The propositions that the senses are separate and that the global array may be sufficient for adequate perception are questioned. There is evidence that certain tasks may be primarily but these are a special case along the behavioral continuum. Many tasks involve sensory information that is ambiguous, and other sources of information may be required for adequate perception.

Individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) have deficits in processing of somatosensory and proprioceptive information. To compensate for these deficits, they tend to rely on vision over proprioception in single plane upper and lower limb movements and in standing. It is not known whether this also applies to walking, an activity where the threat to balance is higher. Through this study, we used visual perturbations to understand how individuals with and without CP integrate visual input for walking balance control. Additionally, we (...) probed the balance mechanisms driving the responses to the visual perturbations. More specifically, we investigated differences in the use of ankle roll response i.e., the use of ankle inversion, and the foot placement response, i.e., stepping in the direction of perceived fall. Thirty-four participants (17 CP, 17 age-and sex-matched typically developing controls or TD) were recruited. Participants walked on a self-paced treadmill in a virtual reality environment. Intermittently, the virtual scene was rotated in the frontal plane to induce the sensation of a sideways fall. Our results showed that compared to their TD peers, the overall body sway in response to the visual perturbations was magnified and delayed in CP group, implying that they were more affected by changes in visual cues and relied more so on visual information for walking balance control. Also, the CP group showed a lack of ankle response, through a significantly reduced ankle inversion on the affected side compared to the TD group. The CP group showed a higher foot placement response compared to the TD group immediately following the visual perturbations. Thus, individuals with CP showed a dominant proximal foot placement strategy and diminished ankle roll response, suggestive of a reliance on proximal over distal control of walking balance in individuals with CP. (shrink)

[Editor's introduction: The following are excerpts from three talks given at the conference "Policies and Publics for Science and Technology, " London, April 1990. They introduce a British research initiative in public understanding of science and point to early results. The program was developed and coordinated by the Science Policy Support Group. At the meeting, a new journal for specialists in this area was launched: Public Understanding of Science, to be edited by John Durant, Science Museum, London SW7 2DD, (...) UK. The first issue of the journal is expected to appear in April 1991. Science, Technology, & Human Values reaffirms its long commitment to publishing research on public attitudes toward science and particularly welcomes articles on this topic of general interest to the field of science and technology studies.]. (shrink)

This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists--Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. Ziman takes readers into the world of the contemporary scientist, showing how discoveries are made and how claims are tested. He then travels into the minds of scientists as they are drawn into competing directions. Here Ziman exposes the path of discovery, which is strewn with complex human needs, governmental restrictions, the (...) desire for profits, and the exercise of technical virtuosity. (shrink)

In this book John Ziman seeks the answers to crucial questions facing scientists who need to change the direction of their careers.

For scientific knowledge to be trustworthy, it needs to be dissociated from material interests. Disinterested research also performs other important non-instrumental roles. In particular, academic science has traditionally provided society with reliable, imaginative public knowledge and independent, self-critical expertise. But this type of science is not compatible with the practice of instrumental research, which is typically proprietary, prosaic, pragmatic and partisan. With ever-increasing dependence on commercial or state funding, all modes of knowledge production are merging into a new, ‘post-academic’ research (...) culture which is dominated by utilitarian goals. Growing concern about conflicts of interest is thus a symptom of deep-seated malaise in science and medicine. (shrink)

Nowadays, science is treated an instrument of policy, serving the material interests of government and commerce. Traditionally, however, it also has important non-instrumental social functions, such as the creation of critical scenarios and world pictures, the stimulation of rational attitudes, and the production of enlightened practitioners and independent experts. The transition from academic to ‘post-academic’ science threatens the performance of these functions, which are inconsistent with strictly instrumental modes of knowledge production. In particular, expert objectivity is negated by entanglement with (...) political and commercial interests. We cannot go back to the old academic model for science, but need to consider how to maintain its vital non-instrumental roles. (shrink)

Do aesthetic reasons have normative authority over us? Could there be anything like an aesthetic ‘ought’ or an aesthetic obligation? I argue that there are no aesthetic obligations. We have reasons to act certain ways regarding various aesthetic objects – most notably, reasons to attend to and appreciate those objects. But, I argue, these reasons never amount to duties. This is because aesthetic reasons are merely evaluative, not deontic. They can only entice us or invite us – they can never (...) compel us. Beauty gives us goods without shoulds. (shrink)

Research scientists are trained to produce specialised bricks of knowledge, but not to look at the whole building. Increasing public concern about the social role of science is forcing science students to think about what they are actually learning to do. What sort of knowledge will they be producing, and how will it be used? Science education now requires serious consideration of these philosophical and ethical questions. But the many different forms of knowledge produced by modern science cannot be covered (...) by any single philosophical principle. Sociology and cognitive psychology are also needed to understand what the sciences have in common and the significance of what they generate. Again, traditional modes of ethical analysis cannot deal adequately with the values, norms and interests activated by present-day technoscience without reference to its sociological, political and economic dimensions. (shrink)

A discussion of the human side of science, originally published in 1981.

ABSTRACT Philosophers often do not make as sharp a distinction as they should between rationality and normativity. Partly this is because the word ‘reason’ can be used to refer to either, and this leads to a confusion over meanings. This paper starts by clarifying the meanings of ‘normativity’ and ‘rationality’. It argues that it is a conceptual truth that rationality supervenes on the mind. Then it considers substantive arguments that purport to show there is no real distinction between rationality and (...) normativity. Many philosophers give a reductive account of rationality in terms of reasons. In particular, many claim that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. Since responding correctly to reasons is the concern of normativity, this in effect identifies rationality with normativity. This paper denies that rationality is identical to normativity, by means of what I call a ‘quick objection’. The quick objection is that rationality supervenes on the mind whereas complying with normativity does not. I consider and reject some ways of responding to the quick objection, including an argument by Kiesewetter to the effect that normativity supervenes on the mind and one by Lord to the effect that rationality does not. I also consider a different, Kantian argument to the effect that rationality does not supervene on the mind. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 206-228, December 2021.

Western thought since the seventeenth century has been dominated by methodological solipsism (Krieger, 1991). The famous sound-bite of René Descartes 'cogito, ergo sum': 'I think, therefore I am', became the starting point for most discourse on the nature of things. This dictum does not advocate idealism. It does not assert that everything is necessarily a construct of the human mind. But it assumes that the world of things and beings is surveyed and interpreted from the point of view of a (...) single individual. Nowhere is this stance more entrenched than in the philosophy of science. To a remarkable degree the scientist is represented as studying the natural world as if alone in it, served only by mindless assistants who might as well be replaced by machines. Scientific theories are presented as systems of thought conjured up and tested by that same individual in a further series of single-headed operations. Research results are formulated and treated philosophically as the independent findings of lone explorers, each reporting the evidence of their own eyes and their rational inferences concerning the hidden mechanisms by which these personal percepts might be generated. Our epistemological role models are Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes, self-sufficient intellectuals to whom their human companions, Friday and Watson, are mere stooges. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the growing problem of unwanted sexual interactions in virtual environments. It reviews the available evidence regarding the prevalence and severity of this problem. It then argues that due to the potential harms of such interactions, as well as their nonconsensual nature, there is a good prima facie argument for viewing them as serious moral wrongs. Does this prima facie argument hold up to scrutiny? After considering three major objections – the ‘it’s not real’ objection; the ‘it’s just (...) a game’ objection; and the ‘unrestricted consent’ objection – this chapter argues that it does. The chapter closes by reviewing some of the policy options available to us in addressing the problem of virtual sexual assault. (shrink)

Scientists often find difficulty in engaging in formal public debate about transcientific social issues. Although science is a highly disputatious institution, public argumentation amongst scientists follows very different conventional practices from those that rule in political and legal arenas. Amongst other differentiating features, scientific disputes are typically conducted in writing rather than orally, they are not sharply polarised or formally adversarial, they are seldom addressed to a specific proposition, and they do not reach decisive closure. As a result, the rhetorical (...) style that scientists learn from participation in such practises is not well adapted to the established format of socio-political 'debate'. For scientists to contribute effectively to such debates, they must learn new ways of making their particular type of knowledge convincing in unfamiliar intellectual and social contexts. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s treatise, The Nature of Love, is set in relation to the theological personalism of the Cappadocian fathers of the Church, and to my own earlier work done in this tradition. Several points of divergence are explored, especially points concerning von Hildebrand’s claim that love exists as a response to the beauty of the beloved person. God’s love for human beings does not always seem to fit the paradigm of value-response; His love seems rather to be creative of (...) beauty in us rather than to respond to already existing beauty. But at the same time, the deep kinship of von Hildebrand’s personalism with that of the Cappadocian fathers is stressed; he is at one with them in affirming the heart as distinct from the intellect, in affirming love as the supreme act of the person, and in affirming the place of beauty in the existence of persons. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s treatise The Nature of Love is set in relation to the theological personalism of the Cappadocian fathers of the Church, and to my own earlier work done in this tradition. Several points of divergence are explored, especially points concerning von Hildebrand’s claim that love exists as a response to the beauty of the beloved person. God’s love for human beings does not always seem to fit the paradigm of value-response; His love seems to be creative of beauty (...) in us rather than to respond to already existing beauty. But at the same time, the deep kinship of von Hildebrand’s personalism with that of the Cappadocian fathers is stressed; he is at one with them in affirming the heart as distinct from the intellect, in affirming love as the supreme act of the person, and in affirming the place of beauty in the existence of persons. (shrink)

Historically, philosophical discussions of relations have featured chiefly as afterthoughts, loose ends to be addressed only after coming to terms with more important and pressing metaphysical issues. F. H. Bradley stands out as an exception. Understanding Bradley's views on relations and their significance today requires an appreciation of the alternatives, which in turn requires an understanding of how relations have traditionally been classified and how philosophers have struggled to capture their nature and their ontological standing. Positions on these topics range (...) from the rejection of relations altogether, to their being awarded the status as grounds for everything else, to various intermediary positions along this spectrum. Love them, hate them, or merely tolerate them, no philosopher engaged in ontologically serious metaphysics can afford to ignore relations. (shrink)

AbstractWe show that social capital has a strong mitigating effect on financial adviser misconduct in the United States. Moreover, advisers who have committed misconduct are also more likely to relocate to counties with a relatively lower level of social capital than that of his previously residing county. These findings provide support for both the deterrence and displacement effects of social capital on financial adviser misconduct, and are robust to tests that address potential endogeneity concerns. Our results shed new light on (...) social capital as an informal governing and monitoring mechanism against individual unethical behavior. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 3, Page 747-763, May 2022.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 706-727, September 2021.

There are several features of law which rightly draw the interest of philosophers, especially those whose expertise lies in ethics and social and political philosophy. But the law also has features which haven’t stirred much in the way of philosophical investigation. I must say that I find this surprising. For the fact is that a well-run criminal trial is a master-class in logic and epistemology. Below I examine the logical and epistemological properties of greatest operational involvement in a criminal proceedings, (...) concepts such as evidence, proof, argument, inference, relevance, probability, and more. My principal objective is to expose the deep cleavage between establishment norms in epistemology and logic and standard practice in criminal proceedings. This gives us two options to reflect upon. In one, the establishment norms for the correct management of the concepts in question are basically sound. In that case, as I will show, common law criminal practice would be basically unsound; its convictions would be basically false and unjust. Seen from the other perspective, the criminal justice system would be basically sound, and its criminal convictions basically true and just. It turns out to matter that option one meets with widely spread common disbelief and is generally taken as contrary to common knowledge. What is needed here is an epistemology which gives these sentiments some air to breathe. I will argue that on balance it is the logico-epistemic establishment which requires some serious rethinking. (shrink)

Philosophical Issues, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 128-145, October 2021.

John White; The Compulsory Curriculum and Beyond: a reply to Peter Gardner, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 129–136.

I argue that while recognition is important for Middle Eastern and North African philosophers in academia and society, recognition alone should not define the anti-colonial movement. BDS provides a better model of engagement because it constructs identities in order to bring about material changes in the academy and beyond. In the first part of the essay, I catalog how MENA thought traditions have been and continue to be suppressed within the academy and philosophy in particular. I then sketch one possible (...) path to better representation in philosophy by reading Fayez Sayegh’s analyses of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian non-being. In the second half of the essay, I argue that BDS is among the premier anti-colonial movements on American campuses today because it is a materialist anti-racist movement. Insofar as that movement is often shunned and prohibited, an anti-colonial society offers a membership in exile. (shrink)

This paper, originating from a Wittgenstein conference in Delphi, Greece in June 2001, questions Brandom’s reading of Wittgenstein on “Following a Rule”. For the purpose of our current investigative dispute, it is a very good starting point to draw our attention to some of the vital differences between Wittgenstein’s and Brandom’s approach to the relation between practice and rules that may not be quite as clear at first sight from Brandom’s own writings. This writing maintains that Brandom misconstrues Wittgenstein’s remarks (...) about signposts and Philosophical Investigations §201 with the consequence that his own explications about tacit rules involved in practice seem more Wittgensteinian than they really are. For one, Brandom duplicates Wittgenstein’s requirement of correctness in rule following: “...correctness that consists in following a rule [does not presuppose] correctness that does not.” On the other hand Brandom’s reading makes Wittgenstein’s quietism look like ”a pretext for not doing constructive work”, while Wittgenstein’s point is that there is nothing left to enquire. (shrink)

The other major question in the history of political philosophy besides the issue of distributive justice is what the best form of government is. In Western philosophy, the received view is democracy. However, this paper challenges this thesis by presenting arguments against democracy relying in significant part on empirical data from political science and political psychology. Moreover, it presents a general case for a hybrid view over democracy for the legislative and executive branches that appends a meritocracy or rule by (...) the merited from Eastern philosophy to democracy. (shrink)

In his 1972 paper “A Short Refutation Ethical Egoism,” Richmond Campbell purports to refute ethical egoism via a simple reductio. Although his argument has received critical attention, it has not been satisfactorily answered. In this paper I answer it, for reasons that go well beyond my immediate topic. Campbell’s argument calls for an answer partly because, as I show, if it succeeds against ethical egoism, then variations of it refute many other normative ethical theories, such as act utilitarianism.

Literature on the teaching of ethics points to the need for realistic business problems in which students deal with ethical dilemmas. This paper presents the results of an experiment in which students take on the role of a Brand Manager who must decide on the level of support to allocate to four distinct business problems. The problems were presented as business problems including realistic profit and cost considerations, rather than being posed as "ethics cases". Students were able to select from (...) a range of product support levels for each problem. The experiment isolated the factor effects which included level of realism, degree of competition, company situation in terms of fault and profit level, and problem type relative to damage and visibility. Company fault was the most important factor in determining the level of product support allocations. Allocations generally increased when there was an increase in profit level from low to medium. However, there was no additional increase in allocations above the medium profit level. The paper concludes with suggestions on how the results can be used as a springboard for discussion of the integration of ethical considerations in managerial decision making. (shrink)

Taking a critical perspective more political than that usually adopted by classicists, John Alvis demonstrates in this study that the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid each present a distinct political teaching regarding human ends and the form of civil society most conducive to the realization of those ends. Referring to the mysterious "plan of Zeus" announced in the opening lines of the Iliad but never explained, Alvis argues that both Homer's Zeus and Virgil's Jupiter guide their heroes to embody principles (...) of natural justice that in turn found political constitutions. The Political Plan of Zeus represents the first comprehensive theory of the meaning of Zeus's providence in both Homeric poems, a new interpretation of the muse in Homer, and the first attempt to compare the Aeneid with Platonic-Aristotelian teaching on the nature of man and the problem of empire. This book will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and scholars of politics, philosophy, and the classics. (shrink)

Keywords: geology instrument probe Earth interior crust magma core crack underground nuclear explosion molten iron China Syndrome melting rock Published in the December-2003 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine ; This column was written and submitted 06/22/2003 and is copyrighted ©2003 by John G. Cramer. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author.

John White; Philosophers on Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 33, Issue 3, 16 December 2002, Pages 485–500, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-975.

This paper discusses Reiner Schürmann’s notions of ontological anarché and anarchic praxis in his readings of Heidegger and Eckhart, while bringing his philosophy of anarchy into dialogue with Zen-inspired Japanese thought. I thereby hope to shed light on his thought of anarchy in terms of what I call “an-ontology.” The inspiration for this project is the fact that Schürmann himself had practiced Zen as a young adult in France and had engaged in comparative analyses of Zen and Eckhart in his (...) earlier works. I take what Schürmann meant by the principle of anarchy as a form of praxis that precedes the theoretical bifurcation between being and non-being. A similar sort of “anarchic praxis” is recognizable in Zen and we can find comparable (an)ontological implications of such praxis in the Zen-inspired writings of the Japanese medieval thinker Dōgen and of the contemporary philosopher Nishida Kitarō. (shrink)