Elections are not the solution to political crisis, they’re the problem. In lively dialogue form, The Democracy Manifesto explains why elections are anti-democratic and should be replaced with government in which decision-makers are randomly selected from the population at large.

In this long-awaited compendium of new and newly revised essays, Alison Wylie explores how archaeologists know what they know. -/- Preprints available for download. Please see entry for specific article of interest.

The early Epicurean revival in Florence and Italy -- Medicean Florence : Ficino and Bartolomeo Scala -- Republican Florence : the university lectures of Marcello Adriani -- Niccol Machiavelli and the influence of Lucretius -- Lucretian networks in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries -- Appendix : notes on Machiavelli's transcription of MS Vat. Rossi 884.

Obesity is one of several targets of public health efforts related to availability of and access to healthy foods. The tension between individual food decisions and social contexts of food production, preparation, and consumption makes targeting individuals deeply problematic and yet tempting. Such individualization of responsibility for obesity and nutrition is unethical and impractical. This article warns public health campaigns against giving into the temptation to individualize responsibility, and presents an argument for why they should proceed with all due caution, (...) advising providers and public health organizations to keep in mind structural factors rather than aiming at individuals. (shrink)

This article reports three experiments that investigated the relationship between working memory capacity and syllogistic and five-term series spatial inference. A series of complex and simple verbal and spatial working memory measures were employed. Correlational analyses showed that verbal and spatial working memory span tasks consistently predicted syllogistic and spatial reasoning performance. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that three factors best accounted for the data--a verbal, a spatial, and a general factor. Syllogistic reasoning performance loaded all three factors, whilst spatial (...) reasoning loaded only the general factor. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of reasoning theories and contemporary accounts of the structure of working memory. (shrink)

I argue that miscarriage, referred to by poet Susan Stewart as “the event that was nothing,” is a liminal event along four distinct and inter-related dimensions: parenthood, procreation, death, and induced abortion. It is because of this liminality that miscarriage has been both poorly addressed in our society, and enrolled in larger debates over women's reproduction and responsibility for reproduction, both conceptually and legally. If miscarriage’s liminality were better understood, if miscarriage itself were better theorized, perhaps it would not so (...) easily be enrolled in these other debates to the detriment of women who miscarry, and their families. However, its very liminality and the fact that it is enrolled in these debates sheds light on the complicated network of concepts within which miscarriage lies. (OPEN ACCESS AT URL). (shrink)

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects of (...) the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

The process of medicalization has been analyzed in the medical humanities with disapprobation, with much emphasis placed on its ability to reinforce existing social power structures to ill effect. While true, this is an incomplete picture of medicalization. I argue that medicalization can both reinforce and disrupt existing social hierarchies within the clinic and outside of it, to ill or good effect. We must attend to how this takes place locally and globally lest we misunderstand how medicalization mediates power and (...) justice. I provide concrete examples of how this occurs by considering dysesthesia ethiopsis, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and HIV/AIDS. (shrink)

The Argument Web is maturing as both a platform built upon a synthesis of many contemporary theories of argumentation in philosophy and also as an ecosystem in which various applications and application components are contributed by different research groups around the world. It already hosts the largest publicly accessible corpora of argumentation and has the largest number of interoperable and cross compatible tools for the analysis, navigation and evaluation of arguments across a broad range of domains, languages and activity types. (...) Such interoperability is key in allowing innovative combinations of tool and data reuse that can further catalyse the development of the field of computational argumentation. The aim of this paper is to summarise the key foundations, the recent advances and the goals of the Argument Web, with a particular focus on demonstrating the relevance to, and roots in, philosophical argumentation theory. (shrink)

In a morally diverse society, moral agents inevitably run up against intractable disagreements. Civility functions as a valuable constraint on the sort of behaviors which moral agents might deploy in defense of their deeply held moral convictions and generally requires tolerance of other views and political liberalism, as does pluralism. However, most visions of civility are exceptionless: they require civil behavior regardless of how strong the disagreement is between two members of the same society. This seems an excellent idea when (...) those required to do the tolerating might otherwise smash us. However, the demands of civility are universal and fall upon everyone, including ourselves. They may seem to require us to tolerate the intolerable, leading us not into pluralism but rather into functional relativism, and also require the powerless to moderate their demands for redress. They also place moral agents in a very difficult position with respect to realizing our deeply held moral values. Isaiah Berlin’s pluralism, by contrast, allows us to violate tolerance when we come up against values which, put into practice, are incompatible with a form of life we can tolerate. Despite the many fronts on which civility and pluralism align, they are also pitted against each other. Only a qualified (not exceptionless) civility based in respect for persons can cohere with pluralism and thus resolve the double bind in which the moral agent seemed to be placed by exceptionless civility. I develop a rule for Accepted Exceptions that helps to explain how moral agents can be civil, value pluralism, demand redress, and maintain their own deeply held moral commitments. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have sought to determine the nature of individuals relevant to evolution by natural selection or evolutionary individuals. The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis is a claim about evolution that emphasizes the role of contingency or dependency relations and chance-based factors in how evolution unfolds. In this article, I argue that if we take evolutionary contingency seriously, then we should be pluralists about the types of individuals in selection.

Reviewing works by James Alison, Alistair McFadyen, Andrew Sung Park, Ted Peters, and Solomon Schimmel, the author suggests that the status and function of the discourse/doctrine of sin highlight tensions between theology and ethics in ways that suggest the character, limits, and promise of religious ethics. This literature commends attention to sin-talk because it helps religious ethicists to render more adequately the dynamics of human agency, sociality, and culture and because it raises questions about the nature and task of (...) theology, faith, and morality. Yet these volumes also indicate that religious ethics should pay more attention to particular sins. (shrink)

In what ways and to what extent should cultural background be taken into consideration in response to legal problems? The first book-length study of the topic, The Cultural Defense provides a comprehensive overview of the debate surrounding the admissibility of cultural evidence in the courtroom. Documenting an extraordinary range of cases in which individuals have attempted to invoke a cultural defense, this book provides an in-depth look at the complexities of invoking cultural agreements in the diverse bodies of law under (...) which the cases fall. Cases considered include homicide and rape prosecutions, child abuse cases, drug use cases, the treatment of animals, and custody battles. Disputing current practices, Renteln contends that the cultural defense should, in both criminal and civil matters, be given formal recognition. (shrink)

The fundamental standard of health care is health. Theories of health affect how we conceive of good health, ill health, Good patients, and Good providers. They also profoundly affect how we go about attempting to solve health problems once we’ve identified them. In this chapter, I argue that the way health care providers, bioethicists, and public health experts approach health relies on ideal theory despite the heavy knowledge that this world will never be ideal. We need a conception of health (...) that accounts for this. I outline the weakness of ideal theory in general and with respect to theories of health, and argue in favor of a nonideal approach to health that is rooted in intersubjectivity, empiricism, inclusivity, contextual specificity, and reflexivity which are not entrusted to any one set of knowers. Throughout, I use the example of how we approach fatness, and medicalize obesity, to illustrate where we’ve gone wrong and to chart a path toward how we can go right. (shrink)

Food behaviors, both private and public, are deeply affected by gender norms concerning both masculinity and femininity. In some ways, food-centered activities constitute gender relations and identities across cultures. This entry provides a non-exhaustive overview of how gender norms bear on food behaviors broadly construed, focusing on three categories: food production, food preparation, and food consumption.

Explores the connection between epistemological and moral "lying," interspersing a phenomenology of deceit with a continuing dialogue between the phenomenologist and one of her students.

This book rethinks Montaigne’s philosophical thought in terms of transversality by investigating the essayist’s debt to ancient life writers Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch. Its scope is of interest to scholars of ancient and early modern life writing, ancient and early modern philosophy, as well as scholars of early modern literary history.

Good communication is vital in healthcare both among healthcare professionals and be tween healthcare professionals and their patients And well written documents describing and or explaining the information in structured databases may be easier to comprehend more edifying and even more convincing than the structured data even when presented in tabu lar or graphic form Documents may be automatically generated from structured data using techniques from the eld of natural language generation These techniques are concerned with how the content organisation (...) and language used in a document can be dynamically selected depending on the audience and context They have been used to generate health education ma terials explanations and critiques in decision support systems and medical reports and progress notes.. (shrink)

The rise of applied biology was one of the most striking features of the biological sciences in the early 20th century. Strongly oriented toward agriculture, this was closely associated with the growth of a number of disciplines, notably, entomology and mycology. This period also saw a marked expansion of the English University system, and biology departments in the newly inaugurated civic universities took an early and leading role in the development of applied biology through their support of Economic Biology. This (...) sought explicitly to promote the application of biological knowledge to economically important problems and especially to agriculture. The impact of Economic Biology was felt most strongly within Zoology, where it became synonymous with entomology. The transience of Economic Biology belies its significance, for example, in providing a means for the expansion of biology at the civic universities. More broadly, it opened up new research and employment opportunities within the life sciences. In late Edwardian Britain, newly available state funds for agriculturally relevant biological disciplines transformed the life sciences. This paper examines the impact of these funds -- mobilized either under the 1909 Development Act, or under the auspices of colonial interests -- on Economic Biology and the institutionalization of applied biology. The rise and fall of Economic Biology casts new light on the way in which institutional and political alignments profoundly shaped the development of British biology. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze multiple aspects of how gender norms pervaded the 2016 election, from the way Clinton and Trump announced their presidency to the way masculinity and femininity were policed throughout the election. Examples include Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Gary Johnson. I also consider how some women who support Trump reacted to allegations about sexual harassment. The difference between running for President as a man and running for President as a woman makes all the difference (...) in the world. (OPEN ACCESS). (shrink)

In this bioethical poem, the narrator reflects on the experience of their father's degenerative illness, and decisions that must be made about whether to continue life support technologies such as ventilation and nutrition/hydration. What is it that is owed to family and patient at the end of life? What must no one who loves anyone ever do to the one they love?

In this paper, I sound a warning note about the medicalization of risk conditions such as high cholesterol, especially in a health care climate of resource scarcity.

Goold and Stern (2006) offer a much needed dose of insight into the weakness of medical education from the perspective of resident and nonresident physicians. One of their findings pertains not to...

This review proposes that Bloom's linkage of word meaning with more general cognitive capacities could be extended through examination of the social contexts in which children learn. Specifically, the child's developing theory of mind can be viewed as part of the process by which children learn word meanings through engagement in social interactions that facilitate both language and strategic behaviours.

McLeod focuses her book on what she calls "typical refusals in reproductive healthcare." She defines this at several points, describing these as primarily refusals that "target services that are standard and that the objectors believe will result in the death of a human being that has the moral or religious status of a person ". Abortion is one procedure that is commonly targeted by "typical refusals." McLeod notes that clinicians engaging in such refusals may refuse not only the procedure itself (...) but also to make a referral for a procedure because they find this kind of indirect complicity to still be a violation of conscience. This... (shrink)

In this investigation, I focus on individual memory behaviors for which we commonly blame and praise each other. Alas, we too often do so unreflectively. Blame and praise should not be undertaken lightly or without a good grasp on both what we are holding people responsible for, and the conditions under which they can be held responsible. I lay out the constructivist view of memory with consideration for both remembering and forgetting, and special attention to how we remember events as (...) well as whether we remember them. I generate seven defeasible generalized moral rules that should govern individual memory behaviors including remembering our own past wrongs, holding grudges, and creating positive as well as negative memories. By such means may we all remember and forget rightly and not for ill. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SPLUTTERING UP THE BEACH TO NINEVEH... James Alison Rio de Janeiro I. Fleeing from the Word Jonah, ifyou remember, was a most unwilling prophet. The word of God came to him, telling him to go and preach against the great city ofNineveh, for its wickedness had come up before God. Jonah immediately went in the opposite direction. Rather than heading across the fertile crescent to Nineveh, he rushed (...) down to Jaffa and booked passage on a ship. Scripture tells us that he went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord (Jon 1,3) Not only was Tarshish quite the wrong way to go, it was a serious attempt to get away from the presence of the Living God. Why was Jonah so frightened? What was it about Nineveh that scared him? We get a clue later, when Jonah gets cross with Nineveh for repenting on cue. He hated Nineveh. He wanted it to be destroyed. He knew it to be wicked. Why go somewhere which should be destroyed and shout at its inhabitants to change their ways? They will probably give the messenger a rough time! Jonah did not appreciate that he was being sent to Nineveh for the good ofthe people there, yes, but also for his own good. At the end ofthe story he tells God that he hadn't wanted to go because he knew God was a loving God, and was too 'This talk originated as a presentation for the third annual conference ofthe Roman Catholic Caucus of the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement held in London in March 1999. James Alison109 angry at the thought that the people ofNineveh would get off so lightly. But we're not told that at this stage. Jonah is the son of Amittai, which is to say son of "My Truth." So the whole story is set up from the beginning as one in which someone who is wedded to their own truth comes to learn God's truth the hard way. He knows what is wrong with the gentile world, but was at first able to hear only half of the word of God. He heard it as he was able to receive it: as a stern word of rebuke that he was to pass on to others. That was the state of his soul. Luckily, God had chosen someone who, invincible as he was in his righteousness, knew perfectly well that it is a terrible thing to fall into the presence ofthe living God, and suspected, at some level ofhis being that if, he, Jonah were to obey God, God would certainly break through the carapace ofordered adhesion to true religion, and come into contact with a much more turbulent, stormy world, the world of shame and fear and hatred that is the underside ofall ordered righteousness. Shame is a compulsion which heeds only one command: flee! And Jonah fled. Thank heaven for Jonah's flight! Think how much more damage is caused by those who are not vulnerable to their own shame, who really do manage to fool themselves that their righteousness and God's are cut from the same cloth. Something in Jonah's being was vulnerable to the suspicion that the word ofthe living God would wreak havoc with his own carefully covered hatred and fear, the suspicion that that hatred ofothers and fear of himselfwere aspects ofthe same as yet unredeemed dimension ofhis own life. In that vulnerability was his flight, and through it, ultimately, he was reached so as to be taught how to be a bearer ofGod's word. Andrew Sullivan has a line which catches this dynamic exactly: "Shame forces you prematurely to run away from yourself; pride forces you prematurely to expose yourself. Most gay lives, I'm afraid, are full of an embarassing abundance ofboth."2 Faced with the prospect ofshouting at an incomprehending Nineveh with the hollow pride of those who love neither themselves nor those whom they must convince, Jonah, who knew at the root ofhis heart that he had been giveln something to say, went, as many of us do, into exile. Shame forced him prematurely to... (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice is a rich and engaging work that brings together her theory of emotions with her own strand of capabilities-inflected political liberalism . The result is an empirically-informed, deeply cross-disciplinary, and engaging argument for the centrality of emotional work to the liberal democratic project. In what follows, I offer an account of the book’s theoretical context and its central argument before engaging along more evaluative and critical lines with its treatment of compassion (...) and tragedy.The overarching theoretical argument of the book is that ensuring the stability of political principles and motivating citizens to make the sacrifices necessary for a common life require emotional work. This is as true in liberal societies as it is in monarchical or totalitarian ones, though the kind of emotional work required will differ in each case. Political liberals who accept this premise are faced wi .. (shrink)

This edited collection brings together keynote articles from the journal _Disability & Society_ to provide a comprehensive and though-provoking exploration of the place of technology in disabled people’s lives, documenting and analysing the growing impact of technology on disability and society over recent decades. The authors explore theoretical, empirical and moral dilemmas that arise with the changing relationship between technological change and the lives, aspirations and possibilities of disabled people. The volume is organised into three parts which consider early foundational (...) work connecting disability and technology; key empirical studies related to the optimum use of technologies for independence and inclusion; and new moral and social dynamics thrown up by technological developments for disabled people’s lives. (shrink)

Muitos teístas argumentam que a ocorrência de milagres é prova cabal da existência de Deus. Partindo de algumas ideias de Wittgenstein, pretendo mostrar que essa postura teísta é equivocada, dado que a essência do fato milagroso seria o deslumbramento e posterior mudança de vida que ele pode ocasionar no observador e não um fenômeno inexplicável, sendo mais compreensível ao postularmos a existência de um autor divino para ele. O milagre não prova a existência de Deus, mas proporciona uma possibilidade para (...) que o observador aceite uma cosmovisão religiosa. Por outro lado, dizer que um fato não é milagroso, pois explicações científicas ou filosóficas desmistificam-no, também é equivocado. Tentarei mostrar que a aura divina de um evento não precisa necessariamente desaparecer após encontrarmos uma explicação para ele. Por fim, mostrarei que esta compreensão wittgensteiniana dos milagres pode ser considerada compatível com a tradição cristã, contrariando uma primeira impressão que ela nos causa. (shrink)

Greek had held an important place in Roman society and culture since the Late Republican period, and educated Romans were expected to be bilingual and well versed in both Greek and Latin literature. The Roman school ‘curriculum’ was based on Hellenistic educational culture, and in theDe grammaticis et rhetoribusSuetonius says that the earliest teachers in Rome, Livius and Ennius, were ‘poets and half Greeks’ (poetae et semigraeci), who taught both Latin and Greek ‘publicly and privately’ (domi forisque docuisse) and ‘merely (...) clarified the meaning of Greek authors or gave exemplary readings from their own Latin compositions’ (nihil amplius quam Graecos interpretabantur aut si quid ipsi Latine composuissent praelegebant,Gram. et rhet.1–2). Cicero, the Latin neoteric poets and Horace are obvious examples of bilingual educated Roman aristocrats, but also throughout the Imperial period a properly educated Roman would be learned inutraque lingua. The place of Greek in Quintilian'sInstitutio Oratoriareveals the importance and prevalence of Greek in Roman education and literature in the late first centurya.d.Quintilian argues that children should learn both Greek and Latin but that it is best to begin with Greek. Famously, in the second centurya.d.the Roman author Apuleius gave speeches in Greek to audiences in Carthage, and in hisApologiamocked his accusers for their ignorance of Greek. (shrink)

Giving permission to embodied knowing to inform nursing research methodology: die poetics of voice(s)This paper originated from my experience of trying to find an authentic way to research women's experience of the pre‐menstruum. I describe how personal change informed an evolving methodological approach. This change occurred when I felt tension between two strong voices. Conflict and insecurities originated from the pressure of my academic voice to conform to the dominant culture in what often seemed a disempowering way; a way that (...) denied my body voice by emphasizing theory over experience. The construction of a poetic of voice (s) to illustrate how I eventually found an embodied voice is used to provide space for the reader's own interpretive process. The evolving embodied voice integrates my experience as a woman/nurse/researcher, validating my knowing bodily, practically, experientially and academically that I was able to help the participants to disclose their embodied knowing. This approach has wider implications when considering the value nurse researchers and academics give to embodied wisdom. (shrink)

This book explores the meaning and practice of corporeal ethics in organized life. Corporeal ethics originates from an emergent, embodied and affective experience with others that precedes and exceeds those rational schemes that seek to regulate it. Pullen and Rhodes show how corporeal ethics is fundamentally based in embodied affect, yet practically materialized in ethico-political acts of positive resistance and networked solidarity. Considering ethics in this way turns our attention to how people's conduct and interactions might be ethically informed in (...) the context of, and in resistance to, the masculine rationality of dominating organizational power relations in which they find themselves. Pullen and Rhodes outline the ways in which ethically grounded resistance and critique can and do challenge self-interested organizational power and privilege. They account for how corporeal ethics serves to destabilize the ways that organizations reproduce practices that negate difference and result in oppression, discrimination, and inequality. The book is suitable for students, scholars and citizens who want to learn more about the radical possibilities of how political actions arising from corporeal ethics can strive for equality and justice. (shrink)

Consumer action is leading to increasing debate over on-farm activities in New Zealand. Both animal welfare activists and government organizations frequently refer to the importance of welfare standards in order to secure overseas markets, as well as in response to local concerns. This article explores rural and urban people’s views of welfare of animals kept on farms for commercial purposes in response to a 2008 survey commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. It compares and contrasts these recent findings (...) with those of an earlier survey, to demonstrate how understanding of—and the impetus for—changing farm practices have developed. The article also looks at the global context of the animal welfare issue and discusses how overseas trends impact the New Zealand situation. The view that animal welfare is purely about physical well-being is among those challenged at home and abroad, and farmers are now forced to defend and amend industry standards. (shrink)

Documentary evidence has recently been discovered in the Archives at Petworth House, West Sussex, for the setting up of a laboratory in the House at the end of the eighteenth century. This paper gives details of those involved in the setting up of the laboratory, and of their other scientific and cultural interests. The accounts from the suppliers of the laboratory equipment are transcribed, and a brief description given of the many pieces of equipment from the laboratory that still survive (...) at Petworth House. (shrink)