Paideia is a word that signifies education or culture—two concepts that are only apparently distinct in Ancient Greek thinking. The performance of poetry, philosophy, rhetoric, drama, dance, and even athletics functioned simultaneously as education and culture. They entertained and unified communities by affirming shared heritage and interrogating common values. This process had special importance in Sicily and Southern Italy, where Hellenism was often a matter of education rather than ancestry. This volume explores the intersection of education and cultural performance in (...) a variety of disciplines and from a variety of perspectives. Authors discussed include Sappho, Empedocles, Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle. Contexts range from choral dance, to epideictic oratory, theatrical performance, philosophical dialogue, and gymnastic exercise. Taken together, these diverse essays reveal a cultural paideia aimed at realizing an ideal of human potential—not least by questioning human reality. Edited by Henry C. Curcio, Mark Ralkowski, and Heather L. Reid, the volume includes essays by Audrey L. Anton & Erika N. Brown, Paloma Flávio Betini, Michał Bizoń, L.M.J. Coulson, Mateo Duque, Jurgen R. Gatt & Andrew Debono Cauchi, Michael Goyette, Veronika Konrádová, Georgios Mouratidis & Heather L. Reid, Kristian Sheeley, and Colin C. Smith. (shrink)

Bringing together evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy, Henry Plotkin presents a new science of knowledge, one that traces an unbreakable link between instinct and our ability to know.

This volume provides an integrated and wide-ranging set of primary-source readings on the relationship between moral values and economic activity, as articulated by some of the leading figures in Western civilization.

What explains the continuing hardship of so many black Americans? A distinguished group of scholars analyzes the long, complex structural and environmental causes of discrimination and their effects on African-Americans. The authors examine the impact of poverty, poor health, poor schools, poor housing, poor neighborhoods, and few job opportunities—and demonstrate how multiple causes reinforce each other and condemn African-Americans to positions of inferiority and poverty. Some of the contributors examine policies designed to correct problems, while others look at the changing (...) racial and ethnic composition in America and its implications for African-Americans, as other minorities surpass them in numbers and claim political, economic, and social attention. The late James Tobin has contributed a foreword to this important collection. (shrink)

: Once cast aside as of no value, Charles S. Peirce manuscript 1570 "The First of Six Lessons . . ." and its context, provides uniquely valuable access to Peirce's religious practice (as distinct from his theology). Chronically unemployed, Peirce seized an opportunity to put in a bid for a vacant post in elocution at the Episcopal Church's major (and only "official") theological seminary, The General Theological Seminary in New York City. Peirce had on occasion appealed to nearby members of (...) the Episcopalian hierarchy seeking patronage for his scholarly work—to no avail. In this case, however, he was encouraged and aided by the current scholarly vicar of his own parish. The incumbent had pursued advanced education abroad and was also active in the seminary's affairs. And, of course, Peirce was confident about his expertise in elocution, which "General's" Dean claimed as well. Both the contextual narrative and the substantive theological content of his "lesson" are a rich resource for insights into the much vexed (if too often muddled) question of his lifelong commitment to a faith stemming from his earlier conversion to trinitarianism. (shrink)

Beginning from the standpoint that technologically mediated education is widely prescribed for developing countries, the author first probes the nature, meaning, and impact of this agenda through its economic and political context. He argues that this context produces and shapes the rush to technology. He then examines the notion of education and the nature of the claimed technological mediation of this process, concluding that the constraints of technological mediation, and its destructive impact on teaching, show its inability to provide for (...) adequate educational development (which is necessarily grounded in a concrete human relationship in a real—not virtual—dynamic social and cultural context). He closes with recommendations for a critical rather than a wholesale adoption of technology and encourages resistance to the present press for mindless adoption. (shrink)

The measurement of food intake has long been used to describe ‘adaptation’ to low energy intakes in certain tropical peoples. However, the methods available to quantify food intake are unlikely to reflect accurately real energy intakes in free living peoples. Alternatively, estimating energy expenditure shows some promise—particularly the measurement of basal metabolic rate . The BMR may be measured effectively in males, but females show wide intra-individual variation in BMR during their menstrual cycle, which makes BMR measurements more difficult to (...) interpret in the context of adaptation. The use of double-labelled water may be the only method suitable to quantify and define ‘adaptation’ to low intakes in women. (shrink)

The rapid emergence of digital media has created both new economic opportunities and new risks for authors, publishers, and users in regards to intellectual property. There is a theoretical conflict raging between those who believe "information should be free" and those attempting to protect intellectual property through surveillance and control of access. The Intellectual Commons works to develop a theory of intellectual property that is based on a theory of natural rights that assumes the existence of a "natural world" of (...) intellectual resources. (shrink)

This volume provides an integrated and wide-ranging set of primary-source readings on the relationship between moral values and economic activity, as articulated by some of the leading figures in Western civilization. From the ancient Greeks to the present, Economic Morality: Ancient to Modern Readings offers substantial coverage to each major period of history: classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the modern era. Everything from Aristotle to Adam Smith, from Marx to Hayek, (...) and from Proudhon to Nozick has been brought together in one comprehensive survey. The perspectives represented in our volume include those of Christians and Muslims; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; believers and non-believers; capitalists and socialists; conservatives and libertarians. They emphasize both law and mores, as well as history, philosophy, religion, and economics. This is a genuinely interdisciplinary volume, and one that invites a catholic and humanistic conversation. In preparing this collection, the contributors aim to recover something of the range of moral opinion that first accompanied the rise of "economics" in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The loss of that range of opinion has left a troubling void in our academic and public discourse. Those who broadly embrace the modern economic project tend to view it pragmatically but not morally, while those who are more critical of it often end up in a moral monologue that is unsatisfying to all sides. By showing the optimistic pragmatists the rich tradition of moral criticism and the pessimistic critics the equally rich tradition of (qualified) moral approbation, this volume seeks to facilitate conversation and bring much-needed mutual comprehension to a perennial debate. (shrink)

Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) is the most important French liberal that most casual liberals have never heard of. Everyone knows something about Montesquieu because checks and balances and the separation of powers are household terms. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution are both established classics. But Constant is largely terra incognita even for those with a university degree—to their loss.

achieved by the actions of a single animal. The concerted activity is coordinated by a multiplicity of cues and signals diffused between groups of ...

Abstract: The optimum definition of the term "genocide" has been hotly contested almost since the term was coined. Definitional boundaries determine which acts are covered and excluded and thus to a great extent which cases will benefit from international attention, intervention, prosecution, and reparation. The extensive legal, political, and scholarly discussions prior to this article have typically (1) assumed "genocide" to be a fixed social object and attempted to define it as precisely as possible or (2) assumed the need for (...) a fixed convention and sought to stipulate the range of events that should be denoted by the term. Even if its meaning is a matter of convention, however, "genocide" is not a fixed object but varies by context and evolves in methods and forms over time. In fact, as relevant laws, legal interpretations, and political commitments develop, so do would-be perpetrators modify what genocide is in order to avoid political and legal consequences. This article advances an approach to a definition of "genocide" that allows even legal definitions to keep pace with this evolutionary process. (shrink)