral is a library to be read by the religious, and if the church is the symbol of authority and the repository of medieval knowledge, then the priest means not (...) only that the book, printing and new literacy would undermine the church’s authority, but that human thought will undermine the church’s expression of its authority (Bolter, 1991). The priest continues: the principal idea of each generation would no longer write itself with the same material and in the same way, that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give place to the book made of paper, yet made more solid and durable. (Hugo, 1967, p. 199; Bolter’s 1991 translation). (shrink)

An examination of the currently fashionable thesis that scientists, and especially biologists in the wake of the Darwinian Revolution, can now solve the problems that traditional philosophers have only talked about. Past philosophers, for example during the Enlightenment, have themselves made use of contemporary, scientific techniques and theories. The present claim may only be another such move, to be welcomed by philosophers who would distinguish themselves from rhetoricians. Others may prefer to stake out the merely human or subjective world as (...) their field, identifying 'truth' with 'what it's better to believe'. Both moderns and postmoderns must abandon the rational realism that actually sustained Enlightenment endeavours, and Darwinian explanation, on its own, must erode traditional ethical values and the meta-ethical assumptions that sustain them. Universal humanism is only one possible project among many - and Darwinian reasonings suggest that it is hypocritical. In this crisis there may after all be a rôle for traditional, Platonizing philosophers, believing that there is a truth, and that we can find it out. Such a theory is actually better able to explain our scientific successes, and our evolutionary past. (shrink)

How do we access the authentic self in order to live fulfilling, meaningful lives? In straightforward terms, The Heart of the Matter: Gifts in Strange Wrapping Paper explains a simple but extraordinarily powerful technique called the See, Feel, Hear Challenge that enables people to easily gain entry into the storehouse of their subconscious core beliefs. In the process, it cracks the coded messages that those beliefs release in the form of disease, suffering, addictions, unhappy relationships, and victimized circumstances. Based (...) in the latest findings in neuroscience and neurocardiology, this book guides readers to an uncomplicated understanding of the astounding power of our emotions and how life automatically delivers experiences that trigger negative reactions that subconsciously impact us. These emotions form the foundation of core beliefs that create unhealthy attitudes and dis-ease patterns that keep us from experiencing the authentic, satisfying lives we desire. Using clear examples and true stories from clients, Dr. Weissman’s latest work demonstrates how we can release these stored emotions and their wisdom via the See, Feel, Hear Challenge. It then explains how to use this simple method to evoke feelings that positively impact the quantum field, remolding our bodies, minds, and everyday lives into purposeful expressions of inner joy and radiant well-being. Whether you’re dealing with addictions, dysfunctional relationships, or illness, or are focused on becoming an Olympic champion, The Heart of the Matter gives you a potent tool for positive change and transformation that you can use for the rest of your life. (shrink)

Do secular sciences provide theology with a neutral description of reality, as raw material for theology to reflect upon? Or, on the other side, can theology be considered a full‐blown social theory? What would a ‘supernatural sociology’ imply and look like? This essay addresses these questions following the insights of John Milbank. This British theologian has challenged mainline modern assumptions with his ‘radical orthodoxy’ project, stirring a fruitful debate not exempt from polemical exchanges. This essay offers a presentation of Milbank's (...) position, followed by a detailed and critical analysis of his views. The author then offers a theological framework within which to reconceive Milbank's proposal, extending some of his own claims regarding Karl Barth, Henri de Lubac, and Clodovis Boff. Finally this essay explores the possibilities, the scope, and some examples of what a ‘supernatural sociology’ might look like. (shrink)

This article employs Umberto Eco’s 2004 novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana as an exemplar of the hypertextuality of Eco’s semiotic theory. Eco’s project illustrates existential semiotics, providing a corrective to Euro Tarasti. For Tarasti signs reveal possibilities for transcendence in the lived world with ‘omnipresent’ meaning in an enunciative dialogue between signs and a semiotic subject. Tarasti’s existential signs are communicative alerts that illuminate a semiotic subject’s journey of transcendence, creating meaning via infusion of signs with signification. This (...) article forgoes Tarasti’s insistence on transcendence. The vitality of existential semiotic signs is displayed through Eco’s hypertextual approach to semiotics manifested in The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Eco’s insights model an existential semiotic, correcting Tarasti’s pragmatically flawed but theoretically significant undertaking. Our rationale for explicating the scope of Tarasti’s work exemplifies an existential disconnect between information accumulation and signification. We present Tarasti’s project due to its fundamental signification for understanding the importance and vitality for existential semiotics. Existential semiotics illuminates the signifying function of communication in the presence of the ineffable. (shrink)

This paper critically engages with the work of John Harris. Its central focus is his 1985 book, The Value of Life: a foundational text in philosophical bioethics, whose relevance and resonance continue firmly to endure. My aim is to examine what it says—and omits to say—about political authority. Through analysis of apparent and substantive contradictions, and of John’s core focus on moral reasons rather than a basic moral theory, I argue that John says too little about the founding of political (...) obligation. This is so even while he sees political obligation as morally required. I argue that the framings he gives in favor of moral requirements to accept political obligations are particularly significant because they indicate problems in the fundamentality and import of the idea of respect for persons as it features in The Value of Life. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors explore the question of whether cognitive enhancement via direct neurostimulation, such as through deep brain stimulation, could be reasonably characterized as a form of transformative experience. This question is inspired by a qualitative study being conducted with people at risk of developing dementia and in intimate relationships with people living with dementia (PLWD). They apply L.A. Paul’s work on transformative experience to the question of cognitive enhancement and explore potential limitations on the kind of claims (...) that can legitimately be made about individual well-being and flourishing, as well as limit the kind of empirical work—including the authors’ own—that can hope to enlighten ethical discourse. In this paper, the authors advance the following theses: (1) it is sometimes reasonable to characterize cognitive enhancement as a transformative experience; (2) the testimonies of people intimately acquainted with dementia may still be relevant to evaluating cognitive enhancement even though cognitive enhancement may be a transformative experience; and (3) qualitative studies may still be useful in the ethical analysis of cognitive enhancement, but special attention may need to be given to how these are conducted and what kind of insights can be drawn from them. (shrink)

#tex2html_wrap_inline114# Easy aspects of state: battery level, memory available, etc. #tex2html_wrap_inline116# Ongoing activities: serving users, driving a car #tex2html_wrap_inline118# Knowledge and lack of knowledge #tex2html_wrap_inline120# purposes, intentions, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes #tex2html_wrap_inline122# Actions it is free to choose among relative to external constraints. That's where free will comes from.

Wrapped in the glow of the computer or phone screen, we cruise websites; we skim and skip. We glance for a brief moment at whatever catches our eye and then move on. Slow Reading in a Hurried Age reminds us of another mode of reading--the kind that requires our full attention and that has as its goal not the mere gathering of information but the deeper understanding that only good books can offer. Slow Reading in a Hurried Age is a (...) practical guide for anyone who yearns for a more meaningful and satisfying reading experience, and who wants to sharpen reading skills and improve concentration. David Mikics, a noted literary scholar, demonstrates exactly how the tried-and-true methods of slow reading can provide a more immersive, fulfilling experience. He begins with fourteen preliminary rules for slow reading and shows us how to apply them. The rules are followed by excursions into key genres, including short stories, novels, poems, plays, and essays. Reading, Mikics says, should not be drudgery, and not mere escape either, but a way to live life at a higher pitch. A good book is a pathway to finding ourselves, by getting lost in the words and works of others. (shrink)

Eukaryotic genome DNA is wrapped around core histones and forms a nucleosome structure. Together with associated proteins and RNAs, these nucleosomes are organized three‐dimensionally in the cell as chromatin. Emerging evidence demonstrates that chromatin consists of rather irregular and variable nucleosome arrangements without the regular fiber structure and that its dynamic behavior plays a critical role in regulating various genome functions. Single‐nucleosome imaging is a promising method to investigate chromatin behavior in living cells. It reveals local chromatin motion, which reflects (...) chromatin organization not observed in chemically fixed cells. The motion data is like a gold mine. Data analyses from many aspects bring us more and more information that contributes to better understanding of genome functions. In this review article, we describe imaging of single‐nucleosomes and their tracked behavior through oblique illumination microscopy. We also discuss applications of this technique, especially in elucidating nucleolar organization in living cells. (shrink)

This autodidactic paper wraps up an earlier epistemic art project and compactly collates the main unfolded scientific and philosophical strategies for epistemic resiliency against epistemic doom in the deepfake era. Retrospectively speaking, the existence of a dense condensate within which explanatory blockchain (EB) based science, EB-based philosophy and EB-based art overlap acts as a pointer to untapped non-algorithmic epistemic resources that could (if ever activated) exhibit the natural tendency to compel the reach of algorithmic computations – noticeably at the "cost" (...) of increasing non-algorithmic self-determination. (shrink)

How should we decide a single employee's accountability in a corporation that commits egregious wrongs? What about a single solider fighting in an unjust war? Or a single participant in a lynching? We need a way to make sense of individual moral accountability in cases where multiple individuals are cooperating in a way that results in a wrongful harm. -/- Authority, Cooperation, and Accountability develops a novel strategy for addressing this issue. Saba Bazargan-Forward makes the case for thinking that distinct (...) aspects of human agency, normally wrapped up in a single person, can be 'distributed' practically across different people. He argues that we 'distribute' agency routinely, by forming promises, by making requests, by issuing demands, and by undertaking shared action. The resulting division of agential labour makes possible a distinctive way in which one person can be accountable for the actions of another. Bazargan-Forward highlights that what matters morally is not just our causal contributions to wrongful cooperative activity. In addition, the purposes we confer upon one another can inculpate us as well. The result is an account that can help us make sense of individual moral accountability in a bureaucratized world. -/- The first half of the book develops a theory of accountability in the context of cooperation. The second half applies this theory to war ethics, criminal law, business ethics, and institutional racism. (shrink)

We may now ask the question: In what historical perspective should we place the work of Richard Goldschmidt? There is no doubt that in the period 1910–1950 Goldschmidt was an important and prolific figure in the history of biology in general, and of genetics in particular. His textbook on physiological genetics, published in 1938, was an amazing compendium of ideas put forward in the previous half-century about how genes influence physiology and development. His earlier studies on the genetic and geographic (...) distribution of the various species and races of Lymantria contributed soundly to an understanding of the inheritance and development of sex, as well as the genetics of speciation. He was a curious mixture of the experimentalist, empiricist, and theorizer, who could grasp both the large and the small at once and wrap them into the same integrated and coherent package.In insisting on trying to relate genetics to development, Goldschmidt was continually forced to speculate and to forsake experimental fact for generalized theory. In refusing to reconcile a physiological and developmental conception with a corpuscular theory of the gene, he forced himself to substitute for a large body of experimentally verified evidence, vague and general speculations which did not lead in any precise direction. L. C. Dunn summarizes succinctly the effect of Goldschmidt's thinking on the development of genetic theory: Although Goldschmidt's ideas had a considerable influence in directing attention to the developmental processes intervening between genes and characters, they did not lead to the establishment of a general theory of development in genetical terms. In fact, at the end of the period, as signalized by Goldschmidt's book of 1938 [Physiological Gentics] doubt remained whether there was a field with a defined problem which could be identified as developmental genetics.Yet the frequency with which Goldschmidt is cited by later writers suggests that there is a more positive side to his contribution than this. The early Mendelians had recognized the genic constitution of organisms and the Drosophila workers had uncovered in detail the chromosomal mechanism of heredity. These great discoveries were of classical character, solidly based on a multitude of well established facts. By themselves, however, they would not have been sufficient to place genetics in the central position within biology which it was to assume. Beyond the “static” analysis of gene transmission an insight was needed into the dynamic role of genes in cellular physiology, biochemistry, and development. Goldschmidt recognized this aspect and outlined in brilliant generalizations a physiological theory of genetics. Necessarily the prophetic nature of this achievement — romantic in the sense of Ostwald's classification of great scientists and their discoveries — transcended its factual basis. It was the audacity of the theoretician unimpeded by the still scanty data which gave a new focus to biological thought.Some have called Goldschmidt an “obstructionist” in the history of genetics—one whose efforts were largely directed toward useless and continual criticism — challenge for the sake of challenge. As this line of argument goes, time wasted answering Goldschmidt's poorly conceived criticisms could have been better used to pursue new lines of thought within the classical gene theory. Sometimes historians are upbraided for studying the work of such “obstructionists,” or even the work of those whose ideas have later proved to be inadequate. This argument misses the point of history and the lessons which it can teach. Perhaps Goldschmidt did take the time of a number of the classical geneticists who tried to answer his objections to the gene theory; and perhaps many of his own ideas about genes were, by today's view, “wrong.” These are always easier judgments to make by hindsight than at the moment. But that is not the point. Goldschmidt had a considerable influence on his contemporaries, and to dismiss him as an obstructionist because his opponents later proved to be more nearly right, distorts history and obscures significant questions which we might well be asking. It might be valuable to know why Goldschmidt felt compelled to be an iconoclast —and how that impulse, psychological in orgin, led him to overlook critical items of evidence which his opponents considered more carefully. It might also be valuable to try and understand how a contemporary of Goldschmidt or. Morgan really viewed the gene theory — what were its strong and weak point? Such questions are not readily answered by studying the work of only those men who were correct by later standards.Answers to some of the above questions can be gleaned from this study of Goldschmidt — though the first, and most psychologically oriented, question is largely untouched here.On the one hand, Goldschmidt forced classical geneticists to reexamine the foundation of their ideas about the nature, inviolability, and even physical dimensions of genes. He also kept alive the very real problems of gene physiology and its relations to development — a relationship that was given less attention by the Drosophila school in their pursuit of the transmission process. On a broader level he emphasized to the biological community a principle that was in danger of being lost in the enthusiasm surrounding the expansion of the Mendelian-chromosome theory. The point was that all theories in science are transient, logical constructs which should not be held as sacred. Time and again, as the history of science has shown, theories become rigid structures which retard new modes of thought. From Goldschmidt's perspective, the gene theory was in danger of performing just that function, for it was preventing workers from viewing the gene in a functional as well as a structural light.On the other hand, examining the work of critics (or even of outright “obstructionists”) gives the historian an opportunity to observe how the more established community of scholars at some point in time reacts to challenges of its cherished ideas. The fact that many workers in his own day (such as Beadle, Luria, Delbruck, Sturtevant, Bridges, and others), as well as most geneticists today, saw Goldschmidt as having been largely “obstructionist” is useful historical (and/or sociological) data. Clearly, as this paper has tried to show, Goldschmidt's ideas were not all obstructionist, and his viewpoint that genes must be considered functionally was one which was clearly valid, premature as it may have been from an experimental and technique point of view. Perhaps Goldschmidt's major fault was that he developed alternative theories which were not easily testable. Nonetheless, his challenge to a fundamental and established idea brought forth a reaction from many members of the genetic community which indicates how unwilling they were to reconsider the formalized theory on which their work was based. While many of Goldschmidt's criticisms — and particularly his way of making them — arose out of his own idiosyncrasies, they were also a product of his times. His view of the nature of theory-construction, and his rejection of old-style reductionism and mechanism, were part of a growing awareness within the world scientific community that explanations based on reducing complex phenomena to ultimate particles or units were clearly inadequate. The success of the Mendelian-chromosome theory had obscured that fact for many geneticists, but to Goldschmidt it was a point that could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. (shrink)

Some people claim that evolution is "just a theory". Do you know what a scientific theory really is? Just a theory is an overview of the modern concepts of science. A clear understanding of the nature of science will enable you to distinguish science from pseudoscience (which illegitimately wraps itself in the mantle of science), and real social issues in science from the caricatures portrayed in postmodernist critiques. Prof. Ben-Ari's style is light (even humorous) and easy to read, bringing the (...) latest concepts of science to the general reader. Of particular interest is his analysis of the terminology of science (fact, law, proof, theory) in relation to the colloquial meaning of these terms. Between chapters are biographical vignettes of scientists — both familiar and unfamiliar — showing their common commitment to the enterprise of science, together with a diversity of backgrounds and personalities. This accessible, informative, and comprehensive work will give lay readers a good grasp of real science. (shrink)

"If" and "then," wrapped around enough content to form at least two propositions that seem to be conditionally assertible together as antecedent and consequent, are, of course, the key denizens of this very deep work. It's a commonplace among philosophers that what so innocently malingers in indicative language as, "If Bennett didn't write this excellent Guide, then someone else did," can rapidly morph by a little fancy into the eyebrow-arching subjunctive/counterfactual, "If Bennett hadn't written this marvelous work, then someone else (...) would have." The hulking literature on the logic and semantics of conditionals is cunning and daunting, and few thinkers on the world stage are equipped to corral and tame the beast as Bennett has. Even given his nontruth-functional stance on indicative conditionals, one might still rightly call Bennett "The Horseshoe Whisperer.". (shrink)

n 1902, 70 million years after it tripped lightly through the Mesozoic forests in search of meat, the skeleton of a 20-foothightyrannosaurus was dynamited out of a sandstone bluff near Hell Creek, Mont. Wrapped in burlap and plaster and shipped back to New York, the bones were painstakingly reassembled by fossil curator Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History. It was there, one day in 1947, that they happened to scare the bejesus out of 5-year-old Stephen Jay Gould. (...) With a mouthful of teeth as big as bananas, the great reptile gaped down at the little mammal who had usurped its place at the head of the food chain and set him scurrying for the safety of his daddy's pant leg. It was a sublime epiphany. Long after Gould could stare with equanimity at the skull of tyrannosaurus, he was left with the essential mystery that still motivates him as perhaps America's foremost writer and thinker on evolution: why should dinosaurs have ended up in human museums instead of—as one among an infinite number of evolutionary possibilities—the other way around? (shrink)

Empathy is an integral aspect of human existence. Without at least a basic ability to access others’ affective life, social interactions would be well-nigh impossible. Yet, recent studies seem to show that the means we have acquired to access others’ emotional life no longer function well in what has become our everyday business – technologically mediated interactions in digital spaces. If this is correct, there are two important questions: (1) What makes empathy for frequent internet users so difficult? and (2) (...) What can we do to alleviate the negative consequences? Correspondingly, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, we identify structural differences between offline and technologically mediated interactions that can explain why digital empathy is harder to achieve. Second, drawing on the literature on ‘situated affectivity,’ we consider the idea of modifying digital spaces in ways specifically designed to ‘scaffold’ empathy where our evolved mechanisms fail. Section 2 argues that empathy is requires _interpreting_ the behavior of _embodied subjects_. Section 3 identifies three factors that are crucial for this interpretative endeavor: the empathizer’s _affective repertoire_, their _perceptual input_, and their _background knowledge_. Section 4 argues that technologically mediated interactions differ from face-to-face interactions with regard to these factors in ways which render our evolved empathy mechanisms less effective in the digital world. Section 5 introduces the idea that situational factors can serve as ‘empathic scaffolds,’ i.e., as ‘tools’ that can ‘shape’ people’s empathic reactions. Section 6 wraps up the main line of reasoning, responds to objections and invites further scholarship. (shrink)

What is called legal pragmatism today is very different from the older style of legal pragmatism traditionally associated with Oliver Wendell Holmes; and there is much that is worthwhile on the conception of the law revealed by reading Holmes's The Path of the Law in the light of the classical pragmatist tradition of Peirce, James, and Dewey. Here, reflections on the varieties of pragmatism - philosophical and legal, old and new - will be wrapped around an exploration of Holmes's legal (...) philosophy and the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments. (shrink)

This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...) their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)

There are many introductions to the animal ethics literature. There aren't many introductions to the practice of doing animal ethics. Bob Fischer's Animal Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction fills that gap, offering an accessible model of how animal ethics can be done today. The book takes up classic issues, such as the ethics of eating meat and experimenting on animals, but tackles them in an empirically informed and nuanced way. It also covers a range of relatively neglected issues in animal ethics, (...) such as the possibility of insect sentience and the ethics of dealing with pests. Finally, the book doesn't assess every current practice using standard ethical theories, but tries to evaluate some of them using the moral frameworks endorsed by those involved. So, for instance, there is a chapter on the way that animal care and use committees try to justify some of the educational uses of animals, and the chapter on zoos considers the way that international zoological societies justify compromising animal welfare. The book wraps up with a discussion of the future of animal ethics. Each chapter opens with a helpful initial overview of the chapter and ends with a list of suggested readings to help students go further on their own. Key Features Covers animal ethics from an empirically informed perspective, bringing philosophy into conversation with key issues in animal science, conservation biology, economics, ethology, and legal studies, among other fields Provides ample coverage of the most salient current topics, including, for example: Debates about which animals are sentient The suffering of wild animals Research ethics The boundaries of activism Avoids suggesting that animal ethics is simply the practice of applying the right general theory to a problem, instead allowing readers to first work out the specific costs and benefits of making ethical decisions Impresses upon the reader the need for her to work out for herself the best way forward with difficult ethical issues, suggesting that progress can indeed be made Includes summaries and recommended readings at the end of each chapter. (shrink)

The following seems to be a truism in modern day philosophy: No agent can have had other parents (IDENTITY). IDENTITY shows up in discussions of moral luck, parenting, gene editing, and population ethics. In this paper, I challenge IDENTITY. I do so by showing that the most plausible arguments that can be made in favor of IDENTITY do not withstand critical scrutiny. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I document the prevalence of IDENTITY. In the second, (...) I examine a defense of IDENTITY on the basis of genetic considerations. In the third, I examine a defense of IDENTITY that I call gamete essentialism. In the fourth, I return to genetic considerations to wrap up the paper. (shrink)

Litotes, “a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary” has had some tough reviews. For Pope and Swift, litotes—stock examples include “no mean feat”, “no small problem”, and “not bad at all”—is “the peculiar talent of Ladies, Whisperers, and Backbiters”; for Orwell, it is a means to affect “an appearance of profundity” that we can deport from English “by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across (...) a not ungreen field.” But such ridicule is not without equivocation, given that litotes, or “logical” double negation, may or may not be semantically redundant. When the negation of a logical contrary yields an unexcluded middle, it contributes to expressive power: someone who is not unhappy may not be happy either, and an occurrence may not be infrequent without being frequent. But if something is not possible, what can it be but possible? Why does Crashaw’s “not impossible she” survive rhetorically while Orwell’s “not unsmall rabbit” is doomed? How is Robbie being “not not friends” with Mary on 7th Heaven distinct from being friends with her, if not not-p reduces to p? The key is recognizing in litotes a corollary of MaxContrary, the tendency for contradictory sentential negation ¬p to strengthen pragmatically to a contrary ©p, as when the formal contradictory Fr. “Il ne faut pas partir” is reinterpreted as expressing a contrary. Just as the Law of Excluded Middle can apply where it “shouldn’t”, resulting in pragmatically presupposed disjunctions between semantic contraries, so that “p v ©p” amounts to an instance of “p v ¬p”, the Law of Double Negation can fail to apply where it “should”. When not not-p conveys ¬©p, the negation of a virtual contrary, the middle between p and not-p is no longer excluded, rendering the Fregean dictum that “Wrapping up a thought in double negation does not alter its truth value” not unproblematic. (shrink)

Pummer : 43–77, 2014) ingeniously wraps together issues from the personal identity literature with issues from the literature on desert. However, I wish to take issue with the main conclusion that he draws, namely, that we need to rethink the following principle: Desert.: When people culpably do very wrong or bad acts, they deserve punishment in the following sense: at least other things being equal they ought to be made worse off, simply in virtue of the fact that they culpably (...) did wrong—even if they have repented, are now virtuous, and punishing them would benefit no one. :43–77, 2014: 43–44) Pummer offers an argument that is intended to show that this principle, along with widely-held views about personal identity, entails an inconsistent triad of propositions. I agree. But I think Pummer's argument attacks a straw man. I believe that no-one holds Desert, at least as it is stated, and that once the principle is stated correctly it is easy to see that no inconsistent triad follows from it. So, Desert does not need rethinking. It just needs to be stated correctly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE PARTY'S OVER (ALMOST): TERMINAL CELEBRATION IN CONTEMPORARY FILM Tony Bartlett Syracuse University Movies are a universal language, and as we approach more and more integrated levels of global economy and communication they increasingly become a universal symbol system. At these levels a modern movie from China orNigeria will display swiftly recognizable sensibilities and situations to any viewer in Europe or the USA, and vice versa. But should we (...) not, therefore, also feel prompted to indicate a universal de-symbolization, if movies along with the modern world reflect constitutive elements of decomposition and collapse. For I would like to suggest in this essay that not only do movies constitute a kind ofplanetary envelope, literally a "film" of collective imaginai references wrapped around the world, but that this "film" is peculiarly apt to dismemberment, to breaking up before our eyes even as it still holds together, to abuilt-in "crisis" that is part ofits very nature. The two films that form a background to these remarks, Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, are, I suggest, movies that set out actively to represent this cinematic crisis. In Adam Smith's The Wealth ofNations (Bk. 2, Vol. 5, 795-97), the grandfather ofmodern capitalism discusses the fate ofthe laborer who leaves arural village in which he is known and his life observed, or "attended to," by others. He moves to a great city where promptly "he is sunk in obscurity and darkness." Smith's concern is not directly to remedy this misery ofthe worker forced to seek employment in the anonymity ofthe city, but to avoid a possible course ofaction he might take. He wishes to divert him from the possibility of joining "a small religious sect," in whose company the newly depersonalized worker will achieve "a degree of consideration which he never had before." 2 Tony Bartlett Adam Smith does not relish the prospect ofthe mushroom growth ofclosed, "unsocial" religious factions within the heart of industrialized political economies, and he proposes two remedies by which the state, "without violence," might correct these tendencies. His proposals are remarkable both for their conjunction ofcertain themes and their prescience. The first is a plan for the imposition of the study of science and philosophy on the middle ranks ofthe poor, for science is "the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." Next to this classic Enlightenment nostrum comes the following: The second ofthose remedies is the frequency and gaiety of publick diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is by giving entire liberty to all those who for their own interest would attempt, without scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, musick, dancing; by all sorts ofdramatic representations and exhibitions, would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse ofpopular superstition and enthusiasm. Publick diversions have always been the object of dread and hatred, to all the fanatical promoters ofthose popular frenzies. Here are the movies before the fact. Adam Smith in his charter for emergent industrial capitalism sketches an alliance between education and entertainment that together will prevent any reversion to the darkness ofsmallscale society and its ready excrescence of religious fanaticism. All of the components of cinema aesthetic are assembled in Smith's prophetic vision: cinematography, script, score, choreography, plot, spectacle. The only thing lacking was the technology to capture them together on film, and with the release ofinventive energies attending division oflabor that would only be a matter of time. Cinema is the born ally ofrational modernity, and is in itself the child of industrial alienation and the need to find a mass aesthetic to substitute for the control exercised by the sacred in a traditionally local setting. But, ofcourse, there are several levels ofirony that are not lost on us here. First, Smith says explicitly that the state has a direct interest in such mass entertainment. What then is the relationship between the much prized freedom ofthe creative artist and the very concrete concern for self-preservation on the part ofthe state? He specifies that the people's entertainment must be without scandal or indecency: what now should be said when political leaders... (shrink)

The third edition of Webster’s International Dictionary, first published in 1961, represented a novel approach to lexicography. It recorded the English language used in everyday life, incorporating colloquial terms that previous grammarians would have considered unfit for any responsible dictionary. Many were scandalized by the new lexicography. Trademark lawyers were not the most prominent of these critics, but the concerns they expressed are significant because they touched on the core structure of the trademark as a form of property in language. (...) In the course of eavesdropping on everyday usage, Merriam-Webster’s lexicographers picked up on the use of trademarks as common nouns: “thermos” as a generic noun for any vacuum flask, “cellophane” as a term for transparent wrapping, and so on. If Webster’s Third were to be taken as sound evidence of the meaning of words, then the danger was that some of the most familiar marks in the USA would be judged “generic” in the legal sense, and would thereby cease to be proprietary. In this article, we explore the implications of this encounter between law and lexicographic technique. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Consenting for Novel and Dangerous Surgical Procedures with Minimal Supporting EvidenceMichelle J. ClarkeFrank1 was a 19–year–old man referred to me after a workup for back pain led to the discovery of a large, aggressive tumor in his sacrum. The tumor wrapped around the nerves controlling bowel, bladder, and leg function. We performed a needle biopsy and learned that the tumor was an angiosarcoma, an extremely aggressive and usually deadly (...) form of cancer. However, the tumor was unique in that it theoretically could be cured if removed in one piece. But, to do so would necessitate sacrificing the nerves, leaving the patient irreversibly incontinent, lacking sexual function, and confined to a wheelchair.Once we knew the diagnosis, Frank came to the office with his family to discuss treatment options. He appeared terrified and was almost silent through the appointment, deferring most questions to his parents. Due to the speed of tumor growth, we discussed palliative therapy, conventional treatment, and the one–piece or “en bloc” surgery, which was new and unproven for his disease. Based on the remarkable tumor growth we noted during the work–up, with palliative treatment the patient would likely survive for less than six months. Conventional treatment, in which surgery is done to remove part of the tumor while sparing the nerves to bowel and bladder function, was known to have a high rate of recurrence and death. Further, this tumor didn’t respond well to radiation and chemotherapy, so chance of survival was limited, although his life might have been extended for a short period. Thus our conversation turned to the novel “en bloc” procedure.The en bloc procedure offered a hope of long–term survival unlike the other options. However, this came with an enormous cost. The surgery itself would be planned to occur over three days with five separate surgical teams and a very real chance of major complications or death. Nerves to bowel and bladder would be cut, irreversibly leaving the patient without sexual function, and completely incontinent with a urinary catheter and colostomy. Walking was expected to be disrupted or potentially impossible due to the nerve resection. We went to great lengths over the course of many visits to describe the impact of the surgery on the patient’s function, and the impact on his quality of life. To make matters more challenging, as this procedure was so new and the tumor so rare, research did not yet exist to quantify his likelihood of long–term survival.Personally I was very uncomfortable with the situation. From a medical standpoint, the surgery offered was the best distillation of research and professional experience. En bloc surgery offered the best—if not the only—chance for survival in [End Page 5] this young man. Additionally, having treated many spine–injured patients I was aware that many patients with similar deficits led happy and productive lives following an emotional and physical adjustment period. However the surgery was also extreme. I worried that we would not be able to accomplish the goal of a one–piece resection and would accidentally spill some of the tumor, creating all of the deficits but no survival benefit. Frankly, I thought there was a 25% chance that would happen, which was explained to the family preoperatively. Were we overreaching our abilities and making a dying patient’s life worse by proceeding?Second, I was uneasy about the social situation. The patient’s family was very supportive, traveling with him to all appointments and assisting with his care. The patient himself usually deferred all scheduling to his mother, which wasn’t entirely unusual for such a young man. However it was difficult to grasp how much the patient understood of his disease or supported the plan. We attempted to delve more deeply into his thoughts, including without his parents present, but got only short answers, which revealed little. While the family appeared to have accepted the diagnosis and wanted to get to the business of treatment, the patient seemed to me to still carry the shock of his recent cancer diagnosis. Pushed by the rapid tumor growth, we were limited in how long we could wait for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Some ObservationsD. J. ConacherIn several ways Trachiniae seems almost a textbook of Sophoclean tragedy, so many elements of plot, theme, and even formal structure does it have in common with one or another (sometimes with several other) of the playwright’s works. The deceptive quality of oracles and prophecies, 1 the equally illusory nature of human happiness, the alternation between the familiar, even the domestic (insofar as Greek (...) tragedy can ever be “domestic”) and “the wild country”—the lonely, unknown, and sometimes feral areas of experience “out there”—, 2 even the curious, “diptych” structure of the play, involving the disappearance of a major tragic figure from the action: 3 all these features, so prominent in Trachiniae, are to be found in various other Sophoclean tragedies. Yet in all cases Sophocles uses what appear to be common features in different combinations and contexts to produce strikingly different tragic effects. It [End Page 21] should not surprise us, then, that Trachiniae, despite all these typically “Sophoclean” elements, 4 should turn out to be, if not the most baffling, at least among the most mysterious of his extant works.The key to the full appreciation and understanding of this tragedy lies, I think, in recognizing precisely how the poet interweaves these different elements of plot and theme to achieve, ultimately, a single tragic effect. Ironically, it is the constant alternation of human fortunes, apparent good fortune arising from ill and vice versa, which supplies the cohesive, “sequential” element to the plot. 5 Two essential thematic elements lie behind this alternation. One is the repeated misunderstanding of oracles and other prophetic utterances; the other is the repeated interaction between the protected, domestic sphere and the mysterious, natural (and sometimes magical) world, which threatens its existence. In the deployment of both these elements, the characterization of Deianira, the central figure though not the ultimate focus of this tragedy, is essential. It is through the gentle Deianira that Heracles is twice brought in contact with the savage “outside world” which leads ultimately to his undoing. Thus (as is usual in Sophocles) are the play’s prophecies fulfilled in unexpected and tragic ways. Thus, too, do the gods fulfill the destinies which they have planned through the unwitting cooperation of their pawns.Deianira sounds, as it were, the keynote of the play with her opening words in the Prologue:There is an ancient saying that one may not know the fate of any man, whether it be good or bad, until that man has died. But I, for my part, know, before I come to Hades’ house, that my lot is both grievous and unfortunate.(1–5) 6 [End Page 22]Deianira’s fear of life has begun (as she tells us in her Prologue account) in her maidenhood, with the courtship of the river-god Achelous. Here the three forms in which her monstrous suitor appears—first as a bull, then as a snake with shimmering coils, finally as a man with brow of ox and beard dripping with river’s springs—provide our introduction to the horrors of the untamed world. Heracles, a properly heroic suitor, appears to rescue her. It is significant, however, that the gentle heroine cannot bring herself to watch the struggle between the hero and Achelous, as she sits wrapped in terror lest her beauty should prove to be her bane (24–25). Thus, though threatened, Deianira remains untouched by—and ignorant of—the dangerous world outside.Deianira’s joy (18) at her rescue by Heracles is short-lived. As Heracles’ wife, and mother of his children, she is in constant fear for her absent husband (“each night dispelling last night’s terror with terror of its own,” 30–31) and these very fears are themselves fresh encounters, at one remove, with the savage world of Heracles’ labours. Her wandering husband, too (“like a tiller of a distant field, who sees it only when he sows and when he reaps,” 32–33), must himself seem like a visitor from a distant clime.The opening choral ode confirms the contrast between the world of the wandering Heracles and that of the waiting Deianira. Only the sun can tell... (shrink)

‘Religion and corporeality’. At first sight, the coordinating conjunction «and» sounds rather odd here because in the vision of many people spirituality and materiality necessarily exclude each other. Still, many scholars have offered abundant evidence that Christianity is a religion of embodiment. Yet, as will become clear from the works of the theologians Erik Peterson and André Guindon, the turn toward the body within Christianity is primarily a turn toward a clothed body. This may explain why the Italian philosopher Giorgio (...) Agamben has argued that our culture, which is heavily influenced by Christian theology, is characterized by the impossibility of nakedness. In his view, we should try to think a possible nakedness of man by liberating it, piece by piece, from the theological fabric which is wrapped around it. The question that I want to raise here is whether such a naked nudity is really a human option. Drawing on Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and introducing the notion of corporeal vulnerability, I will argue that it is not. (shrink)

This chapter begins with an examination of Dretske's important article “Conclusive Reasons.” Dretske's key move is to offer a subjunctive analysis of his notion of a conclusive reason: “R is a conclusive reason for P if and only if R would not be the case unless P were the case.” It seems, however, that a counterexample produced by Martin shows that while this biconditional holds left to right, it does not hold right to left. Dretske uses his analysis conclusive reasons (...) to deny the principle of epistemic closure under known implication. He then uses this result in a response to skepticism. Reasons are given for rejecting his argument against epistemic closure. Nozick offers essentially the same subjunctive analysis that Dretske did, wrapped in possible‐world semantics. It is rejected on similar grounds. (shrink)

The classical is defined by Gadamer, following and adapting Hegel, as “self-significant” and “self-interpretive”. By its power of interpreting itself, the classic reaches into the present and addresses it. In so doing, the classical precedes, encompasses and anticipates latter-day interpretations within its own already-in-progress self-interpretation: “the classical preserves itself precisely because it is significant in itself and interprets itself; that is, it speaks in such a way that it is not a statement about what is past — documentary evidence that (...) still needs to be interpreted — rather, it says something to the present as if it were said specifically to it”. This suggests specifically how the hermeneutic theory of the classic finds in the instance of the Commedia as classic, with its highlighting of the address to the reader, an exceptionally acute and self-conscious instantiation. Moreover, Dante has purposefully woven an ideal of the poetic classic as resistant to time together with his model of Christian salvation and resurrected life in the cantos of Purgatory recounting his meeting with the first-century Roman poet, Statius. Statius’ remark that “poet” is “the name that most endures and honors” (“il nome che più dura e che più onora” — XXI. 85) gestures towards a trans-historical value in literature parallel to the eternal truth of the word of the gospel. This parallelism achieves lapidary form when Statius gives credit for his discovery of enduring, preserving, saving value in both the literary and the religious domains at once to that greatest of classical authors, in Dante’s view, Virgil, to whom he says: “Per te poeta fui, per te cristiano” (“Through you I became poet, through you Christian”). Purgatorio XXI-XXII intimates that poiesis is fundamentally a way through which humans may participate in immortality. Though immortality is certainly a gift from the transcendent Lord of life, it does not come as an object wrapped up neatly for humans in a package. It comes, or rather is given, through their own making, through an active involvement with what transforms them in their own activity of self-transcendence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviews PASSION AND PARADOX L G Religious Studies / McMaster U. Hamilton, , Canada   @. Joan Cocks. Passion and Paradox: Intellectuals Confront the National Question. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U. P., . Pp. . .; pb .. ccording to an ancient legend, four Rabbis ventured into the garden of Aphilosophy. One, it is said, went insane, another became a heretic, a third died and only the (...) fourth emerged unscathed. A modern variation of this story might go like this. Four or perhaps  philosophers entered the jungle of nationalism and for the most part went insane. There were those who embraced nationalism and consequently abandoned the universality of philosophy for the promotion of xenophobia, racism and even Nazism. Others remained internationalist and hence became futile—philosophical Canutes—commanding the raging beasts of nationality to be still. No one struggled harder with nationalism than Bertrand Russell. In , writing as an internationalist, he announced the demise of the principle of nationality only to see nationalisms explode in every region of the world (see his “National Independence and Internationalism”, Papers ). He opposed it relentlessly and without compromise until near the end of his life when he found himself endorsing wars of national liberation. Nationalism is often depicted as a howling beast. It would be better to think of it as an anaconda that wraps itself around everyone who ventures into its domain. Joan Cocks’ Passion and Paradox is an important book on nationalism and the intelligentsia. She traces the intellectual encounter with nationalism of a number of figures—Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Isaiah Berlin and the Scottish nationalist Tom Nairn, among others. All are exiles, most are Jews, and all try to hack their way through a jungle of conundrums of nationalist thought. Her accounts of these thinkers sometimes read like complex legal briefs, but are always illuminating. Though an internationalist, she sees the power of nationalist imperatives. Her approach to the contradictory strains of nationalism and hostility to nationalism echoes that of Hegel. She presents critical but sympathetic accounts of each side of the nationalist problematic and shows how their difficulties might be resolved in a higher synthesis. Alas! her resolution suffers from the unworldliness that she finds in other versions of internationalism. Her argument begins with a personal experience. In the early ’s she joined a group of Arabs and Jews against the Gulf War. In the course of their associ- Reviews  ation she learned that the Jews were all internationalists, while the Arabs were outspoken nationalists. This experience presumably demonstrated that a happy collusion of nationalism and internationalism was possible. But, of course, there was another side: those prosecuting the war she opposed were also nationalists. Her central thesis addresses the tragedy of opposition. It states that nationalism is “dilemmatic”, that is, that “all paths of thought obscured equally telling contrary thoughts; all courses of action were strewn with causes for regret and remorse” (p. ). The horns of the dilemma are the valid claims of the internationalist who sees the underlying self-destructive deep structures of nationalism on one side, and the claims of the national particularistic who is engaged in the compelling theatre of national liberation and the protection of local customs and roots on the other. Her book is an account of how her thinkers are framed by this dilemma, locked in by the imperatives of either side. In the period between the Gulf War and the composition of this book in  Cocks was able to observe what she identifies as the destructive logic of nationalism. The ’s were a period of postmodernist celebration of the local, a sensibility that helped to legitimate nationalism. The explosion of nationalism that followed the breakup of the Communist imperium was a time of liberation of the imprisoned nations—a springtime when it was good to be alive. But as the decade wore on the concealed pit bulls came out—in Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and elsewhere. In Cocks’ view nationalism showed an inner logic, of a sort that Russell called attention to in the early ’s—a logic that led from euphoria to self-destruction (see his Prospects). Her aim is to revive the half-remembered internationalist tradition as formulated by Marx and Luxemburg—but also to show... (shrink)

The first section of this issue brings together four essays on “surfaces” – a subject matter which might seem conspicuous or, indeed, palpable enough. Just think of the sheets of paper, window panes, and haptic interfaces surrounding you: the world, evidently, is diffused with surfaces, membranes, and boundaries of all sorts. Some of these things have been salient, for obvious reasons in fields such as media studies, or implicit in notions such as “boundary object”: the retina, photographic plates, basilar membranes, (...) the skin, or various forms of “displays” immediately come to mind. Not even mentioning their immense metaphoricity, surfaces are the entities that make things visible, inscribable, or knowable. But not all of them have been so salient. In fact, most surface-phenomena arguably – and, typically, for similarly obvious reasons – haven't received much scholarly notice at all: plastic wraps, lacquers, lubricants, coatings, silicon wavers, cell membranes, glass, plant leaves, the ozone layer. (shrink)

In this paper I critically examine recent developments in intellectual property law. In particular, from a point of view informed primarily by Marx and Foucault, I study (a) the rhetoric surrounding the Metallica lawsuit against Napster; (b) a pair of conflicting trademark cases surrounding the ownership of a word on the Internet; and (c) the software industry's move to win approval for “shrink-wrap” or “click here” licenses. I conclude that these developments indicate a new form of disciplinary power, where people (...) are individuated ex ante as consumers. Despite the celebrations of market cyberlibertarians, this move actually masks an increase in overt state power as the state apparatus is invoked to force individuals to agree to behave as disciplined consumers and accede to the system in the first place. (shrink)

McGraw-Hill Primis custom course pack. (Bundled with the course pack will be an Enrollment Code that you'll eventually need. Don't buy a course pack unless it is shrink-wrapped, thus including the code.) CPS remote clicker device — here's what it looks like . You may need to talk with a bookstore employee to find out where they have the remote devices, assuming information is not posted with the course packs. (NOTE: The bookstore is also selling the..