This volume's aim is to clarify, criticize and theoretically develop some of Whitehead's major philosophic ideas and insights. Eighteen distinguished contributors follow Whitehead in his unique attempt to integrate the often disparate concerns of science , art, religion, social life and common sense. They manage to avoid the twin pitfalls of uncritical acceptance and impatient rejection of Whitehead's thought. They delineate Whitehead's indebtedness to and divergence from the philosophic traditions of Plato, Leibniz, Hume, Hegel, Bergson and others. Some of the (...) distinguished philosophers contributing to this volume are: Charles Hartshorne, William Ernest Hocking, Richard M. Rorty, Gregory Vlastos, William A. Christian, Sr., Nathaniel Lawrence, Ivor Leclerc, Victor Lowe, Robert M. Palter, and Donald W. Sherburne. Originally published in 1963 by Prentice-Hall, this edition contains a new preface by the editor. (shrink)

Since the 1960s the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science has been substantiated by the presence of university departments offering a curriculum of studies catering to both disciplines. At Princeton University, Charles Gillespie established the first curriculum of studies in the history and philosophy of science – henceforth HPS – in 1960, with the purpose of attracting students to the study of the history of science. In Princeton, history of science was taught by John E. (...) Murdoch, while Hilary Putnam gave courses in philosophy of science. At Indiana University it was a historian of philosophy, Norwood Russell Hanson, who established the first department of HPS, hosting the teaching of historian of science Alfred Rupert Hall. Eventually, the actual integration of history and philosophy of science was brought about by the appearance of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), which, drawing attention to the notion of paradigm in scientific theories, favoured the marriage between historical and philosophical analysis of science. Since 1960s, HPS has flourished, and nowadays at least five universities in the United Kingdom and sixteen in the United States offer degrees in HPS (Mauskopf/Schmaltz 2012, pp. 1–10). More recently, kindred approaches have emerged, such as the ‘integrated HPS’ (&HPS), endorsed in some international conferences, which aims at merging the two disciplines rather than offering philosophical insights into the history of science and vice versa. (shrink)

This second selection of articles by Rupert Hall to be published by Variorum focuses on the interactions between "pure" science, "applied" science and craftsmanship, laying emphasis on the period from the 17th century to the Industrial Revolution.

This book analyzes the sociopolitical sensibilities of Black aesthetics in society by examining the historical and political context in which Black aesthetics emerged; analyzing various Black aesthetic perspectives that speak to social justice; exploring the interpretive conditions necessary to perceive Black aesthetics as a language of social justice.

This study was designed to address the issue of whether there is a general processor for the perception of emotion or whether there are separate processors. We examined the relationships among three channels of emotional communication in 100 healthy right-handed adult males and females. The channels were facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal; both identification and discrimination tasks of emotional perception were utilised. Statistical analyses controlled for nonemotional perceptual factors and subject characteristics (i.e. demographic and general cognitive). For identification, multiple significant correlations (...) were found among the channels. For discrimination, fewer correlations were significant. Overall, these results provide support for the notion of a general processor for emotional perceptual identification in normal adult subjects. (shrink)

While recognizing its positive contributions, the authors argue both that social constructionism is based on faulty assumptions and that it has far more kinship with objectivism than is generally acknowledged: it repudiates the possibility of universally valid knowledge while holding as universal truth that human nature is socially constructed; claims to have overcome a Western scientific view of the world while failing to recognize its own distinctly Western and parochial character; rejects an objective epistemology only to embrace its subjectivist mirror-opposite. (...) Finally, it presents the "self" as a reflection of cultural frameworks, thus failing to attend to personal experience or to account for creativity, and overlooks humans' relationship to nature, thereby sustaining objectivism's dichotomy between the social and the natural world. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Since Galileo, critics have waged a relentless assault against science, attacking it as dehumanizing, reductionist, relativistic, dominating, and imperialistic. Supporters meanwhile view science as synonymous with modernity and progress. The current debates over the role of science-- described by such headlines as Scientists are Urged to Fight Back Against `Politically Correct' Critics in The Chronicle of Higher Education--testify to how deeply divided we remain about the values and responsibilities of science in the modern age. Acknowledging the validity of a deep (...) skepticism about science but eager to preserve its strengths and values, Alfred I. Tauber's anthology seeks to avoid an either/or configuration. Science, Tauber argues, is fundamentally pluralistic and must accept detracting criticism as part of its very code in the hope that, in its defense, the scientific enterprise is strengthened and reaffirmed. Featuring essays by a wide range of interdisciplinary, classical, and contemporary thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Thomas Kuhn, Hilary Putnam, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Max Weber, the work is divided into five parts: science and its worldview; the problem of scientific realism; the nature of scientific change; the boundaries of science; and science and values. (shrink)

With his bestselling publication, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking introduced in 1988 a new genre by connecting modern science with the question of the existence of God. In the posthumous publication Brief Answers to the Big Questions, he continues with his quest for the ultimate truth. The current study presents a philosophical analysis of this search in terms of the classical philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas. Causality is the central concept employed by Hawking. However, its meaning, in (...) the modern scientific and philosophical literature, is limited to temporal causality in contrast to the view of classical philosophy. Only the latter one accepts causality from outside space and time, with other words, a reality transcending the material world. In a quote presented in the discussion, Hawking defines himself as an atheist. After a careful reading of his writings, however, doubts arise about his unbelief. (shrink)

This book is about forming effective critiques of neoclassical economics. Its focus is on constructive criticism of the foundations neoclassical theory, beginning with what Alfred Marshall called the `Principles of Economics'. It concludes that there is still much that can be done to make neoclassical economics more realistic.

Ordinary usage supports both a relatively strong belief requirement on intention and a tight conceptual connection between intention and intentional action. More specifically, it speaks in favor both of the view that "S intends to A" entails "S believes that he (probably) will A" and of the thesis that "S intentionally A-ed" entails "S intended to A." So, at least, proponents of these ideas often claim or assume, and with appreciable justification. The conjunction of these two ideas, however, has some (...) highly counterintuitive implications. This suggests that a certain skepticism about the coherence of ordinary usage of "intention" may be salutary. Fortunately, the skeptic need not abandon the quest for understanding. Much can be gleaned from a careful investigation of the functions attributed to intention in the literature. In this paper, I argue that the capacity of intention to do the work that the literature assigns it does not depend upon intentional A-ing's entailing intending to A, nor upon there being a strong belief constraint on intention, nor even a certain relatively weak belief constraint. I also develop an account of the features of intention in virtue of which it is capable of doing this work. This account provides the core of an adequate conception of intention. Toward the end of the paper, I briefly motivate acceptance of a modest belief requirement on non-functional grounds. (shrink)

Teaching photographers how to use social media to grow their businesses With the rapid rise of both digital photography and social media, amateur photographers can now turn what was once a hobby into a thriving business. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr offer loads of exciting marketing opportunities. This practical guide from a well-respected professional photographer shows you how to take advantage of social media to grow a profitable photography business. If you've been wondering which social (...) media sites to use, how to use them, how often to use them, and more, this book is for you. Guides you through how to market your photography business on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and other social media sites Shows you how to translate your use of social media into increased profits Helps you answer such questions as "Which sites should I use?" and "How do I get started?" Provides invaluable testimonials from top photographers discussing their social media business success stories Guides you through inspiring brand evangelists through social media Teaches important survival tips for your social media program In addition to the powerful strategies, interviews were conducted with thought leaders in the photo industry -- Kenny Kim, Zach and Jody Gray, Jerry Ghionis, Becker, Jasmine Star, Catherine Hall, and Grace Ormonde -- to provide you with all-star tips and tricks. Whether you're just starting a professional photography business or are a seasoned pro looking for good advice on using social media to promote yourself, Social Media Marketing for Digital Photographers is the book you need. (shrink)

How are we to make sense of this, especially from a moral point of view? Do we simply say, as some have, that if it’s technologically possible, then it’s morally permissible? Or that, since men have been fathering children at ever more advanced ages, women should be permitted to do the same thing? (We might christen this "The Tony Randall Argument," in honor of the seventy-seven year old actor who is a new father.) Or do we say that such births (...) are simply selfish acts that put the desires of the parents ahead of any consideration about the well-being of the children? Or do we see this as yet one more reflection of our society’s unrelenting quest for eternal youth? (shrink)

From its worldly context Christian theology must learn something quite basic to its task: The self-interpretation of a particular society in that particular moment of its history.

"This is one of the few books on Montaigne that fuses analytical skill with humane awareness of why Montaigne matters."—Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale University "In this exhilarating and learned book on Montaigne's essays, Lawrence D. Kritzman _contemporizes_ the great writer. Reading him from today's deconstructive America, Kritzman discovers Montaigne always already deep into a dialogue with Jacques Derrida and psychoanalysis. One cannot but admire this fabulous act of translation."—Hélène Cixous "Throughout his career, Lawrence D. Kritzman (...) has demonstrated an intimate knowledge of Montaigne's essays and an engagement with French philosophy and critical theory. _The Fabulous Imagination_ sheds precious new light on one of the founders of modern individualism and on his crucial quest for self-knowledge."—Jean Starobinski, professor emeritus of French literature, University of Geneva Michel de Montaigne's (1533-1592) _Essais_ was a profound study of human subjectivity. More than three hundred years before the advent of psychoanalysis, Montaigne embarked on a remarkable quest to see and imagine the self from a variety of vantages. Through the questions How shall I live? How can I know myself? he explored the significance of monsters, nightmares, and traumatic memories; the fear of impotence; the fragility of gender; and the act of anticipating and coping with death. In this book, Lawrence D. Kritzman traces Montaigne's development of the Western concept of the self. For Montaigne, imagination lies at the core of an internal universe that influences both the body and the mind. Imagination is essential to human experience. Although Montaigne recognized that the imagination can confuse the individual, "the fabulous imagination" can be curative, enabling the mind's "I" to sustain itself in the face of hardship. Kritzman begins with Montaigne's study of the fragility of gender and its relationship to the peripatetic movement of a fabulous imagination. He then follows with the essayist's examination of the act of mourning and the power of the imagination to overcome the fear of death. Kritzman concludes with Montaigne's views on philosophy, experience, and the connection between self-portraiture, ethics, and oblivion. His reading demonstrates that the mind's I, as Montaigne envisioned it, sees by imagining that which is not visible, thus offering an alternative to the logical positivism of our age. (shrink)

When conceived as an empirical claim, it is natural to wonder how one might test the hypothesis of multiple realization. I consider general issues of testability, show how they apply specifically to the hypothesis of multiple realization, and propose an auxiliary assumption that, I argue, must be conjoined to the hypothesis of multiple realization to ensure its testability. I argue further that Bechtel and Mundale go astray because they fail to appreciate the need for this auxiliary assumption. †To contact the (...) author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Building on my previous exploration of the role of dance in the contemporary French political philosopher Jacques Rancière’s Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art, first published in French in 2011, the present essay turns to another book originally published in the same year, The Intervals of Cinema. Having previously established that the core of Rancière’s philosophical method is an analysis of philosophical homonyms into figurative dancing conceptual partners, I begin by applying that method to the first chapter of (...) Intervals, “Cinematic Vertigo: Hitchcock to Vertov and Back.” There I identify two series of such dancing partners, as follows: Hitchcock’s image-controlling, capitalist vertiginous fall, and Vertov’s movement-equalizing, communist balanced dance. I then critique the implicit marginalizing of women and female bodies in the films and chapter, including Hitchcock’s protagonist’s best friend and ex-fiancé, and Vertov’s cosmetologists and switchboard operators. Finally, I offer a corrective from the proto-feminist life of my grandmother, a onetime cosmetologist, switchboard operator, and Glamour Shots amateur model, my grandmother, Louise Nunnelley, or “Mamaw.” Such are the unacknowledged material basis of Rancière’s radical democratic philosophy, the specifically-embodied and positioned female dancers who continue to get lost in his figurative dance. (shrink)

Abstract As Paul B. Thompson suggests in his recent seminal paper, “‘There’s an App for That’: Technical Standards and Commodification by Technological Means,” technical standards restructure property (and other social) relations. He concludes with the claim that the development of technical standards of commodification can serve purposes with bad effects such as “the rise of the factory system and the deskilling of work” or progressive effects such as how “technical standards for animal welfare… discipline the unwanted consequences of market forces.” (...) In this reply, we want to append several points to his argument and suggest that he rightly points out that standards can promote various goods; however, there are peculiar powers wielded by standardization processes that might profitably be unpacked more systematically than Thompson's article seems to suggest. First, the concealment of the technopolitics around standards is largely due to their peculiar ontological status as recipes for reality. Second, technical standards can and do commit violence against persons, but such violence is often suffered not in the formation of class consciousness, as Marx might have put it, but as a failure to conform to the laws of nature . Content Type Journal Article Category Commentary Pages 1-6 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0048-1 Authors Lawrence Busch, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 429A Berkey Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Kyle Powys Whyte, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433. (shrink)

Erich Fromm was a political activist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, philosopher, and one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century. Known for his theories of personality and political insight, Fromm dissected the sadomasochistic appeal of brutal dictators while also eloquently championing love--which, he insisted, was nothing if it did not involve joyful contact with others and humanity at large. Admired all over the world, Fromm continues to inspire with his message of universal brotherhood and quest for lasting peace. The (...) first systematic study of Fromm's influences and achievements, this biography revisits the thinker's most important works, especially _Escape from Freedom_ and _The Art of Loving_, which conveyed important and complex ideas to millions of readers. The volume recounts Fromm's political activism as a founder and major funder of Amnesty International, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, and other peace groups. Consulting rare archival materials across the globe, Lawrence J. Friedman reveals Fromm's support for anti-Stalinist democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe and his efforts to revitalize American democracy. For the first time, readers learn about Fromm's direct contact with high officials in the American government on matters of war and peace while accessing a deeper understanding of his conceptual differences with Freud, his rapport with Neo-Freudians like Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan, and his association with innovative artists, public intellectuals, and world leaders. Friedman elucidates Fromm's key intellectual contributions, especially his innovative concept of "social character," in which social institutions and practices shape the inner psyche, and he clarifies Fromm's conception of love as an acquired skill. Taking full stock of the thinker's historical and global accomplishments, Friedman portrays a man of immense authenticity and spirituality who made life in the twentieth century more humane than it might have been. (shrink)

The death of Alfred North Whitehead late in 1947 was a double loss. Those who knew Whitehead, even slightly, feel keenly the loss of a warm and stimulating personality, which in the last years of his retirement had mellowed to a benign radiance. The wider circle of students and teachers of philosophy who knew him through his writing alone regret the passing of the man who, many thought, was the most capable cosmologist of our time.

McDonough Hall, Room 508, 600 New Jersey Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA; Email: gostin{at}law.georgetown.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract As a consequence of rapid globalization, the need for a coherent system of global health law and governance has never been greater. This article explores the health hazards posed by contemporary globalization on human health and the consequent urgent need for global health law to facilitate effective multilateral cooperation in advancing the health of (...) populations equitably. It sets forth the first definition of the emerging field of "global health law." After explicating the central features identified in the definition, the article examines the "grand challenges" to reaching the full potential of global health law to advance human health in just and effective ways. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES III, CHAPTERS 131-135: A RARE GLIMPSE INTO THE HEART AS WELL AS THE MIND OF AQUINAS LAWRENCE B. PORTER Setoii Hall University South Orange, New Jersey Introduction BERNARDO GUI, Saint Thomas's thirteenth-century biographer, relates in his Legenda S. Thomae the story of how once upon a time Saint Thomas was seated at the table of King Louis IX of France. Far removed from mere (...) dinner conversation, the scholar was absorbed in profound rumination on no less a problem than the existence of evil. Suddenly in the midst of the meal Aquinas came to an insight and " he struck the table, exclaiming : ' That settles the Manichees! ' " 1 More than a century later Fra Angelico presents us with a comparable image of the saint though in an appreciably different setting, not a royal dinner table but a cloister walk. If the reader were to walk in the cloister garden of the priory of San Marco in Florence, he or she would eventually come upon a portrait of Saint Thomas painted by Fra Angelico (in the lunette above the door to the right of the entrance on the south side of the cloister). The saint stands erect facing the viewer, holding open upon his chest a book with the pages facing us so that we might read them. Saint Thomas is looking off into space, not distractedly but with concentration, with arched eyebrows and fixed gaze. It is as though he sees directly what we can only read about in the text of his open book. 1 " The Life Of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Bernard Gui," in The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, trans. and ed. Kenelm Foster (London, 1959), pp. 44-45. 245 246 LAWREN CE B. PORTER The image of Saint Thomas presented in these hagiographic and iconographic traditions is distinctly that of an intellect-at one time engrossed in speculative thought, at another time in mystic contemplation-but it is always the mind that is foremost engaged. The image is always that of the intellectual genius entirely taken up with recondite or divine ideas, far removed from this-worldly concerns or domestic distractions. These images cannot be easily dismissed, nor indeed should we want to do such a thing, for there is much truth in these images. Certainly Thomas was at times a mystic, and his powers of abstraction and concentration were nothing less than extraordinary. His own writings are the best witness to this. The method displayed therein-the dispassionate objectivity, the unrelenting logic, the economy of expression, the precise and telling distinctions, not to mention his encyclopedic knowledge of scriptural, mystical, and philosophical sources-makes for the impression of an almost disembodied intellect at work. No wonder he was given the title "angelic doctor"! However, the problem with such images and titles is that they never allude to the fact that Saint Thomas also had a human heart and human feelings, and that these, too, could at times have had an effect upon his thinking, especially when his feelings had been hurt. To illustrate this thesis, I propose to examine the interplay between thought and emotion, history and analysis, in the Summa Contra Gentiles III, especially as concerns Chapters 131-135. Chapters 131-135 constitute a small treatise on religious poverty and as such appear as a peculiarly recondite consideration amid Aquinas's much more general treatment there of the themes of divine providence and human freedom. I believe this peculiar feature can only be understood in relation to an historical controversy of the times, namely, the attack upon the new mendicant orders by the secular clergy. Indeed, I believe the true nuances of this small treatise can best be understood when it is seen more as the heartfelt response of Aquinas to a slur upon his dignity rather than as his dispassionate or purely reasoned response to a contest of ideas. Aquinas was once personally embarrassed dur- SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES III 247 ing his professorship at the University of Paris when a student demonstration broke in upon a Sunday sermon of his with pamphlet literature that poked malicious fun at his considerable body size and privileged social status. And... (shrink)

Prominent defenders of the extended cognition thesis have looked to evolutionary theory for support. Roughly, the idea is that natural selection leads one to expect that cognitive strategies should exploit the environment, and exploitation of the right sort results in a cognitive system that extends beyond the head of the organism. I argue that proper appreciation of evolutionary theory should create no such expectation. This leaves open whether cognitive systems might in fact bear a relationship to the environment that leads (...) to their extension. *Received July 2009; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hurricane Gloria LAWRENCE DUGAN A screaming northern gale flew past his wild words And slammed the sails, and pulled a wave toward heaven. —Aeneid, i.102–3 (Sarah Ruden, trans.) i. A phalanx of weather tools at the door, A shovel, an ice-pick, an umbrella, A new cane, leaning against each other, Plastic fabricated to resist storms, Reminds me of a storm I rode out years ago, The Nor’easter of (...) 1985, On the twenty-first floor of 5 Penn Center Across the street from where the Fox Theater Spread the bright wings of its marquee, folded Now forever, torn down, and then replaced With a glass-box not unlike the office I looked out of, watching the rain lashing Windows, tearing at the flags hung on poles On other buildings, solitary banners Left up as if to challenge the weather To do its worst, to refute the young storm Tearing northeast out of the Atlantic, Predicted only a few days before As a hurricane, that didn’t happen, But leaving the high-rise building nearly Deserted, with the ticker still running Across the wall; the market had opened Empty office or not, unoccupied Desks giving it that strange quietude Peculiar to such spaces, which the mind Expects to be filled, even while seeing Otherwise. arion 28.2 fall 2020 66 hurricane gloria I felt like a sailor for The only time in my life, stepping off The elevator at 21, and then Walking into the main hall and sensing The building swayed slighty, barely feeling It but knowing it distinctly, hearing It creak exactly as I had heard ships At sea in dozens of movies, and with The sound, the sway, the massive grid of pipes And beams giving and taking. jms Old timers hadn’t warned me about this Although some had ridden out several Storms as bad, real or metaphorical, Not even old Harris who remembered Moving down from Susquehanna county In ’29, to Wall Street and the Crash. ii. Future archaeologists of urban Storms will study pictures of umbrellas Taking flight, wrecked synthetic shapes blooming Against resistant hands, then abandoned, Stuffed into trash cans, twirling down alleys, Pastels, stripes or old-fashioned banker-black, The edge of the story, the windy street’s Last rebuke to those daring to stagger To lunch but caught in the nor’easterly Gale’s grey wall of wind and rain that rattled Doors and buckled windows. The building held Two dozen companies, and I still like To think one fronted for an anchorite, Some isolated individual Up on 24, alone at his desk In a skyscraper office for ten years Praying, sometimes looking down the cliff walls At the peregrine falcons sweeping home Lawrence Dugan 67 To their massive nest stuffed tight in the bronze Lap of a statue seated on City Hall, One of the allegories of Founders And Lenape chiefs placed high over Broad, The hawks diving downward athwart the storm Coming on in grey curtains wavering Over the city and the Delaware Valley. Across the river in Jersey The pines begin, in Camden the street dirt Is sand; halfway to the shore the forest Runs above the expressway, farms below, The pines flourishing in sandy barren Earth lacking nitrogen, incinerating Every dozen years, thousands of acres Blowing away in flames seen at the shore. After that rain those woods were safe for weeks. iii. Ten years and two jobs later I needed Census material and found it online On a rainy day in Center City In a high-rise office nearby, a halfDay ’s work done to my surprise in only Twenty minutes, then realizing as I Stood up from a computer that the view Was familiar. I was back on 21 In my old office; jms had moved But the grey sky cleared with a sweep of wind And the view north and south looked as before Wherever the market’s ticker-tape rolled now. The weather had surprised me again; The only full rainbow I ever saw, The ancient sign that spares the world from floods, A pure unblemished iridescent span, Appeared late in spring, in a sun shower.... (shrink)

In the beginning was an aborted word. The first example of a woman’s literary criticism in Western tradition, or more accurately the first miscarriage of a woman’s criticism, occurs early in the Odyssey. High in her room above the hall of suitors, Penelope can hear a famous minstrel sing that most painful of stories, the Greek homecoming from Troy—significantly, the matter of the Odyssey itself. That is no song for a woman. She comes down the stairs to protest. “Phêmios, (...) other spells you know, high deeds of gods and heroes, as the poets tell them; let these men hear some other, while they sit silent and drink their wine. But sing no more this bitter tale that wears my heart away. It opens in me again the wound of longing For one incomparable, ever in my mind— His fame all Hellas knows, and midland Argos.”It seems a reasonable request. But her words meet an immediate brutal rebuff from an unexpected source: her own son Telemachus. “Mother, why do you grudge our own dear minstrel Joy of song, wherever his thought may lead? Poets are not to blame, but Zeuswho gives what fate he pleases to adventurous men.Here is no reason for reproof: to singthe news of the Danaans! Men like besta song that rings like morning on the ear.But you must nerve yourself and try to listen.Odysseus was not the only one at Troynever to know the day of his homecoming.Others, how many others, lost their lives!”9Men like to hear the news; women must learn not to take songs so personally! And Penelope gives in. Marveling at the wisdom of her son, she goes back to her room and cries herself to sleep.Telemachus’ words do not seem very much to the point. Penelope had not asked Phêmios to stop singing, after all, or to sing something fit for women; she only asked him to choose some other adventure. And to reproach her for not considering that others besides Odysseus had failed to come home seems irrelevant as well as cruel. The fact that others feel pain is hardly a reason for her not to feel it. Penelope cannot bear even to name her husband, but Telemachus seems to take pleasure in saying “Odysseus.” By proclaiming his own indifference to pain, he argues just like a man. And that, of course, is the point. The scene has been contrived exactly to show his new maturity. He proves himself no longer a boy in the time-honored fashion, by rejecting any tenderness of heart and by putting down a woman. Henceforth he will be equal to the suitors. Lawrence Lipking is Chester D. Tripp Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University and director of the program in comparative literature and theory. He is the author of The Ordering of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England and The Life of the Poet, which won the Christian Gauss Award of Phi Beta Kappa in 1982. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “The Marginal Glass” and “Arguing with Shelly” . The present essay was originally given as a lecture at the School of Criticism and Theory in the summer of 1982. It is part of a book, Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition, which is to appear in 1984. (shrink)

This teaching of Vatican II raises the problem of how to know when the ordinary universal magisterium has proposed some doctrine as definitive. Fr. Francis A. Sullivan has put forth some principles that he claims are important for establishing that a doctrine has been definitively taught. Key to Sullivan’s principles is the claim that the constant consensus of theologians is a sign and a necessary condition for establishing whether the ordinary universal magisterium has taught a particular doctrine as definitive. This (...) essay argues against this claim. It maintains that while the consensus of theologians may be sign of definitive teachings, it is not a necessary condition for those teachings. Lastly, the essay suggests that the current discussion about the definitive, infallible teachings of the ordinary universal magisterium would be greatly aided if it took place in the context of the quest for catholicity in time and if it firmly kept in mind the nature of church as a communion. (shrink)

Leon Kass is much misunderstood. He is not simply a Republican ideologue who tailored his ideas to break out of the ivory tower and into the halls of power. Nor does he ook simply to use human nature as a moral guide. When the full range of his writings is considered and set in the tradition of his teachers, Hans Jonas and Leo Strauss, what emerges is a natural law position colored by religious revelation.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1956.

Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) was a German physician and chemist. The book (in German) documents a symposium of the Academy Leopoldina on his works and thoughts that contributed to the Enlightenment. Der weite Horizont seines Denkens und seiner Arbeiten umfasst die Phlogiston-Theorie der Verbrennung, die später mit der Entdeckung des Sauerstoffs widerlegt wurde, aber dennoch wichtige Erkenntnisse zur Reversibilität von Reaktionen und zur unsichtbaren Persistenz der beteiligten chemischen Komponenten beitrug. Seine Gedanken zur Rolle der „Anima“, die heute überholt erscheinen, führten (...) bereits am Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts Konzepte ein, die für die moderne Biologie und Psychologie von Bedeutung sind. Dazu zählen etwa Homöostase, Synergie, die Vorbereitung willentlicher Bewegungen und Unterschiede zwischen unbewussten aber vernünftigen Handlungen und solchen, die von rationalen Erwägungen geleitet werden. Stahls medizinisches Hauptwerk ist die „Theoria medica vera”, Halle 1708. Eine der zentralen Publikationen zur chemischen Theorie der Verbrennung ist die „Zymotechnia fundamentalis seu fermentationis theoria generalis”, Halle 1697, in deutscher Sprache 1734. Siehe auch „Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734), German Physician and Chemist“, Artikel von A. Gierer, in: Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Hg. A.C. Kors), Bd. 4, Oxford University Press, New York 2003, S. 124-125. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Myth Of ReadingAlfred LouchThe Myth of Theory, by William Righter; x 7 224 pp. Cambridge University Press, 1994, $49.95.IThe critics mill about in the welcome break between interminable and terminal conference sessions, eager to see and be seen. William Righter wanders about, listening and telling anyone who stays to listen what he hears, musing all the while on what each of them has done, or tried to do, (...) or failed to do. One hopes for a dénouement—something, perhaps, like the tableau at the end of The Inspector General: critics frozen in typical and typically ludicrous attitudes. Alas, the prospective tone of ironic detachment is not sustained. Righter is too close to his perambulating colleagues; he shares too many of their academic reflexes to keep the requisite distance. If there is a tableau at the end, the reader must imagine it, and place Righter along with the rest, caught in (may we call them?) Gallosaxon attitudes.It seems to be an important conference. Everyone’s milling about. One wonders, do they have anything else to do? Here’s Derrida, de Man, Barthes, Hillis Miller, Booth, Bersani, Lyotard, Poulet, and Todorov. The remarks of one seem to flow seamlessly into the allegedly counter-claims of the next. It’s all amazingly friendly. Of course there’s that rude fellow Eagleton, who says: “Methodologically speaking, literary criticism is a non-subject.... If literary theory is a kind of meta-criticism [End Page 218], a critical reflection on criticism, then it follows that it too is a non-subject” (p. 210). But don’t mind him. For criticism is about literature and literature exists. So these promenading and posturing critics can’t be mere phantasms of brains fevered by much reading, or anyway by references to many books.Curious that the first critic available for a chat is Leavis. A bit of nostalgia that. I suppose most English critics of sufficient vintage recall their Leavis-inflicted wounds the way they might reminisce about the bit of shrapnel they got in the way of on Omaha Beach and bear now with pride. But my, how temperate he appears here! How on earth can he come across so bland? Remember him saying: Snow does not begin to exist as a novelist. Now that was Leavis. You may have disagreed with him, you may have thought him silly, but you certainly understood him, as one comprehends a slap in the face. But here: “... Leavis takes on vividly and personally the total responsibility of consciousness for a wide area of assumptions that obviously trail their implications behind them” (p. 4). This is an extraordinarily spongy way of saying that Leavis knew he was right, and if you didn’t agree with him, a humiliating place in a cheap and tawdry consumer society awaited you.Still, it is a lucky thing that Leavis appears first on the scene. As a critic to help frame more exactly the kinds of questions about literary theory and practice Righter wants to ask, Leavis offers an easily recognizable starting point. He somehow manages to take the high moral ground. You want to ask, how is it that Elijah’s mantle descends on him? Does he compel assent only by the stridency of his words, and not by an ostensibly rational way in which his critical judgments hang together?A pity if this should be so, because the point of Leavisite diatribes, though not their excesses, is close to the hearts of passionate readers. Such readers (ourselves perhaps) read judgmentally. A book bowls us over. Describing the experience we are tempted to draw invidious comparisons to other books, which perhaps move us less, or not at all. We say of minor things that come our way: it’s not Shakespeare (or D. H. Lawrence). If you agree the project comes to an end. If you don’t, you want to know what it is that bowls us over, and why we don’t find those qualities in your favorite author. You want an explanation of a particular kind, not one that adduces new facts, but one that allows us to appreciate how the case at dispute... (shrink)

Title: The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters & Virginia JohnsonPublisher: Cornell University PressISBN: 0801495393Author: Paul RobinsonTitle: The History of Sexuality: An IntroductionPublisher: VintageISBN: 0679724699Author: Michel FoucaultTitle: The Construction of HomosexualityPublisher: University Of Chicago PressISBN: 0226306283Author: David Greenberg.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cracked ArmorJoanne AlfredDisclaimers. Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the patient and the patient's family.After three weeks of night shifts, I had built a routine of driving home in darkness and watching the sunrise. It had become my way to push back against a quiet melancholy, the accumulation of loss over time, by remembering that light gently returning each morning. Heading into my last stretch of (...) ten nights in a row, I was intent to hold to this practice, to anchor myself for the challenge. The one-and-a-half years of residency training had prepared me for these moments, opportunities to grow and persist. The first six days of the stretch passed as I had expected, and the confidence and autonomy I had cultivated carried me through. It always had. I had shouldered our neurosurgery service, solitary night shifts at community hospitals, the NICU. I had pronounced a newborn dead on Good Friday, heartbroken by the juxtaposition of life and death. My experiences allowed tears and doubts, but I had always rebounded, chin up and looking onward for the next thing.I had just received sign out, and needed to check on Nate, a young man I'd known since he was first diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-Cell ALL). I remembered our first meeting, a new diagnosis with a white cell count in the thousands requiring PICU admission for plasma exchange, all the way to reassuring him his EKG was normal after an incidental finding of hyperkalemia. He had returned to the hospital with abdominal swelling, and dread filled me as I rounded the corner to his room. Looking down at him and back up at his mother, my own distress reflected in their eyes. We needed help. I quickly found the oncology fellow and attending, and we put our heads together, deciding a blood gas and X-ray would be the next best steps. The results confirmed our suspicions.Nate was transferred to the PICU shortly. I watched his mother console him, remembering how much they both disliked the PICU. It was not a [End Page 85] place of pleasant memories, especially as Nate had been working toward remission therapy rather than returning to the intensive care unit, where he fought through his initial diagnosis. While reassuring him and his mother externally, internally my own dread welled further, because my first night in the PICU loomed two days away. To bolster myself for my seventh night shift, I rounded with the PICU team to learn as much as I could. Nate was on BIPAP now, and the decision inexorably moved to intubation. It was all happening rapidly, and the dread started feeling more like panic. Nate's eyes were squeezed shut, his stomach taut, and his breathing shallow. I truly worried for Nate now. I had hoped the PICU would be a temporary stay, a place where we could make a diagnosis and fill the gap. However, when I joined the private conversation the PICU attending had with Nate's mother and she said, "He may never come off the ventilator. He may never speak again," the finality in her voice had more certainty.The "never" struck my brittle residency armor and it cracked. I was not ready to believe it. I could sense his mother felt the same, so we walked along the silent halls of the hospital while she remembered Nate with me as a teenage boy beyond the hospital, not as his ascites and acidosis. Maybe to make his turn for the worse untrue. But I knew something awful was going to happen.On my eighth night, I entered the PICU with trepidation. All I could think about was Nate. He was now on dialysis, struggling with true hyperkalemia. Turning the corner to the unit, my heart racing, begging please don't let him die. It was hard to sense in the moment, but the cumulative melancholy, the sense that it could be held back, was not holding true. So, I defaulted to my splintering armor of persistence, picking apart his labs, discussing his dialysis with the nephrology fellow. I put my head down... (shrink)

The emergence of large-scale social media systems, such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter, has given rise to a new multi-disciplinary effort based around the concept of social machines. For the most part, this research effort has limited its attention to the study of Web-based systems. It has also, perhaps unsurprisingly, tended to highlight the social scientific relevance of such systems. The present paper seeks to expand the scope of the social machine research effort to encompass the Internet of Things. One (...) advantage of this expansion is that it helps to reveal some of the links between the science of social machines and the sciences of the mind. A second advantage is that it furthers our conceptual understanding of social machines and supports the quest to derive a philosophically-robust definition of the term “social machine.” The results of the present analysis suggest that social machines are best conceived as systems in which a combination of social and technological elements play a role in the mechanistic realization of system-level phenomena. The analysis also highlights the relevance of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind to our general understanding of systems that transcend the cyber, physical, and social domains. (shrink)

Tauber, a leading figure in history and philosophy of science, offers a unique autobiographical overview of how science as a discipline of thought has been characterized by philosophers and historians over the past century. He frames his account through science’s – and his own personal – quest for explanatory certainty. During the 20th century, that goal was displaced by the probabilistic epistemologies required to characterize complex systems, whether in physics, biology, economics, or the social sciences. This “triumph of uncertainty” (...) is the inevitable outcome of irreducible chance and indeterminate causality. And beyond these epistemological limits, the interpretative faculties of the individual scientist invariably affects how data are understood. Whereas positivism had claimed radical objectivity, post-positivists have identified how a web of non-epistemic values and social forces profoundly influence the production of knowledge. Tauber presents a case study of these claims by showing how immunology has incorporated extra-curricular social elements in its theoretical development and how these in turn have influenced interpretive problems swirling around biological identity, individuality, and cognition. The correspondence between contemporary immunology and cultural notions of selfhood are strong and striking. Just as uncertainty haunts science, so too does it hover over current constructions of personal identity, self knowledge, and moral agency. Across the chasm of uncertainty, science and selfhood speak. (shrink)