Ensure learners truly understand all the essential TOK foundations and provide a practical learning scaffold to confidently progress them onto higher order thinking. Comprehensively supporting the TOK course book and mapped to the 2013 syllabus, this focused guide distils the big TOK ideas and builds student confidence right from the start.

Ensure learners truly understand all the essential TOK foundations and provide a practical learning scaffold to confidently progress them onto higher order thinking. Comprehensively supporting the TOK course book and mapped to the 2013 syllabus, this focused guide distils the big TOK ideas and builds student confidence right from the start.

Though antiretroviral therapy is the standard of care for people living with HIV, its treatment limitations, burdens, stigma and costs lead to continued interest in HIV cure research. Early-phase cure trials, particularly those that include analytic treatment interruption, involve uncertain and potentially high risk, with minimal chance of clinical benefit. Some question whether such trials should be offered, given the risk/benefit imbalance, and whether those who choose to participate are acting rationally. We address these questions through a longitudinal decision-making study (...) nested in a Thai acute HIV research cohort. In-depth interviews revealed central themes about decisions to join. Participants felt they possessed an important identity as members of the acute cohort, viewing their bodies as uniquely suited to both testing and potentially benefiting from HIV cure approaches. While acknowledging risks of ATI, most perceived they were given an opportunity to interrupt treatment, to test their own bodies and increase normalcy in a safe, highly monitored circumstance. They were motivated by potential benefits to themselves, the investigators and larger acute cohort, and others with HIV. They believed their own trial experiences and being able to give back to the community were sufficient to offset participation risks. These decisions were driven by the specific circumstances experienced by our participants. Judging risk/benefit ratios without appreciating these lived experiences can lead to false determinations of irrational decision- making. While this does not minimise vital oversight considerations about risk reduction and protection from harm, it argues for inclusion of a more participant-centered approach. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Adam Smith war nicht nur einer der Begründer der Nationalökonomie, sondern auch Moralphilosoph, der in Vorlesungsmitschriften erhaltene Lectures on Jurisprudence hielt. Sein Vorhaben, eine umfassende Theorie des Rechts zu verfassen, konnte er nicht mehr verwirklichen und ließ von seinen Testamentsvollstreckern alle Entwürfe verbrennen. Die Hauptwerke enthalten aber so viele einschlägige Stellen, dass man sein rechtstheoretisches Konzept über weite Strecken rekonstruieren kann. Dabei ergeben sich buchstäblich brandaktuelleEinsichten: Seinen Vorschlag eines die Freiheit der Individuen einschränkenden Bankengesetzes etwa verglich er mit der Pflicht (...) zum Bau einer gemeinsamen Brandmauer - ein angesichts des weltweiten Flächenbrandes, den die jüngste Bankenkrise angerichtet hat, hochmodernes Bild. (shrink)

This article leverages insights from the body of Adam Smith’s work, including two lesser-known manuscripts—the Theory of Moral Sentiments and Lectures in Jurisprudence —to help answer the question as to how companies should morally prioritize corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and stakeholder claims. Smith makes philosophical distinctions between justice and beneficence and perfect and imperfect rights, and we leverage those distinctions to speak to contemporary CSR and stakeholder management theories. We address the often-neglected question as to how far a company (...) should be expected to go in pursuit of CSR initiatives and we offer a fresh perspective as to the role of business in relation to stakeholders and to society as a whole. Smith’s moral insights help us to propose a practical framework of legitimacy in stakeholder claims that can help managers select appropriate and responsible CSR activities. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the problem of evil and a kenotic view of the Atonement evidenced not just by feminist theologians, but by analytic philosophers of religion. I will argue that, although kenosis provides an interesting story about the ability of Christ to partake in human suffering, it faces debilitating problems for understanding divine concurrence with evil in the world. Most significantly, I will argue that the potential tensions between divine justice and divine love can be loosened by (...) looking at ‘redemptive accounts’ of theodicy in the scholarship of women writing in the early modern period in philosophy, particularly Mary Hays , and Catharine Macaulay . Their work collectively confirms the problem of concrete evil and yet offers a unique theodicy grounded in the saving power of the Atonement and restorative power of Christian service. Their arguments are all the more compelling for having been written in response to egregious civil rights abuses and rampant domestic violence of their day. If the Atonement is the divinely-ordained method for gaining insight into the redemptive power of divine grace, then rather than speculating about the metaphysical nature of the divine, this paper will question how we can understand divine perfection in light of evil in the world, especially if the Atonement of Christ involves kenosis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Titles, Labels, and Names:A House of MirrorsGreg Petersen (bio)An EducationAmong the harshest critiques ever received during my doctoral coursework came from a professor who was noticeably perturbed that I had researched and written a paper on an artwork without considering the title in the interpretation and analysis of the work. The professor insisted that the title is necessary to understand the piece. As a diligent student, the lesson (...) was learned, and the following semester I wrote a different paper for a different professor including the title as part of the interpretation and analysis. The professor's response asserted that the sections of the paper discussing the title should be deleted to improve the paper because a title is a name only—a linguistic referent to speak and write about the work that has no other relationship to the work. The discussions that followed with the two professors evolved into a permanent interest in the relationship between appellations and the works they represent. The debate of whether titles are or are not important is not a two-sided argument but rather a maze. This article is not a specialized theoretical argument but an explication of this maze of disjointed relationships among images, their appellations, and the theories espoused by various artists, art critics, art historians, and philosophers. Nevertheless, the clearest exits from the maze are found by treating the appellations as literature and applying literary theory to them.Between Text and ImageMuch of the world we live in is visual and linguistic in nature: visual to the extent that seeing is associated with knowing, and linguistic to the extent that we can communicate through the use of words and letters. For thousands [End Page 29] of years there has been a close relationship between images and language. Both are commonly represented through the use of pigments on a two-dimensional surface. While we know of no literary relationships in early paintings, it is extremely rare today to find paintings without a literary appellation attached. Today we study paintings through words, but only on the most elementary levels do we study words through paintings. It appears that literate cultures give dominance to textual symbols over those in paintings, while illiterate cultures reverse these relationships. The problem is that words have culturally agreed upon meanings, often more so than visual images. We read and listen and then write and speak about those things we have read and heard. Historically, it may be that the relationship between language and images has reversed itself, and perhaps even reverses itself in our own educational process as we begin teaching children letters and words through the use of pictures. After all, which came first: image or language?There has been little written on the use of word associations with iconographic images during the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, it is clear that identification characteristics other than linguistic ones existed. Hazard Adams is one of the few to raise this issue in his essay on titles: "Before I turn to literary titles it might be well to ask whether... I am correct in assuming that there has never been a nonverbal title of a literary work or of anything else for that matter, the word-objects relation of a title being irreversible. There are certainly nonverbal labels like coats of arms and crowns that imply title in a related sense."1 It may be true that titles are typically thought of as word associations identifying objects, but it may also be possible that medieval imagery was at least as communicatively accurate as our present textual system. For example, a man with arrows fixed in his flesh would still be recognized by a medieval illiterate as St. Sebastian, yet most of the depictions of this Catholic saint are simply titled St. Sebastian. Would hanging the text St. Sebastian next to these depictions have created more meaning or a deeper understanding to a medieval Catholic? Often sacred personages and other important visual images have their own identifying characteristics that make a correlative text unnecessary. These identifying characteristics, to those familiar with them, remain very effective nonverbal symbols that conjure the stories they represent.Furthermore, during the medieval... (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, we proposed two novel puzzles associated with the precautionary principle. Both are puzzles that materialise, we argue, once we investigate the principle through an epistemological lens, and each constitutes a philosophical hurdle for any proponent of a plausible version of the precautionary principle. Steglich-Petersen claims, also in this journal, that he has resolved our puzzles. In this short note, we explain why we remain skeptical.

The author regards Montaigne as one of the architects of modern political thought, a precursor of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and the American Founding Fathers. The Essais, for Schaefer, are notable primarily on account of their formulation of a primitive version of bourgeois liberalism: the doctrine that society functions best when individuals pursue their own self-interest with a minimum of governmental interference. Montaigne, in other words, was an early Modern apostle of the gospel preached in our own time by (...) Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. (shrink)

Can a set of musical metaphors in a treatise on ethics reveal something about the nature and source of moral autonomy? This article argues that it can. It shows how metaphorical usage of words like tone, pitch, and concord in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments can be understood as elements of an analogical model for morality. What this model tells us about morality depends on how we conceptualise music. In contrast to earlier interpretations of Smith's metaphors that have seen (...) music as an aesthetic object, this article sees music as a practice. Understood in this way, the analogy allows us to see morality too as a practice––as moral tuning. This in turn reveals a novel answer to the intractable problem of conventionalism: moral autonomy consists in the freedom inherent in the constant need to interpret and reinterpret the strictly formal ideal of perfect propriety. (shrink)

Adams offers a theistically-based framework for ethics, based upon the idea of a transcendent, infinite good, which is God, and its relation to the many finite examples of good in our experience. His account shows how philosophically unfashionable religious concepts can enrich ethical thought. "...one of the two most important books in moral philosophy of the last quarter century, the other being After Virtue."--Theology Today.

Democratic politics is always identity politics and there are some varieties of identity politics without which full and genuine democratic cooperation would not be possible. Indeed, the very existence of a democratic people involves mobilization of political concern and action around a democratic national identity. But a genuinely democratic national identity must be an open identity that can accommodate internal complexity and acknowledge external responsibilities. Moreover, in democracies characterized by a history of discrimination and oppression, there must also be political (...) space for a revitalizing identity politics that initially mobilizes political concern and action around the identities of those groups that have been subject to discrimination and oppression. Yet a revitalizing identity politics is likely to go awry if it is hostile to the possibility of reconciliation between the oppressed and former oppressors, or intrinsically resistant to political collaborations that might transcend the boundaries of familiar social groups. (shrink)

Eclipse of Grace offers original insights into the roots of modern theology by introducing systematic theologians and Christian ethicists to Hegel through a focus on three of his seminal texts: Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Presents brilliant and original insights into Hegel’s significance for modern theology Argues that, theologically, Hegel has been misconstrued and that much more can be gained by focusing on the logic that he develops out of an engagement with (...) Christian doctrines Features an original structure organized as a set of commentaries on individual Hegel texts, and not just presenting overviews of his entire corpus Offers detailed engagement with Hegel’s texts rather than relying on generalizations about Hegelian philosophy Provides an illuminating, accessible and lucid account of the thinking of the major figures in modern German philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Traces the development of recursive functions from their origins in the late nineteenth century to the mid-1930s, with particular emphasis on the work and influence of Kurt Gödel.

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

As long as a man's sensibility (Emilius, p. 4, vol. ii.) " is confined to himself, there is no morality in his actions. It is " only when he begins to extend his sensibility to others, that he " first conceives those sentiments, and afterwards, those notions...

The paper gives a brief characterization of philosophical problems; points up something of their significance for the culture, the social order, and our lives; indicates the methodology appropriate for the problems; and presents a view of the cultural mission of philosophy today. Philosophy attempts to bring under critical review and to correct errors in the cultural mind of our civilization, the prevailing assumptions and beliefs about our knowledge‐yielding powers, the various sectors of the culture, and the basic structure of the (...) world. It holds the cultural mind accountable to the unavoidable presuppositions of experience, thought, and action. Errors in the cultural mind can lead to distortions in the development of the culture and to social and personal pathologies. I contend that our modern Western cultural mind undermines the humanistic dimension of the culture, and ultimately the whole culture, by a restricted view of our knowledge‐yielding powers and the resulting impoverished view of reality. The mission of philosophy today is to point out the errors in our cultural mind and to work for a humanistic cultural reformation. (shrink)

_The Multicultural Imagination_ is a challenging inquiry into the complex interrelationship between our ideas about race and color and the unconscious. Michael Vannoy Adams takes a fresh look at the contributions of psychoanalysis to a question which affects every individual who tries to establish an effective personal identity in the context of their received 'racial' identity. Adams argues that 'race' is just as important as sex or any other content of the unconcscious, drawing on clinical case materal from (...) contemporary patients for whom 'race' or color is a vitally significant social and political concern that impacts on them personally. He does not assume that racism or 'colorism' will simply vanish if we psychoanalyse them, but shows how a non-defensive ego and a self-image that is receptive to other-images can move us towards a more productive discourse of cultural differences. Wide-ranging in its references and scope, this is a book that provokes the reader - analyst or not - to confront personally those unconscious attitudes which stand in the way of authentic multicultural relationships. (shrink)

This paper traces the application of information theory to philosophical problems of mind and meaning from the earliest days of the creation of the mathematical theory of communication. The use of information theory to understand purposive behavior, learning, pattern recognition, and more marked the beginning of the naturalization of mind and meaning. From the inception of information theory, Wiener, Turing, and others began trying to show how to make a mind from informational and computational materials. Over the last 50 years, (...) many philosophers saw different aspects of the naturalization of the mind, though few saw at once all of the pieces of the puzzle that we now know. Starting with Norbert Wiener himself, philosophers and information theorists used concepts from information theory to understand cognition. This paper provides a window on the historical sequence of contributions made to the overall project of naturalizing the mind by philosophers from Shannon, Wiener, and MacKay, to Dennett, Sayre, Dretske, Fodor, and Perry, among others. At some time between 1928 and 1948, American engineers and mathematicians began to talk about `Theory of Information' and `Information Theory,' understanding by these terms approximately and vaguely a theory for which Hartley's `amount of information' is a basic concept. I have been unable to find out when and by whom these names were first used. Hartley himself does not use them nor does he employ the term `Theory of Transmission of Information,' from which the two other shorter terms presumably were derived. It seems that Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon were using them in the Mid-Forties. (shrink)

From nineteenth-century abolitionism to Black Lives Matter today, progressive social movements have been at the forefront of social change. Yet it is seldom recognized that such movements have not only engaged in political action but also posed crucial philosophical questions about the meaning of justice and about how the demands of justice can be met. -/- Michele Moody-Adams argues that anyone who is concerned with the theory or the practice of justice—or both—must ask what can be learned from social (...) movements. Drawing on a range of compelling examples, she explores what they have shown about the nature of justice as well as what it takes to create space for justice in the world. Moody-Adams considers progressive social movements as wellsprings of moral inquiry and as agents of social change, drawing out key philosophical and practical principles. Social justice demands humane regard for others, combining compassionate concern and robust respect. Successful movements have drawn on the transformative power of imagination, strengthening the motivation to pursue justice and to create the political institutions and social policies that can sustain it by inspiring political hope. -/- Making Space for Justice contends that the insights arising from social movements are critical to bridging the gap between discerning theory and effective practice—and should be transformative for political thought as well as for political activism. (shrink)

This book presents an in-depth interpretation of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics: the metaphysical part of Leibniz's philosophy of logic, his essentially theological treatment of the central issues of ontology, and his theory of substance.

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how to make (...) a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

Progressive social movements correctly presume that justice demands treating people with humane regard: combining respect for human agency with concern for human vulnerability to suffering. Promoting humane regard is a critical means of acknowledging the moral claims of humanity. Some critics reject the underlying concept of a universal humanity, in virtue of which human beings form a distinct community of reciprocal moral obligation. Critics charge that the concept presumes indefensible dualisms (of mind and body, and humanity and nature); that it (...) wrongly assigns a privileged status to reason; and that it involves an unsupportable belief in human exceptionalism. I argue that we can assert the moral claims of humanity without privileging reason, repudiating nature, or denying that there are many valuable ways to be human. I also defend an account of human moral exceptionalism that does not imply human moral superiority, to show that we can meet morally weighty obligations to humans while affirming morally substantive connections to non-human communities and domains. (shrink)

For decades the study of social perception was largely compartmentalized by type of social cue: race, gender, emotion, eye gaze, body language, facial expression etc. This was partly due to good scientific practice, and partly due to assumptions that each type of social cue was functionally distinct from others. Herein, we present a functional forecast approach to understanding compound social cue processing that emphasizes the importance of shared social affordances across various cues. We review the traditional theories of emotion and (...) face processing that argued for dissociable and noninteracting pathways, as well as more recent evidence for combinatorial processing of social cues. We argue here that early, and presumably reflexive, visual integration of such cues is necessary for adaptive behavioral responding to others. In support of this claim, we review contemporary work that reveals a flexible visual system, one that readily incorporates meaningful contextual influences in even nonsocial visual processing, thereby establishing the functional and neuroanatomical bases necessary for compound social cue integration. Finally, we explicate three likely mechanisms driving such integration. Together, this work implicates a role for cognitive penetrability in visual perceptual abilities that have often been ascribed to direct encapsulated perceptual processes. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that there are facts, and possibilities, that are not purely qualitative. In a second paper, however, I have argued that all possibilities are purely qualitative except insofar as they involve individuals that actually exist. In particular, I have argued that there are no thisnesses of nonactual individuals (where the thisness of x is the property of being x, or of being identical with x), and that there are no singular propositions about nonactual individuals (where a singular (...) proposition about an individual x is a proposition that involves or refers to x directly, perhaps by having x or the thisness of x as a constituent, and not merely by way of x's qualitative properties or relations to other individuals). I am also inclined to believe that there are not yet any thisnesses of individuals that will exist but do not yet, nor any singular propositions about future individuals--and, hence, that all possibilities are purely qualitative except insofar as they involve individuals that already do exist or have existed (counting timeless individuals, if any, as already existing). This thesis about the relation of time to thisness is the subject of the present paper, in which the conclusions of my previous papers will be presupposed. (shrink)

In just a few years, the book became an underground classic. Neither Man Nor Beast takes Adams' thought one step further.

Aristotelian method accounts for essential functional regularities in terms of powers rooted in the substantial form of the functioning thing. Habits are posited to explain new and acquired functional regularities. Because Aquinas sees habits as rendering potentiae more determinate, he finds it natural to account for post-mortem supernatural functioning in terms of infused habits or qualities that build on nature with further determinations. By contrast, Scotus begins with the natural priority of receiving subjects over what they receive, and how what (...) they determinately are fixes which habits would be formally compatible and which incompatible with it. This leads him to reject the “new infused habit or quality” account of the soul’s post-mortem ability to see God, the will’s capacity to love God above all, and the body’s supposed post-mortem impassibility, subtlety, and brightness. (shrink)

The relation between government and industry is a problem not of economics but of political economy. It is a problem of controlling and civilizing economic power in order that it may be used for the public good within the framework of democratic institutions. It is a problem of striking a delicate balance between individual freedom and centralized control. It is a problem for which there is no monistic solution and which transcends the clichés of popular controversy between conservatives and liberals.

Embodied cognition is sweeping the planet. On a non-embodied approach, the sensory system informs the cognitive system and the motor system does the cognitive system’s bidding. There are causal relations between the systems but the sensory and motor systems are not constitutive of cognition. For embodied views, the relation to the sensori-motor system to cognition is constitutive, not just causal. This paper examines some recent empirical evidence used to support the view that cognition is embodied and raises questions about some (...) of the claims being made by supporters. (shrink)