This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

This leading anthology contains legal cases and essays written by the best scholars in legal philosophy, representing all major points of view on central topics in philosophy of law. This classic text is distinguished by its clarity, readability, balance of topics, balance of substantive positions on controversial questions, topical relevance, imaginative use of cases and stories, and the inclusion of only lightly-edited or untouched classics. This revision is marked by inclusion of many articles relevant to womens issues and a greater (...) emphasis on concrete legal problems. (shrink)

R J W Evans: Political Chronology; IntroductionJan Rychlík: Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia, 1918-39Eagle Glassheim: Ambivalent Capitalists: The Roots of Fascist Ideology among Bohemian Nobles, 1880-1938Melissa Feinberg: The New 'Woman Question': Gender, Nation, and Citizenship in the First Czechoslovak RepublicRobert B. Pynsent: The Literary Representation of the Czechoslovak 'Legions' in RussiaCatherine Albrecht: Economic Nationalism in the Sudetenland, 1918-38R.J.W. Evans: Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks: Some Mutual Perceptions, 1900-50Mark Cornwall: 'A Leap into Ice-Cold Water': the Manoeuvres of the Henlein Movement in Czechoslovakia, (...) 1933-8Vít Smetana: Old Wine in New Bottles? British Policy towards Czechoslovakia, 1938-9 and 1947-8Tatjana Tönsmeyer: The German Advisers in Slovakia, 1939-45: Conflict or Co-Operation?Mark Dimond: The Sokol and Czech Nationalism, 1918-48Jiri Kocian: The Czechs versus the Slovaks: Bilateral Relations, 1944-8Zdenk Radvanovský: The Transfer of Czechoslovakia's Germans and its Impact in the Border Region after the Second World WarKeith Robbins: Britain and Munich Reconsidered: A Personal Historical Journey. (shrink)

Joel Feinberg’s Offense to Others is the most comprehensive contemporary work on the significance of offense in a liberal legal system. Feinberg argues that being offended can impair a person’s liberty, much like a nuisance, and that it is therefore legitimate in principle to regulate conduct because of its offensiveness. In this article, I discuss some overlooked considerations that give us reason to resist Feinberg’s conclusion, even while granting this premise. My key claim is that the regulation (...) of offense can inadvertently increase the incidence of offense, by nurturing offense-taking sensibilities. In the course of defending this claim and spelling out its implications, I explain why concerns about the inadvertent nurturing of offense are now more pressing, given the identity–political character of contemporary offense-based social conflicts, and I discuss why a reluctance to legally regulate offensive conduct need not be insensitive to the identity–political issues that animate those conflicts. (shrink)

This study investigates how dispute-mediators handle impasse in the re-negotiation of divorce decrees by divorced couples. Three sources of impasse and three strategies for handling impasse are identified based on analysis of mediation transcripts. The concern here lies not so much in the disputant's arguments but in the discussion procedures dispute-mediators use to craft the disputant's argumentation into a tool to solve conflict. Their moves are understood here as a practice of reconstructing argumentative discourse that is neither naïve nor critical (...) but reconstruction as design. Mediator's reconstruction reveals a type of communication work in contemporary societies involved in the crafting of forums and formats that mediate argumentative communication. This work is often invisible and strategic which makes its interpretation, judgment, and development a challenge for pragma-dialectical theory. How reconstruction as design can be understood is discussed by building on prior pragma-dialectical theory and research. (shrink)

Die folgenden Ausführungen gehen der Frage nach, ob Leibniz die Auffassung vertreten hat, daß nur Geister apperzipieren. Die Untersuchung dieser Frage führt zu neuen Einsichten in die Bedeutung des Begriffs der apperceptio, welcher zu den zentralen Begriffen der Leibnischen Philosophie gehört. Der Aufsatz ist in drei Teile gegliedert: 1. die herrschende Meinung, 2. Gegenargumente gegen diese Meinung, 3. die Bedeutung dieser Argumente fur die herrschende Auffassung.

Applied Natural Science: Environmental Issues and Global Perspectives will provide the reader with a complete insight into the natural-scientific pattern of the world, covering the most important historical stages of the development of various areas of science, methods of natural-scientific research, general scientific and philosophical concepts, and the fundamental laws of nature. The book analyzes the main scientific trends and developments of modern natural science and also discusses important aspects of environmental protection. Topics include: the problem of "the two cultures": (...) the mathematization of natural sciences and the informatization of society; the non-linear nature of the processes occurring in nature and society; application of the second law of thermodynamics to describe the development of biological systems; global problems of the biosphere; theory and practice of stable organic paramagnetic materials; polymers and the natural environment. Key features include: an interdisciplinary approach in considering scientific and technical problems; a discussion of general scientific trends in modern natural science, including globalization challenges in nature and society, the organic chemistry of stable paramagnetic materials, the fundamentals of the environmental chemistry of polymeric materials, etc.; a justification of applying classical (non-equilibrium) thermodynamics to studying the behavior of open (including biological) systems. (shrink)

I argue that, for Heidegger, to be a self is to be a particular way of making some environmental affordances stand out as more salient than other, and of aligning affordances into coherent trajectories to be followed in pursuing our projects. When Heidegger argues that the self of everyday existence is “the anyone-self,” he means that we tend to polarize situations into affordances that solicit us to act in such a way as to reinforce public, average, and levelled down ways (...) of engaging with the world. (shrink)

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese died in January 2007. She was a renowned scholar and important public intellectual, but in this reminiscence Mark Bauerlein recalls her as something else: a model colleague. Despite the many attacks on her work and the difficulties she encountered in her professional life, she always conducted herself with respect and high-mindedness. Never did Bauerlein witness her give in to gossip and vitriol. She was an example of the best of higher education, and academia is a diminished place (...) without her. (shrink)

The almost immediate Western detection and news reportage of the Chernobyl nuclear accident underscored the urgency of Gorbachev's call for glasnost and perestroika. While state-sanctioned church leaders played a minimal role in the coming of glasnost, other believers, through clandestine samizdat, figure prominently in the launching of the Soviet information revolution. In contrast to the USSR, the churches and the media, especially television, played an immediate, transparent, and successful part in the East European upheavals of 1989.

In his essay, “Affording our Culture: “Smart” Technology and the Prospects for Creative Democracy,” Tibor Solymosi addresses my challenge for neuropragmatism to counter what I have elsewhere called dopamine democracy. Although I believe that Solymosi has begun to provide an explanation for how neuropragmatism may counter dopamine democracy, especially with his conceptions Œ and cultural affordances, I respond with a helpful addition to his approach by returning to the theory of inquiry as put forth by John Dewey. In particular, I (...) focus on the phases of inquiry as colored by Dewey’s concept of humility. Solymosi does not pay adequate attention to the function of inquiry necessary for combatting dopamine democracy. His account of cultural affordances and education is strengthened by using Dewey’s concept of humility as a guiding disposition for neuropragmatic inquiry. Recognizing humility as an instrument of neuropragmatic inquiry provides us with a tool to better address the pitfalls of dopamine democracy, especially misinformation and incentive salience. My argument proceeds by first articulating dopamine democracy as a problem and Solymosi’s concept of cultural affordances and how he understands these as neuropragmatic tools to address the problem through education. I present humility as an instrumental concept derived from Dewey’s work on inquiry. I then suggest how humility may serve neuropragmatic inquiry to assist in combatting the problems of dopamine democracy. (shrink)

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Statistical topic models provide a general data - driven framework for automated discovery of high-level knowledge from large collections of text documents. Although topic models can potentially discover a broad range of themes in a data set, the interpretability of the learned topics is not always ideal. Human-defined concepts, however, tend to be semantically richer due to careful selection of words that define the concepts, but they may not span the themes in a data set exhaustively. In this study, we (...) review a new probabilistic framework for combining a hierarchy of human-defined semantic concepts with a statistical topic model to seek the best of both worlds. Results indicate that this combination leads to systematic improvements in generalization performance as well as enabling new techniques for inferring and visualizing the content of a document. (shrink)

Dynamically transforming the elements of any performing artist’s craft, this practical guide is a must-have for musicians, dancers, and actors. The handbook shows how artistic performance is embodied in the unification of three critical elements—motion, emotion, and love—demonstrating how it offers experiences and opportunities distinct from the nonperforming arts. Step-by-step guidelines are provided for building intentional and inspirational practice time, thereby enhancing the relationships between the source, the performer, and the audience. Illustrating how intentional movement invokes emotions from both the (...) performer and the audience and how the concept of love gives a performance humanity and life, this eye-opening exploration creates pathways for achieving true artistry. (shrink)

Kids are experiencing stress at unprecedented levels. But helping them understand their emotions and behavior when they're young will set them on a path to being successful students and empathetic people throughout their lives. With more than seventy easy-to-implement lessons and activities, this book provides educators proven techniques to help students: manage and reduce their anxiety; separate emotions from actions; stop impulsive reactions and respond mindfully to difficult situations; improve social skills, social awareness, and academic performance; and develop empathy.

The book under review consists of a “Problems” section, with chapters entitled “Ontology,” “Thought” and “Language”; and a “Proposals” section, with like-titled chapters. The first section is a survey; as might be expected of one of 126 pages, compression is the watchword. The reviewer felt that it did not live up to dust jacket copy, heralding a book “easily accessible to undergraduates.”.

I was interested to read Greg Pritchard’s articles ‘Civilised Lands’ in past issues of your magazine. In general, I think he gave a good overview of places of interest and tips for an overseas visitor on a climbing holiday to Australia. He failed, however, to warn visitors of the Australian pastime of sandbagging (which, I might add, Mr. Pritchard is a deft exponent of himself). I don’t know what state sandbagging has reached in your country but in Australia it has (...) become a refined art form. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to write this article, so as to warn otherwise unsuspecting English climbers of the possible pitfalls (or perhaps ground-falls would be more appropriate here) they may face on an Australian holiday. Firstly, an outline of what sandbagging is. The basic aim of the game is for the bagger to get an unsuspecting victim (also known as a baggee or sometimes a bunny) to do a climb (which, in the context of the game, is known as “the bag”) which they (the baggee) will not enjoy for one or a combination of three basic reasons. The first is that the climb may be positively dangerous, either loose and/or unprotected. Secondly, the climb may be much harder than either the grade or appearances indicate. Thirdly, the climb may be simply repulsive; for example, it might look like a nice diagonal layback flake and yet turn out to be a smooth flared overhanging off-width. The baggee, naturally enough, has a really miserable time and of course this gives the bagger great delight—in perfect accord with Toadie’s Law of the Conservation of Happiness (“happiness can be neither created nor destroyed”). Now, different baggers operate with different emphasis on each of the three basic bagging criteria, and have as their goal different levels of baggee misery. For example, there are those extremists, operating largely on criterion one, who are not completely happy unless they have witnessed a ground-fall from a reasonable height, in which case, if you are the baggee, your Australian holiday may consist of a few weeks in traction in Natimuk Bush Nursing Hospital.. (shrink)

Ramon Llull (1232-1316), born on Majorca, was one of the most remarkable lay intellectuals of the thirteenth century. He devoted much of his life to promoting missions among unbelievers, the reform of Western Christian society, and personal spiritual perfection. He wrote over 200 philosophical and theological works in Catalan, Latin, and Arabic. Many of these expound on his "Great Universal Art of Finding Truth," an idiosyncratic dialectical system that he thought capable of proving Catholic beliefs to non-believers. This study offers (...) the first full-length analysis of his theories about rhetoric and preaching, which were central to his evangelizing activities. It explains how Llull attempted to synthesize commonplace advice about courtly speech and techniques of popular sermons into a single program for secular and sacred eloquence that would necessarily promote love of God and neighbor. Llull's work is remarkable testimony to the diffusion of clerical culture among educated lay-people of his era, and to their enthusiasm for applying that knowledge in the pursuit of learning and piety. This book should find a place on the shelf of every scholar of medieval history, religion, and rhetoric. (shrink)