Shors & Matzel's target article is a thought-provoking attempt to reconceptualise long-term potentiation as an attentional or arousal mechanism rather than a memory storage mechanism. This is incompatible with the facts of the neurobiology of attention and of the behavioural neurophysiological properties of hippocampal neurons.

School badges, though an integral part of education’s “aesthetic order,” of its signage and apparel, have not been the subjects of much of analysis. In addressing this oversight, the following paper examines the badges of New South Wales government schools and argues that like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, they draw on heraldic models and are constructs of colors, names, motifs, and mottoes that in various ways have local cogency and significance. For example, many badges draw on Australia’s flora (...) and fauna or refer to aspects of its colonial history and thereby induct pupils into the nation’s identity. Some schools, under the pressure to be more business-oriented, have turned their back on the traditional badge in favor of logos and slogans that, arguably, are more commensurate with their times. (shrink)

Nanotechnology thrives in the realm of the virtual. Throughout its history, the field has been shaped by futuristic visions of technological revolution, hyperbolic promises of scientific convergence at the molecular scale, and science fiction stories of the world rebuilt atom by atom. Even today, amid the welter of innovative nanomaterials that increasingly appear in everyday consumer products—the nanoparticles enhancing our sunscreens, the carbon nanotubes strengthening our tennis rackets, the antimicrobial nano-silver lining our socks, the nanofilms protecting our wrinkle-free trousers—the public (...) rhetoric of nanotechnology constantly reminds us that such precision-engineered materials merely represent a trace or a premonition of the amazing future still to come... (shrink)

ABSTRACTOscar Larsson’s sympathetic critique of constructivist institutionalism calls for a clarification of my understanding of subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, and their mutual interdependence. That interdependence lies at the heart of any genuinely constructivist approach, just as the interdependence of structure and agency lies at the heart of any genuinely institutionalist approach. As such, I reject the charge of subjectivism just as I would that of voluntarism. Building on the social ontology of Berger and Luckmann, we can distinguish between subjectivity and intra-subjectivity and (...) proceed to show how the latter implies a notion of inter-subjectivity. An example of the social construction of a political crisis shows that social facts are made and remade through a fusion of inter- and intra-subjectivities. (shrink)

La figure de l’entrepreneur est aujourd’hui utilisée dans une grande variété de discours publics. Ce travail cherche à remonter à l’une des sources théoriques de la constitution de cette figure : la théorie de l’entrepreneur de Schumpeter (1911a et 1911b). Ce retour montre que Schumpeter, dans son contexte intellectuel et théorique, est amené à importer une anthropologie philosophique en économie, celle de Nietzsche, auteur largement lu dans l’Autriche du début du xx e siècle. En transposant, à l’intérieur de sa théorie (...) économique, certaines caractéristiques majeures du grand homme créatif nietzschéen dans la figure de l’entrepreneur, Schumpeter développe une explication originale de la nature dynamique du marché et de l’évolution économique. Néanmoins il importe aussi de Nietzsche une série d’ambiguïtés, notamment en ce qui concerne l’origine de l’exceptionnalité individuelle de l’entrepreneur, et plus particulièrement de sa puissance créatrice. Une seconde ambiguïté est très largement héritée, qui concerne l’extension du modèle de l’individu entrepreneur : constitue-t-il une théorie de l’action valable pour tous les individus ou uniquement pour un type d’individus particuliers? Comment concilier exceptionnalité de l’entrepreneur et norme d’un entreprenariat pour tous? La dernière partie de ce travail s’attache ainsi à explorer ces ambiguïtés, qui apparaissent chez Schumpeter et ses successeurs, notamment Israël Kirzner. Codes JEL : B13, B25, B31, B40. (shrink)

A book on human communication that is worthy of its subject must introduce the reader to the dynamic interaction of a number of diverse fields. Colin Cherry's book, over successive editions, has served for twenty years as perhaps the most literate and readable introduction to this interaction available. Readers have consistently found that fields within their specialty are covered with authority; that fields far removed are covered with clarity; and that the connections among them are shown to be close (...) and natural. This third edition includes a new chapter, "Feeling, Knowledge, and Understanding," that extends the book's reach into philosophy, and in particular communicates some existential points-of-view. In it the author undertakes to demonstrate that "The language of physical science is inadequate for discussion of what is essentially human about human communication." In addition, numerous changes have been introduced throughout the text, and the bibliography has been expanded and updated. (shrink)

The concept of agency, although central to many sociological debates, has remained frustratingly elusive to pin down. This article is an attempt to open up what has been called the "black box" of personal agency by distinguishing clearly between two contrasting conceptions of the phenomenon. These two conceptions are very apparent in the manner in which the concept is defined in sociological reference works, resembling as it does a similar contrast in the treatment of the concept of power. The two (...) are referred to as type 1 and type 2 or the power of agency as compared with agentic power, the essential contrast being that the first refers to an actor's ability to initiate and maintain a program of action while the second refers to an actor's ability to act independently of the constraining power of social structure. The nature of these two forms of personal agency is then illustrated by referring to material taken from Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, this essay itself being understood as an argument that focuses on the crucial role played by an increase in the power of agency in ushering in the modern world. Finally, it is argued that these two conceptions of agency possess no given logical relationship with each other, it being perfectly possible for individuals to be possessed of considerable power of agency while lacking agentic power, and vice versa. It is therefore concluded that it is important, in all discussions of human agency, to distinguish clearly between these two forms. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a bold revival in the field of natural theology, where “natural theology” can be understood as the attempt to demonstrate that God exists by way of reason, evidence, and argument without the appeal to divine revelation. Today's practitioners of natural theology have not only revived and recast all of the traditional arguments in the field, but, by drawing upon the findings of contemporary cosmology, chemistry, and biology, have also developed a range of fascinating new (...) ones. -/- Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology brings together twenty experts working in the field today. Together, they practice natural theology from a wide range of perspectives, and show how the field of natural theology is practiced today with a degree of diversity and confidence not seen since the Middle Ages. Aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the volume will also be of interest to researchers in philosophy, theology, biblical studies, and religious studies, as an indispensable resource on contemporary theistic proofs. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that individuals are, prior to the existence of just institutions requiring that they do so, bound as a matter of global distributive justice to restrict their use, or share the benefits fairly of any use beyond their entitlements, of the Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases (EAC) to within a specified justifiable range. As part of the search for an adequate account of climate morality, I approach the task by revisiting, and drawing inspiration from, two (...) prominent models from classical political philosophy for thinking about norms (rights, permissions, limits, etc.) regarding “pre-institutional” appropriation of unowned resources; Locke and Kant, respectively. The basic resources they develop—connected to fundamental norms of equality and rights to self-preservation and freedom—in order to generate their particular schema for distributive shares prior to the existence of just institutions can be usefully and plausibly connected up with the scarce, valuable, rival, non-excludable, global, and unowned resource that is EAC in order to undergird a picture of individual climate duties in the contemporary world. It is a picture that comes with some fairly radical implications, especially for the well-off. (shrink)

This paper is about the underlying logical principles of scientific theories. In particular, it concerns ex contradictione quodlibet (ECQ) the principle that anything follows from a contradiction. ECQ is valid according to classical logic, but invalid according to paraconsistent logics. Some advocates of paraconsistency claim that there are ‘real’ inconsistent theories that do not erupt with completely indiscriminate, absurd commitments. They take this as evidence in favor of paraconsistency. Michael (2016) calls this the non-triviality strategy (NTS). He argues that this (...) strategy fails in its purpose. I will show that Michael's criticism significantly over-reaches. The fundamental problem is that he places more of a burden on the advocate of paraconsistency than on the advocate of classical logic. The weaknesses in Michael's argument are symptomatic of this preferential treatment of one viewpoint in the debate over another. He does, however, make important observations that allow us to clarify some of the complexities involved in giving a logical reconstruction of a theory. I will argue that there are abductive arguments deserving of further consideration for the claim that paraconsistent logic offers the best explanation of the practice of inconsistent science. In this sense, the debate is still very much open. (shrink)

Peter Carruthers argues that phenomenal consciousness might not matter very much either for the purpose of determining which nonhuman animals are appropriate objects of moral sympathy, or for the purpose of explaining for the similarities in behavior of humans and nonhumans. Carruthers bases these claims on his version of a dispositionalist higher-order thought (DHOT) theory of consciousness which allows that much of human behavior is the result of first-order beliefs that need not be conscious, and that prima facie judgments about (...) the importance of consciousness are due to confabulation. We argue briefly against his claim that ‘the moral landscape can remain unchanged’ even if all or nearly all nonhuman animals are taken to be incapable of conscious experience. We then show how a first-order representational (FOR) theory of consciousness might be defended against Carruthers’ criticisms. Finally, we argue that Carruthers’ appeal to confabulation undercuts his own arguments for an evolutionary explanation for consciousness, posing a greater epiphenomenalist threat to his DHOT theory than he concedes. (shrink)

The article looks briefly at Fefermans own foundations. Among many different senses of foundations, the one that mathematics needs in practice is a recognized body of truths adequate to organize definitions and proofs. Finding concise principles of this kind has been a huge achievement by mathematicians and logicians. We put ZFC and categorical foundations both into this context.

The following review summarizes and examines Mark Solms's article Dreaming and REM Sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms, which argues why the understanding of REM sleep as the physiological equivalent of dreaming needs to be re-analyzed. An analysis of Solms's article demonstrates that he makes a convincing argument against the paradigmatic activation-synthesis model proposed by Hobson and McCarley and provides provocative evidence to support his claim that REM and dreaming are dissociable states. In addition, to situate Solms's findings in (...) concurrent research, other studies are mentioned that are further elucidated by his argument. [Solms]. (shrink)

An argument has been recently proposed by Watkins, whose objective is to show the impossibility of a statistical explanation of single events. This present paper is an attempt to show that Watkins's argument is unsuccessful, and goes on to argue for an account of statistical explanation which has much in common with Hempel's classic treatment.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leo Strauss on Plato's Euthyphro ed. Hannes Kerber, and Svetozar Y. MinkovColin David PearsKERBER, Hannes, and Svetozar Y. Minkov, editors. Leo Strauss on Plato's Euthyphro. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023. vii + 231 pp. Cloth, $74.95; paper, $22.95Leo Strauss is an enigmatic figure in the landscape of political philosophy, deeply committed to the restoration of political philosophy as the premiere discipline in academia. He spent his (...) career working to reopen le querelle des anciens et des modernes and the theologico-political problem underlying those tensions. Though, as the editors of this volume point out, Strauss's motivations were not merely historiographic and the evolution of his thought was not without significant, if fruitful, setbacks.Strauss's early thought is defined by his engagement with Maimonides, and especially Philosophy and Law (1935). Without fully abandoning the [End Page 550] traditional interpretation of Maimonides as reconciling Jewish and Aristotelian philosophy, Strauss advances Maimonides as an esoteric thinker with a more complex and nuanced philosophic perspective. Strauss later turned to al-Farabi, who like Maimonides grapples with the complex interrelation of reason, revelation, and the role of philosophy. It was during this era that Strauss, having just fled Nazi Germany in 1938, confirmed his view of esoterism in philosophic writing and jettisoned limited traditional interpretations.However, these phases of Strauss's early development prove short-lived. In 1946, Strauss "suffers" his famous "shipwreck," a profound philosophic crisis, which compelled him "to begin again from the beginning" (Strauss to Löwith, 1946). Al-Farabi had led Strauss back into a study of Plato and to the crisis of reason laid out in Plato's dialogues, the crux of which is the possibility that there may exist permanent limits on what philosophy or science can know about the fundamental nature of things. The implications this has regarding the legitimacy of divine revelation led to the "second sailing" suggested in the Phaedo, and to Strauss's complete reevaluation of the theologico-political problem.The present volume provides a view of Strauss's evolving thought immediately following his "shipwreck" and as he begins to critically elaborate on his view of the relationship between philosophy and religion. Included are Strauss's notebook on Plato's Euthyphro and Crito (1948), a draft of his first lecture on the Euthyphro (1950), notes for his second lecture on the Euthyphro and the text of the lecture itself (1952), as well as marginalia and selections from his copy of Plato's dialogue. Together, these materials make up the several layers surrounding the heart of Strauss's thought on the problems of justice and piety, or "whether the right and necessity of philosophy are completely evident."Reading this volume is an exercise in flipping back and forth between one section and another to the point where one is tempted to break the spine, separate the sections, and lay them out side by side. Strauss's notebook provides his line-by-line interpretation of the Platonic dialogues and forms the basis for both the draft of his first lecture, his notes on the second, and his 1952 lecture itself. Astute readers may already notice in the notebook how Strauss subtly opens up his view of piety, for example by taking seriously Euthyphro's first but formally flawed definition of piety and gradually refusing to position Euthyphro as a fool. Strauss's draft of his first lecture picks up the notebook's themes but still presents a view of piety more in line with the pro-philosopher stance presented early in the notes. By contrast, the 1952 lecture presents a more elegant formulation of Strauss's position, both in words and actions. That is, not only does the second lecture closely follow the notebook's nuanced exegesis, but it is also designed to stimulate the reader's thinking on the problems of justice and piety, rather than resolve these didactically.Strauss appears to have abandoned the approach he took in the first lecture in favor of an approach that echoed Plato's own presentation in the Euthyphro. He closes the 1952 lecture with two especially salient [End Page 551] points. Returning to his early claim... (shrink)

Behavior and cognition, once conceived as psychological or interpersonal in origin, are increasingly thought to arise from biology. After investigating the validity of this trend of thinking, the article attempts to interpret what it means to the discipline of psychology. Two main categories of interpretation are discussed. First, this trend could mean that biological factors ultimately underlie traditionally psychological explanations i.e., biological factors are a sufficient condition for understanding behavior and cognition. Second, this trend could indicate that biological factors are (...) important, and perhaps even traditionally overlooked, but are not sufficient in themselves to explain human behavior and cognition i.e., biological factors are necessary conditions among other necessary conditions. The practical and methodological implications of each of these two interpretations are clarified, with a special focus on relevant research limitations. We conclude that the evidence does not bear out a sufficiency thesis and, instead, supports more convincingly a necessity understanding of these trends. (shrink)

The patient wished to receive an experimental drug that she was instrumental in developing. After her diagnosis, she had investigated treatments that might help her condition and discovered that a specific compound could be beneficial. To further the development of this potential drug, she obtained preclinical data, founded a company, and sought investment from venture capitalists. The company was about to begin phase I testing, but the clinical trial had not yet opened. In addition, she would not have been a (...) candidate for the study, as it excluded patients with advanced disease. To be able to administer this drug to her, the patient's team of oncologists was in the process of drafting an individual patient investigational new drug application, including the protocol for the drug's delivery, to the Food and Drug Administration. The company developing the drug had preliminarily agreed to provide it. This protocol was also under review by the institutional review board of the university, and the ethics committee was consulted to determine whether she should receive the drug. (shrink)

This paper will proceed from the assumption of scholars like Anne Fernihough, Peter Fjagsund, Michael Black, and Michael Bell that there are sufficient connecting links between the literary oeuvre of D.H. Lawrence and the philosophizing of Martin Heidegger that they warrant consideration in each other's company. The paper will attempt to provide more evidence for what these scholars have been contending. It seeks to make the case that although D.H. Lawrence and Martin Heidegger start from very different beginning points, the (...) one literary, the other epistemological (so to speak), they arrive at surprisingly similar conclusions about the deficiencies in the specifically modern way of viewing human existence and the world. The paper isolates certain of Lawrence and Heidegger's key passages relevant to the themes of science, humanism, art and death and reveals them as looking at these fundamental issues from a remarkably similar standpoint. These two metaphysicians were groping for the right path forward from the intellectual and social crises of the twentieth century and the evidence suggests they saw it as lying in the same direction. (shrink)

Many traditional arguments in favor of enhancement are consequentialist in nature. Many of the classic arguments against enhancement seem to have loosely Kantian origins. In this paper I offer a different interpretation of what a Kantian should be committed to with respect to enhancement by focusing on Kant's sometimes overlooked imperfect duty to cultivate our talents. I argue that in promoting an end that Kant thinks we have a duty to set, enhancing is more than just permissible, but has morally (...) weighty reasons behind it and would in part constitute a duty we owe to ourselves. This shows that Kantians have a unique position to add to debates about enhancement and positions Kant as pushing a view that is potentially more radical than even most ethicists friendly to enhancement, who might grant that enhancement is permissible in a wide array of cases, but often fall short of judging it part of a duty we owe to ourselves. (shrink)

In 1959, Richard Feynman suggested that the most compelling reason to pursue nanoscale research might be ‘just for fun.’ This article traces a history of playful images and ludic practices in nanotechnology. Two case studies—nanocars and nanosoccer—exemplify the ways in which scientific research mobilizes speculative futures, less through engineering design or stepwise protocol than through the recreational dynamics of play. Although such molecular toys might appear frivolous, they index the increasingly widespread conditions of play labor, or ‘playbor’, shaping today’s technoculture. (...) Exploring the processes of transmutation and transvaluation by which technological imaginaries are rendered operative, this article tells a story of how the nanoworld became an everyday reality by becoming a game. (shrink)

The term ‘space’ is inherently geographical. Educational provision and activity takes place within spaces ranging from a room at home or in a school to a campus to an administrative area which could be a state within a country, a whole country or a group of countries. Such spaces are known as geographical surfaces. Within these spaces the process of learning and teaching takes place at particular points that are often nodes in a network which may be formal, such as (...) a group of schools or universities, or non-formal, such as in cyberspace. Understanding what goes on depends on the scale at which it is observed, ranging from individuals to global outreach. Altogether, this constitutes the geography of educational reality. This comprehensive volume includes a theoretical background, plus a sample of situations including school level, policy and administration, inequitable access, education hubs, and small states. It offers an introduction to a relatively neglected member of the family of education foundation disciplines, the geography of education. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Comparative Education. _. (shrink)

Academics and practitioners: nurses as intellectualsIn the author's experience, nurse educators working in universities generally accept that they are ‘academics’, but dismiss suggestions that they are ‘intellectuals’ because they see it as a pretentious description referring to a small number of academics and aesthetes who inhabit a conceptual world beyond the imaginative capacity of most other people. This paper suggests that the concept of the ‘intellectual’, if not the word itself, be admitted into nursing discourse through the adoption of a (...) non‐élitist Gramscian understanding, similar to the more recently formulated conception of the reflective practitioner. According to the Italian Marxist scholar Antonio Gramsci, intellectuals are those people who develop ways in which to construct the conditions of their own existence, a possibility he believed was open to all. It is suggested that, from a Gramscian perspective, all nurses are intellectuals to varying degrees, and nurse educators should not only be nurturing their own intellectualism but also the potential for intellectualism as it exists within each individual. The ways in which this project are related to Habermasian critical theory are also briefly outlined. (shrink)

Recent arguments of Watkins, one purporting to show the impossibility of probabilistic induction, and the other to be a solution of the practical problem of induction, are examined and two are shown to generate inconsistencies in his system. The paper ends with some reflections on the Bayesian theory of inductive inference.

: This paper shows how the ethical benefits of Mill's Religion of HumanityÑa life imbued with purpose, an improved regard for others, and greater happiness for oneself from the pleasures of fellow-feelingÑare to be actualized through the imagination's creation of compelling narratives about humanity. Understanding the ethical importance of the Religion of Humanity therefore implies understanding the central role of imagination in Millian ethical life. This investigation serves to articulate a feature of Mill's utilitarianism that differentiates it from Bentham's, namely (...) his commitment to the importance of a religious sensibility in the moral agent. It also raises the broader philosophical issue of what narratives a psychologically tenable humanist world-view requires. (shrink)

: What would constitute just representation for the climate vulnerable? My purpose in this essay is to provide a critique of the default frame for approaching this question, as well as to offer a suggestion for expanding our conception of what an adequate answer should include. The standard frame conceives of representing vulnerable climate interests largely in terms of formal mechanisms of representation in technocratic and bureaucratic institutions. I show the limits of that standard approach and caution against the discussion (...) of climate representation being overly confined to the level of “formal” representation. I go on to detail the importance of thinking about more “informal” modes of representing vulnerable climate interests. In order to pursue both of these aims, I draw on lessons in meaningful representation and inclusion during postconflict peacebuilding. (shrink)