The main aim of this article is to describe central elements of, and the relationships among, three interrelated domains of inquiry. The first domain is Charles Peirce's semiotic theory which offers five concepts of special relevance to the other two domains: primary components of the triadic sign, including the object, representamen, and interpretant; the unceasing process of semiosis, or continuous growth of the developing sign; the three forms of inference, of which Peirce's notion of abduction is of special interest; the (...) element of surprise in experience, and the universal categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness that ground Peirce's overarching theory. The second domain incorporates the discipline of psychosemiotics, which is defined as the study of how we learn, understand, and use the signs of culture. The article outlines the nature and scope of psychosemiotics and emphasizes its grounding in Peircean semiotics, meaning‐making, and the five concepts listed above. The claim will be made that signs, semiosis, and meaning act through the seven signways outlined in the article and thereby bind the individual into the surrounding physical and cultural environments. The third domain is formal education, for which implications are presented as derived from Peircean theory and viewed through the psychosemiotic lens. In this perspective, all forms of education are semiotic processes grounded in signs and meaning‐making. Further, formal education consists of learning a wide variety of culturally‐valued signs by way of the seven signways and through processes that often differ from a technocratic, standards‐driven, accountability‐oriented approach to learning and instruction. (shrink)

Without systems of public, external symbols for recording information, nonliterate communities have to rely on human memory for the retention and transmission of cultural knowledge. Religious expressions either evolved in directions that rendered them memorable or they were--quite literally--forgotten. Most religious systems, including all of the great world religions, emerged among populations that were mostly illiterate (even if there was a literate elite). Thus, it should come as no surprise that religious systems and ritual systems, in particular, have evolved so (...) as to exploit variables that facilitate memory. No doubt, the invention of literacy ameliorates these variables' influence, however, the availability of such cultural tools neither eliminates that influence nor even surmounts it. Experimental psychologists have clarified variables that contribute to extraordinary recall for events that arise in the normal course of life. Probably, the most obvious is frequency. Experiencing events of the same type frequently aids memory for that type of event, though not necessarily for the details of any of the particular instances of that type. When Jains carry out the Puja ritual day after day, they become adept at its performance. Although they are fluent with the ritual's details, it is possible that they do not remember even one of their previous performances distinctively. (shrink)

Der fünfte Band der Reihe trägt den Titel Ethik und Politik aus interkultureller Sicht. Neben einer begrifflichen, methodischen und inhaltlichen Klärung, was aus interkultureller Sicht bedeutet, werden in den verschiedenen Beiträgen ethische und politische Ansätze im heutigen Weltkontext der Philosophie erörtert. Interkulturell orientiertes philosophisches Denken weist alle Zentrismen zurück, ohne jedoch die jeweilige kulturelle Sedimentiertheit in Frage zu stellen. Folgerichtig wird so auch ein jeder Monismus abgelehnt. Das heutige Angesprochensein der Kulturen verlangt von uns, von den beiden Fiktionen einer totalen (...) Identität und völligen Differenz unter den ethischen und politischen Modellen Abschied zu nehmen. Die These von der Überlappung zielt auf das Wahrnehmen von grundsätzlichen Ähnlichkeiten und erhellenden Differenzen in den Ansätzen. Wer einen Pluralismus bejaht, muß auch bereit sein, im Geiste der Toleranz die unterschiedlichen Ansätze zur Ethik und Politik ernst zu nehmen. Wer den Konsens zu sehr betont, liebäugelt mit irgendeinem Identitätsmodell, vernachlässigt den Kompromiß. Tatsache ist jedoch, daß gerade Kompromisse zur Konfliktlösung beitragen. So sind die Beiträge dieses Bandes dem Ziel gewidmet, sowohl eine theoretische Begründung als auch eine praktische Bewältigung der interkulturellen Verständigung in Ethik und Politik zu leisten. (shrink)

Genetic testing has familial implications. Counsellors find themselves in (moral) conflict between medical confidentiality (towards the patient) and a potential right or even duty to warn at-risk relatives. Legal regulations vary between countries. English literature about German law is scarce. We reviewed the literature of relevant legal cases, focussing on German law, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. This article aims to familiarise counsellors with their responsibilities, compare the situation between countries and point out (...) legally unresolved areas.According to the German Genetic Diagnostics Act (Gendiagnostikgesetz) in case of an ‘avoidable or treatable’ genetic disorder, geneticists ought to confine themselves to the obligated advice to the patient. Whether a breach of the duty of confidentiality can be justified in exceptional cases by ‘necessity as justification’ for actively informing relatives at risk remains legally unclear. In case of a ‘neither avoidable nor treatable’ genetic disease, geneticists should also refrain from actively informing relatives as the justifiable state of emergency does not permit to break the duty of confidentiality. (shrink)

Only we must guard against this—not to strain our voice too roughly when conscious of a full stomach or sexual intercourse or physical fatigue. Many politicians and sophists experience this, being induced to engage in competitive debates, some through considerations of glory and ambition, others for pay or political contests. Thus our fellow citizen Niger, when a professional sophist in Galatia, happened to have swallowed a fishbone. But as another sophist had appeared on the scene from abroad and was engaged (...) in declaiming, Niger, fearful that he give the impression of having yielded to the newcomer, himself gave public performances, although the fishbone was still stuck in his throat. A serious and persistent inflammation in consequence developing, as he could not endure the pain, he submitted to a deep surgical incision from without. The fishbone was then removed through the wound site but thereafter the wound itself, becoming troublesome and purulent, caused his death. (shrink)

Education and Its Discontents: Teaching, the Humanities, and the Importance of a Liberal Education in the Age of Mass Information, by Mark Moss, is an exploration of how the traditional educational environment, particularly in the post-secondary world, is changing as a consequence of the influx of new technology. Students now have access to myriad of technologies that instead of supplementing the educational process, have actually taken it over. Faculty who do not adapt face enormous obstacles, and those who do adapt (...) run the risk of eroding the integrity of what they have been trained to teach. Moss discusses that it is now not only how we learn, but what we continue to teach, and how that enormously important legacy is protected. (shrink)

Once upon a time, medicine dismissed narrative as unimportant and uninteresting. Then, in the late 1980s, physicians and scholars became interested in how the study of narrative could enhance our understanding of illness and health care, and the field that came to be known as “narrative medicine” developed. Some of this scholarly activity focused on the idea of narrative ethics.After a flurry of activity around the turn of the twenty‐first century, narrative ethics seemed to stall. The general interest in narrative (...) in medicine continued but with few new ideas on how one might use narrative toward ethical ends. In the last few years, however, forward momentum has returned. The timing seems appropriate, therefore, for a “state of the field” report of sorts. (shrink)

In recent years, a significant number of philosophers from an orthodox analytic background have begun to advocate theories of composite objects, which they say are strikingly similar to Aristotle’s hylomorphism. These theories emphasize the importance of structure, or organization—which they say is closely connected to Aristotle’s notion of form—in defining what it is for a composite to be a genuine object. The reality of these structures is closely connected with the fact that they are held to possess powers, again in (...) what is held to be a broadly Aristotelian sense, and so to be genuinely efficacious. Naturally enough, they want to do all this without espousing the discredited aspects of Aristotelian science. It is the purpose of this essay to cast a skeptical eye on whether this objective can be achieved. (shrink)

This paper begins by summarizing the chief, original contributions to technology ethics in Shannon Vallor’s recent book, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, highlighting especially the book’s distinctive inclusion of not only the western virtue ethics tradition but also the analogous traditions in Buddhist and Confucian ethics. But the main point of the paper is to suggest that the theoretical framework developed in the book be extended to include an analysis of the distinctive civic (...) virtues that are crucial to the well functioning of communities of makers, marketers, consumers, and regulators of technology, constituting, as it were, technomoral civic virtue ethics. It is suggested that prominent among these civic virtues is what is dubbed “Socratism,” the habit of regular querying of community aims and practices for the purpose of keeping community action focused on the goods internal to community practice, and the goods of the larger communities in which these local communities are embedded. (shrink)

Cranial measurements and somatotype indices were compared in two groups of patients, one with recurrent depressive illness and the other suffering from a first solitary attack of depression. Certain statistically significant differences in stature, somatotype and cranial measurements emerged; the group with recurrent episodes of depression tended to be shorter and more brachycephalic than those with solitary episodes of depression.

The prelims comprise: Half Title Page Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries Title Page Copyright Page For everyone at 12 Willow Lane Dedication Table of Contents Preface and acknowledgments.

This paper presents a particularist and naturalist response to epistemic relativism. The response is based on an analysis of the source of epistemic relativism, according to which epistemic relativism is closely related to Pyrrhonian scepticism. The paper starts with a characterization of epistemic relativism. Such relativism is explicitly distinguished from epistemological contextualism. Next the paper presents an argument for epistemic relativism that is based on the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. It then considers a response to the problem of the (...) criterion proposed by Roderick Chisholm, which is based on epistemological particularism. After sketching Chisholm’s approach, a response to epistemic relativism is presented which combines Chisholm’s particularism with epistemic naturalism and reliabilism. A number of objections to the position are then considered. The paper ends with remarks about the relationship between particularism and the naturalistic response proposed to epistemic relativism. (shrink)

A class of states obtained by extremizing the energy of a system under certain conditions is introduced and their properties are compared with those of the coherent states. Conditions under which these states move without change of shape and follow the classical path are investigated.

A nascent science in the sixteenth century rejected explanations in terms of purpose in favour of causality, and this bias has persisted and grown stronger. It has unfortunate consequences in areas where social and ethical considerations should prevail, and the paper describes a search extending over 20 years for a way in which these consequences could be avoided.

I present and defend (1) an account of ethical judgments as judgments about our reasons to feel specific motivationally laden attitudes, (2) an account of what an agent should do in terms of what would achieve ends that she has reason to be motivated to pursue, and (3) an account of an agent’s reasons for motivation (and thus action) in terms of the prescriptions of the most fundamental principles that guide her deliberations. Using these accounts, I explain the connection between (...) ethics and reasons for action, how ethical judgments are both descriptive and intrinsically motivating, and how ethical facts arise from facts about agents’ deliberations. (shrink)

On Saturday, August 26, 1893, thirteen-year-old Edith Low Babson was swimming in her favorite swimming hole on the Annisquam river in her home town of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Though she was a strong swimmer, something went wrong, and she drowned. A tragedy like all such. But this drowning had unusual consequences. Edith’s older brother was Roger W. Babson, who grew up to become one of America’s most prominent businessmen of the early twentieth century. A statistician, prolific author, philanthropist, founder of Babson (...) College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the Prohibition Patry’s Presidential candidate in 1940, Roger Babson was deeply affected by his sister’s death, as he was again many years later, in 1947, by the death of his grandson, Michael, who drowned while saving the life of a companion who had been knocked off of a sailboat in Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. But Roger Babson was a man of action, not one quietly to acquiesce when confronted by suffering inflicted by a seemingly impersonal and uncaring nature. One year after his grandson’s death, Babson dedicated a significant part of his vast personal wealth to the establishment of the Gravity Research Foundation in New Boston, New Hampshire, which thereafter awarded an annual prize for theoretical research on gravitation, a prize whose winners include the likes of Stephen Hawking. Why? As Babson explained in a pamphlet published by the new foundation, “Gravity: Our Enemy Number One” (Babson 1948), the goal was to alleviate the suffering for which gravity was responsible, the gravity that seized his sister “like a dragon and.. (shrink)

Brassai wrote: "In his battle against Time, that enemy of our precarious existence, ever on the offensive though never openly so, it was in photography, also born of an age-old longing to halt the moment, to wrest it from the flux of 'duree' in order to 'fix' it forever in a semblance of eternity, that Proust found his best ally." He quoted Proust in his own writing, and from the annotated books in his library, we know that he spent a (...) lifetime studying and dissecting Proust's prose, often line by line.". (shrink)

Dubbed “Nietzsche without his hammer” by literary critic James Wood, the Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran is known as much for his profound pessimism and fatalistic approach as for the lyrical, raging prose with which he communicates them. Unlike many of his other works, such as _On the Heights of Despair_ and _Tears and Saints_, _The New Gods_ eschews his usual aphoristic approach in favor of more extensive and analytic essays. Returning to many of Cioran’s favorite themes, _The New Gods (...) _explores humanity’s attachment to gods, death, fear, and infirmity, in essays that vary widely in form and approach. In “Paleontology” Cioran describes a visit to a museum, finding the relatively pedestrian destination rife with decay, death, and human weakness. In another chapter, Cioran explores suicide in shorter, impressionistic bursts, while “The Demiurge” is a shambolic exploration of man’s relationship with good, evil, and God. All the while, _The New Gods _reaffirms Cioran’s belief in “lucid despair,” and his own signature mixture of pessimism and skepticism in language that never fails to be a pleasure. Perhaps his prose itself is an argument against Cioran’s near-nihilism: there is beauty in his books. (shrink)

The equations of motion are obtained for closed systems of charged particles interacting with either an electric or a magnetic field. In each case they include constraints, expressed by the laws of induction, which are of importance in giving a complete specification of the systems usually treated in thermal physics. There are equivalent alternative formulations of the equations of motion, which permit designation of different subsystems; a discussion of these subsystems, their interrelationship, and their external parameters clarifies the significance and (...) applicability of the various expressions for electrical and magnetic work that appear in the general literature. Quantum mechanical treatment of particular subsystems provides a basis for application of statistical mechanics, leading to the identification of appropriate thermodynamic potentials. (shrink)