This paper is divided into two parts. Part I focuses on the manner in which the components of the face recognition system work together so that a perceiver, within several hundred milliseconds after seeing a familiar face, is able to both identify the face of the perceived and recall elements of the history of past encounters with the perceived. Face recognition plays a crucial role in enabling both human and nonhuman primates to interact in collaborative social groups. This critical function (...) is accomplished through the unidirectional coded transfer of informational elements from one component to another. Although these informational elements themselves are not meaningful to the perceiving agent, they do nevertheless contain essential bits of information that are necessary for the final formation of the meaningful message. The structural components of the system are identified and the manner in which informational elements are coded and transferred sequentially from component to component in the brain of the perceiver is described. The independent, physically separated components in the face recognition system are bridged by an additional component, an “adaptor”, that mediates the transfer of informational elements from one component to another. The nature of the independent systems, and the manner by which the bridging or adaptor apparatus enables coded information transfer from one system to another is discussed. Part II focuses on the analysis of recognition in human-designed sign systems such as Braille and Morse code. Recognition in human-designed sign systems is notable for the stability of the link between sign and meaning. Face recognition is characterized as being subjective, indicating that the meaning of a sign to a perceiver is variable and dependent on context, whereas human-devised sign recognition is characterized as being objective, indicating that the meaning of a sign is context independent and invariant. Human-designed sign systems require the presence in brain of a referent world. An example of a referent world is the set of letters of the alphabet. Representations of this set are installed in the brain through social mediated learning. Human-designed sets of signs are created to correspond, via a code enabling adaptor structure, to referent worlds in the brain. Human-designed sign systems are the foundations for literacy, a capability only found in humans. (shrink)

Classic analysis of the subject and the development of personal probability; one of the greatest controversies in modern statistcal thought. New preface and new footnotes to 1954 edition, with a supplementary 180-item annotated bibliography by author. Calculus, probability, statistics, and Boolean algebra are recommended.

The author offers perspectives that can assist healthcare managers in achieving the highest ethical standards as they face their roles as healthcare providers, employers, and community service organizations. He also examines how to comply with relevant laws and regulations, provide high quality patient care with limited resources, and more.

(2004). Workplace Learning in America: Shifting roles of households, schools and firms. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 36, No. 5, pp. 563-577.

Prior to 1980, researchers rarely studied intuition in education. Those in the behaviorist tradition discounted studies of teacher thinking, and regarded all talk of intuition as mysterious nonsense. Since then, however, the cognitive revolution has triumphed. Studies of thinking are commonplace, and have contributed to our understanding of how novices and expert teachers perceive, understand, and act. The current consensus is that novices require explicit rules when carrying out the tasks of teaching, while experts, through years of experience and learning, (...) store an abundance of cases in long term memory, which they draw upon to perceive salient features of situations. This enables them to act intuitively in... (shrink)

In this essay, Leonard Waks examines John Dewey's account of listening, drawing on Dewey's writings to establish a direct connection in his work between listening and democracy. Waks devotes the first part of the essay to explaining Dewey's distinction between one-way or straight-line listening and transactional listening-in-conversation, and to demonstrating the close connection between transactional listening and what Dewey called “cooperative friendship.” In the second part of the essay, Waks establishes the further link between Dewey's notions of cooperative friendship (...) and democratic society with particular reference to machine-age technologies of mass communication. He maintains that while these technologies provide the means for extending communications throughout modern industrial nations, they simultaneously undermine the conditions fostering face-to-face listening-in-conversation. It remains an open question, Waks concludes, whether new educational arrangements incorporating interactive digital communication technologies will embody and promote transactional listening-in-conversation and revitalized democratic community. (shrink)

The Global Ethic is the set of basic principles of right and wrong which in fact are found in all the major, and not so major, religions and ethical systems of the world, past and present. It does not go beyond the existing commonalities. However, this de facto existing broad basic agreement on ethical principles, unfortunately, is largely unknown by most religious and ethical persons. If they were aware of this commonality, that would provide a broad basis for serious dialogue (...) and collaboration among the adherents of all the religions and ethical systems of the world. Lacking that awareness, far too often different religions and ethical systems foster destructive, rather than constructive, relations. Hence, it is vital to foster a conscious knowledge of the de facto existing Global Ethic. The Movement for a Global Ethic - drafting of a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic and promoting knowledge and practice - was launched in 1991. Where did the idea of a movement for a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic come from? New ideas, new movements, don't just appear out of thin air. When "integrating" forces pointing toward something "new" gradually gather below the conscious level, they slowly reach a critical point, and then suddenly a "new" idea will "precipitate," like the "quality of mercy, which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath." Thus, it also happened with the Movement for a Global Ethic. In this book, Dr. Leonard Swidler and 11 colleagues propose their perspectives on the Global Ethic from the vantage points of various religions. (shrink)

Important works in the Dewey corpus — particularly those discussing the theory and practice of art and aesthetic education, prepared from 1896 through 1900 while Dewey was working out the plan for the University's Laboratory School—remain virtually unstudied. When interpreting or building upon Dewey's theory of art and art education, scholars have relied on major works including _Democracy and Education, Experience and Nature_, and _Art as Experience_. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the Lab School works and reinterpret (...) them for contemporary philosophers of education and art educators. (shrink)

: This article provides a close reading of Democracy and Education, situated in the context of Dewey's work prior to and during World War I, to illuminate the close tie between Dewey's overriding concerns during this period and today's educational concerns. The analysis suggests two projects for contemporary democratic educators.

This text focuses on practical development of the skills needed to deal with ethical issues specific to accounting. Interesting, real-world situations provide readers with an understanding of appropriate values, ethical pitfalls, applicable codes of conduct, and sound ethical reasons where codes do not apply. The text can be used alone or with any traditional accounting text as each chapter stands alone.

The transition from a vague generalization to an accurate statement is the first step on the road to science. It is a step of great importance. Vague generalizations find a ready entrance into many minds, and produce a comfortable sense of satisfaction that is easily mistaken for knowledge, and that stops further questioning. An exact statement of fact, on the other hand, draws attention to detail, and shows itself to be set in a mass of further detail that it challenges (...) you to explore. “Nature abhors a vacuum” sounds final; it explains why water will rise in an ordinary suction-pump rather than allow a vacuum to be produced; why the schoolboy’s “sucker” will lift a stone; and many other phenomena of a similar kind. It explains everything by a phrase and stimulates no inquiry. But when Galileo noted that the pump would raise water only to a height of about 32 feet, and pointed out that this gives a measure of the extent to which Nature abhors a vacuum in its dealings with water, new questions arose, stimulating further investigation. (shrink)

The STS education movement is identified and related to the critique of technology of the 1960s–1970s. The critics of technology included the system of education in their critiques. There is a practical tension or contradiction in attempting to develop their insights within the curriculum routines of the schools and colleges. This tension is explored under six categories: reductive knowledge, socialization of technical modes of thinking, technicalized processes of learning, the loss of meaning, radical monopoly over learning, and the socialization of (...) secular values. (shrink)

I propose a model for the development of citizen rights based on the advance of political and social rights and apply it to contemporary claims regarding environmental rights. In terms of this “claims and attenuations” model, I sketch the roles of environmental philosophers and activists, the media and public opinion, and political insiders in the development of positive rights. I then predict a weakeningof environmental claims and a marginalization of environmental philosophies as environmental claims are secured as positive rights.