BackgroundDespite rapid growth of the scientific literature, no consensus guidelines have emerged to define the optimal criteria for editors to grade submitted manuscripts. The purpose of this project was to assess the peer reviewer metrics currently used in the surgical literature to evaluate original manuscript submissions.MethodsManuscript grading forms for 14 of the highest circulation general surgery-related journals were evaluated for content, including the type and number of quantitative and qualitative questions asked of peer reviewers. Reviewer grading forms for the seven (...) surgical journals with the higher impact factors were compared to the seven surgical journals with lower impact factors using Fisher’s exact tests.ResultsImpact factors of the studied journals ranged from 1.73 to 8.57, with a median impact factor of 4.26 in the higher group and 2.81 in the lower group. The content of the grading forms was found to vary considerably. Relatively few journals asked reviewers to grade specific components of a manuscript. Higher impact factor journal manuscript grading forms more frequently addressed statistical analysis, ethical considerations, and conflict of interest. In contrast, lower impact factor journals more commonly requested reviewers to make qualitative assessments of novelty/originality, scientific validity, and scientific importance.ConclusionSubstantial variation exists in the grading criteria used to evaluate original manuscripts submitted to the surgical literature for peer review, with differential emphasis placed on certain criteria correlated to journal impact factors. (shrink)

This study modelled associations between gender, ruminative cognitive style, alcohol use, and the time course of negative affect over the course of 43,111 random assessments in the natural environment. Participants completed 49 days of experience sampling over 1.3 years. The data indicated that rumination at baseline was positively associated with alcohol dependence symptoms at baseline as well as higher negative affect over the course of the study. Consistent with negative reinforcement models, drinking served to decrease the persistence of negative affect (...) from moment to moment. However, this ameliorative effect of drinking was evident only among women, suggesting an increased risk for negative reinforcement driven drinking behaviour. In addition, rumination appeared to counteract the desired effects of alcohol on mood among women. This suggests that women who ruminate more may be motivated to consume larger amounts of alcohol to achieve the desired effects. Overall, the results indicate that ruminative cognitive style and the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment may reflect an individual vulnerability for the development of alcohol use disorder especially among women. (shrink)

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, USA, conducted a species status assessment for a petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) under the Endangered Species Act in 2020-2022. This federal undertaking could not be adequately prepared without including the knowledge of Indigenous People who have a deep cultural connection with the subspecies. Our objective is to communicate the authoritative expertise and voice of the Indigenous People who partnered on the project by demonstrating how their (...) knowledge contributed to the species status assessment. The Indigenous knowledge applied in the assessment is the cultural and intellectual property of those who have shared it. We employed rapid appraisal research to expeditiously develop a preliminary and qualitative understanding of Indigenous People's cultural and ecological knowledge of Alexander Archipelago wolves. We used semi-directed interviewing and inductive coding from grounded theory for text analysis. Indigenous knowledge contributed to the agency's understanding of the Alexander Archipelago wolf in Southeast Alaska and helped the agency with their classification decision. Indigenous research partners explained the rich cultural significance and position of wolves in Tlingit society and described human–wolf relationships and ecological interactions. The agency used a single-species assessment approach based in species ecology and conservation biology, whereas the Indigenous wolf experts applied a multi-species, community ecology approach based in a sociocultural context of balance and respect. The Indigenous wolf experts successfully addressed knowledge gaps identified by the agency. The partners were challenged by a short regulatory timeframe that did not allow for comprehensive study of Indigenous knowledge and constrained review and feedback by Indigenous experts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service learned that its assessment framework was not designed to account for an Indigenous worldview. To level the playing field, the agency and Indigenous experts should discuss how to co-develop an assessment framework that equitably applies both perspectives. (shrink)

The current study examined whether pigeons could learn to use abstract concepts as the basis for conditionally switching behavior as a function of time. Using a mid-session reversal task, experienced pigeons were trained to switch from matching-to-sample (MTS) to non-matching-to-sample (NMTS) conditional discriminations within a session. One group had prior training with MTS, while the other had prior training with NMTS. Over training, stimulus set size was progressively doubled from 3 to 6 to 12 stimuli to promote abstract concept development. (...) Prior experience had an effect on the initial learning at each of the set sizes but by the end of training there were no group differences, as both groups showed similar within-session linear matching functions. After acquiring the 12-item set, abstract-concept learning was tested by placing novel stimuli at the beginning and end of a test session. Prior matching and non-matching experience affected transfer behavior. The matching experienced group transferred to novel stimuli in both the matching and non-matching portion of the sessions using a matching rule. The non-matching experienced group transferred to novel stimuli in both portions of the session using a non-matching rule. The representations used as the basis for mid-session reversal of the conditional discrimination behaviors and subsequent transfer behavior appears to have different temporal sources. The implications for the flexibility and organization of complex behaviors are considered. (shrink)

In _Foucault Beyond Foucault_ Jeffrey Nealon argues that critics have too hastily abandoned Foucault's mid-career reflections on power, and offers a revisionist reading of the philosopher's middle and later works. Retracing power's "intensification" in Foucault, Nealon argues that forms of political power remain central to Foucault's concerns. He allows us to reread Foucault's own conceptual itinerary and, more importantly, to think about how we might respond to the mutations of power that have taken place since the philosopher's death in (...) 1984. In this, the book stages an overdue encounter between Foucault and post-Marxist economic history. (shrink)

In conventional identity politics subjective differences are understood negatively, as gaps to be overcome, as lacks of sameness, as evidence of failed or incomplete unity. In _Alterity Politics _Jeffrey T. Nealon argues instead for a concrete and ethical understanding of community, one that requires response, action, and performance instead of passive resentment and unproductive mourning for a whole that cannot be attained. While discussing the work of others who have refused to thematize difference in terms of the possibility or impossibility (...) of sameness—Levinas, Butler, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, Zizek, Jameson, Heidegger, Bakhtin—Nealon argues that ethics is constituted as inexorable affirmative response to different identities, not through an inability to understand or totalize the other. _Alterity Politics_ combines this theoretical itinerary with crucial discussions of specific and diverse sites of literary and cultural production—the work of William S. Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Andy Warhol, Ishmael Reed, Rush Limbaugh, and Vincent Van Gogh—along with analyses of the social formation of subjects as found in identity politics, and in multicultural and whiteness studies. In the process, Nealon takes on a wide variety of issues including white male anger, the ethical questions raised by drug addiction, the nature of literary meaning, and the concept of “becoming-black.” In seeking to build an ethical structure around poststructuralist discourse and to revitalize the applied use of theoretical concepts to notions of performative identity, _Alterity Politics_ marks a decisive intervention in literary theory, cultural studies, twentieth-century philosophy, and performance studies. (shrink)

Pierre Bourdieu was one of the most influential social thinkers of the past half-century, known for both his theoretical and methodological contributions and his wide-ranging empirical investigations into colonial power in Algeria, the educational system in France, the forms of state power, and the history of artistic and scientific fields-among many other topics. Despite the depth and breadth of his influence, however, Bourdieu's legacy has yet to be assessed in a comprehensive manner. The Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu fills this (...) gap by offering a sweeping overview of Bourdieu's impact on the social sciences and humanities. Thomas Medvetz and Jeffrey J. Sallaz have gathered a diverse array of leading scholars who place Bourdieu's work in the wider scope of intellectual history, trace the development of his thought, offer original interpretations and critical engagement, and discuss the likely impact of his ideas on future social research. The Handbook highlights Bourdieu's contributions to established areas of research-including the study of markets, the law, cultural production, and politics-and illustrates how his concepts have generated new fields and objects of study. (shrink)

This paper explores a variety of perfect being theism that combines Yujin Nagasawa’s maximal God thesis with the view that God is not atemporal. We argue that the original maximal God thesis still implicitly relies on a “static” view of divine perfections. Instead, following the recent re-evaluation of divine immutability by analytic philosophers, we propose that thinking of divine great-making properties as fluctuating but nevertheless remaining maximal either for every time t or across all times strengthens the original maximal God (...) thesis. Furthermore, we show that “temporalising” Nagasawa’s maximal God and adopting what we call the fluctuating maximal God thesis provides more effective ways of responding to objections to perfect being theism, in particular, the argument from evil and some conceptual problems pertaining to the Incarnation. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposal is compatible with Christian Scriptures and coheres with numerous biblical passages better than Nagasawa’s original proposal does. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

This book offers an introduction to the thought of Robert Holcot, a great and influential but often underappreciated medieval thinker. Holcot was a Dominican friar who flourished in the 1330's and produced a diverse body of work including scholastic treatises, biblical commentaries, and sermons. By viewing the whole of Holcot's corpus, John T. Slotemaker and Jeffrey C. Witt provide a comprehensive account of his thought. Challenging established characterizations of him as a skeptic or radical, they show Holcot to be (...) primarily concerned with affirming and supporting the faith of the pious believer. At times, this manifests itself as a cautious attitude toward absolutist claims about the power of natural reason. At other times Holcot reaffirms, in Anselmian fashion, the importance of rational effort in the attempt to understand and live out one's faith. Over the course of this introduction the authors unpack Holcot's views on faith and heresy, the divine nature and divine foreknowledge, the sacraments, Christ, and political philosophy. They also examine Holcot's approach to several important medieval literary genres, including the development of his unique. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

When Leviathan appeared as the third version of Thomas Hobbes' s civil science, it was notable in several respects: its rhetorical strategies, its political implications, and its appeal to an anglophone audience. There has been much scholarly attention paid to Hobbes's religious writing, but little specifically to his use of the phrase the “Christian Commonwealth.” Hobbes's first invocation of the notion of the Christian Commonwealth was found in his early Elements of Law. Hobbes's main concern was to secure the (...) “obedience to public authority” of Christians living in Christian polities, and the “Christian Commonwealth” found in the Elements was primarily distinguished from non‐Christian polities. The Christian Commonwealth of Leviathan was an absolute political entity achievable wherever a sovereign state espoused Hobbes's minimal theology. Bramhall's objection to Hobbes's pluralistic and minimal understanding of Christian polities, shorn of all clerical authority, would persist in high church and particularly Catholic ecclesiology. (shrink)

In the last decade, reading research has seen a paradigmatic shift. A new wave of computational models of orthographic processing that offer various forms of noisy position or context-sensitive coding have revolutionized the field of visual word recognition. The influx of such models stems mainly from consistent findings, coming mostly from European languages, regarding an apparent insensitivity of skilled readers to letter order. Underlying the current revolution is the theoretical assumption that the insensitivity of readers to letter order reflects the (...) special way in which the human brain encodes the position of letters in printed words. The present article discusses the theoretical shortcomings and misconceptions of this approach to visual word recognition. A systematic review of data obtained from a variety of languages demonstrates that letter-order insensitivity is neither a general property of the cognitive system nor a property of the brain in encoding letters. Rather, it is a variant and idiosyncratic characteristic of some languages, mostly European, reflecting a strategy of optimizing encoding resources, given the specific structure of words. Since the main goal of reading research is to develop theories that describe the fundamental and invariant phenomena of reading across orthographies, an alternative approach to model visual word recognition is offered. The dimensions of a possible universal model of reading, which outlines the common cognitive operations involved in orthographic processing in all writing systems, are discussed. (shrink)

St. Thomas’s Third Way to prove the existence of God, “Of Possibility and Necessity” (ST 1, q.2, art. 3, response) is one of the most controverted passages in the entire Thomistic corpus. The central point of dispute is that if there were only possible beings, each at some time would cease to exist and, therefore, at some point in time nothing would exist, and because something cannot come from nothing, in such an eventuality, nothing would exist now—a reductio ad (...) absurdum conclusion. Therefore, at least one necessary being must exist. Generations of critics and defenders have contended over St. Thomas’s proof. This article argues that the principle of pros hen analogy is implicit in the Third Way and that once identified explains the ontological dependency of possible beings, as secondary analogates, on the first necessary being, as primary analogate. Thus, without the necessary being as primary analogate, possible beings simply could not exist. The fact that they do exist is evidence for the existence of the necessary being. St. Thomas makes synthesizes the principle of pros hen analogy, as found in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, with the Neoplatonic principle of participation. Aristotle develops pros hen analogy in contradistinction to univocal and equivocal predication as well as to genus in Metaphysics 4.2, 11.3, 12.3-5. Since Scotus and re-enforced by modern analytic logic, philosophers have almost universally regarded any kind of analogical predication as a sub-category of equivocal predication and, thus, implicitly occlude the possibility of considering pros hen analogy in their readings of the Third Way. Distinction of per se and per accidens infinite regress and of radical and natural contingency are also central to understanding the Third Way. While resolving apparent problems in the Third Way, the article also seeks to rehabilitate the doctrine of pros hen analogy as a basic principle in Thomistic and, indeed, Aristotelian metaphysics. (shrink)

This qualitative analysis examines the thinking of Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on the impact that they believe technology and the idea of progress has had on human freedom. The thesis is that for both Merton and Ellul, modern technology itself and an uncritical acceptance of the idea of technological progress potentially inhibits the contemplative life and serves to deprive humanity of the God-given gift of freedom. Examining Merton and Ellul through theological, sociological, and political lenses allows a point-by-point (...) comparison of a number of different ideas that directly relate to the impact that technology has had on the human condition. This comparison identifies commonalities of thought and traces some of the antecedents to their thought. Merton the Roman Catholic and Ellul the Protestant offer remarkably similar conclusions regarding the impact that technology has had on the human condition. As Christians, they provide a distinctly Christocentric view of freedom, and it is against this unique view that the impact of technology and the idea of progress is evaluated. Both men offer a "third way," which is an approach that allows one to transcend the grip that the technological society maintains over the individual. They are examples of men not only thinking about the impact that technology has had on human freedom as much as they are individuals firmly committed to living out the ideals that they spent their lives articulating. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes offers a new interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's response to the English Revolution. By focusing on his religious thought, it debunks the standard view of him as a royalist, and recovers his sympathies with the religious projects of the 1640s and 1650s. This reinterpretation culminates with an exploration of Hobbes's surprising sympathies with Oliver Cromwell and his supporters. By placing Thomas Hobbes within fresh contexts, Professor Collins offers a new angle of vision on (...) the religious significance of the English Revolution itself. (shrink)

This article contrasts St. Thomas More's theoretical work on the role of faith and history in biblical exegesis with that of Fr. Richard Simon. I argue that, although Simon's work appears to be a critique of his more skeptical contemporaries like Hobbes and Spinoza, in reality he is carrying their work forward. I argue that More's union of faith and reason, theology and history, is more promising than Simon's for Catholic theological biblical exegesis.

A. P. Martinich's The Two Gods of Leviathan appeared in 1992, and J. R. Collins's The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes in 2005. Martinich offered a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's religious commitments. He rebuked the conventional view that Hobbes was an atheist and placed him within particular traditions of reformed Christian theology. Collins's book strongly differed from these conclusions, and reasserted Hobbes's hostility to traditional Christianity as part of a general contextualization of his writings within the period of (...) the English Revolution. The following exchange between Martinich and Collins was first aired in 2007 as a debate at the Southwestern Political Science Association's Annual Conference. (shrink)

Contemporary understanding of the mechanisms of disease increasingly points to examples of “genetic diseases” with an infectious component and of “infectious diseases” with a genetic component. Such blurred boundaries generate ethical, legal, and social issues and highlight historical contexts that must be examined when incorporating host genomic information into the prevention, outbreak control, and treatment of infectious diseases.

Thomas More presents us with a wonderful example of martyrological exegesis where his exegetical work was intended to inspire his readers to live the virtues, to follow Christ, and to provide consolation amidst tribulation. Such exegesis aimed to aid the reader to live the martyrdom required in ordinary life and beyond that, if necessary, with mental anguish, physical torture, and even death on behalf of Christ. Before examining More's work, I first situate this discussion within the broader conversation concerning (...) modern biblical interpretation- in particular the notion of senses of Scripture - therein explaining how I shall be using terms like mystagogy and martyrdom in this article. I shall then examine More's spiritual exegesis of Jesus' passion narratives, paying particular attention to the agony in the garden. I shall conclude with a look at the saint's life, which provides a background for his interpretation of Scripture. (shrink)

What is science? What is the purpose of science education? Should we be training scientists, or looking towards a greater public understanding of science? In this exciting text, some of the key figures in the fields of science and science education address this debate. Their contributions form an original dialogue on science education and the general public awareness of science, tackling both formal and informal aspects of science learning. the editors argue that a greater knowledge of science can lead to (...) a better future, but that this can only happen through a mutual understanding between scientists, schools and the public. (shrink)

_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel _stands at the intersection of three vital currents in contemporary ethics: debates over philosophical anthropology and its significance for ethics, reevaluations of tradition and modernity, and a resurgence of interest in Hegel. Thomas A. Lewis engages these three streams of thought in light of Hegel’s recently published _Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes_. Drawing extensively on these lectures, Lewis addresses an important lacuna in Hegelian scholarship by first providing a systematic analysis of Hegel’s philosophical (...) anthropology and then examining its fundamental role in Hegel’s ethical and religious thought. Lewis contends that Hegel’s anthropology seeks to account for both the ongoing significance of the religious and philosophical traditions in which we are raised and our ability to transcend these traditions. Pursuing the implications of the integral role of practice in Hegel’s anthropology, Lewis argues for a more progressive interpretation of Hegel’s ethics and a “Hegelian” critique of Hegel’s most problematic statements on political and social issues. Lewis concludes that Hegel offers a powerful strategy for reconciling freedom and tradition. "_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel_ is a highly important contribution to the scholarship. Lewis brings Hegel's 'philosophy of subjective spirit' to light in a way that corrects previous interpretations of Hegel's thinking on religion, ethics, and politics. This book establishes Lewis as one of the leading Hegel scholars based in religious studies. It is a book that Hegel scholars in several disciplines will need to take seriously." —Jeffrey Stout, Princeton University "Written with admirable clarity, this important contribution to Hegel scholarship is lively, argumentative, and substantial." —Stephen Crites, Wesleyan University. (shrink)

The following paper attempts to explore, criticizeand develop Thomas Kuhn's mostmature – and surprisingly neglected – view ofincommensurability. More specifically, itfocuses on (1) undermining an influential picture ofscientific kinds that lies at the heartof Kuhn's understanding of taxonomic incommensurability;(2) sketching an alternativepicture of scientific kinds that takes advantage ofKuhn's partially developed theory ofdisciplinary matrices; and (3) using these two resultsto motivate revisions to Kuhn'stheory of taxonomic incompatibility, as well as, tothe purported bridge betweentaxonomic incompatibility and some of the traditionalproblems (...) associated withincommensurability. (shrink)

For nearly half a century, Quentin Skinner has been the world's foremost interpreter of Thomas Hobbes. When the contextualist mode of intellectual history now known as the “Cambridge School” was first asserting itself in the 1960s, the life and writings of John Locke were the primary topic for pioneers such as Peter Laslett and John Dunn. At that time, Hobbes was still the plaything of philosophers and political scientists, virtually all of whom wrote in an ahistorical, textual-analytic manner. Hobbes (...) had not been the subject of serious contextual research for decades, since the foundational writings of Ferdinand Tönnies. For Skinner, he was thus an ideal subject, providing a space for original research on a major figure, and an occasion for some polemically charged methodological manifestos. Both of these purposes animated his 1965 article “History and Ideology in the English Revolution,” and his 1966 article “The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought”. The latter of these remains to this day one of the most widely cited scholarly articles in the fifty-year run of Cambridge's Historical Journal. Among other results of these early efforts was the scholarly controversy during which Howard Warrender chided Skinner for having reduced the “classic texts in political philosophy” to mere “tracts for the times”. (shrink)

A. P. Martinich's The Two Gods of Leviathan appeared in 1992, and J. R. Collins's The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes in 2005. Martinich offered a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's religious commitments. He rebuked the conventional view that Hobbes was an atheist and placed him within particular traditions of reformed Christian theology. Collins's book strongly differed from these conclusions, and reasserted Hobbes's hostility to traditional Christianity as part of a general contextualization of his writings within the period of (...) the English Revolution. The following exchange between Martinich and Collins was first aired in 2007 as a debate at the Southwestern Political Science Association's Annual Conference. (shrink)

Although the construction of neo-Darwinism grew out of Thomas Hunt Morgan's melding of Darwinism and Mendelism, his evidence did not soley support a model of gradual change. To the contrary, he was confronted with observations that could have led him to a more "evo-devo" understanding of the emergence of novel features. Indeed, since Morgan was an embryologist before he became a fruit-fly geneticist, one would have predicted that the combination of these two lines of research would have resulted in (...) early formulations of concepts relevant to evolutionary developmental biology. It is thus of interest to review Morgan's thought processes and arguments for at first rejecting both Darwinism and Mendelism, and then for later dismissing data that would have yielded a model of rapid morphological change in favor of a model of change based on the accumulation of minor mutations and their morphological consequences. (shrink)

This new selection of Thoreau’s essays traces his trajectory as a writer for the outlets of his day—the periodical press, newspapers, and compendiums—and as a frequent presenter on the local lecture circuit. By arranging the writings chronologically, the volume re-creates the experience of Thoreau’s readers as they followed his developing ideas over time. Jeffrey S. Cramer, award-winning editor of six previous volumes of works by Thoreau, offers the most accurate text available for each essay and provides convenient on-page annotations. (...) He establishes context and guides the reader through unfamiliar allusions and references, plumbing the depths of Thoreau’s writings with unprecedented insight. Among the essays in this book: · The Last Days of John Brown · Resistance to Civil Government [Civil Disobedience] · Thomas Carlyle and His Works · Natural History of Massachusetts · and many more. (shrink)

Jeffrey E. Brower presents and explains the hylomorphic conception of the material world developed by Thomas Aquinas, according to which material objects are composed of both matter and form. In addition to presenting and explaining Aquinas's views, Brower seeks wherever possible to bring them into dialogue with the best recent literature on related topics. Along the way, he highlights the contribution that Aquinas's views make to a host of contemporary metaphysical debates, including the nature of change, composition, material (...) constitution, the ontology of stuff vs. things, the proper analysis of ordinary objects, the truthmakers for essential vs. accidental predication, and the metaphysics of property possession. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sit together in the canon of political thought but are rarely treated in common historical accounts. This book narrates their intertwined careers during the Restoration period, when the two men found themselves in close proximity and entangled in many of the same political conflicts. Bringing new source material to bear, In the Shadow of Leviathan establishes the influence of Hobbesian thought over Locke, particularly in relation to the preeminent question of religious toleration. Excavating Hobbes's (...) now forgotten case for a prudent, politique toleration gifted by sovereign power, Jeffrey R. Collins argues that modern, liberal thinking about toleration was transformed by Locke's gradual emancipation from this Hobbesian mode of thought. This book investigates those landmark events - the civil war, Restoration, the popish plot, the Revolution of 1688 - which eventually forced Locke to confront the limits of politique toleration, and to devise an account of religious freedom as an inalienable right. (shrink)

Heidegger's Being and Time: Critical Essays provides a variety of recent studies of Heidegger's most important work. Twelve prominent scholars, representing diverse nationalities, generations, and interpretive approaches deal with general methodological and ontological questions, particular issues in Heidegger's text, and the relation between Being and Time and Heidegger's later thought. All of the essays presented in this volume were never before available in an English-language anthology. Two of the essays have never before been published in any language ; three of (...) the essays have never been published in English before , and two of the essays provide previews of works in progress by major scholars. (shrink)

A barrier to the development and refinement of ethics education in and across health professional schools is that there is not an agreed upon instrument or method for assessment in ethics education. The most widely used ethics education assessment instrument is the Defining Issues Test (DIT) I & II. This instrument is not specific to the health professions. But it has been modified for use in, and influenced the development of other instruments in, the health professions. The DIT contains certain (...) philosophical assumptions (“Kohlbergian” or “neo-Kohlbergian”) that have been criticized in recent years. It is also expensive for large institutions to use. The purpose of this article is to offer a rubric—which the authors have named the Health Professional Ethics Rubric—for the assessment of several learning outcomes related to ethics education in health science centers. This rubric is not open to the same philosophical critiques as the DIT and other such instruments. This rubric is also practical to use. This article includes the rubric being advocated, which was developed by faculty and administrators at a large academic health science center as a part of a campus-wide ethics education initiative. The process of developing the rubric is described, as well as certain limitations and plans for revision. (shrink)

Recent work in positive psychology demonstrates the importance of self-transcendence: understanding oneself to be part of something greater than the self, such as a family, community, or tradition of sacred practice. Self-transcendence is positively associated with wellbeing and a sense of meaning and purpose. Philosophers have argued that self-transcendent motivation has a central role in good character, or virtue. Positive psychologists are just now beginning to integrate the aim of developing such motivation in character interventions. In this paper we draw (...) attention to an important but overlooked condition on effectively developing self-transcendent motivation constitutive of virtue: such a process must engage the subject’s will in the right way. If a process does not meet this condition it will fail to produce motivation constitutive of virtue according to leading philosophical accounts of virtue. We identify a suite of strategies for cultivating motivations that do meet this condition but have not been explored in relation to character interventions, namely, reappraisal strategies from the extended process model of emotion regulation (EPM-ER). (shrink)

This chapter examines one of the more neglected aspects of Hobbes’s body of written work: his efforts at ecclesiastical history. It argues that ecclesiastical history became an increasingly important intellectual pursuit for Hobbes as his career advanced. This development partly reflected the growing dominance of religious questions in his mature thought, but historical criticism also offered Hobbes a rhetorical mode that potentially allowed him to encode theological and ecclesiological views that he could not openly express after 1660. Ecclesiastical history thus (...) permitted Hobbes to advance his political assault on clerical power, and his philosophical deconstruction of Trinitarian orthodoxy, in conditions of censorship. The narrative shape of Hobbes’s ecclesiastical history borrowed much from Protestant historiography, but its substance moved in different directions, toward Enlightenment patterns of thought. (shrink)

This research aims to understand how two basic schemas—vigilante and reparation—influence online public complaining. Drawing on two experiments, a longitudinal field study and content analysis of online complaints, the current research makes three core contributions. First, we show that for similar service failures, each schema is associated with different justice motivations, which have different moral implications for consumers. Second, vigilante and reparation complainers write complaints in a different manner and are drawn to different online platforms; this information is helpful to (...) identify complainers using each schema. Third, the schemas moderate the process leading to different post-complaint benefits. Specifically, perseverance has a greater effect on obtaining a resolution for reparation complainers compared to vigilantes. Additionally, whereas a recovery leads to an increase in positive affect for reparation complainers, vigilantes experience a high level of positive affect simply by posting their complaint. The theoretical, ethical, and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? *Fanaticism* says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better. I consider two related recent arguments for Fanaticism: Beckstead and Thomas's argument from *strange dependence on space and time*, (...) and Wilkinson's *Indology* argument. While both arguments are instructive, neither is persuasive. In fact, the general principles that underwrite the arguments (a *separability* principle in the first case, and a *reflection* principle in the second) are *inconsistent* with Fanaticism. In both cases, though, it is possible to rehabilitate arguments for Fanaticism based on restricted versions of those principles. The situation is unstable: plausible general principles tell *against* Fanaticism, but restrictions of those same principles (with strengthened auxiliary assumptions) *support* Fanaticism. All of the consistent views that emerge are very strange. (shrink)