The vivid, dramatic images of distant stars and galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope have come to define how we visualize the cosmos. In their immediacy and vibrancy, photographs from the Hubble show what future generations of space travelers might see should they venture beyond our solar system. But their brilliant hues and precise details are not simply products of the telescope's unprecedented orbital location and technologically advanced optical system. Rather, they result from a series of deliberate decisions made (...) by the astronomers who convert raw data from the Hubble into spectacular pictures by assigning colors, adjusting contrast, and actively composing the images, balancing the desire for an aesthetically pleasing representation with the need for a scientifically valid one. In Picturing the Cosmos, Elizabeth A. Kessler examines the Hubble's deep space images, highlighting the remarkable resemblance they bear to nineteenth-century paintings and photographs of the American West and their invocation of the visual language of the sublime. Drawing on art history and the history of science, as well as interviews with astronomers who work on the Hubble Heritage Project, Kessler traces the ways that the sublime, with its inherent tension between reason and imagination, not only forms the appearance of the images, but also operates on other levels. The sublime informs the dual expression—numeric and pictorial—of digital data and underpins the relevance of the frontier for a new era of exploration performed by our instruments rather than our bodies. Through their engagement with the sublime the Hubble images are a complex act of translation that encourages an experience of the universe as simultaneously beyond humanity's grasp and within the reach of our knowledge. Strikingly illustrated with full-color images, this book reveals the scientific, aesthetic, and cultural significance of the Hubble pictures, offering a nuanced understanding of how they shape our ideas—and dreams—about the cosmos and our places within it. (shrink)

The socioeconomic and ethnic characteristics of parents are some of the most important correlates of adverse health outcomes in childhood. However, the relationships between ethnic, economic, and behavioral factors and the health outcomes responsible for this pervasive finding have not been specified in child health epidemiology. The general objective of this paper is to propose a theoretical approach to the study of maternal behaviors and child health in diverse ethnic and socioeconomic environments. The specific aims are: (a) to describe a (...) causal pathway between the utility that women obtain through work outside the home and through child care and disease hazard rates in childhood using an optimization model; (b) to specify the influence of ethnic and socioeconomic factors on model constraints; (c) to use the model as a tool to learn about how different combinations of maternal wage labor and child care time might influence child health outcomes in diverse social contexts; (d) to identify parameters that will require measurement in future research; (e) to discuss research strategies that will enable us to obtain these measurements; and (f) to discuss the implications of the model for biostatistical modeling and public health intervention. Optimization models are powerful heuristic tools for understanding how ethnic, environmental, family, and personal characteristics can place important constraints on both the quality and quantity of care that women can provide to their children. They provide a quantitative appreciation for the difficult trade-offs that most women face between working in order to purchase basic goods that children cannot do without (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, health insurance), and increasing offspring well-being through child care (e.g., training in social skills, affection, protection from environmental hazards, help with homework). (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organised around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor's culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in (...) the face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor's desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce sketches "a nest of three arguments for the Reality of God" in his article "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God." I provide careful analysis and explication of Peirce's argument, along with consideration of some objections. I argue that there are significant differences between Peirce's neglected argument and the traditional arguments for God's existence; Peirce's analysis of the neglected argument into three arguments is misleading; there are two distinct levels of argument that Peirce does not recognize; (...) and it is doubtful whether the argument meets all the criteria set by Peirce himself. (shrink)

This article offers insight into the image of women in German conservative congregations, especially in the Brethren movement. It also describes the author’s personal journey to a position of strongly supporting female preaching and female leadership in churches. The article combines empirical facts and personal insights. It gives examples of androcentrism in German academic theology. The case study is on the Brethren movement in Germany and their teaching on women, which was very much influenced by certain Pauline texts from the (...) New Testament. Unfortunately, ‘women’s role in the church’ became the shibboleth for biblical correctness. While living and working in this context, the author discovered inconsistencies in practice, which finally led to this paradigm shift. Contribution: It is argued that if women are not allowed to participate publicly in the church services, it is like driving a car with four cylinders but turning off two cylinders. (shrink)

Admiration is thought to have essential functions for social interaction: it inspires us to learn from excellent models, to become better people, and to praise others and create social bonds. In intergroup relations, admiration for other groups leads to greater intergroup contact, cooperation, and help. Given these implications, it is surprising that admiration has only been researched by a handful of authors. In this article we review the literature, focusing on the definition of admiration, links to related emotions, measurement, antecedents, (...) and associated behaviors. We propose a conceptual model of admiration that highlights admiration’s function for approaching and emulating successful models, thus contributing to social learning at the interpersonal level and to cultural transmission at the group and societal level. (shrink)

_Fifty Key Thinkers on Religion_ is an accessible guide to the most important and widely studied theorists on religion of the last 300 years. Arranged chronologically, the book explores the lives, works and ideas of key writers across a truly interdisciplinary range, from sociologists to psychologists. Thinkers covered include: Friedrich Nietzsche James Frazer Sigmund Freud Emile Durkheim Ludwig Wittgenstein Mary Douglas Talal Asad Søren Kierkegaard Providing an indispensable one volume map of our understanding of religion in the west, the book (...) is fully cross-referenced throughout and provides authoritative guides to important primary and secondary texts for students wishing to take their studies further. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate two links between beauty and leadership: What is beautiful about spiritual leadership? Why should spiritual leaders bother about beauty? This study was motivated by the Bible verse 1 Timothy 3:1 and the observation that, at least in the German context, church leadership is no longer seen as a beautiful task. After a preliminary note on theological aesthetics, the paper discusses several approaches towards the link between aesthetics and transformation of the world, among (...) them God becoming beautiful by Rudolf Bohren and Christianity, art and transformation by John de Gruchy. The article finally argues that: spiritual leaders are beautifying the church and beyond and spiritual leaders should strive for beauty as diligently as they strive for truth and goodness. Statement is drawn from the propositions that the spirit is the real leader of the church, church leaders are partaking in the work of the spirit and the spirit is beautifying the church and beyond. This is a theological statement, not a phenomenological one. A small poll provides some answers to the questions: ‘what is beautiful about leading?’ and ‘what is not beautiful about leading?’ An example of a German kindergarten illustrates some benefits of an aesthetical approach.Contribution: This article focuses on the neglected area of aesthetics in the context of leadership. It aims to encourage Christian leaders to fight against the ugliness of the world and make the world more beautiful. (shrink)

Iconoclasts? Who, Us? A Reply to Dolinko Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-7 DOI 10.1007/s11572-012-9143-3 Authors Larry Alexander, San Diego, CA, USA Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Camden, NJ, USA Journal Criminal Law and Philosophy Online ISSN 1871-9805 Print ISSN 1871-9791.

References to mirrors were frequent in medieval texts both theological and literary, and their meanings have been abundantly studied, especially recently. Medieval writers were primarily inspired by St. Paul's famous metaphor in his First Letter to the Corinthians 13.12–13: “Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. My knowledge now is partial; then it will be whole, like God's knowledge of me. In a word, there are three things that last forever: (...) faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love.” Mirrors were also likened to art in many texts; and so they have functioned mightily in investigations of visuality. To cite just one medieval text among many, on Mallorca in 1276, Inghetto Contardo defended pictures against a Jew's alleged attack by asserting that “the holy mother Church sets images out as a kind of mirror, so that seeing them with corporal eyes they see them with the eyes of the mind.” The claim here was that physical images, made possible by Christ's incarnation, were available to human senses and could be formed into a complete picture when they were assimilated with a memory of God's true nature. Hildegard of Bingen had already summed up the idea succinctly: “That [faith] Adam had when he saw with bodily eyes the invisible light of God … but after his disobedience, neither Adam nor any other man could have this vision; for that reason, the faithful can gaze at God only with the interior vision of the soul, in the mirror of faith, and trust to be able to be saved with him who can do all things.” Inghetto was also assimilating the ancient trope to new theories of vision being promulgated at the time by Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, and Witelo and in such popular works as Peter of Limoges's Tractatus moralis de oculo, a preacher's manual composed exactly at the time of the Mallorca debate and very widely circulated afterward. In these, the site of seeing was literally a mirror, namely, the “crystalline humor” where God's light, located in the anterior part of the brain, is unified with rays from the eyes into a double vision. (shrink)

The justice of criminal punishment depends in part on the possibility of holding people accountable for their choices. There is a wide variation between nations on the age at which juveniles can be prosecuted in adult criminal courts. This variation reflects disagreement about the underlying logic of responsibility. This paper examines the philosophical difference between adults and children as agents. The paper argues that the moral status of children is importantly distinct from adults, specifically with respect to how responsibility should (...) be mitigated. The paper explains this in terms of the developmental aspect of childhood. By considering empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience we can understand the mistakes that juveniles make as a form of developmental impairment. The paper shows why these findings lead to the conclusion that the practice of trying children as adults is immoral and should be eliminated. (shrink)

This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

This volume presents readings in philosophy from around the world and across history, from the Buddha to bell hooks, organized around traditional Anglo-European philosophical themes such as freedom and the existence of God. An introductory section discusses the nature of philosophy and gives advice on reading philosophical texts, and introductions to selections provide background and questions for thought.

Aus dem Inhalt: I. Maclean, Introduction M.J. B. Allen, In principio: Marsilio Ficino on the Life of Text D. Perler, Diskussionen uber mentale Sprache im 16. Jahrhundert E. Kessler, Die verborgene Gegenwart und Funktion des Nominalismus in der Renaissance-Philosophie: das Problem der Universalien A. De Pace, Copernicus against a Rhetorical Approach to the Beauty of the Universe. The Influence of the Phaedo on the De revolutionibus H. Mikkeli, Art and Nature in the Renaissance Commentaries and Textbooks on Aristotle's Physics (...) U. Langer, The Ring of Gyges in Plato, Cicero, and Lorenzo Valla: The Moral Force of Fictional Examples I. Maclean, Legal fictions and fictional entities in Renaissance jurisprudence M.-L. Demonet, Les etres de raison, ou les modes d'etre de la litterature M.L. Bianchi, Signs, Signaturae and Natursprache in Paracelsus and Bohme N. G. Siraisi, Disease and symptom as problematic concepts in Renaissance medicine J. Rohls, Schrift, Wort und Sache in der fruhen protestantischen Theologie C. Lohr, Possibility and Reality in Suarez's Disputationes metaphysicae Weitere Beitrage von: B. Vickers, C. Leijenhorst, M. Friedrich. (shrink)

Papers from a conference held Oct. 8-12, 1989, in the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbèuttel.

This paper discusses a series of important methodological issues in developing targeted health-related quality of life measures in studies of the effects of medical interventions. Such measures cannot be developed unless the evaluator understands the life domains that medical interventions affect. Qualitative discovery methods are needed to obtain this understanding. Once domains are targeted for measurement, careful and systematic laboratory pilot work should be used to select initial scale items. Psychometric evaluation of response patterns in subsequent field tests is needed (...) to assess the measures. Less concern should be directed to internal consistency reliability of scales in the psychometric evaluation and more to the ability of short scales to reproduce total scale variance and to provide precise measurement within the range of the outcome where effects are expected. The paper closes with a discussion of modern methods of item response scaling that can be used to address these issues. (shrink)

One of the central issues of Spinoza scholarship focuses on the status of the attributes. The issue has divided scholars into two groups, which I shall call the objectivists and the subjectivists. Objectivists maintain that the attributes in fact constitute the essence of Substance and that our ideas of these attributes comprise an adequate knowledge of that essence. Subjectivists hold that the attributes are merely inventions of the human intellect which we ascribe to Substance as if they constitute its essence, (...) although our ideas of the attributes do not conform to the actual nature of Substance. The issue is quite complex, and the long history of its discussion has seen the development of a host of arguments for each side. It is not my purpose here to review the entire debate, in part because such a review would be beyond the scope of an article and in part because a very insightful sketch of the most basic arguments has already been produced. Professor Haserot has provided us with a battery of forceful reasons for preferring the objectivist interpretation. In this note I shall merely discuss two heretofore unmentioned arguments from the Short Treatise which corroborate the evidence assembled by the objectivists and which seem to constitute decisive evidence against the subjectivist interpretation. (shrink)

Wolfgang Kessler gives a report on the latest developments ofthe GATT negociations. The failure ofthe Uiruguay round in the autumn of 1990 and the irksome attempts at reanimation are depicted as a result of the strategy ofthe industrialized countries to bargain for their interests by demanding an extension oftheir free trade policy on additional parts of the world market. Kessler contrasts this strategy with a model of an ecologically and socially regulated world trade founded on world-wide agreed upon (...) treaties that focus on a sustainable world economy. (shrink)

In The Realm of Criminal Law, Antony Duff argues that the criminal law’s realm is bounded by territory. This is because a polity decides what it cares about in crafting its civic home, and it extends its rules and hospitality to guests. I question whether the most normatively attractive conception of a Duffian polity would be bounded by territory, or whether it would exercise far more extensive jurisdiction over its citizens wherever in the world they may be and over harm (...) to its citizens/interests wherever in the world the attacks occur. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to analyze the reasons behind users’ selection of news results on the news aggregator website, Google News, and the role that news factors play in this selection. We assume that user’s cognitive elaboration of users influences their news selection. In this study, a multi-method approach is used to obtain a complete picture of the users’ news selection reasoning: an open survey, a closed survey, and a content analysis of screen recording data. The results were (...) determined from online news selection of 90 news results from 47 users on Google News. Different news values could be identified as relevant for selection: time-referenced news factors and news factors of social significance were shown to be more important than the news factors of deviance. News cues (presence of a picture, position of a news result, source) were identified as selection reasons regardless of the level of cognitive elaboration during the online browsing process. (shrink)

TEST is a novel taxonomy of knowledge representations based on three distinct hierarchically organized representational features: Tropism, Embodiment, and Situatedness. Tropic representational features reflect constraints of the physical world on the agent's ability to form, reactivate, and enrich embodied (i.e., resulting from the agent's bodily constraints) conceptual representations embedded in situated contexts. The proposed hierarchy entails that representations can, in principle, have tropic features without necessarily having situated and/or embodied features. On the other hand, representations that are situated and/or embodied (...) are likely to be simultaneously tropic. Hence, although we propose tropism as the most general term, the hierarchical relationship between embodiment and situatedness is more on a par, such that the dominance of one component over the other relies on the distinction between offline storage versus online generation as well as on representation-specific properties. (shrink)

A Dutch medical student has the potentially more virulent Panton-Valentine leukocidin form of MRSA colonization yet shows no signs or symptoms of infection. More than a year ago, a routine MRSA screening of health care personnel providing care for MRSA-positive patients detected the colonization. Since then, the student has been treated intensively but unsuccessfully in an attempt to decolonize her. During this decolonization period, the medical student was barred from performing patient-related interventions, temporarily interrupting her medical residency. After initial treatment (...) with mupirocin nasal ointment and antibiotics proved ineffective, a more stringent hygiene regime was added that included hand, nose, hair, and body scrubbing with disinfecting soap. Additional precautions included simultaneous treatment of household members and disinfection of the family home. Despite these efforts, her MRSA status has remained positive. WIP guideline s bar any health care worker diagnosed with MRSA from performing patient-related interventions. Unable to complete the residency requirement of at least 1 year of patient care, the medical student was advised to pursue a career in another profession. (shrink)

A sizeable body of literature suggests that informal methods of dispute resolution — and, in particular, conciliation — flourish only in societies marked by extensive social hierarchy. Given this literature, it is quite surprising to discover that in the mid-nineteenth century, the United States embarked on an extensive debate regarding whether to adopt "conciliation courts," whose primary function was to reconcile the disputants by persuading them to embrace an equitable compromise. First created by the French Revolutionaries in 1790, conciliation courts (...) were widely established throughout continental Europe. Observing this development, leading American lawyers and politicians pondered seriously whether the United states ought to follow suit. Debate over whether to embrace such institutions occurred at the very highest of levels, and a series of states enacted constitutional provisions authorizing their legislatures to create conciliation courts. Ultimately, however, despite the widespread interest in such institutions, these were never established — except in the notable case of the Freedmen’s Bureau courts of the Reconstruction South. This Article explores this largely forgotten episode in American legal history. It examines why a nation that was radically egalitarian by standards of the time would seriously consider embracing an institution that we tend more commonly to associate with inegalitarian, strongly hierarchical societies — and why, after coming so close to adopting conciliation courts, it ultimately failed to do so. In the process, by situating the debate over conciliation courts in a broader social and legal context, the Article also excavates the origins of the modern, quintessentially American commitment to the virtues of formal, adversarial process. (shrink)

This article was first published in Radical History Review No. 25, 1986. Since then the controversy has escalated dramatically, with articles in the New York Times and Ms magazine and editorials in the Washington Post. Most of the media have used the controversy as a vehicle to attack women's history and women's studies in general. Had I known the direction that this publicity would take I would have written a much stronger piece. Feminist Studies is planning to publish a piece (...) by Ruth Milkman outlining the issues involved in the case, and Signs will publish some of the written testimony in forthcoming issues. (shrink)