The currently evolving debate over ethical and legal approaches to DNA data banks reflects, in part, shifting societal perceptions of dividing lines between humanity and commodity, definitions of genetic inheritance between individuals and families, and the rights of the individual versus the rights of the community. Tensions arise whether the data bank has been created for medical or for forensic purposes. The authors, through their work as community activists described more fully below, have come to realize that the key to (...) resolving these tensions and developing ethically acceptable DNA data bank practices is meaningful community engagement. Not unlike medical DNA data banks, personally identifiable DNA samples are routinely retained by states long after a convict's or arrestee's DNA profile has been derived from it and entered into the state database. The question arises, then, as to what, if any, non-forensic uses can these samples – ethically – be put. (shrink)

My topic is a long-standing tension in the interpretation of religion. On the one hand, it seems undeniable — seems almost to go without saying — that liturgical and sacrificial practices, sacred dance, divination, procession and pilgrimage are intentional actions undertaken by persons. Yet there is a distinguished tradition in the study of religion according to which religious activity is typically caused by forces over which the agent has little or no control. Visible, latter-day members of this tradition include Hume, (...) Nietzsche, Marx, Durkheim, Freud, and, in some moods, Wittgenstein, but its roster is by no means limited to the religiously unmusical. (shrink)

Different religious traditions offer apparently very different pictures of the world. How are we to make sense of this radical diversity of religious belief? In this book, Professor Godlove argues that religions are alternative conceptual frameworks, the categories of which organise experience in diverse ways. He traces the history of this idea from Kant to Durkheim, and then proceeds to discuss two constraints on the diversity of all human judgment and belief: first that human experience is made possible by shared, (...) a priori rules, and second, that as language-users we must presuppose that we hold the vast bulk of our beliefs in common. Given these unavoidable constraints, it is clear how religions may offer encompassing symbolic systems that often diverge dramatically from one another. 'An original and brilliant critique of Durkheim and Kant from within the framework of Davidson's semantic theory. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the academic study of religion, and the problems of relativism and the diversity of belief.' -- Hans H. Penner, Dartmouth CollegeDifferent religious traditions offer apparently very different pictures of the world. How are we to make sense of this radical diversity of religious belief? In this book, Professor Godlove argues that religions are alternative conceptual frameworks, the categories of which organise experience in diverse ways. He traces the history of this idea from Kant to Durkheim, and then proceeds to discuss two constraints on the diversity of all human judgment and belief: first that human experience is made possible by shared, a priori rules, and second, that as language-users we must presuppose that we hold the vast bulk of our beliefs in common. Given these unavoidable constraints, it is clear how religions may offer encompassing symbolic systems that often diverge dramatically from one another. 'An original and brilliant critique of Durkheim and Kant from within the framework of Davidson's semantic theory. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the academic study of religion, and the problems of relativism and the diversity of belief.' -- Hans H. Penner, Dartmouth College. (shrink)

Abstract Robert Hanna has recently advanced a theory of non-conceptual content, the central claim of which is that "it is perfectly possible for there to be directly referential intuitions without concepts". Hanna bases this claim in Kant's account of intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason, and so extends his Kantian non-conceptualism beyond the epistemology of empirical knowledge into the realm of mathematics. Thus, Hanna has proposed a Kantian non-conceptualist solution to a well-known dilemma set out by Paul Benacerraf in (...) his 1973 paper, "Mathematical Truth". I argue that Hanna is right about Kant's non-conceptualism, but mistaken in its application to Benacerraf's Dilemma. (shrink)

Terry F. Godlove discovers in Immanuel Kant's theoretical philosophy resources that have much wider implications beyond Christianity and the philosophical issues that concern monotheism and its beliefs. For Godlove, Kant's insights, when properly applied, can help rejuvenate our understanding of the general study of religion and its challenges. He therefore bypasses what is usually considered to be the "Kantian philosophy of religion" and instead focuses on more fundamental issues, such as Kant's account of concepts, experience, and reason and their (...) significance in controversial matters. _Kant and the Meaning of Religion_ is a subtle and penetrating effort by a leading contemporary philosopher of religion to redefine and reshape the contours of his discipline through a sustained reflection on Kant's so-called "humanizing project.". (shrink)

Philosophers of religion are indebted to Nancy Frankenberry for a trail of important papers and books in which she scouts the line between philosophical and religious thinking. Robert Neville has already conveyed some sense of the breadth and scope of her work—of the difficult landscape through which she has guided us. So I am going to go small. I am going to focus on two clusters of issues that have been central to her thinking. I have had the good fortune (...) over the years to think with Frankenberry about these issues. With this paper I am, as it were, reporting in on where I am at the moment in our continuing conversation. The first cluster of issues centers on a different kind of conversation: the one.. (shrink)

Today it is no news to point out that Kant’s doctrine of space as a form of intuition is motivated by epistemological considerations independent of his commitment to Euclidean geometry. These considerations surface—apparently without his own recognition—in Poincaré’s, Science and Hypothesis, the very work that helped turn analytically-minded philosophers away from the Critique. I argue that we should view Poincaré as refining Kant’s doctrine of space as the form of intuition, even as we see both views as arbitrarily limited—in Kant’s (...) case, to Euclidean transformations, and, in Poincaré's, to geometries of constant curvature. Both run together the question whether space is an a priori form of intuition with the question whether there are a priori constraints on its applied geometry. At his best, Kant sees—what Poincaré does not—that they are connected by a form of cognition consisting in the intuition of homogeneous pluralities, of totalities apprehended as unities. (shrink)

Christopher Insole argues that we have underestimated the importance of the following theological problem in the development of Kant’s mature, critical philosophy: “How can it be said that we are free, given that we are created by God?” (p. 5). The author makes a strong case that this problem was formative for a range of Kant’s pre-critical views. What role it continues to play in the 1780s and beyond will be, as the author himself notes, controversial. Chapters 1–3 contain lucid (...) and, especially for those familiar only with Kant’s critical period, helpful discussions of several pre-critical texts together with an engagement with selected secondary literature. Thus, readers who know only Kant’s destruction of the divine proofs, in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), may be surprised to find him defending versions of the ontological and cosmological proofs in The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763). Here Insole’s exposition is nuanced... (shrink)

We explore the different meanings of “quantum uncertainty” contained in Heisenberg’s seminal paper from 1927, and also some of the precise definitions that were developed later. We recount the controversy about “Anschaulichkeit”, visualizability of the theory, which Heisenberg claims to resolve. Moreover, we consider Heisenberg’s programme of operational analysis of concepts, in which he sees himself as following Einstein. Heisenberg’s work is marked by the tensions between semiclassical arguments and the emerging modern quantum theory, between intuition and rigour, and between (...) shaky arguments and overarching claims. Nevertheless, the main message can be taken into the new quantum theory, and can be brought into the form of general theorems. They come in two kinds, not distinguished by Heisenberg. These are, on one hand, constraints on preparations, like the usual textbook uncertainty relation, and, on the other, constraints on joint measurability, including trade-offs between accuracy and disturbance. (shrink)

Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. By Ronald Dworkin. Thought's Ego in Augustine and Descartse. By Gareth B. Matthews.

It is a mixed pleasure to see F. Matthias Alexander acknowledged in the fall 2007 issue of Education and Culture ("Dewey, women, and weirdoes: Or, the potential rewards for scholars who dialog across difference," 23[2], 27-62). As a professional descendant of Alexander who has been teaching the Alexander Technique (AT) for 30 years, I am glad to see Cunningham et al. including him in the list of positive influences in John Dewey's life. However, I believe Cunningham's contribution to this article, (...) "Shared explorations of body-mind: The reciprocal influences of Dewey and F. M. Alexander," falls short in its acknowledgement of Alexander and in one important aspect is incorrect. In this response, I hope to set the .. (shrink)

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental fnd-ings in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are fndings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers (...) have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

A substantial portion of the developed world's population is increasingly dependent on machines to make their way in the everyday world. For certain privileged groups, computers, cell phones, PDAs, Blackberries, and IPODs, all permitting the faster processing of information, are commonplace. In these populations, even exercise can be automated as persons try to achieve good physical fitness by riding stationary bikes, running on treadmills, and working out on cross-trainers that send information about performance and heart rate.

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

Human genomics is a translational field spanning research, clinical care, public health, and direct-to-consumer testing. However, law differs across these domains on issues including liability, consent, promoting quality of analysis and interpretation, and safeguarding privacy. Genomic activities crossing domains can thus encounter confusion and conflicts among these approaches. This paper suggests how to resolve these conflicts while protecting the rights and interests of individuals sequenced. Translational genomics requires this more translational approach to law.

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400Terry L. PapillonStanley E. Porter, ed. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400. Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1997. xvi 1 901 pp. Cloth, Gld. 430, US $253.This massive collection of essays by various authorities will serve as a good basic introduction to the nature and history of classical rhetoric, even (...) for those working outside the Hellenistic period.Its intentions are several: to provide (1) “a comprehensive and wide-ranging introduction to classical rhetoric as it was practiced in the Hellenistic period,” (2) “a thorough introduction to the standard categories of thought, terminology, and theoretical writing on the subject, along with its history and development,” (3) “an assessment of the use of classical rhetorical categories in a representative selection of literary genres and a number of specific writers of the Hellenistic period,” (4) “relevant examples of each term defined and analyzed,” and (5) “areas warranting further research” (xiii–xiv). It has four intended audiences: scholars working with the New Testament, and with Hellenistic classical, and patristic authors. It succeeds in attaining the five stated goals, and will be useful for the four stated audiences. This is especially true for the first audience, New Testament scholars. It will serve a fifth audience well too: it would be a useful book for graduate students, both in classical and in New Testament studies, since it offers clear presentations of issues and future work, points well to other bibliography, and is so broad in scope as to be a concise literary history of classical and biblical literatures.The book is broken into three larger parts. Part I, “Rhetoric Defined,” includes six chapters of introduction to and overview of the five parts of rhetoric. Kennedy’s two chapters (“Historical Survey of Rhetoric” and “The Genres of Rhetoric”) display his typically clear, magisterial, and thorough presentation of the background material. The next four chapters, on the five parts of rhetoric, serve as preparation for the rest of the book. They are of mixed quality. Wuellner’s chapter on arrangement (3), placed before the chapter on invention, is overly difficult, idiosyncratic, and less helpful than it could be, especially when it follows on Kennedy’s clear and controlled prose. Heath’s chapter on invention (4) is a stimulating change of pace. Rather than offering just a straight discussion of the history of invention (though the discussion of its history is thorough), he works through all aspects of the topic with an actual case before him, the response of Antenor during the Trojan War to the Greek request for the return of Helen. He discusses almost every aspect of invention, with thorough reference to the ancient theorists, as he grapples with the actual situation. This provides a good sense of what an orator would actually go through in the composition process. Rowe’s chapter on style (5) follows the four virtues with an emphasis on examples of ornamentation. He begins with the assertion that “at least three reasons account for its [the four virtues’] influence” (121): it provides a “rich nomenclature,” it offers precepts that “apply to any verbal expression,” [End Page 308] not only that used to persuade, and it provides “criteria for judging style that are sufficiently flexible to allow for changing tastes and requirements.”Part II, “Rhetoric in Practice,” treats various genres in ten chapters: the epistle (J. T. Reed), philosophical prose (D. M. Schenkeveld), historical prose (S. Rebenich), poetry and rhetoric (R. Webb), biography (R. A. Burridge), oratory and declamation (D. H. Berry and M. Heath), homily and panegyrical sermon (F. Siegert), the rhetoric of romance (R. F. Hock), apocalyptic and prophetic literature (J. M. Knight), and drama and rhetoric (R. Scodel). These serve as a useful, if uninspiring, survey of several genres in the Hellenistic period, with appropriate reference to important classical antecedents and post-Hellenistic developments. These essays are, in essence, a brief survey of classical and biblical literature. They are thorough and give the appropriate background information with abundant bibliography for further study.Their most useful function is to provide a backdrop for... (shrink)

So far, interpreters have not made the import of this last clause clear. F. J. Church translates the last phrase ‘they act at random’. Burnet says of Adam that he seems to have been the first to point out that the meaning cannot be ‘they act at random’. Instead, ‘the phrase expresses indifference’. Adam′s idea, which Burnet here commends, is that the many are thoughtless in their treatment of the individual; and Adam compares 48C below: the many would lightly put (...) someone to death and just as lightly bring him back to life again. The Burnet-Adam point is evidently that the many have a policy of acting indifferently, or just as it occurs to them—by contrast with the ‘at random’ in Church′s translation, which suggests that they act without policy at all. (shrink)

So far, interpreters have not made the import of this last clause clear. F. J. Church translates the last phrase ‘they act at random’. Burnet says of Adam that he seems to have been the first to point out that the meaning cannot be ‘they act at random’. Instead, ‘the phrase expresses indifference’. Adam′s idea, which Burnet here commends, is that the many are thoughtless in their treatment of the individual; and Adam compares 48C below: the many would lightly put (...) someone to death and just as lightly bring him back to life again. The Burnet-Adam point is evidently that the many have a policy of acting indifferently, or just as it occurs to them—by contrast with the ‘at random’ in Church′s translation, which suggests that they act without policy at all. (shrink)

This symposium provides five case studies of the ways that John Dewey's philosophy and practice were influenced by women or "weirdoes" (our choices include F. M. Alexander, Albert Barnes, Helen Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp, and Jane Addams) and presents some conclusions about the value of dialoging across difference for philosophers and other scholars.

Although the title of this book is misleading, Terry Godlove offers valuable insights into Kant’s approach to concept formation, and how this relates to conceptualizing religion.The book deliberately sets narrow limits to its discussion of a complex and far-ranging topic that spans most of Kant’s major writings. In six loosely-connected chapters, Godlove explores various aspects of the relation between Kant’s epistemology and the way we understand and classify religions, hence eschewing “the ‘official’ philosophy of religion,” including Kant’s own . (...) Godlove generally ignores the predominant approaches to Kant and religion, such as exploring “the denial of the knowledge of God in favor of a moral faith” , which unfortunately for him seems to include the crucial issue of the ethical dimension of religious concepts. He also rejects, quite rightly in my judgment, the endeavors of “those of a traditional theological bent whose views are difficult to square with Kant’s texts” (p. .. (shrink)

Gascoigne, Robert In October 1962, the world was at imminent risk of nuclear war. In response to the failed CIA backed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion, Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev had authorized the stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba, only ninety miles from the coast of Florida. In response, President John F. Kennedy had ordered a blockade of Cuba, which the Soviet Union regarded as an act of war. In fact, the world came much closer to a nuclear exchange than has (...) long been realized. On October 27th 1962 the Soviet submarine B59 was tracked by a group of United States warships, made up of eleven destroyers and an aircraft carrier, which were using non-lethal practice depth-charges in an attempt to bring the submarine to the surface. The submarine had lost radio contact with Moscow, which-as we will see-had very shortly beforehand ordered the freighters carrying nuclear missiles to return home. Under the intense pressure of the situation, the captain of the submarine-who thought that war may already have broken out-was determined not to allow Russia to be humiliated by the capture of his submarine, and was prepared to fire a nuclear torpedo at the surrounding American warships. Three officers had to give permission for a nuclear missile to be launched-the captain himself, the political officer, and Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, who, although second-in-command of submarine B59, was commander of the flotilla of submarines to which it belonged. Arkhipov overruled his brother officers and refused to authorize the launch of the torpedo. The world owes a great debt of gratitude to this Soviet sailor who may have prevented a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. My father once told me how an American priest had recounted to him that, during the height of the Cuban missile crisis, the queues for confession at New York's St Patrick's cathedral stretched all the way down the nave and out onto Fifth Avenue. Given the penitential practices and beliefs of the time, and the actual state of events, there was indeed good reason for that! (shrink)

This article discusses anglophone readings of G. W. F. Hegel against the backdrop of German-language scholarship. The article starts by differentiating types of metaphysics (I). Following a taxonomy introduced by Paul Redding, I then discuss Charles Taylor’s Christian-mystical (II), the so-called »non-metaphysical« (III) and the »revised metaphysical« reading (IV). Terry Pinkard’s work serves as an example of (III) and Stephen Houlgate’s as an example of (IV). I highlight problematic aspects of each reading that concern: the meaning of »reason in (...) the world« (II), the anti-relativist clout of Hegel’s philosophy (III) and the difference between the development of logical concepts and the empirical origin of the world and human thinking (IV). The text ends (V) by pointing to the social implications of each type of reading. (shrink)

Children improve at word learning during the 2nd year of life—sometimes dramatically. This fact has suggested a change in mechanism, from associative learning to a more referential form of learning. This article presents an associative exemplar‐based model that accounts for the improvement without a change in mechanism. It provides a unified account of children's growing abilities to (a) learn a new word given only 1 or a few training trials (“fast mapping”); (b) acquire words that differ only slightly in phonological (...) form; (c) generalize word meanings preferentially along particular dimensions, such as object shape (the “shape bias”); and (d) learn 2nd labels for already‐named objects, despite a persisting resistance to doing so (“mutual exclusivity”). The model explains these improvements in terms of increased attention to relevant aspects of form and meaning, which reduces memory interference. The interaction of associations and reference in word learning is discussed. (shrink)

Although Hegel's philosophy of history is recognized as a great intellectual achievement, it is also widely regarded as a complete failure. Taking his cue from the third century Greek historian Polybius, who argued that the rapid domination of the Mediterranean world by Rome had instituted a new phase of world history, Hegel wondered what the rise of European modernity meant for the rest of the world. In his account of the contingent paths of world history, he argued that at work (...) behind it is an eternal human struggle over justice, and that it had led to a new conception of justice in which nobody by nature had authority to rule over anybody else. Moving away from the ancient conception of justice as ordered through a cosmic system, the modern conception is based instead on freedom. This is, so Hegel argues, not an accident of history but part of the necessary development of the institutions and practices through which humans establish and maintain their changing shapes of agency. Behind it is an infinite end, justice, which as infinite is neither something which can ever be finally achieved nor a goal to which we are getting closer but which requires an infinite effort at sustaining.--. (shrink)

We investigate a possible universal constraint on spatial meaning. It has been proposed that people attend preferentially to the endpoints of spatial motion events, and that languages may therefore make finer semantic distinctions at event endpoints than at event beginnings. We test this proposal. In Experiment 1, we show that people discriminate the endpoints of spatial motion events more readily than they do event beginnings—suggesting a non-linguistic attentional bias toward endpoints. In Experiment 2, speakers of Arabic, Chinese, and English each (...) described a set of spatial events displayed in video clips. Although the spatial systems of these languages differ, speakers of all three languages made finer semantic distinctions at event endpoints, compared to event beginnings. These findings are consistent with the proposal that event endpoints are privileged over event beginnings, in both language and perception. (shrink)

This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While primary emphasis will (...) be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. While most philosophers and psychologists tend to believe that the rise of cognitive psychology has occurred concomitant with the decline of operant psychology, Terry L. Smith contends that nothing could be further from the truth. He maintains that operant psychology has discovered (and continues to discover) reasonably well-confirmed causal principles of intentional behavior, which go beyond what cognitive psychology can provide, while cognitive psychology, in tum, has the potential to supply analyses (and explanations) that account for them. Smith thus advances a surprising but nonetheless illuminating perspective for appreciating the place of operant conditioning within the discipline of psychology in this rich and fascinating work. J. H. F. (shrink)