The specific nuances of what Gramsci names ‘the new dialectic’ are explored in this paper. The dialectic was Marx's specific ‘mode of thought’ or ‘method of logic’ as it has been variously called, by which he analyzed the world and man's relationship to that world. As well as constituting a theory of knowledge (epistemology), what arises out of the dialectic is also an ontology or portrait of humankind that is based on the complete historicization of humanity; its ‘absolute “historicism”’ or (...) ‘the absolute secularisation and earthliness of thought’, as Gramsci worded it (, p. 465). Embracing a fully secular and historical view of humanity, it provides a vantage point that allows the multiple and complex effects of our own conceptual heritage to be interrogated in relation to our developing ‘nature’ or ‘being’. The argument presented in this paper is that the legacy of both Hegel and Marx is manifest in the depth of Gramsci's comprehension of what he termed the ‘educative‐formative’ problem of hegemony. It is precisely the legacy of this Hegelian‐Marxist radical philosophical critique that is signified in his continuing commitment to the ‘philosophy of praxis’ and the historical‐dialectical principles that underpin this worldview. (shrink)

Aims The purpose of this literature review was to explore the psychosocial implications of long-term survival for people affected by cancer by systematically examining published research evidence. Key findings 283 abstracts of papers were retrieved and checked and 33 studies relating to the implications of long-term survival subjected to detailed scrutiny. This review suggests that the majority of long-term cancer survivors cope well and enjoy good QoL. However, there are areas of concern which warrant attention. Whilst this review did not (...) set out to review physical problems experienced in the long-term, long-term physical consequences of cancer and its treatment were associated with poorer QoL and more psychological distress and sexual problems. Other long term concerns included anxiety regarding recurrence, financial difficulties and reduced social and emotional support. Long term survivors of lung, head and neck cancers appear particularly vulnerable to long term problems although there were few studies involving people with these cancers in this review. A number of limitations in the current evidence base were highlighted. Little research was conducted in the UK and raises questions as to the relevance of the findings for a different environment or culture where patients may have different attitudes to cancer survival and receive different treatments. Also, when looking at practical issues for long-term survivors such as ability to obtain insurance, or employment matters, then country-specific factors will be important. (shrink)

Visual experience is shaped by a number of factors that are independent of the external objects that we perceive—factors like lighting, angle of view, and the sensitivities of photoreceptors in the retina. This paper seeks to catalog, analyze, and explain the fluctuations in visual phenomenology that are due to such factors.

In this critical notice of Kment's _Modality and Explanatory Reasoning_, we focus on Kment’s arguments for impossible worlds and on a key part of his discussion of the interactions between modality and explanation – the analogy that he draws between scientific and metaphysical explanation.

As the subtitle indicates, this book is concerned with the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. It recommends a novel and disturbingly pessimistic view about this topic that it calls “naturalistic mysterianism.” The view is naturalistic because it maintains that states of consciousness are reducible to physical properties of the brain. It counts as “mysterian” because it asserts that the physical properties in question are entirely beyond our ken—that they lie well beyond the scope of contemporary neuroscience, and quite (...) likely beyond the scope of any body of scientific knowledge that we might develop in the future. Naturalistic mysterianism thus affirms the unity of consciousness with the physical world, while also claiming that the nature of that unity will forever elude us, due to inherent limits of our cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Models of risk-taking as used in the social sciences may be improved by including concepts from life history theory, particularly environmental unpredictability and life expectancy. Community college students completed self-report questionnaires measuring these constructs along with several well-known correlates. The frequency of risk-taking was higher for those with higher future unpredictability beliefs and shorter lifespan estimates (as measured by the Future Lifespan Assessment developed for this study), and unpredictability beliefs remained significant after accounting for standard predictors, such as sex and (...) temperament. The results demonstrate the usefulness of applying concepts from life history theory to enhance our understanding of human behavior. (shrink)

This article examines some philosophical questions about knowledge of modality, including how we determine whether a proposition is necessary or contingent and what procedures to use for recognizing possibility. It maintains that virtually anything is conceivable, and that conceivability is therefore incapable of providing a reliable test for possibility. Whether a conceivable state of affairs is genuinely possible depends on whether it is compatible with the class of necessary truths. But this means that we must have some independent way of (...) recognizing necessity. The article explains that independent access to necessity in terms of the hypothesis that various modal truths constitute an implicit definition of necessity. To a large extent, our knowledge of necessity derives from our grasp of this definition. The article also criticizes Cartesian modal arguments for dualism, and raises an objection to the view that metaphysical necessity can be reductively explained in terms of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

Agrifood scholars commonly adopt “a matter of fact way of speaking” to talk about the extent of neoliberal rollout in the food sector and the viability of “alternatives” to capitalist food initiatives. Over the past few decades this matter of fact stance has resulted in heated debate in agrifood scholarship on two distinct battlegrounds namely, the corporate food regime and the alternative food regime. In this paper I identify some of the limitations of speaking in a matter of fact way (...) and of focusing on capitalist and neoliberal economies as the yardstick by which to assess all food economy initiatives. Using stories of bananas in Australia and the Philippines I advocate for a new mode of critical inquiry in food scholarship that focuses on matters of concern. Following Bruno Latour I use the term critical inquiry to refer to research methods and thinking practices that multiply possible ways of being and acting in the world. The new mode of critical inquiry I propose centers on enacting three broad research matters of concern. These are gathering and assembling economic diversity human actancy and nonhuman actancy. I argue that through becoming critical minds in the Latourian sense researchers can play a key role in enacting economic food futures in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

I have taken a Kantian approach to the issue of pornography and degradation. My thesis is that by perpetuating derogatory myths about womankind, for the sake of financial gain, the pornography industry treats the class of women as a means only, and not as composed of individuals who are ends in themselves. It thus de-grades all women, as members of this class, imputing to them less than full human status.

This research takes a retrospective look at modern consumption opportunities of the U.S. poor from both sides of the marketing exchange relationship. The paper opens with a critical assessment of the consumer-behavior literature and its primary focus on middle-class Americans. The next section profiles the impoverished and their purchasing habits and closes with a summary of how both have changed over the last forty years. Then a theoretical account is presented using consumer literature from the same timeframe. The paper ends (...) with a discussion of common business practices and moral dilemmas that have continued over these decades, along with an ethical paradigm involving distributive justice to guide future management tactics. (shrink)

It is a matter of contention whether or not a general explanatory framework for the biological sciences would be of scientific value, or whether it is even achievable. In this paper we suggest that both are the case, and we outline proposals for a framework capable of generating new scientific questions. Starting with one clear characteristic of biological systems – that they all have the potential to make mistakes - we aim to describe the nature of this potential and the (...) common processes that lie behind it. Given that under most circumstances biological systems function effectively, an examination of different kinds of mistake-making provides pointers to mechanisms that must exist to make failure uncommon. This in turn informs a framework for systematic enquiry, which in this paper we apply to the haemostatic system, but which we believe could be applied to any system across biology. (shrink)

Reviews the role of happiness in Kant's moral and political philosophy and contrasts his ideas of happiness with ideas of human flourishing prominent in ancient philosophy. It considers possible reasons why Kant avoided the latter and worked instead with more subjective conceptions of happiness. This was apparently due not merely to historical influences or misunderstanding of ancient ethics but also to Kant's respect for the moral freedom of individuals to choose, within limits, the way of life they prefer. Kant's understanding (...) of happiness affects his ideas of intrinsic value, prudence, beneficence, and the aim of government. Michael Slote's charge that Kantian ethics requires us to devalue our own happiness relative to others’ arguably rests on a flawed analogy between beneficence to others and promoting one's own happiness. (shrink)

Manipulating sensory and motor cues can cause an illusionary perception of ownership of a fake body part. Presumably, the illusion can work as long as the false body part’s position and appearance are anatomically plausible. Here, we introduce an illusion that challenges past assumptions on body ownership. We used virtual reality to switch and mirror participants’ views of their hands. When a participant moves their physical hand, they see the incongruent virtual hand moving. The result is an anatomically implausible configuration (...) of the fake hand. Despite the hand switch, participants reported significant body ownership sensations over the virtual hands. In the first between-group experiment, we found that the strength of body ownership over the incongruent hands was similar to that of congruent hands. Whereas, in the second within-group experiment, anatomical incongruency significantly decreased body ownership. Still, participants reported significant body ownership sensations of the switched hands. Curiously, we found that perceived levels of agency mediate the effect of anatomical congruency on body ownership. These findings offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between anatomical plausibility and assumed body ownership. We propose that goal-directed and purposeful actions can override anatomical plausibility constraints and discuss this in the context of the immersive properties of virtual reality. (shrink)

Stewart Duncan, Materialism from Hobbes to Locke, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2022, 248pp., ISBN: 9780197613009.

This paper identifies a neglected manuscript, Viterbo, Centro Diocesano di Documentazione, Capitolare 51, as the extant archetype of the Libri Romani version of the glossary of Placidus. It first demonstrates that R is the parent of the three witnesses to the Libri Romani text used by editors, and it considers the implications of the neglected manuscript for future editions of the text. It then corroborates the importance of R by tracing its travels in humanistic and antiquarian circles in Italy in (...) the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This history provides a framework for future research on the textual transmission of the Libri Romani text of Placidus. (shrink)

We contend that social science variables are the product of multiple partly heritable traits. Genetic associations with socioeconomic status (SES) may differ across populations, but this is a consequence of the intermediary traits associated with SES differences also varying. Furthermore, genetic data allow social scientists to make causal statements regarding the aetiology and consequences of SES.

Adam Smith (1723–90) provided a novel and subtle account of the new social physics that emerged to accommodate the economic changes taking place in his time. This article explores Smith’s views on the effect of commercialization on friendship, and then questions one prominent interpretation of his approach, that of Allan Silver. Against the contested reading, we argue that the new ‘strangership’ described by Smith is not warm, but rather, cool-friendship enhancing. We suggest that Cicero’s treatment of friendship illuminates Smith’s views (...) on this topic. (shrink)

Contrasts utilitarian, Kantian, and deep retributive views about the relations between wrongdoing and suffering because of one's wrongdoing. Kant maintains that, although wrongdoers are intrinsically liable to suffer self‐reproach and moral disapproval of others, wrongdoing does not entail “deserving to suffer” in a sense providing intrinsic practical reasons to inflict suffering. Arguably, even Kant's most infamous remarks on punishment fail to prove otherwise. Contrary to common impressions, Kant is best understood as holding a mixed theory in which the retributive policies (...) that Kant endorses lack deep retributive justification. Some implications for the justice of current practices of punishment are explored. (shrink)

This paper addresses Socrates’ claim in the Cratylus that he and Hermogenes must learn of the correctness of names from “Homer and the other poets.” I argue that, in treating poetry as the starting point for investigating the relationship of language to reality, Plato reveals language to be a discursive articulation of non-discursive divine Being. Thus, while language cannot fully capture Being once and for all, it can function as a moving image of it by being kept in continual motion. (...) Poetic language, as divinely inspired, sits at the threshold between language’s discursivity and the unified reality it strives to articulate, and can therefore reinvigorate philosophical contemplation by de-sedimenting concepts articulated in language that have become stagnant, re-opening them for examination in new, previously unarticulated, ways. This vision of philosophical contemplation through language is part of a greater theme of the tension between mortal and divine modes of knowing. Humans desire divine understanding but only approach it through the motion of contemplation. Plato’s treatment of Apollo at 404e–406a reveals the two-fold nature of philosophical contemplation as relying on a certain tension between the revelation of the inarticulable, unchanging divine Being and the attempt to employ reason to test and interpret such disclosures through the unfolding motion of dialectic. (shrink)

Popular songs are ubiquitous in the lives of school-age children, but the construction of traditional school music curricula does not always provide an adequate framework for studying them. In particular, the salience of words qua lyrics is an inescapable feature of popular songs, and recognizing the musical properties of those lyrics opens for study an important dimension of the real-world music that students of all ages engage so readily. Rather than treating song lyrics as separate from the music, I here (...) attempt to establish that lyrics can be treated as musical entities, as demonstrated in scholarship from popular music theorists and musicologists that highlights the musical properties of song lyrics and the musicianship of those who write them. Then, I argue that existing school curricula could do more to give lyrics their musical due, which would not only enhance the teaching and learning of popular songwriting itself, but also may expand notions of what counts as music more broadly, with benefits for school music curricula overall, perhaps especially in the domains of choral and general music. (shrink)

Markus Gabriel’s metaphysical nihilism—elaborated and defended most completely in his book Fields of Sense—contends that there is no legitimate ontological sense or reference attached to the words “the world.” In this paper, I present a detailed case for concluding that this project, at least in its current form, is unsuccessful. I argue, in particular, that Gabriel has at best shown that an absolutely unrestricted extensional domain cannot exist, but that his attempt to parlay this into a general rejection of metaphysics (...) is unsuccessful and indeed incoherent. Finally, I offer a speculative diagnosis of how Gabriel ended up in this predicament. (shrink)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1752 edition. Excerpt:... to which the original Exclusion had been owing, the Points of two short and slender Hairs appear'd protruding themselves from its oval Surface. The thicker butoblong Bodies, from whose Extremities these grew, next forc'd themselves out, and it was evident to a-'n accustom'd Eye, that they were (...) the Antennze of a two wing'd Fly; next presented themselves the anterior Surfaces of two chequeffd Orbs, which were plainly the complex Eyes of anlnsect' of the same Species, separated by a plain Portion of a Forehead; and soon after the whole Head. This was no sooner all in View, than it swell'd to a Diameter equal to twice the Measure of that of the Breast. lt might have appear'd from the first, that the Head was growing under the Eye of the Observer, from the Extremity of the Thorax, but tho' a more rational Enquiry could not but produce for its Answer, that it was only now thrust forth out of the Cavity of the Breast in which it had before been lodg'd; it yet appear'd singular after this sudden Change in Size to conceive how a Thing should have been till that Moment lodg'd in a Cavityz not equal to half its own Diameter. P a The The Head was now entire and in its Place, and the Legs were firm, and supported the Body well, but the Wings did not yet appear. On examining the Place where they were to be expacted, I discover'd two irregular Protuberances of a wrinkled Surface, and considerably large, and under them the two oblong Pedicies which we see supporting the Balls under the Wings of all the two wing'd Flies. It was evident from this, that the Protuberances at the two Sides of the Base of the Thorax were the very Wings in their folded State, and this was soon prov'd by their expanding. The Wings in all this Race of Creatures are the last Part... (shrink)

What happens when philosophy and literature meet? This pioneering study of the essays and fiction of Georges Bataille, Pierre Klossowski, and Maurice Blanchot examines the relationship between the literary and the philosophical dimension of their work and throws new light on the radical singularity of their writing.

Recent findings in neuroscience and psychology indicate that “the body keeps the score” of PTSD. Concurrently, trauma-informed theology to date has deployed pneumatology to explain how God experiences trauma in the Christian narrative of salvation. Yet, in Christian theology the divine person of the Holy Spirit has no assumed human body. This raises an important question as to whether a body is needed for God to keep the score of posttraumatic stress in a manner consistent with neuroscience and how this (...) might shape one’s account of trauma in Christian soteriology. In this article, I take an analytic science-engaged approach to assess the viability of dominant proposals in trauma-informed theology which deploy trauma theory to assert God’s experience of trauma and explain this experience with exclusive reference to pneumatology. After reviewing clinical and scientific research on the neuroscience of PTSD which has been neglected in these approaches, I argue that Christology is a more obviously fitting locus for suggesting God’s experience of trauma within Christian soteriology than the person of the Holy Spirit. I conclude that since the body keeps the score of trauma from a scientific perspective, Christ’s body keeps the score of trauma from a science-engaged theology perspective. (shrink)

The identification and amelioration of political corruption has long absorbed political science. But has corruption always been a problem about abuse of public trust for private gain, or a lack of probity, integrity and transparency in governance? For some, the 'modern' conception of corruption is radically different from the classical, whereby corruption is held to be conceived in exclusively moralistic terms as a loss of virtue in the polity, a generalized condition afflicting political elites and citizens indiscriminately. But, as will (...) be shown in the following discussion, the so- called 'modern' conception of corruption (corruption 2) was very well developed in the classical period, particularly in Athens and Rome. This did not mean, however, that this conception always prevailed, therefore this paper is just as concerned to map and comprehend the fractures and contradictions in antique attitudes to 'corruption 2' that prevented it from being either monolithic or universally honoured. (shrink)

Department of Philosophy Brown University Providence, RI 02912.

The author introduces two key issues of the Ebola epidemic very clearly. However, the author could elaborate further on the objections to using experimental drugs. The author does a very good job of enumerating the reasons for using these drugs. In terms of reasons against using the drugs, the author only writes that there are regulations in place that are usually followed. Several supporting facts are given to suggest different regulations should be put in place for a crisis like Ebola. (...) Ebola is a deadly disease with no cure. At present, all we have are these experimental drugs. Ordinarily, such drugs would not be given without extensive testing. However, in this case, there is no time for that to be done. People who contract Ebola have no other alternatives, so an unapproved experimental treatment is better than nothing at all. It is important to weigh the risks and benefits. Some may argue that the risks of using an experimental drug may be too great and that we should wait to administer any experimental drug until it has been proven safe. We do not know what the long-term side effects may be. While that argument may be appropriate for other situations, in the case of Ebola epidemic, I do not think it applies. As I have said, and as the author has said, there is no cure or other treatment available for Ebola. People who contract it will likely die of the disease and these experimental treatments are their only option. In this case, the benefits outweigh the risks. As the author mentions, access to these drugs is very problematic. However, they do not elaborate enough on both sides of the issue. There are reasons supporting and reasons against giving health care workers experimental treatments first and I think including them would have added to the depth of the argument presented here. (shrink)