In this unflinching look at the experience of suffering and one of its greatest manifestations—torture—J.M. Bernstein critiques the repressions of traditional moral theory, showing that our morals are not immutable ideals but fragile constructions that depend on our experience of suffering itself. Morals, Bernstein argues, not only guide our conduct but also express the depth of mutual dependence that we share as vulnerable and injurable individuals. Beginning with the attempts to abolish torture in the eighteenth century, and then sensitively examining (...) what is suffered in torture and related transgressions, such as rape, Bernstein elaborates a powerful new conception of moral injury. Crucially, he shows, moral injury always involves an injury to the status of an individual as a person—it is a violent assault against his or her dignity. Elaborating on this critical element of moral injury, he demonstrates that the mutual recognitions of trust form the invisible substance of our moral lives, that dignity is a fragile social possession, and that the perspective of ourselves as potential victims is an ineliminable feature of everyday moral experience. (shrink)

John and Mary have fully consensual sex, but they do not want to have a child, so they use contraception with the intention of avoiding pregnancy. Unfortunately, although they used the contraception in the way in which it is supposed to be used, Mary has become pregnant. The couple decides to have the baby, whom they name ‘Ernie’. Now we fill in the story a bit. The universe is causally deterministic, and 30 years later Ernie performs some action A and (...) thereby brings about event E. We also stipulate that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely . That is, we suppose that there are no uncontroversially freedom- and responsibility-undermining conditions present in the context in which Ernie performs A, and, further, that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely. Let us say, for example, that one adopts the theory according to which the freedom-relevant condition on moral responsibility is that the agent exhibits ‘guidance control’ of his action and . On this approach, one acts freely in so far as one acts from one's own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism. We can then simply stipulate that, in the relevant context, Ernie acts from his own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism . If one prefers a different set of compatiblist-friendly conditions for acting freely, one can simply stipulate that Ernie meets them; indeed, the plausible compatibilist-friendly conditions seem to be compatible with each other, and thus Ernie could presumably meet all of them in the relevant context. In such a case, and given that the epistemic condition on acting freely and moral responsibility is met, I am inclined to say that Ernie …. (shrink)

Aesthetic alienation may be described as the paradoxical relationship whereby art and truth have come to be divorced from one another while nonetheless remaining entwined. J. M. Bernstein not only finds the separation of art and truth problematic, but also contends that we continue to experience art as sensuous and particular, thus complicating and challenging the cultural self-understanding of modernity. Bernstein focuses on the work of four key philosophers—Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, and Adorno—and provides powerful new interpretations of their views. Bernstein (...) shows how each of the three post-Kantian aesthetics to construct a philosophical language that can criticize and displace the categorical assumption of modernity. He also examines in detail their responses to questions concerning the relations among art, philosophy, and politics in modern societies. (shrink)

Until now, adult crying has received relatively little interest from investigators, whereas in the popular media there are many strong claims about crying (e.g., crying brings relief) of which the scientific basis is not clear. In this review, we provide an overview of the current state of the scientific literature with respect to crying. We identify gaps in knowledge and propose questions for future research. The following topics receive special attention: Ontogenetic development, antecedents, individual and gender differences, and the intra- (...) and interindividual effects of crying. We conclude that the study of crying may help us obtain better insight into human nature, that is, not only our emotional, but also social, and moral functioning. (shrink)

BLWith new text and full apparatus criticus The Eudemian Ethics was one of two ethical treatises which Aristotle wrote on the subject of ethica or `matters to do with character'. Although the two works cover much the same ground, the Nicomachean Ethics is better known; the poor manuscript tradition of the Eudemian Ethics has made correct translation and interpretation of the text extremely difficult. The subject of the work is the choice of a certain means of conduct, made by a (...) `man of practical wisdom', between two extremes of behaviour: asceticism and yielding to uncontrolled impulses. Aristotle also stresses the notion of moral intention and the importance of virtue of character. This new Oxford Classical Text of the Eudemian Ethics is the result of many years of work. After Sir David Ross's death, his original text was substantially reworked and revised by his friend and colleague R. R. Walzer, who was aided in the revision by his former pupil Mrs Jean Mingay, who continued his work after his death in 1974. Mrs Mingay was fortunate in being able to make use of previously unpublished contributions from D. J. Allan after his death in the late seventies, and more recently has been helped in her work by the suggestions of Professor D. A. Russell, David Robinson, and Christopher Rowe. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion tends to converge on the view that narratives are at the center of the emotion of grief. In this article, I expand on this kind of view. On the one hand, I argue that key strands of phenomenological and neuroscientific studies suggest that grief consists in a complex emotional process of disconfirmation-and-updating of the narrative self-model. By heuristically drawing on an analogy between binocular rivalry and grief, I show that certain salient aspects of the phenomenology of grief, such (...) as self-alienation and ambiguity, are straightforwardly reflected by this account. On the other hand, I argue that this hierarchical approach has the resources to: (i) show that both narratable and unnarratable experiences of personal loss are both instances of grief; and (ii) differentiate between narratable and unnarratable experiences of grief, without compromising the view that self-constituting narratives are at the center of the phenomenon. (shrink)

Divided-mind approaches to the conflict involved in self-control are pervasive. According to an influential version of the divided-mind approach, self-control conflict is a dispute between affective reactions and “cold” cognitive processes. I argue that divided-mind approaches are based on problematic bipartite architectural assumptions. Thus views that understand self-control as “control _of_ the self” might be better suited to account for self-control. I subsequently aim to expand on this kind of view. I suggest that self-control conflict involves a rivalry between narrative (...) self-models aimed at reducing error, analogous to model rivalry in binocular rivalry paradigms. This approach straightforwardly accounts for the sense of conflict that is characteristic of self-control within a unified-mind approach, and among its other explanatory advantages, it directly aligns with current views that account for addiction in terms of maladaptive self-representational processes. (shrink)

Levelt, reviewing the AGL field from a psycholinguistic perspective, identifies various gaps and makes a number of concrete suggestions for improving several currently used experimental designs. He raises the question whether artificial (and natural) grammar learning is about detecting ‘rules’, as is commonly assumed, or rather the detection of a set of ‘constraints’. He cautions the community to not ignore ‘semantics’, and recommends to consider less artificial tasks, that may be needed for learning more complex rules by human or nonhuman (...) animals. (shrink)

The network concept is increasingly used for the description of complex systems. Here, we summarize key aspects of the evolvability and robustness of the hierarchical network set of macromolecules, cells, organisms and ecosystems. Listing the costs and benefits of cooperation as a necessary behaviour to build this network hierarchy, we outline the major hypothesis of the paper: the emergence of hierarchical complexity needs cooperation leading to the ageing (i.e. gradual deterioration) of the constituent networks. A stable environment develops cooperation leading (...) to over‐optimization, and forming an ‘always‐old’ network, which accumulates damage, and dies in an apoptosis‐like process. A rapidly changing environment develops competition forming a ‘forever‐young’ network, which may suffer an occasional over‐perturbation exhausting system resources, and causing death in a necrosis‐like process. Giving a number of examples we demonstrate how cooperation evokes the gradual accumulation of damage typical to ageing. Finally, we show how various forms of cooperation and consequent ageing emerge as key elements in all major steps of evolution from the formation of protocells to the establishment of the globalized, modern human society. (shrink)

The Plasmodium falciparum genome‐sequencing project has provided malariologists with vast amounts of new information pertinent to a multitude of cellular processes that previously were only guessed about. In exploring this morass of predicted genes and proteins, there is now a danger of simply re‐inventing the cell. Fortunately, new global transcriptional analyses reassure malariologists that they are not dealing with just “any old cell.” The informative papers on the plasmodial transcriptome by Le Roch et al. (2003)1 and Bozdech et al. (2003)2 (...) discussed below forge a bridge between the genomics and proteomics of P. falciparum. They are likely to act as a fulcrum upon which much future research will turn: for example, the study of regulation and feed‐back loops. BioEssays 26:339–342, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the French debate of the 1580s over the status of the Salic Law and its influence upon an important text in English political thought, Robert Persons’s Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. Polemicists on both sides of the conflict between Henri of Navarre and the Catholic League, from Pierre de Belloy to the pseudonymous ‘Rossaeus’, sought to explain the French royal succession using a concept of custom drawn from Roman law. Custom offered these (...) thinkers a way to explain the Salic Law’s peculiar limitation of the succession to males descended agnatically, but it could also be taken to imply that the people, from whom it originated, were in some way superior to the king. The concept was exploited most effectively by Rossaeus, who translated what had been a legal discourse into a freer language of political naturalism. Rossaeus’s interpretation of custom was adapted and exploited by Robert Persons in the Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. While, then, much of the Conference’s contemporary influence derived from how its argument mapped onto English constitutional geography, it originated as a continuation of League political thought. (shrink)

International legal scholars tend to think of their work as the interpretation of rules: the application of a law 'out there' to concrete situations. This book takes a different approach to that scholarship: it views doctrine as a socio-linguistic practice. In other words, this book views legal scholars not as law-appliers, but as constructing knowledge within a particular academic discipline. By means of three close-ups of the discourse on cyberwar and international law, this book shows how international legal knowledge is (...) constructed in ways usually overlooked: by means of footnotes, for example, or conference presentations. In so doing, this book aims to present a new way of seeing international legal scholarship: one that pays attention to the mundane parts of international legal texts and provides a different understanding of how international law as we know it comes about. (shrink)

This book is a collection of papers on the metaphysics and natural philosophy of John Buridan (ca. 1295-1361), one of the most innovative and influential ...

The commentaries provide a multitude of perspectives on the theory of lexical access presented in our target article. We respond, on the one hand, to criticisms that concern the embeddings of our model in the larger theoretical frameworks of human performance and of a speaker's multiword sentence and discourse generation. These embeddings, we argue, are either already there or naturally forgeable. On the other hand, we reply to a host of theory-internal issues concerning the abstract properties of our feedforward spreading (...) activation model, which functions without the usual cascading, feedback, and inhibitory connections. These issues also concern the concrete stratification in terms of lexical concepts, syntactic lemmas, and morphophonology. Our response stresses the parsimony of our modeling in the light of its substantial empirical coverage. We elaborate its usefulness for neuroimaging and aphasiology and suggest further cross-linguistic extensions of the model. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Not Only Sub Specie Aeternitatis, but Equally Sub Specie DurationisA Defense of Hegel's Criticisms of Spinoza's PhilosophyJ. M. Fritzman and Brianne RileyIn what seem like halcyon days, when William Jefferson Clinton was America's President, James Carville wrote We're Right, They're Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives, arguing against the Republican Party's "Contract with America" (derided by the Left as a "Contract on America") and for progressivism. In the present (...) philosophical conjuncture, what is required is a precisely analogous intervention—"Hegel's Right, Spinoza's Wrong: An Article for Spirited Hegelians." Hegel criticizes Spinoza's philosophy at various places in his writings.1 Spinozists have made several major challenges to Hegel's criticisms.2 Although there have been explications of Hegel's criticisms, there has been no effective response to the Spinozists' challenges.3 Until now. This article defends Hegel's criticisms of Spinoza's philosophy and shows that the challenges to his criticisms fail.This article presents a précis of Spinoza's system and shows the senses in which Hegel is not wholly enamored with it. It defends Hegel's criticism of Spinoza's system as an acosmism from Parkinson's challenges to it. It considers both Myers's view that Hegel's system begins where Spinoza's system ends and McMinn's charge that the systems of Spinoza and Hegel are fundamentally identical. Myers and McMinn misunderstand Hegel's dialectical method, and so they incorrectly believe that the methods of Spinoza and Hegel are complementary. Hegel's dialectics can sublate the systematic pluralism that Myers and Armour propose as its alternative. The penultimate section discusses the modifications that must be made to Spinoza's system to advance from his substance to Hegel's subject.Clinton successfully appropriated what was worthwhile in the "Contract with America," but he also effectively argued that the "Contract" would be a disaster for America. Similarly, Hegel assimilates the truth in his predecessors' philosophies while demonstrating how those philosophies remain [End Page 76] one-sided and partial. This article concludes by showing how this happens to Spinoza's philosophy.Everybody Loves SpinozaSpinoza's philosophy is a metaphysical monism. That is, he thinks that there is only one basic substance. Although there is only one substance, it necessarily expresses itself through an infinite number of attributes, and an attribute is the essence of substance as experienced by the intellect.4 Humans are capable of knowing only two of these attributes: thought and extension. Objects, ideas, and relations—Spinoza refers to all of these as "modes"—are presented through some attribute or other. Spinoza denies that a thing presented through one attribute can cause or be affected by anything presented through another attribute. Rather, each thing which is presented through an attribute has an infinite number of counterparts presented through the infinite number of attributes. Indeed, those infinite counterparts are that thing, presented through the other attributes. Substance necessarily expresses itself through the attributes and modes, according to Spinoza, and everything that is possible is also actual.5Spinoza's substance expresses itself through its attributes and modes, but what occurs at the level of the attributes and modes has no reciprocal effect on substance. Like unrequited love, expression is a one-way street. Not e pluribus unum (out of many, one), but e unibus plurum (out of one, many). Unlike the relation of the states to the federal government, the attributes and modes do not possess a relative or circumscribed autonomy vis-à-vis substance.6 Substance expressing itself through its attributes and modes is nature, according to Spinoza, and nature in turn is God. Hence, Spinoza's God is wholly immanent within the world—for him, God is the world—and so he rejects that traditional God of theism, who transcends and is wholly independent from the world. Spinoza rejects as illusory all notions of purpose and intention.7 Although individuals generally believe that their actions are performed in order to fulfill some goal, Spinoza instead maintains that human actions are entirely determined and necessary and that the belief that actions are done to accomplish something is entirely mistaken. He believes that all happenings—physical... (shrink)

This volume offers the first English language collection of academic essays on the post-Holocaust thought of Jean Améry, a Jewish-Austrian-Belgian essayist, journalist and literary author. Comprehensive in scope and multi-disciplinary in orientation, contributors explore central aspects of Améry's philosophical and ethical position, including dignity, responsibility, resentment, and forgiveness.

It is impossible to deduce the properties of a strongly emergent whole from a complete knowledge of the properties of its constituents, according to C. D. Broad, when those constituents are isolated from the whole or when they are constituents of other wholes. Elanor Taylor proposes the Collapse Problem. Macro-level property p supposedly emerges when its micro-level components combine in relation r. However, each component has the property that it can combine with the others in r to produce p. Broad’s (...) nondeducibility criterion is not met. This article argues that the amount of information required for r is physically impossible. Strong Emergence does not collapse. But the Collapse Problem does. Belief in Strong Emergence is strongly warranted. Strong Emergence occurs whenever it is physically impossible to deduce how components, in a specific relation, would combine to produce a whole with p. Almost always, that is impossible. Strong Emergence is ubiquitous. Word counts. (shrink)

In Poetics chapter 9, Aristotle famously claims that poetry is more philosophical than history. What does this mean? I argue that he is talking about the metaphysics of events. Poets seek causal coherence among the events in their stories. Historians must report what happened whether or not the events of history exhibit causal coherence. This makes the poet's job more philosophical than the historian's, for the poet is seeking a unified plot -- an action-type -- that serves as the backbone (...) of the story he is trying to tell. The poet's final script is a token of an Aristotelian universal, the universal being an action-type that could have been fleshed out in many different ways, although with similar characters. Hence, the poet shows us what he thinks it is likely or necessary for agents of different types to do in the circumstances that confront them. Aristotelian mimesis, on this account, is the poetic representation of "one action," that is, of one action-type. (shrink)

According to Whitehead, nature is disclosed to mind by an ensemble of events characterized by unobservable hidden intrinsic factors (e.g., mass, gravitation) and observable extrinsic factors (e.g., motion, density). Mass is not the substratum of dynamics. It implies spatial extension and temporal duration, which are both necessary conditions of observable natural phenomena. Therefore, an instant, deprived of duration, is immeasurable. Whitehead’s claims on mass, space, and time corroborate Verlinde’s alternative conception of quantum gravitation. Within the de Sitter space-time, this conception (...) starts from the competition of the short distance degrees of freedom of the Ryn-Takanayagi tensor with long-distance thermalized excitations. This enables the creation of a baryonic mass and a decrease in de Sitter entropy. The memory effect of the original baryon creation leads to gravitation and the production of extensive thermodynamic entropy. However, the baryon production shrinks, and the dissipating space-time transforms into a space-timeless cold sink with an accompanying strong contracting memory effect. This is equivalent to the alternate motion of a giant Carnot engine, where the heat source and sink energy exchange produce the eternal periodic dynamics of the Universe. This suggests that the Universe did not start from Big Bang but oscillated eternally as a Big Bounce Universe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel and the Problem of Beginning: Scepticism and Presuppositionlessness by Robb DUNPHYJ. M. FritzmanDUNPHY, Robb. Hegel and the Problem of Beginning: Scepticism and Presuppositionlessness. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. x + 213 pp. Cloth, $105.00This rich, learned, and important book investigates and critically evaluates how, according to Hegel, philosophy should begin. Briefly stated, the problem of beginning philosophy is that any beginning seems susceptible to a skeptical (...) challenge that takes the form of a dilemma. On the one side, if philosophy begins immediately with a presuppositionless assertion, skeptics will contend that it is dogmatic. On the other side, if philosophy begins mediately with a claim that presupposes an argument, skeptics will confront each premise of that argument with a trilemma: The premise is either only a dogmatic assertion; it is the conclusion of an argument whose premises must in turn be justified (which threatens an infinite regress); or it depends on an argument that is viciously circular. Hegel solves this problem with a beginning that is simultaneously immediate and mediate.The introduction explains that this book has three goals. First, it critically analyzes the problem of beginning, showing how Hegel responds to the skeptical challenge. Second, it explains how Hegel’s approach to the problem and his solution are informed by his deep engagement with the tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Finally, it provides a guide to reading Hegel’s essay “With What Must the Beginning of the Science be Made?” in the Science of Logic.Chapter 1, “Hegel and Pyrrhonian Scepticism,” presents the essentials of Pyrrhonism and Hegel’s interpretation of it. Pyrrhonism is a way of life. It aims to find an equally good counterargument for every argument it encounters, thus leading to a suspension of judgment that allows the skeptic to live in a state of undisturbedness. Pyrrhonism presents encountered arguments with a trilemma: Either they depend on dogmatic assertions; they generate an infinite regress of arguments; or they are viciously circular. Hegel’s interpretation emphasizes skepticism’s equipollence, whereby it opposes every argument with a counterargument that is equally persuasive. Viewed historically, Pyrrhonism seems to have confronted arguments only as it happened to encounter them and to have restricted itself to epistemology. However, Hegel is open to the interpretation that skepticism’s inquiry could be completed. This would allow it to demonstrate that for every argument there will always be an [End Page 143] equally persuasive counterargument. He also interprets skepticism as accepting a metaphysical principle regarding the inherent instability of objects.“A Short History of the Problem of Beginning,” chapter 2, provides a detailed précis of Hegel’s essay. It also gives the brief history of the problem of beginning, discussing Descartes, Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling. It notes that some philosophers posit an objective beginning, others a subjective beginning. It explains why Hegel regards previous attempts to solve the problem of beginning as inadequate. It recognizes that Fichte’s solution can be interpreted as much closer to that of Hegel than Hegel acknowledges.Chapter 3, “The Problem of Beginning,” supplies Hegel’s own account of the problem. His solution has two versions, one in the Science of Logic and the other in the Encyclopedia Logic. Each version posits a beginning without determinate content. In the Science of Logic, Hegel states that absolute knowing, the culminating shape of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit, corresponds to the empty thinking with which philosophy begins. Philosophy’s beginning in the Science of Logic is mediate as it emerges from the progression of shapes of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit and immediate as it does not have an object of thought. In the Encyclopedia Logic, Hegel proposes that a completed skepticism corresponds to the abstract concept of being with which philosophy begins. Philosophy’s beginning in the Encyclopedia Logic is mediate as it emerges from the skepticism’s equipollence and immediate as being without content. Hegel ultimately denies that a completed skepticism could play this role, however, which suggests that he believes that philosophy can begin immediately.“Meditation I—Phenomenology,” chapter 4, argues that Hegel’s first version is unsuccessful. To succeed, William Maker’s interpretation would have to be accepted, which... (shrink)

We seek to constitute the extended mind’s fourth wave, socially distributed group cognition, and we do so by thinking with Hegel. The extended mind theory’s first wave invokes the parity principle, which maintains that processes that occur external to the organism’s skin should be considered mental if they are regarded as mental when they occur inside the organism. The second wave appeals to the complementarity principle, which claims that what is crucial is that these processes together constitute a cognitive system. (...) The first two waves assume that cognitive systems have well-defined territories or boundaries, and that internal and external processes do not switch location. The third wave rejects these assumptions, holding instead that internal processes are not privileged, and internal and external processes can switch, and that processes can be distributed among individuals. The fourth wave would advocate socially distributed group cognition. Groups are deterritorialized collective agents; they are ineliminatively and irreducibly real, they have mental states. Individuals constitute groups, but groups also constitute individuals. What counts as an individual and a group is a function of the level of analysis. And they are conflicted. (shrink)

We offer obeisances to Lord Śiva, guru of knowledge, lord of the dance, who purifies by the very utterance of his name, who transcends all dualities. May he grant us permission to argue with his devotees. May he also give us his blessings to convince them.Properly speaking, comparative philosophy does not lead toward the creation of a synthesis of philosophical traditions. What is being created is not a new theory but a different sort of philosopher. The goal of comparative philosophy (...) is learning a new language, a new way of talking. The comparative philosopher does not so much inhabit both of the standpoints represented by the traditions from which he draws as he comes to inhabit an.. (shrink)

Infertility affects 15 per cent of the world's couples. Research at Edinburgh University has been directed at transplanting fetal ovarian tissue into infertile women, thus enabling them to bear children. Fetal ovary transplantation (FOT) has generated substantial controversy; in fact, one ethicist deemed the procedure 'so grotesque as to be unbelievable' (1). Some have suggested that fetal eggs may harbour unknown chromosomal abnormalities: however, there is no evidence that these eggs possess a higher incidence of genetic anomaly than ova found (...) in a healthy adult female. There is also concern that fetal egg children will be psychologically harmed by the knowledge of their special conceptual status. It will be demonstrated that special conceptual status in and of itself does not determine developmental success. Rather, psychological well-being is dependent upon how the family and child cope with the unique challenges inherent in FOT. Lastly, though considering FOT a legitimate method of family building, given the global population crisis the wisdom of procreational rights will be challenged. Inherent to this challenge is a re-evaluation of the treatment of infertility as a significant disease necessitating remedy. (shrink)

Advances in genetics may soon make possible the development of ethnic bioweapons that target specific ethnic or racial groups based upon genetic markers. While occasional published reports of such research generate public outrage, little has been written about the ethical distinction (if any) between the development of such weapons and ethnically neutral bioweapons. The purpose of this paper is to launch a debate on the subject of ethnic bioweapons before they become a scientific reality.

Using Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat thought experiment, this article argues that interpretations which assert that Hegel’s philosophy, or some portion of it, develops inan entirely a priori manner are incoherent. An alternative reading is then articulated.

This article argues that Hegel read Lacan. Put less paradoxically, it claims that situating Hegel within a Lacanian paradigm results in an understanding of the future as still open and of history as not ended. Absolute knowing, on this model, is the recognition of the way in which history has developed, not a claim that it can advance no further. The article aims to persuade those who might otherwise dismiss Hegel – for example, persons au courant with poststructuralism – that (...) he still can make a decisive contribution to current debates. (shrink)

This article presents Schelling’s claim that nature has an evolutionary process and Hegel’s response that nature is the development of the concept. It then examines whether evolution is progressive. While many evolutionary biologists explicitly repudiate the suggestion that there is progress in evolution, they often implicitly presuppose this. Moreover, such a notion seems required insofar as the shape of life’s history consists in a directional trend. This article argues that, insofar as a notion of progress is indeed conceptually ineliminatable from (...) evolutionary biology or needed to articulate the shape of life’s history, progress should be viewed as constitutive. The section on “Why Schelling and .. (shrink)

Joshua Anderson argues that Amartya Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā is not accurate and so it cannot serve as an example of Sen’s comprehensive consequentialism. This article presents Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā and Anderson’s criticisms of Sen’s readings. It discusses three types of readers: history readers, activist readers, and interventionist readers. It gives an interventionist reading of the Bhagavadgītā, supplementing Arjuna’s reasons and contesting those of Kṛṣṇa. It shows that Arjuna’s reasons are cogent and it respectfully argues that Kṛṣṇa’s (...) arguments are incomplete and unconvincing. Even if Arjuna’s reasons are not ultimately decisive, they legitimately feature in his deliberations. It responds to Anderson, urging that Sen correctly advocates comprehensive consequentialism and agent-relativity, rather than cumulative outcomes and agent-neutrality, and that Sen correctly sees these contrasts exemplified in the Bhagavadgītā. It concludes with a discussion of the impartial spectator, kin,.. (shrink)

It is a major move from the claim that the core linguistic problem in Broca's aphasia is the inability to deal with traces, to the claim that this is the syntactic operation only and that it is exclusively supported by Broca's region. Three arguments plead against this move. First, many Broca patients have no damage to Broca's area. Second, it is not only passive, but also active jabberwocky sentences that activate the frontal operculum in a judgment task. Third, the same (...) area is involved in a phrase-building production task that does not require tense processing. (shrink)

This commentary discusses whether abstract metrical frames are stored. For stress-assigning languages (e.g., Dutch and English), which have a dominant stress pattern, metrical frames are stored only for words that deviate from the default stress pattern. The majority of the words in these languages are produced without retrieving any independent syllabic or metrical frame.

Rising rates of female incarceration within the United States are incompatible with the lack of federal standards outlining the rights of incarcerated mothers and their children. A robust body of evidence demonstrates that prison nurseries, programmes designed for mothers to keep their infants under their care during detainment or incarceration, provide essential and beneficial care that could not otherwise be achieved within the current carceral infrastructure. These benefits include facilitation of breastfeeding, bonding during a critical period of child development, and (...) decreased recidivism rates for participants. Legal precedent exists to support the rights of the mother to continue to parent their child but remains in stark opposition to current prison infrastructure that could allow them to do so. Existing state policies also have inconsistent mechanisms for determining child eligibility and should move to centre decision-making on a case-by-case basis. This work will demonstrate that a just society, supported by law and ensuring maternal–child welfare supports the establishment of prison nursery programmes as a part of the existing right to healthcare for incarcerated individuals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBoth auditory and visual emotional memories can be made less emotional by loading working memory during memory recall. Taxing WM during recall can be modality specific (giving an audit...