A UN report, which comprehensively documents the advance of global population ageing, was released on 1 October 2012, the International Day of Older Persons. In the West, this development has been accelerated by and will be profoundly experienced by the baby boomers. As they reach ages historically linked with retirement their numbers are rising, as are expectations for annual age-related public spending. Vulnerabilities are regularly being exposed in terms of medical care, social care and inadequate retirement planning. This makes acceptance (...) of the traditional narrative for ageing, including passivity, complacency and accelerating dependency, patently unsustainable. Medical and technological advancements have given this cohort an achievement award in terms of longer, healthier lives and there is a choice to make. Either substantive changes to redefine this life stage are made or the salutary lesson afforded by the new longevity could be squandered. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine’s (EBM) quantitative methodologies reflect medical science’s long-standing mistrust of the imprecision and subjectivity of ordinary descriptive language. However, EBM’s attempts to replace subjectivity with precise empirical methods are problematic when clinicians must negotiate between scientific medicine and patients’ experience. This problem is evident in the case of bibliotherapy (patient reading as treatment modality), a practice widespread despite its reliance on anecdotal evidence. While EBM purports to replace such flawed practice with reliable evidence-based methods, this essay argues that its (...) aversion to subjective language prevents EBM from effectively evaluating bibliotherapy or making it amenable to clinical and research governance. (shrink)

This chapter is reprinted from our lead essay in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, ed. C. Mitcham, Gale, 2005.

Despite the widespread use of key concepts of the Neyman–Pearson (N–P) statistical paradigm—type I and II errors, significance levels, power, confidence levels—they have been the subject of philosophical controversy and debate for over 60 years. Both current and long-standing problems of N–P tests stem from unclarity and confusion, even among N–P adherents, as to how a test's (pre-data) error probabilities are to be used for (post-data) inductive inference as opposed to inductive behavior. We argue that the relevance of error probabilities (...) is to ensure that only statistical hypotheses that have passed severe or probative tests are inferred from the data. The severity criterion supplies a meta-statistical principle for evaluating proposed statistical inferences, avoiding classic fallacies from tests that are overly sensitive, as well as those not sensitive enough to particular errors and discrepancies. Introduction and overview 1.1 Behavioristic and inferential rationales for Neyman–Pearson (N–P) tests 1.2 Severity rationale: induction as severe testing 1.3 Severity as a meta-statistical concept: three required restrictions on the N–P paradigm Error statistical tests from the severity perspective 2.1 N–P test T(): type I, II error probabilities and power 2.2 Specifying test T() using p-values Neyman's post-data use of power 3.1 Neyman: does failure to reject H warrant confirming H? Severe testing as a basic concept for an adequate post-data inference 4.1 The severity interpretation of acceptance (SIA) for test T() 4.2 The fallacy of acceptance (i.e., an insignificant difference): Ms Rosy 4.3 Severity and power Fallacy of rejection: statistical vs. substantive significance 5.1 Taking a rejection of H0 as evidence for a substantive claim or theory 5.2 A statistically significant difference from H0 may fail to indicate a substantively important magnitude 5.3 Principle for the severity interpretation of a rejection (SIR) 5.4 Comparing significant results with different sample sizes in T(): large n problem 5.5 General testing rules for T(), using the severe testing concept The severe testing concept and confidence intervals 6.1 Dualities between one and two-sided intervals and tests 6.2 Avoiding shortcomings of confidence intervals Beyond the N–P paradigm: pure significance, and misspecification tests Concluding comments: have we shown severity to be a basic concept in a N–P philosophy of induction? (shrink)

Numerous philosophical theories of joint agency and its intentional structure have been developed in the past few decades. These theories have offered accounts of joint agency that appeal to higher-level states that are?shared? in some way. These accounts have enhanced our understanding of joint agency, yet there are a number of lower-level cognitive phenomena involved in joint action that philosophers rarely acknowledge. In particular, empirical research in cognitive science has revealed that when individuals engage in a joint activity such as (...) conversation or joint problem solving, they become aligned at multiple levels. We argue that this phenomenon of alignment is crucial to understanding joint actions and should be integrated with philosophical approaches. In this paper, we sketch a possible integration, and draw out its implications for understanding of joint agency and collective intentionality. The result is a process-based, dynamic account of joint action that integrates both low-level and high-level states, and seeks to capture the separate processes of how a joint action is initiated and sustained. (shrink)

The fact that much of our knowledge is gained through the testimony of others challenges a certain form of epistemic individualism. We are clearly not autonomous knowers. But the discussion surrounding testimony has maintained a commitment to what I have elsewhere called epistemic agent individualism. Both the reductionist and the anti-reductionist have focused their attention on the testimony of individuals. But groups, too, are sources of testimony - or so I shall argue. If groups can be testifiers, a natural question (...) to ask is whether our beliefs based on the testimony of groups are ever justified and whether such a justification is to be conferred inferentially or non-inferentially. I consider and dismiss the possibility of extending an anti-reductionist account of justification to our group testimonial beliefs. I also argue against a version of reductionism that would have our group testimonial beliefs justified only in so far as we were able to monitor the trustworthiness of members of the group. However, there are forms of reductionism that can be extended to make sense of the justification of our group testimonial beliefs. There are mechanisms for monitoring the trustworthiness and competency of a group (rather than its members) and, further, a variety of background beliefs allow us to assess the testimony of a group for reliability. (shrink)

the philosophical writings ofx Lady Mary Shepherd were apparently well regarded in her own time, but dropped out of view in the mid-nineteenth century.1 Some historians of philosophy have recently begun attending to the distinctive arguments in Shepherd's two books, but the secondary literature that exists so far has largely focused on her critiques of Hume and Berkeley. However, many other themes and arguments in Shepherd's writings have not yet been explored. This paper takes up one such issue, what Shepherd (...) means by 'mind,' 'soul,' and 'self.' Shepherd held the unusual view that the mind is an enduring capacity that causes (whether on its own or in conjunction with other partial causes, such as... (shrink)

Recent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more closely at (...) the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts. (shrink)

Is bioethics consultation a profession? Withfew exceptions, the arguments andcounterarguments about whether healthcareethics consultation is a profession haveignored the historical and cultural developmentof professions in the United States, the wayssocial changes have altered the work andboundaries of all professions, and theprofessionalization theories that explain howmodern societies institutionalize expertise inprofessions. This interdisciplinary analysisbegins to fill this gap by framing the debatewithin a larger theoretical context heretoforemissing from the bioethics literature. Specifically, the question of whether ethicsconsultation is a profession is examined fromthe (...) perspectives of trait theory, Wilensky''sfive-stage process of professionalization,Abbott''s interdependent system of professions,and Haug''s deprofessionalization thesis. Whilehealthcare ethics consultation does not meetthe criteria to claim professional status,neither could most professions pass these idealtheoretical standards. Instead of a yes or nodichotomous response to the question, it ismore helpful to envision a professionalizationcontinuum with sales clerks or carpenters atone end and medicine or law at the other. During the past decade healthcare ethicsconsultation has been moving along thiscontinuum toward greater professional status. (shrink)

Inferentialism seems to be an unpopular theory where derogatory terms are concerned. Contrary to most theorists in the debate on the meaning of derogatory terms, I think that inferentialism constitutes a promising theory to account for a broad range of aspects of derogatory language use. In order to make good on that promise, however, inferentialism must overcome four main objections that are usually raised against Michael Dummett's and Robert Brandom's inferentialist explanations of derogatory terms. This paper aims at debunking these (...) objections and thereby further developing the inferentialist interpretation of derogatory terms. I shall first discuss and reject three of the objections by pointing to the core assumptions of Brandomian inferentialism. Overcoming the fourth objection requires adjusting Dummett's and Brandom's explanation of the meaning of derogatory terms. In order to do so, I shall elaborate on the role that the explication of implicit material inferences plays with regard to different kinds of derogatory terms. The inferentialist account I am proposing fares better in terms of its explanatory power and broadness of application than Dummett's and Brandom's sketchy and oft-criticised views. (shrink)

Kuhn maintains that what marks the transition to a science is the ability to carry out ‘normal’ science—a practice he characterizes as abandoning the kind of testing that Popper lauds as the hallmark of science. Examining Kuhn's own contrast with Popper, I propose to recast Kuhnian normal science. Thus recast, it is seen to consist of severe and reliable tests of low-level experimental hypotheses (normal tests) and is, indeed, the place to look to demarcate science. While thereby vindicating Kuhn on (...) demarcation, my recasting of normal science is seen to tell against Kuhn's view of revolutionary science. (shrink)

Theories of statistical testing may be seen as attempts to provide systematic means for evaluating scientific conjectures on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate observational data. The Neyman-Pearson Theory of Testing (NPT) has purported to provide an objective means for testing statistical hypotheses corresponding to scientific claims. Despite their widespread use in science, methods of NPT have themselves been accused of failing to be objective; and the purported objectivity of scientific claims based upon NPT has been called into question. The (...) purpose of this paper is first to clarify this question by examining the conceptions of (I) the function served by NPT in science, and (II) the requirements of an objective theory of statistics upon which attacks on NPT's objectivity are based. Our grounds for rejecting these conceptions suggest altered conceptions of (I) and (II) that might avoid such attacks. Second, we propose a reformulation of NPT, denoted by NPT*, based on these altered conceptions, and argue that it provides an objective theory of statistics. The crux of our argument is that by being able to objectively control error frequencies NPT* is able to objectively evaluate what has or has not been learned from the result of a statistical test. (shrink)

This paper problematizes current thinking about education by arguing that the question of educational purpose is not simply a socio-political question concerned with what the ends should be and why, but can also be understood as a structural question, concerned with the way we understand education’s directional impetus. We suggest that it is possible to understand education as something other than a curricular instrument designed to facilitate a purpose external to itself. We challenge such an instrumental view by arguing that (...) education is an emergent phenomenon with its own unique aesthetic qualities (like art or music); a phenomenon, moreover, that does not simply serve a purpose, but generates the purpose it serves. In this paper we lay down the groundwork for such a non-instrumental understanding of education by combining the notion of emergence with ideas from Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Aristotle’s teleological notion of the ‘ideal’ as self-generated and the Greek notion of ‘paideia.’ This provides an opportunity to theorise education’s directional impetus as the ongoing and open-ended coordination of three realms of human life: the symbolic, the individual and the political. Given the acute political and social dilemmas that instrumental understandings of education bring forth in multicultural, and so called ‘democratic’ and ‘inclusive’ societies, we hope that by opening the possibility to theorise education as a non-instrumental phenomenon, it may become possible to have more fruitful discussion regarding education than endless political debate about what the curricular ends of education should be. (shrink)

The question of acceptability in respect to the strategic foul in sport has provoked a rich and seemingly irreconcilable dispute with normative theorists currently divided amongst three schools of thought including formalism, conventionalism and interpretivism. In this paper, I seek to transcend the three-way intellectual stalemate portrayed in the literature via a consideration as to whether or not the strategic foul qualifies as ‘Utopian’. More specifically, after demonstrating that Bernard Suits’ theory of game-playing is fully capable of embracing all three (...) rival accounts, I seek to end the normative debate altogether via a conceptual analysis of the strategic foul as unacceptable via the higher-order point of view afforded by essentialism. (shrink)

In The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, Suits maintains the following two theses: game-playing is defined as ‘activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity’ and ‘game playing is what makes Utopia intelligible.’ Observing that these two theses cannot be jointly maintained absent paradox, this essay explores the (...) logical possibility that if is true, then must be false. More specifically, in the tradition of conceptual analysis it is argued that Suits’ definition of game-playing is too narrow inasmuch as it excludes really magnificent Utopian games of significance. (shrink)

The concept of ‘‘certitude” is central in Arabic discussions of the theory of demonstration advanced by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics. In the Arabic tradition it is ‘‘certitude,” rather than ‘‘knowledge”, that is usually identified as the end sought by demonstrations. Al-Fārābī himself devotes a short treatise, known as the Conditions of Certitude, to determining the criteria according to which a subject can claim to have absolute certitude of any proposition. In this article the author traces the roots of the (...) concept of certitude to the Arabic translation of the Posterior Analytics. She then offers a close reading of the text of al-Fārābī's Conditions and its parallels in his Epitome of the Posterior Analytics. She argues that the identification of certitude as a cognitive state distinct from knowledge enabled al-Fārābī to introduce a number of interesting and sometimes problematic innovations into Arabic epistemology. Foremost amongst his positive innovations is the recognition that contingent as well as necessary propositions allow for an attenuated form of certitude, and the introduction of reliabilism into the justification of claims to certitude. But al-Fārābī is also one of the first philosophers to articulate explicitly the idea that certitude must include an element of ‘‘knowing that one knows,” a controversial principle that tends to undermine both al-Fārābī’s reliabilism and his efforts to loosen some of the strictures in traditional Aristotelian epistemology. (shrink)

We review Evolution and the Levels of Selection by Samir Okasha. This important book provides a cohesive philosophical framework for understanding levels-of-selections problems in biology. Concerning evolutionary transitions, Okasha proposes that three stages characterize the shift from a lower level of selection to a higher one. We discuss the application of Okasha’s three-stage concept to the evolutionary transition from unicellularity to multicellularity in the volvocine green algae. Okasha’s concepts are a provocative step towards a more general understanding of the major (...) evolutionary transitions; however, the application of certain ideas to the volvocine model system is not straightforward. (shrink)

Seventeenth-century natural-law philosophers participated in colonizing and slave-trading companies, yet they discussed slavery as an abstraction. This dispassionate approach is commonly explained with the “distance thesis” that the practice of slavery was at some remove from Northwest Europe. I contest the thesis, with a specific focus on pre-Restoration English discourse and Hobbes's political theory. By laying out the salient context — English experience of Barbary-coast slavery and an inherited neo-Roman intellectual frame — I argue, first, that slavery was hardly a (...) distant phenomenon and, second, that Hobbes's discussion of slavery expressed ideas familiar in ordinary discourse. The conclusion contrasts the English neo-Roman outlook with Spanish neo-Aristotelianism. (shrink)

“Trust” is not usually considered a Hobbesian concept, which is odd since it is central to the definition of a covenant. The key to understanding Hobbes’s concept of trust is to be found in his account of conquest— “sovereignty by acquisition”—which is a heavily revised adaptation of the Roman justification of slavery. Hobbes introduces a distinction between servants, who are trusted with liberty, and imprisoned slaves. The servant/master relationship involves mutual trust, an ongoing exchange of benefits (protection for service and (...) obedience), and performance monitoring. In contrast to Quentin Skinner’s and Philip Pettit’s shared concentration on the contrast between slavery and freedom, I argue that the salient analogy is between servants and subjects.The trust relationship between subjects and the sovereign involves defined roles, limited absolutism, and accountability in the early-modern form of licensing subjects to switch political allegiance should a regime fail. (shrink)

We argue that a responsible analysis of today's evidence-based risk assessments and risk debates in biology demands a critical or metascientific scrutiny of the uncertainties, assumptions, and threats of error along the manifold steps in risk analysis. Without an accompanying methodological critique, neither sensitivity to social and ethical values, nor conceptual clarification alone, suffices. In this view, restricting the invitation for philosophical involvement to those wearing a "bioethicist" label precludes the vitally important role philosophers of science may be able to (...) play as bioevidentialists. The goal of this paper is to give a brief and partial sketch of how a metascientific scrutiny of risk evidence might work. (shrink)

Research in animal behavior begins by identifying what animals are doing. In the course of observation, the observer comes to see animals as performing a particular activity. How does this process work? How cn we be certain that behavior is identified correctly? Wittgenstein offers an approach to these questions. looking at the uses of certainly rather than attempting to find rules that guarantee it. Here two stages in research are distinguished: first, watching animals, and second, reporting the results to other (...) scientists. Certainly about what animals are doing, has different uses at each stage. (shrink)

The bias paradox emerges out of a tension between objectivism and relativism.If one rejects a certain the conception objectivity as absolute impartiality and value-neutrality (i.e., if all views are biased), how, then, can one hold that some epistemic perspectives are better than others? This is a problem that has been most explicitly dealt with in feminist epistemology, but it is not unique to feminist perspectives. In this paper, I wish to clearly lay out the nature of the paradox and the (...) various attempts to avoid it. I also intend to show why it is a problem for any epistemological view that rejects absolute objectivity. Finally, I wish to briefly outline a possible solution to the paradox, a solution that requires recognizing that rationality necessarily requires both objective and subjective elements. (shrink)

In determining when sexual behavior in the workplace creates a hostile working environment, some courts have asked, Would a reasonableperson view this as a hostile environment? Two recent court decisions, recognizing male-female differences in the perception of social sexual behavior at work, modified this standard to ask, Would a reasonablevictim view this as a hostile environment? As yet, there is no consensus in the legal community regarding which of these standards is just.We propose that moral theory provides the framework from (...) which business people can construct just procedures regarding sexually hostile environments. We argue that the natural duty of mutual respect of persons and the natural duty not to harm the innocent compels business people to identify sexually hostile work environments from the perspective of the reasonable victim, usually from the woman's perspective. (shrink)

Being empathetic (or compassionate) is an important trait that allows for those working in health care professions to successfully analyze cases and provide patients with adequate care. One standard and enormously important way to try and teach empathy involves the use of case studies. The case-study approach, however, has some unique limitations in teaching empathy. This paper describes an activity where students are asked to imagine that they have contracted a specific disease (one that lasts the entire semester) through a (...) process of random (or lottery) assignment. Having contracted a disease, students are then tasked with taking on the persona of that patient. In writing and adopting the perspective of that patient, students are better able to learn the kind of empathy needed to be a successful health care professional. (shrink)

What makes "digital pets" pets? This article posits four necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an individual to be a pet, concluding that digital pets fail to meet these sufficient criteria and thus are not pets.

Crispin Wright has argued that truth and warranted assertibility are coincident but non-co-extensive norms of assertoric practice and that this fact tends to inflate deflationary theories of truth. Wright’s inflationary argument has generated much discussion in the literature. By contrast, relatively little has been said about the claim that truth and warranted assertibility are coincident norms. This paper will examine that claim. Wright’s argument for the claim that truth and warranted assertibility are coincident norms is first clearly presented. It is (...) then suggested that the argument trades on an ambiguity in ‘justified’ and ‘warrantedly assertible’. Finally, it is argued that, once the ambiguity is removed, there is reason to reject the claim that truth and epistemic warrant are coincident norms of assertoric practice. One important result is that no epistemic theory of truth can satisfy what Wright takes to be a platitude about assertion. (shrink)

When my book Reframing Women: A history of New Zealand cinema was published in 2000 New Zealand women’s film was flourishing. There had been an explosion of filmmaking following the upsurge of twentieth century feminism in the 1970s beginning with the international women’s year film Some of My Best Friends are Women and the subsequent production of nine feminist documentary films. The energy generated by these films and the international feminist history projects that uncovered the formerly invisible contribution of women (...) across every sphere of creative was contagious. There was a feeling of optimism that anything was possible. Women were using the camera to focus the lens on themselves and their issues. Between 1980 and 1990 dramas and features dealing with gender issues increased dramatically while the formerly marginalised were gaining access to the technology to explore sexuality and identity politics. There were powerful films about identity by Maori, Pacific, Asian, Yugoslavi... (shrink)

Background: Palliative care is acknowledged as an appropriate approach to support older people in nursing homes. Ethical issues arise from many aspects of palliative care provision in nursing homes; however, they have not been investigated in this context. Aim: To explore the ethical issues associated with palliative care in nursing homes in the United Kingdom. Design: Exploratory, sequential, mixed-methods design. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 13 registered nurses and 10 healthcare assistants (HCAs) working in 13 nursing homes in the United Kingdom (...) were used to explore ethical issues in palliative care. The ‘Ethical Issues in Palliative Care for Nursing Homes’ instrument was used to measure the frequency and level of distress arising from ethical issues through a cross-sectional survey with 69 registered nurses and 129 healthcare assistants. Data collection occurred between December 2014 and November 2015. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was granted by Queen’s University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery Research Ethics Committee and governance sought from each nursing home’s manager. Findings: The interviews revealed three themes: ethical issues in practice; relational issues; and organisational issues. No significant differences between registered nurses and healthcare assistants were evident, confirming the patterns emerging from the interviews. Relational issues, primarily issues with residents and families, occurred most frequently and caused greater distress. Conclusion: The shared environment is key in the experience of ethical issues; therefore, multidisciplinary education is needed for ethical decision making in palliative care. Addressing staff knowledge and service organisation may reduce ethical issues locally and provide a benchmark for global change. (shrink)

In one of his many metaphorical turns of phrase – a leitmotif in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity — Jürgen Habermas speaks of the path not taken by modern philosophers, a path that might have led them towards his own intersubjective notion of communicative reason. Habermas is especially critical of his predecessors, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, because, he believes, they repudiated the rational potential in the culture of modernity. Whenever Adorno and Horkheimer heard the word ‘culture’, they apparently (...) reached for their revolvers. By the 1940s, their confidence in modern culture had allegedly succumbed to bitter disillusionment. Indeed, on Habermas's view, the confidence of these early critical theorists had been shaken so badly by the emergence of Nazism and Stalinism that their scepticism finally embraced reason itself, ‘whose standards ideology critique had found already given in bourgeois ideals’. Consequently, Adorno and Horkheimer were forced to call into question their own immanent critique of modernity: ideology critique itself came ‘under suspicion of not producing truths’. These philosophers supposedly had little choice but to render their now suspect critique ‘independent even in relation to its own foundations’. (shrink)

In The Virtuous Therapist, authors Elliot D. Cohen and Gale Spieler Cohen provide a systematic, philosophical approach to mental health ethics. Their comprehensive model of ethical decision making is developed to a number of difficult ethical problems counselors will experience. The issues raised in the book are timely, ethically engaging, and of practical importance to those working in the field.

In Faces of Inequality, Sophia Moreau offers an intricate and nuanced account of the wrong of discrimination that is grounded in the real-world complaints of people who have been the victims of dis...

Identifying self-empowerment as the normative core of the liberal democratic project, Habermas proceeds to dilute the revolutionary character of that project. After describing Habermas' views about legitimation problems in the West, the author examines critically Habermas' claim that democratic practices of self-empowerment must be self-limiting, arguing that under some circumstances (which cannot be specified in advance), more radical forms of self-empowerment may be justified. The author also argues that Habermas' own acknowledgement of the revolutionary character of liberal democracy, along with (...) his criticisms of the manifestly unconstitutional circulation of power which characterizes existing liberal democratic states, may themselves provide the basis for a more radical conception of self-empowerment than Habermas will currently allow. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aesthetic Experience and Education:Themes and QuestionsDeborah Kerdeman"Being with" music. Attentive responsiveness in teaching. Scholarly learning as engagement with beauty. Three evocative images of aesthetic experience come to light in the essays by Custodero, Hansen, and Neumann. From the musical play of children conducting imaginary orchestras to the vocational aspirations of adults who gaze through telescopes or study paintings at Chicago's Art Institute, aesthetic experience spans a range of activities (...) and ages. No matter the setting or moment, aesthetic experience vitalizes our lives with meaning and joy. Why this is so and what difference this makes for education emerge as overarching concerns in this set of papers. Addressing these issues, the authors articulate a number of commonthemes and reach similar conclusions about the nature and value of aesthetic experience.I want to identify and analyze key ideas that run throughout these essays. Doing so deepens our appreciation of the authors' insights and underscores the importance of the project they undertake. I also want to examine three questions that the essays suggest but do not develop. Exploring these questions, I hope to further enrich our understanding of aesthetic experience and its place in education.First and foremost, aesthetic experience for all three authors integrates multiple ways of knowing and enables individuals to perceive connections that they might otherwise overlook. According to Custodero, aesthetic experience harmonizes imagination, physicality, and "thinking-in-action." [End Page 88] Thinking-in-action, Custodero says, while "critical and consequential," is nonverbal and nonjudgmental — unifying rather than analytic. Synthesizing bodily movement, imagination, and thought, aesthetic experience reveals "surprise relationships between seemingly disparate phenomena." The theme of integration is echoed in Neumann's description of scholarly learning as aesthetic experience. Scholarly learning does not shun feeling or lived experience, Neumann writes. This way of knowing instead is "deeply emotional and personal." Insight fuses with emotion, enabling scholars to "feel the whole picture," as David the astronomer puts it in his interview with Neumann. For Hansen, aesthetic experience connotes heightened perception, a way of being that attends to nuances of gesture that would otherwise remain invisible. "The aesthetic highlights aspects of wonder and of beauty that emerge, spontaneously and unrehearsed," Hansen explains. A form of creativity, aesthetic perception combines with moral and intellectual understanding to fully embrace "the living dynamic gestalt" of teaching and learning.Aesthetic experience thus integrates mind, body, and emotion. Hansen links aesthetic experience to moral judgment as well. Integrating various ways of knowing, aesthetic experience enables individuals to perceive and understand relationships that pulse throughout the social and natural world. Such understanding is pleasurable, the authors agree.Aesthetic experience not only is integrative. It also is interactive. Custodero's musicians interact with instruments, musical scores, and other individuals. Neumann's scholars interact with ideas and scholarly materials. Hansen's preservice teachers interact with works of art, subject matter, students, and one another. Interacting with people and things, individuals become absorbed in what they are doing. "Being with" music is howCustodero puts it. Carmen, the professor of music in Neumann's essay, says that playing music well "is like a complete focus of oneness."Being absorbed in aesthetic interaction does not discount or dissolve the ability to make decisions or direct action. Aesthetic experience rather presumes and promotes "aesthetic agency," to borrow a phrase from Custodero. "To 'be in the moment,'" Custodero writes, "is to encounter the aesthetic — fully engaged in an activity for which one's individual contributions are perceived as vital." Hansen's description of aesthetic perception combines attentiveness and responsiveness in a "dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative." Neumann states that scholarly learning is an experience of "deep engrossment." Such engrossment does not extinguish the self, however. In the words of David the astronomer, feeling "the whole picture... is a combination of both what you see, sort of an instinctive or primal thing, and also your knowledge of what, you know, you put together." [End Page 89]The interactive nature of aesthetic experience thus signifies a kind of "agency-in-situ." Aesthetic experience is shaped or directed by the contribution and initiative of individuals. But individuals cannot act in advance of experience or know what to do, unless they are... (shrink)

As one aspect of China's modernization, the importation of Western psychiatric ideas poses a mystery. How are such ideas integrated with traditional assumptions? The apparently wholesale adoption of Western psychiatric categories runs counter to the fact that the Chinese have been generally reluctant to define problems in highly individualized psychiatric terms. Our lack of knowledge as to how the Chinese and Western medical models interface raises questions about the cross-cultural applicability of psychiatric theory. Ironically, the very conceptual categories intended to (...) facilitate professional discourse obscure cultural, political, and epistemological differences between Chinese and Western thought.This paper focuses on certain incongruities in psychiatric theory and practice in order to underscore many unresolved issues that still exist with respect to our cross-cultural understandings of mental illness. Insofar as the trend has been towards standardizing methodology, taxonomies have been generated without a corresponding development in textured comparison. Originating from Western theoretical frameworks, comparative analyses have been otherwise devoid of culture-specific knowledge. (shrink)